What is the nature of the Middle East conflict? A Brief History of the Middle East Conflict

A special place in international relations is occupied by the conflict in the Middle East between the state of Israel and its Arab neighbors.

International Jewish (Zionist) organizations chose the territory of Palestine as a center for Jews around the world. In November 1947, the UN decided to create two states in Palestine: Arab and Jewish. Jerusalem stood out as an independent unit. On May 14, 1948, the State of Israel was proclaimed, and on May 15, the Arab Legion, located in Jordan, opposed the Israelis. The first Arab-Israeli war began. Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Iraq sent troops to Palestine. The war ended in 1949. Israel occupied more than half of the territory intended for the Arab state and the western part of Jerusalem. Jordan received its eastern part and the western bank of the Jordan River, Egypt received the Gaza Strip. The total number of Arab refugees exceeded 900 thousand people.

Since then, the confrontation between the Jewish and Arab peoples in Palestine has remained one of the most pressing problems. Armed conflicts arose repeatedly. The Zionists invited Jews from all over the world to Israel, their historical homeland. To accommodate them, the offensive against Arab territories continued. The most extremist groups dreamed of creating a “Greater Israel” from the Nile to the Euphrates. The USA and other Western countries became Israel's ally, the USSR supported the Arabs.

Declared President of Egypt in 1956 G. Nasser the nationalization of the Suez Canal hit the interests of England and France, which decided to restore their rights. This action was called the triple Anglo-French-Israeli aggression against Egypt. On October 30, 1956, the Israeli army suddenly crossed the Egyptian border. British and French troops landed in the canal zone. The forces were unequal. The interventionists were preparing for an attack on Cairo. Only after the USSR threatened to use atomic weapons in November 1956 were hostilities stopped and the intervention troops left Egypt.

On June 5, 1967, Israel began military action against the Arab states in response to the activities of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) led by Ya. Arafat, created in 1964 with the aim of fighting for the formation of an Arab state in Palestine and the liquidation of Israel. Israeli troops quickly advanced into Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. There were protests and demands for an immediate end to the aggression all over the world. Military operations stopped by the evening of June 10. In 6 days, Israel occupied the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank of the Jordan River and the eastern part of Jerusalem, the Golan Heights on Syrian territory.

In 1973, a new war began. Arab troops acted more successfully; Egypt managed to liberate part of the Sinai Peninsula. In 1970 and 1982 Israeli troops invaded Lebanese territory.

All attempts by the UN and the great powers to end the conflict were unsuccessful for a long time. Only in 1979, with the mediation of the United States, was it possible to sign a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. Israel was withdrawing troops from the Sinai Peninsula, but the Palestinian problem was not resolved. Since 1987, the occupied territories of Palestine began "intifada" Arab revolt. In 1988, the creation of the State was announced

Palestine. An attempt to resolve the conflict was an agreement between the leaders of Israel and the PLO in the mid-90s. about the creation Palestinian Authority in parts of the occupied territories.

Nathan Lopez Cardozo

THE ESSENCE OF THE MIDDLE EAST CONFLICT.
SUMMARY OF FACTS

(takes two minutes to read, they give an objective view of the problem)

Arab refugees began to identify themselves as Palestinian people in 1967, twenty years after the creation of the modern State of Israel.

Jews since the Jewish conquest of 1272 BC. lived on this earth for a thousand years, and were constantly present on it for 3300 years. The only period of Arab dominance in Israel lasted 22 years - from the conquest of 635 AD.

For more than 3,300 years, Jerusalem was considered the Jewish capital. It has never been the capital of Arabs or Muslims. Even when the Jordanians occupied Jerusalem, they had no intention of making it their capital, and Arab leaders never came to visit.

Jerusalem is mentioned more than seven hundred times in the Tanakh, the Jewish Holy Scripture. Jerusalem is never mentioned in the Koran.

King David founded Jerusalem. Muhammad never came here.

Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Muslims pray turning away from this city, facing Mecca.

Arab and Jewish Refugees: In 1948, Arabs were encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders who intended to wipe out the Jews from the face of the land. 68% of Arabs left without ever seeing Israeli soldiers.

