In July 2014, the clamor of war resounded throughout the Holy Land. For the third time in the past decade, the Israeli Defense Forces invaded the Gaza Strip after being subjected to rocket attacks. Their targets were rocket installations belonging to Hamas, the ruling party bent on destroying Israel, as well as their tunnels on the Gaza-Israel border that were used to sneak insurgents across. The operation, codenamed Operation Protective Edge, was the latest incident in an ongoing feud between the State of Israel and Hamas. The conflict, as with the previous ones, was the result of tensions between the two entities that boil down to a difference in religion because both sides believe that the land was given to them by God. Jews, who make up a large percentage of Israel’s population, believe that Palestine was given to them by God, while Gazans, most of whom are Muslims, believe that God has taken the sacred land from the Jews and given it to the Muslim faithful.
The land, along with the rest of Palestine, was part of the Ottoman Empire from the early 16th century until World War I, when it fell to British Forces, and became part of the British Mandate of Palestine. After the Arab-Israeli War in 1948, Egypt took over. It would remain an Egyptian territory until 1967; that year, Israeli forces captured the Gaza Strip during the Six-Day War, and occupied the land until a series of agreements was signed in the 1990s which gradually transferred control to the Palestinian Authority. The last Israeli troops and settlers withdrew in 2005, but the airspace and coasts are still controlled by Israel. Early the next year, the Islamic Resistance Movement, commonly called Hamas, won the legislative elections and took control of the PA government. Sadly, attempts to cooperate with Fatah, the minority party, failed, leading to civil war. These events culminated in Hamas’ violent seizure of Gaza’s military and government institutions. Israel, the United States, and the European Union promptly responded with economic sanctions and a military blockade.
As stated above, both Israelis, most of whom are Jewish, and Gazans, almost all of whom are Muslim, both believe that the Palestinian region is their sacred land. The Torah, the Jewish holy book, and the Bible, the Christian holy book which includes the Torah, both establish the land as given to Israel by God. In Genesis 15, verses 18-21,
“In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.
Furthermore, according to Deuteronomy 1, God speaks to the Israelites:
“Behold, I have set the land before you: go in and possess the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give unto them and to their seed after them.”
In AD 70, Roman forces led by Titus scattered the Jewish population throughout the Roman Empire, an event called the Diaspora. Despite this, the Jewish people still believe that their God has given them the land. Deuteronomy 30 states:
“That then the LORD thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath scattered thee. If any of thine be driven out unto the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the LORD thy god gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee: and the LORD thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers.”
It is on these scriptural passages and several others that the Jews base their claim to the Holy Land. Furthermore, there are 2 passages from the Quran which state that God had originally given the land to the Jewish people. Surah 2 of the Quran refers to God’s bestowment of Palestine to the Israelites:
“O Children of Israel! call to mind the [special] favor which I bestowed upon you, and fulfill your covenant with Me as I fulfill My covenant with you, and fear none but Me.”
In Surah 5:21, Moses speaks to the Jewish people:
"O my people, enter the Holy Land which God has prescribed for you, and turn not back in your traces, to turn about losers.”
The State of Israel views any Arab attempt at claiming sovereignty over Palestine as intended to destroy the Jewish State.
Just as the Jewish people claim Palestine as their God-given land, so do the Arabs. After the Diaspora, the region was settled by the surrounding peoples, mainly Arabs who believe that God had taken the land from the Jews for their disbelief. Surah 2 of the Quran states:
“And when there came to them (the Jews), a Book (this Qur'an) from Allah confirming what is with them [Torah and the Gospel], although a foretime they had invoked Allah [for coming of Muhammad (saws] in order to gain victory over those who disbelieved, then when there came to them that which they had recognized, they disbelieved in it. So let the Curse of Allah be on the disbelievers. How bad is that for which they have sold their ownselves, that they should disbelieve in that which Allah has revealed (the Qur'an), grudging that Allah should reveal of His Grace unto whom He wills of His slaves. So they have drawn on themselves wrath upon wrath. And for the disbelievers, there is disgracing torment”
Thus, the land was Muslim territory for nearly 1,900 years. However, there were still many Jews and Christians in the region. When the British took over in 1918 and formed the British Mandate, passions were stirred. Almost immediately after the formation of separate Jewish and Palestinian states in 1948, war broke out, as many of the surrounding countries had supported Muslim settlements in Palestine, and the Palestinians themselves believed that the land that had been theirs for centuries was being stolen from them. That discontent continues to this day.
