Israel and the Palestinians: Overview

Introduction

Conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people has long been a major point of geopolitical tension, with complex roots and broad international consequences. The issue stems from competing Jewish and Arab claims to lands in the Middle East historically known as Palestine, which were exacerbated by European colonial involvement in the area into the mid-twentieth century. After World War II, the United Nations sought to divide these lands into separate Jewish and Arab states, which led to the formation of Israel in 1948 but met with staunch opposition from the Arab world. Multiple Arab military efforts to destroy Israel failed, and Israel subsequently took over the territories that had been designated for a Palestinian state. Left stateless, many Palestinians continued to oppose Israel and fight for autonomy, with some resorting to terrorist tactics. Israel tended to respond with controversial force of its own, while resisting calls to fully withdraw from occupied territories and allow the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

Perspectives on the ongoing conflict are diverse and nuanced. Pro-Israeli voices tend to argue that Israel is simply defending itself against terrorism, and point out that some Palestinian factions still openly call for the complete destruction of Israel. The pro-Palestinian view, meanwhile, holds that Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian territory and oppressing the Palestinian people. On both sides, however, there is a wide array of opinions, from extremists who support strict ethnonationalism to moderates who call for some form of power-sharing. Many international observers have continued to focus on a so-called two-state solution, in which a Palestinian state would coexist with the state of Israel. Yet while peace talks beginning in the 1990s made some progress in that direction, a resolution that meets the respective demands of both the Palestinians and Israelis has remained elusive and violence has continued to break out in the twenty-first century. Indeed, a surprise attack on Israel by the Palestinian militant group Hamas in October 2023 led to the region's deadliest fighting in decades.

The United States has often taken a close interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Historically, the US government has taken a largely pro-Israel stance, treating Israel as a key ally while designating major Palestinian groups as terrorist organizations. However, US presidents and other officials have also often played key roles in peace talks and treaties over the decades. American efforts to end the conflict reflect not only purely humanitarian concerns, but also national self-interest in stabilizing the Middle East to reduce international terrorist activity and maintain the region's oil production. Debate over US policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian situation is therefore nearly as complicated as the conflict itself. Some believe the US should remain a steadfast supporter of Israel, while others sympathize with the Palestinians, but there is much disagreement on specifics even among political allies.

Understanding the Discussion

Gaza Strip: A small territory on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea that was designated to become part of a new Palestinian state under the 1947 United Nations partition plan for the former British-held mandate of Palestine. Egypt controlled Gaza from 1949 until the 1967 Six Day War, after which Israel occupied the area. Israel officially withdrew its troops and settlements in 2005, but maintained a blockade of the territory.

Hamas (Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya): A Palestinian organization with political, military, and social wings. Originally a resistance movement, in 2006 Hamas became the ruling party in the Palestinian parliament. In 2007 it seized control in Gaza after breaking with rival Palestinian faction Fatah. Hamas has been designated a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States, and several other countries.

Jerusalem: A city considered to be holy ground by three of the world’s major religions: Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. Israel claims the city as its administrative capital, while the Palestinian Authority has also claimed it as the capital of the proposed Palestinian state.

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO): A Palestinian nationalist group considered the official coalition representing the Palestinian people. Formed in 1964 with the express purpose of destroying the Jewish state of Israel and establishing Palestine as an Arab country, the PLO officially accepted Israel's right to exist in 1993 and was in turn recognized by Israel. The PLO includes several smaller organizations (notably including Fatah), which in turn often have multiple subgroups of their own, including both political and militant wings.

Palestinian Authority: The internationally recognized governing body of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, established by the 1993 Oslo Accords. After the 2007 takeover of the Gaza Strip by Hamas, the Palestinian Authority only controlled the West Bank.

West Bank: A territory on the western side of the Jordan River, formerly part of Jordan, but captured by Israel in the Six Day War in 1967. About 40 percent of the territory is presided over by the Palestinian Authority, though it is officially under Israeli rule.

Zionism: A political movement that emerged in the late nineteenth century advocating the establishment of a Jewish state in the traditional “Land of Israel,” also known as Palestine. Zionism played a key role in the formation of the state Israel in 1948, and the term has since often been used to denote support for the Israeli government and military.

History

The history of the modern conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people has its roots in the early twentieth century, with the end of World War I and the dissolution of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. For centuries, the territory of Palestine had a majority Muslim population, with small minorities of Christians and Jews. In the late 1800s, a European Jewish movement known as Zionism emerged, and its adherents worked to establish a Jewish state in Palestine. Many Zionists began immigrating to the region.

During World War I (1914–18), Great Britain promised Arab leaders in the area independence in return for support against the Ottomans. After the war, however, Britain instead divided much of the region with France. Meanwhile, British authorities also voiced support for the creation of a Jewish state in the Balfour Declaration of 1917. British control over Palestine was later formalized by the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, officially creating an area known as Mandatory Palestine in 1920.

The Palestinian Mandate resulted in an influx of Jewish immigrants to the Arab territory beginning in 1922, which increased during the 1930s due to Nazi persecution of Jews in Europe. The growing Jewish presence in the territory angered many Arab inhabitants, who demanded independence and recognition as a state in 1937. After ten years of trying to quell the mounting violence from both Arabs and Jews, Britain planned to relinquish control of the Palestinian territory to the newly formed United Nations (UN). In 1947, the UN suggested the territory become two separate states, one Arab (comprising 45 percent of the land) and one Jewish (comprising the other 55 percent), with the disputed holy city of Jerusalem as an international territory that would be shared by both. Zionist leaders agreed to the plan while most Arabs rejected it as unfair, and an effective civil war broke out in Palestine.

When the Mandate for Palestine ended in May 1948, Zionist leaders immediately announced the formation of the state of Israel. A coalition of neighboring Arab nations quickly invaded with the aim of destroying the Jewish state. However, Israel prevailed and even expanded its territory beyond the borders of the 1947 UN partition plan, holding about 77 percent of what had been Mandatory Palestine. This included most of Jerusalem, even though Jewish leaders had agreed to the UN-proposed “corpus separatum” (separate body) for the city. The remaining 23 percent of former Mandatory Palestine consisted of the West Bank, occupied by Jordan, and the Gaza Strip, controlled by Egypt.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced during the 1948 First Arab-Israeli War, an event that came to be known as the Nakba ("catastrophe" in Arabic). Several refugee camps were established in Gaza, the West Bank, and neighboring countries, and the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) was established in 1949 to oversee them. Palestinian leaders would subsequently call for refugees' right to return to their homes as a key condition for a permanent peace agreement. However, Israel consistently refused this demand, noting that many of those homes were long since destroyed, making a return logistically impossible.

Israel continued to assert its dominance in 1967, when it began what is now referred to as the Six-Day War. During this war, Israel occupied both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, effectively taking over the entirety of the Palestinian territory. This conflict caused about 500,000 more Palestinians to flee into Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. The UN Security Council called for Israel to relinquish its control over its 1967 acquisitions and allow for the return of Palestinian refugees. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) emerged as a leading representative of the Palestinian people, including as a militant resistance group.

After the 1973 Yom Kippur War, neighboring Arab nations shifted away from trying to crush Israel in open warfare, but tensions remained high between Israel and the Palestinians. The United Nations continued to support the idea that the Palestinian people have the right to self-governance and national independence, and took actions such as granting the PLO official UN observer status in 1974. However, despite some negotiations between Israel and Palestinian leaders, violence continued to flare up. For instance, Israel invaded southern Lebanon in 1978 in an effort to root out PLO-affiliated militants launching cross-border attacks.

In the 1980s the Israeli government increasingly encouraged Jewish settlement in the West Bank and Gaza, further heightening the dispute over these areas. In 1987, the Palestinian people launched a resistance effort, or intifada (Arabic, often translated as “uprising”), against what they viewed as an Israeli occupation of their land. The intifada was not a government-sanctioned action, but rather an uprising organized by the citizenry. At first, the resistance involved mostly civil disobedience and other forms of nonviolent protest, but it quickly escalated to more violent means, such as throwing rocks and homemade explosives at Israeli troops. Though the PLO publicly claimed it was not behind the intifada, Israelis blamed the Palestinian leadership for the uprising; the US was among several nations that officially branded the PLO as a terrorist organization.

The 1990s saw major international diplomatic efforts to address the conflict. Following the 1993 Oslo Accords, which established that Israel would withdraw from Gaza and the West Bank over a period of five years, the PLO formed the Palestinian Authority (PA) as an interim government with municipal powers over the areas from which Israel was withdrawing. PLO leader Yasser Arafat was elected president of the PA, and he agreed to some more moderate policies, such as recognizing Israel's right to exist and renouncing terrorism. However, not all factions within the PLO embraced this shift. Notably, the group Hamas began to distinguish itself as a more extremist rival of Arafat's dominant Fatah political party, and continued to carry out attacks against both civilian and military targets.

