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Can Israelis and Palestinians See Eye to Eye? || Creators for Change | Middle Ground

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There is No 'Israeli-Palestinian Conflict'

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There is No 'Israeli-Palestinian Conflict'

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New York Times

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To understand why, you have to zoom out.

Contributing Opinion Writer

A view of the wall dividing Jerusalem, in background, from the Palestinian town of Abu Dis in the West Bank. Credit... Ammar Awad/Reuters

JERUSALEM - If you are reading this, you've most likely seen much about "the Israeli-Palestinian conflict" in the pages of this newspaper and of every other important newspaper in the West. That phrase contains a few important assumptions. That the conflict is between two actors, Israelis and Palestinians. That it could be resolved by those two actors, and particularly by the stronger side, Israel. That it's taking place in the corner of the Middle East under Israeli rule.

Presented this way, the conflict has become an energizing issue on the international left and the subject of fascination of many governments, including the Trump administration, which has been working on a "deal of the century" to solve it. The previous administration's secretary of state, John Kerry, committed so much time to Israeli-Palestinian peace that for a while he seemed to be here each weekend. If only the perfect wording and map could be found, according to this thinking, if only both sides could be given the right dose of carrots and sticks, peace could ensue.

To someone here in Israel, all of this is harder and harder to understand. There isn't an Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the way that many outsiders seem to think, and this perception gap is worth spelling out. It has nothing to do with being right-wing or left-wing in the American sense. To borrow a term from the world of photography, the problem is one of zoom. Simply put, outsiders are zoomed in, and people here in Israel are zoomed out. Understanding this will make events here easier to grasp.

In the Israeli view, no peacemaker can bring the two sides together because there aren't just two sides. There are many, many sides.

Most of Israel's wars haven't been fought against Palestinians. Since the invasion of five Arab armies at the declaration of the State of Israel in May 1948, the Palestinians have made up a small number of the combatants facing the country. To someone here, zooming in to frame our problem as an Israeli-Palestinian conflict makes as much sense as describing the "America-Italy conflict" of 1944. American G.I.s were indeed dying in Italy that year, but an American instinctively knows that this can be understood only by seeing it as one small part of World War II. The actions of Americans in Italy can't be explained without Japan, or without Germany, Russia, Britain and the numerous actors and sub-conflicts making up the larger war.

Over the decades when Arab nationalism was the region's dominant ideology, Israeli soldiers faced Egyptians, Syrians, Jordanians, Lebanese and Iraqis. Today Israel's most potent enemy is the Shiite theocracy in Iran, which is more than 1,000 miles away and isn't Palestinian (or Arab). The gravest threat to Israel at close range is Hezbollah on our northern border, an army of Lebanese Shiites founded and funded by the Iranians.

The antiaircraft batteries of the Russians, Iran's patrons, already cover much of our airspace from their new Syrian positions. A threat of a lesser order is posed by Hamas, which is Palestinian - but was founded as the local incarnation of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, affiliated with the regional wave of Sunni radicalism, kept afloat with Qatari cash and backed by Iran.

If you see only an "Israeli-Palestinian" conflict, then nothing that Israelis do makes sense. (That's why Israel's enemies prefer this framing.) In this tightly cropped frame, Israelis are stronger, more prosperous and more numerous. The fears affecting big decisions, like what to do about the military occupation in the West Bank, seem unwarranted if Israel is indeed the far more powerful party.

That's not the way Israelis see it. Many here believe that an agreement signed by a Western-backed Palestinian leader in the West Bank won't end the conflict, because it will wind up creating not a state but a power vacuum destined to be filled by intra-Muslim chaos, or Iranian proxies, or some combination of both. That's exactly what has happened around us in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. One of Israel's nightmares is that the fragile monarchy in Jordan could follow its neighbors, Syria and Iraq, into dissolution and into Iran's orbit, which would mean that if Israel doesn't hold the West Bank, an Iranian tank will be able to drive directly from Tehran to the outskirts of Tel Aviv.

When I look at the West Bank as an Israeli, I see 2.5 million Palestinian civilians living under military rule, with all the misery that entails. I'm seeing the many grave errors our governments have made in handling the territory and its residents, the construction of civilian settlements chief among them.

But because I'm zoomed out, I'm also seeing Hezbollah (not Palestinian), and the Russians and Iranians (not Palestinian), and the Islamic State-affiliated insurgents (not Palestinian) on our border with Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. I'm considering the disastrous result of the power vacuum in Syria, which is a 90-minute drive from the West Bank.

In the "Israeli-Palestinian" framing, with all other regional components obscured, an Israeli withdrawal in the West Bank seems like a good idea - "like a real-estate deal," in President Trump's formulation - if not a moral imperative. And if the regional context were peace, as it was in Northern Ireland, for example, a power vacuum could indeed be filled by calm.

But anyone using a wider lens sees that the actual context here is a complex, multifaceted war, or a set of linked wars, devastating this part of the world. The scope of this conflict is hard to grasp in fragmented news reports but easy to see if you pull out a map and look at Israel's surroundings, from Libya through Syria and Iraq to Yemen.

The fault lines have little to do with Israel. They run between dictators and the people they've been oppressing for generations; between progressives and medievalists; between Sunni and Shiite; between majority populations and minorities. If our small sub-war were somehow resolved, or even if Israel vanished tonight, the Middle East would remain the same volatile place it is now.

Misunderstanding the predicament of Israelis and Palestinians as a problem that can be solved by an agreement between them means missing modest steps that might help people here. Could Israel, as some centrist strategists here recently suggested, freeze and shrink most civilian settlements while leaving the military in place for now? How can the greatest number of Palestinians be freed from friction with Israelis without creating a power vacuum that will bring the regional war to our doorstep? These questions can be addressed only if it's clear what we're talking about.

Abandoning the pleasures of the simple story for the confusing realities of the bigger picture is emotionally unsatisfying. An observer is denied a clear villain or an ideal solution. But it does make events here comprehensible, and it will encourage Western policymakers to abandon fantastic visions in favor of a more reasonable grasp of what's possible. And that, in turn, might lead to some tangible improvements in a world that could use fewer illusions and wiser leaders.

Matti Friedman (@MattiFriedman), a contributing opinion writer, is the author of "The Aleppo Codex," "Pumpkinflowers" and the forthcoming "Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel."

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Opinion | There Is No 'Israeli-Palestinian Conflict' (Published 2019)

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To understand why, you have to zoom out. Contributing Opinion Writer JERUSALEM - If you are reading this, you've most likely seen much about "the Israeli-Palestinian conflict" in the pages of this newspaper and of every other important newspaper in the West. That phrase contains a few important assumptions.

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Peter Wertheim is Executive Director of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.
Among the many landmark anniversaries in 2017 of key events in the history of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, one went almost unnoticed.

22 November marked the fiftieth anniversary of UN Security Council resolution 242, unanimously adopted after much negotiation, which laid down principles for a peaceful settlement in the Middle East.

The resolution was born out of the Arab-Israel war of June 1967 and can only be understood in that context.

