Israeli – Palestinian Conflict and the United Nations’ Peace Initiative

Abstract

This study examined Israeli - Palestinian conflict with a focus on the United Nations’ peace initiative. The paper examined how this peace optionhas affected the realization of a two-state solution in the Israeli -Palestinian conflict. The study adopted explanatory research design, which enabled us to explain the variables in the conflict and used qualitative research technique and content analysis due to the availability of existing data sourced from secondary sources. The study adopted the zero sum two person game theory which enabled us to understand the win – win or loss – loss attitude of the parties involved. The paper discussed and analysed the research objectives in which we utilized to evaluate the research hypotheses and providethe findings. We found that the UN peace initiative has failed to achieve its goal of resolving the conflict due to the veto powers of US and her allies, and the goal of the UN to achieve world peace has been defeated since they cannot achieve peace in Middle East and the world at large leading to the proliferation of terrorist groups and escalation of terrorist related violence and wars in the Middle East and all over the world.We recommended that there is a need for permanent member states in the Security Council who have the right of veto to cooperate and achieveunanimity in seeing to the end of the conflict so as to restore international peace and security.Again, the United Nations should re-assess all its’ peace initiatives it has embarked upon in attempting to resolve the conflictand put-up a grand design with adequate implementation strategies and financial provisions in order to address squarely the issues of settlement, status of Jerusalem, border, security and refugee problem in the conflict.