International conflict between states/regions or within states/regions

International conflict between states/regions or within states/regions

I choosed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because represents the most probable source for the World War III. In this conflict we have two main opponents: Israel and 'Palestinians'. I say Palestinians because they are a people, but without a country.

We might ask what is Palestine? Who are the Palestinians? If we know who they are, we must know why they fight. Because this conflict is so familiar to all of us, but few trully understand what stays behind the TV screens. That's why I will try to make people aware of: the consequences of the decisions taken by the colonial powers such as British Empire and French; of the power of Zionism and the roots of the actual instability in the Middle East. We all know something about:

In Europe we have two types of Jews: Sephards and Ashkenazi, names given by the location of the groups: Ashkenazi are the Jews from Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Germany and Sephards are the Jews from Italy, Spain, France. Shortly, Ashkenazi are the Eastern Europe Jews and Sephards are Western Europe Jews. Not all of us know that presently, the majority of the global jew population is represented by Ashkenazi, that are descendants not of the Hebrews from Palestine, but a population converted to Judaic religion, from a country caled Khazaria. The Sephards are the real Hebrews/Jews, coming in Europe through the African pathway. So we have the minority of the global Jew population (Jewry) - Sephards, and the Ashkenazi, the majority.

Between the time of the First Kingdom of Israel and the Muslim conquests of the 7th century, the Land of Israel fell under Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Sassanian and Byzantine rule. Following years of persecution at the hands of Byzantine rulers, the Jews revolted in 610 CE, allying themselves with the Persian invaders. After capturing Jerusalem, the Persians and Jews killed thousands of Christians and destroyed many churches. The Byzantine emperor Heraclius recaptured Jerusalem in 628-629 CE, and was responsible for the massacre and expulsion of the Jews. During the initial Muslim conquests, in 635 CE, the Land of Israel, including Jerusalem, was captured from the Byzantine Empire. Control of the region transferred between the Umayyads, Abbasids, and Crusaders throughout the next six centuries, before falling in the hands of the Mamluk Sultanate, in 1260. In 1516, the Land of Israel was conquered by the Ottoman Empire, which ruled the region until the 20th century. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel) The Ottomans tolerated their presence in Palestine, in exchanges for the big bribes given, that allowed them to live here, and if neccesary to provide a place where to immigrate in case of problems encountered in the European countries. When Ottomans didn't allowed them to immigrate and the bribe was not a solution, they pretended to have Russian citizenship (that being true, not other scam).

Now we got to the World War I and the Jews situation in the 'neighborhood'. The Ottoman Empire entered in the war on the Germany side, so they have to deal with Russian and the British and French colonial empires. They had to capitulate finally and so, half of a century legacy in the area died. The Ottoman Empire died, but it reborned under a new name - Turkey with his first leader, Kemal Ataturk (the Father of the Turks), as leader. Not all of us know that Kemal was Jew.

In 1919 was created the League of Nations that has given under the regimes of mandates (1922), the Palestine, Syria to the French and British colonial empires. The Palestine back then, was made of the land of Israel and Transjordan (future Jordan). During the World War I, the British agreed with French to delimitate their spheres of influence in the Middle East (the famous Sykes-Picot Accord (1916)) and in the same time negotiated (British) in 1915 with Arabs (represented by Sharif Husein ibn Ali) to allow the creation of an Arab empire (encompassing the entire span between Egypt and Persia, with the exception of imperial possessions and interests in Kuwait, Aden, and the Syrian coast). To these we have to add the promise made by the British foreign minister Arthur Balfour to Baron Walter Rotschild, in 1916, that a homeland for Jews could be settled in Palestine (which later will become the Balfour Declaration (2 November 1917)). So, the British wanted the Arabs and Jews to fight against the Ottomans, without being any cooperation between Jews and Arabs during the war. They were all fighting their own war for different purposes, but after all, they were divergent without knowingly.