Hamas is one of the greatest reasons this particular conflict has religious roots. The name is an abbreviation for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamya (Islamic Resistance Movement), and is also the Arabic word for zeal. Originally a branch of the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas is now a regime of its own which has social welfare, military, and political arms. Their founding covenant quotes a fatwa (religious decree): “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” Their stated goal is to make all of Palestine a Muslim land, and violent jihad (struggle) is their means of achieving that goal.
“Allah is its target, the Prophet is its model, the Quran its constitution: Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes.”
In Article Eleven of the movement’s founding covenant, it is stated that Hamas believes Palestine is an Islamic Waqf (inalienable religious endowment) that belongs to Muslims until the day of Judgment, and that no part of the land should be given up. Hamas further states that the land had been Muslim territory since the days of the Islamic conquests, and that the land had been consecrated to Muslims until Judgment Day.
These religious reasons have kept Israel and Hamas at odds since Hamas was founded in 1988. Since that year, there have been numerous conflicts, and Hamas was placed on the lists of terrorist groups in Israel, the US, and the European Union. An incident in a refugee camp in December 1987 led to the first intifada (uprising). It was during this time that Hamas was founded. By January, the intifada had broken out in Jerusalem, leading to widespread civil unrest. The uprising lasted until the Oslo Accord was signed in 1993, establishing the Palestinian Authority, and subsequent agreements laid out plans for a unilateral Israeli withdrawal. After a Second Intifada lasting from 2000-2005, the last Israeli troops left Gaza, taking all Israeli settlers with them and handing control of the territory to the PA. In January 2006, Hamas won a landslide victory over the Fatah Party in the election for the Palestinian Legislative Council, and proceeded to violently seize control of the entire Gaza strip, taking over all of the region’s military and government institutions by 2007. Within a few years, Hamas was launching rockets at Israel, who responded with an economic blockade. In 2007, 2009, 2012, and 2014, Israeli forces took military action to destroy missile sites and eliminate Hamas guerillas, each incursion ending with a shaky ceasefire.
The 2014 invasion of Gaza was the latest in the series of rocket strikes and retaliations. It started when three Israeli teens, one of whom was also a US citizen, were abducted on June 12, 2014, just 10 days after Hamas and Fatah swore in a unity government. The teens’ bodies were found on July 1, and the next day, a Palestinian was murdered in Israel in an apparent revenge killing, drawing condemnation from Israeli and Palestinian officials. It was around this time that Hamas escalated its rocket attacks, and clashes broke out in the outskirts of Jerusalem. Israel retaliated with airstrikes against Gaza’s militants. Later that month, Israeli forces launched a ground invasion, searching out and destroying Hamas’ “terror tunnels” and rocket emplacements. During that month, five ceasefires were proposed, but all were either rejected or broken.
Given these historical facts, and the apparent refusal of Hamas and other Palestinian groups to accept an Israeli presence in the Holy Land, it is quite clear that the differences between the Israelis and Arabs in this conflict boil down to a single, religious denominator. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had supported the idea of a two-state solution to the conflict, but after the events of July 2014 stated that it was unlikely that the idea would ever be adopted, given the extremism in Gaza and the rest of the Palestinian territory. It is quite probable that the cycle of violence will be repeated again in a few years, as it has since Hamas’ rise to power.
