This is a reason why the conflict is still going on because Israel resents America’s change of loyalties and game plan. They were used to unconditional support from America and felt pushed into a corner when they were unexpectedly put under pressure. The Israelis therefore became more adamantly against compromise and any deal they were pushed into was consequently hoax and had a chance of being short-lived. This factor could be thought of as a short-lived problem because America’s support was, at the end of the day, conditional and so it could be considered a minor problem.
The pressure from other countries is linked to the use of economic sanctions because countries often use money as a form of persuasion and this was very much the case in the Arab Israeli conflict. This is another reason why the dispute is carrying on today. The Arab states possess a large amount of the world's known oil reserves and so each and every development in the region could very much affect other regions of the world. The Arabs know this and they also know they can use it as a weapon in order to get what they want from the western countries. They demonstrated this in 1967, when they informed the West that oil shipments would be suspended if western nations were to aid Israel in a future war. The USA could also use economic sanctions as means of swaying decisions. Both the USA and Israel knew that they could withdraw the $3 billion annual aid sent to Israel in the 1990’s in order to pressurise into making an agreement.
The threat of economic sanctions has played an important part in the ongoing divisions because of the vital role oil plays in the politics of the Middle East crisis. The Arabs warned to not sell oil to the West in order to manipulate the USA’s influence over Israel. They expected this threat to force them into putting pressure on Israel to negotiate with the Arab states and they knew that if they didn’t, the USA would risk losing their primary oil supply. It also expected that Israel takes the advice given to them from the USA in return for their economic and political aid because it is because of this aid that Israel has retained its strength. The Israeli’s resent this expectation because in their eyes they refuse to accept that the aid from America should be conditional and so they resent the USA using it as a bribe to tell them what to do. This resentment meant that any advice received from the USA regarding a peace deal would be questioned as they believed that the USA were no longer interested in a true reflection of what the Israelis sought after.
This factor could be said to be a somewhat noteworthy factor since the Arab states possess large amounts of the world's known oil reserves and so developments in the region profoundly affect other regions of the world therefore affecting how much international support the Arabs get.
Another reason why there is no lasting peace is that some people on both sides are completely opposed to a compromise and will use violence to fight any peace deal. In 1993, the Labour Government of Israel announced its willingness to deal directly with the PLO and a meanwhile later a peace deal (the Oslo accord) was reached between the PLO and Israel.
The Hamas, a Palestinian fundamentalist group, which was formed in 1988, however, was all set to kill in the name of the Arab cause especially after the Intifada and carried out regular suicide bombings and attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians alike. Israeli extremists also out ruled peace and one extremist called Yigal Amir carried out the assassination of Rabin on the 4th November 1995.
This is a reason why the conflict is continuing because this ongoing violence violates any peace deal made; the constant terrorist attacks, retaliations and pure tit for tat violence contradict the peace that is proposed in the Oslo accords. After the assassination of Rabin, Israel no longer has a desire for peace as they no longer have a leader capable of convincing the people to persist in the peace attempts.
This is an ongoing problem in every civilization but even though it isn’t a problem that politics can necessarily solve but nevertheless isn’t a problem unique to the Middle East crisis. It is therefore not possible to identify it as the chief factor putting a stop to peace.
Linked to the rise of extremism are the settlements in the disputed territories. The Oslo accords were very vague about the future of the West Bank and so there was confusion over the specifics on who controls what land. This fuelled the tit for tat violence and terrorist attacks because either side could interpret the deal to their advantage and believed themselves entitled to the land. This was another factor preventing peace in the Middle East. Ever since the assembly of the UN partition plans the Israeli believed that they were entitled to ownership of the West Bank of the River Jordan. After the 1967 war Israeli settlements were constantly being developed upon the West Bank as the Israelis saw this as their way of monitoring the Arabs’ actions. The building of these settlements involved the destruction of Palestinian houses and the Arabs resented this and did everything in their power to oppose it. The Oslo accords, declared that the PLO would recognize Israel if the Arabs were allowed self-government of parts of the occupied West Bank. The Oslo accord, however did not specify what would happen to the existing Israeli settlements in the West Bank and how exactly control would be handed over to the Arabs.
This issue has contributed to the conflict because the tit for tat violence and difference of opinion regarding the ownership of the West Bank created tension between the Jewish settlers and the individuals who were trying to enforce the Palestinian control of the West Bank. One Jewish settler, Baruch Goldstein for example shot and killed 29 Palestinians whilst they were praying in the Mosque in the February of 1994. The West Bank is the holy land for Jews and so many Israelis criticised the Oslo accords, as they wanted to maintain the ever-increasing number of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. They saw no room for the compromises suggested in the Oslo Accords.
The main reasons why the conflict has continued since 1978 are the dispute over the settlements in the West Bank and the fact that neither side is willing to compromise.
This is because these are the hardest factors to resolve.
Both countries regard the West Bank religiously significant (which also ties in with deep seated religious differences) and so each side insists they are entitled to ownership of the land. The fact that neither side is willing to compromise complicates this further because not only can they not live happily together because of their cultural and religious differences but it would also seem that they are unable to fairly divide the land in order to compromise because their pride won’t allow it.
Other factors preventing peace are the Israeli fear that the allowance of a Palestinian state is just the means to the unavoidable founding of a Palestinian state in Judea. Each and every young child is also raised sharing the deep-seated religious and cultural hatred inequalities that their parents owned. This means that this generation also shares the hatred towards their ‘enemies’ also Palestinians’ share their desire for revenge and the Israelis’ share their necessity to protect their homeland.