The conflict between Israel and Palestine is one that we often hear about. The tumultuous region is all over the media, yet many people are still very unaware of what is actually going on. There is a lack of information, and the conflict is a controversial issue that, on the surface, seems rather two-sided. Therefore, many people choose to remain neutral. But, as Desmond Tutu said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

The U.S. is a strong ally of Israel. We praise their democracy and provide them with millions of dollars in aid each year. There is little variance among the opinions of prominent presidential candidates on the issue, and the U.S. government refuses to recognizethe state of Palestine.The strong alliance between the U.S. and Israel leads the average citizen to assume that they, too, should be supportive of the state, or at the least remain neutral.

History and Beginnings

This video is a good general introduction to the origins of the conflict.

Israel was intended to be a state where Jewish people from Europe and elsewhere could live in peace: Unfortunately, the land chosen for this purpose had plenty of people already living in it, and the subsequent efforts to expel Palestinians set a precedent for decades of violence.

Israel declared independence and officially became a sovereign state in 1948, a day that Palestinians refer to as “al-Nakba,” or “the catastrophe.” The declaration of independence led to the expulsionof hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from the region. This effort involved Israelis specifically targeting and attacking Palestinian people, and thus many consider it to be ethnic cleansing.

Today, there are over one million Palestinian refugees living throughout the Middle East.

Israeli Settlements

Israel continues to expand its territory past the original borders set by the UN Partition Plan in 1947. The government builds settlementsfor Israelis to live in on Palestinian land, more often than not destroying Palestinian homes in the process. The building of these settlements is considered illegal under international law.

Israel encroaches upon Palestinian land even beyond the infamous separation wall—not-so-fondly referred to as the “apartheid wall” by Palestinians. The 280-mile long wall is intended to be a security barrier between Israel and the West Bank. However, in reality is has crippled the economy of the West Bank, destroyed neighborhoods and increased the territory of Israel. Learn more from the video below:

The Gaza Strip, another piece of Palestinian territory under Israeli military occupation, is one of the most densely populated places in the world, with a population of almost two million people in an area barely twice the size of Washington D.C. The region frequently faces assaults from Israel, most recently in the summer of 2014, where over 2,000 Palestinians were killed.

Israeli Violence and Human Rights Abuses

While it is true that there is violence on both sides of the conflict, the violence carried out by Palestinian protesters is hardly comparable to the large-scale attacks administered by the Israel Defense Forces. The IDF receives funds and weapons from the U.S. They are believed to have nuclear weapons and are regarded as one of the strongest militaries in the world. Despite this obvious advantage over Palestine, they continue to over-defend themselves against resistance with large-scale missile strikes and chemical weapons, by targeting civilians and causing trauma among the Palestinian population, and even using human shields. Children are especially affected by all of this.

Clearly, the "conflict" between Israel and Palestine is not an evenly balanced one. Palestinian resistance is a result of not only history but also ongoing poverty and violence, control and occupation from Israel. The issue of Israel and Palestine is not a religious one, nor should it be treated as such. What was originally a conflict over land has escalated into brutal violence enacted by Israel onto Palestine. This is a human rights issue, and we must all be aware of what is going on.