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Israel & the Palestinians

Israel & the Palestinians. An intractable problem?. Components of Lecture. Perceptual issues Geographical and social contrasts What each side wants History of the participants and the region Why the US is involved. Perceptual Issues. What do you know about the “Middle East conflict”?.

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Israel & the Palestinians

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  1. Israel & the Palestinians An intractable problem?

  2. Components of Lecture • Perceptual issues • Geographical and social contrasts • What each side wants • History of the participants and the region • Why the US is involved

  3. Perceptual Issues

  4. What do you know about the “Middle East conflict”? • How do you know what you know? • What media do you use? • What shapes your view aside from the media?

  5. The kind of images we see most often Time.com, http://www.time.com/time/daily/special/photo/mideast3/9.html Ali Hashisho, Reuters, http://www.yesha.org.il/islam.htm

  6. Images we don’t often see in the US media Father carrying injured Palestinian boy http://www.alkhilafah.info/massacres/palestine/index11.htm Mother with dead Palestinian girl: http://www.worldrevolution.org/Projects/PhotoArchive/PhotoThumbs.asp?topic=palestine

  7. Different media perspectives • Personal vs. impersonal stories • Visual vs. textual accounts • Judgmental vs. non-judgmental terminology (attacked/responded, seized/defended, brought chaos/reasserted control) • Normal & natural vs. abnormal & unnatural

  8. What is a soldier? Are there Palestinian soldiers? What is a militant? Are there Israeli militants? What is a patriot? What is a terrorist? What is an extremist? Imbalance in economic power and military technology creates the basis for many differences in terminology Terms used in the media and US public debates

  9. How do we describe this encounter?

  10. Contrasts

  11. Geographical Contrasts

  12. History of the Participants and the Region

  13. Judea and Samaria

  14. The Jewish diaspora

  15. Early History • Canaanites & Philistines until about 1020 BC • Conquest of these groups by Israelites • About 450 yrs. of Jewish control over Judea and Samaria ending in 587BC • Beginning of diaspora • Control by the Babylonians, Syrians, and Romans for the next 1000 yrs. • Control by Muslims for the next 1,300 yrs., although Christian crusaders gained control of a coastal strip from Gaza to Lebanon for about 100 yrs. • By 1900, about 11% of the total Palestinian population was Jewish

  16. Ethnic Homeland • To your offspring I will give this land (Genesis 12:7) • All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever (Genesis 13:15) • I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it (Genesis 15:7) • To your descendants I give this land (Genesis 15:18) • The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you (Genesis 17:8) • Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies (Genesis 22:17)

  17. Diaspora as judgment? • I will lay waste the land, so that your enemies who live there will be appalled. I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins.  (Leviticus 26:32-33) • But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.  (Deuteronomy 28:36, 49;  30:16-18)

  18. Return to homeland as sign of piety • The king of Assyria deported Israel to Assyria and settled them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River and in towns of the Medes. This happened because they had not obeyed the LORD their God, but had violated his covenant – all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded. They neither listened to the commands nor carried them out.  (2 Kings 18:11-12)

  19. 1917: Balfour Declaration Arthur Balfour = British Foreign Secretary • “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine…”

  20. Early 20th c. History • Zionist movement grew from a hearth in Switzerland, claiming the right to Palestine as a Jewish homeland • British officially support this movement (see Balfour Declaration) • British defeat the Ottoman Empire in WWI and supervise the Palestinian Mandate, promoting Israeli resettlement after a 2,500 year hiatus • 1930s: Jewish population doubles causing Arab unrest, beginning of tension

  21. Loss of Palestinian Territory

  22. World War II 6 million Jews were killed under Hitler’s programs of forced confinement, relocation, starvation, labor and extermination This leaves a profound imprint on European and American culture and society with regard to attitudes regarding racism and anti-Semitism.

