39,327
edits
Arab-Israeli Conflict: Difference between revisions
m
Mass update links
m (Mass update links) |
m (Mass update links) |
||
Line 7:
A 60 year long ongoing conflict involving Jews, Arabs (and possibly Iranians), suicide bombings, F-15s, hatred, Jerusalem, and refugees. [[Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment|Don't start here on the rights and wrongs of it]], as this ''will'' cause an [[Internet Backdraft]].
All in all, it's very much a [[Grey and Gray Morality]] affair. Depending on which side you take, you may see tropes in [[Real Life]] here such as [[The Revolution Will Not Be Vilified]], [[The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized]], [[The Empire]], [[La Résistance]], [[The Remnant]], [[We ARE Struggling Together!]], [[Villain With Good Publicity]], [[Hero With Bad Publicity]] (and no one can agree on ''who has the good or bad publicity''), [[The Kingdom]], [[The Federation]], [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]], [[Nice Job Fixing It, Villain]], and others ([[Idiot Ball]] is a common one). There's also plenty of [[Cultural Posturing]] to go around on both sides. The exact combination of these you perceive depends on your nationality, religion, and political bent. And ''everyone'' can agree that foreign discussion of the conflict tends to suffer from the [[Golden Mean Fallacy]] and the [[Wounded Gazelle Gambit]]. Additionally, with so many sides [[Gambit Pileup|playing]] (or [[Xanatos Backfire|trying to play]]) [[Batman Gambit|subtle games]] to their own ends, you naturally find that the whole thing, upon closer inspection, is one huge [[Gambit Pileup]], [[Idiot Plot|very often conducted by gibbering idiots]], with a dash of nationalism to make things that much more explosive (and we mean that literally as well as figuratively).
Oh, and due to this conflict, many Jews will suffer from the same [[Misplaced Nationalism]] as Iranians if someone suggests that the Middle East is all Arabs.
Line 44:
* The Second Intifada, 2000-2004. Or 2005. Or 2006.: More or less a repeat of the First, but Hamas very often took the lead on this one. They managed to figure out how to make rocket launchers, and used them on Israeli towns. Suicide bombings were also somewhat more frequent than in the First Intifada. Throughout the 2000's, Israel began and continues building a wall around and in the West Bank. It serves the dual purpose of keeping suicide bombers out of Israel, and effectively annexing Palestinian land into Israel; needless to say, it is a major point of contention in the current political [lack of] negotiations.
The Second Intifada eventually petered out; exactly when is a question for the historians. What matters is that by 2006, some semblance of stability had returned: Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip helped calm heads, and a controversial wall in the West Bank eventually frustrated attackers. However, the Palestinian Authority elections of 2006 returned a resounding majority for the Islamist party/militia Hamas in the Palestinian parliament, mostly because the (nominally-socialist, really just secular) Fatah had gotten itself a (not undeserved) reputation for cronyism and corruption (though foul play on Hamas's side is also suspected). This was unacceptable to Israel, which stopped sending the PA the tax revenues it collected on the PA's behalf; aid from the US and Europe was also reduced. Eventually, the Hamas Prime Minister found himself in an untenable situation, and tensions between Fatah and Hamas broke out into [[We ARE Struggling Together!|outright civil war]] in 2007. This war left Hamas in control of the Gaza Strip and Fatah in control of the West Bank, leading to...
* The Siege of Gaza, 2007 - Present. After the dispute between Fatah and Hamas broke out into open violence, Hamas (as noted above) took control of Gaza, claiming to be the legitimate government of the Palestinian Authority. As a result, Israel imposes an economic blockade on the entire territory, to prevent Hamas from arming itself and launching rocket attacks into Israel, only allowing humanitarian equipment into the strip. However, the list of items that the Israelis claim have "military applications" is large, effectively destroying economic activity in Gaza; many around the world are outraged by the sheer humanitarian cost of the siege. The overall result is that while Hamas is weakened militarily, even Israel's allies have gotten extremely frustrated.
Line 53:
Things are fairly quiet at the moment -- Israel is currently keeping a wary eye on someone else, namely Iran. Meanwhile, Hamas is still licking its wounds in a besieged Gaza, while the PA has managed to keep the peace with Israel and start something of an economic boom in the West Bank, building transparent institutions and a professional police force that have managed to create stability and attract serious investment. Terrorism from the West Bank has virtually ceased, but Israeli settlement expansion continues despite a freeze set to end soon.
