the israel-palestine conflict

For nearly a century, Israel and Palestine have been locked in a territorial dispute, with, in essence, two states claiming the same land to be under their jurisdiction. This conflict, surrounding who owns what land and how the land is to be controlled, has been dominating headlines and generating controversy since its beginning. "Though both Jews and Arab Muslims date their claims to the land back a couple thousand years, the current political conflict began in the early 20th century," writes Vox on the history and emergence of the conflict. "Jews fleeing persecution in Europe wanted to establish a national homeland in what was then an Arab- and Muslim-majority territory in the Ottoman and later British Empire. The Arabs resisted, seeing the land as rightfully theirs. An early United Nations plan to give each group part of the land failed, and Israel and the surrounding Arab nations fought several wars over the territory. Today's lines largely reflect the outcomes of two of these wars, one waged in 1948 and another in 1967."

The 1967 war gave sovereignty over the Gaza Strip and West Bank to Israel, although those territories are now governed by Palestinian authority and under Israeli occupation. The main approach being considered to mitigate the issue is a two-state solution, along which Palestine would be given the Gaza Strip and West Bank, while Israel would retain the rest of the land. Another possibility is a one-state solution, in which all the land either becomes Israeli or Palestinian, but this alternative has been denounced despite its plausibility as the outcome of this conflict. Dissent has also cropped up surrounding the Zionist ideology; the core facet of Zionism is the belief that Jews should have their own nation, a state to themselves. Arabs and Palestinians are overwhelmingly opposed to Zionism, mostly because Jews are afforded privileges that others aren't. They view Zionism as "a species of colonialism and racism aimed at appropriating Palestinian land and systematically disenfranchising the Palestinians that remain."

While Israel has peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, its Muslim-majority neighbors generally support Palestinians. Its relations with Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, and Iran are especially weak. Some of this hostility has led to warfare, and Israel has fought in multiple wars over the Israel-Palestine issue. Syria has held a grudge against Israel since 1967, when Israel seized a region known as the Golan Heights. Syria is also an ally of Iran, one of Israel's biggest diplomatic opponents. Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, funded by Iran, plays a pivotal role in Lebanese politics, making it all the more unlikely that Lebanon will have any part in negotiations between Israel and Palestine. Turkey has more recently aligned itself with Palestine. Following an Israeli raid on a Turkish aid mission to the Palestinian-claimed Gaza Strip, Israel-Turkey relations exacerbated, and relations have remained poor despite the countries having formally renormalized in 2016. Iran entirely fails to recognize Israel's legitimacy as a state and has provided funding to other opponents of the Syrian national cause. Another key player in the conflict is Saudi Arabia; while Saudi Arabia largely supports Palestinian claim to the territory, both Israel and Saudi Arabia share Iran as a common enemy. When it comes to the United States as it fits into the picture, the US and Israel are diplomatically friendly, with the US remaining a major proponent of Israel. While the countries' relations started out fragile, during the Cold War, the US supported Israel, viewing it as a threat to Soviet influence. The American public is immensely supportive of Israel, and the government has bestowed upon it $118 billion in aid, with American delegates to the UN Security Council blocking resolutions critical of Israel. 

Jerusalem has been at the epicenter of the conflict, because Palestine claims East Jerusalem, while Israel has dismissed Palestinian claim over this chunk of the city and advocates for a unified Jerusalem as its capital. In other words, Palestine claims East Jerusalem with West Jerusalem belonging to Israel, while Israel claims the entirety of the city. And because of this disagreement, there’s been a lot of issues appearing with international recognition of Palestine as a sovereign state and of Jerusalem as a divided capital. The United Nations has championed the acknowledgment of East Jerusalem as Palestinian territory. US President Donald Trump recently announced his executive decision to move the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, intrinsically failing to address the fact that Jerusalem doesn’t belong just to Israel. There was actually legislation passed in 1995 that would facilitate this embassy move, but there was a loophole in the law allowing presidents to sign a waiver every six months delaying the move if they felt it would have a detrimental impact on national security interests. Every president in the past has evaded authorizing the move, and while Trump signed the waiver two times before, he’s now relocated the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has grown to become one of the largest, most contentious diplomatic crises, with some criticizing Israel's excessive use of force against Palestine and others advocating for Israel's right to retaliate when threatened. The UN recently voted to condemn Israel for being overaggressive in clashes along the Gaza border, in which 123 Palestinians have been killed and more than 14,000 wounded since March. In a best-case scenario, Israel would relinquish its claims to East Jerusalem, Israel would remove its settlements from the West Bank, each country would restore diplomatic relations with each other and establish embassies, Israel would work to foster economic growth in the West Bank, and Palestinians would move out of the Gaza Strip and into the West Bank. Until we reach a two-state solution, this conflict will burn on just as it has for nearly a century, and Israel and Palestine will remain stark enemies fighting for international recognition.