Jews were forced to leave Israel by Arab countries: Arab cruelty, persecution and pogroms. The number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 is estimated at 630 thousand. There are approximately the same number of Jewish refugees from Arab countries. Arab refugees were interned and not accepted into Arab countries, despite the vast expanses of Arab territories. Of the 100 million refugees from World War II, they are the only group of refugees in the world that were not absorbed or integrated into the countries where citizens of their nationality lived. Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel, a country no larger than New Jersey.

Arab-Israeli conflict: The Arabs are represented by eight nations, including the Palestinians. But there is only one Jewish nation. The Arab nations started five wars and lost all of them. Israel defended itself and won every time. The Palestinian Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. Israel gave the Palestinians most of the West Bank, created the Palestinian Authority and supplied it with weapons.

Under Jordanian rule, Jewish holy places were desecrated and Jews were not allowed to pray there. Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and Christian holy sites were preserved and were open to people of all faiths.

United Nations Resolutions on Israel and the Arabs: Of the 175 Security Council resolutions adopted before 1990, 97 were directed against Israel. Of the 690 General Assembly resolutions before 1990, 429 were against Israel.

The UN did not react when the Jordanians destroyed 58 synagogues in Jerusalem. The UN did not react when Jordanians systematically desecrated the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives. The UN did not react when the Jordanians implemented apartheid-like policies by not allowing Jews to visit the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.

We live in dangerous times. Let us ask ourselves what our role is in this world! What will we tell our grandchildren about our actions at a turning point? Jewish history when else can something be changed? Get started now! Send these facts to twenty people and ask each one to send to twenty others. Jews and non-Jews - it doesn't matter. Truth and the pursuit of peace are universal values.

Rabbi N.L. Cardozo is a famous religious philosopher, author of many books. Lives in Jerusalem.

The Middle East conflict did not start with the creation of the State of Israel in 1947. If we look into deep history to see where the roots of the problem lie, we will see that the Middle East conflict began several thousand years ago from the moment when the Jews who left Egypt invaded Canaan (the territories of modern Palestine and Israel). Following the precepts of their god, Yahweh, the “chosen people” undertook to take the place of the Palestinians, while killing every man, woman and child. It is from that time that all “sacred” calls for violence have been a religious, philistine justification for the Jewish claims to ownership of Palestine.

The situation could be corrected by the Messiah - the Jew Jesus of Nazareth, who during his lifetime gained great popularity in one of the parts of Palestine called Judea. The Almighty sent him, among other things, with the goal of leading his fellow tribesmen out from under the mental oppression of the Holy Scripture distorted by the rabbis, rewritten to please the ambitions of the high priests. He preached to his followers love for each other, forgiveness of offenders and sinners. Jesus tried to cleanse Judaism of distortions and return it to ordinary people as a means of spiritual improvement. He had to harshly condemn the Jewish Pharisee priests for their hypocrisy and replacing the high spirit of religion with the soulless letter of the law. The Pharisees could not tolerate exposure and forced the Roman ruler of Judea, Pontius Pilate, to allow them to execute Jesus according to the laws that they themselves wrote into the text of the Holy Scriptures.

Among the provinces of the Roman Empire, Judea was the most problematic, largely due to the fact that it was inhabited mainly by Jews. The Jews often rebelled and one day, after another rebellion that occurred in 135, the Romans began the usual procedure of brutally suppressing the Jewish uprising of the Jews. The Romans renamed Jerusalem Aelia Capitolina and banned Jews from living there. Even Judea received a new name - Palestinian Syria. As a result of persecution, Jews left their homes and settled in other lands of the Middle East and even North Africa.

The resettlement of the Jews led to an unexpected effect: Judaism was adopted as the official religion in Khazaria. The Khazars are the descendants of the Turkic-speaking Huns. Their state occupied the territories of modern Ukraine, Western and Central Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Western Kazakhstan. The reasons for the adoption of the religion of Judaism by the Turks, firstly, are incomprehensible, and secondly, the very fact of the adoption of Judaism by non-Jews is surprising. There is an assumption that Judaism was adopted only by the Khazar elite at the instigation of the Kam priests, among whom the real sons of David allegedly settled. Be that as it may, it was the Khazar branch of “Jewry” that led to the emergence of modern Ashkenazi Jews. It is enough to take a closer look at their faces to see clear signs of belonging to the Turkic race.

