Israel Palestine Conflict

Recent Developments
In August and September 2020, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and then Bahrain agreed to
normalize relations with Israel, making them only the third and fourth countries in the region—
following Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994—to do so. The agreements, named the Abraham
Accords, came more than eighteen months after the United States hosted Israel and several Arab
states for ministerial talks in Warsaw, Poland, about the future of peace in the Middle East.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has rejected the recent accords and recalled his ambassador
from Abu Dhabi; Hamas also rejected the agreements.
The peace announcements follow a tumultuous 2019–20 election season in Israel. After three
elections since December 2018, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud party and
Defense Minister and “Alternate Prime Minister” Benny Gantz of the Blue and White party
signed an agreement creating a unity government on April 20, 2020. The new government said it
would maintain Netanyahu’s campaign promise to extend Israel’s sovereignty over the West
Bank, a promise that has been condemned by Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad
Shtayyeh.
Furthermore, despite the formation of a unity government and promises from Netanyahu that he
would step down after eighteen months, anti-government demonstrations swept across Israel
throughout the summer of 2020 with protestors demanding Netanyahu’s immediate resignation.
Netanyahu has been charged with bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, and the third session in his
corruption trial is scheduled for December 6, 2020.
Tensions also remain high between the Israeli military and Hamas. In August 2020, Hamas
launched helium balloons that carried incendiary material towards Israel’s southern border. In
response, Israel conducted air strikes against Hamas facilities in the Gaza strip. Mediators have
struggled to ease tensions and prevent further escalation.
Background
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict dates back to the end of the nineteenth century. In 1947, the
United Nations adopted Resolution 181, known as the Partition Plan, which sought to divide the
British Mandate of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states. On May 14, 1948, the State of Israel
was created, sparking the first Arab-Israeli War. The war ended in 1949 with Israel’s victory, but
750,000 Palestinians were displaced and the territory was divided into 3 parts: the State of Israel,
the West Bank (of the Jordan River), and the Gaza Strip.
Over the following years, tensions rose in the region, particularly between Israel and Egypt,
Jordan, and Syria. Following the 1956 Suez Crisis and Israel’s invasion of the Sinai Peninsula,
Egypt, Jordan, and Syria signed mutual defense pacts in anticipation of a possible mobilization
of Israel troops. In June 1967, following a series of maneuvers by Egyptian President Abdel
Gamal Nasser, Israel preemptively attacked Egyptian and Syrian air forces, starting the Six-Day
War. After the war, Israel gained territorial control over the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from
Egypt; the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan; and the Golan Heights from Syria. Six
years later, in what is referred to as the Yom Kippur War or the October War, Egypt and Syria
launched a surprise two-front attack on Israel to regain their lost territory; the conflict did not
result in significant gains for Egypt, Israel, or Syria, but Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat
declared the war a victory for Egypt as it allowed Egypt and Syria to negotiate over previously
ceded territory. Finally, in 1979, following a series of cease-fires and peace negotiations,
representatives from Egypt and Israel signed the Camp David Accords, a peace treaty that ended
the thirty-year conflict between Egypt and Israel.
Even though the Camp David Accords improved relations between Israel and its neighbors, the
question of Palestinian self-determination and self-governance remained unresolved. In 1987,
hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip rose up against the
Israeli government in what is known as the first intifada. The 1993 Oslo I Accords mediated the
conflict, setting up a framework for the Palestinians to govern themselves in the West Bank and
Gaza, and enabled mutual recognition between the newly established Palestinian Authority and
Israel’s government. In 1995, the Oslo II Accords expanded on the first agreement, adding
provisions that mandated the complete withdrawal of Israel from 6 cities and 450 towns in the
West Bank.
In 2000, sparked in part by Palestinian grievances over Israel’s control over the West Bank, a
stagnating peace process, and former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s visit to the al-Aqsa
mosque—the third holiest site in Islam—in September 2000, Palestinians launched the second
intifada, which would last until 2005. In response, the Israeli government approved construction
of a barrier wall around the West Bank in 2002, despite opposition from the International Court
of Justice and the International Criminal Court.
In 2013, the United States attempted to revive the peace process between the Israeli government
and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. However, peace talks were disrupted when Fatah
—the Palestinian Authority’s ruling party—formed a unity government with its rival faction
Hamas in 2014. Hamas, a spin-off of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood founded in 1987 following
the first intifada, is one of two major Palestinian political parties and was designated a foreign
terrorist organization by the United States in 1997.
In the summer of 2014, clashes in the Palestinian territories precipitated a military

confrontation between the Israeli military and Hamas in which Hamas fired nearly three
thousand rockets at Israel, and Israel retaliated with a major offensive in Gaza. The skirmish
ended in late August 2014 with a cease-fire deal brokered by Egypt, but only after 73 Israelis and
2,251 Palestinians were killed. After a wave of violence between Israelis and Palestinians in
2015, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced that Palestinians would no longer be
bound by the territorial divisions created by the Oslo Accords. In March and May of 2018,
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip conducted weekly demonstrations at the border between the Gaza
Strip and Israel. The final protest coincided with the seventieth anniversary of the Nakba, the
Palestinian exodus that accompanied Israeli independence. While most of the protesters were
peaceful, some stormed the perimeter fence and threw rocks and other objects. According to the
United Nations, 183 demonstrators were killed and more than 6,000 were wounded by live
ammunition.
Also in May of 2018, fighting broke out between Hamas and the Israeli military in what became
the worst period of violence since 2014. Before reaching a cease-fire, militants in Gaza fired
over one hundred rockets into Israel; Israel responded with strikes on more than fifty targets in
Gaza during the twenty-four-hour flare-up.
Since taking office, the Donald J. Trump administration has made achieving an Israeli-
Palestinian deal a foreign policy priority. In 2018, the Trump administration canceled funding for
the UN Relief and Works Agency, which provides aid to Palestinian refugees, and relocated the
U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a reversal of a longstanding U.S. policy. The decision
to move the U.S. embassy was met with applause from the Israeli leadership but
was condemned by Palestinian leaders and others in the Middle East and Europe. Israel considers
the “complete and united Jerusalem” its capital, while Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the
capital of a future Palestinian state. In January 2020, the Trump administration released its long-
awaited “Peace to Prosperity” plan, which has been rejected by Palestinians due to its support for
future Israeli annexation of settlements in the West Bank and control over an “undivided”
Jerusalem.
Concerns
There is concern that a third intifada could break out and that renewed tensions will escalate into
large-scale violence. The United States has an interest in protecting the security of its long-term
ally Israel, and achieving a lasting deal between Israel and the Palestinian territories, which
would improve regional security.
https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/israeli-palestinian-conflict

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Recent Developments

In the summer of 2014, clashes in the Palestinian territories precipitated a military

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