When It All Started
History of Israel-Palestine Conflict
As I watch the ongoing bloodshed in the Middle East and biased reporting that often follows, I feel the need to provide a concise summary based on historical facts.
My aim is to clarify my own thoughts and possibly offer some value to anyone who reads this.
To better understand the roots of the conflict that has persisted for decades and is now escalating to unprecedented levels, we must take a deep dive into history — a few thousand years deep that is!
Early History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict dates back to the 17th century BC when three patriarchs of Jewish people — Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — settled in Kanaan, a region approximating present-day Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, parts of Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.
Over time, this region became known as the Land of Israel, the Promised Land, the Palestine Region, or the Holy Land.
In 1000 BC, King Saul established the Israelite monarchy, which was later ruled by King David. King David made Jerusalem the capital of his kingdom and his son Solomon built the first temple in Jerusalem — The Temple of Solomon.
After King Solomon’s death, the united monarchy was split into the Kingdom of Israel in the north with Samaria as the capital, and the Kingdom of Judah in the south with Jerusalem as the capital.
Although the land became home to the majority of Jews, it was subject to numerous conquests by various groups, leading to a significant decrease in the Jewish population.
One of these conquests was conducted by the Roman Empire in 63 BC.
The name Palestine was given to Judah by the Romans to break the Jewish connection with the land.
Christianity, which started as a Jewish sect, became a dominant religion towards the end of the Roman Empire.
In the 7th century, an Arab conquest started the spread of Islam. The Dome of the Rock was built on the ruins of the second temple, making Jerusalem the holy city of three monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
As Christians in Jerusalem faced intense persecution primarily under the rule of the Fatimid Caliphate, a Shiite Muslim dynasty, and to lesser extent Seljuk Turks, Christians in Europe launched several crusades to bring the Holy City back to the hands of the Christians.
During this time many Jews were killed, and others were making pilgrimages everywhere, mostly to Western Europe.
From the 16th century till World War I, the Holy Land along with much of the Middle East was ruled by the Ottoman Empire, the Islamic superpower of its time. The land was unofficially called Palestine.
At the same time in Europe, more and more Jews were joining the movement called Zionism, aiming to create a Jewish national state in its ancient homeland. In the first decade of the 20th century, tens of thousands of Jews moved from Europe back to the region.
Israel and Palestine under the British rule
After the end of World War One and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the Middle East was divided by the British and French Empires.
The British granted independence to Iraq and Jordan, but retained control over Palestine under their mandate.
In 1923, Britain promised to establish a Jewish national homeland in Palestine under the Balfour Declaration, which led to growing tensions between Jews and Arabs who both claimed the land. This resulted in acts of violence.
By the 1930s, following the increasing Jewish population due to the fear of persecution during the Nazi reign in Germany, the British limited Jewish immigration. In response, Jewish militia formed to both; fight the Arabs and resist British rule.
The Holocaust, which claimed six million Jewish lives, caused more Jews to flee from Europe to Palestine to seek a homeland, further escalating tensions with the Arabs. Overwhelmed by the situation, Britain began to withdraw.
The Birth of the Israel State
In 1947, the UN partitioned Palestine into two independent states: a Jewish state and an Arab state with the City of Jerusalem becoming an international zone with a special status.
However, the plan was rejected by the Arabs because it gave more territory (56.5% of the land) to the Jews who, at the time, accounted for about 1/3 of the population. The Arabs began to form volunteer armies throughout Palestine.
Less than one year after that, as Britain completed its withdrawal, Israel declared itself an independent state, and a new, bloodier struggle between the Jews and the Palestinian Arabs commenced.
The 1948 Arab-Israeli War
Right after the announcement of the independent State of Israel, the war between the Arabs and the Jews broke out, which became known as the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
The war involved the five recently independent Arab nations: Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon — The Arab League invaded the region in an attempt to establish a unified Arab state in Palestine.
However, a ceasefire agreement was reached in 1949, in which more than two-thirds of historic Palestine, including West Jerusalem, was given to Israel. Jordan occupied East Jerusalem, the area known as the West Bank, and Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip.
As a result, more than 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from the land where they had lived for centuries, on the day they called Al-Nakba, or ‘The Catastrophe.’
With the deteriorated dispute between Jews and Arabs, more wars and conflicts ensued in the following decades.
