The Arab-Israeli Conflict

Historically, Israel and Palestine did not exist as a political entity at the end of the 19th century. The land that would go on to host the Arab-Israeli conflict was once ruled by the Ottoman Empire under the name of the Vilayet of Beirut and the District of Jerusalem. The native population was mainly made up of Arab-Palestinians adhering to Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. Arab society was cohesive and stable under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. When the Young Turk Revolution erupted in 1908, it inspired some Arabs in the region to seek autonomy and independence from the Ottoman Empire. This was the beginning of Arab nationalism, which the British Empire manipulated to its advantage when World War I started in 1914. During the same period, European Jews showed a desire to establish their own homeland in Palestine, especially after they had suffered from discrimination, displacement, segregation, and systematic killing. Consequently, a movement called “The Love of Zion” was established in the late 19th century. Its main objective was to assist Jews in their settlement of Palestine. In fact, the movement succeeded in its objective, leading to the creation of several Jewish settlements near Galilee and Jaffa. It is worth noting that these early settlements resembled the Zionist ideology of Jewish return to the land of their ancestors in modern time. Fraser stated that, “the Zionist movement spent the next decade [from 1904 to 1914] expanding its base amongst the Jews of the Diaspora and building new settlements in Palestine” (2008, 6). Between the Arab inspiration of independence and the Jewish desire of a homeland in Palestine, the roots of Arab-Israel conflict was planted.

In World War I, the Ottoman Empire aligned itself with...

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... Palestinians and Israelis is very hard to resolve because it becomes more affiliated with the region’s interstate conflicts, natural resources, balance of power, and political influence.

Works Cited

Amirahmadi, Hooshang, ed. 1992. The United States and the Middle East: A Search for New Perspectives. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press.

Baumel, Judith Tydor. 2001. The Holocaust Encyclopedia. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Fraser, T. G. 2008. The Arab-Israeli Conflict, Third Edition (Studies in Contemporary History). 3rd ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Manning, Martin J., and Clarence R. Wyatt, eds. 2010. Encyclopedia of Media and Propaganda in Wartime America [2 volumes]. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO.

Rydelnik, Michael. 2007. Understanding the Arab-Israeli Conflict: What the Headlines Haven't Told You. Revised ed. Chicago: Moody Publishers.