Julian Moncada
9/26/2010
Issue Paper
Israeli/Palestinian Conflict
The Israeli/Palestinian conflict has been a nonstop struggle between the Jews and
Arabs about who should control Judea, which was the ancient land of the Jews before it
was captured by Rome and named Palestine. Ever since the Arabs took control of
Palestine, they’ve lived there for more than 1,000 years before the Jews of Israel decided
to migrate back to the land. This movement of the Jews into Israel is known as the Zionist
Movement. Due to this massive immigration of Jewish people into Palestine, the Arabian
people rioted in fear that the Jews would come and try to take their land. This created
huge tension between both the Jews and the Arabs. Eventually, the United Nations
partitioned the land into Arab and Jewish states but the Arabs denied the partition which
started a war between the two groups. The Jews won the war and started to expand their
state but, the Arabs refused to make peace with Israel or accept them as a state. Now both
the Arabian and Jewish people demand an apology from each other and believe that it is
the others fault for this conflict. Since then there has been a series of raids, terrorist
attacks, kidnappings and other mayhem that has been going on between Israel and
Palestine. The Palestinians mostly agreed to destroy Israel with force and violence thus,
being held accountable for the majority of terrorist acts and kidnappings. There is still
tension between the two states today as each tries to claim land that “belongs” to them.
The Republican party and Democratic party both have different views on the
Israeli/Palestinian conflict. The Republicans highly favor Israel by 87% according to a
recent survey. The Republicans agree with what Israel is doing in terms of defense and
security. It is no surprise that Jewish-Americans are starting to join the Republican party
instead of the once highly favored Democratic party. Even though 72% of Republicans
side with Israel as opposed to 47% of the Democrats, both parties still defend Israel’s
defense actions in protecting their borders from Palestinian terrorist groups such as the
Hezbollah. However, the Democratic party tends to focus more on the war in Iraq and its
failures when asked about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in hopes of keeping the Muslim
and Arab voters. Republicans on the other hand link the conflict to our battles in
Afghanistan and Iraq to show people that sometimes war is the best solution to resolving
conflict.
In conclusion, the Palestinian/Israeli conflict has been a major issue since the wars
of 1956-1982. Both the Jews and Arabians believe that it is completely the other side’s
fault. Even though there has been peaceful resolutions, the Arabs will not accept a peace
treaty. They insist on crushing Israel with nuclear weapons and threaten their existence.
Republicans tend to be more Pro-Israel than Democrats. Democrats think that by siding
completely with Israel, they will lose all of their Muslim and Arab voters. Instead of
completely siding with either Israel or Palestine, the democrats blame the President for
failing to engage in diplomacy in the conflict. In the end both the Democratic and
Republican parties both defend Israel in this fight.
Bibliography
http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2006/03/republicans-and-democrats-look-at-the-arab
http://www.mideastweb.org/nutshell.htm
http://www.mideastweb.org/briefhistory.htm
