Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on February 17, 2022

Recent Developments

In October 2020, an Israeli courtruledthat several Palestinian families living in Sheikh Jarraha neighborhood in East Jerusalemwere to be evicted by May 2021 with their landhanded overto Jewish families. In February 2021, several Palestinian families from Sheikh Jarrah filed an appeal to the court ruling andpromptedprotestsaround the appeal hearings, theongoinglegal battle around property ownership, anddemandingan end to the forcible displacement of Palestinians from their homes in Jerusalem.

In late April 2021, Palestinians began demonstrating in the streets of Jerusalem to protest the pending evictions and residents of Sheikh Jarrahalong with other activistsbegan to host nightlysit-ins. In early May, after a courtruledin favor of the evictions, the protests expanded with Israeli policedeployingforce against demonstrators. On May 7, following weeks of daily demonstrations and rising tensions between protesters, Israeli settlers, and police during the month of Ramadan, violence broke out at the al-Aqsa Mosquecompoundin Jerusalem, with Israeli policeusingstun grenades, rubber bullets, and water cannons in a clash with protestors that left hundreds of Palestinianswounded.

After the clashes in Jerusalems Old City, tensions increased throughout East Jerusalem, compounded by the celebration ofJerusalem Day. On May 10, after several consecutive days of violence throughout Jerusalem and the use of lethal and nonlethal force by Israeli police, Hamas, the militant group which governs Gaza, and other Palestinianmilitant groupslaunchedhundreds ofrocketsinto Israeli territory. Israel responded with air strikes and later artillery bombardments against targets in Gaza, including launching several air strikes thatkilledmore than twenty Palestinians. While claiming to target Hamas, other militants, and theirinfrastructureincluding tunnels and rocket launchersIsraelexpanded its aerial campaign and strucktargetsincluding residential buildings,media headquarters, andrefugeeandhealthcare facilities.

On May 21, Israel and Hamas agreed to a cease-fire, brokered by Egypt, with both sides claiming victory and no reported violations. More than two hundred and fifty Palestinians were killed and nearly two thousand others wounded, and at least thirteen Israelis were killed over the eleven days of fighting. Authorities in Gaza estimate that tens of millions of dollars of damage was done, and the United Nations estimates that more than 72,000 Palestinians were displaced by the fighting.

Background

TheIsraeli-Palestinian conflictdates back to the end of the nineteenth century. In 1947, the United Nations adopted Resolution 181, known as the Partition Plan, which sought to divide the British Mandate of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states. On May 14, 1948, the State of Israel was created, sparking the first Arab-Israeli War. The war ended in 1949 with Israels victory, but 750,000 Palestinians were displaced and the territory was divided into 3 parts: the State of Israel, the West Bank (of the Jordan River), and the Gaza Strip.

Over the following years, tensions rose in the region, particularly between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. Following the 1956 Suez Crisis and Israels invasion of the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, Jordan, and Syria signed mutual defense pacts in anticipation of a possible mobilization of Israel troops. In June 1967, following a series of maneuvers by Egyptian President Abdel Gamal Nasser, Israel preemptively attacked Egyptian and Syrian air forces, starting the Six-Day War. After the war, Israel gained territorial control over the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt; the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan; and the Golan Heights from Syria. Six years later, in what is referred to as the Yom Kippur War or the October War, Egypt and Syria launched a surprise two-front attack on Israel to regain their lost territory; the conflict did not result in significant gains for Egypt, Israel, or Syria, but Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat declared the war a victory for Egypt as it allowed Egypt and Syria to negotiate over previously ceded territory. Finally, in 1979, following a series of cease-fires and peace negotiations, representatives from Egypt and Israel signed theCamp David Accords, a peace treaty that ended the thirty-year conflict between Egypt and Israel.

Even though the Camp David Accords improved relations between Israel and its neighbors, the question of Palestinian self-determination and self-governance remained unresolved. In 1987, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip rose up against the Israeli government in what is known as the first intifada. The 1993Oslo I Accordsmediated the conflict, setting up a framework for the Palestinians to govern themselves in the West Bank and Gaza, and enabled mutual recognition between the newly established Palestinian Authority and Israels government. In 1995, the Oslo II Accords expanded on the first agreement, adding provisions that mandated the complete withdrawal of Israel from 6 cities and 450 towns in the West Bank.

In 2000, sparked in part by Palestinian grievances over Israels control over the West Bank, a stagnating peace process, and former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharons visit to the al-Aqsa mosquethe third holiest site in Islamin September 2000, Palestinians launched the second intifada, which would last until 2005. In response, the Israeli government approved construction of a barrier wall around the West Bank in 2002, despite opposition from the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.

In 2013, the United States attempted to revive thepeace processbetween the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. However, peace talks were disrupted when Fatahthe Palestinian Authoritys ruling partyformed a unity government with its rival faction Hamas in 2014. Hamas, a spin-off of Egypts Muslim Brotherhood founded in 1987 following the first intifada, is one of two major Palestinian political parties and was designated a foreign terrorist organization by the United States in 1997.

In the summer of 2014,clashesin the Palestinian territories precipitated a military confrontationbetween the Israeli military and Hamas in which Hamas fired nearly three thousand rockets at Israel, and Israel retaliated with a major offensive in Gaza. The skirmish ended in late August 2014 with acease-firedeal brokered by Egypt, but only after 73Israelis and 2,251Palestinians werekilled. After a wave of violence between Israelis and Palestinians in 2015, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbasannouncedthat Palestinians would no longer be bound by the territorial divisions created by theOslo Accords. In March and May of 2018, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip conducted weekly demonstrationsat the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel. The final protest coincided with the seventieth anniversary of theNakba, the Palestinian exodus that accompanied Israeli independence. While most of the protesters were peaceful, some stormed the perimeter fence and threw rocks and other objects.According to the United Nations, 183 demonstrators were killed and more than 6,000 were wounded by live ammunition.

Also in May of 2018, fighting broke out between Hamas and the Israeli military in what became the worst period of violence since 2014. Before reaching acease-fire, militants in Gaza fired over one hundred rockets into Israel; Israel responded with strikes on more than fifty targets in Gaza during the twenty-four-hourflare-up.

The Donald J. Trump administration setachieving an Israeli-Palestinian deal as a foreign policy priority. In 2018, the Trump administration canceled funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency, which provides aid to Palestinian refugees, and relocatedthe U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a reversal of a longstanding U.S. policy. The decision to move the U.S. embassy was met with applause from the Israeli leadership but wascondemnedby Palestinian leaders and others in the Middle East and Europe. Israel considers the complete and united Jerusalem its capital, while Palestinians claim East Jerusalemas the capital of a future Palestinian state. In January 2020, the Trump administration released its long-awaited Peace to Prosperity plan, which wasrejected by Palestinians due to its support for future Israeli annexation of settlements in the West Bank and control over an undivided Jerusalem.

In August and September 2020, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and then Bahrainagreedto normalize relations with Israel, making them only the third and fourth countries in the regionfollowing Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994to do so. The agreements, named theAbraham Accords, came more than eighteen months after the United StateshostedIsrael and several Arab states forministerial talksin Warsaw, Poland, about the future of peace in the Middle East. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas rejectedthe accords; Hamas alsorejectedthe agreements.

Concerns

There is concern that a thirdintifadacouldbreak outand that renewed tensions will escalate into large-scale violence. The United States has an interest in protecting the security of its long-term ally Israel, and achieving a lasting deal between Israel and the Palestinian territories, which would improve regional security.

See more here:

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict | Global Conflict Tracker

Category: Palestine
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