Yasser Arafat Research Paper

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.

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

David Ben-Gurion (the head of the world Zionist Organization) made Israel a nation-state, in may of 1948. The jews had a goal to create a homeland in the Palestine area for many years, this goal grew after WW2. The violence towards the Jewish in WW2, the united nations decided what the jews had control of. They decided that Palestine was going to be split into sections, one for the jews, one for the Arabs, and another for the jerusalem and bethlehem. A vote was taken, and soon everyone signed it. The Arab-Israeli war of 1948 was resulted in Israel's independence. The war was between the Arabs and israel. There was tension between the jews and the muslim Arab for control of “their” land. The dividing of Palestine caused the tension to end and civil war erupted. This caused many palestine Arabs to flee and become refugees and 700 000 jews flee to Israel, because they were expelled from their country. Israel's independence caused tension to form and created more problems for the

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.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most controversial conflicts in modern history. The expansion of Israel since 1947 is seen as the beginning of the conflict, although its origins go back to the end of the 19th century, when Jewish immigration to Palestine began to increase. Since the start of the conflict, several peace negotiations have been carried out, resulting in variable degrees of success.

Zionists and Palestinian Arabs wanted individual nations and both felt they had a claim to Palestine. Shortly after in 1947, the United Nations General Assembly Resolution (UNGAR) called for a partition, which divided the country so that each state would have a majority of its own population. This divide meant that some of the Jewish settlements would fall within the proposed Arab state while an extremely large number of Palestinian Arabs would become part of the proposed Jewish state. (Beinin and Hajjar 2014). A year later in May, Israel unilaterally declared their independence and the State of Israel was established. This of course started a war, and neighboring Arab states invaded Israel almost immediately. During this war about 750,000 Arab Palestinians fled to Lebanon, the West Bank, and the Gaza strip. (http://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/official-statements/%E2%80%9Cpalestine-refugees-unresolved-question-time-syria-crisis%E2%80%9D) Also during this fight, Israel expanded its borders far beyond the UN partition lines, leaving Egypt to take hold of the Gaza Strip & Jordan to control the West

Many have tried to find a path towards peace and all have failed, but some have been close to compromise. Over the last 70 years, part of the land of Israel has changed hands multiple times. Before 1947, the land of Israel was under a British Mandate, but during the War of Independence, the Zionists gained control of the British Mandate land as well as Palestinian land. “Jordan annexed the West Bank, while Egypt assumed control of Gaza."(Pro-con) This land becomes known as the State of Israel, “open for Jewish immigration and for...Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants”(Ben-Gurion) and is recognized by the UN. This establishment caused controversy, the Muslims living in the land of Israel were being labeled as refugees and the tension between the Israelis and Palestinians. 20 years later another war broke out, the Six Day War, when Israel found out the surrounding Arab countries were planning an attack on Israel. Being proactive, Israel attacked, destroying military resources of Egypt. The war broke out strong. Israel was surrounded on all sides and outnumbered. But Israel fought back strong and in the end the “Israeli army occupying Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, Syria's Golan Heights, and Jordan's West Bank.”(Pro-con) In just six days the Land of Israel more than doubled in size and Israel survived another war. But, the Palestinians were even more enraged because their

“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

Avi Schlaim traces the debate between new and old historians of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, by identifying six contentions apparent on both sides. He sorts through and debunks several myths that have become natural to the history of the founding of the State of Israel. Although many of these myths are not new, Schlaim argues access to archival documents, beginning in 1978, now provides the new historiography a backing by hard documentary evidence. On top of this new hard evidence, Israel’s political climate also changed with the shocking invasion of Lebanon in 1982, which ended the image of Israel as “peace lovers.” Prime Minister Menachem Begin admitted the invasion was a “war of choice,” resulting in the downfall of the national consensus