How did that war begin?

In May 1967, the Egyptian government massed 100,000 troops in the Sinai peninsula to confront Israel, ordered out the UN peacekeeping force and imposed a naval blockade cutting off maritime access to Israel's southern port of Eilat through which, at that time, Israel imported 90% of its oil requirements.

The latter measure, a clearly unlawful act of aggression which was widely denounced as such at the time, was the proximate cause of the 1967 war.

The background cause was that Syria, Jordan and Palestinian leaders had combined in an alliance with Egypt with the loudly proclaimed aim of destroying Israel by military means. This was at a time when there was no Israeli - or Jewish - presence whatsoever in the West Bank, Gaza Strip or East Jerusalem.

On 5 June 1967, Israeli forces responded with military strikes against Egyptian forces, effectively breaking the blockade and, after several days of fighting, imposing a crushing defeat on the Egyptians. On the same say, the Israelis sent a message to Jordan by means of the UN confirming that Israel had no intention of taking any action against Jordan unless the Jordanians attacked Israel.

Regrettably, the Jordanians rejected Israel's offer to keep out of the fighting. Mistakenly believing that the Egyptians were gaining the upper hand, the Jordanians commenced artillery attacks against targets in central Israel and the Israeli part of Jerusalem. The Israelis responded by driving the Jordanian forces out of the remainder of Jerusalem and, eventually, the West Bank.

This history, now often forgotten, remains an important consideration in any resolution of the future status of the West Bank.

It remains relevant that Israel was not the aggressor in the 1967 war. Indeed, immediately after the war, between June and November 1967, draft UN resolutions were put forward on six occasions by the Arab States and the Soviet bloc in both the Security Council and General Assembly seeking to condemn Israel over the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Each of them was decisively defeated or withdrawn for lack of support. Draft resolutions demanding that Israel withdraw its forces unilaterally from territories it had captured in that war were defeated or withdrawn four times. Israel had acted out of self-defence.

The legal consequence of this is that Israel became entitled to remain in control of the territories it had captured (although it did not acquire legal ownership of them) pending the conclusion of peace agreements with its neighbours, in which they will enter into arrangements that Israel will be able to enforce to ensure that these territories are never again used as a base from which to launch armed attacks against Israel - as had occurred previously in 1948 and again in 1967.

The formula "land for peace" - that is, Israel relinquishing land it captured in 1967 in exchange for formal peace treaties - was given expression in UN Security Council Resolution 242.

Resolution 242 calls for a peace based on two principles: "withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict (the 1967 war)" and "termination of all claims or states of belligerency" and the right of "every State in the area ... to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force."

The two principles are of equal weight and are interdependent.

The absence of the words "all" or "the" before the word "territories" was deliberate, and confirms that Israel is not required to relinquish all territories it captured in 1967. This was attested to several times in public by Britain's Lord Caradon, the principal drafter of resolution 242. For example, in an interview on the MacNeil-Lehrer Report in the United States on 30 March 1978, he stated:

"We didn't say there should be a withdrawal to the '67 line; we did not put the 'the' in, we did not say 'all the territories' - deliberately. We all knew that the boundaries of '67 were not drawn as permanent frontiers, they were a cease-fire line of a couple of decades earlier ... We did not say that the '67 boundaries must be forever."

As regards the West Bank, resolution 242 thus allows for any final border to depart from the pre-1967 line, particularly to ensure that the border will be one which Israel will be able to defend militarily in the event of any repeat of the aggression against it in 1948 and 1967.

Resolution 242 was formally accepted by Israel in May 1968 but was rejected by Palestinian leaders for 21 years, and they did not fully accept it until 1993. It has nevertheless become one of the most frequently affirmed resolutions on the Arab-Israeli conflict and formed the basis for the negotiations that led to Israel's Peace Treaties with Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994, as well as the 1993 and 1995 Oslo Accords and other agreements with the Palestinians.

It remains internationally recognised as foundational to any future peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.

Interestingly, resolution 242 does not mention Jerusalem by name. The eastern part of Jerusalem is presumably included in the expression "territories occupied in the recent conflict." However, resolution 242 does not apply to the western part of the city which has been a part of Israeli territory since its armistice with Jordan in 1948.

Israel's parliament, Ministerial offices, Supreme Court, President's residence and Prime Minister's residence have been located in the western part of Jerusalem since a short time after the State of Israel was established in 1948. When government officials from other countries visit Israel, they meet with Israeli government officials, and one another, in Jerusalem. When foreign ambassadors come to Israel to present their credentials, they do so in Jerusalem. When the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat made his first visit to Israel in 1977, two years before Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty, he went to Jerusalem and addressed the Israeli parliament there.

U.S. President Donald Trump's recent announcement recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital was therefore a pragmatic acknowledgement of an existing reality. The announcement was far more nuanced than was generally acknowledged. It is clear from the text that the announcement explicitly left open the question of where the borders of Israel's capital should be. The statement said:

"We are not taking a position of any final status issues, including the specific boundaries of the Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem, or the resolution of contested borders. Those questions are up to the parties involved."

The announcement also did not seek to alter the status quo concerning the Holy sites. It referred to the Temple Mount also by its Arabic name, Haram al-Sharif.

It follows that the U.S. embassy is likely to be relocated to Israel's government precinct in the western part of the city, not the part of Jerusalem that Israel captured from Jordan when it repelled Jordan's military attack in 1967.

Moving the embassy from one location within Israel's sovereign borders to another therefore does not pre-empt the outcome of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians for a two-state solution. Nor does it seek to rule out a future Palestinian state having its capital in the predominantly Arab neighbourhoods in the eastern parts of Jerusalem as part of a negotiated peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.
Peter Wertheim is Executive Director of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.

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'Land for Peace': Resolution 242 Remains the Basis for an End to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

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Peter Wertheim is Executive Director of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry. Among the many landmark anniversaries in 2017 of key events in the history of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, one went almost unnoticed. 22 November marked the fiftieth anniversary of UN Security Council resolution 242, unanimously adopted after much negotiation, which laid down principles for a peaceful settlement in the Middle East.

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ISIS Speaks out about Trumps Jerusalem Decision

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ISIS Speaks out about Trumps Jerusalem Decision

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The Old City of Jerusalem. Jihadists used such images in protesting President Trump's decision to consider Jerusalem the capital of Israel. Credit Credit Ronen Zvulun/Reuters

Osama bin Laden was just 14 when his mother noticed that he had stopped watching his favorite Westerns. She found him fixated instead on news reports about Palestinians, tears streaming down his face as he watched TV in their home in Saudi Arabia.

"In his teenage years, he was the same nice kid," his mother related. "But he was more concerned, sad and frustrated by the situation in Palestine," she said, according to Lawrence Wright's account of bin Laden's trajectory and Al Qaeda's rise in his book, "The Looming Tower."

The Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza has long been one of the themes invoked by jihadists to push a narrative of Muslim victimhood and to fan an us-versus-them framework. So it's of little surprise that Qaeda affiliates across the world reacted with venom after President Trump this week recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital, a decision that was also denounced by Arab leaders.

