Middle East Conflicts

It can be said that Holocaust, which took over 6 million Jewish lives accelerated the move to Palestine of skilled workers, intellectuals, as well as technology and finance resources. As a fact, Holocaust gave Zionism a strong moral content that led to the creation of Israel. In turn, among Palestinian appeared an opinion according to which the Palestinians should pay for crimes of Europeans toward the Jews. As a result of this contradiction the war between Jews and Arabs began. The difference between Arab and Jewish can be explained by following example: the Jews called the events of 1948 (especially proclamation of Israel State) as war for independence, while as Arabs called this events Al-Nakba, which can be translated as “catastrophe”. It can be said that international community tried to solve Arab-Jewish conflict in Palestine under the influence of the UN and decided to divide the territory into two states – Jewish and Arab. Jerusalem should become a neighborhood of two nations, controlled by the international community. Under this plan, the Jews retreated 55% of Jerusalem’s territory, including the unpopulated Negev. Most Zionists accepted the plan on the basis the assumption that the main thing – is a legal countable base for Jewish sovereignty. On the internal meetings, David Ben-Gurion did not hide his intentions at the first opportunity to expand boundaries of the state. That is why the Declaration of Independence of Israel did not include a definition of boundaries of the state, and Israel is in fact a state without defined borders to this day. However, the Arab world did not accept the plan section, as seen in it the attempt of UN to divide the Palestine, which does not belong it between Western and socialist countries. Moreover, according to the UN plan, the Jewish minority, which at that time numbered a third of the population of Palestine, was given more than half of the territory, as described in Middle East Conflict.

I presume that it is essential to note that the war, which began between Jews and the Arab countries, was accompanied by ethnic cleansing by both parties of the conflict. As a fact, each side tried to capture the territories, free of the population belonging to the other side. As a rule, conflicts of this type (known in our time as “ethnic cleansing”) are inevitably accompanied by transfer and other heinous acts. War of 1948 was initial stage of the conflict, in which each party pursued its own goal. The Jews sought to create a mono-national state with the maximum possible area, in turn, the Arabs wanted to destroy the Jewish-Zionist state and establish their own state. Today, international community considers different scenarios to resolve the conflict. In particular, many politicians consider the idea of creation of a single bi-national state from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River. However, in my opinion, it is not real because, firstly, the majority of Israelis will never agree to the elimination of the State of Israel and, secondly, the majority of Palestinians will not give up the idea of establishment of an independent Palestinian state. This is illusion and this illusion can be dangerous, because it undermines the efforts to implement the principle of “Two states for two people”. In addition, this legitimizes the idea of settlements and settlers activity. If a bi-national state will be found, it will be a next period of struggle between two nations, as stated in Middle East.

To sum it up I would like to say the conflict between Jews and Palestinians has a long history. Each nation has its own interest to build a state on this territory. I think that in order to achieve the peace, both nations should actively negotiate and find acceptable to all compromise. In my opinion first of all, both nations should accept the right of other side for existence and its own state within this small territory. In particular, the representatives of all segments of Israeli and Palestinian society should accept this and show mercy free of the myths and prejudices. In my opinion Israel society should understand that the Zionist construction of Palestine, with all its positive aspects, was accompanied by the infliction of pain and injury for Palestinian people, especially during the “Al-Nakba period”. This requires from Jews to recognize the responsibility and reimburse of the harm to the Palestinians. Moreover, the peace treaty will have sense only if both parties will agree with it de jure and de facto. It is essential to note that it will happen if the peace treaty will satisfy the basic national interests of both sides and will not cause damage to their national pride. Nowadays, the situation is based on the principle of peace contract, but it should be based on the following principle: “Two states for two people”. I believe that only in this case Israel and Palestine will support peace and neighborly relations.