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Final Essay

The intractable conflict between Israel and Palestine.

Luis Esteban Vela Donoso

00130028

RCL 201 Conflict and its resolution

March 11, 2018


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The conflict between Israel and Palestine, an entire view to this conflict.

The conflict between Israel and Palestine, the most famous conflict of the modern

era, had won that title by the magnitude of the scalation that this conflict has reached over

time. On its beginning it seems it would not be a lasting conflict by the total differences the

two parties present: a very powerful, well-armed, ready for battle Palestine, against a new

weak, but strongly united Israel. Against all odds, those two very different parties extend the

conflict over the time, and until now, the war started in 1948 is an actual concern to

International Community that seems more willing to end to this conflict that had escalated

into a war. Even before the conflict was born, all the warnings pointed to a very long conflict

between these two parties, what anyone back on 1948 would thought, is the importance,

magnitude, and degrees of escalation that this conflict would take.

All the factors to understand this conflict can be found through the history of both

parties that lead it. The conflict itself is not a war between two countries (explicitly said), it

is a war between two peoples, the Jewish (Israel) and the Arabic-Palestine’s people. Both are

seeking for very similar objectives, and just by that reason, the goals of one get in middle of

goals of the other. So, for an initial perspective one of both have to stay back to reach an

agreement. The problem, and the conflict itself, is that no one want to give anything to the

other party, and this have been escalating over the years without finding a solution to the

conflict. Through all these years any party have changed its mind over the goals they seek,

and that makes very hard to find a common ground, the reason of the intractability of the

conflict. (Scepia)
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The roots of the conflict are located before the first World War. Over that time, the

Jewish people were suffering the beginning of a wave of racial hate that would predominate

all over Europe by the end of the XIX century, and by this reason all the Jewish over the old

continent were forced to leave their home countries in seek of better opportunities for life.

Something similarly happened with the Arabic-Palestine people, the territory of Palestine

that have been their home was snatched by the Ottoman Empire that rule over the territory,

and Palestine people should refuse to live in a dominated home, or to move around to other

parts of the globe.

With these antecedents the World War I started. The Allies countries were fighting

over the Axis powers in which the Ottoman Empire was part of it. Great Britain, member of

the Allies forces, promised to both parties (Jewish people, and Arabic people) that if they

help the Allies to win the war, Allies will give them Palestine as reward. Both parties accepted

the deal, without knowing the intention of Other. When World War II started, Great Britain

still didn’t give Palestine to any of both parties, but on Palestine there was a strong presence

of Arabic Palestine people, and few Jewish.

After WWII, both parties claimed their rights to Great Britain, which started a wave

of hate and internal conflicts all over the territory of Palestine between Jewish and Arabic

people. Great Britain, weakened by the war, couldn´t continue to maintain the power and

sovereignty of Palestine. So, in 1948 by an agreement of the new International agency (the

UN) Great Britain leave Palestine splitted in two, a Jewish zone and an Arabic zone. This

was the beginning of the conflict by itself; when Great Britain leaves the country both parties

started a war for the total domain of Palestine. A war that until now have lasted.
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The antecedents and history of both people gave us the general idea of why they are

fighting, both people have common interests in that particular region on the Middle East, but

the needs and the goals that both parties have been the key to reach a stage on which the war

can come to an end. (Garrido)

First, we have the Israeli people and their will to stay on Israel, the new state created

for them. For the Jewish, the formation of Israel represents the end of an era where they were

considered a plague, the end of an era in which the world was not able to give them the

chances to be themselves. After the XIX century, the racial hate for the Jewish people grow

very fast all over Europe, and all countries started to consider the Jewish people as their

enemies by the simple fact they were Jewish. The Jewish people should stand against abuses,

general hate and xenophobia who faster spread over all Europe and convert the Jewish on the

principal victims of the beginning of the XX century. The climax of this abuses and

xenophobia reached a climax when on 1933 Adolf Hitler reached the power on Germany

with the Nazi party and expressly promulgated his ideas against Jewish. The racial hatred

grew disproportionally after that ending in the massacre of the Holocaust who shocked the

world. With this on their backs, the Jewish people found on Israel a place where they can

finally call home, a place where all their brothers who had been repudiated all over the world

can finally come a place where they could be the hosts of themselves. A place where they

can finally reunite and express their beliefs and life-style without been harmed. Is because of

this that Israel was a need to the Jewish people, it was the first time since the times of

Abraham that they can have a place in the world where they can call home.

