Author Archives: Angelica Audrey

Amidst the pandemic, arbitration proceedings have shifted from in-person to remote hearings. Parties, counsels, and arbitrators must adapt to the new reality of conducting virtual arbitrations due to travel restrictions and social distancing measures.

But amidst the macabre fight over living space between two nations, arguably the bearers of the most suffering are neither Israel, Palestine, nor any of the Arab States. Indeed, how can we contend otherwise when as many as 5.7 million people now live as refugees, many of whom are descendants of refugees fleeing Palestine in the 1948 Palestinian Exodus.

In the last article in this series, we have discussed why the fight over living space erupted and continues between Arabs and Jews in Palestine. One of the international community’s solutions to this decades-long feud was the UN Partition Plan in 1947, granting the West Bank among other territories to the Arabs.

In the last article, we have reviewed history and read how the violence and exile suffered by Jews millennia ago led to the current statelessness of millions of Palestinian Arabs. The issue surrounding Israel and Palestine, at its core, concerns the colliding rights to living space between two peoples in Palestine: the Jews and the Arabs.

Every single action in the universe will, inevitably, produce a reaction. Perhaps this is the most befitting phrase to describe the situation surrounding Israel and Palestine. The conversation about this issue will inevitably lead us to converse about religion, and with one look at history it is undeniable that a correlation exists between the persecutions suffered by Jews since millennia ago and the current statelessness of Palestinian Arabs from the Palestinian Exodus. The Jews’ yearning for a State of their own is fueled by their exigency to rightfully break free from tyranny, and it is this need that birthed Zionism. But that same utopic dream of safety threatens the security of others years later in the Palestinian Exodus. Thousands of Palestinian Arabs remain displaced and stateless to this day.