The Taliban, Hamas and Shia extremist leaders also railed against the move.

But the outlier was the Islamic State, which waited until Friday to publish an editorial in its weekly newsletter - one that appeared to be mainly concerned with critiquing what it saw as hypocritical and self-serving statements by other jihadist groups and Arab leaders.

"How did ISIS respond to US announcement on #JerusalemEmbassy move? Outrage? Nope. Call to jihad? Not really," the independent researcher Raphael Gluck wrote on Twitter. He added, "ISIS takes a stab at rival terror and Islamist groups accusing them of politicizing Palestinian cause to suit their own agendas."

The article published by the Islamic State began: "Sixty years and Jerusalem has been in the hands of the Jews, and it is only now that people cry when the Crusaders announced today as their capital," according to a translation provided by the Washington-based SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors the group's propaganda.

"Are these cries over an issue to which they are accustomed to crying every time it is mentioned?" it added. "Or is it a new opportunity for the traders of faith and the fraudulent ones to raise their voices again?"

The Islamic State, also known as ISIS, argued that the focus should instead be on working to defeat the Arab countries ringing Israel, which they say "surround it the same way a bracelet surrounds the wrist, protecting the Jews from the strikes of the mujahideen."

Even as the Islamic State's official line played down the White House move, the group's followers in chat rooms on the messaging app Telegram have busied themselves making revenge posters.

One shows Israeli and American flags burning in a pyre, with the signature dome of the Old City's Al Aqsa Mosque pictured in the background. Images of Al Aqsa - one of the holiest sites in Islam, which is also revered by Jews as the Temple Mount - have been used in generations of jihadist propaganda.

"Wait for violent attacks on American and Jewish embassies by the wolves of the Islamic State," the text alongside the images said.

That message was more in line with that of other terrorist groups, especially Al Qaeda. The world's perceived indifference to the plight of the Palestinians is proof, jihadists say, of the second-class status of Muslims, and evidence that only through violence will Muslims regain their dignity.

The spokesman for the Shabab, Al Qaeda's branch in East Africa, called Mr. Trump's decision on Jerusalem "an aggression against Islam." He urged its followers to pick up arms in revenge, according to SITE Intelligence.

"The Jews do not have the right to a grain of sand of Palestine and Jerusalem," Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen railed. Qaeda's largest branch, in Syria, said, "We emphasize that whatever was taken by force can only be retrieved by force."

And from Mali to Yemen to Afghanistan, jihadist groups ridiculed Mr. Trump. On his Telegram channel, Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, an influential Qaeda ideologue, posted a YouTube clip from a campaign rally last year, when Mr. Trump appeared startled after hearing a commotion behind him. He called Mr. Trump a "coward" and an easy mark, urging future terrorists to do their best to "surprise" him.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: Terrorist Groups Vow Bloodshed Over Trump's Stance. ISIS? Less So.. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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Terrorist Groups Vow Bloodshed over Jerusalem Decision. ISIS? Less So.

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Osama bin Laden was just 14 when his mother noticed that he had stopped watching his favorite Westerns. She found him fixated instead on news reports about Palestinians, tears streaming down his face as he watched TV in their home in Saudi Arabia. "In his teenage years, he was the same nice kid," his mother related.

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Genesis 12-21

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Rick Steves' The Holy Land: Israelis and Palestinians Today

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Iranian President

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Iran's new president created a sense of outrage in the west yesterday by describing Israel as a "disgraceful blot" that should be "wiped off the face of the earth". Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who is more hardline than his predecessor, told students in Tehran that a new wave of Palestinian attacks would be enough to finish off Israel.

The populist leader's comments [See footnote], reported by the state-run media, come at a time when Tehran is under pressure over its suspect nuclear weapons ambitions and alleged involvement in attacks on British troops in Iraq.

He said: "Anybody who recognises Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury, [while] any [Islamic leader] who recognises the Zionist regime means he is acknowledging the surrender and defeat of the Islamic world." He was addressing a conference titled The World Without Zionism.

His speech was immediately condemned by the US, Britain, France, Germany and Israel. The Foreign Office could not recall a similar statement from a senior Iranian leader since the former president Hashemi Rafsanjani five years ago called for a Muslim state to annihilate Israel with a nuclear strike. Since then, there has been a mild thaw in relations between Muslim states, including Arab ones, and Israel.

But Mr Ahmadinejad rejected compromise: "There is no doubt that the new wave [of attacks] in Palestine will wipe off this stigma [Israel] from the face of the Islamic world." Recalling the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of Iran's Islamic revolution, he said: "As the imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map."

The US and Britain are leading a push to have Iran referred to the UN security council next month because of fears that it is covertly engaged in securing a nuclear weapons capability by deciding to restart a uranium conversion programme, an early step towards such an ability. Tehran has repeatedly said its programme is for civil use only.

Both the US and Britain saw their fears about Mr Ahmadinejad's election confirmed when he made a fiery speech at a UN summit in New York in September. His predecessor, Muhammad Khatami, had tried to improve links with the west and been less vocal in condemnation of Israel.

The US said the president's remarks proved the accuracy of Washington's fears. "I think it reconfirms what we have been saying about the regime. It underscores the concerns we have about Iran's nuclear intentions," Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, said.

Mark Regev, an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, said: "Unfortunately this is not the first time that we've heard such an extremist message from the Iranian leadership. I think there is a growing understanding in the international community that the regime is not Israel's problem alone, but a problem the entire international community must grapple with."

Israel views Iran as its main security threat in the Middle East. The defence minister, Shaul Mofaz, has said Tehran could be capable of developing a nuclear weapon within months and that there is a need for urgent action to prevent that.

Israel has issued thinly veiled threats against Iran's nuclear programme if diplomatic efforts fail and is buying 500 "bunker-buster" bombs from the US that could be used to destroy the facilities. The Israeli foreign minister, Silvan Shalom, raised the question of the nuclear programme with the visiting Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, in Jerusalem yesterday. Russia is selling nuclear fuel for the reactors to Iran, despite Israel's objections.

France and Germany expressed concern about Mr Ahmadinejad's remarks yesterday. Jean-Baptiste Mattei, a French foreign ministry spokesman, said: "We have noted press articles reporting the comments of President Ahmadinejad. If these comments were indeed made, we condemn them with the utmost firmness." A German foreign ministry spokesman, Walter Lindner, said: "Should these comments have actually been made, they are completely unacceptable and to be condemned in the sharpest terms."

* This footnote was added on 28 April 2010. The Iranian agency's translation of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's remark was subsequently the subject of dispute. See Guardian Corrections and clarifications column, 23 April 2009.
Topics

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Israel should be wiped off map, says Iran's president

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Iran's new president created a sense of outrage in the west yesterday by describing Israel as a "disgraceful blot" that should be "wiped off the face of the earth". Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who is more hardline than his predecessor, told students in Tehran that a new wave of Palestinian attacks would be enough to finish off Israel.

