The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a prolonged, deep-rooted conflict

between identity groups that is now more than a century old. The
origins of the conflict can be traced to the advent of political
Zionism at the end of the nineteenth century (Halpern, 1967). The
core of Zionist ideology was to establish a Jewish homeland and
ultimately a Jewish state in Palestine. A result of this was the
massive immigration of Jews into Palestine in the early decades of
the twentieth century, purchasing land, building settlements and
social institutions, and clearly intending to establish a Jewish
homeland and ultimately a Jewish state in Palestine (Kelman,
1999).

In 1917 Britain issued the Balfour Declaration which was a classified

formal statement of Britain's support for the creation of a Jewish
national home in Palestine without violating the civil and religious
rights of the existing non-Jewish communities (Encyclopædia
Britannica, 2008). In 1920, Britain received a provisional mandate
over Palestine, which based on the Balfour declaration, was
formalized in 1922. The British were to help the Jews build a
national home and promote the creation of self-governing
institutions. The mandate provided "The Jewish Agency for
Palestine," that would represent Jewish interests in Palestine to the
British and would promote Jewish immigration (Israel and Palestine:
a brief history).

The Arab nationalists opposed to the Balfour declaration. In 1920,

1921 and 1929 serious attacks were committed against Jews
(Gavron, 2004). This reaction reflected their fear that the Arabs of
Palestine would be dispossessed. The years 1936-1939 mark a
turning point in Jewish-Arab relations (Flapman, 1979). During this
period, the Jewish immigrants clashed with the Arab population of
the Palestinian land who were responding to the growth of Arab
nationalism and to the construction of a specifically Palestinian
identity (Kelman, 1999). All the existing Arab political parties united
in a common platform calling for an end to Jewish land purchases
and immigration, the termination of the British mandate and the
declaration of an independent state (Flapman, 1979). In 1939, the
British government issued the White Paper, which supported the
creation of an independent Palestinian state governed by Palestinian
Arabs and Jews in proportion to their numbers in the population by
1949. A limit of 75,000 Jewish immigrants was set for the five-year
period 1940-1944. The White Paper was defied by the “Jewish
Agency for Palestine” which organised illegal immigration to
Palestine from occupied Europe, as a response to the persecution of
Jews by Nazis and to suspicions for their extermination. (Israel and
Palestine: a brief history).

In 1947, The United Nations Special Commission on Palestine

recommended that Palestine should be divided into an Arab state
and a Jewish state (Gavron, 2004). The Jews accepted the UN
decision, but the Arabs rejected it. The establishment of the
independent state of Israel in 1948 was followed by war between
the two parties (Flapman, 1979) which led to the displacement of a
large segment of the Palestinian Arab population from their homes
inside the part of Palestine that became the State of Israel (Kelman,
1999). Part of the Palestinian population remained in Israel and
became Israeli citizens. A large segment of the Palestinian
population lives in the West Bank and Gaza, the two parts of
Palestine that remained in Arab hands after the 1948 war. Part of
the population of the West Bank and the majority of the population
of Gaza consists of refugees from the 1928 war and their
descendants, many of them living in refugee camps. Between 1948
and 1967, there was no contact between Israelis and West
Bank/Gaza Palestinians. This situation changed radically when Israel
took possession of these territories in the 1967 war. Since then,
Israel has occupied the West Bank and Gaza. In 1993, the Oslo
agreement was provided for the creation of a Palestinian Authority
which would have the responsibility for the administration of the
territory under its control (West Bank and Gaza strip). It also called
for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from parts of the Gaza Strip and
West Bank. Israel, however, remains in control and its military
forces conitnue to guard movement across the borders between
Israel and the territories, and to protect the Israeli settlements that
have been built in the territories (Kelman, 1999).

After having attempted to briefly present the history and facts

associated with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I would like to
discuss my personal approach to the issue. Almost every time I
have come across the words terrorism-terrorists in books, journal
articles, on T.V., etc., I find out that they are linked to Arabs or
Muslims in general or more specifically to Palestinians. I have never
heard or seen these concepts associated with Israelis/Jews. At this
point, I would like to refer to Saint Augustine’s story (cited in
Chomsky, 2002): When Alexander the Great captured a pirate, he
asked him how he dared molest the sea. The pirate replied: “How
dare you molest the whole world? Because I do it with a little ship
only, I am called a thief; you, doing it with a great navy, are called
an Emperor”.

