Divine Conflict
Written by: Gaebrielle Conde
Repetition of history is inevitable, no matter how much prevention and precautions one takes. History is an experience full of learning opportunities to create a better future; however, historical experiences are bound to be attached to trauma that seeks vengeance. The most recent and known current event today is the ongoing war between Israel and Palestine. The two countries have a history of opposing each other’s ideologies, but both countries have tried to create peace between each other. So, how did international negotiations lead to bloodshed and the death of innocents? To answer that question, as an outsider, we must get to know who Israel and Palestine are and how their differences are leading to a possible world war today.
The Israel-Palestine conflict is about centuries worth of land dispute over the present-day Palestine-controlled land – Gaza Strip and West Bank – which both countries claim as their ancestral home. As I have mentioned, this conflict has been going on for centuries, which makes it difficult to pinpoint the cause of the recent conflict. However, the majority argues that the current conflict between the two countries today is due to the “Partition Plan” for Palestine founded by the United Nations in 1947 (Tahhan & Najjar, 2017). As expected, each country had different opinions about the partition; Israel accepted the partition of then Palestine, as it was the place where many of the Jews affected by the Nazi Holocaust fled and found home, while Muslim-Palestine disagreed as they recognized the land as their own and was occupied by force. Since then, the conflict continued– having peace negotiations in between and forceful land occupation, leading thousands from both sides to their deaths. The outcome of this ongoing conflict isn’t just the physical deaths but also the destruction of international relations, rising violence and counter-attacks, and the repetition of mass destruction of each nation.
Realistically, it isn’t just Israel and Palestine who are impacted by their conflict, but the rest of the world too. Citizens of the world are conflicted in choosing whom to side with, which is totally understandable since the conflict never really ended but only continued to grow, thus creating more confusion. In theory, Palestine and Israel can come to terms with a “two-state solution” and acknowledge each other’s ideologies to create peace for their people and have the opportunity to mourn the impact of the destruction in order to move forward. However, it seems that the vengeance of history is too substantial to end the divine conflict (Beauchamp, 2018). As an outsider, I acknowledge the importance of the disputed land to each country and why they have made the decisions they’ve made; the point of this article is to illustrate how an internal issue can escalate into an external matter if ideologies differ so great that it is almost impossible to achieve a middle ground.
Sources:
Beauchamp, Z. (2018, November 20). What are Israel and Palestine? why are they fighting?. Vox. https://www.vox.com/2018/11/20/18080002/israel-palestine-conflict-basics
BBC. (2023, October 16). Israel gaza war: History of the conflict explained. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-44124396
Tahhan, Z. A., & Najjar, F. (2017, December 10). Why Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel. Occupied East Jerusalem | Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2017/12/10/why-jerusalem-is-not-the-capital-of-israel
