PRESENT, PAST AND FUTURE OF THE PALESTINIAN-ISRAELI CONFLICT: A CHALLENGE TO THE UNITED NATIONS' COLLECTIVE SECURITY SYSTEM (PONTE JOURNAL, AP. 2016, English). (original) (raw)

PRESENT, PAST AND FUTURE OF THE PALESTINIAN-ISRAELI CONFLICT: A CHALLENGE TO THE UNITED NATIONS’ COLLECTIVE SECURITY SYSTEM

Dr. Sergio García Magariño
(Centro De Estudios Universitarios CEDEU-Rey Juan Carlos, Spain, treycinco@gmail.com)

Abstract

This paper may be divided into three parts. The first one offers a causal, holistic analysis of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The second one approaches this conflict as a case study so that, on the one hand, it may shed some light over the need for an unbiased and effective system of collective security 1{ }^{1} that would help resolve this kind of conflicts and, on the other hand, it may evince the arbitrary use of different principles when implementing measures - sanctions in particular - depending on the State or the interests at stake, with the concomitant problems it brings forward in terms of legitimacy and effectiveness of the system. Lastly, some possible lines of action for its resolution are explored. In spite of not abandoning the use of empirical and critical approaches, the study, due to its broad focus on the religious factor, adopts a mainly hermeneutic perspective. 2{ }^{2}

Keywords: Israel, Palestine, conflict, religion, international justice, collective security system.

1. INTRODUCTION

I In order to meet the goals set in the abstract, we will make a relatively profound exploration of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the factors at stake, in order to highlight its complexity and the impossibility of resolution, unless there be an effective international arbitration. Furthermore, echoing an empirical study on the use of the right to veto by the United States (USA) in the Security Council’s motions for resolution involving Israel since 1973 - developed by Pakistani Professor Dr. Masoor Akbar Kundidel - as well as using other databases, we will expose the ambivalent treatment that has been given to this case within the Security Council presumed to be an impartial guarantor of international peace and security. Finally, and in the light of the Israeli Operation Cast Lead, the way in which the Security Council diverts attention from some violations of international law by Israel will be displayed through a particular example. These last two points will serve simply as a general indicator of the systematic modus operandi with which the Security Council, depending on the States at stake - as said above -,

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  1. 1{ }^{1} In this paper we will not define the collective security system, for this was already done in another work: Sergio García, “Evolución de la noción de seguridad colectiva a la luz de ciertas circunstancias históricas”, in Seguridad y Defensa en el actual marco socio-económico, (Evolution of the notion of collective security in light of some historic circumstances. Security and Defence in the current social and economic framework), Instituto General Gutiérrez Mellado, 2011.
    2{ }^{2} The reasons for adopting this methodological approach are similar to the ones welded by Séverine Deneulin and Carole Radodi in “Revisiting religion: development studies thirty years on”, World Develpment, Vol. 39, 2011, pp. 45-54. ↩︎

follows different principles, recurrently generating a situation that cannot but undermine the legitimacy and effectiveness of the collective security system. 3{ }^{3}
Before starting the first aforementioned part, a few words should be said about what the Palestinian-Israeli conflict entails for the collective security system. In order to posit in objective terms the proceedings of this system, let us assess the attention and relevance given to a case concerning collective security, based on the resolutions issued about it by the Security Council. In this connection, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has been, from 1948 to 2011, in terms of resolution, the case receiving most of the Security Council’s attention. 4{ }^{4} As we consider the Security Council resolutions’ content during this time span, we are able to notice that every single year, excluding eight of them (1952, 1954, 1957, 1959, 1960, 1963 and 1964), this case has been present within them under divers denominations, such as “the Palestinian case”, “the situation in the Middle East”, “Israel-Lebanon”, “Israel-Egypt”, “Israel-Iraq” or “Israel-Syria”. 5{ }^{5} It has by far been the most recurring topic of debate at the Security Council’s sessions since de constitution of the United Nations. Therefore, as a corollary, it may be said without any doubt that this conflict is seen as a persistent threat to the international peace and security. It is for this reason that it constitutes an ideal case for the analysis of the collective security system. Furthermore, in spite of the unconscionable attention given to it, the absence of a final solution - without understating its extreme complexity - is an indicator of the lack of efficacy with which this conflict has been settled.

2. A PRELIMINARY AND EMPIRICAL EXAMINATION OF THE PROBLEM OF THE EXCESSIVE USE OF THE VETO

Furthermore, this conflict has unveiled some paradoxes concerning the right to veto. This right may be seen as a protective mechanism to make sure that the efforts to establish a collective security system will not undermine the national interests of the five powers that came out victorious from the Second World War, namely the USA, China, the United Kingdom (UK), France and Russia. This issue, as it has already been analysed, which logic may have been reasonable at a certain point in history, nowadays might become into a burden, or even reduce significantly the capacity of the collective security system to fight common threats. As a matter of fact, the indiscriminate use of such right may be one of the factors liable for the rise of new threats, given that this practice generates resentment in many of the international actors.

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  1. 3{ }^{3} The collective security system refers to an agreement between the States through which they commit to the nonuse of war in their relationships. The members of such pact also agree on responding in concert before a State who decides to use war against another. This system would replace the former system of balance of powers, where war is one more of the means to be used in international relationships. The League of Nations was the first earnest attempt to create such a system. The United Nations Organisation finally embodies this ideal. Besides the abovementioned, now a days, the Collective Security System is not only intended to avoid war threats between the States but also to respond collectively to those threats that transcend the national level, namely, international terrorism, poverty and the economical problems, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, organised crime, climate change and civil wars, as well as other large-scale atrocities.
    4{ }^{4} http://www.un.org/en/sc/documents/resolutions/
    5{ }^{5} In order to simplify the analysis, at the expense of being inaccurate with the Palestinian-Israeli category, I’ve included within it the relationships between the State of Israel and other neighbouring Arab countries, as well as the Palestinian territories. ↩︎

Up to 2009, the right to veto within the Security Council had been exerted in 261 occasions: Russia, 123; USA, 82; UK, 32; France, 18; and China, 6. Russia holds the lead in using the veto, although many of those uses took place between 1950 and 1960 in connection to the admission of other countries into the UN. As far as the USA is concerned, out of the 82 times it used the veto, 42 were issues linked either to Israel or to the Middle East. Pakistani Professor Mansoor Akbar seeks to prove that the Israeli factor on the United States’ use of its right to veto within the Security Council since 1972 - challenging international law - involves an attack to the principles of the very UN’s charter, which goal is to maintain international peace and security, safeguard human rights, provide for an international regulation mechanism, promote social and economical progress, improve life standards and fight against disease. In fact, he asserts that such use has been the negation of the principles for which the UN itself was created (Akbar Kundi, 2009).

This study has been selected because it thoroughly connects with what we want to point out. The collective security system aims to address the problems affecting international peace and security, but it is the Security Council that is responsible for acting upon them. Some countries, such as the USA, exert a protruding dominion over this institution, because of their right to veto. Needless to get into details as to why the USA supports Israel, some data from Dr. Akbar Kundi’s study will be examined, as well as some other sources from the United Nations, and even from the State Department of the US, in order to determine the recurrence of such a biased behaviour - not by the USA, but by system as a whole. As I have repeatedly pointed out, this functioning of the collective security system may be producing bigger threats in the long term than those that it seeks to fight in the short term. But let us carry on our analysis of the USA’s vetoes in connection with Israel further.

