Background on Palestine

By Z
January 8, 2024

Israel was founded by the result of a movement with the goal of returning to their promised land; referred to as Zionism. By the 20th century, it was gaining support in powerful circles, with Britain issuing the Balfour Declaration calling for a Jewish homeland in 1917. Up until the early 1900s, Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire, a religiously diverse land where Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived alongside each other. The beginning of the Zionist movement in Europe led to a call for the establishment of an independent Jewish state, ideally in Palestine.

The first wave of European Jews started to emigrate. By the end of World War 1, the Ottoman Empire Collapses and Palestine is under British rule. In 1917, The United Kingdom declared its support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The need for a space dedicated for Jewish folk grew insurmountable after the tragedy of the Holocaust. The number of Jewish settlers grew, fueling tensions between the Arab and Jewish people. The violence between the two sides caused Britain to bow out and let the UN take over. The UN approves a plan to split Palestine into 2 states: Jewish-Isreal, Arab-Palestine. The city of Jerusalem, which is sacred to the Muslims, Christians, and Jewish people, is now a UN controlled international zone. The Jewish people accept the UN partition plan and declare independence as the state of Israel. Neighboring Arab countries object to the land division. This marks the beginning of the first Arab-Israeli war. Israel is victorious and takes the land intended for the Palestinian state under the UN. 700,000 Palestinians become refugees. The day is remembered as “al Nakba”, translated “the Catastrophe”.

Israelis start settling into Gaza and the West Bank resulting in an Israeli-Palestinian struggle that gives rise to the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization). Their main goal is to liberate Palestine from Israel by any means necessary. Fighting goes on for years. The PLO eventually accepts dividing the land between Palestine and Israel, but the conflict doesn’t end there. More settlers make their way into Israeli occupied Palestinian territories. The international community considers this illegal. The frustration of the Palestinians leads to an uprising. As a result Hamas is born, a political movement committed to armed resistance determined to fight against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the creation of an Islamic Palestinian state in Israel's place. Peace offers have been offered to Palestinians but none were considered acceptable. 

The United States, Israel, and the PLO signed the Oslo Agreement, to split the West Bank into three sections. One section under full Israeli control contains the majority of West Bank agricultural land, water, and minerals. Palestinians have limited access to these. Further peace talks prove unsuccessful. Palestinians lose hope, resulting in a second uprising. Israel begins building walls and setting checkpoints to control Palestinian movement. 2005, Israel withdraws from Gaza but continues settlements in the West Bank. Hamas gains power in Gaza and splits from the Palestinian authority seeing it as being too secular. The West Bank and Gaza are now under separate leadership; Hamas over the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian National Authority over the West Bank. Israel imposes a blockade restricting any form of movement by land, air, or sea. Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023. This finally drew global attention to the Gaza Strip. The original number of Israeli casualties measured at 1,400, later adjusted down to 1,200 by Israel.