Israeli Conflict through a Historical Lens

By Aaron Perman

On December 27th, 2008 the 2008-2009 Israel-Gaza Conflict began when Israel launched a military offensive on Hamas’s government in the Gaza Strip. However, to say that the conflict started then is somewhat of a misnomer. Even just one sentence in, this conflict is so complex, that there is already room for dispute. In fact, this conflict has been on-going, tit for tat, for over 50 years. With this level of complexity and longevity, understanding the history of the conflict is very important to understanding it today. Only with a true understanding of the history of the conflict can there be any hope for a solution to it.

The closest thing to any true modern beginning of framework for this conflict would be when the Ottoman Empire was allied with Germany in World War I; the British supported a popular uprising by the Arabs, promising them self-rule for their alliance. The Arab uprising worked, and the British were granted a mandate over the currently disputed region in 1918 by the League of Nations. However, concurrently with this in 1917 the British cabinet approved the Balfour Declaration, in which it said that “His Majesty's government view[s] with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”… but that “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine…” It is fundamental to understand these two events as they lay the basis for the future regional tensions and why the fighting is going on today.

While the Balfour Declaration was declared in 1917, and worked into the Treaty of Sevres at the end of World War I between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies (which includes the British Mandate for Palestine) in 1920, no true action was taken on it. The idea of a national home for Jews did not gain any serious leverage until the end of World War II after the Holocaust killed over 6 million Jewish people so that they would never again have no where to go as they were being exterminated. This is important from a historical viewpoint because many saw it as giving Israel a moral mandate and an urgent need to exist making the abstract Balfour Declaration into something more tangible.

In 1947 at the end of World War II Britain gave up supervision of its mandate in Palestine to the United Nations, and at this point the British Government suggested two states, one Arab and one Jewish. When the State of Israel was created in this fashion, the Jews accepted this proposal while the Arabs vehemently opposed it. The Arab opposition led the neighboring Arab nations to all declare war on and invade Israel at the same time shortly after the state of Israel was formed in 1948. The Arab states were then beaten back by Israel, loosing a significant amount of land, of which a majority of the land would be given back later for cease fires and truces with neighboring countries. This conflict, defense, and then future retaliation could be seen as the most modern beginning of the endless loop of attacks and retaliation in Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab relations. This is historically important to today’s conflict as it is the clearest thing to the start of the present day tensions that are the cause of the current violence.


The latest battle, the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip on December 27th, 2008, was declared to be a response to towns in Southern Israel, such a Sderot, being showered with hundreds of missiles during the proceeding six month “lull” or cease fire between Israel and Hamas (as well as years of previous battles, broken treaties, rockets, and tensions). Hamas declared that Israel did not keep their commitment to fully re-open the Gaza boarders during this lull, which Israel says was a result of the continued rocket fire.

However, this specific Gaza-Israel conflict has been ongoing well before this current rise of tensions during the six month period. This conflict began when Hamas became officially in charge of the Gaza strip in January 2006 after their party won a majority of seats in the Palestinian legislator. Soon after getting elected, Hamas staged a coup d’etat in 2007, kicking out of Gaza the rival secular Fatah party that it had formed a coalition government with and seizing full control of the Gaza strip. This coup d’etat lead to the recent conflict and situation in Gaza today.

Currently Hamas is still in control of the Gaza strip. However, Fatah remains physically in control of the West Bank but is recognized to be the sole controller of the Palestinian Authority (including Gaza to some extent) by the United States, Israel, and many other countries. The US and many western countries recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization, primarily Iranian funded, with a government in exile based in Damascus.

When looking at this battle through the lens of history the December 27th, 2008 Israeli Invasion can be seen as simply another battle in the constant fighting between Israel and Hamas. The conflict ended on January 18th, 2009 when Israel and Hamas both declared unilateral cease fires on the same day. However, during the invasion the border between Israel and Gaza was completely sealed, and except for very limited humanitarian food aid, still remains mostly sealed. The border between Gaza and Egypt remains completely sealed as well.

Although there has been some previous success and patchwork peace agreements between Israel and some of its neighboring countries, most notably Egypt and Jordan, through deals involving Israel going back to some of its 1967 border and supporting a two state solution, unfortunately similar deals are unlikely to be helpful in this conflict. To understand this, one most understand the Arab viewpoint and the related history. This is because currently, Hamas refuses to recognize any existence of Israel regardless of what is offered. This belief is also shared by Iran, that while does not share a border with Israel, is thought to be the primary funding behind Hamas. Iran’s current Ayatollah (the spiritual and supreme leader of Iran) has recently been quoted as calling Israel a “cancer” and Iran’s current president has said Israel must be “wiped off the face of the earth.”

Regardless of any personal agreement with this statement, one must understand that it’s rooted in the anger of the Jews being given this land with Palestine being an afterthought, considering the British had also promised this land to the Arabs and the Arabs were the majority population on the land when Israel was created. Considering the fact that the historical peace agreements between Israel and its neighbors have been rooted in pragmatism rather than ideology, this ideological viewpoint taken by the de-facto government of the Gaza strip and their backers, as well as the ideological and religious viewpoints held by the government of Israel makes prospects for peace particularly troubling at this time from a historical point of view. However, coming to an understanding of the historical conflict is the first step to unraveling it and reaching a pragmatic peaceful solution.