INTRODUCTION

The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is one of the world’s most enduring conflicts, with the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip reaching 54 years of conflict. Various attempts have been made to resolve the conflict as part of the Israeli–Palestinian peace process.

Public declarations of claims to a Jewish homeland in Palestine, including the 1897 First Zionist Congress and the 1917 Balfour Declaration, created early tension in the region. At the time, the region had a small minority Jewish population, although this was growing via significant Jewish immigration. Following the implementation of the Mandate for Palestine, which included a binding obligation on the British government for the “establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” the tension grew into sectarian conflict between Jews and Arabs. Attempts to solve the early conflict culminated in the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine and the 1947–1949 Palestine war, marking the start of the wider Arab–Israeli conflict. The current Israeli-Palestinian status quo began following Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian territories in the 1967 Six-Day War.

Arabs saw the creation of Israel as a part of a conspiracy to move them out of their land. Consequently, in 1948, the Arab states of Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Syria declared war on Israel.

Note: It’s interesting to note here that India opposed the UN resolution and Gandhi called it as a crime against humanity. But India recognized Israel in 1950.

At the end of the war between Israel and Arab countries, Israel emerged victoriously. Moreover, it could increase its territory to a larger extent and it marked the beginning of the expansionist policy of Israel. As a consequence of the war, a large number of Palestinians either flee or were forced to move out of Israel and settle in refugee camps near Israel’s border. It was the beginning of Palestine refugee crisis which ultimately led to the creation of a terrorist organization PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) in 1964.

UNITED NATION’S ROLE REGARDING THE CONFLICT

But a different international consensus took shape in the UN following the June war and Israel’s subsequent occupations. Resolution 242 began with a statement emphasizing “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every State in the area can live in security.” While referring to the Palestinians only in the context of refugees, rather than reaffirming their national rights, the resolution unequivocally called for “the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.” The resolution was drafted largely by the four powers of the Security Council — the limited reference to Palestinian rights was a reflection of U.S. influence on the process. And for another two years or so, the same powers operated within the UN to shape the direction –and the limits — of Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy.

For years following the 1967 war, the UN voted over and over in favor of an international peace conference, under the auspices of the UN, with all parties to the conflict (including the Palestine Liberation Organization which emerged as a serious force after 1967) to solve the Israel-Palestine conflict once and for all. But the U.S. always voted no. By about 1969, Britain and France, the former colonial powers of the Middle East but now colonial has-beens, had largely ceded influence to the Cold War’s main contenders, the U.S. and the Soviet Union. In the UN context, it was increasingly only Moscow and Washington who played a role in orchestrating and limiting the diplomacy.

After the death of Nasser in September 1970, Egypt’s new president, Anwar al-Sadat, began strong peace overtures to the U.S., believing only Washington could pressure Israel to return the occupied Sinai. By the summer of 1972, Sadat went even further: he expelled the 15,000 Soviet military advisers from Egypt, providing Washington with an unmistakable signal of Cairo’s intentions.

But it proved insufficient to break through. Egyptian diplomats, even after the dramatic Soviet expulsion, received an icy reception in Washington. Sadat began to believe that only a limited war could create the necessary pressure for an Israeli-Egyptian settlement.

The strategic significance of the Middle East was increasing already, as U.S. defeat in Viet Nam loomed. In May 1973 King Feisal of Saudi Arabia made clear to President Nixon and to Henry Kissinger that the Saudis needed Arab allies to help defend U.S. interests in OPEC, and that he could not find such allies as long as the U.S. backed Israeli occupation of Arab lands. U.S. oil companies agreed. U.S. control of Middle East oil provided not only enormous profits but important U.S. leverage over Western Europe and Japan, for whom the U.S. served as guarantor of oil access. Kissinger, a long-time associate of the Rockefeller family of oil barons, agreed that changes were needed, but was unwilling to risk a major collision with Congress by suddenly pressuring Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories.

As it turned out, the Egyptian and Syrian leaders were just then beginning plans for what they thought would be a limited war designed to create just the sort of crisis that could lead to more serious changes in political alliances and on the ground. On October 6, 1973, Egyptian troops launched a surprise attack across the Suez Canal into the Israeli-occupied Sinai, while Syrian troops stormed the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The Arab members of OPEC announced a 25% cut in oil production, and an embargo on oil shipments to the U.S.

Aishwarya Says:

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