Ethics of War The Israeli – Palestinian Conflict

Basics of the Conflict The Pro-Israel camp generally base their arguments on the following principles: a) Israel is the historical "homeland" of the Jewish peoples who have lived there continuously since biblical times. b) Many Jews believe that they deserve a "Jewish" state because of historical injustices, such as the Holocaust, and because they have international support and recognition through the U.N. c) The majority of Israelis support a "two-state" solution, creating a Palestinian state alongside Israel in Gaza and the West Bank. d) Other Israelis support the idea of "one-state", either by annexing all occupied territories into the Jewish state (far right view), or incorporate the occupied territories into one secular democratic state with equal rights for all (far left view). The Pro-Palestinian camp generally base their arguments on the following principles: a) The Palestinian people have lived in the area of Israel/Palestine since biblical times. They see most Israeli Jews as foreign colonizers who began arriving within the last 100 years. b) Palestinians consider themselves a national entity, deserving of the rights of all nations, including a Palestinian state. c) Many Muslim Palestinians and their supporters see the land as Islamic holy land, and are strictly opposed to non-Muslims owning and establishing a state on Muslim land. d) Palestinians vary widely in what they see as a just solution to the conflict. They include: the total destruction of Israel; a "bi-national" or "one-state" solution; and a "two-state" solution.

Purchasing the Land Before 1880, 10,000 Jews lived in Israel as Dhimmi From 1878 to 1908 Jews purchased from rich landowning effendis 400,000 dunams in Israel, about 1.5% of the land of Israel. Ottomans resisted Jewish immigration but Jews bribed their way in. More purchased in 20’s and 30’s

Jewish – Arab Population

Stephen P. Halbrook, PhD, JD, Virginia State Bar Attorney, in a 1981 Journal of Libertarian Studies article titled "The Alienation of a Homeland," wrote: "As for the Jews’ right to 'return' to Israel because they populated the area two thousand years ago, this reasoning would vindicate much more strongly the right of Palestinian Arabs to return to their homeland of only thirty years ago."

Jacob Tovy, PhD, Research Fellow at the University of Haifa, in a Spring 2003 Middle East Quarterly essay titled "Negotiating the Palestinian Refugees," wrote the following: "Israel, the Palestinians argued, bore full responsibility for the creation of the refugee problem because its armed forces had carried out a systematic, planned campaign to expel the Palestinians during the 1948 war. The Palestinians then invoked Article 11 of U.N. Resolution 194 from December 1948, which, by their reading, required Israel to allow all Arab refugees interested in returning and living in peace alongside their Jewish neighbors to do so as soon as possible and to compensate those refugees who were not interested in returning for their abandoned property. The Palestinians claimed that this resolution gave every single refugee, and also every refugee's descendant, the right to return (what they called 'the right of return') to the place he or she left as a result of the war.Article 11 of U.N. Resolution 194

“Israel, on the other hand, rejected (as it has done since 1949) any possibility that a significant number of Palestinian refugees might be permitted to return to places within its pre-1967 boundaries. Israel's representatives refused to admit any responsibility for the genesis of the refugee problem, arguing that it was created because of the decision by the Arab states and the Palestinians to take military action in breach of the U.N. partition resolution of November 1947, which called for the establishment of two states in Palestine: Jewish and Arab. This policy of the Arab states precipitated the 1948 war that created the problem in the first place. Israel argued that any significant return of refugees would undermine the Jewish-Zionist character of the state, endanger its security, and subvert its economy."pre-1967 boundaries