After a series of bloody wars that Prince Oleg and others like him from among his successors started with the goal of “revenge on the foolish Khazars,” the Khazar “Jews,” or rather the Ashkenazis, scattered throughout Europe: Poland, Russia, Hungary, Germany, etc. became their new “homeland”. Today Ashkenazim, who, as we remember, are not descendants of the ancient Jews of Judea (the so-called Sephardim), make up 80% of the entire Jewish population of the Earth. They control the policies of the US, EU and Israel, and are also very biased towards Sephardim.

The life of Ashkenazis in Europe could not be called sweet and serene. Periodically they were subjected to brutal persecution, massacre and expulsion. The most famous anti-Jewish events in European history are the following: the expulsion of Jews from England in 1290, from France in 1394, repression by the Inquisition, and the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492 along with the remnants of the Arabs. Let us also recall Martin Luther’s pamphlet “On the Jews and Their Lies” (1543), the pogrom movement “Hep-Hep”, which arose in Germany and Denmark in 1819, as well as numerous Black Hundred pogroms of Jews in Russia and Ukraine, which lasted until the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 year.

Jews explain the reason for the dislike of Europeans by their envy of the success of Jews in business, the desire to avenge Jesus Christ, and the banal intolerance of Christianity towards Judaism. On the other hand, the peoples of Christian Europe explained their anti-Jewish sentiments by the oppression of usury, dishonesty in business, hatred of Christians, blood sacrifices and subversive anti-state activities by Jews in the form of the spread of corruption, etc.
As for the situation of Jews in the Middle East, the situation here was different. During the era of Ottoman rule, which dates back to 1516, Palestine was part of the empire. The Ottoman rulers managed to establish the rule of law, thanks to which the Muslims, Christians and Sephardim of Palestine lived peacefully. This was largely possible thanks to the provisions of the Koran, which teaches Muslims to show respect to Jews and Christians. But that concerned, as we understand, Sephardic Jews. It is possible that the Sephardim were satisfied with the existing situation and were determined to live peacefully under the protection of the Muslims. However, the intentions of the Ashkenazi Europeans were different.

On the eve of the twentieth century, the ideology of Zionism arose and gained popularity among them. The Zionists aimed to create a Jewish state in Palestine. Under the auspices of the Rothschild family, the first resettlement of about 20 thousand Jews to Palestine was organized. At the same time, in 1897, the first Zionist congress was held in the Swiss city of Basel. The forum was led by Theodor Herzl, recognized as the founding father of Israel. It was decided that Israel would be created within 50 years, and a certain supranational organization would formalize the legitimacy of the new state of the Jews. There, the fate of the Ottoman Empire was decided, which, of course, would not have given up Palestine voluntarily. And if we remember that the Ottoman Empire fell as a result of multidimensional political intrigues that spun under the roar of the guns of the First World War, then it is easy to understand who benefited from starting that very war...

(to be continued)

Aidar Khairutdinov

Background to the conflict before the formation of the State of Israel

At the center of the long-term Arab-Israeli confrontation is the Palestinian issue, that is, the problem of the existence and coexistence of Jewish and Arab states in Palestine. For both peoples, the Palestinian land has not only geopolitical, but also religious value, since the most important shrines of Jews and Muslims are located on it; both Jews and Arabs have historical rights to Palestine. The Jewish state, initially united and later split into Judea and Israel, existed there from 1250 BC. e. The Jews were expelled from Palestine by the Romans in the 2nd century. BC e.; Arabs, historically neighboring Jews, thus remained the largest ethnic group in Palestine. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Palestine was successively part of Byzantium, the state of the Crusaders (XI-XII centuries), the Arab Caliphate (from the 7th century), and the Ottoman Empire (XVI century). In 1920, by decision of the San Remo conference, this territory came under British mandate.

