Arab-Israeli conflict: Encyclopedia II - Arab-Israeli conflict - Reasons for the conflict

Arab-Israeli conflict - Reasons for the conflict

The Arab-Israeli conflict is the result of numerous factors. Reasons cited for the conflict therefore vary from participant to participant and observer to observer. A powerful example of this divide can be found in opinion surveys of Palestinians and Israelis. In a March, 2005 poll 63% of the Israelis blamed the failure of the Oslo Peace Process on Palestinian violence, but only 5% of the Palestinians agreed. 54% of Palestinians put the blame on Israeli policies, but only 20% of the Israelis agreed.[11] It is therefore difficult to develop a single, objective reason for the conflict, so this article will present some of the arguments made by each side.

Arab-Israeli conflict - Israeli views

There is no single "Israeli" view; rather, Israelis express many views, which differ widely.

Israelis describe various reasons for what they perceive as unjustified hostility against Israel. One of the primary reasons cited is anti-Semitism.

Many if not most Israelis believe that the conflict is largely a result of Arab attempts to destroy Israel, and that only Israeli military power stands between them and annihilation.

They characterize the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the 1967 Six Day War and the 1973 Yom Kippur War as attempts to destroy Israel. As evidence of this intent, pro-Israeli literature often places a heavy emphasis on statements made by Arab leaders during and preceding the wars. The following quotes are mainstays of pro-Israeli arguments:

• "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades." (by Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League, in anticipation of victory over the new Jewish state in 1948 by the five invading Arab armies. This quote is described by Isi Leibler (1972) and mentioned in letters to the New York Times in 15 October 1951, and 28 August 1958.

• "I declare a holy war, my Muslim brothers! Murder the Jews! Murder them all!" (Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, and head of the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee [12], the original quote purportedly comes from a 1948 radio broadcast by the Mufti)

• After the withdrawal of the UNEF, the Voice of the Arabs radiostation proclaimed (May 18, 1967): "As of today, there no longer exists an international emergency force to protect Israel. We shall exercise patience no more. We shall not complain any more to the UN about Israel. The sole method we shall apply against Israel is total war, which will result in the extermination of Zionist existence."[13]

• "Our forces are now entirely ready not only to repulse the aggression, but to initiate the act of liberation itself, and to explode the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland. The Syrian army, with its finger on the trigger, is united....I, as a military man, believe that the time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation." (Syrian Defense Minister Hafez Assad (May 20, 1967) [14])

• "If Israel embarks on an aggression against Syria or Egypt...The battle will be a general one and our basic objective will be to destroy Israel." (Gamal Abdel Nasser's speech to Arab Trade Unionists (May 26, 1967) [15])

• On May 30, 1967, Nasser proclaimed: "The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel...to face the challenge, while standing behind us are the armies of Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan and the whole Arab nation. This act will astound the world. Today they will know that the Arabs are arranged for battle, the critical hour has arrived. We have reached the stage of serious action and not declarations." (Isi Leibler, The Case For Israel, 1972, p.60.) After Iraq joined the Arab military alliance in June 4, its president Abdur Rahman Aref announced: "The existence of Israel is an error which must be rectified. This is our opportunity to wipe out the ignominy which has been with us since 1948. Our goal is clear - to wipe Israel off the map." (Liebler, p.18)

Israelis generally claim that, when nations declare war against Israel, Israel by definition is then at war with them. Israelis claim that they have always preferred peace to war:

SC 242, the Land for peace formula, was adopted on November 22, 1967 in the aftermath of the Six-Day War and the Khartoum Resolution, and called for withdrawal from occupied territories in return for "termination of all claims or states of belligerency" and mutual "acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence" by Israel and the other states in the area, and recognized the right of "every state in the area" (in particular, Israel) to live "free from threats or acts of force" within "secure and recognized boundaries".

Immediately after the Six-Day War, Israel maintains that it offered to return the Golan Heights to Syria and the Sinai Peninsula (including the Gaza Strip) to Egypt in exchange for peace treaties and various concessions, but that Syria and Egypt refused the offer and this offer was very soon withdrawn. Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian President at the time, proposed negotiations towards peace with Israel in the early 1970s but Israel refused the offer, claiming that it held unreasonable preconditions. Later Israel signed the Camp David Accords (1978) with Egypt and subsequently withdrew from all Egyptian territory it occupied.

