The Arab Israeli Conflict

The Arab-Israeli conflict is perhaps the most complex political issue of our time. Many have resorted to simply blaming one side or the other. If people took the time to understand the history and correct the misconceptions a potential path forward for the Palestinians comes in place. The main reason as to why the conflict continues is because both Palestinians and Israelis have been fighting over land for the past 66 years.

The initiation of the conflict began roughly when World War One broke out in 1914; up to this date there has not been any conflict between Jews and Palestinians. In the 1800’s Zionism came up in result of Europe’s anti-Semitism, which is the “hostility toward or prejudice against Jews or Judaism.” Zionists have the idea that “Jewish people should have a national home of their own preferably in the middle east.” The Jews lived in the middle east thousand of years ago and trace much of their heritage to Jerusalem so the Zionists felt that Jews should be able to return to this area and set up a national home. The Ottoman Empire was struggling leading up to World War One because of the vast competition they had from other major world powers such as the British Empire. It was during this war when the British issued a letter for support known as the Balfour Declaration, which advocated for a Jewish national home in Palestine.

After World War II the British gave Palestine to the United Nations, in 1947 the UN resolved to “partition the country into two states. Roughly 57% of Palestine would become a Jewish state while 43% was to be a Palestinian Arab state.” The Palestinians rejected the plan in support that the Arab league declared the partition illegal. There was a lot of violence in Palestine during this time...

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...iatives.” This led the Palestinians to lose international support.

Since 1967, numerous illegal Israeli settlements have been built on Palestinian land and the occupied territory, “housing more then 400,000 Jewish settlers.” Even since 1967, there has been a lot of divergence, unrest, bereavement, war and obliteration on both sides. There was a war in 1973 and two intifadas Palestinian uprising one that began in 1987 and one that began in 2000 that brings us into the 21st century. There have been many attempts in resolving conflicts however; the conflict is a matter of whether the Palestinians should be permitted to form their own independent country and government in an area that was once theirs yet now occupied and currently the nation of Israel. The Arab- Israeli conflict is historically a fuse that ignites regional battle due to the occupation of Palestine.