Source: www.youtube.com
Admittedly, this is not a neutral perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth sharing if you properly contextualize the statements. UN Watch is “a non-governmental organization based in Geneva whose mandate is to monitor the performance of the United Nations by the yardstick of its own Charter.” UN Watch works to oppose what they see as chronic anti-Israeli bias in the UN.
Tags: Israel, Palestine, NGOs, political, Middle East.
“Because Israel refused to recognize the U.N. plan for an internationalized Jerusalem and because of its annexation of occupied East Jerusalem in 1967, no country in the world has offered legal and diplomatic recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Most states, however, have unofficially acknowledged Israel’s sovereignty and actual possession, without recognition of lawful title.”
Source: beitemmett.blogspot.com
That is, until now. The United States is planning to move it’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in a move that will have far more reaching implications than the relocation of just about any other embassy on Earth could have, given the geopolitical significance of Jerusalem to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the broader international ties. Below are some resources to contextualize this shift:
Questions to Ponder: How does this change the status quo at the local, national and international scales? What might be some of the consequences of this move? What would you recommend and why?
Tags: Israel, Palestine, borders, political, Middle East, geopolitics, historical.
THE SIX-DAY WAR increased Israel’s territory threefold. The “borders of Auschwitz” were gone; the vulnerable nine-mile narrow waist acquired a thick cuirass with the mountains of the West Bank. Israel soon annexed East Jerusalem with some surrounding land; it did the same with the Golan Heights in 1981.
Tags: Israel, Palestine, borders, political, Middle East.
Source: www.economist.com
“Both sides claim the West Bank as legitimately belonging to them. Over time, and especially as Israeli politics has shifted rightward, the settler movement has become an institutionalized part of Israeli society. Support comes in the form of building permits, public investment, and even incentives for Israelis to move into the West Bank. While peace talks remain frozen, the settlements continue to grow, making any possibility of a Palestinian state in the West Bank faint.”
Source: www.youtube.com
These settlements are considered by most of the international community to be illegal, but since the U.S. has always vetoed sanctions in the UN security council, Israel had never been formally reprimanded. Just last week, a UN resolution that passed 14-0 (with only the U.S. abstaining) says that Israel’s settlements on Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, have “no legal validity” and demands a halt to “all Israeli settlement activities,” saying this “is essential for salvaging the two-state solution.”
Questions to Ponder: What is the two-state solution? Who favors this plan? What are some reasons why the two-state solution is so difficult to achieve?
Tags: Israel, Palestine, conflict, borders, territoriality, political, Middle East.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has rarely been so far from finding a resolution. Since the cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hamas during the summer of 2014, the desire to seek peace has been diminishing, and instead growing tensions have prevailed, punctuated by stabbings and car-ramming attacks by the Palestinians, and violent acts including arson by the settlers. Yet, the climate has rarely been so favorable to a resolution of the conflict. The chaos that is sweeping the Middle East has been a game-changer in relation to Israel and the Arab countries.
Source: www.huffingtonpost.com
Many Palestinians and Israeli are fearful of a possible breakout of ISIS out of Syria and into Gaza and the West Bank. According to the authors of the op-ed, Europe needs to come together and provide leadership and a plan to enforce so that these issues do not reoccur. The last 17 years have been filled with failed attempts but breaking this cycle of violence is not impossible.
Tags: op-ed, Israel, Palestine, conflict, political, Middle East.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one that powerfully divides the international community. Of those living within the state of Israel, Pew Research data shows that they are often deeply divided based on religious affiliation. Not surprisingly, those divisions extend into how they view the peace process, West Bank settlements and U.S. support. Although the conflict is portrayed as a battle between religious groups, it can be more fairly assessed as two nationalistic groups competing for land. Broadly speaking, the Muslim world has sided with the Palestinians, and the U.S. and its NATO allies have defended Israel. In the United Nation’s Security Council, the United States’ veto power has been use to strike down resolutions that would condemn Israeli settlement in the militarily occupied lands of the West Bank. The 2016 UN resolution that passed 14-0 (with only the U.S. abstaining) says that Israel’s settlements on Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, have “no legal validity” and demands a halt to “all Israeli settlement activities,” saying this “is essential for salvaging the two-state solution.”
These settlements are considered by most of the international community to be illegal, and the UN has condemned them, but since the U.S. has always vetoed this, Israel has never been formally reprimanded. Earlier this week, the U.S. abstained from the vote, and the many see the U.S. position as hypocritical, (Secretary of State John Kerry strongly defended the position).
Some highly partisan supporters of Israel do not see Israel’s actions as the problem, primarily because Israel’s neighbors have traditionally not recognized its right to exist, and attacked it many times. Therefore, they see Israel’s actions as necessary for the security of Israel, and do not see Israel’s settlements in the West Bank as illegal since Palestine isn’t a state that was ever legally accepted.
Tags: Israel, Palestine, conflict, borders, political, Middle East.
Source: geographyeducation.org
The daily tally of rocket attacks, airstrikes and deaths in the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Source: www.nytimes.com
As the violent nature of the Israeli Palestinian conflict has escalated, this NY Times article monitors the major points of the last few weeks. The possibility of ‘Peace in the Middle East’ feels so remote, and this Onion article parodies the difficulties of actually achieving this. On a personal note, Chad Emmett taught the “Geography of the Middle East” course while I was at BYU and I’ve always appreciated his perspective; here are his thoughts on recent events.
There are major hurdles in drawing borders between Israel and a future Palestine.
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators resumed peace talks in Washington in July for the first time in three years. While the talks are initially expected to focus on procedural issues, they are already beginning to take on a last-ditch quality. Explore some of the contentious issues that negotiators have faced in drawing borders between Israel and a future Palestinian state.
Source: www.nytimes.com
This five-part video report from the New York Times is from 2011, but still has some pertinent information, even if the situation has changed in some of the particulars. These videos brings important voices from a variety of perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; together they all show how a complex cultural and political geography leads to many of the difficulties in creating a long-lasting peace. The discipline of geography doesn’t simple study the peace process–it is a part of it. The creation of borders and the cartographic process play a critical role in solving territorial issues. Geography can be both the problem and the solution.
Tags: Israel, borders, Palestine, territoriality, political, Middle East.
GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION 