There is a strong relationship between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the religions of Judaism and Christianity, but even more so the Bible. The latter is because one of the most important items in the Bible is that God chose the descendants of Abraham, whom we now call Jews, to make a covenant with them through which this God would reveal himself to the world. This covenant also involved giving these people, the Jews, a certain piece of real estate in this world wherein to establish their nation (Genesis 12.1-3; 15.7, 18-21). Thus, whatever happens regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has repercussions regarding God’s covenant with the Jews.
Recognizing Palestine Does Not Reward Terrorism
Due to several big nations declaring their recognition of a Palestinian state during the past three days, now making it over 150 of the total 193 member nations of the UN, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump said that represents a rewarding of Hamas’ terrorism for attacking Israel back on October 7, 2023, that resulted in 1,200 Jewish deaths and 250 Jewish hostages. Hamas’ attack was terrorism all right, but this recognition of the legitimacy of the formation of a Palestinian state has been needed for a very long time regardless of its timing.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has now been going on for 58 years, thus ever since Israel took possession of the West Bank as one of the four occupied territories it gained from the 1967 Six-Day War against surrounding Arab nations. But all that time since, Israel has kept the West Bank in defiance of an important UN principle. That is that any nation that gains territory from war must afterwards enter into peace negotiations to return that “occupied territory” as the UN designates it.
Israel Is In Violation of the UN Law of Return
If a nation refuses to return the property, I think that should jeopardize its membership in the UN, which it doesn’t. Even though I believe the United Nations is a necessary institution for maintaining a modicum of peace in the world, its main weakness has been that it has never had any mechanism for punishing bad behavior of its members, such as terminating their membership.
There used to be a peace process for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But through the decades it fizzled until it has been no more for about the last ten years. The main reason has been that the government of Israel has become more and more right wing under Netanyahu’s leadership. Thus, nowadays it even publicly admits it is totally opposed to there ever being a Palestinian state. In that case, Israel has no intention of returning the occupied territory of the West Bank to the Palestinians. Before 1967, the State of Jordan administered the West Bank for the Palestinians who lived there.
After 1967, Israel turned a blind eye in allowing illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Now there are about 250 of them with a Jewish population of nearly half a million compared to the 2.5 million Palestinians living there. Some leaders in the Netanyahu administration are now calling for the unilateral annexation of those West Bank settlements to Israel. This would be another violation of international law and a very serious one. It would jeopardize Israel’s recent connection to some Arab states through the Abraham Accords, an association Israel definitely does not want to lose.
Conclusion
So, my retort to the Netanyahu and Trump allegation that the additional nations the past three days now recognizing a Palestinian state—even though it is primarily a symbolic gesture since Palestinians do not really have a state—is as follows: All during the past 58 years that nations like the U.S. refused to recognize a Palestinian state or even declare that Palestinians should have there own state represents collusion in maintaining the status quo in which Palestinians do not have their own state even though it is only fair that, just like the Jews, they should have their own state. [See my book Palestine Is Coming: The Revival of Ancient Philistia. Half of it is free reading at my website kermitzarley.com.]
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