Reconsidering the Palestine Issue in the Shade of Israel’s Expanding Sovereignty Claim

Abstract

The Palestine question is among the most important and longstanding conflicts in the world. A lasting solution could not be found and problems have multiplied after the foundation of the State of Israel in 1948, mainly because the sovereignty of the Palestinian people has been disregarded. Though the conflict includes complex issues such as the legal status of Jerusalem, the refugees’ right to return to their ancestral lands and the rapid increase in Jewish settlements; the root of the problem is the lack of an equal sovereign rights approach for both sides. The Palestine issue has been rendered more and more tragic over the years as Israel does not permit the Palestine Authority to exercise its sovereign rights in its own lands and the international community refrains from imposing sanctions on Israel despite its continuous violations of international law and UN (United Nations) resolutions. Especially as a result of Israel’s recent policies towards expanding its sovereignty claims over the entire Palestinian territory, an even darker period seems to cloud Palestine’s sovereignty in the near future. This study claims that the source of the longstanding Israel-Palestine conflict is the inequality in exercising sovereign rights between the two parties and discusses how Israel’s expansionist activities may shape the Palestine issue in the forthcoming years. Furthermore, the study scrutinizes how the “Jewish Nation State Basic Law” – that was recently approved by the Israeli parliament – will sabotage the ongoing search for peaceful solutions and it may destroy all hopes for establishing a lasting peace between the two peoples in the foreseeable future.