The other actor on this conflict is the Arabic-Palestine people, who expressly wanted

to take out the Jewish of the Palestine territory and end with this new nation of Israel. From
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the perspective of the Arabic-Palestine people, Palestine was their territory, a territory that

they own before the Ottoman Empire (which they considered their enemy) took from them,

and that now they where taking again what was took from them. In this perspective the Jewish

people have no rights to settle down on their territory, and even less have the right to create

a nation as Israel was. They were not conquering any territory, the are just taking what already

was from them, and the Jewish people were invading their sovereignty at installing on

Palestine. So, a people totally opposite to them, with ambitious to create a big Jewish country

in the bosom of their home was a thread that they will not stand. From this perspective the

Jewish people, and all the nation of Israel, becomes their enemies.

So, these are the needs that both parties had (and still have) to not abandon their goals.

Of course, there are people who do not understand this and don’t realize the magnitude of

this conflict. To most of the western people, Middle East is a distant land where, for us, the

stereotypes domain. Most of the people from this side of the planet do not have knowledge

of those countries apart from what they see on tv or the medias. In many cases the medias

(consent or unconscious) transmit the erroneous information to us. To many western people

the war between Jewish and Arabic’s is a religious war, but nothing is distant from reality.

Of course, the religion is an important factor on the conflict, but is only the top of the iceberg.

The real reason of the conflict are the needs that both parties are struggling for. The

needs that we already mentioned that both parties have been carried until even until the las

century. Of course, the religion is an important factor in order to understand the reason of

why two parties cannot stand each other, it is one of the points in which they do not are the

same; it means is another reason of why not to sharing the territory with Other, but that is

only a reason to not find common ground, not the entire goal of both parties. The Jewish
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people had the need to find a home for them, and the Palestine Arabic people have the need

to secure their sovereignty. These both needs are opposite one from another, and that is the

reason of why the conflict is so intractable.

The reasons of the conflict, the goals that both sides want to achieve and the poor

common ground that exists, make this conflict a very complex situation from both parties.

By a looking through the past we can observe the magnitude with which it started and is not

surprising that knowing the reasons and goals of parties this conflict started directly as a war,

without previous intention to reach an agreement from parties. Because of a lack of initiative

in starting dialogues or methods for solving the conflict, the international community has

been in the obligation to do something to stop this war. Because of that the UN had tried to

act as a third-party mediator in many cases, but in most cases the results of those efforts have

not affected the course of the war.

By the lack of Alternative Dispute Resolutions (ADR) methods that both parties have

shown over the development of the conflict, UN have tried to stablish summits in with both

parties can dialogue. Knowing that one of the reason that any deal or even negotiation have

been made between parties is because the irrational belief of not giving any chance to lose

the face against Other, the UN took the initiative and stablished some summits and

negotiations with parties to try to reach any agreement. These agreements have not been

extremely effective at stopping once and for all the war, it has served as basis to stablish new

diplomatic relations between both sides.

Because of all the efforts of the UN (a third party in this conflict) and the opening of

the parties to stablish diplomatic relations, the conflict has experimented a diminution in the

escalation (it escalates, but slower than at the beginning), that is reflected with more summits,
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more dialogues and more deals between parties trying to solve the conflict. By disgrace, all

this effort has not been enough to end the war once and for all, even until nowadays, but this

conflict has to stop at some time. And with help of third party interested in helping to find a

solution to this conflict, maybe it can finish entities than expected.

But now that the world has to get used to have daily news about the escalation of this

conflict, why this conflict has been in force for so many years? Do not miss the fact that this

is the most prolonged conflict of the modern era, maybe compared in time with the ancient

times where wars lasted for decades or even centuries. It´s remarkable than a local country

have lasted more than the two World Wars, it has even lasted more than the Cold War (more

or less 44 years). And the duration of the conflict is directly related with the needs and

perceptions of both parties. (Reinhart)

The perception of both parties is a fundamental key to understand the complexity of

the conflict, the nature of itself, and the level of intractability at which this conflict has

reached. As said before, the Jewish people wanted, after all the abuses they ad to suffer by

all Europe and after the Holocaust, a national territory where they can finally get stablished

in, without any harm from the outside; and from them, the Palestine-Arabic people are those

who stand between them and the end of the era of suffer and nomadic lifestyle. Even more

now than a big power such as Great Britain have promised them than Palestine would be their

home. For the Jewish, the fact than the big powers from the UN, and more specifically Great

Britain have given them the chance to build their country is more than enough to be assure

than all the dangers from the past are erased. Now than an European power, who used to

repudiate Jewish people gave the permission to build Israel is more than necessary to fight

for it, and the fact than the Palestine people don’t want them on what is supposed to be their
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Jewish nation were not going to stop Jewish after all. They will face the Arabic Palestine

people as an enemy that is trying to rob your house, because on the Jewish perspective, that

was exactly what they were doing.

