Decoding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict :Is it a cost of religious hatred?

by Mohammed Rizwan, MCJ

The Israeli-Palestinian issue has been a major topic of discussion on social media worldwide in recent days. Although it is debated on many levels, one of the arguments leading up to that is the continuation of the animosity between the two religions. But there does not appear to be any discussion of how objective this argument is. There has been no debate on the truth of this and the real Israel-Palestine issue. History shows how true this is. The only way to do that is to study Israeli-Palestinian history. Where does it all start? What is happening now? These are the issues that need to be discussed. History at the end of the 19th century gives us an accurate answer to where the Israeli-Palestinian conflict began. It was during this period that the Jewish community, which was scattered in many parts of the world, faced the threat of anti-Semitism from all over the world. In 1897, Theodor Herzl formed the Zionism movement to address this situation. The idea put forward by the Zionist movement was to build a nation of their own for the Jewish community to live in peace. They found a place for this nation in Palestine, which was under the Ottoman Empire at that time. Jerusalem in Palestine was the holy land of the Jewish community. There is one more fact that we must not forget at this juncture, that Jerusalem is a land sanctified for Muslims and Christians alike. With the spread of this word, Jewish immigration to Palestine began at the end of the nineteenth century. During World War I, the British needed the support of the Jewish and Arab communities to defeat the Ottoman Empire. The British tried to gain the Arab-Jewish community's trust on the condition that it can provide them their nation in the absence of the Ottoman Empire. As part of this, British Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, issued the Balfour Declaration in 1917, calling for support for the Zionist movement. Its central idea was British support for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. The Ottoman Empire collapsed in World War I, and Britain seized control of Palestine. In 1922, Britain obtained approval for the Balfour Declaration in the League of Nations to fulfil its promise to the Zionist movement. But it has been vehemently opposed and protested by the Arab community, who has lived there for generations. By 1929, direct clashes between Arab and Jewish communities began. Realizing that the problems were getting worse, Britain put forward the idea of building an Arab-Jewish state, but both sides opposed it. Realizing the seriousness of the situation, Britain took steps to control Jewish immigration to Palestine. But with the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Britain was unable to stop the uncontrolled Jewish immigration to Palestine. It was during this period that the Jewish community in Germany was subjected to brutal persecution. In this situation, Zionist ideas became more popular, and countries like the United States supported Zionism. At the end of World War II, Zionist extremists destroyed Britain's Palestinian offices and threatened Britain, feeling that Britain was betraying the Zionist movement. Realizing that the problem was out of their hands, Britain approached the United Nations to find a solution. Following UN talks, it was decided to divide Palestine into two states, Israel and Palestine. However, for the Muslim-Jewish-Christian faith of Jerusalem, it was decided that the province would remain an international territory. But the Arab community, which did not approve of the decision, continued to fight Israel. Wars were fought in 1948 and later in 1967. Israel has won all these wars. As a result, Israel occupied more territory than was approved by the United Nations. Later, in 1979, an agreement was made between Egypt and Israel to restore peace. With the intervention of the United Nations and other countries, Israel returned areas such as East Jerusalem and the Sinai region that had been captured during the war. However, Israel later regained control of these territories. Such seizures were part of Israel's colonial stance. There is only one answer to what Israel is aiming for; expand by implementing a precise colonial settlement plan. This is exactly what Israel is doing now and has been doing for years. To this day, Israel is the only country for which International Boundary has not been recognized. Israel is pursuing the idea of a colonial settlement that will seize power by destroying the indigenous community in a region and creating a new foreign community in its place. The history of the current problem is that in 1958, Sheikh Jarrah, a Jordanian-held province, provided housing for 28 Palestinian families who had to flee during the war instead of other immigration benefits. An agreement was made with the Jordanian government to register the house in their name within three years of their residence. But Israel, which captured the province in the 1967 war, overturned all these registrations. In Sheikh Jarrah, such families are being evicted by an Israeli court based on false documents stating that they live on Israeli land and that in the past, the Israelis paid for it.

The Palestinians protested against Israel's move to evict them from their homes. To suppress such protests, Israel used grenades, and rubber bullets against worshipers gathered at the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the last Friday of Ramadan, bringing the situation to its current state of terror. These histories convince us that in none of these issues can we find any hatred in the name of religion or community other than Israel's imperial interest in national expansion. These events are only the resistance of the Palestinian people against the settler-colonial actions that Israel is trying to carry out. This is the problem between the settler-colonial power and the resistance of oppressed Palestinian people. We must not fall prey to those who seek to mislead us by portraying such an issue as religious hatred. Settler Colonialism, a threat that needs to be discussed at the global level, should not be confined to mere religious thought but should be subjected to discussion and criticism.