What are the core issues?

What are the core issues in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians? Why hasn't anyone been able to solve the struggle between the two groups that has lasted for over 60 years, despite concerted efforts to reach a compromise?

To listen to the media, one would assume the key obstacle is Jewish settlements. But that is a very simplistic answer. I believe there are at least five key issues at the core of the debate. To achieve peace, both sides would need to reach agreement on all five.

1. Israel's demand to exist as a Jewish state

In 1947 the UN voted to partition Palestine into two states--one Jewish and one Arab. Israel accepted the vote, but the Palestinians--and all the surrounding Arab countries--rejected it. Egypt and Jordan are the only two countries in the region that later accepted the existence of Israel. Does Israel have a right to exist as a Jewish state surrounded by Arabs? Mahmoud Abbas, current President of the Palestinian Authority says no...and this is a major stumbling block to peace. (If I were Israel I would be reluctant to make any agreement with someone who can't publicly acknowledge my right to exist.)

The key to this issue is whether or not land once conquered for Allah can ever be controlled by non-Muslims. Both Hamas and Hezbollah have declared that this cannot be. Anwar Saddat, the President of Egypt who made peace with Israel, paid for his courageous decision with his life. To me, this is the most difficult of all the issues, because it is grounded in Islam's belief that the land belongs to Allah.

2. The Palestinian demand for a "right of return" for all Palestinians

In 1948 and again in 1967 the UN passed resolutions calling on the Arab countries to acknowledge Israel's right to exist, and calling on Israel to allow Arab refugees to return to their homes. Because the Arab nations refused to accept Israel's right to exist, the refugee problem has been allowed to fester for over 60 years. The Middle East conflict produced hundreds of thousands of refugees on both sides. Almost the same number of Jews were forced from their homes in Arab countries as there were Arab refugees who fled their homes in areas that were later controlled by Israel. The main difference between the two groups is how they treated their refugees. The Jewish refugees became Israeli citizens and started over in their new homeland. But the surrounding Arab countries refused to absorb the Palestinian refugees. Instead they were forced to live in refugee camps as political pawns.

The Palestinian Authority claims that the original 600,000-800,000 refugees have now grown into a refugee population of over 7 million...and they demand that all 7 million be allowed to return to Israel. Were that to happen, the Jewish state would disappear overnight, overwhelmed by this sea of refugees. Israel will not allow this to happen.

3. Israel's demand for security and trust

Israel has been forced to fight for its very existence for over 60 years. One demand in any peace agreement is that Israel must obtain real peace. Yasser Arafat renounced violence, but history shows that it was an empty promise. Israel gave back Gaza to the Palestinian Authority, but Hamas took over and used Gaza as a launchpad for rockets and mortars. As a result, Israel is reluctant to make any additional sacrifices unless the Palestinian Authority can demonstrate that they can form a stable government that will stop terrorism. Some of the Palestinian Authority's recent threats to end cooperation with Israel and to renounce their earlier agreements makes Israel less likely to trust them in the future.

4. The debate over final borders

The 1948 Armistice Agreement established temporary borders between Israel and the Arab countries that had attacked her. Permanent borders were to be negotiated. Israel is demanding that a peace treaty provide permanent defensible borders, which will include Israel keeping some of the land she captured in 1967. The Palestinians are demanding that Israel return all land captured in the Six-Day War. Israel will not agree to such a demand. And the hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers in portions of the West Bank are "facts" that Israel has created to bolster her position.

5. Jerusalem

In one sense Jerusalem is a subset of the previous point. In the 1948 War of Independence Israel lost access to the Old City of Jerusalem and the Western Wall. The Jewish presence in the Old City had extended back for hundreds, if not thousands, of years; but the Jewish inhabitants were forced out. When Israel recaptured the Old City in 1967, she annexed Jerusalem as her eternal capital. Jerusalem is the heart and soul of the nation, extending back to the time of King David. At the same time Jerusalem contains the Al Aksa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam. The Jewish temple sat on the mount where the Dome of the Rock now rests. Jerusalem is more than just real estate. It represents the spiritual reality of two competing religions, both claiming to descend from the same father.

