Israel-Palestine: The Conflict and The Promise
Israel-Palestine, the land of milk and honey, a center for three of the world’s major religions. Human history has been shaped by events that have taken place there and without it, life as we know it would not look the way it does. No other land has been as influential as Israel and it continues, to this day, to be a focal point in world events. Unfortunately, within the land’s awesome and remarkable history lies many occurrences of great suffering and death. From the Israelite first conquest of the land to the Crusades, many people have lost their lives fighting for control over the Holy Land. Today is no different.
Currently, there is a struggle for control of the land, mainly between two parties: The Zionists and the Palestinians. The Zionists believe that the land rightly belongs to the Jewish people because of their historic ties with Palestine and because it is, and always has been considered their homeland. The Palestinians believe they have claim to the land because they have lived there for hundreds of years.
I am not going to attempt to determine which side is “right” in this essay; I do not know enough about the history of the conflict to accurately analyze the situation. Also, the situation is far more complex than a conflict where there is one “good side” and one “bad side”; there are too many people groups, (e.g., Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze, non-religious, religious, Zionist), that are involved in or affected by the situation for this to be true. What I will do, though, is show how both sides suffer from the conflict, look at some of the proposed solutions, and then share how I think we, Israelis, Palestinians and outsiders alike, should respond to the conflict.
Before I proceed, I want to explain how the country is currently set up. The land of Israel-Palestine consists of a Jewish state, Israel, which is recognized by the UN as a sovereign entity, and a Palestinian section, which is split in two by the Jewish state. To help you visualize the geography of the split, here is a map of the current boundaries. The Palestinians are not seen as Israeli citizens and do not receive the same rights as the Israelis. The Palestinian territory claims its own state-hood but many countries, including Israel, do not recognize it as a separate state. For a more in-depth look at the conflict, Thomson Reuters Foundation News provides a great summary.
Most stories that I see about the events that take place in the land, portray one side being the innocent victim of the other, when in reality, both sides experience pain. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, from 2000 to 2007, at least 5,848 people have died in result of the conflict. This includes civilians and soldiers on both sides of the issue. It is important to look at both sides of an issue. We too often forget that the information given to us by the media can be agenda-driven and full of bias.
I want to start off by talking about Israeli suffering because I believe that it is overlooked often. Since 2000, there have been over 1,000 Israeli deaths resulting from the conflict. Innocent citizens are killed frequently, sometimes by stabbing and other times by suicide bombers. Rockets and missiles have also been fired into cities and towns, killing many others; according to the Human Rights Watch, in 2012, about 1500 rockets were fired into Israel from Palestine over a period of eight days.
When I visited Israel this past summer, I was able to talk to a Messianic Jew named Richard about his thoughts on the conflict. He told me that before the Israeli government built walls separating Jewish and Muslim sections of the city, there were daily terrorist attack attempts in Jerusalem and that he always had to be cautious, always fearing that he would be killed. There was a sense of fear among the people in the land. Bomb shelters are constantly being made in preparation for future attacks. Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa is just one of the many places in Israel that is attempting to prepare for future attacks. After the Second Lebanon War when 60 rockets fell within a half mile radius surrounding Rambam, they began the process of building an underground parking garage that doubles as an emergency hospital. Rambam is able to convert the three-level garage into a fully functional, 2000-bed hospital within 72-hours.
The Palestinians also suffer greatly. Movement between different towns in Israel and Palestine is limited because of Israeli security fences. Many families have been torn apart because of the fences, unable to see loved ones for years at a time. While the fences have greatly reduced terrorist attacks, many innocent people are affected by them.
Innocent civilians are killed in the crossfire between the Israel Defense Force (IDF) and Palestinian military forces. Corey Gil-Shuster, an Israeli Jew who interviews different people groups in Israel on different topics, asked Palestinians the question “How much do you suffer under occupation on a scale of 1–10?” and most of of them replied with a 10. The video provides first hand testimonies from the people and most of them rank their suffering at a 10.
During my time in Israel, I had the pleasure of listening to an Arab-Christian pastor named Taysir Abu Saada share some stories about his life in Palestine. He said that a few years ago, IDF soldiers brought a tank in front of his house and broke into his room while he and his wife were sleeping. They pointed automatic rifles at him and told him that an informant said that Saada was storing weapons in his house. Saada told me that this is a common occurrence that the Palestinians go through.
Sometimes it is hard to exactly know who to blame for the travesties that occur. Saada also told me about the deaths of two Arab teens that converted from Islam to Christianity. He was discipling the teens in their new faith when one night he got a phone call informing him that the two boys were bombed in their homes. Apparently an informant told the IDF that the boys were storing guns in their homes so the IDF, without investigating the claim, decided to just bomb the house with the boys in it. Saada was devastated to hear the news and later found out that the informant most likely told the IDF this because the boys left Islam to follow Jesus.
While the IDF was clearly in the wrong for the bombing, the informant purposely gave the IDF false information to make the innocent teens look like terrorists.
No matter which side you look at, there is suffering. Many people have lost their lives and many more live in fear. Regardless of which side holds most of the guilt, one thing remains clear, something needs to change if this suffering is ever going to end.
What is it that needs to change, though? Because of dichotomy and hatred between the groups, how can things ever get better? There must be a solution, right? Or is the conflict doomed to continue until one side ceases to exist? While there are many ideas flying around about how to settle the problem, there are two major proposals to resolve the fighting occurring in the land: a one-state solution and a two-state solution. Unfortunately, the two plans are far from perfect.
The first solution I will look at is the “one state” solution in which there is one singular government over all of the land where all of the people are equal citizens. To me, this solution is the most ideal; if the people could somehow put aside their differences and live in harmony with one another, then Palestinians and Israelis living together in one country would be no problem. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that this would work because there are so many people against it and even if everyone was for it, there are many disagreements on how it would be run.
From my experience talking with Israeli citizens, many that prefer this solution and would have no problem with the sections of Palestine to be absorbed into the State of Israel but some Palestinians won’t consider this and will only accept a Palestinian state. Corey Gil-Shuster, has another video where he asks an Palestinian man named Ahmad what he thinks the solution should be. He states that it should be a “one-state” solution and that it must be Palestine.
Unfortunately, for many Palestinians, this solution also includes the expulsion of Jews from the land. In Alan Dershowitz’s book “The Case for Israel” he explains how, even from the beginning, the Jews could not accept Muslim rule over them because the Muslim leaders “made it clear that most of the Jews would be transferred out of Palestine if the Muslims gained complete control” (47).
Even if this were to be the solution that the governments pursued, what would the new “one state” look like? Would the president be of Jewish linage or Muslim? How would all groups be represented fairly? How would the country be able to prevent elected officials from becoming corrupt and favoring one side over another? There are too many issues that must be addressed for this solution to be practical.
The second solution that has been proposed is the “two-state solution”. This solution suggests that the people should establish two different states, one Israeli/Jewish state and one Palestinian state. Personally, this is the solution that I think has the most promise. With this solution, the different sides would be able to govern themselves and would separate groups of people that seem unable to get along.
For many people on both sides though, this is unacceptable. Many Palestinian’s, including the Hamas group, an organization whose goal is to see Israel destroyed and a completely Palestinian state established, will not accept any compromise. Jeffery Goldberg, a columnist for the Bloomberg View, puts it perfectly in his article “Seven Truths About Israel, Hamas and Violence” when he says “It is impossible for Israel to do serious business with an organization that wishes it dead.” Also, it is not as if the people of both sides are geographically separated already; there are Jews spread throughout the Palestinian territories and there are Palestinians and Muslims spread throughout Israel. It would be very difficult to make boundary lines that both states would agree with.
When it comes to the practicalities of how the issue should be fixed, I admit, I do not know how it should be handled. The issue is complex and no decision will make every party involved happy. It seems as if it is not possible for the people to live amongst each other in peace. But I do think that there is a right way to respond to the events transpiring.
Up to this point, I have attempted to leave my personal beliefs aside, but I feel I can do this no longer; I am going to share how I view what is happening. I believe that there is a fate in store for the land that is out of our control, but I also believe we have a choice in how this fate comes to be.
I want to be as transparent as possible so let me start off by making a few things clear about what I believe. I have come to believe that the Tanach, commonly referred to as the Old Testament, and the New Testament writings are divinely inspired. I believe that they have constantly been accurate in predicting future events and revealing the Creator’s plan for Israel.
That being said, because of my belief in the scriptures, I am a Zionist, but only in the original definition of the word and not the current which holds that one must completely support the State of Israel. Zionism originally meant the belief in the “national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel.” I believe HaShem, the Creator of the universe, often referred to as the LORD, has made a covenant promise with the children of Israel and given to them the land of Israel as an inheritance for all of their future generations. We can see how this promise has manifested itself throughout history.
Since the Jews conquered Canaan, there have been a few times that they have been exiled from the land due to divine punishment but, miraculously, they have always been allowed to return after a time. The most recent of these returns began in the 20th century and is continuing today. Since the destruction of Jerusalem in the early 1st century, the Jews have been in diaspora around the world. While some Jews remained in the land, the majority did not. In the early 1900’s, the Jews began to migrate back to the land and eventually gained control of the land once again. (Here is a link to a more extensive timeline of the history of Israel). Now there are over 6 million Jews in the land, almost half of all the Jews in the world, and the number is growing every day. I do not think that this is by chance. After two thousand years of exile, HaShem is restoring the promise He made.
As a side note, I am by no means completely against the state, in fact, I believe it has done many amazing things and I wish to become a citizen one day, but the country has many problems and has made many mistakes. The State of Israel has, so far, been the instrument by which HaShem has gathered the children of Israel back into the promised land.
So, if it truly is HaShem’s will that the Jews are to be in and control the land of Israel, then there is nothing to stop it from happening. No matter how much people resist it, it will happen. But just because the ultimate destiny for Israel is set, that doesn’t mean that there is only one path to getting there.
As of now, it has been by bloodshed and war that the Jews have been able to gain control of the land once again — this is not to say that Israel has always been the one to instigate the fighting; both sides have been at fault — but it doesn’t have to be that way. There is nothing stopping all of the people in the land from living in peace but in order for this to happen, compromises must be made. The Israelis need to do what they can to find ways to sympathize with the Palestinians; they have now been in the land for a long time and deserve equal rights with the Jews living there. The Palestinians need to realize that HaShem has made a promise to the Jews and that they are there to stay, whether they want them there or not.
I know that this is a sensitive subject and there are many interpretations of how to view HaShem’s relationship with Israel. But if Muslims, Christians and Jews all claim to worship the one God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, then one thing is clear, HaShem loves Israel and the Jewish people. He said to Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse” (Gen. 12:3) and in Amos He says he will soon “plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them” (Amos 9:15).
We, as people both inside and outside of Israel, must then do two things. The first is to continue to try to find compromise in such a difficult situation. While the fate of Israel might be set, the path to the fate might not be. Let us strive towards the peaceful route, not the chaotic. The second is to not be on the wrong side of the will of HaShem. Although both Babylon and Persia were used as tools by HaShem in the first exile of the Jews from the Land, Babylon was punished for being the one to exile Israel and Persia was blessed for being the one to bring them back. Let us be like Persia and bless the people and land of Israel, and in doing so, be blessed ourselves (Genesis 12:3).