Israel's Treatment Of The Palestinians example essay topic

It was over fifty years ago, on May 14, 1948, that Britain ended its mandate over Palestine and Jew declared the establishment of Israel. At 4 pm local time in Tel Aviv, David Ben-Gurion read the proclamation of independence, declaring the birth of Israel as of midnight. Although Ben-Gurion's proclamation promised freedom and justice for all, this was not to be. Suppression of the Palestinians followed, and coupled with the conquest of their land, a formula for war was born. Since the inception of Israel, the Palestinians have been subjected to a use of force that is indiscriminate and unjust; physical as well as psychological.

It is the force of one of the strongest and well funded armies in the world against a people armed only with rocks and stones. It is a force that goes largely unchecked and rarely criticized. It is a force whose blatant disregard for human life is blanketed by the support of the most powerful and influential nation in the world: the United States of America. In a time when national securities are tighter than ever, and the threat of "terrorism Eis ever present, we are bombarded with images of organizations intent on murder, destruction, and the fall of the west. Organisations such as Al-Qaeda, Hamas and Hizbullah are often rattled off by the media. However, in the midst of this one-sided reportage, we fail to see where these organizations get their fuel from; we fail to see the reasons people resort to such means; and we fail to see that not only "fundamentalistEorganizations can be classified as terroristic, but also governments.

We always ask about the "whoEand the "what but never the "why Many people are now familiar with the situation in Israel. It is a region often on the news and in the papers. Unfortunately, we too often only see the conflict from an Israeli perspective, and know little of the harshness of life for the occupied Palestinians. An incident of violence against Palestinian civilians is often reported in neutral language, reducing their suffering to a statistical count. On the Israeli side, civilian casualties are treated very differently, the tragedies of loss being individualised and personalised to a great degree. The media focus almost exclusively on violence, especially Palestinian violence, without considering the fundamental relationship between occupying state and occupied people.

The question then arises of the right of a people living under oppressive circumstances to act in resistance. Israel's treatment of the Palestinians has always presented a moral problem to the west, as that treatment violates many laws and moral standards. One example of mistreatment can be seen in the lack of respect for Palestinians to live in peace. An estimated 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes in 1948-49, and since then scores of thousands more have been pushed out by force, their houses demolished or taken over. Israel demolishes Palestinian homes on the slightest provocation E"security a youngster in the household throws stones at an Israeli soldier But it does this mainly as part of a systematic program to provide space for Jewish settlers. Families are removed from their homes almost daily, and often given as little time as fifteen minutes to gather all their belongings.

No measures are taken to ensure the evacuees have a place to go. Jews feel they have the right to dispossess people of their homes based on a biblical claim that promises the land to Abraham and his descendants. The Arabs, however, claim the land based on continuous residence for hundreds of years and the fact that they represented the demographic majority. They reject the notion that a biblical-era kingdom constitutes the basis for a valid modern claim. Homes are not the only facet of PalestiniansElives that are targeted. Their very livelihoods are.

Since 1967, Israeli occupation has been responsible for systematic and deliberate violations of the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people as set out in international humanitarian law. They are placed under curfew, arrested for 'security reasonsEEonly to be held for days without trial, subjected to police brutality, and torture. As stated by Amnesty International, Israel is the only nation in the world "to effectively legalize the use of methods which constitute torture or ill-treatment So common is this sort of treatment, that Israeli civilians have come to accept it, do not question it, and even see it as a legitimate part of Israeli policy. So writes Amira Hass, a well-known Israeli journalist: "How perfectly natural that 40,000 persons should be subject to local curfew for more than a mon thEn order to protect the lives and well-being of 500 JewsEow perfectly natural that thirty-four schools attended by thousands of Palestinian children be closed down for more than a monthEhile the children of their Jewish neighbours Ere free to frolic as usual in the street among and with the Israeli soldiers stationed there. It is almost a normal day in the occupied territories, when there are bulldozing's, bombings, closed borders, and shootings. Tanks roll into villages, soldiers are stationed around every corner, and the ever present threat of danger lurks.

Retaliation ensues, and Israeli civilians now become the new target of indiscriminate violence. This is a situation in which an entire society is being pressure-cooked to the point of explosion. Violence will be resorted to, and again the cycle begins, and the fear for Israelis that they will be targeted by a suicide bomber becomes very real. Suicide bombs are an act of utter desperation and while the slaughter of innocent people can never be justified, perhaps it can be explained.

The most dangerous people in the world are those who have nothing to live for, and many young Palestinians fit this category. When a society is dispossessed, when the injustices thrust upon it appear unsolvable, and when the enemy is all-powerful, then the mind moves beyond reason. The Palestinians, who have suffered so many civilian casualties, now find a certain 'calm Ein any suffering inflicted on their enemy. There is a feeling that they should suffer too. A suicide bomber is too buried in his own people's tragedy to think clearly. Or perhaps he is reasoned in his planning The logical product of a people who have been crushed, dispossessed, tortured and killed in terrible numbers.

The conflict is imbalanced This is the only way it can be seen. It is an occupied people fighting a resistance against the world's fourth largest military power. The Palestinians, unlike the Israelis, have no army, no air force, no navy, no aircraft, no tanks, no helicopters, and no nukes Essentially, no hope. There is not only a physical imbalance, but also there a great differences in social conditions.

Israeli settlers have easier and cheaper access to water; average annual income is $10,000 more in Israel than in Palestine; and the current unemployment rate is almost six times higher amongst Palestinians than Israelis. Also, according to Amnesty International, due to curfews and closures, .".. children have been denied their right to education, the sick have been denied their right to medical care, and workers have been denied their right to work. E As a result, more than half of the Palestinian people are living below the poverty line, and malnutrition and other health problems have sharply increased. It really depends on one's definition of terror whether or not Israel's policies towards Palestinians can be classified as "terroristic E However the fact that their occupation has produced two intifadas does say a lot.

Intifadas that have both been rooted in the severity of Israel's abuses in the occupied territories, and while the international community in general does nothing substantive for the victims; they have little choice but to fight. The fact is that the collective punishment of a people caught in the grips of a military occupation is as much a form of terrorism as reliance on suicide bombers to explode deadly weapons in the places where innocent civilians abound. "Every Palestinian under thirty-six years of age grew up under a violent Israeli military occupation. E The occupation needs to end and the conflict must be resolved.

This cannot come through the belligerent use of force. The outlines of a proper peace are there for anyone to see Eif they are not blinded by hatred, self-righteousness and mistrust. There is hope Ea majority of Palestinians are in favour of living with Israel in peace if they pull back to pre-1967 borders, while many Israelis are in favour of giving up settlements and occupied land for peace. There is room for manoeuvre, if there were those who wanted to use it. This is a conflict filled with history Ea history of lies, hatred, death, and injustice Eon both sides. After more than half a century of fighting, have they not realized it is doing nothing to bring about a stable peace?

Leaders of both sides need to come together and talk. That is all E tell each other of the horrors you have seen inflicted on your peoples, and the desperate urgency there is to negotiate a fair solution in order to stop the suffering. In a perfect world, this is all that would be needed, but as history has shown us, a resort to violence and oppression had usually been the preferred way, rather than granting a fair, just, and equitable right to live.