To me, these are the five issues forming the chasm that separates Israel and the Palestinians. As the U.S. tries to restart the peace process yet again, look beyond the hype and rhetoric...and listen carefully for substantive discussion of these five issues.

I'm not optimistic.

Is Israel to blame?

Leaders around the world are blaming Israel for the breakdown of the most recent peace talks. Mustafa Barghouti, a member of the Palestinian legislative council, voiced the opinion of most European and Arab leaders when he told Al Jazeera, "If the US, being the only country that is monopolising control of the talks, is failing to pressure Israel to abide by what was written in the road map and what the international community demands - which a complete freeze to settlement activities - then there is no peace process and the reason for this is Israel."

So is Israel really to blame?

Let's look at the facts.

On November 25, 2009, Israel imposed a 10-month moratorium on all West Bank settlement construction to help move the peace talks forward. The moratorium did not include Jerusalem. As Prime Minister Netanyahu said at the time, "Regarding Jerusalem, our sovereign capital, our position is well known. We do not put any restrictions on building in our sovereign capital."

After delaying for nine months, the Palestinian Authority finally agreed to begin direct negotiations. But 30 days later Israel's moratorium expired, and settlement construction resumed. The Palestinians walked away from the negotiations, and the U.S. began feverishly looking for ways to bring them back to the table.

The U.S. offered incentives to both Israel and the Palestinians if they would return to the talks. In exchange for a 90-day extension to the settlement moratorium Israel would receive U.S. assurances that they would not be pressured for any additional extensions and would be protected against any adverse actions against them by the U.N. Initial reports also hinted the U.S. would give Israel additional advanced fighter jets, but those reports turned out to be somewhat inaccurate. (Israel would need to pay for the airplanes.)

Netanyahu indicated his willingness to impose the additional 90-day moratorium if Obama's guarantees were put in writing. But the Palestinians chose to changed their conditions for resuming talks. A resumption of the previous moratorium was no longer sufficient. Now the moratorium on building needed to be extended to include Jerusalem. Israel refused, the "peace talks" totally collapsed...and nearly everyone is blaming Israel.

Was Israel to blame for wasting the first nine months of the initial 10-month moratorium? No, it was the Palestinians who didn't come to the negotiating table. Did Israel change the understanding regarding the extent of a second moratorium once a deal was almost complete? No, it was the Palestinians who demanded additional restrictions.

It seems to me the Palestinians are the ones who are doing everything possible to scuttle the negotiations. Perhaps we need to ask if they were ever really serious about reaching a deal in the first place.

Borders of Israel

With all the tension arising out of Israel's refusal to extend the moratorium on construction within the West Bank, I believe this is a good time to step back and review the history of the border disputes with Israel. For a balanced, and reasonably well-researched, history of Israel's borders, click here to read a Wikipedia article on the subject. As you do, note the following points. (And don't be afraid to click through the various links in the article to track down sources!)

1. The original land of Palestine promised to Israel included modern-day Jordan. However, this was removed by Winston Churchill in 1921, leaving just the land west of the Jordan River for a Jewish National Homeland.

2. The land west of the Jordan was subsequently divided into two separate states--one for Palestinians and one for Jews--by the 1947 U.N Partition Plan. The plan was reluctantly accepted by the Jewish population...but rejected by the Arabs, who attacked the newly established State of Israel.

3. The 1949 Armistice Agreement established temporary borders for the State of Israel. Israel actually ended up with more land than she had been allocated in the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan. The Armistice specifically declared that the lines drawn were not final borders. They were to be established through negotiation, but the surrounding nations refused to negotiate a peace treaty with Israel.

In 1967 the leaders of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan threatened an attack against Israel. Israel took Egypt's decision to close the Straits of Tiran (which blocked access to Israel's seaport of Eilat) as an act of war and launched a preemptive strike on Egypt's air force. Syria (and later Jordan) joined with Egypt, and Israel found herself in a war on three major fronts. In six days Israel pushed the Syrians off the Golan Heights, Jordan from the West Bank, and Egypt from the Sinai peninsula. Later in June, nine days after the fighting ceased, Israel offered to return most of the land to these countries in exchange for peace. In September the Arab nations met in Khartoum and issued their famous three no's in response: no peace, no recognition, and no negotiation with Israel. Eventually, Egypt and Jordan did make peace with Israel. Egypt received back the Sinai, and Jordan renounced her former claims to the West Bank.

