The structural shift in the Israel-Palestine conflict
Accordingly, each days comes with anew move between the Palestinians and the Israelis which is presented in a form of a tit-for task response to each party’s actions (Harms, & Ferry, 2017). As a result, these moves result in a response from either side’s supporters as well as opposition from the general public, the United States government as well as other countries. Therefore, the challenge of sorting out to identify who is right and who is not right is likely to provide a rational explanation for more of its behaviour. Certainly, this can only be possible after unravelling off argument after the other to get to the point of coming up with a resolution to the underlying approaches which every side brings to the conflict to weigh is they hold water from the point of view of the party’s long term interests. For instance, to begin with the decision of the Palestinian National Authority’s to seek the United Nations recognition as a member state. Accordingly, this decision of the Palestine nation won unanimously in addition to the Israeli response to this decision. In this sense, this paper discuss the structural shift in the Israel-Palestine conflict and the discourses on the multilateralisation of the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
However there is a shift in the battle ground in the conflict between the Israel and Palestine. Accordingly, the conflict is shifting from the context of Israel-Palestine whereby it was situated in the Intifada, Oslo and Roadmap era, to the multinational arena. Indeed, this international course is taking shape in a number of ways. In relational to the international civil society level, conscription which is opposing Israel’s occupancy of the Palestinian territories is on the rise (Huber, & Kamel, 2015). Also, the campaign of Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) irrespective of the unclear objective, it is extensively succeeding in arranging support amongst civil society organisations, business and scholars in addition to cultural actors internationally. At the same time the most notable concept is the diffusion of boycotting Israel products as well as services not unless Israel complies with the intercontinental law and Palestinian rights (Thakur, 2016). Furthermore, even the European Union which the leading trading partner of Israel and which also offers generous research and development subsidies to the Israel militia has stood with standards excepting loans and grants to Israeli entities developed in the territories captured in 1967 (Persson, 2017). Also, the EU is constantly working on broader recommendations about the labelling of products coming from Israeli settlements and currently some of the EU member states are advocating for such labelling like Netherlands and the UK.
Discourses on the multilateralism of the conflict between Israel and Palestine
Moreover, at the state level, there is an increasing worldwide unanimity regarding the acknowledgment of Palestine state which is a trend that is progressing in Europe. As a result, in December 2014 the European Parliament passed a resolve that supports the acknowledgement of Palestine as a state in principle which is part of a two-state solution (Doulah, & Shafee, 2016). Similarly, in 2011 the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) initiated a quest to attain the United Nation membership. As a result, in October 2011 Palestine became a member state of UNESCO and coming 2012 it attained the state of non-member observer nation at the United Nations General Assembly. Consequently, towards the end of the 2014, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) which is a representative of the Palestinian citizens under the UN system also submitted a draft resolution through the government of Jordan to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). The purpose of this draft was to call for a peaceful resolution that was to be realised in a year time which could completely result in the security withdrawal of Israeli forces to bring to an end the occupation by latest 2017. Accordingly, this resolution was in accordance with Resolution 476 which was adopted in 1980 by UNSC that states that “the forceful acquisition of territory through force is prohibited” (Kaya, 2015). The adoption of draft was seen to be significant in the sense that it would bring an end to the extended occupancy of the Arab territories taken by the Israel from way back 1967 including Jerusalem. It was not possible to call for a withdrawal without pointing to any condition. This novel draft resolution would have been approved according to Chapter VI of the United Nations Charter (Huber, & Kamel, 2015). Accordingly, this is the only resolution found in Chapter VII of the UN charter which gives the Security Council the power to impose sanctions and contemplate possible application of force to make sure its implementation.
As a result, the Palestinian authorities was assured that the UNSC would give it a favourable vote (Hanieh, 2016). However, the haste decision by the PNA for the approval vote of the novel draft instead of giving it time to attain the required number of supportive votes. Unfortunately, the draft resolution was rejected by the UNSC. As a result, this action gave the Palestine President a favourable ground to sign the Rome Statute which is the pioneer of the International Criminal Court (ICC). However, the signing of the Rome Statute was a turning point towards the realisation of the internationalisation of the conflict. As a result of this structural shift in the conflict leads to the advancement of the major discourse players whose intention is calling for new initiative by European Union to change the conflicting matter.
Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO): multilateralism
As a result of the submission of the resolution as well as the signing of the Rome Statute, the legislatures of Israel, Palestine, Europe and the United States put forth a range positions on their discernments regarding the conflict their role in the matter and its multilateralization. Therefore, some of the discourses include:
The signing of the multinational agreements as well as treaties in addition to the draft resolution which was submitted to the UNSC portrays the PLO as an actor working in the framework of intercontinental law. At the same time it denote Israel as a violator of the collective standards particularly through its settlement guidelines. According to the PLO it looks at Israel’s policies concerning settlement as a war crime in addition to unilateral acts, which undermine the viability of a two-state solution (Mori, 2016). Certainly, the conflict is signifies a matter of conflict with its focus on boundary that is land swap and land withdrawal from the land occupied since 1967, security advanced through the presence to third-party, water and refugees. Therefore, multilateralism is denoted as the primary solution to Israel’s one-sided settlement standards as well as a response to the failure of the consensual peace negotiation. According to the draft resolution submitted towards the end of 2014, the PLO signified multilateralism which is a framework for the consensual peace negotiation (Makovsky, 2018). However, the PLO has suspicion that Israel has been using dreadlock in the endless negotiations to create facts on the ground. As a result the PLO draft resolution has suggested a one year timeframe for negotiations to until 2017 asking Israel to withdraw from the territories it has been occupying since the 1960s. Therefore, the multilateralism is being used as a framework to guarantee the inference of negotiations and an end to Israel occupation (Crawford, 2018). Accordingly, the PLO has not made the international acknowledgement of the Palestine state the subject of the negotiation results. Subsequently, the negotiations are supposed to base the conflict matter however, the acknowledgement and end of Israel occupation is donated as the right support for the Arab peace initiative that should be emphasised in the resolution.
According to Israel’s reaction to the draft resolution as well as the signing of the Rome Statute, Israel is looking at the PLO as an existential intimidation. The remarks of Israel’s leaders claims that the resolution was a “Palestine trick” in addition to the submission which signifies as an act of intimidation (Huber, & Kamel, 2015). The Prime Minister of Israel regarded the draft solution as a threat that was making attempts to deny its country the right to defend itself and a way that seek to deny it the legality of existence. In addition, the Prime Minster postulated that this could also amount to Islamic extremists in the outskirts of Tel Aviv and the centre of Jerusalem. Therefore, according to Israel Prime Minister Palestine multinational initiative as an independent act was making attempts to progress forceful settlement on Israel by its terms rather than undertaking a peace negotiation.
Israel’s Multilateralism taken as an act of unilateralism and antagonism
The United States played its part as a key broker in the conflict where it reject the draft resolution by the Palestinians through its State Department on grounds that its Secretary of State would keep on having discussion with the parties in the region. The intention of the US is to see to it that its mediation role does get compromised by multilateralism (Cladi, & Webber, 2016). Thus, the US similarly rejects the Palestinian ICC bid. Accordingly the US has opposed all legal methods to conflict which lower the scope of political discretion so that it looks as a mediator.
The EU is looking forward to develop a brokering part for itself using the multilateralization of the conflict. In conclusion, concrete changes in Israel and Palestine territories will not happen through rhetorical statements but using treaties using two equal parties (Harpaz, 2017).
References
Cladi, L., & Webber, M. (2016). Between Autonomy and Effectiveness: Reassessing the European Union’s Foreign Policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. European Foreign Affairs Review, 21(4), 559-577.
Crawford, J. (2018). The current political discourse concerning international law. The Modern Law Review, 81(1), 1-22.
Doulah, A., & Shafee, M. (2016). Review of Recommended Peaceful Projects and Contracts for Israel-Palestine Conflict in Terms of International Rights. J. Pol. & L., 9, 151.
Hanieh, A. (2016). Development as struggle: confronting the reality of power in Palestine. Journal of Palestine Studies, 45(4), 32-47.
Harms, G., & Ferry, T. M. (2017). The Palestine-Israel conflict: a basic introduction. Pluto Press.
Harpaz, G. (2017). The EU’s New Approach to the Two-State Solution in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Paradigm Shift or PR Exercise? Leiden Journal of International Law, 30(3), 603-628.
Huber, D., & Kamel, L. (2015). The Multilateralisation of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Call for an EU Initiative. Istituto affari internazionali.
Kaya, T. Ö. (2015). The EU and the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict, 1971–2013: In Pursuit of a Just Peace, by A. Persson (New York, Lexington Books, 2014, ISBN 9780739192443); ix+ 195pp.,£ 51.95 hb. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 53(5), 1188-1189.
Makovsky, D. (2018). Making Peace with the PLO: The Rabin Government’s Road to the Oslo Accord. Routledge.
Mori, K. (2016). Analysis of the discourse of diplomatic conflict at the UN: Application of ethos, pathos, logos. In Proceedings of 12th International Conference on Humanities & Social Sciences.
Persson, A. (2017). Why Europe holds unique normative power in the Israeli-Palestine conflict. LSE European Politics and Policy (EUROPP) Blog, 1-3.
Thakur, R. (2016). The United Nations, peace and security: from collective security to the responsibility to protect. Cambridge University Press.
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