The Long Lasting Crisis Between Israel and Palestine: A Conversation with Julene Elkatib

Palestine and Israel have long been in a crisis. A crisis that lasts 73 years and has intensified in the year 2021. Mainstream media has not covered much on this crisis but social media has been flooding with the recent attacks. However, there have been many different perspectives and misinformation on this issue. Today, I ask Julene Elkatib, a high school student who has directly been affected by this crisis, questions to clarify different aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Photo by Manny Becerra on Unsplash

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed do not express the views or opinions of Project Patriarchy

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So Julene, do you mind introducing yourself to our readers?

Of course! So, initially, I’m Palestinian and I’m also a rising junior at Centennial High School. I love playing basketball and I really appreciate you setting this up!

Of course! Can you explain what is happening in Palestine and Israel?

Since 1948, Palestinians have been occupied by the Israelis and they’re being evicted from their homes in order for settlers to take Palestinian lands and homes. Palestinians also don’t get the regular needs that they’re supposed to have.So this includes no electricity, no clean water, no clean air, and this is caused by all of the problems the Israelis have created in their land. So the Israelis from World War ll, a lot of the Jews were displaced from the Holocaust and when World War ll ended, the Jews were left with no place to live. So the UN decided, they were going to find a bunch of places to put these displaced Jews, and they decided to put them on Palestinian land. Palestinians were accepting of it but no other land border, right, so when they put the Jewish people on this land, they wanted to occupy this land because they originally said that it was theirs. So that’s from the beginning of what’s happening.

How did it intensify particularly this year?

So, this year, especially with Sheikh Jarrah, what has been happening very recently, Israelis decided to expand their territories by kicking people out to build their own settlements and that includes Sheikh Jarrah.

Why is Israel occupying Palestinian territories?

Like I said, the Israelis claim this land as theirs. They say that it’s Israel’s and they solely want it for Israelis. They don’t accept Palestinians, they don’t accept any other nationality, except for Israelis. So, they are occupying this land to ethnically cleanse them and to claim it as their own.

There’s a lot of different information about what’s happening in Sheikh Jarrah. Can you explain more specifically what's happening there?

It’s a really horrible situation. There’s a lot of people dying and this includes women and a lot of young children. Just a couple weeks ago, there were at least 20 children that got killed in Sheikh Jarrah. Through this occupation and ethnic cleansing in Sheikh Jarrah, there are killing the futures of these children, they are killing all of these Palestinian dreams, and they are stealing their homes. So Sheikh Jarrah used to be a Palestinian neighborhood and the Israelis decided to come and they want to claim and cleanse the demographics of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is a very holy city and that is where Sheikh Jarrah is located. This flows into the Oslo Agreement where they didn’t fulfill the rights of the Oslo Agreement. So the Israelis are still stealing the land and trying to occupy the city of Jerusalem and are committing an ethnic cleanse.

What role does the government play in this crisis?

So, Palestinians actually don’t have any government and the government that you’ll see in anything that they try to enforce will actually have to go through Israeli government. So let’s say that they’re trying to hold an election for the Palestinians. The Palestinians have no right to vote in that and it has to go through Israeli government. Even including where Palestinians want to go. Let’s say if they want to go get groceries, they have to go through multiple checks and various checkpoints and this includes having them in very small aisles where they have to wait, and sometimes they’re interrogated for no reason. If they don’t have their passports with them, or if they show that they are truly Palestinian, they’ll sometimes put them in cages and make them wait for hours. It’s stripping away their human rights and there’s actually a film on Netflix called ‘The Present’. It’s a short film, it’s about 20 minutes and it really shows the struggles of the Palestinians that they have to endure on a daily basis.

I’m so sorry to hear that. Has the UN done anything in this crisis?

The UN actually has made multiple resolutions and this includes the main one, it’s called 242.t calls for separate but equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians but Israel is the #1 country in violation of the UN resolutions, and there’s no repercussion for violating them. So the US will veto every resolution that the UN implements such as the 242, like I said. Including with the UN, the US supports Israel and they don’t allow any change to actually be implemented and that’s because they are such connected nations. Like the US supports Israel and they support their military, and that’s why the Israelis have a much stronger military than the Palestinians. The Palestinians actually don’t have any military.

Just like you said, Israel has the support of the US. Does Palestine have any allies or aid from other nations or are they on their own?

Palestinians actually don’t have any allies and that includes all the surrounding Middle Eastern countries. They don’t support Palestine as well, they are strong allies with Israel.

Is there a specific reason for that?

Truly, I think it’s because these nations are so powerful, such as Saudi Arabia, with the income that they make from a lot of the exports such as oil, and they export these to the United States. So being allies with the United States and having the United States as such a big power, whatever the US agrees with, these Middle Eastern countries want to follow because that’s how they make the majority of their income, from their exports, like oil.

As I’ve said before, there are a lot of different perspectives and misinformation spreading about this crisis. So what are some myths and misinformation that people should be aware of?

Initially, this is not a conflict. It’s truly just a crisis. A conflict would be if the Palestinians had equal power and they were also the ones starting fights, but it’s not, it’s solely a crisis. Palestinians are also deemed as terrorists and that they start the attacks, and truly, they never started any attack. They don’t have the same weapons, they don’t have the same support, and if they did start an attack, they would be demolished because the US supports the military and they aid the Israelis military. So that’s why a lot of the time you’ll see big military weapons such as tanks and on the other side, you’ll see Palestinian children throwing rocks with slingshots because that’s the only stuff that they have. It’s solely self-defense and that’s why the myth is brought up. The media truly covers how Palestinians are starting all of these fights but they don’t reflect it as self-defense.

