- From the outside, some of the world's
most complicated problems
can seem like they have a simple solution.
And the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict
isn't an exception.
There are many, many issues that contribute to the conflict.
But one of the most common questions that comes up
is why not just have two states?
One for the Jews and one for the Palestinians?
Well, turns out that's actually not such a new idea.
If you look at the history of this conflict,
from the late 1800s to the present,
there have actually been a number of opportunities
to establish an Arab state alongside a Jewish one.
And yet, the conflict continues.
There's no state of Palestine.
And not surprisingly, each side blames the other
for the failure to bring about a peaceful resolution.
Having two states may seem like a simple idea,
but if you look back at the times it's been tried
over the years,
turns out, it's really, really not.
As if the situation wasn't complicated enough already,
it's actually somewhat misleading
to even use the term Palestinian state
when you're talking about things
that happened before the mid-20th century or so.
Back then, the region itself was just called Palestine.
And people used the term Palestinian
to refer to anyone that lived there,
Jewish, Arab, Christian, whatever.
So, when you hear me referring to some of the earlier plans
as opportunities to create an Arab state in Palestine,
rather than to create a Palestinian state,
now you know why.
This was arguably the first opportunity
for an independent Arab state
to be created in what was then, Palestine,
the Peel Commission plan.
This plan, which was created by the British,
who were still in control of the region at the time,
recommended the partition of Palestine
into a small Jewish state and a larger Arab state.
The Jewish state would be based on the lands
owned and populated by Jews at the time,
and the Arab state would be merged with the territory
of Transjordan, east of the Jordan River,
which the British had given to the Arabs in the region
back in 1922.
The Peel Commission's plan also included an area
which would remain under the mandate.
It was suggested that Jerusalem
and a quarter of land extending to the Mediterranean coast
remain under British control.
More controversial was a provision
for the transfer of 225,000 Palestinian Arabs
from the Jewish state to the new Arab state,
and also to Transjordan.
This was the first opportunity for both the Jews
and the Arabs to establish a state.
The Jewish community was initially divided on the plan,
but ultimately approved it
as the basis for future negotiations.
Arab leaders, though, immediately rejected the plan.
They objected to the very creation of a Jewish state
on any portion of the land,
and were further enraged by the suggestion
that the Jewish state should include the Galilee,
which contained only a small Jewish presence.
They were also opposed to the population transfer
that the plan called for.
For 20 years after the creation of the mandate,
many ideas were tossed around
to deal with the rising tensions.
By the end of the war in 1945,
two out of every three Jews in Europe were dead.
There was now widespread sympathy
for the plight of the Jews,
and more support than ever before
for the establishment of a Jewish state.
All this lead to the second opportunity
to create an Arab state in Palestine, UN Resolution 181.
By 1947, the British had had enough of running Palestine
and they wanted out.
They announced their intention to leave,
and in May 1947, the United Nations Special Committee
on Palestine was formed to investigate the situation
and come up with proposals resolving the conflict.
On November 29th, 1947, the UN voted to adopt
Resolution 181,
partitioning the mandate for Palestine into two states,
one Jewish, one Arab.
The UN partition plan was very detailed,
but basically the Jewish state would consist
of about 5,500 square miles.
Its population would consist of 498,000 Jews
and 407,000 Arabs and others.
The Arab state was to be 4,500 square miles
with a population of 725,000 Arabs and others,
as well as 10,000 Jews.
Although the Jews were allotted more land,
most of it was desert.
Meanwhile, Jerusalem, the holiest city for Jews,
and one with a Jewish majority,
was to become part of an international zone.
The Zionist leaders reluctantly accepted the results,
and agreed to form a Jewish state.
But the Arab states of the UN who had lobbied hard
against the plan, rejected the resolution.
They opposed any territorial division
that would give the Jews a state.
And also came out against any plan that was developed
by other parties,
claiming that this violated their right
to self-determination under international law.
They vowed to prevent a Jewish state from coming into being,
even if it meant war.
Violence between the Jewish and Arab residents of Palestine
broke out right away.
Five and a half months later when the British mandate
officially expired, May 1948,
the State of Israel declared its independence.
