November
The Plight of Palestine: A Call for Justice
The Palestine-Israel conflict is a long standing conflict over land and rights. To simplify the history, it began in 1897, when a bearded man named Theodor Herzl founded Zionism – a movement for Jewish people to create their own country in Palestine, due to its historical significance to the religion. After World War I, the British assumed control over Palestine, before the United Nations agreed to split the land and give 55% of it to the Zionists, forming the country of Israel in 1948, which was not approved by the Arab Nations; leading to the Arab-Israeli conflict in the same year. This conflict made Israel end up with more land than what was originally given to them by the United Nations. Over the next 75 years leading up to the present, Israel and Palestine have been in constant conflict, and this has been more prevalent than ever in the past month.
The most critical aspect of the Palestine-Israel conflict is the disproportionate power imbalance between the two sides. Israel is inherently richer and far more powerful than Palestine is – being an extremely rich country especially in comparison to its size, while also being backed by the United States, the most powerful military power in the world as of currently. In comparison to Palestine, which is very economically challenged and not even universally recognised as an independent country.
In addition to that, Israel, along with Egypt, has been restricting the import and export of food and people in and out of the Gaza Strip since 2005. They state that this is for security concerns; to prevent the smuggling of weapons into Gaza, while also letting the people who live in the Gaza Strip live in poverty.
It is certainly naive to believe that they care about the morality of what they do, but surely they will listen to International Law?
Clearly not, because the Israeli settlements in the West Bank break those laws, as they are built on land that is part of the occupied Palestinian territories. And yet most countries have completely turned a blind eye to this, and Israel has never received any consequence.
Sarah Huzaimi
