The Israeli -Palestinian Conflict and the formation of the Palestinian Refugee Problem.

Sympathy for the Jewish people ran high after the Holocaust. By 1948, when the Arab-Israeli War occurred, Egypt and members of the newly formed Arab League called it “Palestine” and Filastin, respectively. Ben-Gurion’s Jewish leadership did not oppose partition, yet the Arab states and Arab Palestinians refused because they planned to displace 800,000 Palestinians into the new neighboring nations due to economic considerations.

Outbreak of War:

The 1948 Palestine War, also referred to as the Israeli War of Independence and Nakba, is one of the most significant occurrences in Middle Eastern history. The Arab-Israeli War had begun. Despite having prevented the creation of Israel and the support offered to the Palestinian Arabs, the efforts by the Arab governments were uncoordinated and had no set strategy, a military and security strategy was never reached. Newly established and seriously outnumbered, Israel remained fairly disciplined, motivated and had the backup from International allies, weapons also being appropriated.

The Palestinian Exodus (Nakba) The Palestine Exodus (Nakba) As fighting persisted, more than 700,000 Palestinians were kicked out of their homes or forced out of towns like Jaffa, Haifa, Lydda, Ramle, and hundreds more small villages. Why they did that is still a subject of debate among historians:

Israeli propaganda now explained that Arabs left out of choice or on orders of Arabs themselves.

Palestinian, and later Israeli so-called New Historians (such as Benny Morris and Ilan Pappé) documented evidence of some evacuations against the will of the inhabitants, destruction of villages and military and sub-military campaigns commited in a similar manner (such as Plan Dalet) which led to the exodus.

With more than 400 Arab villages depopulated, most razed completely, having ceased to exist. At the end of the war, Israel controlled 77 percent of Mandatory Palestine, including East Jerusalem, well beyond the division provided by the UN Partition Plan.

 Aftermath and Ceasefire

Those armistices ended in 1949 with a series of armistices between Israel and neighboring countries, one of them the so-called armistice line with the West Bank. Jordan annexed the West Bank and Egypt took control of the Gaza Strip. The little U.N. Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) went to work caring for the Arabs who had been confined to camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the (Jordanian-occupied) West Bank and (Egyptian-occupied) Gaza.

The Making of a Refugee Crisis

One of the longest-lasting results of the 1948 war was the Palestinian refugee problem. For Palestinians, Nakba is the loss of homeland, identity and justice. Some still have keys and deeds to their houses, signifying their right of return.

For Israel, the question of refugees is connected to national security and demography. Israel has dismissed out of hand a full right of return, warning that the absorption of millions of refugees and their descendants would imperil its Jewish majority.

The subject of the Palestinian refugee is designated to be on the heart of the negotiating table (for since the Oslo Accords, to Camp David and in UN resolution. Five million plus registered as refugees To this day more than 5 million Palestinians are registered as refugees.

Conclusion

The war was not just a war, it was a turning point at which two nations warring over a land began to attempt to wrest control of that land in a way that only one could succeed but because of security concerns and human rights charges its legacy is still felt today in territorial disputes.

Considering the current state of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is important to take this into account that it is a complex and multi-layered problem. Doing so will help us to identify possible ways out of this apparently never-ending cycle and toward a peace that is not just equitable but also permanent.

References:

1 . UNGA Res. 194 (1948) The Right of Return

2 . Ilan Pappé, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Oneworld Publications (2006)

3 . UNRWA of official website-Refugees as of Statistics and History