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Francesco Basti
UNIV 112
Mr. Brookman
An Ethical Approach to the Arab Israeli Conflict
The Arab Israeli conflict is the longest lasting geopolitical conflict of our time. Over the
decades, thousands of lives and billions of dollars have been lost because of it. The core of this
war is simply a question of nationalistic and religious discrepancy: the Palestinians want their
homeland back and the Israelis do not want to share their relatively new land because they have
already settled (and been recognized by the UN). This is a very controversial issue, which brings
up many ethical issues. However, to be truly able to analyze this problem through a Justice
Ethical Approach, it needs to be understood from its origin. The conflict originated after the
Belfour Declaration was drafted by the British government in 1917. This document stated that
the British government would fully support the creation of a new Jewish state (Israel) where
Palestine was currently placed. The alleged backing of the Zionist cause allowed the British to
invade Palestine and Jerusalem under a false pretense, while hiding its economic purposes to
control naval trade in the region. This is widely considered the start of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
After this first imperialistic action towards Palestine, the situation started to settle, but then a
major world event changed the situation. During World War 2 the Jewish population in Europe
was being persecuted by the German Nazi party, and that persecution was henceforth known as
the holocaust: one of the darkest times in modern history. After the war ended in 1945, the very
identity and beliefs of all the Jews in Europe was shaken to its core. The Jews in Europe were
scattered amongst the continent and had no real sense of community or identity, as the prejudice
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still lingered in both Western and Eastern Europe. In a way, the holocaust sparked a need to
revitalize a Jewish identity in the world. At this time the Zionists (Jewish nationalists) were
starting to organize the recreation of Israel, the ancient Promised Land, to bring back a sense of
national community and the Jewish citizens of Europe. The combination of the terrible events of
World War 2 and the fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War 1, which was occupying
Palestine at the time, attracted the world’s attention to the Zionist cause. Two of the most
powerful nations at the time, the USA and Britain, took a special interest in the matter, and that
is how the Arab-Israeli conflict escalated. So in 1947, as the world was recovering from the back
to back World Wars, and with the influence of those two countries in the United Nations, the UN
declared Resolution 181. This declaration stated that any European imperialists would leave
Palestine and that a Jewish state would be created within that geopolitical region (UN Resolution
181). And after that, chaos ensued. Under the leadership of David Ben Gurion, the new Israeli
population expanded their occupation of Palesine (which eefectively ceased to exist in 1967),
built the new temple of Solomon on the holiest Islamic place in the world, and pushed the
Palestinians into Jordan and the Gaza strip. At the same time, Israel engaged war with Lebanon
in 1967 occupying the Golan Heights, the biggest and only clean water source in the area, taking
over the territory. The new Jewish state has also received a lot of economic aid from the USA.
Israel has the most technologically advanced military and infrastructure in the Middle East,
including the most advance air-to-air defense system in the world and billions of dollars worth of
nationalized water desalination plants, unmatched by any other nation. They are also capable of
nuclear weponization and development. In the meantime, the Palestinians do not even have an
official country anymore.
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After all this conflict which started in 1917, the situation has not gotten any better in the
21st Century. Israel keeps expanding, occupying the West Bank with colonies and deporting the
remaining Islamic population. Also, the Palestinians are still extremely hostile, with a growing
anger towards the Israeli state, perhaps justifiably so. They keep attacking Israeli civilian areas
with terrorist tactics and air-to-land missile launches, refusing to diplomatically negotiate or even
recognize Israel as a nation. They want to literally annihilate the Jewish state and to once again
claim the land as Palestine. However turbulent their past has been, current Palestinian nationalist
organizations are not acting within UN regulations. In their own way, both sides are right and
wrong, but this century old conflict needs to be resolved to prevent more deaths and hatred for
future generations.
One widely supported solution is the one proposed by Jewish journalist Jonathan S.