Israelis note that the English language version of SC 242 deliberately did not state all territories occupied during the conflict, as the framers recognized some territorial adjustments were likely and rejected previous drafts with the word a. The French language translation of the text did include the definite article. Some, but not Israel itself, consider that Israel complied with this sense of the resolution when it returned the Sinai to Egypt in 1982.

Land of Israel
Districts · Cities · Transportation
Dead Sea · Red Sea · Sea of Galilee
Mediterranean · Negev · Judea · Samaria
Jerusalem · Tel Aviv · Haifa

Zionism · Timeline ·Aliyah · Herzl
Balfour · Mandate · 1947 UN Plan
Independence · Austerity · Refugees

1948 War · 1949 Armistice · Suez War
Six-Day War · Attrition War
Yom Kippur War · Lebanon War
Peace treaties with:
Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan

Timeline · Peace process · Peace camp
1st Intifada · Oslo · 2nd Intifada
Barrier · Disengagement

Science & Tech. · Companies · Tourism

Judaism · Israeli Arabs · Kibbutz
Music · Archaeology · Universities
Hebrew · Literature · Israelis

Law of Return · Jerusalem Law
Parties · Elections · PM · President
Knesset · Supreme Court · Courts

UN · Intl. Law · Arab League

Israel Defense Forces
Mossad · Shabak · Aman
Sayeret · YAMAM · Magav · Police

Portal:Israel

Israel claims that it has demonstrated flexibility and understanding by bringing about the initiation of the peace process, agreeing to painful concessions, and partially implementing them. As opposed to this, many Israelis consider that the predominant Palestinian views of the peace process do not recognize Israel's right to exist, and believe that the only real long-term Arab goal is the complete destruction of the Jewish state.

Many Israelis and supporters of Israel, and some Palestinians and supporters of Palestine, take the view that the very existence of the state of Israel is at stake. Most of the other parties to the dispute maintain formally that Israel should be recognised as a state, although some consider that it should be abolished. Some opponents of Israel do not even acknowledge its existence, refusing any contact with or mention of it, and instead describing it as "The Zionist Entity" with outdated land claims.

Israelis argue that the continued Jewish presence in the area throughout the past three millennia, and the deep religious ties maintained by Judaism with the Land of Israel, give Jews a continuing and valid claim. Although the 1800 years preceding the establishment of Israel saw very limited Jewish presence, they emphasize that the destruction of the Kingdom of Israel and Jewish Diaspora were due to foreign conquests. They also point out that since antiquity, Jewish beliefs were frequently branded as "obsolete" (see Against Apion, Supersessionism). It may also be noted that historical grounds are not the only reasons given for the establishment of a Jewish state.

Israelis regard many of the Arab criticisms against the state of Israel as threats to the state's existence, and say that against the multitude and power of the Arab states, there is only one Jewish state, which, they feel, should behave vigilantly, and assert its power in both a defensive and preemptive manner as deemed necessary.

Israelis often point to their democratic system and claim that Jews were treated unfairly by Arab countries, while Arabs are treated well in Israel.

Some pro-Israeli opinions cite traditional interpretations of sharia (Islamic law) which require that Muslim territory encompass all land that was ever under Muslim control, as a source for the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Many Israelis believe that minorities in Israel are treated justly. Within the pre-1967 armistice lines, Arab and other minorities are given freedom of religion, culture and political organization. Several Arab political parties have elected parliament members in the Knesset. Arabs are typically not conscripted into the Israeli military (though they are accepted as volunteers), so they will generally never have to fight their peoples. However, this can deny them job opportunities, as some jobs in Israel require previous military service. Israelis claim that Arab countries such as Syria and Yemen do not give full rights and freedoms to Jews, and others (such as Saudi Arabia) do not even allow Jews to be citizens. The United Nations Human Development Reports [16] and human rights groups report that many Arab countries do not allow political opposition and other freedoms and lack checks and balances and separation of powers.

Most Israelis see Zionism as merely the desire of Jewish people to live as free people in the land of Israel. Zionism does not prohibit Arabs, Druze, Bedouin and other non-Jews from living in Israel as well, although by most interpretations it requires a Jewish majority to be established. People of all races, colors and ethnic backgrounds live in Israel; therefore, they argue, Zionism is not racism, as it does not imply the superiority of Jews over any other nationality or ethnicity, although it does insist on Israel being a "Jewish state". However, during the 1930s, ideas of a 'population exchange' of Palestinian Arabs and Jews between Arab states and Israel were popular among Zionists, and some (particularly supporters of Moledet) believe in the forced transfer of Arabs from Israel.