We have indicated that, out of the 82 occasions the USA has made use of the veto, 42 allude to Israel and the Middle East. The specific topics around which those vetoes have been exerted are the following: the situation of the occupied territories after Israeli measures were taken, Lebanon’s or Syria’s complaints against Israel, violation of the United Nations’ charter and international law, and the expansion of Jewish settlements in Gaza and East Jerusalem. Many of these thwarted resolutions sought to draw attention from public opinion and international organisations, in order to place pressure onto Israel to soften its measures.
A chart extracted from the “American-Israeli cooperative enterprise” 6{ }^{6} shows in detail the proposals for resolution to the Security Council where Israel is admonished which were subjected to veto by the USA.

As illustrated by the data in the chart, the USA vetoed in 42 occasions the proposals for resolution against Israel. This generates great resentment within the Islamic world and some other ampler regions of the international community, for it demonstrates the bias of the collective security system’s performance. These facts nourish the hatred and suspicion towards the United Nations itself, and serve as a justification and incentive jab for the emergence of terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda. The system loses legitimacy with this sort of behaviour. Lastly, it is worth mentioning that the display of data about the USA and Israel regarding the use of veto within the Security Council does not aim at denouncing either of these States, but rather, it serves as an indicator of a much wider phenomenon that is defiling the collective

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  1. 6{ }^{6} http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/UN/usvetoes.html ↩︎

security system: in approaching international security issues or similar human rights’ violations, the same principles are not being followed due to the role the national interests keep playing in a system that attempts to transcend them in favour of the common welfare. This un-ruled use of different principles, depending on the sort of actors and national interests at stake - as it has been repeatedly asserted above -, undermines the legitimacy of the very system, hinders its functioning and may even provoke threats, almost as dramatic - and harder to resolve - than those it actually attempts to tackle.

3. A SYSTEMIC AND HOLISTIC ANAYLISIS OF THE UNDERLYING CAUSES

Literature on the Palestinian-Israeli abounds in libraries. Nonetheless, it usually consists of a series of warlike facts, mostly ordered diachronically. However, is this enough in order to grasp this stagnant issue? There is also much referential literature approaching the case from more hermeneutical and interpretive perspectives, but they tend to be either arbitrary - clearly proPalestinian or pro-Israeli -, reductionist - illustrating one sole all-encompassing factor - or both. Therefore, in this work, in order to reach a deeper understanding of the nature of the conflict, as well as to analyse its complexity and difficulty for resolution - unless the collective security system functions effectively - it has been deemed necessary to appeal to other factors not shown in the more aseptic narratives, paying special attention to the religious-symbolic factor, under the assumption that this is one of the current keys for understanding the conflict without eluding the recognition that in its origins it may have been clearly a more territorial oriented controversy. Notwithstanding, the approach chosen for analysing this set of issues will be holistic, for only through the systematic revision of an array of factors, which seem to bolster each other to increase the complexity of the case, can it be possible to explore earnestly the conflict in question. It is true that some authors claim that social sciences should only make descriptive analyses, in order to find a clear variable responsible for a given social phenomenon, but social reality is usually too complex and unpredictable to be depicted through methods that often resemble those of the natural sciences. 7{ }^{7}

3.1 Religious worldviews

If we go back to both Jewish and Arab-Muslim traditions, we find a shared narrative which connects these two peoples as relatives. Arab-Muslims, as much as religious Jews - we make this specification because Judaism has experienced a strong process of secularization - consider themselves descendants of Abraham, Jews detaching from Isaac, while Arab-Muslims detaching from Ismael (nomadic Bedouins). Ismael seems to have been Abraham’s first-born son, the fruit of his marriage with an Egyptian slave called Hagar. Sarah, Abraham’s true wife, at recognizing their impossibility of having children, encouraged him to maintain relationships with Hagar. However, Sarah got pregnant at an elder age and gave birth to Isaac. Because of the tensions that emerged between these two women, Abraham felt forced to expel Hagar and her son Ismael. They settled in the Arabian Peninsula and the Arab tribes were born out of the 12 children that Ismael had. The Jewish tribes detached from Isaac. It is said that Isaac and

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  1. 7{ }^{7} Delving into this sizzling debate about the nature of the social sciences is not pretended here. It should suffice to mention that the author holds a conception close to what Richard Bernstein posits. For a very interesting and attainable exploration of this debate, see: Bent Flyvberg, Makind social science matter, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002. ↩︎

Ismael saw each other often, even after the death of their father. However, the cultural evolution of these two peoples - especially after 622 AD with the advent of Islam - took divergent paths. Indeed, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict might have its roots in the supposed fierce opposition that the Jews - according to Muslims - showed forth towards Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam. We will give an overview of Jewish and Islamic traditions in order to better understand the symbolic universe that may be meaningfully nurturing the geopolitical and economic conflict between the Palestinian and the Israeli. According to the Torah - which is accepted by Jews and Muslims alike -, Isaac’s descendants received the promise of a fertile land where they could live in peace and prosperity. Moses would guide his people to this Promised Land after the Egyptian domination (Scheindlin, 1998). The Jews asseverate that present day Israel is that same land. When the progenies of Isaac settled in Israel, the Jewish people lived a time of great prosperity and splendour. Sets of King-Prophets contributed to the rise of a flourishing civilization. However, by the year 70 AD , the Roman emperor Tito definitively expelled the Jews from Jerusalem. From that time on the Jews have been disseminated throughout the world and have been the object of recurrent persecution and disdain, deprived from an own State or territory until 1948. This external animosity - inspired by different motives, such as envy or dislike - together with a strong sense of community and a self-perception of being “the chosen people”, led the Jews to withdraw inwards in a kind of collective endogamy that enabled them to preserve part of their culture along the centuries. During all this time, the Jewish religious leaders kept in the collective memory an idea treasured within their Holy Scriptures, namely: that at the end of history they would be given back their Sacred Land. Nowadays, the strongest Jewish orthodox factions consider the Jewish settlement in Israel to be the fulfilment of their ancestral traditions. This conviction, together with a victim oriented historical memory, legitimates the most radical stances against the Muslim Palestinians (Culla, 2005). Four years and a half ago, when I first visited Israel, I felt fascinated by the great attainment of maintaining their culture despite having been dispersed over 1800 years, astonished by the level of economic and technological development accomplished within just 60 years, and surprised by their military power. I asked a German-Israeli well educated Jewish old lady, “What collective mechanisms have the Jews used over these centuries to achieve so many accomplishments?” Her short response disconcerted me: “You know, we are the chosen people”.

The worldview behind Muslim-Palestinians - although sharing its origins with that of the Jews - is of a different kind. Their symbolic universe took a different path after the seventh century, as said before, with the appearance of Muhammad and Islam. The teachings of Muhammad summoned the peoples of Arabia to create a new nation for the sake of the same Hebraic God, who had established a Covenant with Abraham, renewed by Moses and later by Jesus, and now revitalised by the “Seal of the Prophets”, Muhammad. This conception led the Muslims to also believe that they are the chosen people; that they are, through the most recent revelation engraved into the Koran, the receptacles of the divine bounty; and that the Jews, due to their rejection of the Prophet, follow anachronistic beliefs.

