Introduction
What do people know about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? The current escalation between Israel and Palestine has been the largest in recent years. However, the history of this confrontation has deep historical roots, making it one of the most protracted and controversial conflicts of our time.
Is there a solution to this conflict? Over the past ten years, 3,572 Palestinians and 198 Israelis have died due to the conflict (Leep & Pressman, 2019). Approximately 36% of the West Bank population and 64% of the Gaza population are living below the poverty line (Ogunnoiki et al., 2021). Creating two states to solve these problems and end the long-term conflict is necessary.
Historical Context
Officially, we can talk about the beginning of the conflict since the middle of the last century, since the founding of Israel, the only Jewish state in the world, whose territory the Palestinians, that is, the Arab population, consider their own. However, it grew out of a very ancient confrontation: both Jews and Arabs have been putting forward their claims to these lands for a couple of thousand years. The first reason is that Jewish tribes inhabited this region in biblical times. Others assured that the Arabs were the indigenous population of these territories.
After the First World War, Jews fled Europe and sought to establish their national state. They moved to the Palestinian lands, which, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, were ceded to Great Britain. In the 1920s, violent clashes between Jews and Arabs began there.
However, it could have been stopped in time due to British rule (Leep & Pressman, 2019). However, with Britain’s withdrawal from the Middle East, the situation has become much more complicated. At that time, there were more Jews on Palestinian lands, after the Second World War and the Holocaust. According to the UNO resolution, Jerusalem, which both peoples consider a holy city, was to become a territory under international control. The Arab side was unsatisfied with such a project, so in early March 1948, the Palestinians fired at the Jewish self-defense forces from the eastern part of Jerusalem (Ogunnoiki et al., 2021).
Moreover, the war began as soon as Israel declared independence. During the 1948-1949 war, Israel managed to hold most of the disputed territories, Jordan occupied the West Bank of the Jordan River, and Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip (Ogunnoiki et al., 2021). Jerusalem was divided between Israeli and Jordanian troops.
The next war, in 1967, known as the Six-Day War, became decisive in shaping the current division of lands (Weissman, 2019). After it, Israel asserted its authority over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip—territories where the predominantly Palestinian population lives (Leep & Pressman, 2019). These two territorial components should make up the independent State of Palestine, now a partially recognized State entity in the formation process.
Under Donald Trump, the United States recognized Israel’s authority over this territory — and the Israeli government named one of the settlements there in honor of the 45th President of America (Weissman, 2019). Now the West Bank is de jure under the authority of Palestine but de facto under the control of Israel. There are constantly Israeli military personnel who have the right to restrict the movement of Palestinians. The Palestinians are outraged, but Israel says this is how it protects itself from the terrorist threat from the Palestinians.
Solutions
There is much confusion about whether peace is possible between Israelis and Palestinians, what this peace will look like, and how feasible it is. Two problems lie at the heart of the ongoing conflict and rising violence in the Middle East. An attempt to preserve a culturally partisan State with a likely risk of undermining stability, given that the segregated population has a colonial origin in the state (Kollontai, 2020).
On the other hand, the Palestinians continue to resist Israel’s continued seizure of their lands in the West Bank and Gaza. To achieve peace between the two nations, dividing them and creating two separate States is necessary. In a 2019 poll, more than one-third of Israelis support the two-state solution (Leep & Pressman, 2019). Most global leaders also support the Two-State solution, as did the United States and the Israeli government, most recently (Bao, 2018). Therefore, the most appropriate way would be to create two States.
One-State Solution
Two possible ways exist to solve this problem — either one state or two states. The first implies uniting the citizens of Israel and Palestine within the framework of a single state, where they will coexist as equal citizens with shared rights and responsibilities. This solution can be described as a bi-national state, where two nations unite under a single state. However, this solution is too complicated, as the population is too intertwined, and reaching an agreement on issues such as borders, Jerusalem, and refugees will be challenging (Ogunnoiki et al., 2021).
Many Israelis disapprove of the decision to create a single state as a solution that will destroy the Jewish character of the state and undermine Israel’s security. Granting citizenship to all Palestinians would make Jews a minority and eliminate the world’s only Jewish state (Kollontai, 2020). In addition, the one-state solution remains fraught with logistical problems, not the least of which is who will maintain peace between two peoples who have been at war for more than half a century.
Two-State Solution
The second solution involves the creation of two States for two peoples, Israel and Palestine. Hypothetically, the State of Israel will retain the Jewish majority, thus remaining a Jewish state, and the Palestinian state will have a majority of Muslim Arabs. This would satisfy the majority of Palestinians and give Israel the legitimacy of the statehood it craves (Bao, 2018). The international consensus on a two-state solution requires the creation of a sovereign, democratic, contiguous, and viable Palestinian state based on the 1949 armistice lines that prevailed before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war (Bao, 2018).
This would mean that the Palestinians would live next to the Israeli state in peace and security — with East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine and West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Thus, the second solution is the most viable since it allows for the preservation of people’s authenticity. It also divides these two countries and assigns territories to them at the legal level. This solution is far superior to the unification of two conflicting nations.
Conclusion
The conflict has a long history, beginning in 1850 when Palestinian Arabs inhabited the Palestinian land. Its main reason is that two organizations are competing for control of the same area. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one of the longest-running disputes in the world, has become one of the most significant disagreements in modern history. Therefore, the best solution would be to create two states for each nation. This will help the State of Israel preserve the Jewish majority, thus upholding a Jewish identity, and the State of Palestine will have an Arab-Muslim majority.
References
Bao, Hsiu-Ping (2018). The One-State Solution: An Alternative Approach to the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict? Asian Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, 12(3), 328–341. Web.
Kollontai, P. (2020). Jewish perspective: Religion in Israel’s quest for conflict resolution and reconciliation in its land rights conflicts. On the Significance of Religion in Conflict and Conflict Resolution. Routledge. 91-102.
Leep, M., & Pressman, J. (2019). Foreign cues and public views on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 21(1), 169-188. Web.
Ogunnoiki, A. O., Iwediba, I. O., & Ani, I. C. (2021). Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A One or Two-State Solution. Covenant University Journal of Politics and International Affairs. 3598-3610.
Weissman, D. (2019). Religion, Statelessness, and Belonging: A Jewish Perspective. The Ecumenical Review, 71(5), 653-664. Web.