Zionists hold that Zionism is not colonialism, since they claim it does not wish to enslave any other peoples or take over any lands other than the one in question, nor to exploit them, but rather is about allowing the Jewish people to have a state in one small area. In response to the objection that the Palestinians were and are exploited by Israelis living on what is claimed to be their land, Israelis reply that the Palestinians were, up until recently, on a path to their independence from Israel -- a path from which, as most Israelis now feel, the Palestinians diverted by starting a war against them. This view is regarded as incorrect by most Palestinians as well as by many Arabs and others outside Israel.

Most of the Jewish population in Arab countries fled from their homes since the establishment of Israel in 1948 or were thrown out of the land, and nearly two-thirds have been absorbed by Israel. These Jews lost most of their property and continue to claim compensation. Although there have been invitations from Arab states, virtually none have shown interest in returning to their former homes, as they have integrated in their new homes or fear persecution in Arab states.

Many believe the Jewish exodus from Arab lands to Israel and the Arab exodus from the land of Israel to the surrounding territory constitutes a legitimate form of population exchange.

Israel does not recognise a Palestinian right of return. Property belonging to former Arab residents in Israel is confiscated under the Absentee Property Act.

Israel maintains that the General Assembly resolutions establishing the Right of Return are merely recommendations under International law, and in any event doubt that the refugees wish to "live in peace with their neighbors".

Jewish Israelis fear that if Palestinians were allowed to return to Israel, the Jews would become a minority and Israel would no longer be a Jewish state. Many believe that if surrounding Arab states integrate the Palestinian refugees hostilities could be diffused, and that the harsh treatment of refugees in Arab states is done deliberately by those states in order to keep the conflict alive.

Israel has stated that it is willing to allow a limited number of Arabs to immigrate on a humanitarian basis (such as the unification of families) and limited compensation for others in the framework of a comprehensive peace plan. Such discussions have yet to take place.

The text of the UN Resolutions refer to a "just settlement of the refugee problem" and do not specifically mention either the Palestinian refugees or the Jewish refugees. Israel's refusal to consider large-scale resettlement of Palestinian refugees is also based on the continued refusal of Arab nations to compensate Israeli Jews of Arab origin, many of whom were driven out of their home countries after facing the expropriation of their property.

Israelis of the political right, particular in the governing Likud party, strongly support settlements in the West Bank. The platform of the Likud party states that "settlement of the land is a clear expression of the unassailable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and constitutes an important asset in the defense of the vital interests of the State of Israel." [17]

Liberal Israelis oppose settlements, believing they are illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention and/or thwart peace efforts. However, most Israelis do not view the building of houses and stores in Israeli settlements as an act of war, and believe that disputes over land do not justify violent resistance or terrorism, but that there should be politically negotiated solutions. This view is rejected by Palestinians and many outside Israel, as Israel's leadership continues to build settlements on land they contend to be Palestinian, an activity that is roundly condemned by much of the world except Israel and usually the United States.

Israel's supporters argue that the Fourth Geneva Convention does not technically apply to the territories, since they have no "High Contracting Party", and claim that the Convention in any event only applied to forcible transfers of populations into or out of captured territories. However, a conference of High Contracting Parties in 2001 stated that the Convention did apply in the territories.

Some Israelis fear the consequences if they decide, or are eventually forced, to depopulate the Israeli settlements. They believe some settlers may resist by force, perhaps even creating a risk of civil war. When Israel withdrew from settlements in the Sinai Peninsula in the early 1980s, moderate clashes between the Israel Defense Forces and settlers occurred. Those settlers amounted to but a tiny fraction of the settler population in the West Bank. A recent survey by Peace Now indicated about two thirds of the settlers would comply with a government order to evacuate.

Arab-Israeli conflict - Palestinian and other Arab views

There is not a single "Palestinian view"; there are many different Palestinian views, which differ widely.

