The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict
The question of who owns Palestine does not have a simple answer. The struggle between Israelis and Palestinians goes back to ancient times, when the ancient Israelites lived in and around Palestine and fought many wars with their neighbors. Over the centuries, the Jews have been a persecuted minority in many lands. In a sense, the current conflict is an extension of those religious wars. But the modern conflict has its roots in modern times,Israel has been on bad terms with its Arab neighbors since it started in 1948.
The land called Palestine was once occupied by the Ottoman Empire, a large group of territories ruled by a government that found itself on the losing end of World War I. Great Britain had the most troops in Palestine when the war ended, and so Britain "won" the right to control Palestine. Other territories became independent; Palestine did not. In the 1800s, some Jews sensed a growing danger to themselves in Europe. They decided that Jews could never be safe until they had their own country. These Jews wanted to establish a Jewish homeland, or Zion. They were called Zionists. The Zionists encouraged Jewish immigration to Palestine, where ancient Israel had been.
One of the many actions taken by the British government and army was the announcement and enforcement of the Balfour Declaration, which stated that the British people and soldiers supported the construction of a homeland for the Jewish people—in Palestine. This was way back in 1917, long before the Holocaust. Palestine was occupied mainly by Arabs who had been fighting their Turkish rulers and were trying to push Europeans out of their lands. Arabs wanted their own independent countries and the idea of Britain deciding what should happen in Palestine angered the Arabs.
Beginning in 1922, large numbers of Jewish people migrated to Palestine, because of the Balfour Declaration. This migration continued for the rest of the decade and sped up in the 1930s and 1940s. The people who called Palestine their homeland at this time didn't take too well to large numbers of new people moving in, especially since those "new neighbors" were Jewish and the majority of the people who were living in Palestine at the time were Muslim. Conflicts began to grow. During WWII, the Zionists’ worst fears came true. Nazi Germany killed about six million Jews. The war created thousands of desperate Jewish refugees. Because Western countries would take in only a few of these refugees, Many Jews headed for Palestine. In 1937, many Palestinians rebelled, calling for an independent nation, just like their neighbors were granted. Great Britain tried to find a way to satisfy both sides but gave up and, after the end of World War II, turned the problem over to the newly formed United Nations.
Both Jews and Arabs claimed Palestine, and each group wanted its own country there. The U.N. proposed side-by-side Israeli and Palestinian states, with Jerusalem being part of both. One part would be Jewish Israel, the other would be Arab Palestine. Jews agreed to this plan and promptly set about occupying three-quarters of the Palestinian state, including part of Jerusalem. Jordan and Egypt occupied the other part, and most of the Palestinians fled for their lives.
But the Arabs did not agree and attacked the Israelis, hoping to wipe them out. The Israelis, however won the first war. It was Arab Palestine that disappeared. Some of its land was claimed by Israel, and some ended up as part of Jordan. Many Arabs who had lived in Palestine became refugees and are now known as the Palestinians. Tensions flared between the neighboring nations for years. Wars between the Israelis and Arabs broke out again in 1956,1967, and 1973. Israel captured more land in the second war and lost some in the third. The United Nations called on Israel to give back the territory it had seized, but the calls fell on deaf ears. Israel controls this territory to this day.
After this, Israel continued to insist that it had earned the right to occupy these territories. Palestinians, on the other hand, expressed what they saw as their right to live in a land that the U.N. recognized as theirs.
Wars of words led to wars with bullets and tanks and Palestinians began waging another kind of war. Small groups of Palestinians attacked Jewish civilians. Palestinians and their allies called this guerrilla warfare, but the Israelis and their allies called it terrorism. Both sides had "hawks" who thought that violence was the answer. One of the main hawks on the Palestinian side was Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization and of Fatah, a guerilla movement that had violence as its goal. Members of Fatah were responsible for the slaughter of Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972.
But Israelis weren't innocent, either. Israeli leaders tended to make statements and take actions that inflamed the situation. Israeli Prime Ministers refused to even address Arafat as the Palestinian leader. Arafat refused to call off the hijackings, bombings, kidnappings.
In 1978, Israel and Egypt signed the Camp David Agreement, under which Israel gave some land back to Egypt in exchange for peace. Although the agreement has angered other Arab countries, Egypt and Israel have remained at peace.
The Israelis still control the rest of the land that they captured during their wars with the Arabs. The areas that the Israelis captured are called the occupied territories. Jewish settlers are moving into these areas, and violence is common between Jewish settlers and the Palestinians who already live there.
Palestinian opposition to Israel became an organized rebellionan increase in Israeli attacks on Palestinian leaders and territory led to the declaration of an intifada ("uprising") in 1987. It lasted six years, and it led Palestinian people to question Israeli people and led to widespread distrust. Among other things, Palestinians refused to work or obey Israeli rules. Israel, of course, responded with even more determination to keep the upper hand.
Things looked up for the Palestinian people for a while in the late 1990s, despite the assassination of Rabin in 1995. Arafat and the Israeli government signed an agreement that provided for the removal of Israeli settlers and soldiers from most of the West Bank city of Hebron in 1997. And in 1998, another agreement was signed by both sides, furthering the peaceful settlement of the West Bank "problem."
But the peace process unraveled again. Frustrated by the lack of real progress, Arafat and the PLO declared a second intifada. It is still in effect. In response, Israel moved tanks and soldiers into position around Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah. He was allowed to leave only when he was too ill to survive in West Bank hospitals.
For Israel, the story hasn't changed in many years. Israelis have settled in to lands that Palestinians call home and these Israelis believe that they have the right to live there and call it home themselves. Palestinians want the Israeli "occupiers" to leave, and they desperately want a homeland of their own, a country of their own.