Only a few remained in Palestine Jewish communities, while outside its borders a vast Jewish diaspora was formed, among whose representatives late XIX V. The idea of ​​returning to the homeland of our ancestors, Eretz Israel, became widespread. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the emigration of Jews to Palestine increased sharply, and after the Nazis came to power in Germany Jewish population in number approached the Arab one. At the same time, the Arabs perceived the massive influx of Jews as Zionist expansion - their indignation took the form of uprisings (1920, 1929 and 1936), which were both anti-Zionist and anti-British in nature. London, which encouraged the resettlement of Jews, was unable to resist the liberation movement of both Arabs and Jews and placed the solution to the Palestinian problem on the shoulders of the newly formed UN.

Thus, the question of the division of Palestine arose immediately after the expiration of the British Mandate. Despite the fact that the Arabs were categorically against the partition, in November 1947 the UN General Assembly adopted resolution No. 181, according to which two states were to be formed in Palestine: Jewish (14 thousand sq. km) and Arab (11 thousand sq. km) ). For Jerusalem, which housed both Jewish and Arab shrines, an international regime was established. On May 14, 1948, the creation of the State of Israel was announced; immediately after this, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Transjordan declared war on the new state - the first in a series of Arab-Israeli wars.

Timeline of the Middle East conflict (1948–1988)

1948–1949 - the first Arab-Israeli war. Despite initial successes, the Arab coalition suffered defeat due to lack of internal unity. During the war, Israel acquired another 7 thousand square meters. km. The expulsion of Arabs from the conquered territories gave rise to the problem of Palestinian refugees, the number of which by mid-1949 reached 900 thousand people. The Arab state was never created, and the territories intended for it were divided between Egypt (Gaza Strip) and Jordan (West Bank of the Jordan River). Jerusalem was divided into two parts: the western came under the control of Israel, the eastern - Jordan. In 1950, Israel, in violation of Resolution 181, moved its capital from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

1956 - the second Arab-Israeli war (“Suez crisis”, or the triple aggression of Israel, Great Britain and France against Egypt). The war was associated with the rise to power in Egypt of President G. A. Nasser and his policy of nationalizing the Suez Canal, a significant part of the shares of which belonged to the British and French. Cairo managed to secure diplomatic support not only from the UN, but also from the USSR and the USA, as a result of which Israel, Great Britain and France were declared aggressors. The Suez crisis contributed to a significant increase in Egypt's authority and its actual transformation into the leader of the Arab world. President Nasser took the initiative to create an anti-Israeli coalition: in 1966–1967. Egypt signed joint defense pacts with Syria, Jordan, and Iraq.

1964 - creation of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which represented the interests of Palestinians who fled their lands as a result of wars with Israel. The goal of the PLO was the liquidation of Israel as a state, the expulsion from Palestine of all Jews who moved there after 1948 and the creation of a Palestinian Arab state. Before the advent of the PLO, the Palestinian resistance movement was represented by the uncoordinated activities of various organizations (including terrorist ones). The core of the PLO became the largest of them - Fatah (Movement for the National Liberation of Palestine). In 1969, the PLO was led by Yasser Arafat, and in 1974 there was a split in the PLO: some of its members, led by Arafat, advocated the use of not only violent, but also peaceful means to solve the Palestinian problem. Since 1974, the PLO has been officially recognized as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.

June 5–10, 1967 – Third Arab-Israeli (“Six Day”) War. It is its results that largely determine the current situation in the region. During the hostilities, the Israelis occupied territories originally intended for the Palestinian state - the Gaza Strip, the West Bank. Jordan, as well as the eastern part of Jerusalem. Syria lost the Golan Heights, rich in water resources and strategically important, and Egypt lost the Sinai Peninsula. Jewish settlements began to emerge in the conquered territories. The UN adopted resolution No. 242, which condemned Israeli aggression and demanded the withdrawal of troops from the occupied territories. However, the UN, by calling on Israel to withdraw its troops beyond the pre-1967 war borders, implicitly asserted Israeli jurisdiction over the territory it occupied during the 1948 war, which extends beyond the boundaries established by resolution 181. As a result, Resolution No. 242 was rejected not only by Israel, but also by Syria and Egypt.