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Camp David, Intifada, Martyrdom

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Palestine - PLO

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Munich massacre, terrorist attack on Israeli Olympic team members at the 1972 Summer Games in Munich orchestrated by affiliates of the Palestinian militant group Black September.

The Munich Games marked the first return of the Olympics to a German city since the 1936 Games in Berlin. Adolf Hitler's use of those Games as a platform for the propagation of Nazi ideology was roundly criticized, as was the blatant racism and anti-Semitism that characterized the Games. The West German invitation had been extended, in part at least, to offer the world a contrast to the horrifying spectacle of Berlin.

The spectre of the 1968 Mexico City Olympics also loomed over Munich. Ten days before the 1968 games opened, hundreds of students at Tlatelolco Plaza in Mexico City were gunned down by government forces, and the Mexican military was a conspicuous presence throughout the Games. In contrast, Munich organizers spent less than $2 million on security, and security personnel were to be unarmed, inconspicuous, and nonconfrontational. The XX Olympiad began on August 26, 1972, as thousands of athletes from more than 120 countries celebrated the opening ceremonies of what the organizers had dubbed Die Heiteren Spiele ("The Cheerful Games").

Attack on the Olympic Village

For more than a week, the Games unfolded without incident. The day of terror began at 4:30 am on September 5, 1972, when eight Palestinian militants affiliated with Black September-a militant offshoot of the Palestinian group Fatah-scaled a fence surrounding the Olympic Village in Munich. Disguised as athletes and using stolen keys, they forced their way into the quarters of the Israeli Olympic team at 31 Connollystrasse. As they attempted to enter Apartment 1, they were confronted by Yossef Gutfreund, a wrestling referee, and Moshe Weinberg, a wrestling coach. Weinberg was shot while fighting with the attackers, who forced him at gunpoint to lead them to the rooms of the remaining Israeli coaches and athletes. It has been proposed that Weinberg led the attackers past Apartment 2-which was also being used by the Israeli team-because he believed that the wrestlers and weightlifters in Apartment 3 would be better able to fight back. However, Black September had detailed plans of the Olympic Village and the dispositions of the Israeli athletes. Shaul Ladany, a race walker who survived the attack after escaping from Apartment 2, suggested that it was much more likely that his room was bypassed because he was housed with members of the Israeli shooting team. The terrorists had struggled to subdue the unarmed men in Apartment 1; it is unlikely that they had wished to engage in a close-quarters gun battle with world-class marksmen in the opening minutes of their operation.

In Apartment 3 the terrorists gathered more hostages and forced them back to Apartment 1. Wrestler Gad Tsabari broke from the group and dashed down a flight of stairs toward an underground parking garage, and Weinberg took advantage of the confusion to again fight the attackers. Weinberg had nearly gained control of a terrorist's gun when he was shot and killed. Despite being on crutches due to an injury during competition, Yossef Romano, a weightlifter, also made an attempt to disarm one of the terrorists. Romano was killed and his mutilated body was left on the floor of Apartment 1 as a warning. While two Israelis lay dead in the Olympic Village and nine others were being held hostage, International Olympic Committee (IOC) chairman Avery Brundage insisted that the games continue. The terrorists demanded the liberation of more than 200 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, the release of Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof of the Red Army Faction from German prisons, and the provision of an airplane to fly them to a safe destination in the Middle East. While negotiations were ongoing, a planned rescue attempt had to be called off when it was realized that actions of West German police were being broadcast live to nearly 1 billion people around the world and to the many televisions throughout the Olympic Village. At about 10:00 pm on September 5, believing they had reached an agreement, the terrorists led their bound and blindfolded hostages from their quarters into buses that transported them to waiting helicopters.

Massacre at Fürstenfeldbruck

The helicopters carried them to Fürstenfeldbruck Air Base, 15 miles (25 km) west of the Olympic Village, where police were lying in ambush. Although the German army had better training and equipment for such a mission, under West Germany's postwar constitution, the armed forces were forbidden from aiding the civilian police. The police snipers used in the operation had not received formal training as sharpshooters, they were improperly placed and inadequate in number, and they lacked radios to communicate with each other or with commanders. In addition, they were armed with assault rifles rather than sniper rifles, and their weapons had neither long-range scopes nor night-vision capability. On the air base tarmac was a Boeing 727 filled with 17 police officers disguised as a Lufthansa flight crew. It was intended that these officers would subdue the terrorists once they had boarded the plane, but the police unanimously chose to abandon their posts. Armoured cars that were to have aided in the rescue of the Israelis were dispatched too late and became stuck in traffic. With myriad failures in both planning and execution, the result was a disaster on virtually every level.

The helicopters arrived about 10:30 pm, and two terrorists went to inspect the jetliner. Finding it empty and becoming aware of the deception, they shouted to their comrades, at which point West German police fired upon them. A gun battle ensued, and several terrorists and one police officer were killed. The helicopter flight crews ran for cover, but the Israeli athletes were bound together and trapped. After the initial fusillade, in which the terrorists also shot out the floodlights that had been illuminating the tarmac, the scene settled into a tense stalemate punctuated by sporadic gunfire. Onlookers surrounded the airfield, and sportscaster Jim McKay, who was anchoring Olympic coverage for the U.S. network ABC, provided television viewers with preliminary updates. At midnight, a German official announced that all the hostages had been freed and all the terrorists had been killed, a report that proved to be tragically premature. Just after midnight, a terrorist tossed a hand grenade into one of the helicopters, killing all but one of the Israeli hostages aboard; David Berger, an American-born wrestler, succumbed to smoke inhalation before rescue personnel could reach him. A second terrorist sprayed the interior of the other helicopter with bullets at close range, murdering the five remaining Israelis.

Too late to aid in the rescue effort, the armoured cars finally reached the runway, but their crews had no knowledge of the deployment of police personnel in the field and no way to communicate with them. A gunman ran toward a position where one of the helicopter pilots and a police sniper had taken cover. The terrorist was shot and killed by the sniper, but the movement on the darkened runway drew fire from one of the armoured cars, and both the pilot and sniper were seriously wounded by friendly fire. By 12:30 am on September 6, the shooting had stopped, and the 20-hour reign of terror was over. Eleven Israelis had been killed, along with one Munich policeman, and five Black September terrorists lay dead. Three of the gunmen were captured. At 3:00 am McKay, who had been broadcasting from the Olympic Village for 14 straight hours, summarized the tragic outcome of the botched rescue with the words "They're all gone." For the first time in history, the Olympic Games were suspended, for 24 hours, in tribute to the murdered athletes.

At a memorial service on September 6, Brundage announced that the games would continue. He then drew parallels between the murder of 11 Israelis and an IOC decision to bar Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) from competition in Munich. Rhodesia had been banned because of its racist policies, and Brundage, who had supported Rhodesia's inclusion in the games, seemed to take the IOC's ruling as a personal attack. Many in the stadium and throughout the world were stunned by the callous statement, and Brundage later apologized. Nevertheless, the Munich massacre and Brundage's seeming refusal to grasp the significance of Jewish blood being shed on German soil would cast a pall on his two decades of service at the head of the IOC.