Based on the language of the Oslo Accords, Israel’s withdrawal should have been completed by 1999, but for a number of reasons the pullout was delayed. A meeting in 2000 between US president Bill Clinton, President Arafat, and Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak did not resolve the dispute over the legitimacy of a Palestinian state, with Arafat walking out of the talks. This provided the driving force for another, much more violent intifada from 2000 to 2005. Israel officially withdrew from the Gaza Strip in September 2005, ending its military rule, but it maintained control over Gaza's airspace and coastline. The Palestinian Authority praised the withdrawal but said that the blockade still constituted an Israeli occupation.

Meanwhile, the 2005 Palestinian presidential election revealed growing divisions among Palestinians that would have significant consequences. Hamas protested the election of Fatah's Mahmoud Abbas, whose campaign had promoted the idea of peaceful negotiation and a nonviolent approach toward Israel. Hamas then won a victory in the PA's parliamentary elections of 2006, unseating Fatah as the majority party. A military conflict ensued in 2007, which ended with Fatah and Abbas being relegated to the West Bank while Hamas gained control of Gaza.

Following the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip, Israel and Gaza remained in a state of perpetual conflict. Hamas militants sporadically fired rockets into Israel, and Israel responded with military operations of varying size over the years, while maintaining a strict blockade of the territory. In December 2008, the Israeli military launched a full-scale military effort against Hamas forces in Gaza. The initial operation involved wide-scale strikes by the Israeli air force, followed by incursions of Israeli troops, tanks, and artillery into the Gaza Strip along the northern border. The conflict ended in January 2009 after three weeks, amid international condemnation of civilian deaths among the estimated 1,400 Palestinians killed. Thirteen Israelis died in the fighting. Israel reported a decrease in rocket attacks after the operation.

Western-led efforts to broker peace between the Israelis and Palestinians remained ongoing. However, after the failure of the 2000 peace talks hosted by President Clinton, progress on long-term peace negotiations was slow or nonexistent. The contours of the discussion generally continued to revolve around a two-state solution. But both Palestinian and Israeli leaders consistently set conditions for such an agreement that the other side refused to consider. The 2009 election of Benjamin Netanyahu as Israeli prime minister was also widely seen as a setback to the peace process, as he was a strong opponent of Palestinian statehood.

In 2010, US president Barack Obama attempted to restart peace negotiations between the two parties. Despite US pressure, Israel did not extend a moratorium on the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Abbas was highly critical of this move, stating that he could not be party to peace talks while settlement construction continued. Further talks in 2013 and 2014 also stalled. In 2014 Abbas and Fatah reached a reconciliation agreement with Hamas, angering Israel. Meanwhile, sporadic incidents of violence in the region continued.

In the summer of 2014, Israel launched a seven-week operation in which more than 2,000 Gazans and 70 Israelis were killed. Again, the goal was to stop rocket attacks into Israel, as well as to disrupt the network of military tunnels running throughout Gaza that Hamas had constructed; and again, the high number of Palestinian civilian deaths was decried in many quarters around the world. The United States and other Western powers generally supported Israel’s right to defend itself against rocket attacks. However, many human rights groups and other international observers argued that Israel's military assaults on Gaza, as well as the ongoing blockade, constituted collective punishment of the Palestinian people.

In 2016, the UN Security Council passed a resolution stating that Israel must cease settlement in the occupied Palestinian territories, calling the settlements "flagrant violation of international law." The United States abstained from voting on this resolution, while the other fourteen members of the Security Council voted unanimously in favor of it. The representative of the US delegation to the Security Council cited a bias against Israel within the UN as the reason for the abstention, noting that eighteen resolutions condemning Israel had been adopted in the General Assembly over the preceding year.

The election of controversial US president Donald Trump in 2016 led to a new dynamic in American policy toward Israel and the Palestinians. Trump signaled he would strongly support Israel, and Netanyahu's government sought to press this advantage on the international stage. Shortly after Trump took office in January 2017, Netanyahu approved the construction of approximately 2,500 new housing units in Israeli settlements in disputed territory. Netanyahu believed that Trump would be more amenable to the expansion of the settlements than Obama had been. Indeed, the Trump administration took a neutral stance on Israeli settlement activity, while previous administrations had officially condemned it.

In contrast, also in the early months of 2017, the settlement of Amona was evacuated by police after the Supreme Court of Israel found—more than a decade after legal proceedings began—that it had been illegally built on Palestinian land. The court rejected all appeals and ordered the settlement demolished. Netanyahu's right-wing government condemned the court's decision.

In December 2017, Trump officially recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and announced plans to move the US embassy in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem (which would be completed in May 2018). While Netanyahu and other conservative Israelis praised these actions, many others suggested they would only inflame tensions and undermine the US's role as a mediator in the peace process. Abbas said that Trump's recognition violated international law and encouraged the construction of Israeli settlements. Several US allies also disapproved of the move, seeing it as a break from international norms regarding Jerusalem.

Israel and the Palestinians Today

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict continued and even accelerated in the early 2020s. Israel formed a new unity government under Netanyahu in April 2020, and the administration drew controversy for claiming it would reestablish authority over the West Bank. Later that year, Hamas launched more attacks against Israel, triggering retaliatory air strikes by Israel in Gaza. Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain became just the third and fourth Arab nations to officially establish peaceful relations with Israel, a step hailed as a success by the Trump administration but condemned by many Palestinian leaders. Some observers even suggested that Israel's normalizing relations with more Arab nations might create backlash by further isolating Palestinians from the international community. US policy on the situation evolved again after President Joe Biden took office in 2021, as his administration reiterated a commitment to the two-state solution.

Israel was wracked by political discord in 2021, holding a fourth general election in just two years, and the deadlock contributed to a lack of progress on peace negotiations. Indeed, 2021 saw a significant uptick in violence, in part stemming from protests over planned evictions of Palestinian families in favor of Jewish settlers in Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. Renewed Hamas rocket attacks were followed by Israeli strikes on Gaza that May, which in turn in sparked further retaliation. An internationally brokered cease-fire brought an end to this round of conflict after eleven days. In June 2021, Netanyahu was ousted as Israeli prime minister by a coalition government led by Naftali Bennett. However, Netanyahu returned to power after another election in November 2022 and reiterated his right-wing nationalist policies, including increased Israeli settlement in areas legally considered Palestinian, which further escalated tensions.

Also in 2022, a controversial Israeli Supreme Court ruling enabled military eviction of large numbers of Palestinians from parts of the West Bank. Meanwhile, global economic turmoil and the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to severely deteriorating conditions for millions of Palestinian refugees. In late 2022 the UNWRA warned that it was struggling to provide essential services in refugee camps, and in 2023 it announced it was on the verge of complete financial collapse.

In October 2023, Hamas launched a major surprise assault into Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing hundreds of Israelis and wounding thousands in the deadliest attack on Israel in several decades. Over 200 Israelis were also taken hostage in what was widely denounced as a terrorist attack. Israel immediately declared war on Hamas and began air strikes and other operations, while also tightening its blockade of Gaza to prevent the inflow of supplies of any kind. Within days of the war's beginning, over 1,200 Israelis and more than 1,400 Palestinians had been killed, making it one of the deadliest outbreaks of violence in decades. A further 300,000 Palestinians were estimated to be homeless following the initial air strikes. The United Nations and various human rights groups warned of a mounting humanitarian disaster in Gaza.

International opinion was largely sympathetic to Israel immediately after the attack, and the Biden administration was especially supportive. However, sentiment began to shift as Israel's war on Hamas dragged on and civilian casualties in Gaza rose steadily. Controversy also surrounded reports that Israel (and the US) had prior knowledge of Hamas's plans yet failed to stop the attack. In the US, opinions on the conflict became a hot-button political issue—and, notably, one that did not always fall along typical partisan lines. For example, Biden was praised by some Republicans for his strong support of Israel but criticized by some fellow Democrats for not doing enough to address the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Accusations of human rights abuses by Israel on one side and anti-Semitism on the other circulated widely. Several countries also pressed the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza, and in January 2024 the court began hearing a case in which South Africa accused Israel of genocide against the Palestinians.

In early 2024 Israel suggested it would begin ramping down its large-scale military operations in Gaza, but fighting continued. The US continued to generally support Israel, while applying some increased pressure for humanitarian aid and de-escalation. US officials also emphasized efforts to prevent the conflict from spreading throughout the Middle East and beyond. Nevertheless, the war did show signs of widening internationally, including attacks on shipping in the Red Sea by pro-Palestinian, Iran-backed Houthi forces based in Yemen, which triggered retaliatory airstrikes by the US and Great Britain.

These essays and any opinions, information, or representations contained therein are the creation of the particular author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of EBSCO Information Services.

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