Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Final Essay
00130028
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,
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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,
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
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
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
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
Bibliography
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http://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias/2014/08/140801_israel_palestinos_conflicto_pregunta
s_basicas_jp
material.
El Nuevo Dia. ¿Por que pelean los israelies y los palestinos? (October 2015):
https://www.elnuevodia.com/noticias/mundo/nota/porquepeleanlosisraeliesypalestinos-
2112732/
http://www.eldefinido.cl/actualidad/mundo/2652/Te_explicamos_el_conflicto_palestinoisra
eli/
https://web.archive.org/web/20050307002702/http://www.rabincenter.org.il:80/site/en/rabi
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Tanya Reinhart. Como acabar con la Guerra de 1948. (August 2003). New York: