Issues: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Palestinians and Israelis have, in recent months, lived through some of the worst violence and destruction of the decades-long conflict between them.  For Israelis, civilian casualties, mostly from Palestinian suicide bombings, have been greater than at any time since independence in 1948.For Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (map, Fig. 1), the loss of life and the destruction of property have been far greater than at any time since the 1947-48 fighting, greater even than when Israeli forces first occupied the territories in 1967. Nor, in thirty-five years of occupation, have Palestinians ever experienced the near total, round-the-clock curfews and travel bans that Israel has employed in recent months.

• Introduction
• Why did Oslo fail?
• The Settlements
• Palestinian Authority and Reform
• The Way Ahead
• Preventing "Transfer"
• Rocard Task Force report
• Fig. 1: Israel, Occupied Territories
• Fig. 2: Israeli Settlements - 2002
• Resources

The death and destruction have understandably engendered bitterness, anger, frustration, and even hatred between the two peoples.  A majority of Palestinians have, at least at times, voiced approval of attacks against civilians in Israel.¹  And, according to some recent polls, nearly half of Israeli Jews favor the expulsion or "transfer" of the Palestinian population from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.²   Yet, despite the mounting toll of the violence and the alienation it brings, there are, remarkably, other currents flowing through Israeli and Palestinian public opinion.  Polls suggest that nearly 60% of the Israeli public believes that a military withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza and the dismantling of most Israeli settlements in those areas would lead to peace with the Palestinians.  The same percentage believes that only negotiations and not military force can end terrorism and achieve security for Israel.  A majority of Israelis, moreover, are willing to see an international peacekeeping force installed in the West Bank and Gaza to provide greater stability and security.³ 

Among Palestinians there are prominent critics of the suicide bombings.  Polls consistently show that 60% or 70% of the West Bank-Gaza public favors a cease-fire with Israel and new peace negotiations.⁴

But the most remarkable development in Palestinian opinion is the growing chorus of voices calling for the reform of Palestinian politics, for new elections, and for fundamental changes in the structure of the Palestinian Authority and its policies.⁵  

From all of these developments it is clear that sizable majorities of both Israelis and Palestinians believe that the policies and actions of their respective leaderships have carried them into a downward spiral of violence and suffering that serves no purpose.  These Palestinians and Israelis are open to constructive change, but they will need sensitive, adroit, and firm support from the United States and others in the international community if they are to escape the downward spiral and move toward peace.

What might the U.S. and other nations do to help?  What can Friends and others do to encourage constructive policies?  The answers to these questions rest in an understanding of how the Oslo peace process, begun in 1993, became a process that produced stalemate and violence instead of peace.

This analysis was prepared for FCNL by Jim Fine.  Jim, a former Quaker International Affairs Representative for the Middle East, served as the director of the Friends Schools at Ramallah and el-Bireh during the 1998-99 school year.  He is an international student advisor at the University of Pennsylvania.  During the summer of 2002, Jim visited the Middle East as a member of an international Quaker working party on the Israel-Palestine conflict facilitated by the American Friends Service Committee's Middle East Working Group.

Preparation of this FCNL Perspectives paper has been funded in part by a grant to the FCNL Education Fund made by the Kirk-Plumsock Trust of the Willistown Friends Meeting.