In the antebelic period, the Jews immigrated to Palestine, setting their homes, building new cities (Jaffa, Tel Aviv), cooperating in agricultural collectives called Kibbutz, in larger and larger numbers. These things were done by purchasing land from the Arabs, without the full support of British authorities. But that is a different story. The Jewish community (the Yishuv) was expanding and Arabs were beginning to feel uncomfortable with British and Jews. They (Arabs) revolted, there was riots and the British didn't have a solution. But the solution was so hard to find because of the British duplicity. They couldn't make anymore empty promises, the Jews were angry and so the Arabs. The lie must stop, and a solution ready found. The White Chart allowed the Jews to immigrate during the antebelic period, the Zionists (they were primarily Ashkenazi) demanded their rights on Palestine according to Balfour Declaration, the Arabs protested. So we come to a death point, vicious circle. Now the British said it's time to create Transjordan (the Eastern part of Palestine), maybe the Arabs will stop demanding their rights on the land. Now the Jews were getting angry because they believed they could obtain all Palestine. The Arabs (the Palestinians) weren't satisfied with the creation of Transjordan. They wanted their own state, not a place to live in Transjordan (because now will assist to a certain breakup between the Palestinians and the newly state of Transjordan). Now we fully comprehend how hard must had been for all the parties involved.

Eseu: Letonia - asezare si limite, mediul Natural, potentialul uman, economia Eseu: Viitorul geopolitic al Rusiei

The World War II began. The British and Russians were loosing the war, France was occupied. The Jews promissed British they would get the American support in order to further secur their ownership over Palestine.

Hitler tried to get rid of the German Jews: firstly by coming to an agreement with Jews (to leave Germany in exchange for their fortune, and so many escaped - 250.000 with approximation), secondly by trying to determine British and French to accept the Jewish immigrants, to find them a country where to establish in their colonial empires, but they refused. The third option was the so called Shoah (Holocaust). The lack of moral fortitude by all sides (including British, French and even American) led to the disaster that followed. There are two main versions  regarding the number of Jews that died during Holocaust: 3,3 million according to the so called Revizionists (but there are also Jews that concluded with this number) and 6 million according to the official Jewish, Zionist version.

It is said by the scholars that Holocaust is the reason that stands behind the agreement of partition of Palestine and the very existence of Israel is the result of a gesture made by the European countries in order to compensate the results, the consequences of the so called Anti-Semitism, this made not on the European soil, but on Arab soil. We generally forget that even the word 'Anti-Semite' is a non-sense, just another of the many lies with which we are indoctrinated by the Jewish propaganda, because Jews as Arabs also are Semits. So Semits are murdering eachother, not Semites are killed by Anti-Semites (Palestinians/Arabs). Also we have not to forget that during the World War II, Arabs were on the German side, not the British. So, they must pay for their sins.

The 1948 Palestine War began. We have two sides: the Jews and the Arabs. Militarily speaking we have on one hand, the Haganah, Stern Faction and on the other hand, the Arab Liberation Army (Transjordan, Egypt, Syria, Iraq) that supported the Palestinians. The Israelis won their so called War of Liberation, and Palestinians called the outcome al-Nakba (the catastrophe), because of the huge numbers of displaced people and the failure of their nationalist aspirations, due to their los in the war.

No Arab (Palestinian) state was created, the remainder of the West Bank was annexed by the Jordan and the Gaza Strip was placed under Egyptian military rule. Between 700.000 and 750.000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from the area that become Israel. This is the beginning of the diplomatic issue of Palestinian refugees and Palestina for Palestinians.

In the course of the Six Day War in June 1967, Israel captured the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) from Jordan and the Gaza Strip from Egypt. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine)[1]

According to the CIA World Factbook, of the ten million people living between Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea, about five million (49%) identify as Palestinian, Arab, Bedouin and/or Druze. One million of those are citizens of Israel. The other four million are residents of the West Bank and Gaza, which are under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian National Authority, which was formed in 1994, pursuant to the Oslo Accords. As of July 2009, approximately 305,000 Israelis live in the 121 officially-recognized settlements in the West Bank. The 2.4 million West Bank Palestinians (according to Palestinian evaluations) live primarily in four blocs centered in Hebron, Ramallah, Nablus, and Jericho. In 2005, Israel withdrew its army and all the Israeli settlers were evacuated from the Gaza Strip, in keeping with Ariel Sharon's plan for unilateral disengagement, and control over the area was transferred to the Palestinian Authority. However, due to the Hamas-Fatah conflict, and to local elections, the Gaza Strip has been in control of Hamas since 2006. Even after this disengagement, the UN, Human Rights Watch, and many other international bodies and NGO's consider Israel to be the occupying power of the Gaza Strip because Israel controls Gaza's airspace and territorial waters, and does not allow the movement of goods in or out of Gaza by air or sea. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine) [1]

