Arab-Israel Conflict: An Insoluble Situation

For the greater part of the 20th century and even further back in history, the Middle East region currently known as Israel has been the subject of ongoing violence and discord. For decades, it has seemingly been the hobby of policymakers and academicians to ask questions like what events or policies have been most important in preventing a settlement between Israelis and Palestinians? The short answer to this question is that failure to arrive at a settlement in the Arab-Israel conflict has not been a function of any specific event(s) or policy. The failure to strike peaceful accord in the conflict is a result of religious fanaticism and the normalization of violence - a seemingly insoluble problem.

Every Policy has been Tried to No Avail

As history shows, virtually every conceivable policy has been tried to no avail in the Arab-Israel conflict. In 1915, the first major diplomatic attempt at peace in the Middle East Arab-Palestinian problem was attempted by British High Commissioner Henry McMahon. With the anticipation of victory in World War I, McMahon promised Sharif Husein (ruler of the Muslim holy city of Mecca) that independence would be granted to most Arab areas in the former Ottoman Empire (Institute of Curriculum Services). Ultimately, however, Arab and British representatives disagreed over the placement of borders. The table was, thus, set for promises of an Israeli state in Palestine and the emergence and escalation of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Between 1920 and 1947, additional policy proposals were set forth for balancing Arab and Israeli claims to the ancient land of Israel. These included limits on the numbers of Jewish immigrants and where Jews could settle. In 1947, the most monumental policy implementation took place in the form of the UN Partition Plan. This effort was conceived as a type of compromise whereby it was hoped that Arabs and Jews would accept the land divisions. The Jews accepted the partition while the Arabs sought to block Jewish statehood, even attacking Jews violently (Institute of Curriculum Services). Since 1948, a seemingly endless succession of wars, policy measures, and peace accords have all failed to result in resolution of the Arab-Israel conflict. These include: the Six-Day War (1967), the War of Attrition (1967-1970), the Yom Kippur War (1973), Camp David Accords (1978), the Oslo Accords (1993), the Camp David Summit (2000), the Roadmap to Peace proposal (2003), the UN Cease Fire Resolution (2006), and the Annapolis Conference (2007) (Institute of Curriculum Services). All considered, it is quite obvious that no particular event(s) or policy can be pinpointed as the reason for failure to arrive at a settlement in the Arab-Israel conflict. The Arabs and Israelis are simply not amenable to reasonable policy solutions.

The Normalization of Violence

Sometimes it would seem that policymakers and academicians over analyze situations, not seeing the forest for the trees. But really, how hard is it to understand why a settlement in the Arab-Israel conflict has not been formulated? On both sides of the conflict, violence has been accepted as a viable and legitimate means to an end. As for the Arab position, the spirit of Hamas is succinctly captured in a leaflet circulated in the early 1990s:

“We will burn the ground under the feet of the occupiers. Let the whole world know that the eruption by the Palestinian people will not be extinguished until the achievement of independence in a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.” (Hunt 408)

The Palestinians are not alone in their acceptance and normalization of violence. The Israelis are also guilty of the same desensitization. Since the 1980s and heightened tensions between Israelis and Palestinians, for example, it has become the normal practice of Israeli authorities to detain innocent suspects for a minimum of 18 days (Conroy 18). The average Israeli citizen and even most Palestinians have accepted this type of unjust harassment as a normal routine. Even further, an “eye for an eye” mentality prevails in Israeli culture such that any episode or event involving violence will be met with the same. In recent news, for example, an Israeli airstrike killed a Palestinian motorcyclist and wounded two other people in Gaza. The attack was a reprise for claims of Hamas violence, thus representing “the first deadly airstrike carried out by Israel since a November ceasefire” (rt.com). The conclusive observation, all considered, is that violence has been accepted on both sides of the Arab-Israel conflict as a viable and legitimate means to an end.

Religious Fanaticism and Myths

Beyond the sociological analysis of the Arab-Israel conflict, the proverbial rabbit hole goes far deeper. In fact, the root of the Arab-Israeli conflict is fundamentally about religious fanaticism and the construction of mutually exclusive myths. On the Arab side of the myth construction, adherents of Islam generally believe that their way is the only truth. At the heart of the problem is the fact that Muslims believe that their holy scripture, the Quran, is the perfect and directly transcribed word of God (Mattson). In fact, Islam teaches that unbelievers (i.e., so-called infidels) are inferior people who must be subjugated in order for the divine and perfect world order of Islam to prevail. Muslim fundamentalists, therefore, believe that victory over the infidels (foremost, Jews) justifies any means of achieving it - including violence and killing. For Muslim fundamentalists like the leaders of Hamas, violence and terrorism serve apocalyptic ends and purposes – namely, the ultimate triumph and dominance of modern Islam on a worldwide level.

As a matter of evidence, the original founders of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Fathi Shaqaqi, and Abd al-Aziz Awda, were members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood has deep ideological roots in anti-Semitism and fascism. In the 1970s, however, the two leaders decided that the Muslim Brotherhood had become too moderate and unsatisfactorily committed to the Palestinian cause (Fletcher). They led the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement for eliminating Israel entirely. Thereby, the founding members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad took their violent agenda to the next level of bigotry by calling for the "militant destruction of Israel" and the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state (Fletcher). Jewish fundamentalism, similarly, teaches intolerance of other religions such that Jewish fundamentalist leaders like Rabbi Kook the Elder teach that “the difference between a Jewish soul and souls of non-Jews—all of them in all different levels—is greater and deeper than the difference between a human soul and the souls of cattle” (Shahak and Mezvinsky). In other words, if a person is not Jewish, they are not even as good as a cow. That is not exactly an ideological prescription for peace and resolution of the longstanding Arab-Israel conflict.

Conclusion

In the final comment, humanity seeks answers to fundamental questions like what is my relationship with God? The major religions of the world, including Islam and Judaism, offer mutually exclusive mythical responses to the question. From there, zealous fundamentalists, Muslims and Jews alike, prescribe their staunch and uncompromising interpretations of the Quran and the Torah. This, of course, does not exactly provide the basis for policy resolutions for the Arab-Israel conflict. The problem is, therefore, not only insoluble but perhaps is more properly construed as a matter of fundamentalist psychopathy – i.e., something that should be treated by psychologists, not just politicians.

Works Cited

Conroy, John. Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People: The Dynamics of Torture. University of California Press. 2000. Print.

Fletcher, Holly. Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Council on Foreign Relations. 2008 Apr 10. Web. 2013 Oct 22.

Hunt, Michael H. The world transformed: 1945 to the present. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's. 2003. Print.

Institute of Curriculum Services. Timeline of the Arab-Israeli Conflict and Peace Process. 2012. Web. 2013.

Mattson, Ingrid. The Story of the Qur'an: Its History and Place in Muslim Life. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell. 2012 Dec 7. Google ebook.

rt.com. Israeli airstrike in Gaza kills one Palestinian, reportedly a militant. 2013 Apr 30. Web. 2013 Oct 22.

Shahak, Israel and Norton Mezvinsky. Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel. London: Pluto Press. 1999. Print.