Lara Aldag
EDGE Final Paper
- 1 -
Arab Israeli Conflict: Perspectives from Palestine
Introduction
The issues revolving around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been dense and complex. The American administration in the past several decades have made noble efforts to resolve, mitigate and merge the two nation states into a civil, if not unified one. The religious implications, as well as cultural ones, surrounding the political issues are multifaceted—and, as it has been seen through policy failures—are difficult to mend. My paper’s aim is to identify issues involving the societal status of the nation states, the administrative efforts aimed at protecting the civilians of both countries, the failures of policy to protect immigrants in the United States, and the eventual repercussions of the Arab conflict with the rest of the western world. My paper will focus around mainly political and cultural implications, while keeping in mind the obvious religious complexities which also must be acknowledged. These issues have been central to lectures in EDGE, as the focus has been on poverty and prejudice during the current quarter.
Many believe the fight over the Gaza Strip (and the neighboring West Bank) is tiresome and somewhat insignificant. After all, the strip of land is a mere 147 square mile area, cramming in more than 1,022,200 people--and contains no real natural resources which provide monetary riches. It is not one of beauty anymore, as the constant attacks and fights have destroyed it considerably, and yet, it is desired and has been fought for ruthlessly over the past century. Many ask the people why. A Palestinian man explained the sentiment perfectly in the book by Amira Hass, Drinking the Sea at Gaza:
“Why do you think we started the intifada? Why do you think we want a state? It’s not the land—no piece of land is worth the bloodshed. No, we want a state for the thing itself.”[1]
And so it is, the Palestinians believe the land represents something bolder and greater than its soil or name. The “thing” they are fighting for seems so clear, that often it doesn’t need explanation in that part of the world. In countless interviews throughout the strip, Hass discovered what the Palestinians truly wanted: they wanted to expand the limits of their freedom of choice, personally and nationally. In the long run, they will judge the Oslo Accords, or any agreement for that matter, accordingly.[2] Measured by the breadth of their freedom as a people and as human beings, they will fight for the humanity they once possessed—and that which they will not surrender.
The issues regarding Arab-Israeli conflicts are commonly sensationalized by the media, creating illusions by which misdirect people’s perceptions in detrimental ways—those which separate Americans from Arabs in a way determined by being Muslim vs. Christian, Arab vs. American. This is simply not justified and should be dismissed for several reasons. Beyond that, American media puts emphasis on the image of Arabs being solely Muslim, and therefore “freedom fighters” when in fact a considerable amount of Arabs in Palestine are Christian. As a side note, my mother in fact was a Christian living in Ramallah, Palestine during the wars of the 1940s and still speaks of the countless Palestinians who are not of the Islamic religion. It is simply not factual to immediately associate the Arab-Israeli conflict as that being of Jews against Muslims. Rather, it is a conflict over land of which holds sentiment to each religion’s core. The issues include land which was once owned by Palestinians, regardless of their religion. Land which was taken away, and now is being fought over for this reason.
In my paper I will address the social, cultural and political implications of the Arab-Israeli War, the injustices towards the Palestinian people, and slow progress and potential looking to the future, hopefully towards an independent Palestinian state. I will begin by looking at the history of the conflict between Israelis and Arabs, as it is an imperative part of the discussion on present conflict.
History of Conflict
In The Palestinian People: A History, author Baruch Kimmerling speaks of the ongoing turbulence in the region. As a historian, he outlines the timeline during the past century, and the important events leading up to the present state of affairs in the region.
As Israeli’s threw Palestinians out of their land in 1948, distinct communities were formed, separating Palestinians geographically among the region. Eventually, “each community developed its own history, goals, relationship to Palestinism and survival tactics.”[3] Refugees from these divided communities of Palestine were scattered among regional countries and prior differences simply increased their bonds among them. Although many escaped from the turmoil, approximately half of the Palestinians remained in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza—implicitly refusing to abandon their homeland. The “1948 Arabs” who remained in the area, within Israel’s borders, were able to construct a community based on a common identity, that of an “Israeli-Palestinian Arab.”[4] Many of the shunned Arabs viewed this new community as being a contradiction to their beliefs, and viewed many of those staying in the region to be betraying the Arab community. Essentially, their attitude rested on the notion that it was impossible to be an Arab and a Palestinian, while at the same time cooperating with the Israeli state based on Zionist ideologies. After the war in 1967, the 1948 Arabs were able to be accepted as a larger part of the Palestinian community, as the Palestinian community as a whole was re-uinited. The community resulted in a stronger Palestinian sentiment and brotherhood, one which carried them throughout the following decades in wars with Israel.
