Israel-Palestine conflict is one of the world’s oldest unsolved geo-political issue which can also be studied on the religious angle. Recently, on 7th October 2023, Hamas launched a surprise and massive attack on the territory of Israel. It was a routine attack of Hamas on Israel. Thousands of rockets were targeted towards this Jewish country. Not only this, but also the militants of Hamas crossed the border line of Israel and killed many civilians and took dozens of Israeli hostages along with them. It was an unexpected and unbelievable intelligence failure of Mossad, the institute for intelligence and special operations of Israel govt. for which Israel got paid a huge amount of life and property loss.
But, if we recall the Israel- Palestine conflict, it is not a new headline in any print or electronic media. It is one of the oldest issue of world politics. You can not believe but it is true that this conflict is as old as 1000+ years back, before the formation of this country Israel. At the earliest time, this conflict was between three major religions – Jewish, Christian and Muslim. But now, between two landmarks, that are Israel and Palestine. A most pronounced name bounced in between this conflict is Jerusalem.
To know the reason behind this old age conflict, we should divide its history into two backgrounds – religious and geo-political.
History Of The Israel-Palestine Conflict
(1) Religious History Of The Conflict
Let us understand this conflict through the angle of religion.
It was about 1047 BC when this land (presently Israel and Palestine) was known as the kingdom of Israel and ruled by the Jewish king Solomon. The capital was Jerusalem. King Solomon at that time 1st built a temple for Jewish here at Jerusalem which is known as “Temple Mount”. In 586 BC, Babylonian came and they destroyed the 1st temple. Again after the invasion of Persian they rebuilt it but this was known as 2nd temple instead of 1st temple. The 2nd temple was again destroyed by the Roman during their invasion. Many Jewish were killed during this period and many left this land and migrated towards Europe. From the remaining Jewish left at this land, there was a family where Jesus Christ was born. So, in actuality, Jesus Christ was a Jewish by birth but in his young age he came over from his traditional religion and set up a new religion that we call Christianity today. This Christianity practice of Jesus Christ and his followers was not felt comfortable among the Jewish community and at the end, Jesus was killed by the Jewish by hanging him on a cross at Jerusalem.
During this period, the region was ruled by the Roman Empire. In the year 306, Constantine The Great became the king of the Roman Empire and he was the first emperor to convert to Christianity religion. Constantine built the “Church of Holy Sepulchre” at the same place where Jesus Christ was killed by the Jews (Located in the Christian Quarter of the old city of Jerusalem).
In 638 AD, the Roman empire was defeated by the Arab Army of Umar and they captured this land. During this Islamic period, at the place of the 2nd temple Arabians built the “Dome of the Rock” and near to it, the “Al Aqsa Mosque”. Now, Jerusalem has a great importance as a central place of three major religious communities. The area of Jerusalem where the “Dome of the Rock”, “Al Aqsa Mosque” and “The western wall” are situated, combinedly known as “Haram Al Shareef” by Islamic community and this same is called the “Temple Mount” by Jewish. This is the 3rd important holy place for Muslims followed by Makkah and Madina. Also a major holy destination for Jewish. For the Christian community, here is the “Church of Holy Sepulchre ” which is only 2 km away from the Temple Mount or Haram Al Shareef. For this importance, Jerusalem is a desired area to be captured by all the three communities.
(2) Geo-Political Background Of The Conflict
14th May 1948, Israel was formed. From the next day of formation, this country is repeatedly facing many wars with the neighboring Arab Nations.
The geo-political story of Israel and Palestine is quite similar to the story of India-Pakistan separation. In both the cases British Govt. played a cleaver role. Before the time of World War-I, the entire region of Israel-Palestine was ruled over by the Ottoman Empire. In the year 1914, world war-l started in which Germany was supported by the Ottoman Empire. To get the support of the Russian and American Jewish, the British tried to make them happy and declared to help them to create a separate Jewish state after all. Britain stood on its words very strongly by passing the Balfour Declaration. Its majestic govt. view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. After the end of the world war-l, Britain won the war and started ruling the land of the Ottoman Empire. It was the time to work on the words given to Jewish through the Balfour declaration. The British government started to move Jewish who had lived scattered in the European nations towards Palestine. Though this was the actual land of Jewish thousands of years ago, now this was the land of Muslims. This migration of Jewish was not felt comfortable among the middle east Arab countries and they started to oppose this process. But it was un-effective and the migration of Jewish people towards Palestine gradually increased day by day. In 1939, world war-ll was started where again Jewish gave their full support to Britain against Germany (Hitler).
After the end of this war, United Nations organization was established and Britain handed over the matter of separate Jewish land to the United Nations(UN). The UN made a committee to observe it and passed a resolution in 1947. Accordingly the land of the then Palestine was divided into three parts. 48% land was given to Palestine, 44% to Jewish and remaining 8% that Jerusalem was under the direct control of the UN. This decision of the UN was not in the favor of Arab Nations who want the land of Palestine not to be divided and as a result, just the next day of this separation, all the neighboring Arab countries including Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Yemen combinedly attacked on newly formed Israel. This was a shocking geo-political incident in world history that Israel defeated all of the above countries and as a reward occupied a large part of Palestine from that 48%. It was not the one and only attempt of Arabian nations to attack Israel. They repeatedly do this but at the end of the war Israel won all of them and also many parts of the remaining land as a reward of the wars. During the partition of Palestine, the UN gave 48% land to Palestine but till the end of the year 2011, this country was Squeezed only within 22% land.
At present, Palestine has two separate landmarks. The eastern side is called the west bank and the south-western side is called the Gaza strip. The west bank is ruled by PLO( Palestine Liberation Organization) and Gaza strip is under the control of the militant group popularly known as Hamas. Present day attack of palestine on Israel is actually done by that militant group of Gaza Strip(Hamas).
Role of India On This Israel-Palestine Conflict
In 1947, the UN proposed two state plans (Israel and Palestine)on the land of the then Palestine. During the voting for this proposal, India was the only non-Muslim country which voted against this decision. But it is also true that Israel is one of the strongest allies of India in the defense sector. India has a very critical stand in this present Israel- Palestine conflict. To support Israel means to support the policy of Israel to capture the land of Palestine gradually which may give a reversing effect to India in the matter of POK and Aksai Chin. It may also give a bad impact on the relationship of India with the Arab nations. To support Palestine means to lose Israel, a strong ally of the Indian defense sector. But ….. Here if we avoid this conflict between Israel-Palestine and consider it between Israel-Hamas, then it is the conflict between self-defense and terrorism and India should stand at the side of self-defense.
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