1973–1974 - the fourth Arab-Israeli war (“Yom Kippur War”), which was an unsuccessful attempt by Egypt and Syria to regain the lost Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights. Another defeat helped strengthen the positions of supporters of a separate agreement with Israel in Egypt. In Israel, the idea of ​​exchanging the Sinai for Egypt’s withdrawal from the war and its recognition of the status of the West Bank was also spreading. Jordan and Gaza Strip.

1978–1979 - The Camp David Trial, which ended the confrontation between Israel and Egypt. During the Egyptian-Israeli negotiations, mediated by the United States at Camp David, two documents were signed: the “Framework for Peace in the Middle East” (1978) and the Egypt-Israel Peace Agreement (1979) - the first of these documents provided for the provision of limited self-government to the population Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. The signing of a separate peace with Israel caused significant damage to Egypt's reputation among the Arab states - Cairo broke off diplomatic relations with almost all of its partners in the Arab League and was expelled from the organization. Egyptian President A. Sadat, who signed the Camp David Accords, was assassinated in 1981.

1982 - large-scale Israeli aggression against Lebanon, with the aim of eliminating the main parts of the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) based there. The result of the war was the Israeli occupation of the southern part of Lebanon, which lasted until 2000. PLO units left the country; however, the Israeli occupation contributed to the activation of the Shiite group Hezbollah (“Party of Allah”), which set itself the goal of expelling the Israelis from Lebanese territory.

1987 - the beginning of the intifada (translated from Arabic as “uprising” or “war of the stones”), a campaign of civil disobedience by the population of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Jordan. Palestinians expressed their outrage over twenty years of occupation without resorting to firearms. The main manifestations of the intifada were the boycott of Israeli goods, strikes, demonstrations, throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at Israeli soldiers, etc. The significance of the intifada was, first of all, that the population of the occupied territories declared their own claims to statehood - their goal was already there was no return to Jordan.

1988 - Ya. Arafat proclaimed the independence of the Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem. The decision on this was made at a session of the Palestinian National Council in Algeria after King Hussein of Jordan abandoned the West Bank. Jordan and the Gaza Strip in favor of a future Palestinian state. The text of the Declaration of Independence contained partial recognition of the terms of UN Resolution No. 181 - thereby effectively recognizing Israel's right to exist.

Middle East peace settlement and development of the conflict at the turn of the 20th–21st centuries.

