Palestine Waged War

Within the span of a few years, the political, social, and cultural climate in Palestine was whiplashed from being under the control of the Ottoman Empire, to colonization and state building by Jewish immigrants from the diaspora, to British rule through mandate, and finally the establishment of the Israeli state. The rhetoric that was used in both Zionist and Arab Palestinian propaganda created a situation that was very complex under the surface, and needs to be approached with delicate care. Taking this into consideration, as historians it is important to remain as objective as possible when reading documents from both the Jewish and Arab side because they both will show a view of the conflict that will benefit them most. As situations change, so will these views and the tone of newspapers and consumerism will change along with it.

For ages the Jewish population did not have a place to call home. They had been wandering around deserts, were once slaves in Egypt, but didn’t have any land to their name. Following the Holocaust, after many Jews had been persecuted by Hitler and the Nazis, a good portion of the overall amount of Jews in the world let alone Europe had been exterminated. As a result, Harry Truman and the UN suggested Israel, a homeland for the Jews. Tensions had been growing throughout the beginning of the 20th Century regarding the Palestinian area in the Middle East. This area was off to the side of Asia, near Africa. When the Jews and Arabs were offered part of this land, war broke out and still continues today. Even though a war happened as a result

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the one of the world’s oldest conflicts, and it is still an ongoing problem in the world. Zionists and Arabs: two groups with conflicting beliefs who both claim Israel as their own. In wake of the Holocaust the U.N decided to gift the Jews a homeland for the lives lost in the genocide. In 1947, the U.N Partition divided the land of Israel (Historic Palestine) into two separate states: Arab and Jewish. Since then, the state of Israel has been the center of conflict between the Arabs and the Zionists. As time passed the Zionists gained more land from winning the Six-Day War, and consequently the Palestinians had to live as refugees in other Arab countries. Additionally, more than 75% of the land belonged to

Any reference to conflict turns history into a reservoir of blame. In the presence of conflict, narratives differ and multiply to delegitimize the opponent and to justify one’s own action. Narratives shape social knowledge. The Israeli Palestinian conflict, both Jews and Muslims, view the importance of holding the territories through religious, ideological, and security lenses, based on belief that Palestine was given by divine providence and that the land belongs to either the Israelis or Palestinian’s ancestral home. Understanding these perspectives is required for understanding Palestinians’ and especially Israel’s strategy and role in entering the Oslo peace process. Despite

On Friday night, the University of Washington played host to three of today’s greatest historians concerning the Israel/Palestine issue. Professor Anita Shapira, known for her contextual history of Israel ignited the room with her powerful comments about the circumstances for Arab removal from Israeli lands. Professor James Gelvin tiptoed on several touchy subjects, reiterating his concentration with causality history, nevertheless his historical background gave insight to nationalistic movements both groups have. The third historian, Professor Ilan Pappe concentrated the bulk of his talk on explaining the movement of Palestinian refugees while advocating for the acknowledgement of Israeli brutality in some Arab villages. Naturally, as it was the first time all three sides had come head-to-head, the debate got heated. This was especially true when comparing ideas of what the occupied territory should be described as. History of Modern Israel/Palestine student Erika Arias was able to mediate the debate, defuse tensions and at times draw laughs from the audience.

Since the UN partition of Israel and Palestine in 1947, Israel has been placed in many instances of conflict between the Jewish migrants to the region and the Palestinian natives. Several conflicts resulted in open, declared war, such as the First Arab-Israeli War of 1948-1949, and the Yom Kippur War of 1973. In addition, Israel has been involved in the occupation of the West Bank and the blockade of the Gaza Strip. After the last open war, Israel’s occupation of the West Bank has been marked by the military governorate, taking political and institutional control of the region that is ethnically and religiously different than the population that resides in the Jewish state of Israel.

