he Israel-Palestine conflict about? A simple guide | The Israel and Palestine Conflict | Understanding its Complex History

The Israel-Palestine Conflict: Understanding its Complex History

Israel Palestine War | Real History of Israel and Palestine Conflict | Israel Hamas war

Introduction:

The Israel-Palestine conflict is a long-standing and highly complicated issue that has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people and displaced millions. To truly comprehend its present-day impact, we must delve into its historical roots. In this guide, we will unravel the key events and factors that have shaped this enduring conflict.

The Balfour Declaration: A Turning Point in History:

•  Over a century ago, on November 2, 1917, Arthur Balfour, Britain's then-foreign secretary, wrote a momentous letter to Lionel Walter Rothschild, a prominent figure within the British Jewish community.
• Despite its brevity, consisting of a mere 67 words, the Balfour Declaration had a seismic impact on Palestine that continues to reverberate to this day.
• This declaration pledged British support for the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine and expressed the intention to facilitate its realization.
• Ironically, this commitment by a European power essentially promised a nation to the Zionist movement, despite the fact that Palestinian Arabs constituted over 90 percent of the population at the time.
• Consequently, from 1923 to 1948, Britain governed Palestine under a mandate during which it facilitated mass Jewish immigration, while Palestinians witnessed the erosion of their land and mounting immigration-related tensions.

The Arab Revolt and Unrest in the 1930s:

• Tensions escalated in the 1930s, ultimately fueling the Arab Revolt, which endured from 1936 to 1939.
• In April 1936, the Arab National Committee called on Palestinians to engage in a general strike, withhold tax payments, and boycott Jewish products as a means of protesting British colonialism and the increasing influx of Jewish immigrants.
• The British responded to the six-month strike with brutal repression, conducting mass arrests, demolishing homes, and implementing punitive measures that evoke similarities to current Israeli practices against Palestinians.
• The second phase of the revolt, led by the Palestinian peasant resistance movement, targeted British forces and colonial institutions.
• By the latter half of 1939, the British had deployed 30,000 troops in Palestine, resorting to aerial bombings, imposing curfews, demolishing homes, and carrying out arbitrary detentions and summary executions on a widespread scale.
• Simultaneously, the British collaborated with the Jewish settler community, forming armed groups and a British-led "counterinsurgency force" comprised of Jewish fighters known as the Special Night Squads.
• Secret arms imports and the establishment of weapons factories within the pre-state Jewish settler community laid the foundation for the Haganah, the Jewish paramilitary organization that later became the core of the Israeli army.
• Consequently, during the three years of revolt, approximately 5,000 Palestinians lost their lives, 15,000 to 20,000 sustained injuries, and 5,600 were imprisoned.

The UN Partition Plan and the Nakba:

• By 1947, the Jewish population in Palestine had grown to approximately 33 percent, yet they only owned 6 percent of the land.
• In response to the mounting tensions, the United Nations adopted Resolution 181, which proposed the partition of Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states.
• However, the Palestinians rejected the plan as it allocated about 55 percent of Palestine to the Jewish state, including the majority of the fertile coastal region.
• In contrast, the Palestinians, who constituted 67 percent of the population and owned 94 percent of historic Palestine, vehemently opposed the partition.
• As tensions escalated, Zionist paramilitary groups began a military operation even before the British Mandate expired on May 14, 1948. This operation aimed to expand the borders of the Zionist state-to-be by destroying Palestinian towns and villages.
• In April 1948, the infamous Deir Yassin massacre occurred, resulting in the deaths of over 100 Palestinian men, women, and children on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
• This incident set the tone for what unfolded next: from 1947 to 1949, more than 500 Palestinian towns, villages, and cities were decimated in what Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, meaning "catastrophe" in Arabic.
• During this period, an estimated 15,000 Palestinians lost their lives, with dozens of massacres taking place.
• As a result, the Zionist movement annexed 78 percent of historic Palestine, leaving the remaining 22 percent divided between the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip.
• Approximately 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced from their homes, and their descendants now amount to six million refugees residing in 58 squalid camps across Palestine and neighboring countries.
• On May 15, 1948, Israel declared its establishment, marking the beginning of the first Arab-Israeli war, which ended in January 1949 with an armistice agreement between Israel and Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria.
• In December 1948, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 194, asserting the right of return for Palestinian refugees.

Aftermath of the Nakba: Challenges and Struggles:

• About 150,000 Palestinians remained within the newly formed state of Israel, enduring nearly two decades under a tightly regulated military occupation before finally being granted Israeli citizenship.
• The Gaza Strip fell under Egyptian control, while Jordan assumed administrative rule over the West Bank in 1950.
• In 1964, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was established, followed by the formation of the Fatah political party a year later.
• The Six-Day War in 1967 and the Ongoing Settlement.