There is the perspective that protesting against Israel is anti-Semitic. Do you agree with that? Can you elaborate a little further on why people think that?

I don’t agree that protesting against Israel is anti-Semitic, but protesting against Jewish people is anti-Semitic. So when you refer to Israel as Jews and not Israel, that is anti-Semitic and honestly, it’s not right and it’s unjust. Because not all Jews are Zionists and to correlate Jews with Zionism is hatred and is unjust because there’s a lot of Jews that support Palestine. I actually went to a protest a couple of weeks ago and I saw many orthodox Jews who were truly against what was happening in Palestine. That’s why protesting against Israel is not anti-Semitic but protesting and bringing Jews with Israel is anti-Semitic.

Palestine was already in a very difficult situation before May 6th when they were being moved out of Sheikh Jarrah. How does that play into the current situation that Palestinians are in?

Like I said, Palestine has been occupied since 1948 and when the Palestinians were being moved out of Sheikh Jarrah, there’s a lot of displaced Palestinians and with these displaced Palestinians, they didn't have any homes, they didn't have any rights, and they didn't have anything. This also correlates with Gaza because they are even more restricted than the West Bank. So they are not allowed to move back into Palestine. They are strictly in Gaza and strictly in the West Bank and that relates to the current situation in Palestine because the way that they are kicking the Palestinians out and they are not allowing them any free movement relates to how this has been happening from 1948 for 73 years.

You’ve said before that Palestinians are being viewed as terrorists. Does the extremist group, Hamas, play a role in that or do they play a role in intensifying the crisis?

So like I said about how not all Jews are Zionists, it’s the same thing as Hamas. Not all Palestinians are terrorist group like Hamas. These are viewed as the symptoms and not the cause, so Hamas was only created because of self-defense from Israel. If Israel wasn’t attacking Palestine in such a harsh way, instead of a peaceful way, then Hamas would not have been created. The Palestinians don’t have an army so Hamas fills in as the defense system but lots of Palestinians oppose Hamas.

Photo by Adli Wahid on Unsplash

Recently, there was the Al-Aqsa attack. Can you explain what happened and everything that was going on?

Currently, the Israeli government is going through an election cycle and the far-right wanted to appeal to the ultra-conservative movement within the Israeli society so they advocated storming Al-Aqsa so then they can get votes from the sect of the society that’s extremely conservative. In this element, they wanted to attack peaceful worshippers in a holy month for Muslims which is referred to as Ramadan and this actually happens every Ramadan where the Israelis are coming and they attack peaceful Muslims that are praying. There’s a picture where there’s a man praying at the Al-Aqsa mosque and there are many soldiers behind him. In the holy month of Ramadan, this happens every year.

Coming back to the overall aspect of the crisis, why has it been so difficult to make peace or create an agreement between Israel and Palestine?

It’s been really hard to create peace because Israelis claim Palestine as their land and Palestinians are not willing to give up their land as well. So Israelis do not want to share land with the Palestinians. From 1948, they have been taking little by little of the land and to this day, they occupy more than 80% of the land.

From your perspective, what does the crisis look like in a couple of years? Is there an end or will this continue because this has been going on for decades?

So what I see is that this will continue as long as Israel is supported by the US. The US actually sends around $4 billion to Israel from our tax money and this is yearly. So as long as the US continues supporting Israel, Palestinians will continue to revolt against this action. It's actually really interesting because having such a big military and aiding the Israeli military with our weapons, the Palestinians have had nothing. They don’t have the same weapons as the Israelis. So if they’ve been fighting for 73 years without the same level of weapons, then I believe this will continue until the US realizes that this is a humanitarian issue rather than a money issue.

Free Palestine protests in London | Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash

Our organization finds ways for youth to help and since this is such a big crisis, is there any way people can help, especially youth?

Exactly what you’re doing right now, this is really amazing because you’re reaching out and you’re hearing it from a first point of view perspective. Learning, speaking up, and reading, doing a lot of these things instead of just getting the information from a one point source of view or a biased source of view is good to expand your knowledge and just learn a lot more about crises that are happening in the world and find an unbiased viewpoint so you can learn from both sides. Because the media, the majority of the time, are very biased towards the Israelis so you’ll hear all the time that Palestinians are on the wrong side.

And that’s the end of it! Is there anything else you would like to say or address?

So we mainly discussed Sheikh Jarrah but I wanted to talk a little bit about Gaza. So this Ramadan, it was a couple months ago, on Eid there was actually. Eid is the celebration of the end of the holy month of Ramadan and on Eid, you’re supposed to go to an Eid prayer but sadly, these Palestinians were having to go to a Janaza prayer which is a prayer for the death of a loved one. They actually had to celebrate Eid 10 days later because of all the attacks that the Israelis were enforcing on the holy month of Ramadan. On top of that, in the Israeli Declaration of Independence, it states that Gaza and the West Bank is Palestine. The UN also agrees with this and it was stated that these are Palestine, not Palestinian territories. You’ll often hear them referred to as Palestinian territories and that strips away the point of Palestine’s solely. So when the UN and Israel discuss it as a territory, like I said, it strips away the view of Palestine and it takes away from that.

This crisis is one of the most prevalent in the world, lasting almost a century by now. The media does not cover much on this issue but that doesn’t take away from the fact that people are being hurt, killed even, on a daily basis and it is up to us to help our fellow humans, regardless of race, religion, etc.