But what about Palestinian leadership? PLO is an umbrella organization, made up of a handful of other organizations, like al-Fatah, as-Saiqa and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, organizations that are very different in many fields, but they all share the same goal of an independent Palestinian state. Earlier the planned Palestinian state was intended to be on the very same ground where Israel was, while they now define the new Palestinian state inside the borders of the areas occupied by Israel since 1967, the West Bank, Gaza strip, plus East Jerusalem. The PLO is made up of three bodies, the Executive Committee, exercising central control; the Central Committee, the counsel; and the Palestine National Council, which was earlier the Palestinian people's parliament in exile. PLO has performed both military and political actions. Military, the organization has been involved in actions against both Israeli troops and against innocent civilians, not only Israelis, but people of many nationalities. Politically, the organization has been only partly democratic, dominated as it has been by one person for almost all its history: Yassir Arafat. Yet, this political structure have proven to be effective enough to be implemented as a structure for parliamentarism of the new Palestinian state, called Palestinian National Authority for the transitory period from 1994 to 2000 or longer. (http://lexicorient.com/e.o/plo.htm)[2]

We have to mention Hamas - a Palestinian offshoot of the parent Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1987 by Sheik Ahmad Yasin. During the late 1980's, Israel supported Hamas in an effort to check the growing authority of a secular and nationalist PLO. Over the past three decades, Hamas has risen to proeminence, in part due to a well-organized network that provides Palestinians with social services and charity, and augments civil society.

Since 2003, the Palestinian side has been fractured by conflict between the two major factions: Fatah, the traditionally dominant party, and its later electoral challenger, Hamas. Following Hamas' seizure of power in the Gaza Strip in June 2007, the territory controlled by the Palestinian National Authority (the Palestinian interim government) is split between Fatah in the West Bank, and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The division of governance between the parties has effectively resulted in the collapse of bipartisan governance of the Palestinian National Authority (PA).

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution

Concluding, we have two parties engaged in direct negotiation:

• The Israeli government and
• The Palestine Liberation Organization, currently headed by Mahmoud Abbas.

There are prominent international actors involved in the conflict:

•  The Quartet on the Middle East - represented by a special envoy that consists of United States, Russia, E.U. and United Nations. The group was established in Madrid in 2002 by the Spanish Prime Minister Aznar, as a result of the escalating conflict in the Middle East. (http://wapedia.mobi/en/Quartet_on_the_Middle_East)[3]
•  The Arab League - proposed an alternative peace plan.

From Oslo Accord to The Quartet on the Middle East Roadmap

• The Oslo process (1993 , for all its shortcomings, had only two parties, Israeli and Palestinian, ultimately joined by a third, the United States.
• On April 30, 2003, following the swift collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime in Baghdad, the Bush administration released the latest plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace, a document entitled 'A Performance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.' The roadmap is yet one more effort to engineer a two-state solution. It is another attempt to achieve, by diplomacy, what has yet to be achieved by history: Palestinian acceptance of Israel. In this respect, it replicates the flaw of the Oslo process. But it has its own flaws, which stem from its genesis. The roadmap is the work of a committee of four, who have just spent the better part of a year working at cross-purposes over Iraq.
• A round of peace negotiations began at Annapolis, Maryland, United States, in November 2007. These talks were aimed at having a final resolution by the end of 2008.
• Direct negotiations between the Israeli government and Palestinian leadership began in September of 2010 aimed at reaching an official final status settlement.

Conclusions

• I believe that Israelis have to recognize Hamas also as participant to the negotiation, not only PLO. Instead Hamas has to renounce conducting terrorist attacks for ever, ceasing the Intifada for ever. They should recognize Israel as a state. It would eventually serve as an example for the other terrorist groups part of PLO and also for Hezbollah.
• Palestine as a whole, for Palestinians is no longer an option. West Bank and Gaza Strip represents the Palestinian state.
• The Israeli should agree to the opening of a corridor on the Israeli soil from the Gaza Strip in order to facilitate the transport between Gaza Strip and West Bank, this step further on leading to a more cooperative approach between Hamas and Fatah. They have to work together for the well-being of the Palestinians, creating a legislation that will promote democracy in the light of Islam.
• Israeli should support the economic development of the Palestinian state, ensuring education in the Israeli universities not only for Jews, but also for Palestinians.

I agree with The Quartet on the Middle East Roadmap vision, but all the countries have to make concessions in order to get rid of this hot spot in the Middle East. Israel and Palestine must go on together, without remorse.

The two peoples have Abraham as a common ancestor. If religions  (Judaism and Islam) promote forgiveness and isn't just a propaganda used in order to mask the differences between its people, why a common future would not be possible?