Tuesday 5 August 2014

Israel Palestine Conflict - Views from both sides

I have been reading and hearing about Israel Palestine conflict for many years now and I always wondered why is it happening and when will it end. I have tried to summarize the point of views of both the parties and I haven't at any point tried to make a judgment about who is right and wrong. This article is only informational. I am jotting down various information that I came across from both sides. but first some facts:
1. Before all this happened, hundreds of years ago, the land today called Israel - Palestine - all Muslims, Christians and Jews lived in harmony there.
2. According to what is written in Bible and Quran, the land is Holy for all the communities i.e. Jerusalem.
3. Earlier a lot of Jews used to live in Europe and the pre WW - II Jewish population in Europe is estimated to be 9-11 million. On Hitler's command, around 6 million Jewish people were killed during the massacre called Holocaust which forced all the Jewish population to leave Europe and move to some other country.
4. Because of religious sentiments attached to the Holy land and ancestral connections, the European Jews to escape from prosecution and to establish their own state moved to this land under the movement called Zionism.
5. Since then, there have been wars, fights, attacks, killings to decide whose land it really is.
Now the other information from internet/ news articles and lectures from various academicians which I am jotting down:
1. Arab Palestinians claim this land to be their own as it is they, who have been staying here ever since and Jews are just migrants who came from Europe after Holocaust and were a minority before. Before Holocaust, they say the number of Christians plus Jews was less than 20%.
2. Jews, also claim this land referring to Jewish - Roman war, prior to which the land was predominantly Jewish. Also, on the religious sentiment that Bible mentions that land was given to Jews by God himself.
3. Arab Palestinians say that it has always been their land and is occupied by Jews and illegally named as Israel, the state for Jews and Arab Palestinians have been dragged out of their own land.
4. Jews claim that they are ready to share the land with Arab Palestinians and history has shown that a 2 state solution has been offered by many parties including Britishers and UN but was never accepted by Arab Muslims/ Hamas/ Arab nations (I don't know what really to say here because I don't want to generalise).
5. The occupying of West Bank and Gaza by Israelis after the 6 day war (in which Arab nations who planned to attack Israel from all side got defeated by Israel in 6 day war after which Israel took control of Gaza, West Bank and some part of Egypt which it returned later) has been referred by Israelis as their only way to save themselves as leaving them with Egypt and Lebanon would have given these countries easy access to attack Israel again and again.
6. Palestinians claim that as violating International Law where the small land available to them was also occupied by Israel. Although it withdrew from Gaza in 2005 but because Gaza is still surrounded by Israeli forces from all directions, this region is sometimes called 'open air prison'.
7. The problem of Palestinian refugees - The refugees from Israeli state who are Palestinians and now are refugees seem to have nowhere to go. The Israelis claim that if they take all the refugees into their land, Jews will become minority and later it can again turn into a internal war situation. The Arabs claim that this land is rightfully of these refugees and should be given to them. The refugees have also been staying in all the neighbouring countries of Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. It has also been claimed by some that Arab countries intentionally do not want to give citizenship to these refugees because they want to create pressure using the high number of refugees created by Israel.

The problem seems too old and never ending and the victims to all this are, the innocent civilians of both Israel and Palestine and some neighbouring nations as well. I wish and hope peace for the region.

1 comment:

  1. Bhaiya, this has also two point of views. Israel and its supporters say that they are doing everything in retaliation and have no interest whatsoever in fighting if only they can live in peace. Other is Israel itself is active in war. Today only the news said that PA has approached CCI for war crimes against Palestine and Palestine is actually fighting to save themselves from Israel's killing their citizens and frankly yes, I don't believe in black and white.

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