The War: Origin of Israel-Palestine Conflict

Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the world's largest continuing conflicts. The main issues which the two sides cannot agree on are what should happen to Jewish settlement in the West Bank, should Jerusalem be shared by both the countries and most importantly should there be another country alongside Israel. The international community has failed to provide adequate solutions. If this doesn’t stop on time more Palestinians and Israelis will die.

Origin

Jews have suffered hatred throughout history. Whether it is the hitler era or even thousands of years before all this. Some Christians believed that Jews wanted to crucify Jesus Christ. This belief remained for a long time among the Christians. So, when Crusades happened Christians killed a lot of Jews. Similar to today even that time a lot of misinformation was spread about Jewish making it so much harder for Jews to survive. All this resulted in so much hatred against Jewish people. 

Because of all this during the 1800s, Jews around the world felt like they needed a country they could call their own. This resulted in the first huge migration of Jews in 1881 to the Palestine area. During that time there was no Israel, Gaza Strip or even a West Bank. The only reason Jews choose Palestine was because they consider Jerusalem as their holy place. Jews made a lot of permanent settlement there. Palestine came under the Ottoman Empire and Christian's, Muslims and jews lived together.

During World War 1, which was between the Ottoman Empire vs British and France. The Britishers made two promises at that time. First, they told Arab revolutionaries that in return for their support against the Ottoman Empire, we will give independence to the Arabs in Palestine. Secondly, in 1917 in the Balfour Declaration they made a promise to Jews that they would make Palestine their homeland. In 1918, when the world war ended many agreements between Russia, France and Britain which is one of the leading reasons for today’s conflict.

The League of Nations accepted the Balfour declaration in 1923 resulting in a huge immigration of Jews to Palestine. Due to a huge number of migrations Arabs started to feel dominated. This was the beginning of the Arab and Jews communal differences.

During the Hitlers dictatorship in Germany resulted in such inhuman behavior with the Jewish community the immigration in Palestine increased in huge numbers, so much so that in 1939’s white paper Britishers limited the Jewish immigration. Although limitations did not work due to the increased violence. Clearly, Britishers failed to clear up the mess so they decided to hand Palestine over to the United Nations.

The UN came up with a Palestine Plan,1947 Which distributed Palestine between different communities. Three states were given to Jews, three to Arabs and Jerusalem was under the control of the UN. Arabs did not receive this plan well as they said that due to the high number of populations in Palestine, they should have gotten more parts. Just after a day of this plan, a civil war broke between Arabs, Jews and Britishers. Jews were satisfied so on 14th May 1948 they declared an independent country Israel. 

On 15th May 1948 , the first war broke down between Arab countries and Israel. And unexpectedly Israel won. It lasted for a total of ten months. Seven lakh Palestine had to leave their home country and become refugees. They remember this time by the name Al Nakba translated as disaster. 

On 6th June 1967, started the third Arab-Israeli war which was a six day war between Israel and Arab countries again. Israel captures and occupies the Golan Heights, the West Bank , East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula. Although Israel kept getting victory, Israel was not sure about what to do with the West Bank while Israel was still figuring it out a lot of Israelis made their settlement. They couldn't keep it because of high Arab population. UN did warn Israel as it believed that the settlement is not valid and by doing so peace will never be attended. 

The First Palestinian Intifada erupted in Gaza in December 1987, after four Palestinian were killed when an Israeli truck collided with two vans carrying Palestinian workers. Intifada Arabic word that literally means “shaking off”, and in the Palestinian context, it is understood to mean a civil uprising. Ensuing clashes spread rapidly to the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The intifada ended with the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993.

The second Intifada or Al-aqua, Intifada began on September 28, 2000, when Likud opposition leader Ariel Sharon made a provocative visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque with thousands of security forces deployed in and around the Old City of Jerusalem. Clashes between Palestinian protests and Israeli forces left five Palestinians dead and a further 200 injured during the first two days. The incident sparked a widespread armed uprising in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. During the Al-Aqsa Intifada Israel caused unprecedented damage to the Palestinian economy and infrastructure.