What kind of country is Israel? Why does it have such a big enemy with Palestine?

Palestine is located on the Mediterranean coast of West Asia, and is located in the main road of Europe, Asia and Africa, and its strategic position is very important. Palestine was called Canaan in ancient times, including Israel, Gaza, the West Bank and Jordan. Historically, Jews and Arabs once lived here. Around the 20th century BC, Sumerian Canaanites settled in the coastal and plain areas of Palestine and became the earliest inhabitants of Palestine. BC13rd century, the Philistines established a country along the coast. The word "Palestine" originally meant "the land of the Philistines". Before the end of the 3rd century BC/KLOC-0, Hebrew tribes moved to Palestine, and successively established the Kingdom of Hebrew and the Kingdom of Israel. In Hebrew, "Palestine" is called "Elez Israel", which means "the land of Israel". Since then, Palestine has been occupied and ruled by Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians and Romans. In 622 AD, Arabs moved in after conquering the Roman Empire and taking over Palestine, assimilated with local aborigines, and gradually formed modern Palestinian Arabs, becoming the main residents here. The Ottoman Empire annexed Palestine in the16th century, but it did not change the Arab nature of Palestine.

19 At the end of the 20th century, after the rise of Zionism, Jews from all over the world moved to Palestine in large numbers. During the First World War, Palestine became a "mandated territory" of Britain. After the British occupation of Palestine, it was divided into east and west parts with the Jordan River as the boundary. In the East, it is called foreign Jordan (now the Kingdom of Jordan), and in the West, it is still called Palestine (now Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) as the British mandated territory. Since then, Jews from all over the world have begun to migrate to Palestinian areas. During the influx of Jews into Palestine, there were many bloody conflicts between Jews and local Palestinian Arabs. 1947 UN Security Council resolution 18 1 on the partition of Palestine stipulates that Palestine will establish a Jewish state (about15,200 square kilometers) and an Arab state (about 1948) after the end of the British trusteeship.

The Middle East War (between Israel and Arab countries)

After Israel declared its founding, a series of large-scale wars broke out between Arab and Israel. Israel has occupied all Palestinian territories, including Jerusalem, and millions of Palestinian Arabs have been expelled from their homes and become refugees. Among them, there are five major wars.

On May 1948, the State of Israel was established. The next day, the first Middle East war broke out, and Israel occupied most of the territories of Arab countries stipulated in resolution 18 1 and forcibly occupied West Jerusalem. At that time, King Abdullah of Jordan occupied the territory of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and allocated it to Palestine, covering an area of 5,268 square kilometers. Nearly 654.38 million Palestinians have been expelled from their homes and become refugees.

1956, 10 year1On the night of October 29th, Israel invaded Egypt's Sinai Peninsula at the instigation of Britain and France, and the Second Middle East War broke out. On March 3 1 day, the British and French naval and air forces bombed Egypt and then invaded Egyptian territory. 19 On February 22nd, all British and French troops withdrew from Egyptian territory, and all Israeli troops withdrew from Egyptian territory on March 19, ending the war in 57.

1On June 5, 967, Israel launched a large-scale raid on Egypt, Syria and Jordan, and the third Middle East war broke out. In this war, Israel occupied the Palestinian West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Jordan District of Jerusalem, the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt and the Syrian Golan Heights, covering more than 65,700 square kilometers of Arab land, making nearly 500,000 Arabs homeless refugees.

1973 10 10 On 6 October, Egypt and Syria, with the support of Arab countries such as Palestine, launched a war against Israel to recover their lost territory, that is, the fourth Middle East war, also known as the "October War". During the war, the Egyptian army crossed the Suez Canal and destroyed the "Pahlaf Line". The Syrian army once attacked lake tiberias. However, due to the intervention of superpowers and other reasons, it was finally forced to stop fighting on June 25, 65438/KLOC-0.

1On June 6, 982, Israel brazenly invaded Lebanon and the fifth Middle East war broke out. During the war, Israel occupied a narrow strip with a width of 10- 15 km in southern Lebanon.

The peace process in the Middle East

In order to restore national rights and return to their homeland, the Palestinians began an armed struggle. 1964 In May, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was proclaimed and began an armed struggle against the Israeli invasion. Since then, the PLO has changed the way of struggle for the founding of the country and started the long process of realizing the founding of the country through peaceful negotiations.

1988165438+1October15th, the plo national Committee adopted the declaration of independence at its19th special meeting, announcing the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. Since then, 130 countries have successively recognized the Palestinian state. Because it has no territory of its own, the Palestinian state is not a real state.

1 991June1,the Madrid middle east peace conference was held, and the difficult peace talks between Arab and Israeli countries began. This is the first time that Arab countries and Israel have sat together to try to solve the conflict that has lasted for more than 40 years. This meeting established the basic framework of Middle East peace talks-peace talks are divided into bilateral talks and multilateral talks, and established the basic principle of "land for peace". 1September 1993 13, the first peace agreement between Palestine and Israel-the Declaration of Principles on Palestinian Self-government was signed in Washington. According to the agreement, the Palestinians will first exercise autonomy in the Gaza-Jericho area for a transitional period of five years.

According to the final agreement on the implementation of the Gaza-Jericho Declaration of Principles signed by Palestine and Israel in May 1994, Palestine began to govern itself on May 4th. 1In September 1995, Palestine and Israel signed the Taba Agreement, and Israeli troops withdrew from seven major cities in the West Bank one after another, and the Palestinians ruled themselves. 1On May 4, 1996, Palestine and Israel held the first round of talks on the final stage of Palestinian negotiations.

However, after Netanyahu came to power in June 1996, Israel abandoned the principle of "land for peace" and instead emphasized the principle of "security for peace", which made the Middle East peace process stagnate. Although Palestine and Israel have successively signed the Hebron Agreement and the Wye Agreement, they have not been fully implemented due to the delay of the Israeli government. 1In May 1999, Barak was elected Prime Minister of Israel. In order to implement the Wye Agreement, Palestine and Israel signed the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum, and the two sides agreed to start the final status negotiations on1September 3, 1999, and reach a framework agreement on the status of Jerusalem before February 5, 2000, and a final agreement before September 3. Due to Israel's deliberate delay, the terms of the agreement have not been well implemented. In July 2000, the tripartite summit of Palestine, Israel and the United States was held in Camp David, Maryland, USA. Because of the status of Jerusalem, the demarcation of borders, the future of Jewish settlements, the return of Palestinian refugees and the distribution of water resources, the talks failed to reach an agreement. On September 28th of the same year, Israeli hardline leader Sharon forcibly entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Islamic holy place, which triggered a long-lasting bloody conflict between Palestine and Israel. After Sharon's government came to power in March, 20001,the relationship between Palestine and Israel deteriorated.

The key to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict

The main topics of the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks are the status of Jerusalem, the demarcation of borders, the return of Palestinian refugees, Jewish settlements and water resources.

For a long time, Israel has built a large number of Jewish settlements in the occupied Arab territories. In the West Bank and Gaza, 200 Israeli settlements have been established, with 65,438+004,000 Jewish immigrants. Israel's Jewish immigration policy tries to establish a great Israeli state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean by changing the population structure of the occupied Arab territories.

According to the statistics of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, there are currently about 26 million refugees in the world, and Palestinian refugees are the largest refugee group, with a total of nearly 3.5 million. It has been 52 years since the first generation of refugees appeared, nearly three generations. According to Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics 1996, there are about 4.7 million refugees.

The issue of Jerusalem is the most crucial and thorny issue in the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks. The issue of Jerusalem refers to the sovereignty and ownership of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is located in the middle of Palestine in the West Bank, with an area of 176 square kilometers and a population of 650,000. It is the holy land of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The whole city consists of two parts: the old city and the new city. There are many religious sites in the Old City of East Jerusalem, which is the main residential area for Palestinians, including 33 Arab villages with 654.38 million Arabs. New City West Jerusalem was gradually built after19th century, mainly in Jewish residential areas.

East Jerusalem and West Jerusalem, which make up the whole city of Jerusalem, are not a concept of administrative division, but a concept of politics, geography and even nationality. After the end of the First Middle East War, Jerusalem, which was originally designated as an international city by the United Nations, was divided into two parts from north to south by the ceasefire line between the Arab and Israeli sides. The Eastern District was occupied by Jordan (then called Outer Jordan) and the Western District was occupied by Israel. The ceasefire line dividing East Jerusalem and West Jerusalem is also called "Green Line" because it is green on the map of Israel. Before the founding of Israel, a large number of Jewish immigrants lived in the newly developed West Jerusalem, so West Jerusalem was also called the Jewish settlement. East Jerusalem was once the absolute advantage of Arabs, so it was called the Arab quarter. 1950 Israel declared the occupation of West Jerusalem as its capital. Israel seized East Jerusalem in 1967, and passed a bill in July 1980, declaring the unified Jerusalem as the "eternal and indivisible" capital of Israel, but it has never been recognized by the international community. On February 4th, the United Nations passed a resolution declaring Jerusalem the illegal capital.

According to the agreement signed by Palestine and Israel in 1993, the Jerusalem issue will be resolved in the final status negotiations between Palestine and Israel. Until then, neither party can take unilateral actions to change the status quo. However, Israel still insists that Jerusalem is its "unified and eternal capital" and continues to carry out the plan of building Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem. After the final status negotiations between Palestine and Israel started in September 1999, the two sides held dozens of rounds of open and secret negotiations on the status of Jerusalem, but they could not overcome the huge differences on this issue. Especially in July, 2000, because of the great differences between Palestine and Israel on the final status of Jerusalem, the Palestinian-Israeli summit at Camp David failed to reach an agreement. The Palestinian side insists that according to UN Resolution 242, Israel must withdraw from East Jerusalem occupied in the 1967 war. Therefore, sharing Jerusalem with Israel or recovering East Jerusalem is the unchangeable bottom line of Palestinian negotiations. Without East Jerusalem, Israel will never sign a permanent peace agreement to end the state of war.

Source: Wang (Xinhua News Agency)