Politically, the subsequent Oslo agreements and a founding of the Palestinian Authority were enabling to the Palestinian community, though, it also increased the awareness that there was a divided mentality, even among the residents of Palestine. Those remaining in exile against those who were able to maintain permanent residency—and also between the exiles who returned to their homeland with Arafat in 1994 and those who remained outside of Palestine.
Another question remained regarding the status of the refugee, and what that definition even entailed. The Palestinian creation of a “self-governing authority” simply aggravated these differences, as Palestinians were again divided between those living in the historic geographic locations of Palestine and those being under other rules of governance—more specifically, those under the Israeli governance. Historians emphasize the importance of this period in the Palestinian timeline as that which both unified and separated the Palestinian people on a paradoxical level.
Palestinian Arabs living outside their former homeland, that which was taken from them by the Israeli people, were now considered refugees. They were essentially placed in isolation in the surrounding countries where they settled, and the majority of those in exile—over 500,000, resided in Jordan, comprising one-third of Jordan’s population. Jordan was the only Arab state who granted Palestinian Arabs citizenship, and even there, many remained in refugee camps financed primarily by the UN through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, an agency created in 1950 to orchestrate (minimal) funding towards the Palestinians. Among the refugees, almost 200,000 placed into the Gaza Strip, under Egyptian rule, where both their movement and freedom was restricted considerably. Among the nearly 100,000 refugees who settled in Lebanon in 1956, none were granted citizenship due to the Maronite Christian ruling elite, who feared the Muslim population. [5]
The decades up to and of the 1990s was filled with continuous efforts to resolve Israeli-Arab and Israeli-Palestinian differences through direct negotiations. The Madrid talks of 1991, followed by subsequent meetings at the U.S. state department until June 1993, established precedents for Israeli-Palestinian discussions. The discussions eventually led to the Oslo Accord of September 1993, followed by the Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty of 1994. The Israeli-Palestinian pact of 1993 was less than effective, as both sides of were under different preconceptions of what the terms entailed. Many of the terms and agreements were never implemented for this reason, thus leading to a second agreement, the Oslo 2 or “Interim Agreement” of 1995. The assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in November 1995 closely followed the agreement, as the land handover agreed upon in Oslo 2 enraged many people.
The summer of 1999, with the election of Ehud Barak, was the first time period whereby the various clauses of the earliest accords were executed. He proposed a detailed schedule by which the final settlement of all issues would be determined by October 2000 as well as implementing a renewal of discussions with Syria. According to Historians, the exchanges with Syria occurring in 1999 would have suggested that Israel agreed to peace agreements with two historic rivals, but as it turned out, both sets of talks had been suspended in January 2000 by Israelis. [6]
Immediately following the signing of the accord, both Arab and Israeli opponents of the document exclaimed their determination to deter the implementation of the agreements, often using religious mechanisms and precedents to justify their assaults and opposition. According to the Muslims, the pact essentially meant they were losing most of Palestine west of Jordan, formerly Muslim land, and potentially also the loss of Jerusalem, the third holiest Islamic city. For the Palestinian Christians, the loss of land was equally as detrimental to both religious and cultural heritage and beliefs. For the Jews, their withdrawal from the West Bank meant denying them their biblical heritage of Judea and Samaria, which they believed was rightfully theirs.
The anguish throughout the region was perpetuated, and is still perpetuated by economic problems. Palestine’s nearly total dependence on Israel’s ability to provide employment was and is in jeopardy, initially beginning with the curfew sentences established in 1993. Early warnings by Israeli and other experts that “Palestinian anger is stoked by poverty” were ignored, as were arguments by Israeli economists that “For growth the Palestinians must have open borders with Israel…[because] if you separate them, one of them will die and it is obvious that that one will be the Palestinian economy.” [7]
In addition to their mutual mistrusts and suspicions, Israeli and Palestinian leaders have to consider the resistance to compromise existing in both their camps that include the threat of assassination by members of their own communities. This concern is true for both Palestinians and for Israel, where the precedent has been set. Oftentimes, civilians attempt to take political matters into their own hands—spurred by the economic and political oppression, the only option many Palestinians believe they have is to fight back. In the midst of these conflicts emerges Hamas, the only Palestinian group who seems able to make in impact on the initiatives of Israel. It chooses terror, such as in the aftermath of the Hebron massacre—which killed 29 Arabs. Both Americans and Israelis hold Arafat responsible for locating Hamas leaders, who initiate suicide bombings and kidnappings, leading to increased political pressure on Palestine to control civilian actions while trying to instigate the process towards an independent Palestinian state.