Why is all this important? I think it's important because it helps us understand three key points in the current debate. First, when the world calls on Israel to return to the pre-1967 boundaries, it forgets that these were never intended to be--or defined as--permanent boundaries. They marked the end of hostilities after the 1948 war that established Israel's independence as a nation. Final boundaries were to be negotiated, but the Arab countries refused to do so. To now demand that Israel abrogate all her rights before negotiations can proceed is asking her to accept borders that were never intended to be final. Second, Israel's control of this land came about by the refusal of her neighbors to recognize her right to exist...and by their threatened attack in 1967. Third, Israel announced a 10-month moratorium on construction of homes in the disputed territories in November 2009. Why did the Palestinians wait until September 2010--9 months into the 10-month moratorium--to begin negotiations? The world dragged its heals for 8 months...but now blames Israel for a potential collapse of the talks.

It seems hypocritical to accuse Israel of bargaining in bad faith when the current situation was not the result of their aggression or refusal to bargain in the past. It does seem that many don't want the talks to succeed--they just want to make sure Israel gets blamed when the talks finally collapse.

A Jewish State?

How far apart are the Israelis and Palestinians in their current peace negotiations? Consider just one issue. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said one result of any agreement must be Palestinian recognition of the Jewish State of Israel. This seems reasonable. If the goal of the talks is a two-state solution, one should expect both sides to acknowledge the existence of the other.

But today Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas took issue with this assertion. "We're not talking about a Jewish state and we won't talk about one," Abbas said in an interview with the semi-official Al-Quds newspaper. "For us, there is the state of Israel and we won't recognize Israel as a Jewish state" (see http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=187417).

Abbas's reason for his position is that a Jewish state would strip Israeli-Arabs of their rights and turn them into illegal citizens. But would it? I believe the answer is no for two reasons. First, Arab citizens within Israel proper today have rights as Israeli citizens--and have since 1948. Second, U.N. Resolution 181 (the original 1947 UN resolution to partition the land and establish the states of Israel and Palestine) addressed clearly addressed this issue. By the way, Resolution 181 was accepted by the Jewish population of the land but rejected by the Arabs who were opposed to any two-state solution at that time.

Here are some excerpts from that resolution:

Religious and minority rights. Freedom of conscience and the free exercise of all forms of worship, subject only to the maintenance of public order and morals, shall be ensured to all. No discrimination of any kind shall be made between the inhabitants on the ground of race, religion, language or sex.

Citizenship. Palestinian citizens residing in Palestine outside the City of Jerusalem, as well as Arabs and Jews who, not holding Palestinian citizenship, reside in Palestine outside the City of Jerusalem shall, upon the recognition of independence, become citizens of the State in which they are resident and enjoy full civil and political rights. Persons over the age of eighteen years may opt, within one year from the date of recognition of independence of the State in which they reside, for citizenship of the other State, providing that no Arab residing in the area of the proposed Arab State shall have the right to opt for citizenship in the proposed Jewish State and no Jew residing in the proposed Jewish State shall have the right to opt for citizenship in the proposed Arab State. The exercise of this right of option will be taken to include the wives and children under eighteen years of age of persons so opting.
(To read UN General Assembly Resolution 181 in its entirety, go to: http://www.mideastweb.org/181.htm.)

The original UN declaration establishing a two-state solution specifically identified Israel as a Jewish State...and provided clear guidelines on the rights of the non-majority population within that state. Israel has largely followed these guidelines--from the use of Arabic on street signs to the freedom given to Muslims and Christians to worship without harassment.

Are the Palestinians willing to abide by the same rules? Abbas's statement today casts doubt on the sincerity of their commitment.

The prophet Amos made a wise observation, "Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?" (Amos 3:3, NKJV).

If there is disagreement on such a foundational issue as allowing Israel to be a Jewish State, don't expect great progress.