In the UN declaration of human rights, in article #3, it says that “everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person.” I believe that this right is being violated to an extreme extent in both of these countries. In Israel, the children are mostly the ones who suffer. They have constant fear of death because of the Palestinian suicide bombers that are everywhere. There have been more than 70 Palestinian bomb attacks aimed at Israelis since the current conflict erupted in September 2000 (Jensen, Robert). They come to shopping centers, cafes, restaurants, schools, streets, buses, discos, supermarkets, etc. These people aim everywhere. They will never know when someone will bomb their school or house, and whether they will be alive tomorrow. This destroys the security of a person. And not only children worry, but every Israeli does. You never know if you are going to come to school in the morning and see that there is no school anymore, or no friends, mom or dad. This also destroys the right to life. If you think that you will die tomorrow because someone else wants to kill you, it seems as if that someone is preventing you from living. These suicide attacks are carried out by ordinary Palestinians, even women and kids such as teenagers. This is why the Israelis do not know what a suicide bomber looks like, because it could be anyone. Most suicide bombers have been in their 20s. The youngest was 16 years old (Jensen, Robert).
On the other hand, Israel is destroying and disobeying human rights as well. Article # 13 of the UNDHR says “Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.” Just a short while ago, last year, the Israelis built a separation barrier between Israel and the land of Palestine (US Dep. of State). The problem with this is that the Israelis have taken way more land to themselves than they are allowed to. They are still building this wall and it will probably be finished in about two year’s time. It is said that they are building it because they think it will stop the Palestinian suicide bombers and other attacks against civilians. “Israel has a right and duty to protect its civilians from attack, but it must not use means that entail indiscriminate punishment of entire communities,” said Joe Stork, acting executive director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch (US Dept. of State). This wall is a separation barrier that seriously restricts the Palestinians from the essentials of civilian life, which are medical care, education and work. This restricts the freedom of movement of great numbers of Palestinians. The Israelis are so determined to do this, that the Palestinians cannot do much about it; therefore their rights are being destroyed. Everyone understands that the Israeli government is trying and has a right to protect its citizens to the best ability, but they would have to do it within the bounds of international humanitarian law (US Dept. of State). Israel is violating the human rights and the humanitarian law as well.
I am sure that there are more human rights that are being affected in these countries but I believe that these two are the ones that pre dominate. Even though these two pieces of land were formed to bring and encourage peace, the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians is still very much the same (Brooman, Josh, page 15). There are three main religions in the area- Jews, Palestinians and Christians. Israel is proclaimed to be a holy piece of land and this is why these three religions want to take it only for themselves (Brooman, Josh). This is where the conflict comes from. They are all using different ways including violence just to take the holy piece of land. This is a property of Israel by law but almost no one pays attention to it as much as they should. The governments start not to care about whether they are violating human rights or not. But they start to care about how to make their citizens feel safe and the things they do become wrong towards the opposite society. As I said before, it is perfectly acceptable and everyone has a right to make their own community safe, but this does not mean that we have to violate the rights of others to be able to do so. I am not trying to be on anyone’s side here, I am trying to unbiased and make the point that the conflict between these two countries has had a major effect on human rights and it has destroyed their relationship even more. I think that if they were to put religion and beliefs aside (which is most likely impossible!) and talk things through with each other, there would be peace. I guess the nation will have to wait a very long time for this to happen.
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