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Munich massacre | Facts, Victims, Terrorism, Olympics, & History

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The Munich massacre was a terrorist attack on Israeli Olympic team members at the 1972 Summer Games in Munich orchestrated by affiliates of the Palestinian militant group Black September. It occurred amid the specters of the 1936 Olympic Games, hosted by the Nazis, and of the 1968 Olympic Games, which also saw violence.

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Mossad: Mossad, Israeli intelligence agency concerned with foreign intelligence gathering, intelligence analysis, and covert operations.

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PLO: History of a Revolution - Episode 1 - 13 Jul 09

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Subscribe to our channel http://bit.ly/AJSubscribe Masters of their own Destiny is the first episode in Al Jazeera's six-part series on the history of the Palestine Liberation Organisation. It looks at the challenges encountered as Palestinians sought to wrest control of their own destiny from Arab regimes and create an independent Palestinian organisation that would lead the struggle for a national home.

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Israeli aircraft struck more than 150 targets in the Gaza Strip in response to a barrage of rockets from the Palestinian territory, the Israeli military said Thursday, marking a sharp escalation even as negotiations were taking place over a long-term cease-fire.

Militants in the strip fired more than 180 rockets and mortar rounds into Israel, the Israeli military said. Most were intercepted or fell on open ground. But at least 11 Israelis were injured after projectiles slammed into residential areas, blowing out windows and leaving cars and buildings pockmarked with shrapnel.

In the Israeli airstrikes that followed, three Palestinians were killed, including a 23-year-old pregnant woman and her 18-month-old daughter, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza.

"She was killed for nothing! What was the guilt of the baby?" asked Said Khamash, a cousin of the woman's husband, who was injured in the airstrike, which left a gaping hole in the ceiling of their modest home in the Wadi al-Salqa area of central Gaza.

The Israeli military said it struck only military targets, including production sites for weapons and tunnels. Also killed was a fighter with Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza.

The escalation, one of the most intense exchanges of fire since the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas, came in the middle of Egyptian-brokered talks in Cairo over a cease-fire between the two sides after repeated outbreaks of violence in recent months.

Diplomatic efforts on Thursday shifted their focus to achieving an immediate de-escalation. But despite the attempts to reach a truce, fighting continued into the evening. Unconfirmed reports that one had been reached late Thursday were denied by an Israeli official in local media.

Earlier in the evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called an emergency meeting of his security cabinet. Afterward, it issued a statement saying the military had been directed "to continue taking strong action against the terrorist elements."

Similar, though shorter, exchanges of fire have occurred several times in recent weeks, but residents of both Gaza and nearby Israeli communities said the latest fighting, which lasted more than 24 hours, reached a new level of ferocity.

"We only slept an hour," said Naomi Zolberg, 34, a resident of the Israeli city of Sderot who said four projectiles hit very close to her home on Wednesday evening as she was inside with two of her children. "People were freaking out. It is not normal to live like this, under the will of the other side."

Some analysts suggested that Hamas had turned up the violence to demonstrate its strength during negotiations, but they warned that such muscle-flexing could lead to a new war even if neither side wants a full-fledged conflict.

"As we approach a potential agreement, it's extremely important for Hamas to deliver the message that 'we are not going there because we are weak,' " said Yossi Kuperwasser, a retired brigadier general and the former director general of Israel's Ministry of Strategic Affairs. Israel in turn needs to send the message that there's a "price to pay," he said.
[Trump administration stays on the sidelines as U.N. pushes for peace in Gaza]
The flare-up, however, will distract from finding a more lasting solution to Gaza's long-term economic problems, he said.

The 140-square-mile strip, under partial blockade by Israel for more than a decade, suffers from chronic unemployment and a lack of infrastructure and services. Other discussions in Cairo had focused on bringing about investment and employment and restoring Palestinian Authority control over the territory. Egypt has also only sporadically opened its border with Gaza over the past decade.

The White House has said that easing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is one of its priorities. The enclave's misery results in instability, which is a major security concern for Israel.

The United Nations representative to the peace process, Nickolay Mladenov, who has attempted to help mediate a cease-fire, said he was "deeply alarmed" by the latest events and warned that they risk becoming a "conflict that nobody wants."

"If the current escalation . . . is not contained immediately, the situation can rapidly deteriorate with devastating consequences for all people," he said in a statement.

As part of a cease-fire deal, Israel is insisting that Hamas stop sending incendiary kites and balloons over the border, Israeli and Palestinian officials say.

Hamas and Israel have also opened channels for indirect talks on prisoner exchanges. Those have hit a stumbling block as Hamas insists the release include all prisoners who were part of a 2011 prisoner exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit but have since been rearrested, according to Palestinian officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks.

After a sleepless night for residents of Gaza and nearby Israeli communities on Wednesday, there was little respite Thursday morning. Israeli sirens continued to blare, warning of incoming rockets, while airstrikes hit more targets in Gaza, even after Palestinian factions declared that the round of violence was over.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad, another Gaza militant group, said they had targeted Israeli communities in response to Israel's "aggression."

On Tuesday, Israeli tank fire killed two members of Hamas's military wing. Israel said the militants had fired on Israeli troops near the border, but Hamas said they were taking part in a drill. On Wednesday the Israeli military said it had observed Hamas evacuating fighters from military posts, a sign of an impending operation by the group. A few hours later the rocket fire began.

Public pressure in Israel to take more-decisive military action is building. Alon Davidi, the mayor of Sderot, said it's time for "action."

"We have to hit the terrorists hard and bring back our routine to our own lives," he said, addressing ministers in the security cabinet, the Times of Israel reported. "For our part, we are ready and willing to give the army and decision-makers the time and space they need to return quiet to this region."

An Israeli military spokesman, Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, said that reinforcements had been sent to the area and that the military was prepared for various "eventualities."

But many on both sides are hoping it won't come to another war. "We need an end to this," said Salwa Masry, 44, a mother of five who lives west of Gaza City. "I don't know how, whether through reconciliation or a deal with Israel or Egypt. We need an end."

Balousha reported from Gaza City.
Read more: Behind bloody Gaza clashes, economic misery and piles of debt Gazans challenge Israel's high-tech defenses with flaming kites Gaza buries its dead as death toll from protests at fence with Israel rises Today's coverage from Post correspondents around the world Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news

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Rocket barrage from Gaza prompts fierce retaliation by Israeli warplanes

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Israeli aircraft struck more than 150 targets in the Gaza Strip in response to a barrage of rockets from the Palestinian territory, the Israeli military said Thursday, marking a sharp escalation even as negotiations were taking place over a long-term cease-fire. Militants in the strip fired more than 180 rockets and mortar rounds into Israel, the Israeli military said.