Internal conflicts on both sides are a problem for peace deals: between Hamas, refusing to recognize Israel, and Fatah, which is open to the peace process, on the Palestinian side, and between those Israelis favoring withdrawal from the West Bank in order to achieve peace, and those insisting Israel must continue expanding settlements and moving more of its population into the occupied territories. In many cases, internal politics frustrates both sides' attempts to get or keep the peace ball rolling: in Israel, religious parties like Shas keep making ridiculous demands on things like Jerusalem not out of any particular position on peace, but because they want more money and entitlements for their poor, large-familied voter base; among the Palestinians... well, let's just say that Hamas taking over Gaza in 2007 is merely the most extreme example of Palestinian [[We ARE Struggling Together!]]. Extremist rhetoric and undisguised bigotry also comes from the elected leadership of both, with a rise in power of the extremist nationalistic parties in Israel, and Hamas continuing to call for the destruction of Israel and ethnic cleansing of Jews (the latter of which is uncomfortably similar to the activities of [[Those Wacky Nazis]]). While a lot of this is just rhetoric (both Hamas leader Ismail Haniya and Yisrael Beitenu leader Avigdor Lieberman have proven far more level-headed in practice than their speeches might lead you to believe), a lot of it isn't, and optimism about peace tends to be regarded as at least a touch naive.
On the other hand, 2011 brought a development out of nowhere: the protest movement/revolutionary wave that swept across the Arab world. Though it didn't get that much press, the Palestinians did that as well, chiefly directed at Hamas and Fatah, asking them to give up their petty differences and ''get done with the independence thing already''. Under pressure, the parties have already signed a notional unity pact, which sent Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu [[Oh Crap|into hysterics]], as a united Palestinian front is the ''last'' thing he wants. This comes ahead of the culmination of Mahmoud Abbas' big Plan B, launched upon the failure of the most recent round of talks (on account of the aforementioned settlement thing): try to get the [[United Nations]] to admit Palestine as a member in its upcoming meeting in September 2011. While likely to fail, a large enough number of member states voting "yes" -- or a slightly smaller number, but including France and Britain (who have indicated that they might be persuaded to do it) -- would be a ''huge'' embarrassment to the Israelis, who are doing their best to stop it happening. As for the rest of the world, it appears that at least some countries would like Palestine to have a government at least theoretically capable of running its territory in one piece (rather than divided against itself) before considering voting in favor of the motion, which is where the unity pact comes in: if they can get it working (which is not guaranteed), there will be an interim all-Palestine technocratic government within a matter of weeks or months, with a permanent elected government coming within no more than a year.
Line 62:
* The July War (2006): In the aftermath of the Lebanese Civil War, an organization known as Hezbollah, literally the "Party of God", rises to represent Shia interests. In 2006, Hezbollah successfully captures two Israeli soldiers, holding them up for ransom for a list of demands. Israel declares this to be an act of war and invades. The conflict is ultimately inconclusive; Israel was able to dislodge Hezbollah from southern Lebanon, but suffers a (estimated) kill ratio of 1:6, which is pretty extraordinary for a militia force, and considerably less one sided than Israel's wars are usually known for. Politically, it is a major victory for Hezbollah. However, most of Beirut and several other Lebanese cities suffer extreme damage from Israeli airstrikes, more or less undoing most of the progress and economic development since the end of the civil war in 1990. The two kidnapped soldiers are returned to Israel in a prisoner deal which sparks massive controversy in Israel. Not only were both soldiers [[Dead All Along]], the IDF's medical analysts examining the wreckage of the soldier's now ruined transport had known so and reported so from the very beginning; the politicians just didn't care.
There are also various acts of outright terrorism throughout this debacle, such as [
=== Media in this setting : ===
Line 93:
* All of Eytan Fox's films; most notably [[The Bubble]] and [[Yossi And Jagger]].
* The ''[[Steel Panthers (Video Game)|Steel Panthers]]'' games feature many scenarios from the various wars, usually (but not always) intended to be played from the Israeli side.
* One of the eBooks scattered in the world of ''[[Deus Ex Human Revolution (Video Game)|Deus Ex Human Revolution]]'' mentiones the formation of a [[Middle
{{reflist}}
| |||