Between 1920 and 1939 Jewish population in Palestine increased by over 320.000 people. In fact in 1938 Jewish population was under 30% of the total population of Palestine. New Jewish population focused on buying lands and areas from the non-Palestinian Arab landowners, which made the Palestinian farmers leave areas were they grow up, worked and lived. By controlling land and labor British government hoped to establish more secure society inside Palestine, all this made tightened situation between new Jewish people and old Palestinians in 20th and 30th of the 20th century. Also all this made old Palestinians to raise up against British government as nation in 1936. Unfortunately they didn’t get results what they wanted, with help of Jewish militaries British government brutally suppressed the Palestinian revolution. To not experience it again British government issued paper that eliminated Jewish immigration in Palestine and called for establishment of joint Arab and Jewish Palestine within ten years. As result it made things worse, because Palestinians didn’t wanted to wait ten years for their own state and Zionists were angry about limiting immigration of new Jewish people at time when Jews need to leave

Before anyone can comprehend the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one must understand the theory of Zionism. Theodor Herzl was the first Jew to have the idea of creating Israel. He was a witness of the Dreyfus affair, in which a Jewish officer was accused of treason, solely because he was Jewish. Herzl also witnessed mobs of people shouting “Death to the Jews”. This was the last straw for Herzl. Herzl decided that there needed to be a change so he made it one of his life goals to create a successful movement in which Jews founded a Jewish state. One of his main arguments was that discrimination against Jews could be eliminated if they had their own Jewish State, and so modern Zionism was formed. The idea of modern Zionism is so pertinent to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because much of the reason for Israel becoming a Jewish state is behind the fact that Jews were perpetrated throughout the years before Zionism even came into play of the situation.

In 1948, the Zionist movement realized its goal of creating a national home for the Jewish people by founding the State of Israel. Zionists had been working toward this goal for decades, but only won decisive international support in the aftermath of the Holocaust, a catastrophe that supported the Zionist argument that the Jewish people would only be safe in their own state, where they could live as they chose and defend their culture. Indeed, the Holocaust was the single most important factor in the creation of Israel, in large part because the international community was shocked by the scale of the Holocaust and felt responsible for aiding the Zionist project.

His article argues that the Israelis won the Arab- Israeli War of 1948 and therefore were able to shape its history through their lens, but their version of the conflict is flawed and the information now available undermines what they claimed to be true. He stated that the Zionist version of the truth is just propaganda, spread in a way to make them look like innocent bystanders and the victims and the Arabs as the

“The Zionists came and destroyed a sovereign Palestinian State and then kicked out all of its inhabitants forcing them to be perennial refugees. Just as bad the Zionists then erased all vestiges of this ancient Palestinian State and built their Imperialistic Racist State on the ruins of Palestine. This all happened in 1948 – 1949. There will never peace in the Middle East until the Zionist entity is destroyed and the indigenous Palestinian people are allowed to reestablish their state of

Israel successfully fought off the pan-Arab army while other Israeli combatants terrorized and depopulated the countryside. Ilan Pappe termed the depopulation of Palestinians as “ethnic cleansing” but can this phrase be properly used when discussing the events of 1947-1948? To answer this question one must determine if there is a well-established definition of the phrase ‘ethnic cleansing’ and also establish that this was the intent of the Zionists, both initially and subsequently. This can be determined by examining Zionist policy and action previous to the U.N partition plan and after, which will demonstrate that the term is appropriately applied to the situation by Pappe.

During World War I (WWI), in the year of 1914, Palestine was under the control of the Ottoman Empire. In 1914, the Arabs started to fight for the Allies which consisted of France, Great Britain, and the United States. After the Allies won the war, the Arabs were under the impression that they were going to have their own self government in which they weren't. In 1919, the British mandate was issued which gave Britain complete control over Palestine. This angered Arabs. This caused a number of riots which contributed to many deaths of Jews and Arabs. During the 1930’s, the amount of Jews in Palestine increased drastically due to the amount of Nazis groups which were lead by Adolf Hitler. Do to the shodden picek in jews in 1936 Arabs started

Tensions between the Arabs and Zionists started after the 1800’s when the immigration of the European Jews to Palestine was on the increase. The population of Palestine from 1882-1883 was 468,000 and the population consisted of 408 Muslims, 44,000 Christians and 15,000 Jews. During this time Palestine was under the Ottoman Empire.

The conflict between Israel and Palestine is just one of the many facets that have shaped modern day politics in the Middle East. It is a conflict rooted in generations of violence, discrimination and prejudice that is complicated by a history older than any of the modern day superpowers. Ever since the creation of the state of Israel by the 1947 UN partition of Palestine