The very next day, Arab armies from five surrounding nations
attacked the new Jewish state.
Israel's war of independence had begun.
If the Arabs had accepted the UN partition plan,
and created a Palestinian state of their own,
would that have ended the conflict once and for all?
We can't know for sure.
But, with the creation of the state of Israel,
we know that the conflict was entering a new stage.
A young, Jewish country at war
with the nations of the Arab world,
the Arab-Israeli conflict.
And with it, came the third opportunity
to create an Arab state in the region.
When truce agreements were signed in 1949
to end the fighting,
Israel was in control of all of the territory
it was allocated under the UN partition plan,
plus an additional 22% of the land.
Transjordan controlled a large amount of territory
west of the Jordan River.
The lines separating the Jewish and Arab troops,
where the fighting stopped,
later came to be known as the Green Line.
Well, never acknowledged by either Israel or the Arabs
as the border of any state,
the Green Line has often been discussed
as the basis for peace negotiations.
In principle, the Jordanians could have set up
a Palestinian state at this time.
But, they didn't.
The other Arab states set up a government and everything,
but Jordan opposed it.
And the proposed state never came to be.
Part of the reason for their refusal
was that they didn't want to officially call
an end to the war,
since that would amount to an acceptance of a Jewish state.
So, they didn't accept the Green Line
as the border of the state of Israel.
Instead, territory under the control of Transjordan,
came to be known as the West Bank.
Transjordan promptly renamed itself Jordan,
in preparation of the formal annexation of the West Bank,
the following year.
Jordan granted full citizenship rights
to some of the residents in the West Bank,
and allocated half of the seats in its parliament,
to Palestinian Jordanians.
The next concrete opportunity to form an Arab state
in the region,
wouldn't come until the 1990s.
The war that arguably had the greatest impact
on the prospect of forming an Arab Palestinian state
was the 1967 Six-Day War,
when Israel captured both the West Bank
and the old city of Jerusalem from Jordan.
The Israeli government discussed returning land
in exchange for peace,
which included some negotiations about the West Bank.
But, at the Khartoum Conference, held in late August 1967,
eight Arab states issued a resolution
containing the famous Three Nos,
no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel,
no negotiations with Israel.
In 1973, a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria,
attacked Israel on Yom Kippur.
After initial Arab successes,
Israel successfully fought back, and even advanced
into enemy territory.
This war forever changed the Arab-Israeli conflict.
It was the last war fought by Israel
against a sovereign nation.
All future wars would either be fought against terror groups
or would be attempts to suppress popular uprisings.
As the Palestinian national identity had been growing
since the 1960s,
the Arab-Israeli conflict was now morphing
into the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Beginning in the 1970s, Israeli governments
made plans to allow civilian settlements of Jews
in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,
both captured in the Six-Day War.
Over the years, the presence and growth of these settlements
in these areas,
would become another point of contention
between Palestinians and Israelis.
In 1987, Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip
launched a popular uprising against Israeli rule
in those areas.
This became known as the First Intifada.
The First Intifada came to a close
with the signing of the first Oslo Accords
in September 1993.
The Oslo Accords were the culmination of talks
between the Israeli government and the PLO
that provided a framework for peace negotiations
between the two sides,
with the intention of arriving at a permanent deal.
Oslo did lead to some changes,
most notably that the Palestinians were given
full or partial control over much the land in the West Bank.
It was all supposed to build
to an eventual Palestinian state,
fourth opportunity on this list.
But in the end, negotiations failed.
The five years after the signing of the Oslo Accords
witnessed an intensification of violence.
As a result, trust was in short supply,
and the two sides traded accusations
that the other wasn't keeping its commitments
under the accords.
The permanent agreement was never concluded.
By the year 2000, the tensions
and Palestinians terrorist attacks were worse than ever.
In July of that year, Israel Prime Minister, Ehud Barak,
and PLO chairman, Yasser Arafat,
accepted an invitation from US President Bill Clinton
to take part in the Camp David Summit.
The meeting represented a bold attempt
to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict once and for all.
The fifth opportunity to create a Palestinian state.