Undoubtedly, the development of Islam in Arabia and its further expansion by means of conquests, are in themselves too complex and profound research objects as to be approached in this work. Hence, on the grounds of some interpretations of the Koran, just two items concerning the relationship between the Jewish and the Muslim peoples will be exposed: 1. Serious conflicts arose as a result of the Jews associating with some warring Arab tribes that opposed Muhammad and Islam. The Islamic narrative on the “Jewish betrayal” has been conveyed to a Muslim generation after another. 2. Islamic tradition took Jerusalem as a Holy

city intimately linked to the “Prophet”, due to the Islamic tradition about Muhammad’s wellknown night dream - which is considered to be real by some Muslim sectors -, where Muhammad flew from Mecca to Salomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. In fact, Jerusalem was the initial Kiblah for Muslims - clearly following the Jewish tradition.

This overview of Jewish and Islamic symbolic universe has been made because this aspect of the conflict is considered essential to understand the underlying forces nurturing the problem. Further, this factor is often overlooked on the sake of other causes, which are also key - be it of political, economic or recognition nature.

What has been previously posited refers to the traditional cosmologies of both peoples. These worldviews, as it has been said, feed the conflict creating a barrier to solve it, almost unavoidable, unless either both societies experience an absolute secularization 8{ }^{8} - and this does not seem to be the trend, as it will be proved afterwards - or a new, shared worldview is generated. Without this, as much as territorial agreements are made, the symbolic conflict will not be resolved. However, let us continue with the examination of the evolution of recent religious conceptions.

As we explored at the beginning, Zionism was a primarily secular socialist movement in its origins. Some German and North American Jewish intellectuals, who had been influenced by the spirit of the enlightenment - and sometimes by the communist utopia - outlined the project. At the beginning of the 20th century, the stance of the majority of religious orthodox Jews towards Zionism was quite clear. For them - represented by the first clusters of Poland - the only way for the Jews to return to Israel had to be through divine intervention and the result of a wider process of “redemption”. Therefore, they were against Zionism and the establishment of the State of Israel. Indeed, some Jewish settlements on the old Palestine did not even want to obtain Israeli citizenship after the constitution of the State of Israel. Nonetheless, this perspective was progressively reformulated, majorly as a result of Rabi Kook’s interpretations. Rabi Kook was the symbol of the religious Zionist movement created by his father, and he asseverated that the conquests of the Israeli secular army was contributing to the Divine purpose (Perlmutter, 1987), given that following the Six Days War, the territory of the State of Israel covered almost the same land as the biblical land of Israel. A few weeks later, West Jerusalem was conquered. This new view fostered a renewed interpretation about the religious Jewish “right” stance towards Israel. Previously, this State was rejected for being in opposition to Judaism, which had to wait until the Messiah’s appearance in order to create a Jewish State. Now, on the contrary, the creation of the State of Israel and the occupation of the totality of Palestine would accelerate the coming of the Messiah.

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  1. 8{ }^{8} The topic of the return of religion is an open debate. At the beginning of the 20th 20^{\text {th }} century, some authors proclaimed the extinction of religion, as societies go through modernisation. Facts seem to dismiss this hypothesis, showing that religion and society are always linked. Religion may adopt different natures, but it’s an element of social life, without which, as Durkheim asserts, it would be impossible to understand society itself. For more information on this topic, see: Daniel Bell, “The return to the Sacred”, British Journal of Sociology, 27 (4):419-449, 1977. Also a book we already referred to: Dialécticas de la postsecularidad (Dialectics of post-secularity) by Ignacio Sánchez de la Yncera and Marta Rodríguez Fouz (edits.). ↩︎

This new vision was stirred by the surprising victories of 1967 and 1973. A youth movement went even further, to announce that the coming of the Messiah was close and that the recent events had been essential in accelerating Israel’s Redemption. These facts are very relevant to the resolution of the conflict, since these factions are reluctant to relinquish the West Bank, the Gaza strip and East Jerusalem. In fact, they initiated a strong colonizing movement in those territories, boosted by such legitimizing interpretation.

Kook’s ideas were materialized at the political level within the group called Gush Emunim Block of the Faithful. Formed in 1974 with the purpose of having an influence in politics, it sharply questioned the model of laic and socialist society, and advocated the return of Israel to Judaism. In 1984, several Jew terrorists were arrested for murdering youth in the Islamic university of Hebron. Surprisingly, they belonged to the leading core of Gush Emunim. This extremist group, with legal recognition, is still operational nowadays and seems to have much influence in Israel’s politics (Fraser 2004).

Supported by the party elected for the government on that same year, Gush Emunim occupied Gaza and the West Bank in 1977, and hasn’t desisted in this purpose since. This situation is very worrisome with respect to the resolution of the conflict, since this group - which doesn’t discard terrorist acts, as we have already pointed out - has considerable influence on the government. It has linked nationalism with Judaism, and substituted the idea that the State of Israel is against the Jewish people, by another: that the Zionists are, unconsciously, contributing to God’s messianic plan for the Jewish people. Further, their motto is to strengthen the Israeli sovereignty throughout the whole land of Israel, rejecting the evacuation of the occupied territories. Interestingly, they are not organised in a political party, but they seek to influence various parties that are likeminded, without compromising their ideological purity.

This was the political - and terrorist - branch, but a broader movement of return to Judaism had also started in Israel and the USA. Ultra-orthodox groups flourished considerably among university students, Sephardic Jews, and migrants in Arab countries. In the Israeli Parliament the political parties representing the Jaredim (the God-fearing) expanded notably until becoming into a necessary member in any electoral alliance. In the 70’s, the Teshuva movement - meaning “return to Judaism” and “repent” - also arose within the Jewish world. This movement demands the practice of the laws of the Torah exclusively, and the separation of the Jews from the Gentiles to avoid assimilation. Around that time, Talmudic institutes for the repentant were created; In 1977, the religious conservative alliance led by Menahem Begin who considerably supported Gush Emunim - rose to power; former activists trained in the counterculture or the left-wing of 68 switched to orthodoxy. In the intellectual sphere, works proliferate by atheist academics rediscovering Judaism and questioning modernity and its secularization. They assure that faith and rigour in religious practice are compatible with technique and scientific knowledge. In America, American Jews write about the vast difference between the authentic Jewish - religious - culture and Western culture. Jewish scientists, university professors, and internationally acknowledged intellectuals, such as Herman Branover - world authority in the complex field of magneto-hydrodynamic - become into exponents of the movement, and support the creation of closed communities that rigorously practice the precepts of the Torah. This is the bottom to top return to Judaism that Gush Emunim intends to implement from top to bottom (Patiño, 2006).

