Causes of Terrorism in Israel

Erika Rothman
Causes
There are countless reasons for the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. It roots all the way back to the early 20th century and hasn’t had much success in being solved. The rise of Palestinian Arab nationalists led to a large cause of the fighting between Arabs and Israelis which is; the desire for Palestinians to have their own land. This became a very big issue after the Arab-Israeli war of 1948, which marked the end of British mandate and the birth of Israel, but Between 600,000 and 760,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled from the area that became Israel and became Palestinian refugees (Morris 603). Jewish immigration to Palestine was relatively limited until the 1930s, when Hitler came to power. The U.S. and Europe closed their doors to immigration by desperate Jews, making Palestine one of the few options (Shalom). In the three years following the war, about 700,000 Jews immigrated to Israel, where they settled mainly along the borders and in former Palestinian lands (Morris VI). In Israel, the war is known as the “War of Independence”, but for some Palestinians the war is known as, “the Catastrophe”, because of the land they lost and all the people who became refugees. Over the years after Israel became a state, Palestinians have lost more and more land and the land has become Jewish Settlements. The Palestinians want the 22% of Israel that they used to have before 1967 and the right for their refugees to return to their homes, wherever they were (End). The creation of Israel was aggravating for Palestinians because it is said to be theirs through inheritance. After Israel’s Declaration of Statehood, less than half of the land within the United Nations proscribed borders of Resolution 181, United Nation’s Partition Plan for Palestine, was owned by Jews (Why). Much of the land was purchased by European Jews from Arab landlords, but many of the time Arab peasants were kicked off the land for these purchases (Shalom). The Palestinians had been treated unfairly from their point of view and lead them to poor relationships with Zionists. There have been many attempts and offers to try and divide the land equally somehow and peacefully, but everything has been overshadowed by violence. In November 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into two independent states, a Jewish state and an Arab state, joined by an economic union, and with Jerusalem internationalized (Shalom). In 1947 Jews were only one third of the population of Palestine and owned only 6% of the land. Yet the partition plan granted the Jewish state 55% of the total land area. The Arab state was to have an overwhelmingly Arab population, while the Jewish state would have almost as many Arabs as Jews (Shalom). Zionists accepted the partition, although they had more expansive goals, but the Palestinian’s rejected the partition! The Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini in charge of Jerusalem’s Islamic holy places, wanted Palestinians to go to war in opposition to the partition. Few Palestinians reacted and the "decisive majority" of Palestinians, confided David Ben Gurion (first prime minister of Israel), "do not want to fight us,” (Shalom). The United Nations did not help the situation and this lead to Palestinians to take their own actions. Not only was the depreciating amount of land Palestinians had a factor of terror, but also all the refugees that came about because of land being taken over by Israel. When the armistice agreements were signed in 1949, the Palestinian state had disappeared, its territory taken over by Israel and Jordan, with Egypt in control of the Gaza Strip. Jerusalem, which was to have been internationalized, was divided between Israeli and Jordanian control. Israel now held 78% of Palestine. Some 700,000 Palestinians had become refugees (Shalom). Thousands more Palestinians were displaced after the 1967 war and grown in exile leading to Palestinian nationalism. There was no order for Palestinians to flee, but in times of panic and dangerous situations many did. During the Deir Yassin massacre, April 9th 1948, 254 civilians were killed and others were threatened to leave. In attempt to relieve the blockade of Jerusalem by Palestine, the Jewish militia had assaulted this village to force people out. Mordechai Gihon, a Haganah intelligence officer in Jerusalem, was in the village on the day of the attack. He states, “Before we got to the village we saw people carrying bodies to the quarry east of Deir Yassin. We entered the village around 3:00 in the afternoon . . . In the village there were tens of bodies. The dissidents got them out of the roads. I told them not to throw the bodies into cisterns and caves, because that was the first place that would be checked . . . At the time I had just been through British Army service and had met Holocaust survivors in the camps. The visit to Deir Yassin was a moral shock for me. Before then I had never seen so many bodies. The dead were lying in the houses and the fields without burial” (McGowan). It was a major point in the expansion of Israel. In 1937, Ben Gurion had written to his son, "We will expel the Arabs and take their places ... with the force at our disposal" (Shalom). Palestinians moved from place to place as they were forced out and their property was taken. Of the 860,000 Arabs who had lived in areas of Palestine that became Israel, only 133,000 remained. Some 470,000 moved into refugee camps on the West Bank or the Gaza Strip. The rest dispersed to Lebanon, Syria, and other countries (Shalom). Of all these refugees from what is known as the war of 1948, came refugee camps to shelter displaced Palestinians. The UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) defines a Palestine refugee as:
"Palestine refugees are persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War."
The UNRWA does not run any of the camps, but provides services for them. The number of registered Palestine refugees (RPR) has subsequently grown from 914,000 in 1950 to more than 4.6 million in 2009 (Relief). There are camps in, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, all holding thousands of refugees.
People have been in these camps for decades all because of land that was taken from them in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and Palestine war. Their anger has built up and the desire for their land is so strong they have taken their own actions.
The ineffectiveness of the United Nations to solve this problem is another huge factor as to why there is still terror going on. They came up with Resolution 181 on November 29th 1947 to partition the land fairly between Israelis and Palestinians. The Plan was accepted by the leaders of the Jewish community in Palestine, through the Jewish Agency, but was rejected by leaders of the Arab community, including the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee that was also supported by the states of the Arab League (Best). Palestinians argued that this was unfair when 65% of inhabitants were non-Jewish while at the time only 35% were Jewish (UNSCOP). After the adoption of this Resolution, civil war broke out into what is known as the 1947-1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine and the partition plan was not followed through with.
The UN also passed Resolution 194 on December 11th, 1948, near the end of the Arab-Israeli War. This Resolution was in attempt to reach a final settlement and also acknowledged the right of return of refugees to their homes. It also called for the establishment of a UN Conciliation Commission to help make peace between the Arab and Israeli states. The majority of the UN’s countries accepted this resolution, but all six Arab countries represented in the UN voted against it. Peace has clearly not been achieved between these two countries by the UN.
With the desire for land, the anger of refugees and the poor support of the UN, any sort of settlement between Arabs and Israelis are hard to reach. Each side has a fair fight, but neither one is willing to see the ideas of the opposing country. Without correct communication and agreements, terror and destruction is the only form that has had a large enough impact to achieve any goals of either country.
Terrorism in this land has had many effects on its inhabitants, land and economy.