The road maps set by the quartet and other international support for peace in the region have simply not worked, and the unresolved, acrimonious environment has allowed Israel to take advantage of the military resources, attacking Palestinians on whim, and uprooting homes by the dozens. According to reports by the American Task Force on Palestine, approximately 2.5 Palestinians are uprooted from their homes every hour by Israelis, while 15 Palestinians are killed by the Israeli government per week. The bloodshed has been indescribably horrific in the region, and the injustice towards the Palestinians even worse.
Boys and young men in the region are continuously pressured to fight for the causes of the region. Again, as the Palestinian community is defined as being of both the Muslim and Christian relgions, both are called to battle against the pressuring Israeli armed guards. Boys as young as five are taught to throw stones in defense of their rights, and young men are armed with weapons to prove points to the other side. By no means are either side justified in committing these acts of violence, but as the Israeli government has a funded national army, Palestinians only have hope of protecting themselves by civilian acts of destruction.
Since 1967, 280,000 Gazans have passed through the Israeli jails, detention cells and interrogation rooms; 80,000 during the intifada, according to the Association of Veteran Palestinian Fighters and Prisoners.[8] In Amira Hass’s book, she comments on the brutality of Israeli prisons. Those who were even suspected of disrupting peace, or of distributing leaflets among the people are thrown in jail, brutally beaten upon arrival, and then continuously interrogated. Food and water is minimal, and the efforts to divide and humiliate the prisoners is enormous. The most basic necessities are forbidden and inmates are rarely allowed family visits.
Women’s Role
The women of the Palestinian society are constantly called to different roles in the middle east. Often simply ignored in the culture, they are put in the limelight as the men are either killed or put in jail by the dozens.
In Amira Hass’s novel, Drinking the Sea at Gaza: Days and Nights in a Land Under Seige, she reports of women’s inferior position in the Palestinian society, amongst all the madness:
“In the puruit I fialed to report on a compelling dynamikc: in a patriarchal society such as the Gaza Strip, women’s absence form public life becomes a motivational force in itself. Hidden away at home, cut off even from one another, women began to organize themselves; openly, timidly, they had begun to confront their domestic oppression, forcing it into the public and political spheres, bringing it into the light” (Hass, 185).
There were in fact feminist developments throughout the area which were initiated by women hoping to strengthen the community, reaching beyond the family. Women’s committees were instigated to set up learning centers offering classes in reading and writing and courses in sewing, juice making, and other ways to support a family. Centers like these, coupled with the sudden transformation of many women into household heads while their husbands are in jail, encouraged women to speak out, come forward and make demands of society and the men who dominate it. [9]
According to a diary entry by an unidentified Palestinian women, the role models for women of the current generation were men. A woman identified as M.H., states in her diary:
“As a child I dreamed of being a fighter like my father and brothers. A ten years
old I already had a brother in an Israeli jail, one of the first men to be imprisoned
in the seventires. My father was an officer in the Egyptian police intelligence. When the Israelis took over in 1967, they insisted that he conitnue working in intelligence..he refused and is not working for the Palestinian Authority. So the role models in my family were men. My mother was shut up inside the house all the time, which might be why I felt I had to resist, to get out, although I didn’t really analyze things at the time. I just knew that something was wrong” (Hass, 187).
Thus, a separation was created between women as well. Those who accepted the
terms of their husbands and roles carved by society and those who refused to blindly accept their roles and submissive. The submissive women are constantly putting pressure on their husbands now—asking their husbands why other women can make decisions when they are not allowed to. It is creating, needless to say, a different dynamic among families and the social roles expected when some men are ostracized from society, while others are trying to maintain balance in the household. Another women, who’s husband is currently in an Israeli jail comments on the difficulties of trying to manage Islamic obedience with daily problems:
“As for permission to leave the house, its only natural. The Prophet Muhammed
said that the wife who goes out without her husband’s permission will be cursed by the angels until she returnes home. When my husband was in prison, I told him I needed to leave the hosue to take care of all kinds of things and he gave meblanket permission to go out as long as he was in jail”[10]
The percentage of women working outside the home is lower in the Strip than the West Bank. A 1992 study by FAFO, a Norwegian research center, found that some 8 percent of the Strip’s workforce were women, compared with 19 percent in the West Bank. The low percentage results form a combination of factors: the traditional inclination to see a woman’s proper place as in the home, household chores that make it hard for women to take on other work, chronic unemployment in the Strip, which prevents them from entering the workforce or relegates them to unskilled jobs, and fundamental doubts about women’s capabilities.