  23. Concentration camps Gate of Auschwitz: “Work makes one free” source: http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/holocaust/photoessay.htm Based on a map by Jen Rosenberg. Base map, U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. http://history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust/blmap.htm

  24. Warsaw Ghetto (jailing a community) Children scaling the ghetto wall to get food for their families: http://www.historywiz.com/ghetto.htm http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/MAPS/map007.htm

  25. Mid 20th c. History • After WWII European anti-Semitism was not eliminated • The only country willing to take very many Jewish refugees was the US • most of the rest migrated to Israel • 1947: UN takes control of Palestine and proposes partition plan rejected byPalestinian Arabs • 1948: Conflict breaks out and Palestinian Arabs are aided by Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Transjordan (Jordan); Jews fight back and gain about 33% more territory, proclaiming the founding of the new state of Israel • 1948-1951: Jewish population in Palestine doubles again

  26. Late 20th c. History • Some 800,000 Palestinian refugees pour into Gaza (under Egyptian control), West Bank (under Jordanian control), and elsewhere • Israel gains control over Gaza, West Bank, Golan Heights, and Sinai (1967 Six Day War), then cedes Sinai to Egypt • Israel agrees to grant Palestinian autonomy in Gaza and West Bank in 1978, but control is maintained in the name of defense • Means of asserting territorial control: construction of settlements and checkpoints, demolition of houses belonging to family members of known Palestinian combatants

  27. Loss of Palestinian Territory

  28. Likud party • Took power in 1996 (under Ariel Sharon) • Describes Zionism as “the liberation movement of the Jewish people” • Supports continued construction of new settlements and the expansion of existing settlements • Opposes the creation of an autonomous Palestinian state • Supports the idea of a “self-governing” Palestinian people but only in the framework of Israeli control of transportation infrastructure, water, and other resources as well as Israeli military control

  29. Expansion of Jewish-controlled territory 1947-1992

  30. Palestinian refugee camps • 59 camps throughout Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Gaza and the West Bank • 1.1 million Palestinians in camps • Currently sustained by the UN • Camps are packed with people, 100,000 in the ½ sq. mi. Jabaliya camp • ½ of the people in the camps are children • Another 3.4 million refugees living outside of camps

  31. Casualties of the conflict

  32. The “autonomous” West Bank A collection of islands separated by Israeli settlements and checkpoints Sources: http://www.mideastweb.org/map_israel_settlements.htm http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1634.shtml

  33. Checkpoints in “Palestinian-controlled” territories

  34. Impact of Checkpoints Source: International Checkpoint Watch, http://www.canadazone.com/icw/impact.htm

  35. Loss of territorial control Sources: http://snapshots.palestinechronicle.com/snapshots.php?gid=40&page=1&aid=644 http://www.gush-shalom.org/thewall/

  36. What Each Side Wants

  37. What the Israelis want • A complete end to all attacks in Israel and on settlers and soldiers in the occupied territories -or- • International acceptance of Israel’s right to maintain and expand existing settlements in Judea and Samaria (Israel plus the West Bank and Gaza) • Ability to construct roadblocks, walls, and fences in the occupied territories to protect Jewish settlers • Control over all of Jerusalem including the temple mount and Al-Aqsa Mosque • Control over water resources in Judea and Samaria, as well as in the Golan Heights

  38. What the Palestinians (under PLO/Arafat) want • An independent state on 22% of the territory of the original Palestinian Mandate • Borders that would correspond to the pre-1967 alignment • Removal of settlements and roadblocks in the occupied territories • Shared control of Jerusalem • Ideally: “Right of return” for the refugees of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and their descendents

  39. US involvement

  40. US involvement • As the de facto head of the UN, the US has taken the lead in protecting Israel against Arab & Soviet aggression • The US took a stand opposing the description of zionism as “a form of racism” at the World Conference on Racism in 2001 (a similar declaration was passed as a UN General Assembly Resolution in 1975 but repealed in 1991) • Some 5 million Americans are Jewish; many Jews and non-Jews have sympathy for the Jewish side of the conflict • More Americans are Muslim than Jewish, but these persons currently have less political and economic influence in US society

  41. Not all American Jews support Israel’s military strategies

  42. Fiscal dimension of US involvement • Israel has been the largest recipient of US foreign assistance in post-WWII period • In the late 1990s Israel was receiving about $3 billion annually from the US govt. in the form of economic assistance • In the late 1990s Israel was receiving another $2 billion annually from other US sources (philanthropy and private loans) • Israel receives further US assistance in the form of military support in Israel and throughout the Middle East, and loans with repayment waived

  43. Judea & Samaria Zionism Balfour Declaration Homeland (ethnic homeland) Palestinian Mandate Partition Plan Occupied Territories West Bank Gaza Strip Golan Heights Checkpoints Vocabulary

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