Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, specifically East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip intensified Palestinian resistance by the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), which was established under Egypt’s auspices in 1964, and other Palestinian groupings, but a Jewish settlement program in the occupied areas as well. Extremism and injustice on both sides of the divide was not far behind. The First Intifada or popular uprising against the Israeli occupation (1987–1993) started in the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip after an Israeli military truck collided with a civilian car, killing four Palestinians. While the intifada saw Palestinians engage in resistance and civil disobedience, it neither brought the Palestinians independence and statehood nor gave the Israelis the security they sought. However, it opened the door to a series of diplomatic moves in the form of the Madrid Conference of 1991, the Oslo Accords of 1993, the Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty of 1994, the Oslo II Accords of 1995 between Israel and the PLO that gave the Palestinians control over parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Wye River Memorandum of 1998 that facilitated the withdrawal of Israeli forces from portion of the West Bank, the Sharm a-Sheikh Agreement of 1999 that established a timetable for permanent peace settlement between Israel and Palestine, the historic Camp David II Summit of 2000 that almost resolved the conflict, and Taba negotiations of 2001 when Israelis and Palestinians discussed Palestinian refugees, borders, security, and the future of Jerusalem. The positive effects of these peace moves were brief as Israel continued to consolidate its control of Palestinian areas by building more settlements and hardening its security measures and as the Palestinian Authority was hesitant to face its internal challenges, including the radicalization of some Palestinian factions, e.g., Hamas and Islamic Jihad. In the words of Guy Ben-Porat (2006),
Israel was concerned with the Palestinian Authority’s lack of commitment to combat fundamentalist terrorism and the continuation of inflammatory anti-Israeli propaganda in the Palestinian media and schools. Palestinians were frustrated by Israeli ←21 | 22→military checkpoints across the West Bank and Gaza and perceived the continuation of building in the settlements as an Israeli attempt to determine unilaterally the borders of the final agreement. (pp. 192–193)
The Second Intifada, the al-Aqsa Intifada (2000–2005), broke out, putting Palestinian communities under further Israeli siege. In 2002, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon approved the construction of a physical barrier that would separate Israel from the West Bank. For Sharon, it was impossible for Israel to annex the entirety of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip while simultaneously remaining a Jewish State. This security barrier, called the separation or apartheid wall by the Palestinians, divides their communities and blocks their travel routes. Around 95% of it is built from electronic fences, patrol roads, and observation towers. The other 5% of the wall is 8-meter-high concrete.
With international attention on the issue came proposed solutions. In June 2002, President George W. Bush called for an independent Palestinian state living peacefully alongside Israel. His speech became the basis of the Roadmap for Peace a year later, which consisted of ending the violence, halting settlement activity, reforming Palestinian institutions, accepting Israel’s right to exist, establishing a viable, sovereign Palestinian state, and reaching agreement on all contending issues by 2005 (U.S. Department of State, 2003). This was intended to be supervised by a joint committee that included the U.S., Russia, the European Union, and the UN.
Talks of peace resumed but were soon halted by an increase in violence. There was a realization that Israel could not remain a Jewish state while continuing its occupation. In 2004, Sharon decided to evacuate the Gaza Strip. Although Israel claimed that its unilateral withdrawal made it unoccupied territory, the occupation still remains as Israel exercises effective control over the region. Disagreements within Israel about the unsuitability of the Likud Party to run the country and about the future of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank caused Sharon to leave Likud in 2005 and form the Kadima Party. Following a stroke in early January 2006, Sharon was replaced by Ehud Olmert. That same month, Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary election, thus beating the governing Fatah and causing a crisis that led Hamas to take over Gaza.
The Annapolis Peace Conference in 2007, which brought together Israeli Prime Minister Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, resulted in an agreement that followed the roadmap to a permanent two-state solution, but it was not long that both sides reached a dead end instead. ←22 | 23→As tensions increased between Hamas and Israel at the end of 2008, Israel launched “Operation Cast Lead” into Gaza and occupied parts of it for one year. Soon thereafter, an Israeli election brought back the right-leaning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to power. He conditionally endorsed the creation of a Palestinian state but did little to nothing to advance it. For its part, the Palestinian Authority announced its intention to create a Palestinian state within two years. In 2011, Abbas petitioned the UN for the acceptance of Palestine as a member, but it was voted in as an observer state in 2012. This opened the doors for Palestine to have the opportunity to approach the International Criminal Court to take action against Israel for its illegal practices against Palestinians.
As in 2008, hostility between Israel and Hamas erupted again in 2012, with 60 rockets fired from Gaza into Israel and Israel responding by launching “Operation Pillar of Defense” against Hamas. The tragedy repeated itself again in 2014 when Palestinian militants launched a series of rocket attacks against Israel and Israel’s response was predictable with another penetration into Gaza called “Operation Protective Edge.”
On March 30, 2018, Palestinian protestors in the Gaza Strip began the “Great March of Return” along the border with Israel. Their demand is for Israel to lift its blockade on Gaza and to allow Palestinian refugees to return to their homes in historic Palestine.
Israel and Palestine need to come together to find a solution, but there has not been any real progress in this direction. The majority of Israeli Jews feels that peace is not possible with Palestine. Many believe that the problem should simply be managed instead. In Palestine, the political split between Fatah and Hamas stands in the way. The different views on how to go about the process toward a solution halts any potential progress.
Arab-Jewish, Israeli-Palestinian Relations: By the Numbers
Arab-Jewish, Israeli-Palestinian relations suffered badly for over a century as they underwent episodes of violence, including riots, wars, military campaigns, and terrorism. Between 1920 and 1948, there were 5,203 killed and 15,910 injured among the Arabs and 732 killed and 599 wounded among the Jews. The successive Arab-Israeli wars (of 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973, in addition to the War of Attrition in 1968–1970, the Lebanon War of 1982, and the Lebanon War of 2006) were heavy in casualties with 78,079 killed ←23 | 24→and 38,900 injured among the Arabs and 12,872 killed and 25,058 injured among the Israelis (Jewish Virtual Library, n.d., Vital Statistics).
During the First Intifada, in excess of 1,162 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces and tens of thousands were wounded. In contrast, around 150 Israelis were killed by Palestinians, including approximately 100 civilians (B’Tselem). Al-Jazeera.com places the number of Palestinians casualties at more than 1,300 killed and more than 120,000 wounded (Shahin, n.d., para. 1). The toll of the Second Intifada was heavier, with more than 4,000 people killed: 3,223 Palestinians and 950 Israelis (BBC News, 2005). The injured numbered 8,611 Palestinians and 8,000 Israelis (Jewish Virtual Library, n.d., Vital Statistics). As for the three bloody confrontations between Israel and Gaza (i.e., 2008–2009, 2012, and 2014), Palestinians had 3,692 killed and 16,000 injured and Israelis had 93 killed and 2,176 injured (Jewish Virtual Library, n.d., Vital Statistics). As a result of the “Great March of Return” or Gaza’s mass protests of 2018–2019 along Israel’s border, Israeli forces killed 263 Palestinians (UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 2019) and wounded 25,477 Palestinians (Middle East Monitor, 2018). Last but not least, clashes between Gaza and Israel on May 3–5, 2019 resulted in the killing of 25 Palestinians in Gaza, both civilians and militants (Heller and Akram, 2019, para. 2), and the wounding of 154 (Chernick,