On the 7th of October in 2023, Israel was invaded by an Islamic Palestinian militant group called Hamas. The invasion started off with 3,000 militants from Hamas. They breached the Gaza-Israel border and attacked Israeli communities and military bases. But the conflict grew bigger and bigger as Israel started to over react to Hamas’ attack. The ongoing war between Israel and Hamas threatens the lives of innocent civilians every day. But even when acknowledging this fact, Israel and Palestine do not try to end the war. But can there possibly be an end?
In 1948 the state of Israel was born. This caused 750,000 Palestinians to be relocated. The sudden appearance of a foreign state within the Arab territories led to rising tensions. The Arab-Israeli war ended with Israel’s victory, but the conflicts didn’t end there. From the Suez Crisis that started in 1956 to the Israel-Hamas war that is raging right now, Israel and Palestine went through a series of various wars. And the other countries started to interfere with these matters.
Because of the different points of view on Israel, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be seen as a proxy war between Islamic powers and the US. Some countries, like Iran, stood on the side of Palestine and were strongly against Israel. But countries like the US aided Israel in winning the war, negotiating with the Palestinians, and making agreements to end the war. Iran views Israel as a colonial outpost of Palestine, a foreign influence in Islamic lands. They believe that Israel took away the lands of Palestine forcibly. We can already know this by how Iran defined Israel as a “Zionist regime” that “occupied Palestine”.
The role of the US is limited in dealing with Iran, since the US is not at all in good relationships with Iran either. Recently, the relationships between Iran and the US got worse. Iran started to break the nuclear agreement they signed in 2015. According to an article, ‘Why Iran Is Gambling on Hamas,’ written by Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar in Foreign Affairs, the US might respond by attacking the nuclear facilities of Iran. But since Iran’s nuclear facilities are so deep underground, the US started to consider initiating a full-scale invasion of Iran to take down the whole nuclear program.
External attempts to stop the conflict between Israel and Palestine continued on, but until now, they didn’t work. Israel and Palestine always went back to fighting again after the agreements they have made for peace. Palestine always ended up invading Israel and Israel always responded by another invasion. But did Palestine invade Israel for no reason?
Shortly after both Israel and Palestine agreed to have peace, the problems persisted. Israel, promising not to interfere with Palestine, continued to breach their promise. They continued to interfere with Palestine’s freedom of movement. For example, Israel set manned checkpoints in the West bank and forbid their usage of roads. Israel continues to threaten Palestine by holding important roads in and out of Palestine. This is evident from the recent conflict where the Israeli military began to block food, water, and fuel from being provided to the Gaza strip and launched a ground invasion on the 27th of October. Threat to such vital supplies causes and provokes Palestine to harm Israel in return.
Currently, the war between Israel and Palestine seems impossible to end. But there might be a way to bring peace. Currently, Israel’s interference in Palestine is crucial to their relationship, since Palestine desires an independent state of their own in the future, and independence is impossible when someone has the power to stop vital supplies necessary for its very survival. Once Israel starts to respect and stop interfering with Palestinian territories, their relation might improve.
Peace between Israel and Palestine remains possible. Although it would take a lot of diplomatic efforts to actually persuade Israel to stop interfering with Palestinian decisions, there is a possibility that in the future, the West Bank might be less heavily guarded. And maybe, Israel and Palestine can form a stable relationship.
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