Why won't Israel just capture Palestine?

Question

There are many small-scale conflicts currently going on around the world between two countries,where one or both deny other's right on some piece of land. like

• India vs Pakistan on Kashmir.
• N.Korea vs S.Korea.
• Israel vs Palestine.

In case of India vs Pak or the Korea's, both the sides are militarily very strong(all are in top 10 worldwide), so niether of them would probably start a full blown war with other, because they are sure of own damage.

But in case of Israel vs Palestine, Israel is much stronger than all existing forces in Palestine. So capturing Palestine should not be difficult for Israel.

Why does Israel still not capture Palestine, and rather resolve on small scale attacks like the ongoing missile attacks?. Israel has lost 1500+ people. So there is surely a reason to capture Palestine.

Answer 1

First, They already have, and that is part of the reason for the conflict in the first place.

What it seems like you are suggesting is that they go in and remove the existing inhabitants from Palestine all together. The truth is none of the other Arab nations want the Palestinians either. They are from Arab tribes that have a history of conflict with their Arab neighbors. They have no wealth to speak of and bring little to no skill to anyone that would take them in. So they would become a burden on any state that granted them asylum. There are over 4 million Palestinians that would have to be resettled in lands that are already claimed in whatever nation did accept them.

Israel wants to have a Jewish state, and the Palestinians are unwilling to submit to their rule, or even to peacefully coexist with the Jewish Israelis. The Israeli position is that it is unreasonable to expect them to submit to terror attacks and rocket attacks on its people from the Palestinians. So coexistence, which has been attempted since the 1970's, has failed.

Since no nation seems willing to accept that Palestinians, the other option that Israel would have for removing them would be Genocide of the Palestinian people. I would hope that everyone would understand why that is not an option that Israel would realistically consider.

So for now, Israel's only real option appears to be to neutralize the Palestinians' ability to make war on Israel.

Answer 2

Israel does not want to be in charge of those areas, and has already given most of the area to Palestinian sovereignty.

Before 1993, Israel was in control over the entirety of the West Bank and Gaza. This was a result of the Six Day War. To summarize, Egypt blockaded the Strait of Tiran, and surrounding Arab nations prepared to invade Israel. Israel preempted, destroying Egypt's air force, and drove the Arab nations back. This resulted in the capture of the West Bank, Gaza, the Sinai, and the Golan Heights.

There are around 4 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Combined with the number of Arab Israelis, this puts the Arab population west of the Jordan River approximately equal to the Jewish population. Israel wants to remain a Jewish state, but cannot do so if it annexes the entirety of the West Bank and Gaza while remaining a democratic country. This is why Israel has offered Palestinians land equivalent to the entirety of the West Bank and Gaza a number of times.

However, the annexation of all territory in the West Bank and Gaza would not just be a demographic problem, it would also require the retaking of land already given to the Palestinians. In 1993, Israel and the PLO agreed to the Oslo Accords, which granted Palestinians around half of the land in the West Bank and Gaza. In 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza. The Oslo Accords were only intended to define interim borders until a final settlement had been negotiated, but in the mean time, Israel recognizes Palestinian sovereignty over the areas specified in the Oslo Accords.

Israel does not want to capture all territory west of the Jordan River, nor should they. Even if it is militarily feasible, it would be a political and demographic disaster.

Answer 3

In addition to all the OTHER answers, another reason is the sheer difficulty. The cost/benefit analysis doesn't tip towards capture.

Capturing a terrain is easy (Update: yesterday, 8/5/2014, a high ranking IDF officer noted that they could take over entire Gaza in 10 days if the government made that decision).

Actually successfully occupying a terrain with a hostile population for a length of time is incredibly hard and VERY costly in both materials, lives, and political capital. See the amount of resources USA devoted to post-WWII Japan/Germany; or Russia's Chechen wars; or USSR and later USA in Afghanistan; or USA in Iraq; or Israel's own previous experience of occupying the areas.

The issue becomes significantly worse in the case of Palestinian areas, where there's millions of people with no economy to speak of in small area of land. It's a lot easier to subdue a farmer (threat to his land/farm) than someone having no job/property; which is why military occupation got progressively MORE difficult as history marched on and less and less humans were farming.

Answer 4

Israel has already captured Palestine. That is why the Palestinians are living under a military occupation. But it will never officially declare Palestine conquered or make it part of Israel.

If they did, and if they wanted to continue to be a democratic state, they would have to give the Palestinians citizenship. Then the population of Israel would be roughly split 50/50 between Jews and Arabs. That situation is frightening for most Jewish Israelis as it would mean they would no longer be a majority in "their own" land. They fear that the Arabs wouldn't settle with being equal to Jews but would try to be on top.

The Holocaust taught many Jews that being a majority is much better than being a minority.

There are some left-leaning Jews such as president Reuven Rivlin who favours this option and thinks that Jews and Arabs can coexist in the same country. But most of the population is very skeptical.

The other option is to return the West Bank to the Palestinians, but that option is also inconcievable to a majority of Israelis. So the only thing the government can do is to continue the occupation.

Answer 5

Please consider what would happen after Israel took over. Total number of Arabs in Palestine and Israel combined is about equal to total number of Jews, but they have higher fertility rates. If Israel annexed Palestine outright it would have to grant the right to vote to newly incorporated citizens. This in turn would ensure the complete dominance of Arab voices in Israel's politics in near future.

Answer 6

The Arab citizens of Israel are about 20.7% of Israel population. Majority of the Arab-citizens of Israel are Muslims and rest are Christians. If Israel captures all the area where the Muslims are living especially the West Bank and Gaza and kicks out the Arabs from the area, then there will be certain problems which are listed herein below.

1. As, Israel is surrounded by Islamic countries which somehow do not want Israel existence on the face of the earth. If Israel kicks out the Palestinian (from their land) then the neighbor countries will use the exiled peoples against Israel and peace of Israel and Middle East will be ruined.
2. As I said that the Arab-citizen of Israel are about 20% of Israel population, if Israel captures all the area of Philistine, then this will radicalize the Muslim population inside Israel, that will not be in favor of Israel.
3. If the aforementioned task carried out, then it will be the genocide of Philistinian and it will be opposed by the International Community because the international community has passed a two-state solution for them.

So, eternal peace comes with negotiation and compromises. We, hope that Israel and Philistinian authorities will solve their problem with negotiation. I read the answer of one of my friend that “The Holocaust taught many Jews that being a majority is much better than being a minority”, his say is okey but there was no involvement of Muslims or Philistinian in holocaust and we oppose and condemn that, so we can’t embed that logic here.

Answer 7

Political blow back mostly. Israel is surrounded by countries that have all declared war on them and many have made statements that their goal is to wipe them off the map. The only reason Israel still exists is the massive support they get from the U.S. and other Western allies. If Israel wiped out Palestine it would enrage the region against the west and Israel's allies can't afford losing their oil trade connections. Wars of conquest to expand territory are looked down on in the western world because they already claimed everything they could hundreds of years ago, and have an interest in preventing others from doing the same, Israel as a young country is adversely affected by this.