Background
Gaza’s two-year story has been one of collective failure: by Hamas, which missed the opportunity to act as a responsible political actor; of Israel, which stuck to a shortsighted policy of isolating Gaza and seeking to undermine Hamas that neither helped it nor hurt them; of the PA leadership, which refused to accept the consequences of the Islamists’ electoral victory, sought to undo it and ended up looking like the leader of one segment of the Palestinian community against the other; and of the international community, many regional actors included, which demanded Hamas turn from militant to political organisation without giving it sufficient incentives to do so and only recognised the utility of Palestinian unity after spending years obstructing it.
- International Crisis Group
The modern Israeli-Palestinian conflict has its antecedents at the end of World War I with the disintegration of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Palestine was among the former Ottoman Arab territories which were placed under the administration of Great Britain by the League of Nations. All but one of these Mandated Territories became fully independent states. The exception was Palestine where, instead of being limited to “the rendering of administrative assistance and advice” the Mandate had as a primary objective the implementation of the “Balfour Declaration” issued by the British Government in 1917, expressing support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”.
Mohammed Ghazel, 8, in his damaged home in Nablus Old City. The family's house was occupied for four days by Israeli Defence Forces searching the neighbourhood for militants.
During the years of the Palestine Mandate, from 1922 to 1947, large-scale Jewish immigration, mainly from Eastern Europe, took place. The numbers swelled in the 1930s with the notorious Nazi persecution of Jewish populations. Palestinian demands for independence and resistance to Jewish immigration led to a rebellion, 1936-1939, followed by continuing violence from both sides during and immediately after World War II. Great Britain tried to implement various formulas to bring independence to a land ravaged by violence but, in 1947, decided to pass the problem over to the United Nations.
In 1948, the Mandated State of Palestine was recreated as Israel, a homeland for Jews fleeing post-Nazi Europe. The original UN proposal to partition Palestine into two independent states, one Palestinian and the other Jewish, failed to materialise. Israel had quickly declared its independence and in the 1948 war expanded to occupy 77 per cent of the territory of Palestine, including a major part of Jerusalem. More than half of the indigenous Palestinian population fled or were expelled. Jordan and Egypt occupied the other parts of the territory assigned by the partition resolution to the Palestinian Arab State, which did not come into being.
Israel occupied the remaining territory of Palestine in 1967, until then under Jordanian and Egyptian control (the West Bank and Gaza Strip). This included the remaining part of Jerusalem, which was subsequently annexed by Israel. An estimated half a million Palestinians were forced from their homes and into refugee camps or exile overseas. Today there are several million Palestinians all over the world. Israel has sought to curb the growing numbers of Arabs living within Israel and to prevent the Palestinian Diaspora from returning to their homes.
In 1974, the General Assembly reaffirmed the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, national independence and sovereignty, and their right to return to their homeland. The following year, the General Assembly established the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. The General Assembly conferred on the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) the status of observer in the Assembly and in other international conferences held under United Nations auspices.
Events on the ground, however, remained on a negative course. Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 to expel the PLO, counter Syrian influence and establish a pro-Israeli Lebanese government. Ultimately a ceasefire was declared, and PLO forces withdrew from Beirut to neighbouring countries after guarantees of safety were provided for thousands of Palestinian refugees left behind. Subsequently, a large-scale massacre of refugees took place in the camps of Sabra and Shatila.
Escalating Israeli settlement in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip during the 1980s led to the Palestinian uprising (intifada) from 1987 to 1993. A framework for negotiations between Israel and Arabs (including Palestinians) was established after the Gulf War in 1991, which led to the 1991 Madrid Middle East Peace Conference. This was subsequently overtaken by secret Oslo negotiations and the signing of Oslo Accords at the White House in September 1993. The Oslo Accords began slowly to unravel, however, and the process ultimately broke down amid mutual recriminations after the failed July 2000 Camp David summit sponsored by US President Clinton. This led to a new Palestinian uprising, the Al-Aqsa intifada, which began in September 2000.
In January 2006, the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas won a majority of popular votes in democratic elections held in the occupied territories of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. Israel, the U.S. and European governments rejected the election results and sought to isolate the newly formed Hamas government. After Hamas seized power from the Fatah’s affiliated forces in the Gaza Strip in June 2007, a new government was formed in the West Bank by President Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority (PA). The Israeli Government (supported by the West) imposed an economic embargo which was accompanied by further Israeli restrictions on the movement of people going in and out of Gaza, effectively trapping 1.5 million people in the 360 square kilometre Gaza Strip. This has subsequently led to a stark deterioration of living standards in Gaza with approximately 90 per cent of the people living below the poverty line with almost as many being dependent on food aid. Armed groups in Gaza responded to the siege with locally made rockets launched into Israel, leading to the death and injury of Israeli civilians and ultimately the occupation of Gaza by the Israeli military in January 2009.
Human rights situation
An Amnesty International delegation that entered Gaza shortly before the halting of the Israeli operation in January 2009 described how “previously busy neighbourhoods have been flattened into moonscapes,” and “how there is no camera lens wide enough to embrace the sheer dimensions of the devastation.” More than 1300 Palestinians were killed, many of them women and children, in Israeli air strikes and other attacks on the Gaze Strip between December 27, 2008 and January 17, 2009. Indiscriminate rockets fired by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups killed several Israeli civilians.
This escalation of violence was only the latest in a series of human rights abuses in the occupied territories, with ongoing reports of Palestinian deaths at the hands of Israeli forces, the destruction on Palestinian homes and the imposition of stringent restrictions on the movement of Palestinians.
