We have been seeing a lot of news related to the issue of Israel-Palestine, Gaza, and Hamas for the past few days. But we have also been seeing a lot of news related to the issue of Israel-Palestine for a while now. We often hear about these issues of war, about people getting killed and many news related to this. So what is the issue of Israel-Palestine? What is the history of the Arab-Israel conflict? These are the main things so let's discuss in this article.

When we talk about the issue of Israel-Palestine, there are several misconceptions that we often hear and is the cause of talk among many people. This is a problem that started 1,000-2,000 years ago. Many people have thought that this is a religious problem. But to be honest, we generally talk about the issue of Israel-Palestine connecting to the events that has taken place in the recent centuries. In fact, it is not a religious problem, but a problem related to nationality, land, resources, etc. So let’s understand that first.

Geography

If you look at the geographical location of this area, you can see the regions like Israel or Palestine lying on one side of the Arabian Peninsula. If you look at the map, you can see the Israel country. But Palestine is only a small area that remains disconnected here and there. Some countries who are members of the United Nations, accept both the countries. But, there remains countries in the UN who has still not accept both of these countries. Not only that, Jerusalem is claimed to be the capital of both of these countries. Jerusalem is a place involved in the conflict between the two countries. The current problem is also in Jerusalem.

Jerusalem

Jerusalem is also a religious place. For Christians, Muslims, and Jews, Jerusalem is one of their holiest places. In fact, Israel is the one who has occupied Jerusalem. Their parliament and other administrative matters can be seen in Jerusalem. Only a very few countries like America, have accepted Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Other countries have accepted Tel Aviv as the capital of Israel. So when we study about these issues, Earlier there used to be a country called the Ottoman Empire. Palestine was a part of the Ottoman Empire.

Historical Records of Palestine

If you look at the historical records of 1878, Palestine was a place with 80% Muslim population, 10% Christian population, and 3% Jewish population. Jerusalem was a place within the country of Palestine. In Jerusalem, there was an equal population of all religions. Everyone lived in peace and harmony there. This is what the historical records say. If we go a little further, Israel used to be a place where Jews had a settlement. Later, they had to migrate to many parts of the world due to various problems. They mainly migrated to Europe.

First Movement

In 1898, a man named Theodor Herzl came forward. A new movement was formed under his leadership. The name of that movement was, Zionist Movement. The purpose of this movement was to bring all the Jews who were now in various parts of the world, Back to their promised land, Israel, and to establish a Jewish state there. Their mission was not just to establish the Jewish community as a religious community. But they also believed that it is a community that should be established and accepted on the basis of a nation. This is what was said in the movement called Zionist. As a part of this, we could see Jews from various parts of the world coming back to Palestine.

Balfour Declaration

A little later, we can see the events of First World War. The First World War was fought from 1914 to 1919. At the time of the First World War, The Ottoman Empire was in opposition to Britain and France. In order to defeat the Ottoman Empire, The British realised that they needed the help of Jews and Arabs. Some of agreements were signed, in relation to this. The agreement signed with the Jews is called the Balfour Declaration. According to the Balfour Declaration, If they provide assistance to the British, in the First World War. The Britishers, agreed to help create a Jewish country for the Jews, in the area called Palestine, After the end of the First World war. This is called the Balfour Declaration.

World War 1

At the same time, the British signed an agreement with the Sharif, Hussain of the area called Mecca. In the First World War, If the British are helped to defeat the Ottoman Empire, After the First World War, They agreed to give all the rights of the area to the Sharif, Hussain of Mecca. At the same time, the British and the French also signed a declaration. According to this declaration, after the First World War, It was agreed that, the entire Arabian peninsula would be divided in half between the French and the British. We can understand that this is a clear case of cheating. That is, at the same time, the British and the French are taking over this area. The same area was decided to be given to the Arab leaders. The exact same area was also decided to be given to create a Jewish country. This is what happened during the First World War.

Immigrants Jews

After the First World War, this area, especially the area like Palestine, was converted into a colony by the British. In this British colony, they took their ruling forward. That is, the Christians, Muslims, and Jews were placed under a separate administrative system for each community, with the intention of conquering this area, using the divide and rule policy. At the same time, to complete the Balfour Declaration to an extent, They allowed a lot of Jews to immigrate to Israel or Palestine. But, the Arab population of the area, disliked the idea of a lot of Jews coming to the area, with the permission of the British. So, as part of this, the Arabian population, i.e, the Palestinian population rebelled against this. This led to a violent attack. But, with the help of the Jewish population. But we can see the British, crushing this revolt. Along with that, we can also see their enmity growing.