In the Palestinian flank there have also been meaningful transformations in relation to the religious positioning and the change in the Islamic worldview, this last line being a product of a more than particular global phenomenon. The Palestine Liberation Organization, represented by Yasser Arafat, was a movement of nationalist nature, without a strong religious presence. However, in 1983, four years after the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Hamas was founded. Since then, Hamas has developed gradually until its climax with its victory in the 2006 elections. Hamas, considered by the United Nations and the European Union as a terrorist organization, denies the State of Israel. Undoubtedly, 9{ }^{9} in the “Operation cast Lead”, Hamas’ intransigence had great responsibility. It could be said that Hamas’ occupying of the Gaza Strip in June 2007 symbolises the Islamisation of the conflict. 10{ }^{10}

The strengthening of the religious sentiment in Palestine is related not only to a disappointment respecting Al-Fatah and the Palestinian National Authority, incapable of an efficient negotiation and object of certain scandals, but also to a broader transformation that has been gradually produced in the Islamic world. Perhaps, the first great transformation - as I will further explain in the chapter about Al-Qaeda’s terrorism in analysing the emergence of the political Islamism - may date back to Saudi Arabia in the 18th 18^{\text {th }} century, with the Wahhabi movement, intended to cleanse Islam from Sufism and strictly apply the Islamic law in governmental laws. Later on, Egypt and its Muslim Brotherhood, further developed this line, since it laid out the need of taking the power in the Islamic countries, which had been contaminated - by the fault of their politicians - with western individualism and materialism. The leading figure of Sayyid Qutb, condemned and executed in Egypt, his country, stands out as the ideologist of the new Islamism. From this movement, what could be considered to be the first Islamic terrorist movement developed - the Islamic Jihad, acting in Egypt (Kepel, 2003).

Inspired by this new conception intending to restore the Islamic splendour by applying the laws of the Koran to politics, and science and technology to social processes, the Muslim volunteers who - supported by the USA - fought the Russian Communists in Afghanistan, organized into the International Islamic Jihad and declared a war against the West. Their new assessment, which we will analyse later - was that the true problem of the Islamic countries was the West (Kepel, 2003). They considered the Western politicians to be destroying the Muslim peoples. Therefore, the idea of attacking them started to take shape. Further, their citizens became as well a target, since they were co-responsible for electing such incompetent leaders.

The last transformative momentum may be related to the Iranian Islamic Revolution. In the same way that the Communist triumph in Russia was seen as the accomplishment of the Marxist prophecies, and became into the model applicable to all who saw in that ideology a secular salvation, inspiring revolutionary movements in almost the whole world, the Iranian revolution - presently criticised - meant a new horizon applicable by the most traditionalist Islamic groups.

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  1. 9{ }^{9} December 2008- January 2009.
    10{ }^{10} Other authors had referred to this process of the Islamization of the conflict years before. See: Meir Litvak, “The Islamization of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict: the case of Hamas”, in Middle Eastern Studies, Volume 34, Issue 1, 1998, p. 148-163. ↩︎

These four occurrences are closely linked to the events in Palestine, especially in relation to two organizations considered as terrorist. In one hand, Hamas is linked -and apparently financed - by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. On the other hand, there is strong evidence that Hezbollah - Lebanese organization involved in the conflict and supporting several Palestinian radical groups - has strong ties with Iran (Gleis, 2012). These two groups who legitimate the use of violence in the prosecution of their interests, and reject any form of Jewish State, are feeding - as we said in the beginning - an evolutionary worldview that considers the Jews to be a problem.

3.2 The struggle for a territory

At the most evident level, this is a territorial conflict. It started with the progressive entry by the Jews in the so-called Palestine since 1844, when the Ottoman Empire issued an edict of toleration by which they were allowed to enter the area. From that date on, the Jewish community in the territory increased, the climax of the process being the conquest of this portion of the Ottoman Empire by Britain.

During the British Mandate and due to the partiality of some international agents - and of Britain itself - in advantage of the Jews or the Palestinians depending of changing interests, the situation became unsustainable. After World War II, what was foreseeable happened: Britain had to leave the stage. This country was pursuing more its own interests than the stability and peace of the region, in abandoning the territory and releasing what had become into a load. Western international agents, moved by compassion towards the Jews - it wasn’t the case of Britain - interceded for the creation of two different states (Ben-Ami, 1991). The Jews accepted. However, the Muslim Arab countries, at least at first, didn’t. This fact is of great relevance, since the former decided by themselves what to do, but the latter - as we will analyse later - refused following the same path and rejected any possibility of sharing the territory with an adjoining Jewish state. For this reason, after the declaration of the State of Israel in part of the territory, the Palestinians, supported by the surrounding Arab countries, rose with weapons with the idle hope to defeat Israel.

Subsequent wars and conflicts have contributed to further exacerbating the matter, but the geopolitic root cause may lie within the aforementioned account. The refusal of the Muslim Arab countries to accept the territorial partition into two states, and the present rejection of the Jewish State by some Muslim agents, make it a strenuous task to attain a sound agreement. Nevertheless, the occurrences after Israel’s auto-proclaiming of its State in 1948 are important in order to understand the present situation. In the subsequent wars fought in the region, Israel seized more territories than had been assigned to it in the UN roadmap in 1947. The cases of Gaza and the West Bank are particularly notable, since they unleashed a recurrent series of armed struggles, so is the “doubly sacred” city of Jerusalem (Lorck, 1986).

The territory that the 1947 partition roadmap of the United Nations gave Israel was, as we already said, notably smaller than what it is now occupying. After the first Arab-Israeli war, Israel took 26%26 \% more of the territory than what it belonged to it. Later on, after the Six Days War in 1967 between Israel on one side, and Egypt, Syria and Iraq on the other, the former took over the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem - as a reminder, according to the partition roadmap, Jerusalem and Bethlehem should be international cities administered by the UN -, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Golan Heights.

After recurring conflicts with Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon mainly, and the recovery of several of the territories by other countries, Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem East became into the “occupied territories”. In 1993, the Oslo Accord intended Israel to leave, but this withdrawal has never occurred. Although the Israeli army left some of the territories, military controls are so fierce that communication between these cities is almost impossible, and the creation of operational Palestinian institutions, thus, virtually a dream.

The so called 2003 “Roadmap” for the pacification of the land in 2005 included three phases, that have never been finalized (Fraser, 2004). The happenings between December 2008 and January 2009 need no explanation. Israel, in an unmeasured military attack, heedless of international pressure and the UN’s resolutions, left in only 23 days, more than 1300 deaths (at least 300 of which were children) and some 5500 wounded people - as estimated by several international observatories.

It is further known, that the most orthodox factions within Israel not only stand for not leaving those territories, but even promote plans of colonizing, by increasing the Jew population in the occupied territories, and thus, given the high birth-rate among the orthodox Jews, surpassing the Palestinian population in the area. These factions also reject the possibility of there being a Palestinian State, making the negotiation possibilities much more complicated.

3.4 The resource of violence by two peoples

An added issue in this conflict is the disproportion between the attacks of each side against the other. 11{ }^{11} As Israel has gradually developed a greater military capacity, and the Muslim countries have acknowledged their lack of possibilities of accomplishing their objectives through armed struggle, Israel’s actions, called “reprisals”, against the Palestinians have gradually increased to an unmeasured degree. This has led the international public opinion to show solidarity towards the Palestinian people, siding the weakest. These disproportionate actions by Israel have resulted in further infuriating the resentment of pro-Palestinian groups, which associate Israel’s power more and more with the Support of the West (although this is not considered completely true, as we will see in a later point). During the two Intifadas, for instance, while the Israeli army was attacking the Palestinian people with its modern armament, the Palestinians, many of them adolescents, armed themselves with stones, sticks, Molotov cocktails and inflamed tyres. The aforementioned Israeli military operation, called “Operation Cast Lead”, also constitutes a paradigmatic case. While the Palestinians were launching Qassam rockets of small destructive capacity and precision, 12{ }^{12} the Israeli army displayed its means dauntingly, making use of cutting-edge technology. During the operation, the number of Israeli losses was 13, while the Palestinians, as we already said, were more than 1300.

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  1. 11{ }^{11} For a detailed analysis of the disproportion in the use of violence between these two groups see, Stephen Graham, “Bulldozers and bombs: the latest Palestinian-Israeli conflict as asymmetric urbizide”, in Antipode, Volume 34, Issue 4, September 2002, p. 642-649.
    12{ }^{12} A piece of information that is usually ignored is that more than 3000 Qassam rockets were issued into the Israeli territory between 2008 and 2009. ↩︎

On the other hand, in spite of the unmeasured responses by Israel, it should be noted that the terrorist attacks have a destabilizing power. These attacks have followed one after another since the time of the British mandate, and it was in fact one of the reasons that moved the British to leave the so-called Palestinian territory. The Jews were very well organized, and there existed several terrorist groups who would attack severely. Arab Muslims around that territory also used terrorism at that time. This shows that the element of terrorism has been present since the beginning of the conflict. Although nowadays on the side of the Jewish people there seems not to be an organised terrorism, 13{ }^{13} the Gush Emunim, to which we alluded previously, pressures the government greatly, encouraging the exploitation of violence on its side. On the contrary, the Palestinians, partially moved by frustration and despair, have increasingly used terrorism in the last years as a means for pressure. Suicide attacks and the constant issuing of rockets are permanently occurring, usually not causing many victims, but creating an atmosphere of enduring tension within Israel, which favours the use of violence by the government. 14{ }^{14}

Fear has no doubt a great mobilizing influence within Israel. These people have been subjected to persecutions, scorn, and attempts of genocide during centuries. These facts have developed within the Jewish culture a defensive behaviour, an ostracism that has perhaps only constituted a mechanism for survival. Otherwise, after more than 1800 years of exile, they probably wouldn’t have been able to maintain their culture. This attitude has been stirred lately by the so-called Iranian threat, by Hezbollah, Hamas and Al-Qaeda. These organizations provoke fear, but this fear, in my view, is prejudicial to the Palestinian people. If the Jewish are scared and feel threatened, they will consequently be keener to support their government’s violence. Although within the Jewish world there seems to be some rejection towards Israel’s policies at the international level, the situation changes for those living in a State where fear and menace are constantly present.

The desire of recognition and the division of Palestine may be another element that is enclosing the issue. It is said that the direct actors in this conflict are the Jews and the Palestinians. But, what do these two terms mean? When we observe the symbolic universe of the Jews, we may clearly observe that their nation-building process has taken a long time and has strong roots. After the expulsion of the Jews in the year 70 A.D., the future of this people was uncertain, with the impossibility of creating a Jewish state that might recognize that nation until the year 1948. It could be said that this act of constitution is a symbolic universal recognition of the Jewish nation, even though some Muslims would negate it.

But, what about the Palestinians? Do they actually constitute a people? What does the name Palestine mean?

Palestine is the name the Romans gave to the ancient land of Canaan or the ancient Kingdom of Israel after the Jewish riots (132-135) when the ancient Judea, which was part of the Roman

[1]

  1. 13{ }^{13} Some authors such as Noam Chomsky dare to call the disproportionate actions by the Israeli government “State terrorism”, a government that, although it holds the legitimate right to use violence, it must use it responsibly. However, we have abstained from referring thus to the disproportionate violence by the Jewish state, in order to avoid unnecessary confusion.
    14{ }^{14} To better understand the relationship between the use of terrorism - especially by suicide terrorists - and state violence see, Barder Araj, “Harsh State repression as a cause of suicide bombing: the case of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict”, in Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Volume 31, Issue 4, 2008, p. 284-303. ↩︎

province of Syria, started to be called Syria-Palestine or simply Palestine, because of the Philistines, ancient civilization that was antagonistic to Israel. The Romans expected this new denomination of the territory to disassociate any historic link of the Jewish people with that land (Culla, 2005).

In present times, during the British mandate, the region was populated by both Jews and Muslim Arabs. The Muslim Arabs who were not citizens of Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq or Lebanon, and were for their most part settled in what was known as the Palestinian territories, started to call themselves Palestinians. Some of the questions that arise from this statement are: when and how does the Palestinian national feeling rise? From 1948 to 1967, when the Palestinian territories were joined to Egypt and Jordan, did the Palestinian national feeling still exist or did it develop through the Israeli occupation? What would have happened if these Arab countries had nationalised the Palestinians, instead of considering them refugees? These questions are not central to our research, but are necessary in order to better know one of the actors in the conflict. For the sake of moving forward, I will consider Palestine to be a national unit, although this category might be somehow problematic.

The fact that Palestine doesn’t have a unanimous voice increases the complexity of the relationship between the two collectives. The Jewish national identity, safeguarded by a strong State, is identifiable. The political and democratic processes gone through by the Israeli government towards itself allow there to be a voice that represents its interests. In the course of dialogues and peace processes, in spite of its internal political differences, Israel speaks with one only voice. The Palestinian people, however, have difficulties in articulating one unanimous voice, for several reasons. On one hand, it is hard to consider the Palestinian people, due to its territorial fragmentation and its limitations communication-wise, as one. On the other hand, within the Palestinian people, there are almost autonomous sectors, who claim for themselves the right to represent their people. The division between Hamas and al Fatah is significant. This division materialised when Hamas seized hold of Gaza. The Palestinian people, presumably represented by the National Palestinian Authority, but ruled also by Hamas in Gaza, does not have a clear representation.

The situation outlined above is further exacerbated by two factors. Hamas is an extremist faction which negates the State of Israel; and Israel, the UN and a few Western countries acting as mediators, consider Hamas to be a terrorist organization, and thus, often negotiation with that organization is not even considered an option.

Another ingredient that hinders Palestine’s representation - and the process of resolution of the conflict - is the fact that some Muslim countries such as Iran and Syria support, more or less explicitly, the most extremist factions which don’t recognise the existence of a Jewish State, by even giving financial support to terrorist groups such as Hezbollah (Gleis, 2012).