Most Arabs deny that historical grounds can justify the existence of a Jewish nation today, holding that Jews had no meaningful presence in the area since Bar Kokhba's revolt in 135 CE. During the subsequent 1,800 years almost all Jews lived elsewhere, and had no justification evicting the Palestinians from their homeland. Some contrast the case with that of other ethnic groups which fled their homelands two millennia ago or less (such as the Celtic Bretons from Britain, the Roma or "Gypsies" from India, or the Kalmyks from Mongolia) noting that such groups do not typically attempt to reclaim their former homelands, and arguing that their doing so would rightly be rejected as unfair to the present inhabitants. Advocates of this position do not necessarily reject the current existence of Israel, but do reject attempts to justify its founding and expansion as "return".

Palestinians claim they have International law on their side.

UN General Assembly Resolution 181 orders that "Independent Arab and Jewish States...shall come into existence in Palestine". Israeli founding father and author of Resolution 181 Abba Eban claimed that Israel "tear[s] up its own birth certificate" when it ignores UN resolutions.[18]

Palestinians hold that Israel disregards the following UN resolutions/Internation Law provisions:

UN General Assembly Resolution 194 calls for "the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property" not naming either Palestinian refugees or Jewish refugees. Palestinians hold that this resolution should allow for the Palestinian exodus to return to their homes in Israel. Israel has blocked the return of these refugees and confiscated their land as "absentee".

UN Security Council Resolution 242, adopted after the Six-Day War, emphasizes "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every State in the area can live in security," and calls for "withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict" and for the recognition of the "sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force". These territories occupied included the Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, West Bank and the Sinai Peninsula. The Palestinian Authority intends eventually to establish a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel maintains control of the West Bank and maritime/aerospace control of the Gaza Strip.

The Fourth Geneva Convention forbids an occupying power from confiscating occupied land and transferring its own population to that territory.

UN Security Council Resolution 446 declares that the Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories are illegal.[19] According to Israeli government statistics, just under 400,000 Israelis lived in territories captured during the 1967 war.

Many Muslims and contemporary western Historians assert that Jews were treated better by Muslims than by other rulers who persecuted them. One pertinent example is the mass expulsion of Jews from Spain after the fall of their last refuge there, the Muslim kingdom of Granada in 1492. This resulted in the migration of Jews (especially those fleeing the Spanish Inquisition) to the Ottoman Empire, including the present-day region of Israel and surrounding areas. Authoritative works summarizing Jewish treatment within Muslim lands written by Jews have concluded that although occasional violent persecution did occur, it was not systemic nor continuous and substantially better than treatment by Christians in the pre-modern era. (Lewis, 1984)

Supporters of this viewpoint regard historically good relations with much of the Middle East as having been shattered by the creation of Israel. They cite the example of Mizrahi Jews, who had long been living in large measure peacefully among Arabs and Muslims, but who left after the establishment of the state of Israel for a variety of reasons (depending on the country), including Muslim hostility because of the new state. Some point out as well that during the times of the Spanish Inquisition, Muslim countries were prominent in accepting Jewish refugees.

Opponents of this viewpoint, including some Mizrahi Jews themselves, see this as one-sided at best. They point to the persecutions of the Jews of North Africa in the 12th century under the Almohades, the slaughter of thousands of Jews in Fez in 1465 (after the Jewish deputy vizier Harun (Aaron), who had imposed heavy taxes on the population on behalf of the vizier, was accused of treating a Muslim woman "offensively"), [20] and to similar massacres in Libya, Algiers, and Marrakesh in the 18th and 19th centuries (Morris, 2001). They also point to waves of synagogue destructions and forced conversions throughout the Arab world from the 11th to 19th centuries, and to the fact that, by the 19th century, most Jews of North Africa were forced to live in mellahs or ghettos, and were subject to a number of restrictions and humiliations.

Some Arabs maintain that there is nothing wrong with Jewish immigration into Palestine, in itself, any more than there is with Jewish immigration into any other part of the world. But in their view the Zionist immigrants arriving in Palestine from the late 1800s on did so with the intention of taking it over and establishing a Jewish majority state, in some cases by force; they consider this to be an unacceptable effort to colonize Palestinians' land, made possible not by Palestinian self-determination, or even consent, but by British (and to a lesser extent Turkish) fiat. This process led to what they regard as an expulsion by Zionists of the majority of the indigenous Palestinian population in 1948, and continues today with Israel's ongoing expansion of settlements. Palestinians also decry what they see as the inherent inequity of long-standing Israeli laws on immigration where, according to Israel's Law of Return, a Jew born in, say Stockholm, may immigrate to Israel and gain automatic citizenship and elect to live anywhere he chooses, including East Jerusalem, whereas a Palestinian born and raised in Jerusalem and forced to leave as a refugee of war may not return to his home.

