Why wasn’t the Israel-Palestinian issue dealt with before?

[WinterWarmth]

The conflict has been going on for 75 years. It has taken large scale atrocities on civilians with a level of barbarity rarely seen before for Israel to declare war on Gaza but there are reports going back years of Israel breaking the human rights laws of Palestinians, illegally occupying territory, killing and imprisoning civilians indiscriminately and preventing basic human needs like food and water getting to Gaza and the West Bank.

Billions of aid has been given to the Palestinians over decades, there is a heavy presence from the UN and global human rights agencies so these abuses have been well documented.

The horrific attack on Israel was apparently the Palestinians fighting for freedom after years of suppression and atrocities against them. A large proportion of the world seems to believe it was warranted but Israel declaring war in retaliation isn’t.

In which case. it begs the question why has Israel, a UN member, not been dealt with before these current events? Sanctions put in place, UN peacekeeping forces sent in, barred from the political world stage etc?

Surely it would have been more cost effective in terms of money AND lives if the world had intervened before current events?

For the same reason the UN isn't doing so now.

It isn't an easily solved issue. And was largely caused by the rest of the world (especially UK) sticking their oar in, in the first place.

a) there have been many, many tries to resolve the conflict - peace talks after peace talks. In most cases these have failed because Palestine refused to accept the terms of a two-state solution (see, for example, Arafat at Camp David).

b) the history of the situation is not quite as you describe above: your description is very biased, and to be honest, sounds very underinformed. Read some good histories of the region, and you will understand more. The League of Nations and the UN created Israel. It does not want to send in peacekeeping forces in these circumstances. There are both historical and security reasons for this. In particular, Arab states do not want UN forces in the region or their sphere of influence. They would not support a formal UN process as many don’t want a two-state solution either.

if I had control I’d return to the original 1967 boarders.

I believe that's what Palestine wants?

I've wanted to learn more about the situation and found a book on my audible by Norman Finkelstein called Method and Madness. It describes a fascinating and horrifying process in which he believes Israel has never wanted peace and has continually engaged in breaking ceasefires and provoking aggression through such acts such as 2008 Operation Cast Lead and the assassination of the Hamas military leader Ahmed Jabari at a time when he was engaged in negotiating a lasting ceasefire.

The 2009 Goldstone report is also new to me and is again fascinating and horrifying in it's fact finding about probable war crimes and crimes against humanity by both IDF and Hamas - it concluded there was evidence for it on both sides, but the severity was far greater on the Israeli side. Apparently Hamas largely co-operated with the investigation, but Israel refused to do so and has always done everything it could to discredit the report.

Any recommendations for other reads gratefully accepted.

Your summary of Camp David is over simplistic. Palestine made a lot of concessions from their starting point (1967 borders). The piecemeal concessions made by Barak were not in all honesty very attractive options.

Jesus wept. Do a simple Google, and you will find there have been many many efforts to sort this shitshow out over the years. It’s an extraordinarily complex situation with no easy fix. Hence it hasn’t been sorted despite so many attempts.

Because there isn't an answer.

Each side claims the same piece of land. Neither is happy with splitting it in half.

And they won't work together to share the whole on equal terms.

i feel like the bit where one side is living under occupation, oppression and apartheid is fairly relevant in the précis.

Oh ffs !

Such unnecessarily rude responses from people who probably hold very strong opinions one way or another but don’t really know themselves. What a crap hole this site is at times 🙄

It hasn't been 75 years. It's been about 4000 years.

It hasn't been 'sorted out' because there isn't a solution.

The only times the region is at peace is when all the people on both sides are conquered and occupied by a different foreign power of some wider empire. Each time that happens its only temporary until the fall of the empire in question.

https://decolonizepalestine.com/myths/

@BethDuttonsTwin Nope I just have zero tolerance for historical inaccuracies and ignorance presented as fact with emotional hyperbole. Do better people.

Not a biased website at all....🙄

At last, some one with a brain, education and understanding. I thank you.

There are many reasons, including the actions of the Arab countries. They made a resolution not to integrate the Palestinian refugees from the creation of Israel and had them live in refugee camps. At the same time, they kicked out their entire Jewish populations who went to Israel.

By refusing to grant citizenship to palestinians, the Arab countries have helped create a perpetual refugeee problem.

The displaced Jews from arab countries do not live in refugee camps in Israel. They have integrated and built their own lives. This is not the case for displaced Palestinians in arab countries. It is also not the case for refugees from other wars in the region, only for the Palestinians as the Arab countries cannot tolerate a non-muslim controlled state.

In other wars, neighbouring countries allow people to move from the conflict situation. So Europe takes in Ukrainian refugees rather than insist they stay in Mariupol or Crimea to be bombed.

However, arab countries refuse to let palestinian refugees in, no matter how many children die as a result.

This means that the palestinians are never allowed to live normal lives. Instead, the Hamas-governed Gaza spent its entire efforts on trying to wipe out its neighbour.

I do not support all that Israel is doing, but also think that the way arab states treat the Palestinians is also inhumane.

Chomsky and Pappe's essays on Palestine are an important intellectual contribution, and well regarded widely. Highly recommend

Palestine refused to accept terms that left an Israeli force in Palestine doesn't sound surprising does it ?

Just staying the Israelis proposed peace and the Palestinians rejected it misses the detail that perhaps the proposal wasn't reasonable!

Then the Americans who were helping to coordinate the talks got distracted and the talks dried up and the Palestinian counter proposal wasn't even looked at - it probably wasn't reasonable either

What? This is completely made up. Please do actually read about the history of the many, many peace talks.

This is a point that is often overlooked when discussing the conflict. That nearly the same number of Jews were displaced as Palestinians and the Arab nations just ignored it. Most of the Arab nations (bar Iran) honestly don't want much to do with the refugees,

Other thing often overlooked was there was another country - Jordan - also created in 1947 on the Mandate. They took up 80% of the lands of the previous British Mandate. but refused citizenship to many of the displaced people whilst chucking out every Jew in the region. No one seems to blame them or say they should not exist. Jordan has been offered the West Bank and Egypt have been offered Gaza and both said "nope. your problem now".

I have read

It's not completely made up

Bloody rude

But I forgot there are too many people around these threads who are spreading bias and misinformation around what is a hugely complicated , long running and multi sided dispute with no good side no matter what some people would claim

Ah, is it time for our daily “Don”t know much about the subject but I know the Israeli’s are committing war crimes” thread.

The cynical might start to suspect some of this is coordinated…

@asterel

”If I were a Palestinian, I would have rejected Camp David as well” (Ben-Ami, one of Israel’s chief negotiators at Camp David, in a 2006 interview).

”The substantial concessions Israel demanded of Palestinians at Camp David were not acceptable and could not be acceptable” (Zeev Maoz, Israeli strategic analyst).

And of course Jordan actually invaded and occupied the West Bank for a substantial period of time after the establishment of Israel (as Egypt also did in Gaza). Often completely forgotten.