At the turn of the 1980s–1990s. All the prerequisites have been created for, after several decades of military clashes, to begin resolving Arab-Israeli contradictions through diplomatic means. The architect of the peace process was the US administration, which had just victoriously ended the war in the Persian Gulf and intended to further intensify its policy in the Middle East. Outcome of the Iraq-Kuwait War 1990–1991 significantly weakened the position of the PLO, which supported Baghdad, - in this situation, Yasser Arafat was forced to respond to US proposals to hold an international conference. In 1991, a Middle East peace conference was held in Madrid with the participation of Israel, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan (the Palestinians were invited only as part of a joint Palestinian-Jordanian delegation), the formula “Peace in exchange for land” was developed, and the USA and the USSR jointly became sponsors peace process. The Madrid summit marked the beginning of the Middle East peace process. In 1992, Yitzhak Rabin, the leader of the left-wing Labor party, who was committed to a peaceful settlement of the Palestinian problem and contributed greatly to the promotion of an Arab-Israeli settlement, became the Prime Minister of Israel. In 1992, Israel began a dialogue with the most irreconcilable of its opponents, Syria; Secret bilateral negotiations between the leadership of Israel and the PLO began in Oslo. The Oslo Accords, reached in 1993, are considered the most striking success in the history of the Middle East peace settlement. From now on, Israel and the PLO recognized each other as negotiating partners, and the provision on non-recognition of the State of Israel was excluded from the Palestinian National Charter. The most important document signed in Oslo was the “Declaration of Principles” (1993), which laid the foundations for Palestinian autonomy. Israel committed itself to withdrawing troops from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Jordan; a Palestinian transitional government was to be established in these territories for a five-year period. Despite the incomplete nature of the document (it did not define the boundaries of the future autonomy, the problem of its territorial fragmentation, the fate of refugees and the question of the status of Jerusalem were not resolved), in 1994 the Palestinian Authority (PNA) was created on its basis. Ya. Arafat became the first chairman of the Palestinian National Authority. That same year, Israel concluded a peace treaty with Jordan. In 1995, in Washington, I. Rabin and Ya. Arafat signed the Interim Agreement on the West Bank and Gaza Strip (“Oslo-2”), which became a continuation of the “Declaration of Principles” of 1993. It provided for the creation of a democratically elected Palestinian Authority and the extension of the power of the Palestinian Authority to the Gaza Strip and partly to the West Bank. Jordan. In nationalist circles in Israel, the document was perceived as a concession to the Arabs: at the end of 1995, a member of the Israeli terrorist organization “Lions of Judah” shot and killed I. Rabin. In Israel, the conservative government of B. Netanyahu came to power, which led to a slowdown, but not a complete stop, of the peace process. At the turn of the XX–XXI centuries. The United States continued to put pressure on the Israeli governments of B. Netanyahu and E. Barak in order to speed up the implementation of the terms of the Oslo agreements. In 2000, on the initiative of US President W. Clinton, the Camp David Summit was held, where the parties had to discuss issues that were deliberately ignored in Oslo: the problems of borders, Jewish settlements, refugees and the status of Jerusalem. The negotiations actually broke down, and in 2000, Palestinian-Israeli relations reached a new level of tension - clashes occurred in Jerusalem between Palestinians and Israelis (Al-Aqsa intifada), the reason for which was the visit to Jerusalem of the right-wing politician A., who was extremely unpopular among the Arabs. Sharon, and his visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque. After Sharon came to power in 2001, the dialogue with Damascus was virtually frozen - the stumbling block was the issue of the borders of the Golan Heights, which Israel intended to transfer to Syria in the event of successful completion of negotiations, as well as Syria's reluctance to abandon its support for the Hezbollah organization and the military presence in Lebanon.

Against the backdrop of another escalation of the conflict, members of the League of Arab States managed to reach a consensus and formulate their own settlement program. In 2002, at the Arab League summit in Beirut, Saudi Arabia came up with the “Arab (“Saudi”) peace initiative,” the essence of which was as follows: Israel withdraws its troops beyond the 1967 borders, a Palestinian state is created, including the Gaza Strip. and the West Bank, Palestinian refugees would gain the right of return - in turn, Arab states would recognize Israel's right to exist. The very fact that Riyadh put forward such an initiative and the support it received from its partners in the Arab League testify to the readiness of the Arab states to take concerted action to resolve the conflict.

The United States also presented an extensive program for resolving the Palestinian problem within the framework of the Middle East Quartet created in 2002, consisting of the UN, EU, US and Russia. In 2003, the quartet unveiled the Road Map plan, which was the most detailed of all existing projects for a phased solution to the Palestinian problem. The creator of the Road Map was George W. Bush, the first American president to call for the creation of an independent Palestinian state. In accordance with the author's plan, Palestine and Israel had to go through 3 stages.

Stage 1 - cessation of terror and violence. Israel withdraws troops to positions before the 2000 intifada and freezes all settlement activity in Palestinian territories. The Palestinian leadership is committed to affirming Israel's right to exist, while the Israeli leadership will make a statement of commitment to the two-state solution. The Palestinians are implementing general political reform, developing a constitution, and holding free elections.

Stage 2 - the creation of an independent Palestinian state with temporary borders and attributes of sovereignty, convening an international conference to find funds to support the Palestinian economy. Preparations for the creation of an independent Palestinian state with possible membership in the UN.

Stage 3 - stabilization of Palestinian power structures. Conducting Palestinian-Israeli negotiations to establish the permanent status of Palestine, resolving issues of the borders of the Palestinian state, the problem of Palestinian refugees, Jewish settlements and the status of Jerusalem, normalizing relations with Syria and Lebanon.

The first two stages were planned for 2003, the third - for 2004–2005.