Tobin: there should be no new Palestinian state; moreover other Arabic nations, such as Jordan
and Egypt, should try to fully integrate all the Palestinian refugees that have immigrated since
the 1940s to try to lower conflict on the borders. Tobin states that “despite the claim that
Palestinians have been denied freedom and sovereignty, there is already an independent
Palestinian state on Israel’s doorstep” (Tobin 1). In his eyes, Palestine still exists, and it has a
cultural identity, as demonstrated by the action of extremist Palestinian terrorist groups such as
Hamas. He also states that these manifestation have been deteriorating other Arab countries’
diplomatic relations with Israel (Tobin1). Therefore, further geopolitical recognition of a
Palestinian state would only worsen the situation. Is this solution ethical? If it was to be analyzed
under the ethical justice lens, it would not be. The justice approach states that everyone deserves
to be treated equally and that all humans have the same basic rights, and this solution completely
ignores that. Looking at some numbers, we can see that Palestinians and Israelis have not been
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treated equally. In the article “Independence, Cantons, or Bantustans: Whither the Palestinians
State?”, Leila Farsakh, a Jordanian journalist, brings up some statistics that showcase the
unfairness in the Israeli social system. Farsakh states that “Between 1993 and 2000, Israel
imposed over 484 days of closure that locked the Palestinians in over 63 enclaves and stalled any
attempt to grow domestically or rely on non-Israeli markets to absorb its growing labor force”
(1). This means that while the Zionist culture is being cultivated, Palestinians are being socially
differentiated and borderline oppressed. This is not equality. Both cultures deserve to be
nurtured, supported and eventually be motivated to coexist.
Now, Tobin and Farsakh are biased in their own way. Their respective opinions and
solutions actually reflect the mentalities within the Arab-Israeli conflict. Both sides are acting at
the extreme within the sole interest of their own preservation. What is really unethical is that all
of their proposed solutions, such as Tobin’s, disregard equality and mutual growth, and opt for a
more final solution. There seems to be no room for negotiations, which goes directly against the
Justice and Fairness Ethical Approach. Yes, it is reasonable for a Zionist such as Tobin to not
want an independent Palestine due to continuing terrorist attacks and extremist Palestinian
political agendas. It also sensible for Islamic supporters such as Farsakh to push for a free
Palestine to compensate for the unfair treatment that Palestinians have had to endure in the past.
Given these circumstances, are extreme solutions morally justified? No, they are not. As proven
by the past, radical solutions will only create more conflict. These radical actions have been
shown by both sides. For example, “in late August [2011], a series of deadly terror attacks
against Israel were launched from Hamas-run Gaza. The resultant ‘cycle of violence’ consisted
of Israeli attempts to counterattack terror strongholds, matched by a massive barrage of missiles
launched against cities in southern Israel” (Tobin 1). This quote shows that both sides are at the
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extreme. A solution such as Tobin’s which favors only one side, cannot work and is inherently
unfair, making it unethical under a Fairness Approach point of view.
In conclusion, it is clear that the Arab-Israeli conflict can be only solved through a fair
and just solution. An extremist approach from either side would simply fuel the conflict. How
can Tobin’s approach be correct if it is so unfair and ignores the past history of his conflict and
the mistreatment of the Palestinians? At the same time, how could the violent, cowardly, hatred
fueled, politically charged attacks of the Palestinians towards Israeli civilians be ever justified?
There will never be peace without compromise. The elimination of prejudice and the
implementation of mutual understanding is exactly what would go along with the Ethical
Fairness approach. Looking at recent news, it is clear that this conflict needs a long term
solution. In this most recent summer, the Israeli Defense Force bombed UN schools in the Gaza
Strip, while Palestinian forces launched missiles towards densely populated Israeli cities and
attacked IDF soldiers through underground tunnels. Given the heated and dense situation, how
could a passive solution such as Tobin’s solve anything? How could just ignoring the
Palestinians’ demands, pretending that they do have a respectable and recognizable sense of
national identity be a good solution? No matter under what ethical lens this is analyzed (whether
it be Ethical, Utilitarian, Fair or Virtue), this narrow minded answer to this complicated problem
will not solve anything. Now, some steps have been taken by the international community to
come to a compromise. While the USA is still supporting the Israeli cause, the UN has officially
recognized Palestine as a nation, giving it some nationalistic identity. However, it is simply an
observer entity in the United Nations, holding no real power. As small and cautious as these
steps may be, they are steps towards the right direction. They show that the opinions of the
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international community are veering away from mentalities such as Jonathan Tobin’s, leaving
room for compromise and diplomatic negotiations.
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Annotated Bibliography
"A/RES/181(II) of 29 November 1947." A/RES/181(II) of 29 November 1947. N.p., n.d. Web.
03 Dec. 2014.
Farsakh, Leila. "Independence, Cantons, or Bantustans: Whither the Palestinian State?" Middle
East Journal Changing Geopolitics 59.2 (2005): 230-45. JSTOR. Web. 18 Oct. 2014.
<http://www.jstor.org/stable/4330126 >.
Tobin, Jonathan S. "Threat Assessment: October 2011." A MONTHLY COMPENDIUM 132
(2011): 1. Gale Cengage Literature Resource Center. Web. 18 Oct. 2014.