Source: West Asia and Africa, No.3, 2024
Abstract: In the 20th Century, great power politics has had a serious negative impact on the formation and development of the Palestinian issue. During World War I, competition for the Middle East and the contradictory arrangement directly led to the Palestinian problem; British failed commission rule in Palestine after World War I, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed on an unreasonable separation of Palestine and Israel because of their respective strategic considerations. After World War II, these have led to the lengthening of the Arab - Israeli conflict and the suspension of the Palestinian issue. In the 1950s and 60s，struggle for supremacy in the Middle East became the core of the US- Soviet Middle East policy, and the Palestinian issue was seriously ignored. In the 1970s, the importance of the issue in U.S. - Soviet Middle East policy was risen, however, Palestinian national rights and their nation - founding rights have not been taken seriously. In the 1980s,the United States proposed a Middle East peace plan，while the Soviet Union supported the Arab “rejection front”，which led to further fragmentation of the Arab world and complicating the Palestinian issue. Tracing back to the history, it can be found that the great power politics has had a serious impact on the continuation, complication and marginalization of the Palestinian issue. First, Western colonialism, imperialism and manipulation by the United States and the Soviet Union are the root causes of the Palestinian issue. Second, during the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union denied the Palestinian national rights and opposed the nation - founding of the Palestine. Third, the favoritism of the United States towards Israel, and the division of the Arab world made by the United States and the Soviet Union are the important reasons for the power imbalance in the Arab - Israeli conflict and the continuous weakening and differentiation of the Arab states, which have had a serious negative impact on the Palestinian issue. In short, the tragedy of the Palestinian issue was essentially the product of colonialism, imperialism and hegemonism which carried out the great power politics and competed for hegemony in the Middle East. The fundamental reason was that the great powers created and manipulated the Palestinian issue from their own interests, thus making the Palestinian issue a protracted problem of the century.
Keywords：great power politics; Palestine; Israel; Palestinian- Israeli conflict; international system