After the death of Ya. Arafat at the end of 2004, the Palestinian Authority was headed by Mahmoud Abbas, one of the architects of the Oslo agreements. Such an appointment foreshadowed the acceleration of the peace process, and initially everyone’s expectations were justified: already in February 2005, A. Sharon and M. Abbas signed a ceasefire agreement in Sharm el-Sheikh. Palestine pledged to prevent terrorist attacks and rocket attacks, and Israel withdrew troops from the West Bank, abandoned retaliation operations in Gaza, and released some Palestinian prisoners. In September 2005, Israel completely transferred Gaza under the control of the PNA.

The thaw in Arab-Israeli relations was followed by a new crisis caused by the lack of any progress in reducing terrorist activities by the Palestinians. The gradual process of merging secular nationalism with Islamic fundamentalism began in the 1980s: as a result, beginning of XXI V. Israel's main opponents turned out to be not moderate supporters of Palestinian independence, but Islamist terrorist organizations - the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Islamic resistance movement that emerged during the 1987 intifada - Hamas. In the summer of 2006, Israel carried out a large-scale retaliation operation against Hezbollah, which occupied the southern regions of Lebanon after the Israelis left there in 2000 (the Second Lebanese, or July War). In early 2006, as a result of elections in the Palestinian Authority, the Hamas government led by Ismail Haniyeh came to power - an active confrontation between moderate nationalists from Fatah led by M. Abbas and Hamas Islamists began in the PNA, which led to the actual collapse of the autonomy into “Hamasstan” (Gaza Strip, where Hamas seized power in a coup in June 2007) and Fatkhaland. Winter 2008–2009 Israel launched a large-scale military action called “Cast Lead” to destroy Hamas infrastructure and prevent shelling of its territory from the Gaza Strip, which led to a decrease in the level of terrorist activity in Israel, but did not solve the Hamas problem as a whole. The split in Palestine has significantly complicated the peace process, in which another active party has emerged in the form of Hamas, known for its irreconcilable position towards Israel. Neither Tel Aviv, nor Washington, nor the PNA leadership are ready to consider Hamas as a partner in a peace settlement and prefer to simply ignore the movement as an actor in the Middle East peace settlement: in this sense, the round of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations that began in Washington in the fall of 2010 is indicative. almost immediately reaching a dead end. It is quite obvious that without taking into account the “Hamas factor”, further steps towards resolving the conflict are hardly possible. The advancement of the peace process probably depends to a greater extent not on the actions of the United States, Israel or the PNA leadership, but on the policies of regional mediators and participants in the conflict (Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt), who have real leverage on Hamas and even to a certain extent degrees in Israel. Of the members of the Middle East quartet, the most constructive is the position of Russia, which is the only co-sponsor capable of conducting dialogue with all parties to the conflict, including Hamas.

The Arab-Israeli conflict is a confrontation between Israel and a number of Arab states, peoples and organizations located primarily in the Middle East region. This confrontation is of a religious, political, economic and informational nature.

Modern history The Arab-Israeli conflict (fourth stage) begins in 1994. The confrontation has moved into a new phase - terrorism and Peace negotiations are being held with constant frequency, but their effectiveness is not yet so high that the war could be stopped. today has become an international problem and has involved many intermediaries in its resolution. All participants in the confrontation (except for the most radical terrorist groups) realized the need for a peaceful resolution of the conflict.

However, it is unlikely that the Arab-Israeli conflict will be resolved in the near future. According to politicians and historians, today it is worth being prepared for an even greater escalation of the confrontation. A number of factors contribute to this. First of all, we are talking about taking a hostile position towards Israel. Increasing its influence will lead to the strengthening of terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

In Palestine, given the problems of internal power, there are no conditions for vesting it with sovereignty. Israel's own position has significantly hardened since right-wing forces came to power. Radical Islamic groups continue to refuse to recognize any rights of Israel to its existence and continue their terrorist activities. The refugee problem has become insoluble, because no solution to the conflict suits both sides at once. In addition, in the region, not only people are at the limit, but also the forces of nature: water sources are depleted.

The Arab-Israeli conflict remains the most intractable and acute of all conflicts of our time.