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The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict A Lecture/Discussion Series Don Gall, Facilitator First Congregational Church UCC, Eugene, Oregon Summer, 2021

Session I The Who, What, When and Why of the Conflict

The “Promised Land” of biblical times is today the site of an ongoing dispute between the Israelis and the which is arguably one of the longest-running conflicts ever. It is also by far the most controversial. No other conflict in the world attracts as much attention, stirs as many passions, generates as many news headlines, and produces as many conflicting statements of conscience as does this one. It is the topic of intense deliberation within parliaments around the world, of heated debates on college campuses, and of calls for peace by Christians, , and Muslims everywhere. One of the reasons it is so controversial, and therefore so intractable, is the fact that most people rely upon the media to inform them, which is generally superficial and focused on contemporary events rather than on the larger context and long historical background which precedes the events of today. The result is that many people end up choosing sides without benefit of all of the facts, thus adding to the general confusion and controversy rather than contributing to an informed understanding and a collective search for solutions. This occurs because many people instinctively sympathize with a supposed underdog. So if they think of as a tiny Jewish state of only 9 million people, many of whom are holocaust survivors and/or their descendants, surrounded by 5 million Palestinians and 22 Arab states with over 300 million , then they will instinctively rally to the support of Israel as the perceived underdog and insist that Israel has the right to defend itself--at whatever the cost. Conversely, if Israel is viewed as a Western-allied, military power that has invaded and occupied the former homeland of now poverty-stricken and power-less Palestinians by forcibly displacing them from their homes and livelihoods, then their sympathies may rest with the Palestinians, since they are clearly the weaker party. So, who’s right? To some extent, both are--and to some extent neither is-- because the situation is far-more complicated and there are actually two distinct conflicts that are overlapping and interrelated. But before we get into that, let’s begin with some of the basics. Israel/ is a sliver of land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. Its total land mass is roughly 10,000 square miles (the size of Harney County in southeast Oregon). The land stretches approximately 300 miles from north to south, and at its widest point is less than 100 miles from east to west. It could, with a little massaging, fit inside the Willamette Valley’s I-5 corridor. Much of it is desert and lacks natural resources, especially water, so every inch of fertile ground is at a premium. According to biblical lore, it was the land of the Canaanites which the Israelites invaded and took for themselves in fulfillment of Yaweh ‘s promise and where they then lived for centuries until they were routed during the Greek and Roman eras and scattered to the ends of the earth. From then on the Israelites/Jews were a people without a national home who longed to return to that “promised land.” The United Nations finally made

1 that possible in 1946 when it partitioned the Land of Palestine and declared it to be henceforth a “shared space” for the then resident Palestinians and the diaspora Jews of the world. Israelis are citizens of the State of Israel, which includes anyone with an Israeli parent, anyone born in Israel if they apply for citizenship and have been living there for five years, and any who immigrates to Israel under the (1950) along with the children and grandchildren of any Jew, as well as their spouses, who emigrate to Israel. This law has enabled 1.2 million “Russian” Jews to emigrate and become Israeli citizens, the largest immigrant group in Israel, most of whom are on the political right and favor a hawkish position toward the Palestinians. In addition, there are Israeli citizens who have come from everywhere in the world, with 75 percent of the total having been born in Israel to parents who were also born there. Seventy-five percent of Israelis are Jewish, whether or not they are religious. It is important to distinguish between Israelis and Jews. An Israeli is a citizen of Israel, whereas the term “Jew” describes a person’s religion and/or ethnic background. Of the roughly 9 million Israelis, 6.6 million are Jews, 1.8 million are Arabs, and 0.6 million are Christian or “other.”. Although the number of non-Jewish citizens has grown over the years, one of the central objectives of the State of Israel is to maintain a Jewish majority. This is in the face of a growing number of Arab citizens who currently number 21 percent of the total. Arab-Palestinians who live in Gaza and the are not considered Israeli citizens. Today, more than 80 percent of world Jewry is concentrated in Israel and the United States, with Israel’s share skyrocketing from 6 percent in 1948 to 45 percent in 2018. Not all Jewish communities around the world are closely tied to Israel. Although there is widespread support for Israel throughout the diaspora, there is also growing criticism of its government’s policies, especially regarding Palestinians. This is particularly true among American Jews who are becoming increasingly divided over Israel and its policies toward the Palestinian conflict. The Palestinians. Golda Meir, in a 1969 interview, famously said “there was no such thing as Palestinians.” Many Europeans and Americans concurred, seeing Palestinians solely as Arab terrorists and fanatics. It was not until 1978 that Israel officially acknowledged Palestinian nationhood. Palestinians see themselves as a nation--albeit a nation without statehood. While their collective demand for statehood is one of the driving forces of the conflict, it does not mean that they lack a national identity. Just as Jewish identity is associated with exile, dispersion and , so for Palestinians the 1948-1949 (the “catastrophe” that dispossessed and displaced them from their homeland) helped forge their sense of national identity. The Palestine nation exists today because large numbers of people identify themselves as Palestinians, whether or not they live in Palestine. Of the 12.5 million Palestinians in the world, around half live-in -- which is Israel, the West Bank and the . The other 6 million represent those in the diaspora who were displaced, dispossessed, and driven from their homes and their land during Israel’s War of Independence in 1947-1949 and now live as refugees elsewhere. The largest number of refugees, more than 2 million, now live in Jordan; about half a million fled to and then to , and roughly 450,000 continue to live in abject poverty in refugee camps operated by the United Nations. Finally, it should be noted that not all Palestinians are Arabs, although most of the educated Palestinian Jews and Christians who once lived and worked in Gaza have since fled as a result of the oppression and restrictions imposed by Israel. Today, only about 6 to 7 percent of Palestinians world-wide are Christians.

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The Conflict: A common misconceptions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that it is first and foremost a religious conflict. Although it is a land sacred to Jews, Christians, and Muslims, and some of the holiest shrines of each group are located within its boundaries, it is not a war over religion per se, or over whose religion is right or superior, or whose should be recognized and honored above another. But there is great consternation over who has sovereignty over the city of and control over the many holy sites located in and around its walled Old City (among them the Temple Mount, Western Wall, Dome of the Rock, Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.) In many ways, Jerusalem can be said to be the epicenter of the conflict and the question of its future status--whether it will be under Israeli or Palestinian sovereignty or neither has so far proven to be impossible for both sides. Religion has thus always played a role in the conflict and is an important factor, but from the outset the conflict has been driven more by ideology ( and ) than by theology. The simplest way to explain the conflict is to say that at the heart of it lies a claim to the same piece of land and who gets to rule it and the population living on it. For both Israelis and Palestinians, living on and controlling the land is essential to fulfilling their national aspiration and thereby securing their national survival. Both want exclusive control over their own affairs, as most nations do, and both believe that their continued existence ultimately depends on their having this control. Therefore, since both believe that exercising sovereignty over this territory is essential for their future survival, both Israelis and Palestinians view this as an existential as well as a territorial struggle. During the course of this conflict, each side has rejected the other side’s territorial claims, and thus their right to exist as a nation. Each has dismissed the other’s nationhood as false and their national narrative as myths and lies. For Palestinians, the fight is about their own freedom and dignity and the right to live in their own land; for Israelis, it is about their own security as a people and a nation, free of the real or perceived threat of annihilation. With the memory of the Holocaust clearly in mind, Israelis insist: “Never again!” Reconciling the Palestinians’ need for freedom with the Israelis’ need for security and thus lowering the existential threat on both sides is one of the most important and most difficult objectives to achieve.

NEXT WEEK

Zionism and the U.N Partitioning of Palestine

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