In June 2008, the Israeli government imposed an unprecedented blockade on the Gaza Strip, virtually imprisoning its entire 1.5 million population, subjecting them to collective punishment and causing a grave humanitarian crisis. Most Gazans were left dependent on international aid for survival but UN aid agencies complained that the Israeli blockade made it difficult for them to provide the much-needed assistance.
In the West Bank, hundreds of Israeli military checkpoints and blockades have restricted or prevented the movement of Palestinians between towns and villages. The Israeli authorities continue to expand illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and build a 700 kilometre fence/wall. In order to construct the wall, large areas of Palestinian land were seized or rendered inaccessible to Palestinians, depriving them of their source of livelihood and restricting their access to their workplaces, education and health facilities and other necessary services.
Israeli forces have continued to demolish Palestinian homes throughout the West Bank, including in East Jerusalem, because of lack of building permits, which have been systematically denied to Palestinian residents of these areas of the occupied territories. The demolitions left hundreds of Palestinians homeless.
Thousands of Palestinians have been arrested by Israeli security forces, most of whom were released without charge. Those charged with security-related offences often received unfair trials before military courts. Some 9000 Palestinian adults and children remained in Israeli jails, some of whom had been held without charge or trial for years. Detainees were often held in prolonged incommunicado detention under interrogation and denied access to their lawyers for up to several weeks. There were frequent reports of torture and other ill-treatment during this period. Methods reported included beating, tying in painful positions for prolonged periods, denial of access to toilets and threats to harm the detainees’ relatives. In some cases, detainees’ parents, wives or siblings were summoned and forced to appear before detainees while dressed in prison uniform to make the detainees believe that they too were being held and ill-treated.
Australia’s relationship with Palestine and Israel
Australia’s support for the Palestinian Authority and a two-state settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians goes back several decades. The Australian government has provided ongoing humanitarian aid to the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people. The new Labor Government augmented this support by doubling Australia’s contribution to $45 million. The money is to go towards strengthening the Palestinian Authority’s institutions and United Nations’ humanitarian assistance program.
Australia has close relations political and economic relations with Israel, with two-way trade worth $828 million (2006-2007). Growth is likely in areas of biotechnology, ICT, education and training. According to Amnesty International, Australia is one of at least 18 states that have supplied arms and related materials to Israel since 2001.
Contacts
Diplomatic and political representation
Australian Representative Office in Palestine
7th floor
Trust building
Othman Ben Affan Street
El – Bireh
Palestinian National Authority
PO Box 4235
El Bireh
Palestinian National Authority
Tel: +972 2 242 7710
Fax: +972 2 242 8290
Email: austrep@palnet.com
www.ramallah.mission.gov.au
Palestine’s embassy in Australia
PO Box 4646
Kingston, ACT
19 Carnegie Crescent
Narrabundah ACT 2603
Tel + 61 2 62950222
Fax: + 61 2 62950021
International organisations working in Palestine
UN Organizations
UNDP
4A, Ya’kubi St.
P.O.Box : 51359
Jerusalem
Tel: +972 2 6268200
Fax: +972 2 6268222
Email: papp@undp.org
UNICEF
PO Box 25141
Shu’fat Jerusalem
Block No. 10 Lot No. 280
Al-Kendy Street, Beit Hanina
Jerusalem
Tel: +972 2 5840 400 and/or +972 2 5830 013
Email Jerusalem@unicef.org
International NGOs
- Caritas
www.caritas.org/worldmap/mona/jerusalem.html
- Care
www.care.org/careswork/projects/cindex_105.asp
- Oxfam
www.oxfam.org/en/category/oxfam-general/palestine
- World Vision
www.worldvision.org/content.nsf/learn/globalissues-jerusalem
References
Amnesty International, 2008, “Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories Human Rights” www.amnestyusa.org/all-countries/israel/occupied-palestinian-territories/page.do?id=1011175
Amnesty International, 2009, ‘Arms embargo vital as Gaza civilian toll mounts’ www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/news/arms-embargo-vital-gaza-civilian-toll-mounts-20090115
Amnesty International, 2002, “Israel and the occupied territories and the Palestinian Authority: Without distinction – attacks on civilians by Palestinian armed groups’’, 2002.
www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE02/003/2002/en/dom-MDE020032002en.html
Australian Government, “Country Brief”
www.dfat.gov.au/geo/israel/israel_country_brief.html
Australian minister for foreign affairs (Stephen Smith MP) “Doorstop Interview with Palestinian Foreign Minister Dr Riyad al-Malki”
www.foreignminister.gov.au/transcripts/2008/081028_pc.html
The International Crisis Group, 2009, Arab-Israeli Conflict
www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=4284&l=1
Human Rights Watch. ”Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT)”, World Report 2008.
http://hrw.org/englishwr2k8/docs/2008/01/31/isrlpa17596.htm
Human Rights Watch. “Israel: Don’t Destroy Homes”.
www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/08/09/israel-don-t-destroy-homes
Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2008.
www.foreignminister.gov.au/transcripts/2008/081028_pc.html
United Nations, “the question of Palestine”
www.un.org/Depts/dpa/ngo/history.html
Further reading
Human Rights Watch – Middle East/North Africa http://hrw.org/doc/?t=mideast&c=isrlpa
Human Development Report on the Occupied Palestinian Territories. http://hdrstats.undp.org/countries/data_sheets/cty_ds_PSE.html
International Crisis Group has a plethora of in-depth reports on the conflict.
www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?l=1&id=1271
OHCHR – Occupied Palestinian Territories.
www.ohchr.org/EN/countries/MENARegion/Pages/PSIndex.aspx
UNESCO Communication & Information – Palestinian Authority.
http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=19259&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
United Nations Statistics Division: National Accounts – Occupied Palestinian Territory.
http://millenniumindicators.un.org/unsd/snaama/resultsCountry.asp?Country=275