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The Middle East region has probably suffered more rivalry and conflict than any other part of the world. The 1948 Arab-Israeli war was the first instance of a bloody and hostile battle, triggered by the declaration of Israel's independence on 14 May 1948 (Schulze 1999, p. 13). The 1948 war was caused by a number of 'international and intraregional factors' intertwining to create a complex situation and catalyst for war (Hurewitz 1952, p. 73). The war resulted in Israel's victory, yet had significant consequences on not only regional politics of this area, but also international relations, which are still visible today. It is a highly complex and intricate topic which has been subject to great historiographical debate (Schulze 1999, p. 17). This essay will discuss three key causes: Zionism, Arab nationalism and British foreign policy, and four important consequences: the loss of life, the problem of Palestinian refugees, Arab divisions and territory changes.

These historic two movements of Arab nationalism and Zionism had been building up significantly since the nineteenth century with the aims of achieving 'emancipation and self-determination', both evolving around 'the concepts of identity, nationhood, history, religion and culture' (Schulze 1999, p. 1). The Classic Zionist idea originated in the 'deep-rooted biblical tradition' in the idea of a proclaimed 'land of Israel' where Jewish independence would be restored (Cohen 1987, p. 33). However, it was within the context of centuries of European anti-Semitism and persecution that modern political Zionism arose. The 'ideological foundation' was based on the following: 'the Jewish people constituted a nation and this nationhood needed to be affirmed; assimilation was rejected' as it was neither desirable nor possible. Furthermore the idea that anti-Semitism could 'only be overcome by physical separation from Europe and by self-determination' made Zionism popular (Schulze 1999, p. 1). The 'religious and cultural ties to the Land of Israel made Palestine the logical territorial claim' and was perceived as the 'only viable and permanent solution to the problem of the Jews' (Schulze 1999, p. 2). Therefore Zionism promoted the belief that Jews were entitled to Palestine and fuelled their zeal in pursuing their fight and struggle to have self-determination. Moreover, the holocaust in Europe 'generated a renewed and intense determination' to create a Jewish state (Bell 2001, p. 171). Without Zionism, Arab-Israeli conflicts may never have occurred as the Jews perhaps would have had no desire to create a Jewish state, or at least not enough organisation and support to do so.

Arab nationalism, on the other hand, was born out of the shared language, religion (Islam) and history of the Middle East region and therefore Arab nationalists 'aspired to political co-operation' through the Arab League (Bell 2001, p. 176). Modern Arab nationalism arose at the end of the eighteenth century, partly as opposition to European colonialism, which they believed was 'superfluous in its attainment' (Schulze 1999, pp. 2-3). The Arabs often perceived western rulers to be pro-Israel. To Arab nationalist radicals, Israel was not just an enemy because of the 'injustice against their brethren in Palestine', but also because of its 'close association with what it perceived as Western imperialist aspirations towards the region', particularly in regard to oil reserves (Hinchcliffe et al. 2001, p. 13). As a result of this, when the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish state, this confirmed their criticisms and suspicions of the West. Arab leaders did not understand why they should have to suffer as a result the holocaust (Bell 2001, p. 172). Therefore Arab nationalism was an important cause of the 1948 war as it gave Arab nations a common enemy, enabling them to unite and fight against not only Zionism, but also western power. It can even be argued that the Arabs worsened the situation by boycotting The United Nations Special Committee for Palestine (UNSCOP). This was intended to consider the views of both Arabs and Jews in the area, and tried to improve tensions (Schulze 1999, p. 11).

Another arguable cause of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war is the impact of British foreign policy and consequently United Nations' (UN) policy regarding the Middle East. After the First World War, both sides (Zionists and Arab nationalists) 'believed Palestine had been promised to them' by the British (Schulze 1999, p. 5). Therefore there were already inconsistencies in British policy as neither side knew where they stood. After the Second World War, Britain held the mandate for Palestine. However the circumstances were 'utterly transformed by the massacre of European Jews by Nazi Germany'. Due to the 'wave of sympathy' felt towards the persecuted Jews of Europe along with the sense of responsibility, 'Britain came under increasing pressure to permit Jewish immigration into Palestine', especially from America (Bell 2001, p. 171). The British were in an impossible situation, caught between two conflicting but understandable viewpoints. Therefore they decided to hand the problem over to the UN and withdrew from Palestine in 1948. The UN established a Special Committee for Palestine (UNSCOP), which came to the same conclusion as previous commissions: that the Jewish and Arab claims were of 'equal validity' and that 'the only viable solution to the conflict was the separation of the two communities' (Schulze 1999, p. 11). Therefore UNSCOP drew up the Partition Plan. However, this was naturally problematic, and as a result, both Jews and Arabs 'started to arm themselves' (Schulze 1999, p. 12). Palestinians rejected the UN partition plan, arguing that it was 'inherently biased and ignored the legitimate rights of Palestinians' (Hinchcliffe et al. 2001, p. 11).

There have been several major consequences of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. One main obvious consequence was of course the destruction and loss of life. Not only was there the loss of life from soldiers in both sides, but also innocents were murdered. For example, the Deir Yassin massacre witnessed the death of 245 men, women and children. Moreover, the same month, the Arabs retaliated, killing 77 mainly Jewish doctors and nurses (Ovendale 1999, p. 135).

Another major consequence of the Arab-Israeli war of 1948 was the problem of Palestinian refugees. By the end of the war, the UN estimated that the total refugee population by June 1949 was 940,000 from 369 Palestinian towns and villages. However there are disputes over how many Palestinians actually left, as sources vary (Schulze 1999, p. 16). Regardless of the exact number, the truth remains that there was a significant number of Palestinians who were left homeless as a result of the war. It is the solution to this problem which caused further dispute between Arabs and Jews. The Jewish argument was that Palestinians should be integrated into the Arab states, whereas the Arabs argued that refugees should be able to return to their rightful homes (Schulze 1999, p. 16).

The Arab defeat also had significant consequences. Firstly it demonstrated the lack of united aims and cooperation between the so-called Arab League. The Arab governments 'all pursued their own objectives', with King Abdullah of Transjordan willing to accept a Jewish state in return for territorial gains. Therefore the Arab states were divided, with Palestine playing a fairly passive role (Bell 2001, p. 174). However, most significantly, the Arab defeat had 'important domestic repercussions'. It 'de-legitimised the existing leadership, leading to revolutions, military coups and instability' (Schulze 1999, p. 15). For example in Syria, the 1948 defeat was a 'great tragedy' and a 'personal failure' considered a 'national calamity' (Freedman 1979, p. 259). This had an impact on future wars.

Another consequence of the Arab-Israeli war was the territory changes. For Israel this was arguably positive, having increased its territory by 21 per cent in comparison to the partition resolution boundaries. Contrarily, this could also be viewed as negative as it increased hostility from the Arabs who believed Israel should have no land whatsoever. The Arab states increased their territory, with Transjordan gaining the West Bank and Egypt gaining the Gaza strip. This all proves that the Arabs also had the intention of expanding their power and territory. Palestine, however, 'lost any possibility of a state of their own' due to the acquisition of land of the Arabs or Israel (Schulze 1999, p.15). To this day, 'partition remains controversial among Palestinians'. It has been considered that the Palestinians have undergone 'extraordinary change since 1948' having been transformed into a 'mobile people' (Freedman 1979, p. 218).