The detractors of this argument regard the existence of a Jewish minority in the Land of Israel throughout the past two millennia, and the importance of Jerusalem and the Land of Israel in Judaism, as giving Jews a right to go there that trumps Palestinians' objections. They also claim international approval for their immigration, noting that both the League of Nations's 1922 Palestine Mandate and the 1947 UN Partition Plan supported the establishment of a Jewish National Homeland in the region, and view the Arab leadership's former rejection of any partition as an attempt to deny the Jews their right of self-determination. They claim that a national homeland for Jews would have protected them from persecution. Mainstream Zionists have argued that the land could support a greater population density without major population displacement.

Palestinians feel that the Jewish state of Israel was established under conditions that were deeply unfair to them. Some Palestinians do not oppose a Jewish state as such, but all Palestinians feel that it should not have been established at their expense. They argue that after World War II - and, indeed, after World War I - the world allowed a state for Jewish people in Palestine to be established without much concern for the existing indigenous Arab population. According to this view, Palestinians were forcibly expelled from their homes by Jewish militias before and during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war (see Palestinian exodus.) Those who remained in Israel face various forms of discrimination, such as housing and employment discrimination. Many job opportunities in Israel are open only to those with previous military service, typically non-haredi Jews, Druze, Circassians and Bedouins. Those who do not serve in the IDF (typically Israeli Arabs and haredi-Jews) are denied those opportunities.

Some Palestinian Christians are of the opinion that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has led to the diminishment of their population[21][22]. Others, like Abe Ata are of the opinion that American Christians have "turned their backs" on them by supporting Israel [23]. Some Palestinian Christians have alleged that Israel does not give them permission to visit holy places in Jerusalem.[24]

As the refugees' exile continued, some Palestinian groups chose war, considering it as a necessary way to regain what they saw as their rights over the land they came from. The failure of these efforts to improve the Palestinians' condition fuelled increased hostility.

Many Palestinians distinguish between violent resistance against Israel military occupation, and violent acts against Israeli civilians. They hold that the former is legitimate resistance under the laws of war, while the latter comprise illegitimate acts of terrorism. Other Palestinian voices reject violence altogether and look to exclusively non-violent resistance as a solution. Palestinians making the case for purely non-violent resistance, or for armed resistance against only military targets but not Israeli civilians, invoke both practical arguments that such tactics are counterproductive, as well as moral and legal arguments against the use of violence, especially against civilians. Most Palestinians claim that Israel's occupation engenders routine violence against Palestinian civilians that is institutionalized and carried out on a much larger scale than anything Israelis experience. They often question what they see as the media's one-sided use of the word "terror" in cases where Palestinians are perpetrators and Israelis are victims, while ignoring what they view as state terrorism carried out by Israel against the Palestinian population.

Some Palestinian and Arab leaders believe that Palestinians are justified in using violence against any Israeli, seeing all Israelis as illegal occupants, and arguing that Israel's universal conscription renders almost all Israelis potential combatants. They see these illegal occupants as the source of tens of thousands of deaths, and million of refugees. Some claim that trusting the international community to help them to get their rights back is useless, suggesting that, in recent history, as long as Palestinians were peaceful no state made any serious efforts to solve their problem. In their opinion, only when other countries see Palestinian problems as causing problems to themselves do they help Palestine.

They also argue that the civilian deaths caused by their operations are dwarfed by those dismissed as "collateral damage" caused by the full scale military campaigns done by various world powers. Some see the innocent deaths caused by such operations as regrettable, but as only option to solve the problems of millions of Palestinians. Furthermore, they point to the use of violence against non-combatants by most other independence struggles, including, they say, the American War of Independence.

Despite having underlying grievances in common, the relationships between the PLO and Hamas and other Palestinian factions is rife with philosophical and tactical differences, as well as frequent power struggles, all of which tend to work to Israel's advantage and weaken Palestinians' ability to influence the outcome of the conflict.

