Sovereignty is the idea that governments are free and able to do whatever they wish within their territories. This idea has been used for a while now to govern international relations between nations and nation states. This article will look into the issue of the Israel-Palestine conflict and correlate it with the idea of contemporary sovereignty. It will try to formulate inferences made largely from the works, Sovereignty - Foreign Policy by Richard N. Haass published on 20th October 2009, Negotiating the Partition of Palestine and Evolving Israeli-Palestinian Relations by Louis Kriesberg published in 2000, and Redefining the Basics: Sovereignty and Security of the Palestinian State by Yezid Sayigh published in 1995.
Although Jews and Palestinians claim to originate about two thousand years ago from the same land, the current issue of territory distribution between the Israelis and Palestinians originated in the 1930s. Before World War II, Jews escaping racial persecution in Europe sought to establish a national homeland. This period saw the rise of Jews, labelled modern Zionists, who believed that the community deserved a nation of its own. They wanted their nation to be in what was then an Arab and Muslim majority territory, albeit religiously diverse consisting of Jews and Christians. It was initially part of the then Ottoman Empire, and later the British Empire after WWI.
The belief that the Jews and the Arabs are involved in a religious battle is largely misconstrued. The disagreement was over the land they control and not only their religious differences. Hence, the Arabs resisted the Israeli claim to occupy their land since they saw the land as rightfully theirs. At first the British allowed the Jews to enter the Palestinian territory as they were seen as immigrants. However, soon the area grew too crowded and violence between the two groups ensued, which led Britain to hand this resolve over to the United Nations. An early plan was made to give each group part of the land which was agreed to by Israel but rejected by Palestine as it felt the European countries had no business making deals on their behalf. Israel and the surrounding Arab nations fought several wars over the territory in light of the strong display of solidarity with Palestine by several Arabs. The existing borders are the outcomes of two wars, one waged in 1948 and the other in 1967 (Kriesberg, 65).
Implicit in all this is the notion that sovereignty is conditional, even contractual, rather than absolute. If a state sponsors terrorism, develops weapons of mass destruction, or conducts genocide, then it forfeits the normal benefits of sovereignty and opens itself up to attack, removal, or occupation. The diplomatic challenge will be to gain widespread support for principles of state conduct and a procedure for determining the remedy when these principles are violated (Haass). Both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank have internationally recognised boundaries. However, these boundaries are not legally fixed. There are still ongoing legal conflicts between the countries with Israel trying to maintain the Greater West Bank and parts of the Gaza strip that Palestine stakes its hold on.
Many countries recognise Palestine as independent, however, it does not have full independent status despite the UN resolution. Had the UN resolution allowed Palestine to join the United Nations as a full member state, it would have immediately been recognised as an independent country. The two parts of Palestine do not have recognition in the eyes of the international community. The Palestinian Authority has local law enforcement, however, Palestine does not have its own military (Yezid, 1). This demilitarisation is a sign of the country not being eligible to be sovereign. Nonetheless, as can be seen in the latest conflict, Hamas in Gaza does have control of an extensive militia. This however just exposes ordinary citizens to violence and harm, and promotes aggression as a daily activity. This is an activity that should not be expected of regular people living in a sovereign country.
According to the Global Policy Forum, “today there are more than 3.7 million Palestinian refugees living in refugee camps throughout the Middle East and many more exiles worldwide” (Global Policy Forum). The refugees who have had to evacuate their homes to make room for the Israelis have been given financial settlements, some have even been given allowance to go back to their original homes in Israel. However, since they all cannot be let in to Israel to maintain the Israeli integrity, they currently live in refugee camps in various Arab countries. This large refugee problem of Palestine makes it difficult to classify it as completely sovereign, as the state of Palestine has failed to secure the rights over property for its citizens. The greater might of the Israelis have shown us all that they could easily win over the land which was previously occupied by Palestinians; this factor clearly demonstrates the stripping away of Palestine’s sovereignty when it was challenged. Similarly, Haass states that, “a government that lacks the capacity or will to provide for the basic needs of its citizens will forfeit its sovereignty. That reflects not just moral scruple but also a hardheaded understanding that neglect — benign or otherwise — can generate destabilising refugee flows and trigger state failure, which creates openings for terrorists.” (Haass)
Sovereignty is something that is very commonly talked about in International Relations as it is taken for granted that every state or nation state is sovereign. In the case of countries like Palestine and Israel, there are certain problems that put a damper on the aspects which make them sovereign, making it unfit for them to be referred as sovereign states in today’s climate. These two countries do not have the correct legal claims on their land, have a refugee problem, are demilitarised, unleash unregulated violence upon their citizens, and suffer a major land dispute. These blurred lines between the two countries act as impediments to their sovereign status.
Works Cited
Kriesberg, Louis. “Negotiating the Partition of Palestine and Evolving Israeli-Palestinian Relations.” The Brown Journal of World Affairs, vol. 7, no. 1, 2000, pp. 63–80. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24590196. Accessed 23 Feb. 2020.
Haass, Richard N. “Sovereignty.” Foreign Policy, Foreign Policy, 20 Oct. 2009,
foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/20/sovereignty/.
Sayigh, Yezid. “Redefining the Basics: Sovereignty and Security of the Palestinian State.” Journal of Palestine Studies, vol. 24, no. 4, 1995, pp. 5–19. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2537754. Accessed 10 Mar. 2020.
Administrator. “Refugee Right of Return.” Refugee Right of Return,
Note: This paper was originally written for a course on Critical Concepts in Peace and Security (Prof. Avinash Godbole), O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonepat, Haryana
Selena Shroff
(Guest Blogger)
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