3.5 International mediation

The backing by the United States and some other Western countries, on one hand, and the support by the Soviet Union during the Cold War to Arab Countries, on the other, cannot been considered the cause of the Palestine-Israeli conflict, but they are a condition that has partially contributed to the hostility in their relationship. Furthermore, the USA’s foreign policy has always been favourable towards Israel for several reasons. In a survey made in 2006 for the

Jewish North American Annual published by the American Jewish Committee, by Professor Ira Sheskin of the University of Miami, and Professor Arnold Dashefsky of the University of Connecticut, counted some 6.4 Jews in the United States, especially concentrated in New York (1,618,000), California (1,194,000)(1,194,000) Florida (653,000)(653,000), and New Jersey (480,000)(480,000). Further, positions of economic, political and intellectual power occupied by Jews in that North American country are so notable that cannot possibly leave any Government in the White House to be impartial towards this issue. In fact, some authors, such as John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, in The lobby of Israel and U.S. foreign policy, consider that the backing of Israel by the U.S. is not based on questions of strategy, but it is explained by the pressure of the right wing “lobbies” and the groups of fundamentalist Christians or conservatives, who are favourable to Zionism (Mearsheimer, 2006). This argument, although strongly criticised 15{ }^{15}, shows the amount of influence that these Zionist groups can exert on the USA’s foreign policy, very specifically, in relation to the Middle East.

Besides what was already mentioned, for the West, however Israel is in the Middle East, is a close country, considered almost Western. This condition, along with its geographic location, puts Israel in a strategic place from which to defend North America’s interests - but also Europe’s - in the Middle East. From there, it is easier to hold Islamic terrorism, to have access to the rich petroleum reservoirs in the area, to control over - or at least to monitor - the RussiaIran energy axis, and to supervise the situation in Iraq, to mention a few reasons. What happened in October 2011 between the USA, the UNESCO and Palestine is relevant. The UNESCO recognised Palestine as a member of that organization, thus recognising it as a State, and immediately, as a measure of pressure, the USA cancelled its financial aid to this entity, which constituted the 22%22 \% of its total income. Social analyst Noam Chomsky - however he was trained a linguist - constantly seeks explanations of the conflict by focusing in considering Israel a strategic place for the national interests of the USA (Chomsky, 2004). Critiques to this statement argue that the military-industrial sector, and North American big petrol companies don’t get any benefit at all from the North American military incursions in the area, nor from the tension generated there, even complaining about the US foreign policy.

Without this relevant weigh of the Jewish community in the US - where, as mentioned before, there exists a strong Zionist movement - Israel’s disproportionate actions would not have been as frequent. However, the simplistic argument that tries to explain Israel only from the perspective of dependence on the USA doesn’t seem serious enough. The geo-political strategic situation of Israel for the USA and the West in general, and the position of the Jews in the US foreign policy with respect to the Middle East, constitute two added elements, but not the only ones, that clarify this complex issue.

What has been mentioned should not lead us to the conclusion that all the Jews, especially those not living in Israel, are favourable to the military measures that country is carrying out. Intellectuals, historians, and Jewish individuals living outside Israel have manifested their rejection towards the policies of that country towards Palestine. In the USA, while the Jewish pro-Zionist organizations supported candidate McCain, 77%77 \% of the Jewish voters supported Obama, who advocated for a relationship with Israel based more in international law than in brotherhood. There seems to be a generalised apathy within that community outside of Israel

[1]

  1. 15{ }^{15} See: Abraham H. Foxman, The Deadliest Lies: The Israel lobby and the myth of Jewish control, Palgrave, Macmillan, January 2009. ↩︎

towards the policies of that government. The problem is that the moderates, in spite of being the majority, are not mobilising as much as the extremists, who are very well organised and have more weight in Israeli policy. 16{ }^{16}

Anti-Semitism is still an added issue. 17{ }^{17} A fundamentalist sector of the Islamic world is refusing to recognise the existence of a Jewish State. As pointed out before, around 1947, the United Nations and other international agencies, were mediating, after the British mandate of Palestine, for a division of the territory in two States. Once the time arrived and the terms had been defined, in 1948 the Jewish representatives proclaimed the creation of the State of Israel accepting the dispositions of the partition document. On that moment, the surrounding Arab countries, as a demonstration of utmost rejection towards such proclamation, declared war on Israel, with disastrous consequences for the interests of the Arabs (Morris, 1989). Since then, the attitude of some of these States towards Israel has changed, but there remain some powerful forces resisting acceptance and making negotiations more difficult.

Within the Palestinian people we have Hamas, an organization considered terrorist - as already stated - by the UN, but having much power and popular support. Hamas adopted quite a radical posture - although it is varying in recent years - by not accepting Israel under any circumstance. This is an unsustainable position, since Israel is already an unavoidable fact, and such a posture can only constitute a further obstacle in the solid advancement towards a final resolution.
Other Islamic terrorist organizations are also public enemies of Israel and of Zionism. On one hand, the notorious Hezbollah might well be considered the foremost representative of the Shiite fundamentalism. On the other, we have the International Jihad and the Palestinian Jihad. All these organizations, some of which are very popular in the grassroots, hold very hostile towards Israel. The disproportionate military actions, or overreactions - depending on the viewpoint, Israel either acts or reacts - by Israel towards the Palestinians, are feeding the legitimacy of the existence of these groups among Muslim’s public opinion.

There are two countries that notably oppose Israel, Syria and Iran, especially the latter. Iran, in spite of its pro-Western public campaign, does not hide its aversion towards Israel. Iran aspires to become into the utmost exponent of the Islamic world, and its influence is notable in that setting, its approaches having strong sway in the diverse voices that negotiate peace processes in the name of Palestine. Iran’s position with respect to Israel is extremely controversial. Its president, Ahmadinejad, has stated in several occasions that Israel should be erased from the map, 18{ }^{18} however he has been discovered to come from Jewish background.

The approaches of some Islamic fundamentalist groups with respect to Israel vary. Some of them consider the goal of eliminating Israel as secondary. These groups advocate for a

[1]

  1. 16{ }^{16} Report in Público.es, published on January 12, 2009.
    17{ }^{17} For a further exploration of the barriers that are placed on these two collectives by the stereotypic representations sometimes present in literature, stereotypes that nourish racist positions, see: Toine Van Teeffelen, “Racism and Metaphor: the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in popular literature”, in Discourse and Society, volume 5, #3, July 1994, p. 381-405.
    18{ }^{18} Nine of the countries - including the USA - invited to the World Conference Against Racism hosted by the United Nations in April 2009 refused to participate, because of the anti-Semitist spirit that seemed to be present at the event. One of the reasons was the participation of Iran’s president, who had done the aforementioned antiSemitist declarations. ↩︎

transformation of the Islamic world, in a way that the governmental institutions - as it is the case of Iran - apply the laws of the Koran. Those groups that consider eliminating Israel as the main objective in their strife, consider the root of the problems in the Islamic world to be in that State and in Zionism, and thus, consider that its destruction is necessary for the advancement of the Muslim countries. The defence of the cause of Palestine for the latter governments and groups who are strong enemies of Israel seems to be instrumental. Due to the terrific consequences that a direct war against Israel could unleash - coming back to the case of Iran actions against Israel are taken through Palestine. Thus, Palestine becomes not into an end, but into a means to attack, and if possible, destroy Israel. These positions, without any doubt, constitute a severe obstacle for the peace process to lead towards a peaceful coexistence between Israel and Palestine.