Restrictions on Palestinian movements were introduced to increase levels of security within Israel and have been of variable severity over time. The international community often views these as punishments of the masses because of the actions of a few. This perception of unjust persecution provides a continuing rationale for hostility toward Israel.

Bulldozing of houses and destruction of infrastructure within Palestinian residential areas in the name of Israeli security add to the perceived poor conditions and lack of opportunities for the Palestinians. This is a frequently-used point of indignation used against Israel by Palestinian sympathizers.

Arab publications and others have compared Zionism to German Nazism and other historical examples of oppression and ethnic cleansing. Many Arabs, and others, believe Israel practises a form of "apartheid" against the Palestinian people, as bad as, or worse than, that practised by South Africa, and that Zionism is a form of "colonialism" and has been carried out through extensive "ethnic cleansing". Pro-Israel advocates reply that these claims are non-factual and the comparisons are specious, or with assertions that such claims are hypocritical, since Arabs have created twenty-two Arab states, in some of which the remaining Jews are discriminated against. Palestinians hold that the existence of other Arab nations is irrelevant; they want to have the land they owned back, rather than being forced to throw themselves on others' charity in foreign countries. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics half of Jordan's population is ethnically Palestinian (former refugees and their descendants [25]) but the country is ruled by the Hashemite Bedouin family. In the 1970s, the PLO attempted to launch a coup against the Jordanian monarchy, which led to death of some 20,000 Palestinians and the expulsion of the PLO from Jordan to Lebanon.

Israel's Family Reunification Law allows Interior Minister to grant permanent resident status to West Bank Palestinians who have family members in Israel. In his comment to the Knesset Interior Affairs committee on July 19, 2005, Shin Bet Chief Yuval Diskin stated that "11% of those involved in terror attacks are Palestinians who entered Israel via the Family Reunification Law." [26] [27]

Palestinians have made reference to the statement made by Folke Bernadotte, the UN mediator, concerning the right of return of refugees: "It would be an offense against the principles of elemental justice if these innocent victims of the conflict were denied the right to return to their homes, while Jewish immigrants flow into Palestine" (UN Doc Al 648, 1948).

The supporters of Israel argue that the return of Palestinian refugees and millions of their descendents would mean the end of Jewish self-determination and assert the historical necessity for Jews to have a safe haven. See also Jewish refugees.

Palestinians point out that Israel accelerated the expansion of settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip throughout the Oslo peace process. These settlements are off limits to Palestinians and other Arabs, while any Jewish citizen of Israel can at any time choose to settle there. In 2000, at Camp David, the Palestinians were offered a nominally independent state composed of discontiguous parts of most of Gaza and the West Bank, with Israeli control over its airspace, borders and trade. Led by Arafat, the Palestinians rejected this offer, claiming that this state would be a "Bantustan" (a state divided in many pieces) without sovereignty. President Clinton and the Israelis asked the Palestinians to offer a counter-proposal, but Arafat declined and returned to the West Bank. Later, further negotiations did take place, but they were terminated by the Israeli side. In his book The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace, Dennis Ross, the American ambassador and facilitator, asserts that the idea the Palestinian state would be a "Bantustan" was a myth, and provides maps showing an offer that included contiguous territory. [28]

During Fateh Central Committee meeting on September 5, 2005, "[r]eferring to the lands Israel would evacuate in Gaza Strip, President Abbas said that 97.5 percent of these lands were state-owned lands"[29].

In 2002, Saudi Arabia offered a peace plan in the New York Times and at a summit meeting of the Arab League in Beirut. The plan is based on, but goes beyond UN Security Council Resolution 242 and Resolution 338. It essentially calls for full withdrawal, solution of the refugee problem, and a Palestinian state with capital in East Jerusalem in return for fully normalized relations with the whole Arab world. This proposal received the unanimous backing of the Arab League for the first time.