On the other hand, the Palestine Arabic people, who wanted to regain, from before

the Ottoman invasion to Palestine, the old sovereignty and domain that they used to have no

more than a century ago; to which Jewish are that bad weed planted in the middle of their

house who harm that sovereignty with their ambitious of expansion and creation of a bigger

Jewish country. The same case happened to the Palestine Arabic people: Great Britain

promised them the reestablishment of what was their domain on Palestine. So, for them, the

Jewish were the ones who was invading their home, a home that now they were recovering

and that they were menacing with all this Zionist movement. For the view of the Palestine

people, the Jews were not people who are easily satisfied, the hate from Europe against Jews

have reached Middle East too; and the stereotype that Jews were greedy was a threat to

Palestine people, who supposed that at the moment that Jews could, they will start conquering

their territories.

A brief way to resume the last points of view is that both parties see the Other´s

ambition as a menace to their own desires, and they will not be able to low their standards in

any negotiation, because what at stake here was the own security of their people (on both

sides). By knowing these perspectives of both sides, it is more understandable why the

conflict escalated so quickly and in those magnitudes.

Those perceptions were the first impact that both parties have one of other. All those

feelings of fear, anger, sense of injustice against them and the preset image of Other were the

first psychological factors that both parties had at the beginning. These emotions were
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enough to make impossible a friendly first contact between parties, and impulse by fear the

Palestine people invade Israel. This fact, the fact that the beginning of the relations between

both parties was a direct invasion, equivalent to a war declaration, marked the beginning of

what the relation between these two parties will be. This fact doomed this conflict to evolve

into a conflict spiral model where heavy contentious tactics were applied by both sides, in

which at any moment any of both parties stopped to think into a resolution model because

they were busy attending the attack of Other, who was preparing a new contentious tactic.

These contentious tactics came in shape of a war, in which both parties learned that Other

will not stop until reaching his goal, and to win this conflict the have to tear their needs from

Other´s hands.

After that heavy contentious act from Palestine people, the psychological

determinants were already planted in mind of both parties. The environmental determinant

was the lesson that Jewish learned the bad way, that this will be a war in which to win you

must make the other lose, and this idea was the motto for both parties. Having the

environmental psychological factors implicit in parties’ minds, the psychological learned

determinants that parties adopted were influenced by the conflict itself and its spiral model.

The feelings from both sides at the beginning of the conflict were so strong in people that

starred it, that you can find the same feelings nowadays than those people feel 50 years ago.

The culture of both people turned the culture of the conflict, in which the Other is an implicit

enemy and the only way to win this war is eliminating Other. This hate has been passed

through generation from generation until 1948 until nowadays, and today´s people still

believes that theory that for finding their goals, Other must be crushed first.
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Knowing all the phycological determinants that are implicit on parties, is easy to

understand why the escalation of this conflict have been so abrupt. Since 1948, when

Palestine people invaded Israel in a very heavy contentious tactic, this have been the role

model of the conflict. Is out of discussion that the first aggressor was Palestine, Israel have

been settled down two days ago the invasion. But, at being Palestine the first in attacking

Israel, this last one didn’t do anything to try to stop this behavior and started to attack again.

Is clearly that the best chance of not having a so complicated, escalated, and intractable

conflict would have been that Palestine didn’t attacked Israel, but Israel also could have

stopped this behavior to make an aggressor defender model in which at some point a model

of resolution could have been reached if both parties would have tried to collaborate instead

of trying to eliminate Other.

The beginning of this conflict started in the same way as a lot of other conflicts before,

but this conflict has something different. Here the price is not just a piece of land or resources,

the price is the identity, sovereignty and security of the winner and that is what both people

have been looking for from before the XX century. The perception of this conflict has been

so deep, that the conflict itself has altered the culture of their participants. If the beginning of

this conflict was same as a lot of others, the development of it has not. And all of this is

because the perception of their participants. None of them wants to lose what they have been

seeking over more than a century, and now less than before, that their own culture is the

culture of the conflict itself.

So, answering the question, why this is a lasting conflict and of such intractuality?

The reason is because this is not a normal conflict. This is a conflict that from its beginning,

it has started to modify the culture, psychology and perception of parties on it. Is not a conflict
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form land or resources, is a conflict for identity. And that is the reason of why both parties

are ready to sacrifice all on it: to regain the identity that was took from them years ago, and

that now only Other stands on the way to get it.

Knowing what we have said, we can argue that this conflict will last until any of it´s

parties have any interest in knowing what Other have to say, which can be expressed as a

lack of effective communication by both sides. If no one interpose between these two parties,

this conflict only could stop when one party crush the other one. Through the history of this

conflict it seems that that is the only intention that both sides only seek for. And that will be

the final end of the conflict if no one do something.

The principal obstacle to create an effective communication would be the bad

memory for remembering agreements and deals made in the past by this two parties, and a

poor predisposition to start any communication between these sides. The bad memory alludes

to the ineffective that some agreements have been during the process of the conflict. An

example could be on the decade of the 70´s where some agreements between presidents of

both sides were established, just to start another contentious tactic few months after these

were established. This kind of action by both sides have weakened the belief of parties that

an agreement can be an effective way to solve the conflict. And, if an agreement is so easily

braked as this, is obviously that any side is is going to will to make agreements, because the

agreements are based on the confidence that both parties can have one of other, and if actions

like this as are perpetuated, there would no be a reason to reach a deal by diplomatic ways.

(Bercovitch)

In this aspect, an effective mediator is needed to try to stop this belief that the

diplomatic way to solve the war is totally dead. Any of both sides will take a new first step
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to arrange a summit or to plan a conversation between parties, so is not just necessary, but

indispensable a third party in this conflict if sides want to end this conflict in a pacific way.

This mediator should be an experimented in the field of solving escalated conflicts (there

would be few cases of conflicts more escalated than this one) that can make both sides to

belief again that a diplomatic solution is still possible to end this war. By the level of

escalation and because of the model of spiral model conflict this conflict has reached, all the

insults, threads, and contentious tactics were already used by both sides; so, in order to make

both parties to take a step back so they can reach a way to find common ground, the mediator

must force the parties to take different postures at the way they are looking this conflict. He

must use the strategy of active listening and positive reformulation in order to try to make

the parties to feel that their proposals have being listened by everyone (Other, third party,

rest of the world) but even by that, they have to change their mind to try to give some space

so both can find a middle point and shar an actual common ground; task that not will be easy,

but also is not impossible. (Salva)

A very powerful tool that mediator can use is the emphasize of empathy as a way of

reconciliation between both parties. Both sides of the conflict have reached a level of hate so

big that both sides have used as a psychological shield to pretext their behaviors thoughts as

satanization of Other, and dehumanization of itself. By using these two thoughts, parties have

a reason that give them all the moral right to finish with Other without feeling any guilt or

remorse, by thinking that the only kind of humans that are on the other side of he conflict are

total enemies that they have to kill in order to reach their goal; when the reality is that both

sides count with civil people, women, children, sick people, old people that are also part of

the conflict and are suffering just because they are on the wrong side of the map. An effective
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mediator can make see the chiefs of both sides this reality, that they are fighting a war like if

their lives depend on it. And the reality is that their lives really depend on they to win the

war, but because parties have never considered another alternative to finish this conflict.

Empathy could be a powerful tool, and for so simple it sounds, is the first step to make people

see all the damage they are actually causing on people that, in essence, are similar to them.

(Rubin)

The way that the third party handle the mediation would be a crucial aspect on the

development of a way to the peace, because depending on how the mediator introduces

himself into the conflict, both parties can listen to him or ignore any participation of him into

the develop of the conflict. The mediator must be, as said before, a well experimented person

in the matter of solving conflicts so this could act as a formal mediator; this will be an

important key in order that both sides respect the mediator and his capacity to intervene in

an external conflict. Also, the mediator must go in a representative role of a bigger

organization with stablished beliefs and methods, none as an individual; this organization

must be the UN (obviously) the only organization with the legitimacy enough to dictate an

impartial judgement that can be accepted by both parties and that have members that stand

the positions of both sides, so a protection of mutual interests is secured for both sides. The

mediator must be and present himself as total impartial for both sides; given the escalation

of the conflict any of both parties will accept that an external member start to guide a process

of peace that favors Other more than itself, in that case a grave situation must take place in

which the intervention of a mediator would not be respected by the fact that mediator is

against that party, so this can be the most critical aspect of an effective mediator in this

conflict. Also, the mediator must be invited, it means that both parties must agree to let a
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third party to join the conflict in order to help them to stablish common ground; same with

impartiality, if one of the parties don’t want a mediator the work that this could make would

be useful just because one of both parties would not recognize his power as legitim power

(power of mediation) and would truncate hi efforts in order to stablish peace. The mediator

also must go in a directive oriented resolution instead of an advisory oriented way, in order

to force bot parties to find a solution to the problem; with the last fifty years there has been

no results in finding peace at this conflict, so the mediator, in name of the UN, must impose

some points to the parties that obligatory must be reached if bigger they don’t want to suffer

sanctions of bigger powerful nations; this could be an extreme way of facing mediation, but

I think that at this point extreme decisions must been taken in order to find an end to the

conflict. So, as you can see, all these specifications must been take in consideration by a third

party who would mediate the conflict but is because the complexity of the conflict that a third

party must take such a complexity role in the search of the peace of this conflict. (Rubin)

Examples such as the Oslo Summits and Camp David Summit in which third party

have been present are examples of the efficiency that third party can promote to the deals and

agreements that this conflict needs. Those examples were the maximum apogee of peace

since the start of the conflict in 1948 and more actions like these should be implemented to

the diplomatic part in order to solve faster this conflict.

After everything that have been exposed, after all the tries that third parties,

International Community, and everyone affected or not by this conflict, after all the chaos

generated by the war these two countries have been since 1948 the conflict continues. It can

sound weird (even funny depending of the animus of the reader) that humanity can create

such wonderful things when we work together (cure for diseases, technologies that make
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possible the sci-fi movies) all the damage we can generate to ourselves when we fight each

other. Palestine-Arabic and Israeli people are not bad people, they don’t are in this war

because they like it, but because they think is the only way to reach happiness, that after all

is what everyone seeks for. Both people fight for a cause, both parties fight for a home. The

injustice that Great Britain create at the moment that promise to two desperate people the

same reward marked the beginning of the conflict, there is no enemy more dangerous than

the one who has nothing to lose; and these two people have lost everything when they were

promised a home for them. (Canales)

I used to see this conflict as a war that until nowadays was impulse by a sense of

superiority, by a sense that Jewish are better than Arabic’s or vice versa, but this course has

made me thought about it. That is not the case, people die every day, from both sides. Is not

necessary that this conflict must be near (which is not) to know that the people on this conflict

don’t want to be fighting. Is not necessary to be a genius to know that everybody prefer peace

over war. And right for that reason is baffling the fact that this war continues. Why these

people keep fighting? Why, after all the efforts, after all the damage that both sides have

caused in Other and that Other have caused in them, after all this time, the war goes on? This

conflict will mark a landmark on human history when it finally comes to an end, after

Palestine and Israel can be in peace, not worrying about how many soldiers take from homes

to the battlefield, instead of how celebrate this horrible conflict just as a tale from the past.

The most important lesson this class have teach me, is that no matter how deep a

conflict is, nobody wants to be on it. No matter if is a couple that are getting divorced, or two

countries that want to kill each other, nobody wanted to fight against an equal. But, if a

conflict has started, there are always a way to reach to an end. There will be always the will
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to reach an agreement, or a third party that help us to find a common ground. No matter how

escalated the conflict is, or how important are the needs that we are fighting for, everyone

wants to be in good terms with other people. Is just by this thought, that no matter this conflict

has lasted more than 50 years, it comforts me to know that some day this war will come to

an end. Because, at the end, everyone wants to be happy.


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Bibliography

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http://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias/2014/08/140801_israel_palestinos_conflicto_pregunta

s_basicas_jp

Bercovitch, J. Mediation in International Conflict. Recovered from: D2L, professor´s

material.

Canales, C. (2013). David y Goliat: El conflict arabe-israeli. Editorial Edaf: Spain

El Nuevo Dia. ¿Por que pelean los israelies y los palestinos? (October 2015):

https://www.elnuevodia.com/noticias/mundo/nota/porquepeleanlosisraeliesypalestinos-

2112732/

Felipe Garrido. La historia del conflicto palestino-israeli. (July 2014):

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John Bright. La Historia de Israel. (1970). Bilbao: La Editorial Vizcaina

MidEastWeb. In a nutshell: Israeli Palestinian conflict. (January 2016):

http://www.mideastweb.org/nutshell.htmRubin. The Interview of Third Parties: Mediation.

Recovered from: D2L, professor´s material.

Salva. Mediation. Recovered from: D2L, professor´s material.

Scepia. Yitzhak Rabin. (June 2005):

https://web.archive.org/web/20050307002702/http://www.rabincenter.org.il:80/site/en/rabi

n.asp?pi=17
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Tanya Reinhart. Como acabar con la Guerra de 1948. (August 2003). New York:

Seven Stories press.

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