Blood of the Holy Land: My Take on the Israel-Palestine Conflict

        

        The recent attack and subsequent war between Hamas and Israel has taken over much of my thoughts as of late. The shocking devastation and sudden slaughter of more than a thousand and four hundred lives has been compared to the events of 9/11 by many major news outlets. Over the past month and a half, there have been over twelve thousand Palestinians slaughtered by the vengeful airstrikes and takeover by Israel, and thousands more are sure to pay the ultimate price before Hamas is defeated. As the work of death continues in Gaza, people outside the conflict seem to fall into one of two camps, those who support Israel and those who support Palestine. In the United States, there is an overwhelming support for Israel, while the Arab Palestinians are regarded with far less sympathy. Many have taken the tragedy of the October 7th attack and have utilized it to paint a broad stroke over what is truly a complex and thorny issue that has no easy way out. With words such as Islamophobia and Antisemitism being thrown like rocks at a public stoning, and rampant misinformation being spewed out across news outlets and perpetrated by politicians and pundits alike, hate and animosity is steadily growing as we designate those we disagree with as the enemy. In this entry, I would like to take a moment and briefly explore the history of Israel and Palestine, both ancient and modern, and afterwards give my two bits to this long and bloody feud. 

        Anyone familiar with the Bible would know somewhat of the Abrahamic Covenant found in Genesis 17 where God tells the Patriarch Abraham that he “shalt be a father of many nations” and that ”I will give unto thee, and to they seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession…” This narrative is found in both the Christian Bible, and in the Hebrew Torah and which Christians and Jews the world over deem to be a divine claim to much of the lands of the Levant. Even the Quran speaks of Abraham as one of the great seven prophets who proceeded Mohammad, in whom the Prophet of Islam is also a descendant. Aside from religious claims, history shows us that ancient Israeli peoples inhabited the lands of the Eastern Mediterranean well back in the 12th century BC where they arose from the floundering Canaanite civilization and may have existed first as a united Israelite nation before splintering into two distinct groups; the Kingdom of Israel in the North, and the Kingdom of Judah in the South, both established around two hundred years later. The Kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrian Empire in the 8th century BC. Afterwards, Judah fell to the Babylonians in the early 6th century. For over two and a half millennia, the lands of ancient Israel were passed around from one conquering empire to the next (with the exception of the Jewish Hasmonean Dynasty that claimed independence for less than fifty years before falling to Roman control) until at last the Ottomans took over Israel in 1516 AD, which, for the most part, remained in their hands for the next four hundred years. Meanwhile, Palestinians also have roots with both the ancient Canaanites, and also the Arab tribes that were introduced during the Rashidun Caliphate in 634 AD, and subsequent Muslim Caliphates afterwards. The word Palestine derives from the Philistines known biblically as a rival to Israel before the fall of Judah, and has been used to designate the southern Levant region at least since the time of the Greek historian, Herodotus who lived in the 5th century BC. Therefore, both peoples have a cultural and historical claim to the land, which is a dispute that continues into the modern era.

T.E. Lawrence who fought in the Arab Revolt

        From here, the foundation of today’s conflict starts to be laid out. In the early twentieth century, The Ottoman Empire became
embroiled in the events in Europe, siding with the Central Powers during the first World War. As the war dragged on, Britain began diplomatic missions to the majority Arab peoples who occupied Palestine, and who were not on friendly terms with their Turkish overlords. The British Government promised the local Arabs that they would be granted a nation that would stretch from Northern Syria down to the southern coast of modern day Yemen if they would help them fight the Ottomans in what is called the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence. This began the Arab Revolt of 1916, and is conveniently skipped by many pro-Israel apologists on YouTube and social media. To sum up the Revolt, the Allies won, and the Arabs held up their side of the bargain. Secretly, however, Britain conspired with France and reneged on their end of the deal, and instead designated Palestine as territorial mandates that were controlled directly by Britain and France and the precursor to the UN, the League of Nations. 

    

        Meanwhile, the Zionist movement was taking shape among the Jewish diaspora beginning in the late 19th century, especially among the Ashkenazi Jews of Europe. This was an ideology that urged the creation of a Jewish State raised in the heart of where ancient Israel once existed. During the Ottoman Empire, Jews consisted of only 5% of the Palestine region, but once the Mandates were imposed by foreign powers, coupled with a religious motive to fulfill Biblical prophecy of the restoration of Israel, a flood of Jewish settlers poured into the southern Levant bringing the Jewish population up to 12% in the early twenties, and to 31% by the end of WWII. 

        After the unthinkable atrocities of the Holocaust under Nazi Germany, the Zionist movement gained traction, not only among Jews, but among much of the Allied powers who felt there needed to be a recompense for the suffering they endured during the second World War. This led to the newly formed United Nations to dissolve the British Mandate in Palestine and institute a new two-state solution to give both Jews and Palestinian Arabs a country of their own. While the Jewish Zionists had no problem with this plan, the Palestinians felt this was simply taking what was already theirs and giving it to colonialists invading their land. Despite the lack of compromise, the UN went forward with their plans and funded the take over and establishment of the State of Israel. Since then, there have been more attempts at compromise which have been met only by total resistance from Palestinians resulting in a constant stream of blood and violence between the two factions sharing in a bureaucratic disaster in which neither side is without blame. 

        Now, some may read this and think that I am gung-ho in support of Palestine, but that is not entirely accurate. It is true that I believe the origins of the State of Israel are shady at best, but my own country, the United States, has a similar history of colonialism, repressing the rights of Natives, and sequestering them onto land of our choosing. Do I justify these actions by my ancestors, and those who were in power? Of course not. These were evil deeds that elevated my ethnic ancestors into a state of privilege and made life far harder for those who were thrust into reservations. However, does this mean that my country should be dissolved and everyone whose ancestry is not from pre-Columbian America to be sent back to the lands of their respected ancestry? Again, of course not. Conquest and colonialism are not new trends that only began with Israel, or the United States. Every nation in the world today can trace some root of its past to conquest by foreign powers. England, for example, was conquered by the Celts, the Anglos, the Saxons, the Romans, the Vikings, and the Normans throughout its history. While most, if not all, English people are an amalgamation of all those groups. Same goes for the Yayoi who conquered Japan from the Jomon, the Mogul in India, or the Incas who conquered the Chimu Empire of coastal Peru, and so on and so forth. To say, as many in the Middle East do, that Israel should not exist means that every country should not exist for the same reason. Conquest has always been a part of human nature, and though the practice needs to come to an end as we gain greater enlightenment and civility, it would be an impossible feat to try and dissipate every nation that has a history of conquest.

A tapestry depicting the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 AD

    

       As for the current war and where I stand on the matter, I firmly believe that Israel has the right to exist and defend itself after the devastating attack from Hamas who, despite history, have taken the path of fools by choosing violence over every other possible strategy. Israel is fully within its rights to ensure the safety of its people by putting an end to the regime via military force. But my support is a hopeless one, for I also believe that this is not going to help the overall conditions in Gaza or Israel, even if Hamas is utterly destroyed. Until some actual compromise is reached, another radicalized group will come into power and the whole cycle will start all over again.

        In our quest for civility, sometimes there are missteps along the way. In terms of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I believe that the first misstep was introducing the two-state solution. By trying to cater to both parties in which there was no compromise to begin with only cemented a division that would prove detrimental and irreconcilable. My solution is to do away with the two-state solution, which has proven a folly since its inception. For there to be a lasting peace, I believe, is for a united Israeli-Palestinian State. Where the lines of Gaza and the West Bank are completely integrated with Israel where there would be equal representation in government, and all citizens would be given the exact same rights regardless of religion or ethnicity. However, I do not believe this will ever be possible as things currently stand. Palestinians still feel that Israel should not exist, and Israel wants to remain their own, individual state. The only other options are either for Israel to completely conquer and subjugate Palestine (which is not ideal), or to leave and establish a homeland somewhere less politically frictious. Sadly, I do not foresee any of these options coming to pass anytime soon, and only a perpetuation of hate, fear, oppression and terrorism that we have seen for the last eighty years. Perhaps we as a species still have a ways to evolve until we overcome this hill of bigotry and superiority that is, in my opinion, the source of all conflicts and the greatest threat to the continuation of the human race. Yet there is always a glint of hope that people can learn from history and reach out to that ever elusive part of humanity where forgiveness, compromise and empathy resides.

A hypothetical flag for the Israeli-Palestinian State