PORTLAND, USA / JERUSALEM, Jan 27 (IPS) – Following the long-sought cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas, the major challenge for the Israelis and the stateless Palestinians is how to achieve a lasting peace that will end the disastrous cycle of death, destruction, displacement and despair.
Several major factors continue to play fundamental roles in the decades-old conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Among those factors are religious identities, demographics, land and the broader regional geo-political context.
Closely related to those major factors are critical issues for achieving a solution to the conflict, including borders, refugees, civil/human rights and legal equity, authority over Jerusalem’s Holy Sites, and very importantly security.
A narrative of mutual recognition, tolerance, and pluralism should prevail. While the memories of the past cannot be forgotten nor dismissed, the emphasis today needs to be placed firmly on achieving a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Recent History
Along with the defeat of the Ottoman Empire by the western powers in World War I, its territory was partitioned into several British and French Mandates.
The British Mandate for Palestine, or Mandatory Palestine, initially intended to include Transjordan, was approved over the territory west of Jordan by the League of Nations in 1922. Among its declared goals was the establishment of the Jewish national home and the development of self-governing institutions, safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of religious affiliation and ethnicity.
The religious composition of the resident population of Mandatory Palestine at that time was approximately 10 percent Christian, 11 percent Jewish and 78 percent Muslim. Under the British, all those resident in the territory, irrespective of their religious affiliation, held Palestinian citizenship.
After many decades of violence and confrontations among the major populations of Mandatory Palestine and the various attempts by the British and others to resolve the conflict, the problem was turned over to the United Nations to resolve. By 1947, in large part due to immigration, the religious composition of the resident population of Palestine had become 7 percent Christian, 32 percent Jewish and 60 percent Muslim.
On 29 November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the resolution terminating the Mandate and dividing Palestine into two states. One state was Arab, primarily Muslim, and the other state was Jewish, with the Jerusalem area separately remaining under direct United Nations control (Figure 1).
On 14 May 1948, David Ben-Gurion declared independence of the Jewish state of Israel. The opposing side, led by Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, rejected the partition plan. War immediately erupted between the armies of neighboring Arab states and Israel.