The Six-Day War
In 1967, the Six-Day War erupted following a period of intense diplomatic tensions and skirmishes between Israel and its neighboring Arab states: Jordan, Syria, and Egypt.
This brief conflict concluded with Israel emerging victorious, gaining control over strategic territories, including the Golan Heights from Syria, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, and Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt. Sinai was later returned to Egypt as part of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty.
Post-war, the majority of Palestinian refugees and their descendants faced restrictions on returning to their homes. Instead, they resettled in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.
The First Intifada and the Oslo Accords
The increasing number of Israelis settling in the Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza led to the formation of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), established in Cairo in 1964 with the goal of creating a liberated Palestine in Israel.
Initially based in Jordan, the PLO launched attacks on Israel, prompting its relocation from Jordan to Lebanon, where it engaged in acts of terrorism against Israel. The conflict persisted for years, culminating in the Israeli invasion of Lebanon to expel the PLO from Beirut.
Despite initial resistance, the PLO eventually agreed to a territorial division between Palestine and Israel. However, Jewish settlement activity continued in the Israel-occupied Palestinian territories.
In 1987, a violent Palestinian uprising erupted, starting from the Jabalia refugee camp after an Israeli Defense Forces truck collided with two Palestinian civilian vans, resulting in the death of four Palestinians.
This marked the beginning of the First Intifada, a bloody conflict that caused hundreds of deaths. It triggered a peace process, leading to the signing of the Oslo Accords by Israel and the PLO. The Oslo I Accord was signed in Washington, D.C., and the Oslo II Accord in Taba, Egypt.
According to the Oslo Accords, the West Bank was divided into three areas: Area A was exclusively controlled by the Palestinians, Area B was jointly administered by the Palestinians and Israel, and Area C was under full Israeli control.
The Second Intifada
Despite ongoing peace talks in 2000, Israelis and Palestinians were unable to reach agreements on crucial issues such as the status of Jerusalem, the rights of refugees, and the expansion of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territories.
Ariel Sharon, a Jewish Israeli who would later become Israel’s prime minister, visited the Temple Mount, the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. This action was considered offensive by many Palestinians, leading to the outbreak of the Second Intifada.
The violence eventually subsided with Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, but settlement activities persisted in the West Bank.
The Israel-Hamas Conflict
Hamas, a Sunni Islamist militant group founded in 1987, has the goal of destroying the state of Israel and establishing an Islamic state, as outlined in its Charter.
Following an armed conflict with Fatah, the group that managed the PLO, Hamas split from the Palestinian Authority and gained control in Gaza.
Israel imposed a suffocating blockade on Gaza, resulting in several intense wars between the two factions in the Gaza Strip, including Operation Cast Lead, Operation Pillar of Defense, and Operation Protective Edge.
In 2014, Hamas and Fatah reached an agreement to form a national unity government.
In 2018, the U.S. embassy was relocated from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move perceived by Palestinians as a signal of American support for Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
In 2021, the conflict between Israel and Palestine resumed after a series of hostile events in East Jerusalem, leading to acts of violence until a ceasefire deal, brokered by Egypt, Qatar, and the UN, came into effect on May 21.
On October 7, 2023, the last day of the Jewish holiday, in the early hours of the morning, Hamas launched Operation Al-Aqsa Flood — an orchestrated attack on Israel involving infiltrations into 22 Israeli towns and army bases, kidnapping civilians, including foreigners, and firing thousands of rockets as far away as Jerusalem.
In response, Israel conducted significant strikes on Gazan cities.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared, “We are at war, and we will win it,” announcing the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of Israeli military reservists.
Hamas leader Muhammad Deif, in a recorded message, stated that the group initiated the operation to convey that “the time of their rampaging without accountability has ended.”
Hamas leaders called on Arabs living in Israel and the West Bank to capitalize on the assault’s momentum by carrying out their attacks on Israelis. Numerous footage of brutal killings, including audio, circulate on endless social media platforms and news portals. Some of them include very young children.
Simultaneously, in the cities around the world, from London and Paris to New York and Sydney, large gatherings of Palestinian supporters rallied, chanting slogans that included anti-Semitic remarks such as ‘gas to Jews.’
Ordinarily, I would now write a ‘Conclusion,’ — only there isn’t one. For all I see are death, destruction, hatred, and lives lost in thousands.
Thank you for reading.
