History behind Israel and Palestine conflict

IT SEEMS that the basic reason for the discontent in the Israel-Palestinian debate is that Israel has a state, but the Palestinian people don’t.

To understand this issue we need to look at the basic tenets of the Balfour Declaration and the developments thereafter.

On November 2, 1917, the then British Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lord Arthur Balfour, sent a letter to Lord Rothschild:

“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home of the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

The British mandate was accepted on July 24, 1922 by 52 member states of the League of Nations, today the UN. The Jewish leaders accepted the plan, but the Palestinian leaders rejected it out of hand. The British mandate ended on May 14, 1948 and David Ben-Gurion declared independence on May 16, 1948.

The Soviet Union (Russia) was the first country to recognise the State of Israel. The US recognised the State of Israel after the Israeli elections on January 31, 1949.

Since independence, the Israeli government offered a hand of peace to the Palestinian people on various occasions:

At the Madrid Conference in 1991, the head of the Palestinian delegation, Haydar Abd al-Shafi, said: “To the co-sponsors and to the international community that seeks the achievement of a just peace in the Middle East, you have given us a fair hearing. You cared enough to listen and for that we thank you.”

The Palestinian leaders could not follow through. The Oslo 1 and Oslo 2 Accords were signed in 1993 and 1995. They were a declaration of Principles on Interim Self Government Arrangements to end the conflict. Unfortunately, attacks on Israeli citizens continued.

On September 30, 2015, President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority effectively cancelled the Oslo Accords by telling the UN that the Palestinian people “cannot continue to be bound” by agreements with Israel. Brackenfell, Cape Town