Conflict Comparison Israel-Palestine

World History Research Paper

Modern day conflicts are on the rise, due to the population explosion, religion, economy, resources and land. These collisions are usually started by mild upsets and lead to large debates and sometimes even military confrontation. This type of conflict between separate countries is commonly set in countries in Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East. Yet the best known type of hostilities have been the land debates and wars, these occur due to unmarked borders or territories conquered during battles. Such have been the Ecuador-Peru and the Israeli-Palestine wars and land conflicts that have had an effect world wide. These have been stirring up for decades and have usually had restless resolutions, always leading to more conflict. The Ecuador-Peru land conflicts in Latin have had the more efficient peace processes than Israeli-Palestinian conflicts in the Middle East.

The Israeli-Palestine conflict is one of the most active and controversial of conflicts. It all started in 1917 when the Balfour Declaration was written, which was a letter by the British in which they supported the Jewish Zionist movement. Then in 1947 the British put Palestine in the hands of United Nations to choose between making Palestine a free state, or giving part of it to the Jewish people to build Israel. “…On February 14, 1947 that His Majesty’s Government had decided to refer the Palestine problem to the United Nations.” SOURCE 3 The United Nations signed in favor of the new Jewish state which outraged the Palestinian people. This began the Israeli-Arab War that lasted a year. Israel took military measures and was quite successful in crushing the unorganized Palestinian fighters. Israel was able to take over 40% more land than was marked in the U.N. plan. Thousands of Palestinians fled to neighboring countries as refuges and continue to live there today.

In 1967 Israel launched an invasion on the Sinai Peninsula, part of Palestine and the Syrian Golan Heights. The Israelis refused to leave the area even after the U.N. told them to. Then in 1977 under the Camp David Agreement Israelis left the Sinai to its habitants. Meanwhile Yassar Arafat Lead the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) from Jordan in terrorist acts against Israel. But Yassar and the PLO were forced out of Jordan and Sent out to Lebanon. The Israelis attacked Lebanon in 1982 to put an end to the PLO in Lebanon, and were flushed out. In 1987 Palestinians sent out the first intifadas as way of fighting back at the Israelis. Then in 1989 Palestinians finally acknowledged Israel as nation and eventually created their own independent Palestinian State. Finally in 1994 Israel withdrew its soldiers from the Gaza strip after agreeing to grant autonomy to Palestinians; this improved their relationship greatly.

Peru and Ecuador share a common border and has been the source for conflict for decades. In 1941 Ecuador engaged in combat because of land uncertainties, the Ten Day War had begun, this was a series of small gorilla wars between the two countries that would eventually lead to Ecuador loosing 50% of its territory. After this conflict ended the two countries would not settle their differences personally so foreign countries came to establish peace between these countries. On January of 1942 a peace treaty known as the “Rio de Janeiro Protocol” was signed. But this would only worsen relationships between the two countries due to a badly planned border. This treaty took 200,000 square km of land from Ecuador and gave it to Peru, it also left 78 km of the border unmarked 2. This fact was unknown at the moment but would eventually upset the Ecuadorian government and would lead to further conflict in the future.

In 1960 Ecuador challenged the Rio de Janeiro Protocol and discovered that a78 km stretch was left unmarked. This started a new fight that would initialize because both countries wanted the Cordillera de Condor. They went back to war in 1981 and then in January and February of 1995.But they finally signed a peace agreement late in February, all countries that attended which included Chile, Brazil Argentina and the U.S. were satisfied with the peaceful resolution of this conflict.

Out of these two great conflicts the most violent was the Israeli-Palestinian because it was a more constant war. It included many terrorist attacks like suicide bombers and car bombs that make it a more aggressive fight. On the other hand the Peru-Ecuador conflict was much more of a phase conflict with small wars instead of constant attacks. The Isr-Pal is a more modern conflict in the sense that it is only 60 years old. But the Per-Ecu began back when the Incas were exploring and conquering small tribes; these were sited in the Ecuador territory. These conflicts were very different in the sense of their location, their reasons and the people but it was extremely similar at the same time. The land was the reason for both conflicts, peace processes were to slow and unsuccessful, land taken away after war and finally the modern peace resolutions. Thankfully peace agreements are written to allow the reader to understand a much more complex level.