From my perspective, Saint Augustine’s story reflects the

relationship between Israel and Palestine. Everything seems to
come down to how we define the concept of “terrorism”. Let me be
more specific. The term “terrorism” came into use at the end of the
18th century, primarily to refer to violent acts of governments
designed to ensure popular submission (Chomsky, 2002). In 1937,
the League of Nations defined it as “all criminal acts directed
against a State and intended or calculated to create a state of terror
in the minds of particular persons or a group of persons or the
general public”.

The UN further refined the definition in 1999, when they applied the
term terrorism to “any criminal acts intended or calculated to
provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or
particular persons for political purposes”. They found such acts
“unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political,
philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or other nature
that may be invoked to justify them” (Roberts, 2002).

The above definitions make sense to me and I assume to most

people. However, we should not ignore, the first point I made in this
essay, that in order to understand a conflict, one needs to know the
socioeconomic and political context in which the conflict occurs.
Along the same lines, in order to understand an extreme action of
violence such as suicide bombing, one needs to be aware of the
socioeconomic and political conditions in which the perpetrator lives.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has a history of more than one
hundred years. It started with the illegal immigration of Jews in
Palestine and it gradually led: to an Independent Israeli state which
occupies the land whose major part used to belong to Arab people;
to the displacement of a large number of Arab people from their
homes inside the part of Palestine that became the State of Israel;
and finally to the military occupation of West Bank and Gaza, which
were the only pieces of land that legitimately remained in Arab
hands after the Oslo agreement (1993).

Before I make my personal comments, I have to refer to the

comments of the senior UN relief official, Jan Egeland, and Jan
Eliasson (2006), then Swedish foreign minister: “Access by air,
sea, and land has been virtually cut off for Gaza. The movements of
goods and peoples have practically ceased. Supplies of electricity
and water, interrupted by Israeli Defense Forces attacks on electric
power stations, are irregular and insignificant. Civilian
infrastructures have been affected. Gaza today remains dependent
on outside sources for its food and commercial supplies. Hygienic
conditions are deteriorating, while access to potable water is
inadequate. With a Palestinian economy in continuous freefall, we
must expect a more severe deterioration in sanitary conditions.
Imagine: You are a mother or a father in Gaza, living in a space
inferior to a quarter of that of greater London (1,620 sq. km) with a
population the size of Leeds (1.49 million inhabitants). You cannot
leave this territory, nor import nor export products. Your children
live in continuous fear of violence. Shortages of essential goods,
including water, increase the propagation of contagious illnesses
and reinforce the problems of daily life. Every day, as many as 185
artillery shells strike your territory. Every night, you witness blind
rocket attacks on Israel by militant groups. You know that when the
reprisals come, you and your family will not be spared their effects”.
And then they suggested: “A cessation of hostilities must be
accompanied by freedom of movement for civilians and
humanitarian workers. For the Gaza population, the perception of
being trapped, confined, of living in a cage is intolerable and feeds
the feeling of despair. The November 15, 2005, agreement on
movement and access must be wholly carried out”.

Two years after, nothing seems to have changed. Palestine is still a

“huge cage” for Arab people. Psychological theories may be able to
explain to some extent the perpetuation of the discussed conflict,
but a deeper understanding requires an awareness of the political
and socioeconomic conditions that gave rise to this conflict and
have been sustaining it. To conclude, I want to put forward the
following questions and challenge everyone involved in this conflict
as well as everyone not involved, to come up with an answer. Since,
any peaceful means have not provided a solution and the Israeli
state keeps on defying International conventions and associated
agreements by occupying a piece of land which does not belong to
them (a fact that has the consequences described above), what
kind of a peaceful choice is there left for the Palestinian people in
order to gain their right to live a descent life in their country under
conditions of security and peace? Moreover, based on the above
definitions of terrorism, why is it only Palestinian suicide bombers
who are characterized as terrorists? What about the Israeli attacks
on Palestinian civilians (Pilger, 2007) that, apart from adults, have
killed hundreds of children as well? I assume it’s because Palestine
reflects the “pirate” and Israel reflects “Alexander the Great”…

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