3.6 The question of memory and economic inequality

Another factor that increases the ferocity of the conflict is the resentment that a history of violence has engraved in both sides. Both Israelis and Palestinians feel victims of a history of war that has taken away friends and relatives. 19{ }^{19}
In some cases, violence has produced a festered hatred that is very difficult to extract. In others, the dead are sacralised and made into martyrs who must not be betrayed. This argument is extensively used in other conflicts. The dead are used as an excuse to defend partial positions, making an objective analysis of the situation more complicated.
On a train from Tel Aviv to Haifa, in February 2007, I listened with surprise and interest to a nationalised Israeli, Bolivian Jew. As he explained with increasing aggression how Palestinians wanted to kill their families, he rebuked me: " ii What would you do if they were coming to kill your mother, your wife, your family? We can only defend ourselves. If they are coming to kill our kin, we’d better kill them".

This violence and hatred lead to a stigmatisation of each other’s people, and the naturalisation of their wickedness to each other. The most extreme Orthodox Jews state that the Arabs are bad people, dishonest, and violent. Some Muslims, especially those influenced by prejudiced mullah’s dislike the nature of the Jews, using wide homogeneous categories to refer to any individual belonging to that collective.

These latter analyses of the resentment and the stereotypes are in no ways applicable to the generality of the Jews or the Palestinians, but are relevant aspects applicable to certain factions that cloud the possibility of dialogue.

The abyss in terms of economic and social development between Israel and Palestine is another main reason for the scales of the conflict - from the viewpoint of the number of victims - seems to always lean positively towards Israel. The Israeli army is considered to be one of the best in the world, if not the best in terms of efficiency. Its intelligence service is also among the top three worldwide. And its flight control mechanism is the best. These indicators don’t indicate

[1]

  1. 19{ }^{19} For a detailed study of the fatalities generated by the conflict since 2000, see: David A. Jaeger and M. Daniele Paserman, «The Cycle of Violence? An empirical Analysis of Fatalities in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict», American Economic Review American Economic Association, Volume 98, #4, September 2008, p. 1591-1604. ↩︎

its degree of economic or social development, but from them the level of technological development of Israel can be inferred. This great difference has lead Israel to be in control of the conflict. While pro-Palestinian terrorist groups perpetrate attacks with almost handmade arms, the Israeli army reacts in a way that threatens the decent survival of a people.

In the report on Human Development Index 20{ }^{20} (HDI) of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) published in 2008, in reference to 2006, Israel ranks 24. The Palestinian territories, however, are situated on rank 106. A 2005 report by the Social Watch international NGO, shows that the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories is having terrible consequences on the social conditions of the people in those areas, especially the women (Social Watch, 2005). A UN Commission on humanitarian issues published another report in 2004 pointing to the precarious conditions in the West Bank and Gaza (United Nations, 2005). Suffice it to mention that 22%22 \% of Palestinian children suffer from either chronic or acute malnutrition, exclusively due to hunger. After the most recent main military intervention by Israel mentioned before - called Operation Cast Lead - starting in December 2008, the situation has much worsened. Occupation makes it impossible for the Palestinian people to begin a path of steady development.

Israel, in contrast, has been able to develop a strong scientific and technological culture, making that relatively young State into an exemplar of military and agricultural capacity, only to mention a few areas in which it stands out. The Jewish people, through their vicissitudes in their wandering condition, gradually developed a strong historic memory transmitted from generation to generation, that propelled them to exert themselves for progress, required them not to let themselves go with the flow, encouraged them to resist, and most importantly, to adopt a critical look of their surroundings. This factor is added, as it has already been said, to the fact that Judaism encouraged its people to distinguish itself from the plethora. Now-a-days these features are still engraved in their culture, propelling them to advance. This is not an obstacle in recognising that inequalities within Israel - as reviled by the 2011 report published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development - grow at a faster rate than the rest of the country members of the organization (OECD, n.d.).

What has been outlined above shows a conflict between David and Goliath. For this reason, without international intervention, Israel’s superiority could become into a great tragedy.
It is known in the sphere of development, that interaction between two peoples is never healthy if it is not under conditions of equality. Palestine should be supported in order to attain dignified levels of social and economic development. This is a right that the international community should safeguard. As recent history of the developing countries has shown, when a collective feels oppressed and sees no way out, appeals to violence. It is necessary to establish international institutions with enough power to avoid situations like this, and to support the development of each people, especially those less fortunate. Without a collective security system responding to the needs of all the elements it contains, these objectives could very hardly be accomplished.

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  1. 20{ }^{20} This indicator takes into account the gross domestic product, life expectancy and literacy rate. ↩︎

4. CONCLUSIONS

Coming back to some points in the previous point about recent history of armed conflict and some of what was said in this section, we now proceed to summarize some of the maybe most relevant causes for this struggle: the religious factor; a flawed transition after the British mandate; the occupation of extra territories by Israel after several wars; terrorist attacks by proPalestinian groups and the draconian measures by the Israeli government; the fight between Hamas and Al Fatah, which prevents the unanimous representation of Palestine; the USA’s and some other Western countries’ support of Israel; the anti-Semitism existing in some settings even some governments, such as Iran - who manipulate the Cause of Palestinians in order to give expression to this prejudice; and different levels of social and economic development. The change Israel seems to be going through since the last elections in 2009 makes the situation even less promising, and adds new elements to the storyline of the conflict. The coalition between Likud and the extreme right wing parties seemed to have softened after the socialist party was added to the group. Some initial declarations seemed to show that there existed a willingness to follow the plan for the creation of a Palestinian State, but, in some recent declarations, president Netanyahu gave signs of not being willing to commit to any previous plan. Only the course of the events will show the final position of the new government of Israel, but as some newspaper headlines already declared (El País, 2009) after the first negotiations between the USA and Israel about the situation in the Middle East, the Jewish State could go from being an ally in the area to becoming into a problem. The same thing seems to begin to happen with respect to the EU, institution that is trying to exert pressure on Israel’s current government - without obtaining any results - for it to begin the negotiation of a Palestinian State. 21{ }^{21} The tension existing with Iran since 2012, caused by its alleged nuclear programme with military purposes, which was able to form a coalition of all its parties in May, is also disfavouring the region’s atmosphere.

All the factors pointed out above do not probably constitute the original causes of the conflict, but are all ingredients that contribute to intensify it. Other elements that must be taken into account when exploring the conflict are the international supports that both sides receive and their interests; pressure by public opinion; the actions of international nongovernmental organisms; the impotent mediation by the United Nations; the roll of the mass media; and the use of demagogical and subtle language by the different sides, which makes it impossible to understand the reality of the events.

This causal analysis, as it has been observed, is multi-factorial, and as any other complex social problem, it requires a systematic approach. This is why we haven’t sought the original causes, but we have instead pointed out to a variety of factors that block in different degrees the resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Each factor requires different actions, but all within a coherent global plan.

