By AimeeMarie McElreath, Campus News Editor
Since the attacks from terrorist group, Hamas, on Oct. 7 of 2023 in Israel, the conflict between Palestine and Israel has been a topic of conversation throughout the world. Discourse surrounds whether the causes of each nation have merit. To infer this, it is critical to know: What do both sides of the conflict claim? What is the history of this conflict?
The strip in Gaza that the conflict surrounds is controlled by the Islamist group Hamas. According to BBC, Hamas is an organization that wants the Gaza strip to be under Islamic rule. However, Hamas is also considered to be a terrorist organization. On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacked Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages. This event has triggered the primary conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians that we see today.
Professor Francis Orlando, Instructor of Political Science at Saint Leo University, gave an overview of what the advocates for each nation claim about the causes of each side. Additionally, he covered the origin of the conflict and how it got to the point it is at today.
“The Israeli side basically argues that they’re a sovereign country, that they’re legally recognized, and that beyond that, they have some claim to this land historically,” said Orlando.
According to Orlando, the foundation of the historical claim to the land that the conflict surrounds itself around is the main idea of Zionism, which simply is the idea that Israel has the right to be a sovereign state and control the land in its borders.
“The idea is that Judaism started in this part of the world,” said Orlando. “Before Christ, before any of this, and before the Romans kicked them out, they were there, and so this land, in some ways, is a birthright.”
On the other hand, Palestinians have the same claim to the land. Orlando explained that the Palestinian side typically believes that the Palestinians had lived in that territory for much of the past two thousand years. Additionally, they claim that the British took that land away from them or gave some of it to Israel to exist as a state.
“They both have a claim to the land, and obviously, neither wants to give up their claim on this,” said Orlando.
Although discussion about the conflict has been rampant since Oct. 7, 2023, the conflict has history that has deeper roots.
“This conflict in particular for this land has primarily been a 20th-century thing,” Orlando stated.
When the Ottoman Empire collapsed, the British took control of the land after World War I and created what was called a British Mandate of Palestine.
Jews throughout the world moved to this area and bought land, and the idea of Israel having its own state was in favor after the Holocaust.
The Holocaust influenced the British, Americans, and people of other nations to advocate for and establish a state as part of the British Mandate of Palestine for the Jews, and this state became Israel.
“As you can imagine, some of the people that already live in that part of the world that were Palestinian didn’t want to live under a Jewish State,” Orlando recalled.
Orlando explained that the opposition of Palestinians of living under a Jewish state prompted them to attack Israel. Israel won and took more land around the land that was given to them by the British Mandate of Palestine, and this series of events repeated itself since the creation of the state of Israel.
This conflict is a big part of the lives of the people in both nations involved.
“Palestinians kind of have their own state[s]in the West Bank and in Gaza, but those are not fully recognized,” said Orlando.
Orlando additionally explained that Israelis feel like they are closed in by Arab and Muslim states and feel threatened for their own existence.
“Both groups feel like this is an existential crisis for them to be able to have self-determination and to survive as a nation,” claimed Orlando.
Based on the report that the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights released, Palestinians have reason to fear genocide against them.
UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory found that Israeli security forces have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in the strip of Gaza.
Both sides are said to have reasonable cause for concern for their existence based on their claims that the other side has used violence against them. Do the claims of either side have merit? You decide.