To summarise, having analysed Zionism, Arab nationalism and British foreign policy as three key causes of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, as well as three major consequences of the war, this essay can conclude that the 1948 Arab-Israeli war was a highly complex conflict with its origins going as far back as biblical times. The impacts of the First and Second World War contributed to the foreign policy of the British in handing over the Palestine Mandate to the UN, which consequently resulted in the declaration of independence for Israel. It was this declaration which created uproar amongst Jews and Arabs alike, and instigated the war. The consequences of this war have been catastrophic in shaping Middle Eastern politics even until today. Hinchcliffe states that 'while major military confrontation between Israel and its Arab neighbours' has not occurred since 1982, the 'absence of meaningful peace' has continued to the end of the century (Hinchcliffe 2001, p. 9).
Bibliography
Bell, P. M. H. (2001) The World Since 1945 - An International History, London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

Cohen, M. J. (1987) The Origins and Evolution of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, London: University of California Press Ltd.

Fraser, T. G. (1980) The Middle East 1914-1979, Documents of Modern History, London: Edward Arnold Publishers Ltd.

Freedman, R. O. (ed) (1979) World Politics and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Oxford: Pergamon Press Inc.

Hurewitz, J. C. (1952) 'Arab-Israel Tensions', Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, 24:4, pp. 73-81

Milton-Edwards, B. and Hinchcliffe, P. (2001) Conflicts in the Middle-East since 1945, London: Routledge

O'Ballance, E. (1957) 'The Arab-Israeli War, 1948', Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, [Review by Duker, A. G.] 313, pp. 175-176

Ovendale, R. (ed) (1999) The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Wars, Harlow: Pearson Education Ltd.

Schulze, K. E. (1999) The Arab-Israeli Conflict, Harlow: Pearson Education Ltd.

Young, J. W. and Kent, J. (ed) (2013) International relations since 1945, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Written by: Selina Kaur Rai
Written at: University of Leicester
Written for: Professor Mark Phythian
Written: 11/2013

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What Were the Causes and Consequences of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War?

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The Middle East region has probably suffered more rivalry and conflict than any other part of the world. The 1948 Arab-Israeli war was the first instance of a bloody and hostile battle, triggered by the declaration of Israel's independence on 14 May 1948 (Schulze 1999, p. 13).

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Whereas the Western world regarded the creation of Israel in May 1948 as a triumph for humanity--the righting for Jews of the terrible wrong of the Holocaust--Israel's Arab neighbours saw the event as a catastrophe. The argument of the early Zionist leaders that the Jews, through their enterprise and skill, would bring the benefits of modernization to the Palestinian Arabs was not accepted by the latter. They did not think they needed such help, and they feared the usurpation of their ancestral homeland by foreigners who were supported by the major powers--the United States and the Soviet Union in particular.

The 1947 UN partition resolution proposed to divide the territory of Mandatory Palestine--the area between the Jordan River Valley and the Mediterranean Sea--into a Jewish state and an Arab state in economic union, with Jerusalem established as an international enclave. Although the 650,000 Jews in Palestine owned only 7% of the land, 55% of it was to go to the Jewish state, whereas the 1.2 million Palestinian Arabs would receive 45%. The Arab governments and the Palestinian Arabs rejected both the concept of partition and the terms of the resolution and decided to oppose it by force. In the armed struggle that followed, the Arabs, in spite of the intervention of Arab armies, were defeated by the better organized and equipped Jews, who ended up with 77% of the land.

For the Arabs the most immediate result was the creation of a refugee problem. Some 725,000 Arab Palestinians left the area that became Israel. Such direct testimony as exists indicated that many refugees left in fear as the fighting intensified. Others were "encouraged" to leave by Israeli psychological warfare, and a substantial number were expelled by the Israeli army, sometimes brutally. Despite a number of UN resolutions calling for repatriation of the refugees after the fighting stopped, the Israelis refused to permit it. The Israelis tended to emphasize the security problem that the return of the refugees would create, but the political problem was perhaps greater. Approximately 42% of the population of the area allocated to the Jewish state by the partition resolution was Arab, and, given differences in population-growth rates, the Arabs would soon have outnumbered the Jews. As it is, the 150,000 Arabs allowed to remain in the area controlled by Israel, plus their descendants, now number nearly one million.

The Arab states reacted by refusing to accept or recognize Israel and imposed an economic boycott on that country. Although this limited Israel's economic potential, it also imposed limitations on the Arabs. Aside from the loss of well-established markets for their produce and labour, Syria and Jordan could no longer use the oil refinery and port of Haifa, and the Iraq Petroleum Co.'s oil pipeline across the desert from Baghdad had to be rerouted. Jordan had no access to the sea except through the port of Aqaba, to which there was no paved road. Land communication between Egypt and the Arab states east of the Jordan became impossible. To avoid overflying Israel, air routes had to be changed, often at considerable expense, and the transit trade through Haifa, which had been important to Jordan and Palestine, shifted to Beirut. These obstacles were overcome in time, but it required wrenching adjustments in trade patterns and the severe loss of income to towns like Jerusalem, which had benefited from the flow of goods and tourists between the Mediterranean and the Arab hinterland to the East. Ironically, Israel, forced by the boycott to leapfrog over its neighbours to find markets, became a major exporter of technology throughout the world and in 1998 had a per capita income and physical quality of life far superior to other nations in the region.

The Palestine problem also became an overriding issue in Arab politics and a source of much tension and instability. In both Syria and Egypt, and eventually in Iraq, the incompetence of the old regime in the 1948 war was a major justification for seizure of power by the military, and Jordan's King Abdullah was assassinated in 1951 because he had dealt directly with the Israelis on a division of the spoils in Palestine.

A desire to avenge the 1948 defeat and fears of Israeli expansionism became an obsession with the Arabs. Enormous amounts of money that could have gone to social and economic programs were spent on armaments and military preparations. Israel responded in kind, and the "Near East" (the Arab states and Israel plus Iran) became the less-developed world's largest importer of weapons. Three major Arab-Israeli wars causing tens of thousands of casualties were fought--in 1956, 1967, and 1973--before any movement toward a meaningful peace began.

Today Israel is at peace with Egypt and Jordan but not with Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, or Saudi Arabia. It has the substance, if not the form, of diplomatic relations with Morocco, Tunisia, Oman, and Qatar. Its 1994 treaty with Jordan, as well as regional economic conferences in which it has participated, has raised hope for meaningful economic cooperation with the Arab world, but results to date have been limited, in part because Israel is no longer as interested in Arab markets as it once was but also because of Arab dissatisfaction with the lack of progress in implementation of the Oslo accords between Israel and the Palestinians signed in the U.S. on Aug. 13, 1993. These accords set forth a six-year program for arrival at a final Israeli settlement with the Palestinians. Significant progress has been made, but major differences remain regarding such issues as territory, creation of a Palestinian state, the status of Jerusalem, and the refugees. In the absence of agreement on those problems, and in the absence of peace with Syria, Israel has remained a nakba, or disaster, as far as most Arabs are concerned.

