The Palestinian-Israeli conflict began in 1948, when the state of Israel was declared on May 14, 1948. However, the roots of this conflict date back to World War I. At that time, Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire, and the Ottomans decided to join the Central Powers, making them enemies of the Allies. Meanwhile, in Europe, the idea of Zionism began to spread. This ideology was initially proposed by an Austrian journalist named Theodore Herzl, who covered the lives of Jews in France who were persecuted and alienated, and he emphasized the importance of the Jewish people having their own country (Ben-Gurion, 1998).
The presence of Theodore Herzl became the starting point for the emergence of Zionism, an ideology that demanded the establishment of a nation-state on the promised land, which was none other than the land of the Palestinians. The conflict between Palestine and Zionist Israel continued into the 21st century. The Palestinian people’s resistance against Zionist Israel continued due to the illegal occupation of Palestinian territories was carried out illegally. Initially, the Jewish community bought Arab Palestinian land and built Jewish settlements. Then, after UN Resolution 181 of 1947 was passed by the UN to divide the Palestinian territory into two, The Jews expelled Palestinians from the territory designated by the United Nations as the State of Israel. They also terrorized the Palestinian people to force them to leave their homes.
Since the beginning of Israel’s preparations, namely during the British Mandate from 1920 to 1948, when Britain facilitated the migration of Jews from Europe to Palestine, Palestinian Arabs have shown their protests and resistance. In fact, from 1936 to 1939, the Palestinians carried out an armed resistance known as the Great Palestinian Revolt (Thawrat Filastin al-Kubra), demanding independence from Britain and rejecting the massive influx of Jews into their homeland. Israel was declared in 1948, and the Palestinian people continued their resistance, including through the PLO (Palestine Liberal Organization), which was founded in 1964, as well as several other armed militias, such as Islamic Jihad (Harakat al-Jihād al-Islami fi Filastin), which was founded in the 1970s, and Hamas (Ḥarakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyah) founded in 1987.
One of the points of the Oslo Accords, namely Article 19, states that both parties must respect human rights and the rule of law. At this stage, the PLO transformed from an armed militia into a more moderate organization by accepting the diplomatic process and agreement with Israel. Despite promises regarding the protection of human rights, other clauses in the Oslo Accords contradicted these promises, causing suffering for the Palestinian people. Among other things, as reported by the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, the Oslo Accords established Israeli control over the areas connecting the territories controlled by the Palestinian Authority. As a result, Palestinians were prevented from traveling from one place to another. Israeli control over border crossings harmed the Palestinian economy and obstructed the rights of Palestinian citizens to work and go to school, hindering family relationships
Tensions in the region escalated when on September 28, 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made a highly provocative visit to the Temple Mount, or what Muslims call Haram al-Sharif, the area where the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex is located. They staged demonstrations protesting Sharon’s arrival and were met with repression by the Israeli military, resulting in violent clashes that claimed many lives on both the Palestinian and Israeli sides. The Palestinian resistance during this period is referred to as the Second Intifada and, because it took place in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, it is also called the “Al-Aqsa Intifada,” which lasted from 2000 to 2007. The death toll during this seven-year period was 4,219 Palestinians and 1,024 Israelis (Anwar, 2021).
In this article, the author will implement systems thinking in mapping the crisis that occurred during the intifada. Previous articles and research on the Palestinian conflict have been written extensively by international relations scholars, but there has yet to be an analysis that utilizes systems thinking. Using systems thinking, the author attempts to identify the causal factors that have led to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict becoming a protracted conflict. The analytical tools used in this research are constructivism and the concept of political strategy in conflict resolution.
Based on the perspective of constructivism, Israel-Palestine’s conflict always seemed as an international issue yet internal problem in Middle East itself. Constructivist thinkers are skeptical of these two ideologies because they believe that all phenomena that occur in this world are the result of human construction or creation. In other words, events that occur on the international stage cannot be separated from the subjective intentions of the actors involved, namely humans. Therefore, the main determinant in the constructivist perspective is the individual actor. The instruments used by the constructivist perspective are the ideas, discourse, and attitudes of these individual actors. In the realm of international relations, individual actors in the constructivist perspective are state leaders or presidents. On this basis, the author will analyze the figures representing Palestine and Israel in the Second Intifada.
The Palestinian-Israeli conflict during the Second Intifada signaled that the conflict resolution efforts of the countries involved had failed. From a constructivist perspective, this failure was also a social construct that was highly dependent on individual actors as the main determinants of this perspective. In accordance with the contents of the Oslo I and II agreements, the Palestinian Authority was facilitated to establish an armed force (police) with the task of maintaining security and preventing Palestinians from committing acts of violence against Israel. In addition, the contents of the agreement relate to the division of security control over the West Bank, the implementation of Palestinian elections, the return of Palestinian territories occupied by Israel (transfer of land), trade rules between the two parties, and the release of Palestinian prisoners (Sharif, 2009:226).
On September 28, 2000, Ariel Sharon (then leader of the Israeli opposition party, Likud) along with a delegation from the Likud Party, escorted by hundreds of anti-terror police, entered the Temple Mount, or the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound Mosque during prayer time, which was a serious violation of the rules regarding. The Palestinian resistance actions were used by Israel as an excuse to accuse Arafat of supporting “terrorism.” This accusation of terrorism was used by Israeli Prime Minister Sharon in December 2001 to bomb Arafat’s home and several Palestinian Authority offices. The continuing Palestinian-Israeli conflict cannot be separated from the intervention of the United States. Given that everything that has happened is a social construct, the presence of the United States in resolving the conflict between the two countries is obvious. The conflict between the two countries has been constructed since the United States agreed to become a mediator. Although Israel has committed numerous violations of the Oslo Accords, the US continues to support Israel, among other things by continuing to supply $3 billion in aid per year.
The United States is a very influential actor in various negotiations between Palestine and Israel. According to the author, the resolution strategy implemented by the United States towards the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is an application of the concept of Sequencing Strategies with a Gradualism approach model. This Gradualism approach was implemented by US diplomat Henry Kissinger. Kissinger was very dominant in US foreign policy and was active in overseeing the conflict. What Kissinger did was manipulate the political situation in the form of interference and becoming a mediator in the Oslo Accords I and II. The US manipulated the trust issue felt by both the Palestinians and Israelis. The low level of trust between the two sides became an opportunity to “calm” the tension between the two countries by recognizing each other’s sovereignty. The goal was to clarify and divide the two sides so that behind the recognition of sovereignty, the conflict would become even more intense.
The prolonged conflict between Palestine and Israel is a conflict that is complex in terms of interests. These interests are not only the internal interests of both parties—namely, the Palestinian people’s desire for independence and resistance against occupation, and Israel’s desire to maintain its occupation of Palestine—but also involve external parties. The Constructivist perspective and the political strategy concepts used by the author can clarify that the United States’ involvement as a mediator between Palestine and Israel has resulted in the US implementing a form of Gradualism strategy through conflict manipulation, thereby prolonging the conflict.
In addition, the behavior of both sides (resistance from the Palestinians and repression and occupation from Israel) led by political figures, namely Yasser Arafat of the Palestinian Authority and Israeli Prime Ministers after Yitzhak Rabin, especially Prime Minister ArielSharon, who adopted highly repressive policies in line with the US policy of waging the War on Terrorism after 9/11 in 2001, gave rise to resistance. Resistance gave rise to a response and ultimately the conflict continues to this day. Driving the cycle and dynamics of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is the dominance of the United States in the Middle East and its support for Israel.