[1]

  1. 21{ }^{21} A headline of an article published on Saturday April 24, 2009 by El País newspaper reads: «Israel rejects any imposition by the EU to negotiate peace». Netanyahu refuses to accept the commitments adopted by the former governments. The EU provides the Palestinian Authority with 1000 million Euros per year, but some leaders are already questioning the strategy, if it is not framed in an institutional plan to create a Palestinian State. ↩︎

As a conclusion, if we had to distil the causes mentioned in order to find the quintessence of the raison d’être of the conflict, we should say that injustice is at the heart of the problem. This injustice has two dimensions. The first is related to its analysis. Analysing a problem requires detaching from prejudices, from preconceived notions, from partial positions, and requires a pure intention to get to the bottom of the issue. As we could see, the different looks focusing at the problem are tinged with partial positioning and so full of emotions that they shadow the possibility of observing with clarity. This statement - which may sound somehow abstract - is fundamental although it has an unavoidable philosophical component. My theoretical posture is that behind every issue there is an attainable reality. This issue must be explored by several actors who dialogue about their findings. In such situation, the different observers draw one fragment, but this doesn’t mean that reality has multiplied. A shared effort to approach the problem requires the recognition of this posture. Once such a posture is recognised, the analysis would be much more trustworthy. The different aspects of the conflict extracted by different researches should be taken in order to draw a complete -almost complete - picture, as loyal to reality as it can be.

The other dimension of lack of justice that exacerbates this problem is within the social sphere, and it is considerably complex. Both Jews and Palestinians suffer from oppression, since they are not able to express their true collective identity, which requires cooperation, trust and reciprocity, and need to adopt defensive, aggressive and self-interested postures that do not correlate to their inner nobleness. In some cases this is more so than in others. Until the solution is not outlined following the guiding principle of justice, and all of the actors don’t attach to it, it will be impossible to attain a satisfactory solution. Without justice, harmony and peace are impossible. This notion of social justice is very wide and some could state: «We each have different conceptions of justice». In order to solve this, I refer to the same philosophical argument from before, there is an ideal of justice, very wide, with infinitely profound meanings, but there is one after all. Those involved need an impartial external agent who will commit to this principle. In this way the best course of actions that may benefit both parts will be sought. This agent may be the collective security system implemented by the UN. We are not trying to say that the resolution of the conflict lies in the enhancement of the effectiveness of the collective security system, but that it is a factor without which it will be difficult to implement the necessary measures for an effective peace process and that we will go on to mention in brief.

This social notion of justice has to do also with the different degrees of social and economic development that the two peoples have gone through. Any accord, in order to be fair, must be between equals. As long as one is placed in a disadvantaged position - in this case, economic, social and military - it is very difficult to have a peaceful collaboration and coexistence, especially when one of the parties is jointly responsible for the condition of the other.

What was said in the previous paragraphs is a challenge to the complexity of the concept of justice, which is itself very wide, requiring a long conceptualisation work. We should refer to Marx, Habermas, Rawls, Dworckin, talk again about ways of social and economic development, human rights, justice tribunals and legislative bodies that may issue laws… but this is not the ideal space for this purpose. What I will say is that justice can only be applied when there are entities safeguarding its interests. In the international scene, a system with enough strength, or legitimacy and representativity, that may safeguard the application of justice at the inter-state level, has not yet developed. This must be a focus for attention for all those committed to the processes that should lead to a fair and harmonious international order. The United Nations, with its agencies, embodying the principle of collective security, as we

have pointed out, might be the seed that must be nourished to acquire enough magnitude to be able to lead and regulate the international actions.

6. DISCUSSION AND PROPOSALS

With the purpose of observing with more clarity the difficulties in finding a solution to this conflict without a sound and impartial collective security system, we proceed to list a number of possible partial measures, really necessary, which should be introduced in order to calm down the situation. These measures could constitute - in fact many of them are in place - the main factors to solve the conflict, but they would have to be supported through external mediation, since experience has demonstrated that, without it, the agreements are not fulfilled.

For any of the abovementioned lines of action to be systematically pursued, an international institution should exist with enough weigh to monitor and supervise the process. The gradual strengthening of the UN and its collective security system seems to be a decisive step for the conflict to be solved. Without an international institution which may safeguard justice at the international order, and which may be supported by a world army and by respect from civil society, the disputes among States are very difficult to solve, especially when one of them is much more powerful than the other. In this case, only one State exists, Israel, but Palestine can also be seen as a similar entity.

The collective security system, as it is conceived nowadays, cannot mediate effectively for this conflict, and thus its restructuring is an imperative, as it has been suggested, if it aspires to increase its effectiveness. Some data will suffice to shed light into this matter. UNISPAL, the UN Information System on the question of Palestine, contains a documental database where the resolutions of the UN are published, both those of the General Assembly - symbolic in their character - and those of the Security Council, on this case. There are close to one hundred resolutions, many alluding to chapters VI and VII of the Charter of the United Nations, full of admonitions, recommendations and calls to abide by the commitments, etc. Failure to fulfil these is notable by both Israel and Palestine, but especially by the former. The UN also has many programmes and projects for mediating in this conflict and its Commission for human

[1]

  1. 22{ }^{22} There are many examples of this kind of projects where victims who are willing to advance through the reconciliation process gather together to share their experiences, and strengthen their bonds. Respecting the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, a good example can be extracted from the process taking place in Germany for Jewish victims of national-socialism, and other Germans. Its possible application to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is explored in the article titled “Storytelling as a way to work through intractable conflicts: the German-Jewish experience and its relevance to the Palestinian-Israeli context”, by Dan Bar-On and Fatma Kassem, published in Journal of Social Issues, Volume 60, Issue 2, June 2004, p. 289-306. ↩︎

rights often has to cope with this case. However, in spite of all the attention it is given, effectiveness is very low.

Since the strengthening of the collective security system of the UN would require a series of reforms that can’t be accomplished in the short term, 23{ }^{23} the process for peace must not be dependent on this. In the short term, a grouping of international spokespersons should be found, who could support both sides in crystallising the peace process fostered at the Madrid Peace Conference in 1991, but within the framework of the 242 and 338 resolutions of the Security Council, so that negotiation is given a legal aspect. The USA has always wanted to play an important role in mediating, but its excessive proximity to the Israeli interests gives away a partial mediator. A State that might be a counterbalance in this process is the new Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood in the power - moderated by other political forces - ideologically close to Hamas and connected to the Palestinian interests, could act as a counterweight. However, the old problems between Egypt and Israel may still be felt. China, if it wasn’t for its reluctance in interfering in domestic issues, could also be a good host for the peace process. The reason for finding spokespersons is that the negotiations among Israel and Palestine which seemed to arrive at their climax at the Oslo I Accord - have been very tortuous and their conditions haven’t been fulfilled. The settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank by Israel, and the security in Israeli territory seem to be the most evasive elements in accomplishing the solution respecting the two States.

The possible recognition of Palestine as an observer State by the General Assembly on 29 November 2012 could contribute to the process of international mediation, since Palestine would have access to certain privileges such as subjecting Israel to the international penal tribunal for actions such as Yaser Arafat’s possible poisoning, which is currently being investigated. However, Israel considers this move by Palestine to be disloyalty towards the Oslo Accords, which are still used as a reference. Palestine’s move is unilateral and not negotiated, but experience seems to have shown that legal measures have led to nothing permanent. But this move by Palestine - which in the short term might seem to be an advancement - in the long term could haul further problems, since negotiation would be hindered completely and probably Israel would recur to reprisals without the legal frame as well. And if the resource of force is beneficial for someone, that is Israel, since the difference of each one’s power is such, that only diplomacy, with international mediation, seems to be the best strategy in order to achieve a determining solution, however long term.

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[1]

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