Richard B. Parker is a scholar in residence at theMiddle East Institute, Washington, D.C.Richard B. Parker

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Israel's Impact on the Middle East, 1948-98

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Israel's Impact on the Middle East, 1948-98: Whereas the Western world regarded the creation of Israel in May 1948 as a triumph for humanity--the righting for Jews of the terrible wrong of the Holocaust--Israel's Arab neighbours saw the event as a catastrophe.

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Long-term consequences of Trump's Jerusalem move

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Long-term consequences of Trump's Jerusalem move

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Right.

The impact on the peace process, the peace process really wasn't going anywhere, most probably, but this really maybe puts an end to even the semblance of having a peace process. It also, in the Palestinian context, weakens President Abbas, who would have been any partner even for stabilization, and strengthens Hamas, who has now called for a third intifada.

In the wider Middle East, it undermines and weakens America's partners, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, and others who have worked with the U.S. on issues relating to Iran, but also were hopeful that there would be a peace plan they could be part of. It weakens and undermines them.

The ones perhaps who are happiest, other than the Israeli government itself, which certainly is very happy, are Iran and its allies and Russia's President Putin. We saw President Putin immediately take a victory lap, visiting Syria, Egypt, and Turkey all in one day, denouncing the Jerusalem decision, while also declaring victory in Syria and other places.

And it's been a great gift to Iran and Hezbollah, who have wanted to change the narrative from the carnage of Syria, which they have been embroiled in, to reviving the issue of Jerusalem, which is a very evocative issue, and pose as the champions of Jerusalem. So, they're in a middle of a rebranding. And this couldn't have come at a better time for them.

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The long-term global consequences of Trump's Jerusalem move

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When President Trump declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel and promised to move the U.S. embassy, the immediate response was relatively muted. What are the long-term, strategic consequences? Nick Schifrin talks to former U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Paul Salem of the Middle East Institute.

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Give Palestinians hope and peace may follow

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1. Open the Internet Browser

2. Click Tools (or "gear" icon at top right hand corner) > Internet Options > Privacy > Advanced

3. Check Override automatic cookie handling

4. For First-party Cookies and Third-party Cookies click Accept

5. Click OK and OK

Enabling Cookies in Internet Explorer 10, 11

1. Open the Internet Browser

2. Click the Tools button, and then click Internet Options.

3. Click the Privacy tab, and then, under Settings, move the slider to the bottom to allow all cookies, and then click OK.

Enabling Cookies in Google Chrome

1. Open the Google Chrome browser

2. Click Tools icon Or type in Go to chrome://settings/ to the URL window, hit enter

3. Click 'Advanced settings' > Select Privacy > Content settings

4. Check 'Allow local data to be set (recommended)'

5. Click 'Done'

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Open the Internet Browser Click Tools (or "gear" icon at top right hand corner) > Internet Options > Privacy > Advanced Check Override automatic cookie handling For First-party Cookies and Third-party Cookies click Accept Click OK and OK Enabling Cookies in Internet Explorer 10, 11 Open the Internet Browser Click the Tools button, and then click Internet Options.

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I know Palestinians who reject that assault on the Jewish narrative and are prepared to accept the indigenousness of the Jewish people in the land we share. But voices affirming the legitimacy of the Jewish story are excluded from the official Palestinian discourse.

The international community has tended to downplay or ignore altogether this deep-rooted denial of the Jewish story. But the impact on the Israeli public has been profound. Zion denial is one of the most effective arguments of the Israeli right, which portrays the greatly diminished left as hopelessly naive.

It could have been different. By the early 1990s, many Israelis were beginning to come to terms with the ruinous consequences of the occupation on their own society. The turning point occurred during the First Intifada, the five-year Palestinian uprising that began in 1987. I served then as a soldier in the Gaza refugee camps and, like many of my generation, concluded that we had to find another way. Many Israelis, including on the right, came to realize that ruling over another people was a long-term disaster for Israel. The teenagers confronting armed soldiers with rocks proved that Palestinians were no less willing to sacrifice for their sovereignty than we were.

This realization was a historic departure from the mainstream Israeli denial of the legitimacy of Palestinian national identity. "Palestine denial" was notoriously summed up by Golda Meir, the former prime minister of Israel, who in 1969 said that, under the British Mandate, Jews and not Arabs had been called Palestinians and that, in effect, there was no such thing as a Palestinian people. For Meir, Palestinian nationalism was merely a ruse invented by the Arab world to undermine Israel.

Palestine denial remains pervasive within the Israeli right. But there are also those Israelis who have long since come to terms with the right of the Palestinian people to self-definition-a prerequisite for achieving the right to self-determination.

The widespread Israeli awakening during the First Intifada led to the election of Labor Party leader Yitzhak Rabin as prime minister in 1992, followed by the Oslo peace initiative, which was initially supported by a majority of Israelis. The premise of Oslo was a rejection of the old Israeli attitude conveyed by the Hebrew adage, Ein im mi l'daber -there's no one to talk to, no partner for compromise.

But that hopeful moment vanished in 2000 with the Second Intifada, four years of suicide bombings that turned Israel into a nation of shut-ins, afraid to congregate in public places. No less traumatic than the terrorism was the fact that it followed Israeli overtures to end the occupation. We tried to make peace, many Israelis concluded, and in return suffered the worst wave of terrorism in our history. Whether or not one accepts that normative Israeli version of why Oslo failed, Israel today cannot be understood without grasping the impact of the Second Intifada. Many Israelis remain convinced that the Palestinian leadership's rejection of peace in 2000 was an inevitable consequence of its rejection of Israel's right to exist. The conviction that "there is no one to talk to" returned with full force.

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The Real Dispute Driving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

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I know Palestinians who reject that assault on the Jewish narrative and are prepared to accept the indigenousness of the Jewish people in the land we share. But voices affirming the legitimacy of the Jewish story are excluded from the official Palestinian discourse.

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Conflict in Israel and Palestine through 2015: Crash Course World History #223

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Historical Timeline: 1900-Present - Israeli-Palestinian Conflict - ProCon.org

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Did You Know? Readers' Comments Historical Timeline: Pre-1900 41 Maps Covering 5,000 Years of History Historical Photographs Key Documents Maps of the Region Palestinian Leaders Israeli Prime Ministers Population Statistics Deaths in the Conflict, 1987-2014

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A mini-documentary that takes you through the history of the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians--from the establishment of Jerusalem as a holy city, all the way through Israel's 2014 invasion of Gaza.

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How the Israeli Palestinian Conflict began...

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How the Israeli Palestinian Conflict began...

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How the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Began | History

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Noam Chomsky: The Israel-Palestine Conflict

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Noam Chomsky: The Israel-Palestine Conflict

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Noam Chomsky: The Israel-Palestine Conflict