TAMPA, Fla. — According to historians and experts, it is impossible to pinpoint one specific reason why peace talks between Israel and Palestine continue to fail. But tensions in the region go back thousands of years.
"The region is the birth of the main Abrahamic religions like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. But I would say the conflict we're experiencing now is very much a conflict over International law and human rights," Belisa Marochi, Assistant Teaching Professor of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Tampa, told ABC Action News reporter Michael Paluska.
"The conflict has changed its characteristics. It's the birthplace of Christianity. But of course, Jews already had a claim to the land because it is also the Promised Land for Judaism," Marochi said.
She continued, "Later, when Islam came in in the seventh century, Islam will also make a claim to the region and especially to what is now Jerusalem and the Al Aqsa Mosque. So, that region is considered a holy site for Muslims, too. So that is why when we think about this conflict, it goes back 1000s of years as a conflict over religion."
But, as Marochi points out, this conflict is more complex than one religion versus the other. A lot has happened in the 75 years since the State of Israel formed.
"There's disputes over the border, and it's a manifestation of the difficulties around international law. Another thing that I believe is important here is understanding how complicated it is to understand borders and sovereignty and how states negotiate and the international system," Marochi said.
"In 1948, when the State of Israel was formed, a Partition Plan separated the different lands. Jerusalem was supposed to be an international city for all religions to participate in. Still, with all of these different wars, we saw that Israel was victorious in all of them in those decades, and we will see that they will take these territories that were originally supposed to be Palestinian territories, according to the UN partition. The boundaries of the states have not only been blurred because of the different occupations but also there's been a rise of Israeli settlements in the other territories."
Marochi mentioned several key moments that shaped the Middle East and what it is today.
The events that unfolded after World War I and II have repercussions today.
"To understand the formation of the State of Israel, I would say, would have to go back even to First World War, as we see the Ottoman Empire falling, we see also the rise of the normal self-determination for Palestinians," Marochi said.
"So we see the people locally will claim that they should rule themselves. And at the same time, we also see the rise of the Zionist movement in Europe, which is a movement that is a Jewish nationalist movement, I would say, where Jews are claiming that they have the right to go back to the Promised Land, what is now Israel."
She continued, "While Palestinians are claiming that they have the right to self-determination, we also see this Zionist Movement growing in Europe, and Jews will start moving to the region already as early as the end of the First World War. And we'll see that migration coming in the 20s, in the 30s, and in the 40s."
Then came the new boundaries and countries formed following World War II. In 1948, the State of Israel was formed.
"There's a lot of support also for the formation of the State of Israel, especially after the Holocaust after what happened in Nazi Germany. So, the state of Israel was formed in 1948. And it will be met with a lot of resistance from Arab states and the Palestinians from the people that are originally in the lands," Marochi said.
It has been a battle of control ever since.
In 1967, Egypt controlled Gaza until a war broke out involving Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Syria—known as the Six-Day War. Israel seized the Gaza Strip during this conflict and maintained control for nearly 40 years until 2005.
But in 2006, Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections and gained further control of Gaza in 2007, and it has been in a fight to keep control ever since.
Several countries, including Israel and the U.S., have designated Hamas as a terrorist organization, and Israeli military officials have likened the behavior of Hamas militants to that of ISIS amid ongoing conflict between the two sides.
Gaza has witnessed four significant conflicts between Israel and Hamas since the takeover.
Marochi said instability in the region and superpowers jockeying for control impact peace in the Middle East.
One pivotal moment was when Hamas, a designated terror group, was internationally backed by Iran.
"Iran has supported Hamas. And that is also a very important moment, historically," Marochi said. "In 1979, when Iran went through this Islamic revolution, Iran also claimed that the reason for the revolution was to support the liberation of Palestinian people."
"So we have Iran as a player," Marochi continued. "Iran has not only supported Hamas, but Iran has also supported Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hezbollah also has as one of its goals to end the occupation. There are multiple, multiple actors here involved. So I think understanding this complexity is crucial to understanding the conflict."
World leaders have tried in the past and failed to negotiate peace agreements. According to the U.S. Department of State, "on Sept. 13, 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Negotiator Mahmoud Abbas signed a Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements, commonly referred to as the "Oslo Accord," at the White House. Israel accepted the PLO as the representative of the Palestinians, and the PLO renounced terrorism and recognized Israel's right to exist in peace."
Unrest in the region creates more issues; the Arab Spring and civil war in Syria impact how Israel responds to protect itself from terror groups.
"We have experienced the Arab Spring in the last 15 years, right? And this is when different Arab countries have actually stood up and also went through revolutions to fight for democracy or to fight regimes that were in place. I would say a lot of these uprisings in the Arab in different Arab countries is also, let's say, a continuation of the first people who are uprising in the regions or where the Palestinians, there were different uprisings with Palestinians," Marochi said.
She concluded, "With the war in Syria, how is the Islamic State coming into Palestinian authorities? There are a lot of questions about even new actors coming in; they make it very difficult not only to orchestrate a solution but even to orchestrate one coherent Palestinian voice or one coherent Arab voice. There are also multiple groups within Israel that have different claims here. And it becomes really difficult to understand how to go about negotiating because there are so many different understandings here of what this conflict is about. In recent years, we see that the two-state solution or a solution becomes difficult to understand what it would look like. And the details of the history become blurred."
