Does Israel have a right to exist?
War, turmoil and discord have plagued with the human history since we separated ourselves according to races, nationalities and religions. These different people have a strong desire to acquire benefits for their own people, and in order to get all those benefits, they fight for it. The war between Palestinian Arabs and the Israelis is a very good example. Jews and Arabs have lived together in the land which is now called Israel for thousands of years, but recently they both tried to claim this land as their homeland. After World War II, the Allied who controlled this land decided this land should be partitioned; but this did not satisfy either Arabs or Jews. The war between Arab forces and Israelis began after Jew state was created and ended with the triumph of Jews. However, the creation of Israel is questioned by some whether it has a right to exist, many people found it too difficult to answer this question and the situation is so complicated that people hesitate to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to this question.
After the creation of Israel in 1948, peace have never occurred in this land even though it was clearly that the two states which are Palestine and Israel were created according to the partition plan of United Nations, it is unacceptable for both Israelis and Arabs . However, the triumph of Israel in the Six Day war in 1967 made a lot of changes occurred in both side. The occupation of Israel over Sinai, the Golan, the West bank and Gaza strips made the nationalism grow in Palestinian people that they created the guerilla organization like PLO(Palestine Liberal Organization) to release themselves from Israel. “As a result, the Arab-Israeli conflict has been internalized by Israel: that is, increasingly transformed from an interstate conflict between Israel and its neighboring states to an intercommunal conflict with the post-1967 borders of Israel.” (Kelman, 1988. 333) Even though, Israel has already given back most of the land it gained in that conflict, they still occupied the West bank. Thus, the conflict between Palestine and Israel continued as they both fear that the existence of the opposite side would erase their own existence so Israel still not stop their occupation over West bank and the Palestinian also continue on developing their own political and many organizations to fight for their existence. The possibility that this conflict would not end make the question of the ‘right to exist’ of Israel caught enormous interest to people world wide.
The reasons that people might give in answering ‘no’ to the question of the right to exist of Israel start with the occupation of Israel over Palestine territories. It is like Israel called for their ‘right to exist’ while they overlooked Palestinian’s right to exist and the occupation had led to another war with Arab state that caused so many death to both sides. It is not fair that while Israel has full independent to control their own country; Palestinians do not have. It is true that Israeli had given back some of the occupied land but the land of Israel now is the land that Israeli had stolen from Palestinian so this land is absolutely not belong to Israeli. The Palestinian Arabs have lived here for long time and it is their homeland, thus, Israelis have no right to expel Palestinian from their mother land. Moreover, it is not right that Israel created their state based on religious texts that it gave a concept of ‘Jews only’ such as only Jews people can live here or only Jews can be the owner of the land and people from other religious do not belong here. There are a lot of Palestinian refugees who want to go out from Israel as the reason that they think they are a second citizen in Israel, some want to avoid this turmoil situation in either Palestine or Israel or even Middle East. It is not only Palestinians who want to move out; there were so many Jews who immigrated to other countries, especially to United States, and they have good lives there so some people agree that the existence of Israel is not necessary.
However, there are so many reasons that people gave for their agreement on the existence of Israel. First of all, it is true that Israel occupied the territories of Palestine but they did it because they felt that an independent Palestinian state would threaten Israeli security. As the fact that there are many guerilla organizations which fought against Israeli whenever they have a chance, it is common that this further the fear of Israeli. Besides, Israeli tried to make peace happen by peace negotiating with other Arab states that followed with peace treaties with Egypt in 1979, Jordan in 1994 and they also tried to negotiate with Palestine that followed with the Camp David negotiations, the Oslo Peace accord or Declaration of Principles in 1993 and Sharm el-Sheikh in 1999, given back most of the land to Palestine. Nevertheless, the peace process still not have full succession when in 1987, after four Arab workers from the Gaza strip were accidentally run over and killed by an Israeli truck, violence broke out in which Israeli soldiers were attacked throughout the occupied areas first with stones, then with Molov cocktails and finally, in some instances, with guns. Many Arab villages sought to block the entry of Israeli soldiers, Arab schoolchildren were encouraged by their elders to hurl stones and abuse, etc. This was the ‘Intifada’. Then in 2007; with announcement of Hamas organization denying the existence of Israel, these further the conflict between Israeli and Palestinian. If one traced back to the past, they would see that Jews have lived here for so long too, it is also their homeland therefore, Israel have a full right to stay here. Furthermore, we have to reconcern about holocaust that over 6 million Jews were killed by Nazi; these people always find themselves hated, homeless and desperate to protect their future. They lost many things even their lives and their children’s lives. When there was no place that they could live, it was not strange that they would have to come back to the only land where they can call ‘homeland’. Moving to the other country is not always a good choice too because many Jews found themselves being an outcast of the society when they lived in other place. Imaging that when Jews live in Israel, Arabs told them to live elsewhere not in this land because it belongs to Palestinians then when some of Jews moved to other country, some people asked them why they do not go back to stay in their country. Thus, where exactly these peoples can live. While there are 22 Arab states, there is only one Jewish state that still being deny by many people. While Palestinian can move to other 22 Arab states where people call them ‘brothers’, Jews have no where they can move to and being part of people without being called ‘Jews’. Talking about ‘the right to exist’ of one country made me think of other creation of some countries such as United State where, at the first place, Red Indians lived there for more than thousands of years and when the white man discovered that land, it became the white man’s land and no one can deny that the creation of United States occurred along with many deaths of Red Indian. Also in the case of Australia, how many helpless aborigines were killed after the white man moved in. However, Israeli fought for their ‘right to exist’ with the Palestinians who received many helps and supports from 22 Arab states and since they won, they tried to find the ways to live together in peace with Palestinian and to not being erased from the face of the earth when people wants their existence to disappear.
The question of the ‘right to exist’ of Israel was discussed over and over but still being an unsolvable question to many people in the world. Anyway, many people found the answer as I mentioned, some people said they approve of the existence of Israel, some people do not approve but there are many people who still hesitate to say that they completely approve or completely disapprove. At first, I am one of the last group who hesitate to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to this matter but the more I studied the matter the more I approve of the ‘right to exist’ of Israel. However, I agree that the Palestinian should have the ‘right to exist’ but with the co-existence with Israel. I do agree with Mr. Hobert C.Kelman (The Arab- Israel conflict-two decade of change) that the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on some formula that must assure the continued secure of existence of Israel as an Independent Jewish state and at the same time, it must assure Palestinian the right of self-determination, their opportunity to give political expression to their national identity within the land. In conclusion, such a formula and the peace will not occur if the two peoples, Israeli and Palestinian, do not sit and talk together with the understanding or sympathy for both sides, if they do, I am sure that the peace will occur and the word ‘right to exist’ will no longer be significant as no one have to try to pursue it anymore.
Source
- Yehuda Lukacs and Abdulla M.Battah. “The Arab- Israel conflict-two decade of change”,1988.
- Howard M. Sachar. “A history of Israel from the rise of Zionism to our time” 2007.
- Gilbert, Martin. “Israel A History”. 1998.
ม.ร.ว คึกฤทธิ์ ปราโมช. “ยิว” กรุงเทพฯ: ดอกหญ้า 2000, 2547.
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