Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

🇮🇱🇵🇸 Palestine has never existed, therefore it can not be occupied. The territory in question belonged to the Roman Empire for hundreds of years and was known as Judaea. After the Muslim Conquest in the 630s, the territory belonged to Muslim caliphates and later the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years. Then it was acquired by the British Empire after World War I. The British promised to create a Jewish state on this territory at the request of the Jewish community living there, and then they later promised to also create an Arab state at the request of the Arab community living there. It appears that the British were never able to follow through on either promise because of riots and revolts between the Jewish and Arab communities, and the issues were unresolved when they abandoned the territory. Since then the territory or parts of it have been under the control of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Israel.

In 1988 Palestine declared independence without declaring where their territorial borders were located. The international community has been extremely generous by accepting the State of Palestine's legitimacy, but they have always agreed that Palestine's territorial boundaries must be negotiated peacefully between Israel and Palestine. Palestine has thus far refused to negotiate on the territorial boundaries, and instead have made unreasonable demands from Israel and the rest of the international community by claiming territory that has never belonged to them. Despite the fact that the two parties have never agreed on Palestine's territorial boundaries, the recognized Palestinian Authority has on several occasions during peace talks agreed that Israel has the right to exist in peace and security and to end all violence and acts of terrorism against Israel. Yet, Palestine has obviously not honored any of those agreements.

Moving forward, I think we need to define where Palestine's territorial boundaries are, so we can end this conflict. The Arab community clearly rejected the British proposal of a two-state solution when it was presented to them. They started the first Arab-Israeli war over it, making it impossible to deliver a two-state solution. So that proposal, including the territorial boundaries that were drawn at that time, is no longer valid. The USA should put together a new proposal relevant to current affairs. I think there should also be new elections in Palestine as well. Let the Palestinians elect their leaders again. The international community wants to know if they still support terrorist groups.

I'm not sure this conflict will ever be completely resolved. I doubt these terrorists groups will ever be satisfied with any solution regardless of how generous we are. But I think we need to solve the territorial disputes so that there is no longer any doubt in anyone's mind who is the guilty party.

xo