What are the main milestones in the emergence of the Palestinian problem and the Arab-Israeli conflict?

Résumé du document

In January 2006, the Islamic militant group Hamas won the Palestinian Parliamentary elections, with 42,2% of the votes. The election in Palestine of a group that remains committed to an armed struggle, the destruction of Israel and retaliatory attacks on Israeli civilians shows that nearly sixty years after the creation of the State of Israel, the co-existence of Palestine and Israel is still problematic in the Middle East. When did this Palestinian problem start to emerge and how did it became a more general conflict between Arabs and Israel? According to Cleveland, in the 1880s, "Zionist claims to the same territory inhabited by Palestinian Arabs lay at the root of the conflict over Palestine? . How did these conflicting claims over a territory cause the emergence of an Arab-Israeli conflict that spaned more than one century of political tensions and open hostilities with "Jordan, Egypt and Syria, whatever their mutual animosities, ... aligned against Israel? ? How did this conflict generate five wars and create over 1 million refugees? How did it produce misunderstanding and bitterness among the various parties involved and repercussions throughout the Middle East and the world at large?

Extraits

[...] their own political elite, who seemed to profit from their plight; . the British, who appeared unwilling to prevent their expulsion from the land; and Zionists who were perceived to be at the root of their problems”[22]. The Wailing Wall disturbances in 1929[23] and the great revolt of 1936-1939 especially sharpened the gap between Jews and Palestinian Arabs and revealed the depth of Palestinian resentment. Because of this climate of violence, a British Royal Commission headed by Lord Peel was created in 1937 to investigate the cohabitation of Jews and Arabs and “concluded that there was no prospect of the Jews and Arabs living side by side and of reconciling their national aspirations: it therefore recommended the partition of Palestine into a Jewish state, a continued Mandate for Jerusalem and the annexation of the remainder of Palestine to Transjordan”.[24] The Jewish community was prepared to contemplate such a solution whereas the Palestinian Arabs reacted violently to this report. [...]

[...] After World War II “Zionist forces emerged stronger and enjoyed much greater sympathy; they were more determined than ever on an independent, internationally recognised, Jewish state.”[27] During the Second World War, the Jewish community “commited itself to the British war effort against Hitler; but also attempted to subvert the White paper of 1939 and to prepare for an armed confrontation with Britain once Germany was defeated”[28]. In 1945, the Jewish population in Palestine began armed opposition to the Mandate authorities. This struggle was led by the nascent Israeli army, the Haganah[29], and concentrated primarily on breaking the barrier against the so-called ‘illegal' immigration. The British Mandate then ended in 1947. [...]

[...] PLO charter (http://www.netaxs.com/~iris/plochart.htm) : “Article 19 : The partition of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of the state of Israel are entirely illegal because they were contrary to the will of the Palestinian people and to their natural right in their homeland.” Yasser Arafat was president of the PLO from January 1996 to November 2004 Reverse acronym for the Arabic HTaF, meaning Palestinian Liberation Movement Halliday, Fred, The Middle East in International Relations (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2005), p.121 Smith, Charles, Arab-Israeli Conflict' in Fawcett, Louise International Relations of the Middle East (Oxford : Oxford university Press 2005), p Goldschmidt, Arthur and Davidson, Lawrence, A Concise History of the Middle East (Boulder : Westview Press, 8th edition, 2006), p Halliday, Fred, The Middle East in International Relations (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2005), p.119 Kissinger Hussein Smith, Charles, Arab-Israeli Conflict' in Fawcett, Louise International Relations of the Middle East (Oxford : Oxford university Press 2005), p Smith, Charles, Arab-Israeli Conflict' in Fawcett, Louise International Relations of the Middle East (Oxford : Oxford university Press 2005), p Ibid., p Ibid., p. [...]

[...] On 6 October, Egypt and Syria attacked Israeli forces in the Golan heights and Sinai Peninsula. For Egypt, aim was not to destroy the Jewish state but to restaure Egypt's political credibility, at home and internationally”[66]. Israeli forces fell back in the Golan Heights but ultimately stopped the Syrians. The initial success of Egypt was thwarted by Israeli counter-attacks that led the Israeli occupying the west bank of the Canal. Kissinger[67] attempted to build peace by negotiating Israel pullback accords with Egypt and Syria in 1974, pursuant to Security Council Resolution 338, passed on 22 October 1973. [...]

[...] But it is clear that the of the emergence” does not mean the of the Arab-Israli conflict”. Many milestones of the conflict could have been evoked in this essay like the first intifada 1987 or the Gulf War in 1991, but we used the date 1979 as the period in which the Palestinian problem and the Arab-Israeli conflict were shaped in similar terms as we know them today. Bibliography Readings - Smith, Charles, Arab-Israeli Conflict' in Fawcett, Louise International Relations of the Middle East (Oxford : Oxford university Press 2005) - Cleveland, William L., A History of the Modern Middle East (Boulder : Westview Press, 3rd edition, 2004) Ch - Goldschmidt, Arthur and Davidson, Lawrence, A Concise History of the Middle East (Boulder : Westview Press, 8th edition, 2006) Ch. [...]