I've avoided blogging about Israel and Palestine, gentle reader, because it's difficult to see through the avalanche of propaganda from both the Israelis and the various Palestinian spokespeople.
Digging for the facts behind this conflict (which in its current form has endured for my lifetime - I was born in 1947, one year before the state of Israel was founded), is not straightforward, but I'll give it a shot.
The British, through the Balfour Declaration, published in November 1917, proposed the development of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. It's worth reproducing the text -
His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
Note the reference to the civil and religious rights of "existing non-Jewish" communities in Palestine.
The British had captured the territory from the Ottomans, and the Australian victory at Beersheba was a turning point in this campaign. Success at Beersheba was a significant moment in the broader Sinai-Palestine Offensive, which continued for almost the entire duration of the war, and which had begun in January 1915 with the Ottoman raids upon the Suez canal.
So you could say, gentle reader, that Australia has an historic stake in the Middle East.
The British terminated their mandatory power (granted in 1922 by the League of Nations) in 1947, and the UN General Assembly recommended partitioning Palestine into two states - one Arab and one Jewish. The two-state solution is hardly a novel idea.
The Arabs rejected the plan, but the Israelis ostensibly accepted it, and declared the independence of the State of Israel in May 1948 at the end of the British mandate.
The situation collapsed into civil war between the nascent state of Israel, and bordering Arab countries. During this conflict, 700,000 (about 80% of the Arab population) were driven out of territory won by Israel and weren't allowed to return. The Arabs called this event the "Nakba". Starting in the late 1940s, about 850,000 Jews, mostly from the Aran world, immigrated to Israel.
All of these facts of history simply underline the irreconcilable differences between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and don't provide much hope for peace.
Based on my lived experience, the situation has the smell of Vietnam about it. Around that conflict, we saw the great powers pick a side and prolong the conflict until it had killed 57,000 Americans, 521 Australians, and millions of Vietnamese. The Americans attempted to bomb their way to victory. That didn't work. The Israelis seem to be doing much the same.
The USA seems to back Israel come what may, but most of the free world, including Australia, has not lined up with them.
I can see no resolution. In a perfect world, a stabilisation force would be sent to control the Gaza strip, and the Israeli settlements would be terminated, as they are a form of trickling invasion, but the likelihood of this is impossible.
And the military incursion will continue, Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians will continue to die.
Perhaps the only possibility of peace resides with the collapse of the Netanyahu government.
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