Israel-Palestine : War Chronology and its Impact.: A wise man once said, “Happy nations have no history”. By this, we can simply infer that countries which have experienced very few terrible things like wars, famine, etc are content and happy. Something must have popped in your mind. Why are we discussing this? We all are well aware of the Israel-Palestine conflict. It is an elephant in the room. A problem that people try and ignore but it is so big that we cannot get away with it.
The reason behind the Israel-Palestine Conflict
Some of us think that this problem (Israel-Palestine) or war, a more appropriate word, has escalated recently. But no, the war is decades old and has been haunting the natives of both the nations.
The World War ended with the murder of around 6 million Jews by Nazis and its allies, this was termed as “The Holocaust”. As a consequence of this, the Jews demanded a separate nation, a nation where they could live freely without any fear.
The Jews considered Palestine as their ancestral home. So, what went wrong? Well, this didn’t go well with the Arabs and their neighbors. They considered this as unfair and couldn’t digest the fact that a separate nation is being carved out for Jews.
Another reason behind the wars between both the nations is that the city of Jerusalem is considered holy by both Christians and Muslims and Jews getting possession of Jerusalem was something which Arabs couldn’t digest and this resulted in the escalation of conflict between Israel & Arabs.
The decision to partition Palestine between the Arabs and the Jews was taken by UN. The decision faced opposition from the Arabs whereas the Jews accepted it halfheartedly. The Arabs considered Palestine as their home and were of the opinion that they should be given the control of Palestine as a whole and were adamant to settle for nothing less.
Instead of looking for solutions to this problem, the countries chose to resolve it through a war. The war took place in 1948 and ended with Egypt and Jordan controlling Gaza and West Bank respectively. Israel was now the new residence of the Jews. Let us now go back in time and have a brief look into the major Israel-Palestine conflicts post-1948.
Israel-Palestine War Chronology
1967: Israel, Jordan and Syria joined hands to attack Egypt. The six days war results in Israel conquering West Bank, east Jerusalem, Gaza, Golan Heights and Sinai.
1972: While participation in sports involves people competing against each other without any hard feelings. A group of Palestinian gunmen by the name Black September took Israeli team as hostage during the Munich Olympics. 11 Israeli athletes were killed by Palestinian gunmen, two of them were murdered on the site while 9 were murdered during a failed rescue operation.
1973: Israel was attacked by Egypt, supported by Syria – a perfect example of friends turning foes because six years back, Israel and Syria had fought together against Egypt. Israel emerged victorious against the two in this war.
1976: German and Palestinian gunmen hijacked an Air France Airbus A300 having 248 passengers on board, holding more than 100 Israelis and Jews as hostage. The hijackers demanded 40 Palestinian and affiliated militants imprisoned in Israel and 13 prisoners in four other countries in exchange for the hostages. A successful operation was conducted by Israeli commandos at Entebbe Airport in Uganda to free the hostages.
1982: Israel and its allies murdered Palestinians in large numbers at camps in Beirut.
1990: Permission of emigration to Israel was granted to the Jews by Soviet Union.
1994: Israel gave up most parts of Gaza and West Bank. A peace treaty was signed between Jordan and Israel.
2002: Post series of suicide bombings by Palestine, Israeli Army launched Operation Defensive Shield on West Bank.
2003: Within a span of one year, World Powers like US, Russia, European Union along with UN proposed to make an independent Palestinian State thereby putting an end to the attacks carried out on Israelis by Palestinians and clearing out the Jewish settlements on the West Bank, a proposal which was accepted by both the nations.
Although there have been numerous conflicts between the two nations post the above-mentioned events, a major war was started in the year September 2015 and lasted till the June of 2016 and was infamously known as Intifada of the Individuals.
US President Donald Trump’s decision in 2017 to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel came as a shock to many. This decision didn’t go well with the Arabs and some Western Allies.
Impact of the War on the Civilians
The wars and skirmishes between Israel and Palestine require some serious introspection and thinking. Wars never give, they only take. They take lives, ruin the economy and adversely affect the natives of countries involved. The Infrastructure of the fighting nations is ruined and turned to dust. The countries fall short of resources as most of them are invested in war.
People of warring nations are forced to migrate and especially the ones who live near the war zones. The fact that thousands and millions of lives are taken away by wars can never be ignored. Wars create turmoil in the lives of the natives and development & education takes a back seat.
Wars solve no problems. Some serious action needs to be taken to restore peace in that area. Hopefully we will see light at the end of the tunnel and someday normalcy will be restored. At last I would like to summarize by re quoting AJ Muste,” There is no way to peace, but peace is the way”.