White Paper Document

After that, the British can be seen issuing a white paper. In this white paper, it was said that, the Jews should not immigrate to this place, beyond a certain number limit. Not only that, it was also written that an Arab-Jewish nation will be formed in ten years. But, this white paper was opposed by both the Jews and the Palestinians. The reason for the opposition from the Jews was because they wanted a separate Jewish nation and not a joint Arab-Jewish nation. The reason for the Palestinian’s opposition is because, they have been living there for a long time. They put forward the idea that they wanted an independent nation as soon as possible. But, the British emphasized that, they needed to live there for another 10 years, only then a nation would be established, combining both the communities and not an independent country for either of the communities.

World War 2

As a result, both the communities opposed their idea. At this time, the German government had launched a campaign against the Jews, under the leadership of Hitler by the name, Holocaust, where Jews were taken to concentration camps and killed off. Due to this reason, the Jews had to leave Europe at the time. The major place for their refuge was Israel. Even at that time, immigration was still a necessity. It was after that, the Second World War had begun. After the end of World war II, the Britishers were not in a situation to no longer hold on to their colonies. A lot of issues were going on at the time.

United Nations

They decided that it was better to leave the places in conflict than keep them under their authority. So, they approached the United Nation and asked the UN for a solution to bring peace in the area. The solution that was placed forward by the UN, was to divide the entire Palestine into two parts. One part, to be converted into a Jewish state. The other part, to be converted into the country of Palestine, an Arab state. This was the solution proposed by the UN.

If you look at the map, you can see that a continuous area in the middle was given to Israel or to the Jewish state. But, you can see that Palestine was given places disconnected with each other. There is a place called West Bank. It lies on the eastern side of Palestine. But, since it lies in the western side of the Jordan river, hence the name. Gaza Strip is on the west side of Palestine. Golan Heights is on the top. These were the areas decided to be given to Palestine. Since, Jerusalem was a place, equally important to both of them, the UN proposed Jerusalem to be considered as an international area. The Jews accepted the solution.

Arab-Israel Wars

In 1948, as part of this, the Jewish country called Israel was established. But, the Arab population in the Arabian region did not like Israel, which was a Jewish country. The Arab nations that attained independence recently at the time, joined together and formed the Arab League. They declared a war against Israel. In this Arab-Israel war, Israel defeats the Arab League and wins the war, And because of this, they occupy more areas than what was given to Israel, including Jerusalem and can be seen expanding the territory of Israel. With that, the Arab-Israel conflict starts. Later on, in 1967, the second war took place. This was called the Six-Days War. The war that happened for six days. Israel also won the Six-Day War. Not only that, but Israel occupied the Sinai Peninsula that belonged to Egypt, And along with that, other areas which did not belong to Israel were occupied by them after their win.

After this war, the United Nations asked Israel to return the occupied territories. Israel agrees and therefore returned the territories. With this peace agreement, the Arab nations reached a peace agreement with Israel. As a result, the Arab-Israel conflict finally comes to an end. This, then gave way to the Palestine-Israel conflict. When we talk about the Israel-Palestine conflict, we often hear that it is a religious issue. But, in fact, when we hear the word, Palestinian, we should understand only one thing. The ones who lived in Palestine for a long time and wished to have a country of their own, were called Palestinians. We should not misinterpret, Palestinians as a group of Arabs or Muslims. When we talk about the Palestine-Liberation organization that came later, we can see many people from different religions working together in it. Therefore the Arab-Israel conflict became the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Palestine-Liberation Organization

In 1960, an organization called Palestine-Liberation Organization was formed, under Yasar Arafath. Their first demand was to remove the Jews from the area and convert the entire area into the country of Palestine. But, later on, they accepted the conditions of the UN and said that they only need the areas of Palestine, That was allotted to them by the UN. Around this time, a very extreme movement could be seen from the side of Israel. What they did is that, the places that were considered as Palestine, specially in places like the West Bank, The citizens of Israel aka the Jewish citizens, were given a chance to make a settlement there. They settled there by claiming to have three reasons.

1. Religious reasons.
2. Political reasons to claim the ownership of the place.
3. Cheap housing programs which was started by the Israel government.

So, Israel citizens started settling in the demarcated areas of Palestine. Under the pretext of their defence, Israel-Police and Israel-Military started their working there So, this was a very extreme movement from Israel. So, as a response to this extreme movement by Israel.

Intifada

in 1980, a new movement, called Intifada was formed. Intifada means shaking of Palestine. Although at first, they began with a decision to boycott Israel, which was a more peaceful start to the movement, It could be seen that, after a while, the movement progressed into a violent form. Israel-Palestinian issue was converted into a very violent movement problem. Hamas, an extremist and militant organization started their activities in Gaza. Even though they did not go into Gaza with their militant activities, their social service activities received support from people. So, a lot of violence starts becoming a part of Israel Palestine issue. Later, we can see that the Israel-Palestinian problem starts getting worse. So, the international community is seen coming forward to solve this problem. In 1993, under the initiative of America, Oslo Accord was signed.

Oslo Accord

Oslo Accord is an agreement between two countries, to end all their activities and to create two nations, i.e, Israel and Palestine, as said by the UN before, and also to start an independent administrative system for Palestine. Both the countries decide to follow these guidelines in their agreement. But the extremist organizations in Israel and Palestine like Hamas, and Zionist organizations in Israel, are not ready to accept this. They are not ready to move forward with this agreement by saying that, only if a nation is created, In the way they want it to be, not by dividing the country into Israel-Palestine, but as an independent country of their own, will they agree to move forward.

As a result, they are not able to move forward according to the agreement and this progresses into further violence. Even though there were a lot of international efforts to restore peace here, it didn’t work. Between the years of 2000-2005, we can see the second Intifada movement in Oslo Accord. In the future, we were able to see the continuation of this movement. So if we look at it in a way, the problem starts with the colonialist aspirations of the Europeans and the British. Not only that, the extremist organizations who were not ready to move forward with this agreement, are the ones who made the Israel-Palestine issue worse. Now, what is the problem associated with Jerusalem area now?

Jerusalem Conflict

As I mentioned earlier, Jerusalem was a special place. It was a special place because for Christians, Muslims and Jews, it was a holy place. If we look at Muslims, there is a mosque called Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem. After Mecca and Medina, it is the third most special place in Jerusalem. It is a mosque related to the last days of Muhammad Nabi. If we look at Christians, Jerusalem is considered as the place of crucifixion of the Jesus Christ. So it is a holy place for them. If we look at Jews, there was a very holy temple called the second temple in Jerusalem. Some of its broken walls now remain in Jerusalem. Later, Jerusalem was divided into Western and Eastern Jerusalem. Now most of its control is now in Israel’s hands. However, Muslim citizens from Palestine come to Jerusalem in order to pray in this mosque. So, what happened now?

Protest

An unofficial news had been spread that, the Israeli government was planned to build a synagogue in Jerusalem. Because of this, there have been small to big protests in both Israel and Palestine. Fearing that the people are planning to organize a protest against the construction of the synagogue in Jerusalem, And also in response to the other actions taken by the govt, The Israeli government issued a law that only 10,000 people can come to the mosque to pray or to take part in Iftar, each day. Therefore, they are protesting as part of the realisation that the Israeli government has brought restrictions in a place, that also belong to them. In the beginning, this was a small protest. To bring this down, the Israeli government uses police and other forces. As part of this, extremist groups like Hamas uses missiles and rocket to attack Israel. The Israeli government retaliates using missiles and rockets to attack Palestine.

Gaza Strip

Palestinian Hamas militants fired thousands of rockets at Israel from the Gaza Strip on 14 October 2023. Soon after, large numbers infiltrated through Gaza by land, air and sea routes. At the time of the festival, they attacked the Israelites who had died. Wherever they fell, they resorted to shooting and destruction.

It Is said that at least 100 people died and more than 1000 people were injured in the attacks. Militants have taken hostages in border areas along with civilians as well as soldiers. Scenes of them and captured Israeli military vehicles being paraded through the streets of Gaza have gone viral on social media. Israel, dismayed by the unexpected attack, quickly mobilized its army. Fierce fighting is going on everywhere between the two sides. The country is shaking with the sound of firing, mortars and rockets.

So in conclusion, this is not an issue that happened over a day or two. It is something that has been going on for a century. It is a problem that has been going on for the past 100 years. I hope you have understood what is the problem of Israel and Palestine.

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