He was then released from prison two years later in a prisoner swap. After he got out of prison, in 1987, he founded/created Hamas in 1987, during the Palestinian intifada. Hamas carried out civilian attacks and used suicide bombers to kill many of their victims. Ahmed Yassin said in an interview, that he can’t justify the killing of the innocent people, and he can feel pain when the innocent people are killed from the bombings, but he said the Israelis need to stop killing their people first, until the stop the suicide bombings. He also stated during the interview that, when the first blood it spilt from the suicide bomber, he goes into paradise, while all of the victims and the Jews go straight to hell. Then in 1989, he then again was charged for the ordering of killing an Israeli soldier, and as a result, Yassin was sentenced to prison for life. But then again in a deal arranged by King Hussein of Jordan, he was freed, in exchange for two Israeli agents who tried to kill a Hamas leader in Jordan. During his time in prison his image/ importance grew for the Palestinian people. He continued to spread the idea that peace is not an option, only unless the Israeli army stops killing Palestinian people first. He also continued to bomb many places arranged by Hamas, including one in December 2001, which killed 25

The Arab- Israeli Conflict AO1: "What are the main differences between the beliefs and attitudes of the Jews/Israelis and the Arabs/ Palestinians towards the land now called Israel with the Gaza Strip and the West Bank? The Arab- Israeli conflict is one of the most interesting conflicts that have strained relations between the Muslims and the Jews which involves a small but significant piece of land known as Palestine (Israel today). This conflict is not rooted in modern times though, as this section of my coursework will explain. Both groups have extremely strong views on this topic, both historically and religiously important, which has lead to this stalemate between them.

At the time these problems arose Mahmoud Abbas was only thirteen and his family was fleeing to Syria during the 1948 Palestine war. He grew up around the fighting. By the 1950s he took a great deal of interest in the politically aspects of his state. Abbas was the Prime Minister of Palestine. Currently is the president of the Palestine National Authority. Although, Mahmoud Abbas at the beginning of the conflict had little to do. He has become a huge role in hopes of creating peace between the two groups of people. The disagreement viewed from the outside perspectives are religious differences and people cannot come to terms with it.

In this uprising, a young teenage boy started throwing a rock at the Israeli soldiers who were holding machine guns. As more people saw what the boy was doing, more people started to do the same. They were beaten and put in jail, but they kept on throwing a rock out of hatred for them. Shortly after, Arafat denounces all terrorism, which made Israel believe that maybe they didn't need a two-state solution is the Palestinians were no longer using terrorism. The bombings did not stop witch only made the Israelis frustrated at the Palestinians. When Itzah Rabin, the leader of Israelis who wanted peace, died the peace process was stopped and a lot of violence started. Most Israelis now believe that the two-state solution is not even an option because they believe that they can defeat the Palestinians with violence. Also, some Israelis don't want a two-state because people like Kami say “the fact of Israelis control of 100 percent of Palestinians is fundamentally why you can't have a two-state

Both of these approaches would pave the way for Hamas’ seemingly bipolar tenure in Palestine. By the 1970’s, the Palestinian population was disillusioned by secularism, Westernization and materialism, and many looked toward the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic revival as an alternative . A drastic turn of events led to niche in Palestine that a more violent facet of the Muslim Brotherhood was willing to fill.

     Ariel Sharon is a big bully. I do not justify Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians, and I do believe that Yasser Arafat supported terror strikes, but Sharon knows that he has the upper hand in the whole situation. America is going to stand behind Israel, so Sharon makes all these crazy demands from the Palestinians. He will give them some of their land, but Israel will control the air space in the new Palestinian territory. Of course Palestine is not going to agree to that, demands like that are absurd, but Sharon has the world on his side because when he blows up a house full of Palestinians, it is referred to as a military action, but when Palestinians attack Israel it is looked at as terrorism.     President Bush and his cabinet of maniacs has created this entire scare of terror attacks, and Ariel Sharon was the first person to jump on that bandwagon. This was exactly what he