On December 10, 1986, Elie Wiesel accepted his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway. A Holocaust survivor and acclaimed author of the gripping memoir Night, Wiesel spoke about the importance of combating the oppression of targeted minority groups, and stressed that indifference only allows tormentors to continue to disenfranchise the powerless. He then proceeded to touch upon the ongoing conflict in Israel and Palestine, claiming to be sensitive to their struggles while saying their acts of “violence and terrorism” were deplorable. He appeared to wholeheartedly support Israel, promising Israel’s cooperation in exploring a way to bring peace to the region once and for all.
“Israel will cooperate, I am sure of that . . . Let Israel be given a chance, let hatred and danger be removed from her horizons, and there will be peace in and around the Holy Land.”
— Elie Wiesel, 1986 (via Night)
Almost a year to the day of Wiesel’s speech, and proclamation of faith in Israel, an Israeli truck crashed into a station wagon filled with Palestinian workers in the occupied territory of Gaza. The collision led to the death of four and injury of ten. With tensions already high following the murder of a Jew in Gaza just days before, Palestinians in the region saw this as a blatant attack and took to the streets between December 8 and 9 of 1987, which is now recognized as the official start of the First Palestinian Intifada. Most images depict Palestinians throwing stones and Molotov cocktails in tattered streets, but small scale riots and protests had been happening in the months before, including the boycott of Israeli products and refusal to pay taxes. In response to the more intense protests, an Israeli army patrol car opened fire on demonstrators, an act that killed a seventeen-year-old and left sixteen wounded. More Israeli troopers were sent into the chaos in Gaza, but after Israel resorted to lethal weaponry, the violence did not quell.
The intifada, translating to “shaking off” in Arabic, was the rebellion compiled from years of distress among Palestinians. Through the 1920s and ’30s, Palestine saw an influx of Jewish immigrants. While this may not seem terrible, as World War II was brewing and anti-Semitic propaganda was spreading through Europe, the methods of Jewish emigration was no less problematic. New settlers would buy land from absentee landowners, and then evict Palestinian residents and workers. In 1936, Palestinians revolted against the British, who occupied the territory and facilities Jewish movement in Palestine. To retaliate, Jewish militias helped the British armed forces suppress the Palestinians in their revolt, in a fairly brutal manner that led to increased hostility between the two communities.
With the aftermath of the Holocaust and the second World War leaving the Jewish community on edge and significantly destabilized, support for Israel increased exponentially. The British relinquished their rights to Palestine to the newly-formed United Nations, who subsequently made the State of Israel official on May 14, 1948. Prior to this, the United Nations drew up the 1947 Partition Plan for Palestine that was supposed to divide a roughly equal amount of land to both Israel and Palestine with Jerusalem as a common capital, but the border didn’t quite look like it would work.
And it didn’t.
Instead, a series of wars ensued. The day after Israel’s Declaration of Independence was drawn up, Jordan, Syria, and Egypt invaded Israel and took control of Palestinian territories. The Nakba, or “catastrophe” in Arabic, forced over 700,000 Palestinians to seek refuge in surrounding Arab countries after their land was annexed (Jordan to the West Bank, Egypt to Gaza) and villages were destroyed. In addition, an armistice was signed in the following year that gave Israel rights to 33% more land than originally assigned in the U.N. resolution. Eighteen years later, the Six Days War ensued. With Israel as the victor, the country won control over the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Syria’s Golan Heights, and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
As the Intifada raged on, Palestinian influence saw small growths around the region. Palestinian leaders, some with ties to the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), held firm positions in the uprising. In July 1988, Jordan repudiated their rights to the West Bank, and a few months later the PLO voted to affirm the formation of the State of Palestine. However, in its first year the Intifada had brought a lot of grief. Around 300 were killed and over 11,000 were wounded or arrested.
Sick of the violence, PLO founder Yasser Arafat denounced the terror on both sides and assented to Israel’s right to exist. Four years later, Yitzhak Rabin became the Israeli Prime Minister and pledged to move along with peace talks. In 1993, both parties participated in the Oslo Accords for peace that centered around United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, of which outlined a very basic plan for peace (as one can obviously see did not work). However while the Oslo Accords halted the Intifada for several years, it ended up being a short-term solution to a long-term problem. They failed to decide on the status of illegal Israeli settlements, the rights to resources, whether or not to recognize Palestine’s right to exist independently, an ultimate failure in itself, and so on.
The unfinished business allowed foundational cracks to spread and tensions to resume. Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish extremist during a Tel-Aviv peace rally in 1995. The peace process was subsequently stalled under his successors, Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak, and current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The 2000 Camp David Summit is probably the closest thing to peace talks Israel and Palestine have come to since. This, too, was unsuccessful.
A mere month after the meeting at Camp David, the bloodier Second Intifada errupted when Prime Minister candidate Ariel Sharon made a purposefully-triggering visit to the religious holy site of Temple Mount. In the five year span of this revolt, around 3,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis were killed during protests and attacks. To make matters worse, 2002 marked the ongoing construction of a barrier, similar to that of the controversial Berlin Wall, which separates the West Bank from the Israeli mainland. To the Israelis, it’s a simple security measure. To the Palestinians it is, more accurately, a wall of apartheid to further prevent Palestinians from accessing resources.
Today, it doesn’t feel as though anything has changed. Israel continues to occupy the Palestinian Territories and deprive them of natural resources. Palestinians are still being attacked and mistreated. While Israel seems to lack the human decency necessary to truly make a change, we can’t be discouraged. The recent success in Standing Rock against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the widespread support of movements like #BlackLivesMatter, shows that protesting and ongoing activism works. We can’t stand down and give in to the oppressor’s agenda. Keep the flags waving. Keep chanting. It’s about time Palestine is given the respect its people have been fighting for since before December of 1987. The sacrifices of those before us are not in vain. It’s the 29 year anniversary of the First Intifada, and that shows that we’re in this fight for the long run. Israel better change its agenda, because we won’t quit until Palestine is truly free.
Comments are closed.