In response, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres welcomed it and said: "... the details of every peace plan must be discussed directly between Israel and the Palestinians, and to make this possible, the Palestinian Authority must put an end to terror, the horrifying expression of which we witnessed just last night in Netanya." [30]

In November 2005, the Bush administration has acknowledged that Saudi Arabia has renewed funding to Hamas and other Palestinian insurgency groups. [31]

Some Palestinians believe that their cause may be damaged by extremists within their own ranks; an issue that is mirrored in the Israeli camp. Some view the conflict as essentially extremist vs. moderate, as opposed to Israeli vs. Palestinian. Pro-Israel advocates often assert that two sets of views exist from the same speaker, with a tolerant view usually expressed in English, and an anti-peace view usually expressed in Arabic, with pro-Arab advocates making similar charges about Israeli speakers. Most if not all Palestinian spokespeople declare that they wish Israel had never come into being, regarding its creation as a historic injustice. However, some accept its existence today and call merely for a state of their own. Still others envisage a one-state solution in all of historic Palestine. Within this one-state view, there are both secular and Islamist visions for the future. The secular view holds that a just and lasting peace is most likely if there exists a fully democratic government for all citizens, where legal status and civil rights are not based on ethnic and religious identity. The Islamist view aspires to an Islamic government in Palestine. In both views, Jews currently living in Israel might be allowed to remain there unmolested as free and equal citizens of a future state of Palestine (in the secular Arab view) or as dhimmis along with Druze and Christians, in the Islamist Arab view. Some Jews view it as extremely unlikely that they would be allowed to live unmolested in any sort of one-state Palestine.

Today, many Palestinians think that an equitable arrangement for all involved parties requires dialogue with Israelis and the international community. The PLO has officially accepted the right of Israel to exist within the pre-1967 armistice lines. However, some PLO representatives, including Yasser Arafat, have also declared at times that they saw these statements as politically necessary steps. Some observers interpret this to mean that they view the two-state solution as a stepping stone to a more integrated long-term solution. Others, particularly some Israelis, claim that these statements betray a hidden agenda and worldview where the peace process with Israel is only a temporary measure in support of the ultimate Palestinian goal, which is the destruction of the state of Israel, and presumably the eviction of its Jewish citizens. They point to the fact that the PLO never updated its formal statement of policy, the Palestinian National Covenant to reflect their recognition of the State of Israel and that it still calls for the destruction of Israel; however the U.S. Embassy in Israel is on record confirming that "On April 24, 1996, the Palestinian National Council (PNC) amended the charter by canceling the articles inconsistent with its commitments to Israel" [32]. Still, belief in an existential threat from the PLO causes alarm among much of the Israeli public.

Arab-Israeli conflict - Mutual claims

Many Palestinian school textbooks, including those distributed and sponsored by the Palestinian Authority since 1994, have historically minimized or ignored Jewish history of the land prior to the twentieth century. Similar statements are made in the Palestinian media. Palestinians claim the newer batch of the textbooks, released in 2000, rectify any omissions. Palestinians also claim that Israeli textbooks and school curriculum fully ignore Palestinian history and propagate myths about the founding of Israel such as claims that Palestine was virtually uninhabited prior to the arrival of Zionist immigrants in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Palestinians further claim that Israeli textbooks and media neglect and minimize the Arab Palestinian past and, according to Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace (CMIP), stereotype Arabs negatively[33]; however the Israelis counter that Israeli history program does include medieval Islamic history including topics such as the Arab Caliphate, as well as some history of both Arab and Jewish elements of Palestine. CMIP regularly issues reports on the contents of Arab and Israeli school textbooks.

Palestinians cite many reasons for the perceived lack of support of their cause in the United States, despite the perception that it is more broadly supported in Europe. One such reason is postulated to be ethnic bigotry in the U.S.; while stereotyping of many other groups is no longer rampant, some Palestinians believe that Muslims and Arabs, in particular, continue to be vilified and victimized by crude attacks. Some Palestinians also cite what they describe as strong influence by Zionist organizations on elected officials in the U.S. political system (see AIPAC as one such example). It has also been argued that the U.S. continues to support Israel in order to have a strong foot hold in the region for their own national interests, politically and economically. Many also cite the political nature of the Cold War that aligned the U.S. with Israel against the USSR and its allies in the region.

The USSR traditionally used Arabs as a proxy in the Cold War against the Western world (and the West's proxy in the Middle East, Israel). Some of today's anti-Zionist rhetoric still reflects the position of Soviet Zionology.

Arab-Israeli conflict - Peace and reconciliation

Despite the long history of conflict between Israelis and Arabs, there are many people working on peaceful solutions that respect the rights of peoples on all sides. See projects working for peace among Israelis and Palestinians. *Currently active List of Middle East peace proposals include:

• • Geneva Accord
  • Road map for peace
  • The People's Voice

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Reasons for the conflict", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki