The Arab-Israeli Conflict

The Arab-Israeli conflict has been an issue for over 50 years. After the terrible events of the Holocaust, many people believed that Jews deserved their own homeland. In return, the United Nations (UN) proposed the division of Palestine into two independent states, Palestine and Israel. But, it has been a struggle to stay peaceful between the Palestinians and Israelis, because of the status of Jerusalem, Jewish settlements, and Palestinian refugees.

The status of Jerusalem is one of the major obstacles to a solution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. East Jerusalem has religious significance for both Muslims and Jews, and they believe that the city of Jerusalem is the “holy land” to both of their religions. During the Six-Day war, Israel had a complete military victory, in which Israel captured East Jerusalem and other territories. It claimed absolute control over Jerusalem and declared it as Israel’s capital. However, Palestine wants to establish their capital in East Jerusalem as well, because Palestinians represent a majority of the population in East Jerusalem. These factors point out the disagreement between Palestinians and Israelis, where they desire to have full control over Jerusalem and make it their capital.

Just like the status of Jerusalem, disputed Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories are an important issue too. There are more than 700,000 Israelis who live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the present day. This has been a huge population increase compared to 110,000 Israeli settlers back in the 1990s. Many Israeli settlers who use a large portion of the scarce resources of the area, swear that they will never accept Palestinian Authority, although all of the territories were once belonged to Palestine. Nowadays, the Israeli government continues to defend the settlements. These events show the unfair seizures of Palestinian territory by the Israelis, since these territories were not part of