According to Clinton, Barak made generous concessions,
but Arafat walked away without making a proposal of his own.
The two-week long summit ended with no agreement,
each side blaming the other for the failure.
It appeared that Barak offered the Palestinian state
of 92% of the West Bank, and 100% of the Gaza Strip.
Palestinians, though, demanded that they have sovereignty
over all of eastern Jerusalem,
including the Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall.
Regarding refugees, Palestinians insisted
that all of those who had left their homes
in the 1948 war, as well as their descendants,
should be allowed to return to the current state of Israel.
Israeli negotiators proposed to accept
a total 100,000 Palestinians into Israel Proper,
chosen on the basis of humanitarian
and family considerations.
Clinton blamed Arafat for the breakdown of the talks,
saying that he missed an opportunity to bring his nation
into being.
In particular, Arafat's failure to make
a clear counter offer to the Israeli proposals
left some on both sides,
with the impression that he either would not,
or felt that he could not enter into good-faith negotiations
for a real settlement.
For their part, Palestinians argued the the proposals
made by Israel, wouldn't give the Palestinians control
over their borders,
divided the Palestinian state into several,
disconnected areas,
and didn't adequately address the refugee issue.
They also resented that Israel would be gaining land
in the deal.
In the weeks after the Camp David Summit,
tensions rose even more.
Soon, Palestinians began the Second Intifada,
an uprising that would prove to be far more deadly
and brutal than the first.
It was characterized by dozens of suicide bombing attacks,
such as the assault on a Passover seder in Netanya,
that killed 30 civilians.
Bomb blasts in night clubs and restaurants and cafes.
Everyday life in Israel was impacted,
as riding buses became seen as unsafe.
The tourism sector, vital to Israel's economy,
ground to a virtual halt.
In response, the Israel forces returned
to areas of the West Bank
that had been given over to Palestinian control
in order to regain security and stop terror.
Which brings us to the sixth and most recent opportunity
to create a Palestinian state.
In 2008, Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert,
and Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas,
engaged in negotiations
that built upon the proposals of the Camp David Summit
eight years earlier.
In TV interviews with both men,
it emerged that Olmert offered an Israeli withdrawal
from virtually all of the West Bank,
close to 94% of it,
to exchange land in Israel,
equivalent to the amount to the amount retained.
Olmert also proposed placing the old city of Jerusalem
under international control,
and withdrawing Israelis from Arab neighborhoods there.
According to Abbas, Olmert agreed to accept
only a symbolic number of refugees into Israel.
Abbas deemed this unacceptable.
He also said that Olmert showed him a map
with the territorial concessions Israel proposed,
but Olmert wouldn't let Abbas keep the map.
Without a copy of the map, Abbas felt it was impossible
for him to agree.
The many failed efforts to forge peace
between Jews and Arabs, Israelis in the Arab world,
and Israelis and Palestinians,
shows just how complex this conflict is.
The debate focuses on control over land,
but it's really about much more than that.
It's about people's attachment to a place they call home,
and their need for personal security.
It's about religious sensitivities,
and a dispute between ethnic and spiritual communities.
Just when it seems like peace might be possible,
there's no shortage of people
willing to use violence to derail those peace efforts.
It's a conflict that has no clear beginning,
and an even more uncertain end.
It's easy to criticize the two sides
for allowing such an old conflict to remain unresolved.
But 100 years of attempts to find an answer,
have shown that it's no simple matter.
The question is, is it truly an unsolvable problem?
Author, Micah Goodman, suggests that instead
of trying to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
we should work on shrinking it,
taking concrete measures that will improve
the quality of life for both sides.
For Goodman, this means reducing Israel's presence
in the lives of Palestinians,
without compromising Israel's legitimate security needs.
In the past, confidence-building approaches
required a level of faith,
assuming the other side would respond
with appropriate concessions,
and generating a cycle of trust.
But the trust has never materialized.
And each side claimed it had given,
but not received in turn.
With hopes for peace in such short supply these days,
and mistrust high all around,
maybe small concessions is the best
and most realistic way forward
to finally bring peace to this holy land.
Thanks for watching, see you guys next week.
(upbeat music)