FAILED CASE OF THE INTERNATIONAL INVOLVEMENT: ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT (1915-1967)

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has long been the most hotly debated and discussed conflict of the 20th century. What fascinated me the most was the task to find the main culprit that created the conflict in a way that it was fairly cumbersome to resolve. After careful examination of the myriads of conflicting articles and books, I came to realization that the most important period of the conflict was the beginning period, when international involvement was quite extensive. I feel that the policy papers, official documents of League of Nations and UN have potential to entangle the mystery of the conflict’s complexity. This paper assesses three British policy papers regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Mandate of League of Nations and two most important UN resolutions involved in the conflict. My paper would be divided in three major parts: section I will examine British policy papers such as Macmohan letter, Balfour declaration, Mcdonald White paper; section II will be a detailed analysis of UN’s resolution 181; lastly, section III will focus on UN’s resolution 242. Section Palestine is a former British colony, so the British policy papers reveal how the Palestine was treated as a colony and how Jewish and Palestinian nationalistic aspirations, if any, evolved through the mandatory power’s policies. Palestine fell under British control after the World War I, and the colonial system was regulated by the League of Nations. Examining the Mandate issued to Palestine would determine whether Palestine had the right of self-determination and potential to be a nation. The first UN resolution I would examine is the resolution 181 that partitioned the Palestinian territories in two separate domains: Palestinian and Israeli. However, the plan wasn’t successful, so another resolution, resolution 242, came into being to, again, draw the line between the Palestinian and Israeli territories. What went wrong with these two resolutions, so that the borders have become the main issue of the conflict? This is the central question of my paper. Another core issue is if anything went wrong with both of the resolutions, then what were those issues and whether or not those problems still persist until today hindering and prolonging the conflict. My pursuit is to find the core issues that still keep the conflict active or prevent the negotiations. The last core task is to find out what challenges the UN as a mediator faces and whether or not it can ever overcome those obstacles