Dating back to the early 20th century, the Israel-Palestine conflict has been one of the longest-running conflicts in history. The horrors of this controversial conflict have echoed for hundreds of years while the world has remained silent. What started off as a conflict for land soon turned into what can only be called ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians by the Israeli government.
Background
To understand the roots of this conflict, we must go back centuries. Let me break it down to you. Years ago, Israel was merely a promised land for the Jews. There existed only Palestine, which was a small region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. Judaism and Christianity are believed to have emerged from Palestine. Throughout the history of Palestine, it has been taken over by many powers of different cultures and religions through violent and political conflicts. Before World War I, the Ottoman regime ruled Palestine for around 400 years from 1517 to 1917 and was occupied predominantly by Arabs. Most of the Jews during that time period lived in Europe outside Palestine.
The origin of the fight can be traced back to the 19th century which saw the rise of Zionism and Arab nationalism. The Zionist movement sought to establish a haven for the Jews in Palestine as they believed this state to be their historic homeland and their desire to return to Zion has been a part of their religion for over a millennium. They referred to this region as the Land of Israel.
Upon the end of World War I, the British took control of the region and the League of Nations gave Great Britain control over Palestine and allowed the creation of a national homeland for the Jewish through the Balfour Declaration. The immigration of Jews following this caused massive clashes between the Arabs and the Jews and lead to a civil war.
In 1947, the United Nations proposed a partition of Palestine into two states, an independent Arab and Jewish State and the city of Jerusalem to be an international territory. This was met by strong opposition from Palestinian Arabs while the Jew leaders accepted it. The Jews declared themselves independent and the State of Israel came to be in May 1948.
This was the catalyst to the never-ending civil war that ravages the region even now.
The war of 1948, which the Palestinians called Nakba, resulted in the victory of Israel despite the intervention of neighboring Arab countries. This war led to the displacement of over 700,000 Palestinians causing a refugee crisis that exists to date. Israel took over more than 2/3rds of the region and even conquered more regions than the proposed Partition Plan.
Only the West Bank and Gaza strip were part of Palestine after the war, which was later taken over by Israel in 1967 during the Six-Day War which was fought between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. Israel conquered Jerusalem during this war.
After the first Intifada, the Palestinian uprising against Israel, in 1993, the first Oslo Accord was signed between Israel and Yasser Arafat, the leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), formed in 1964, which gave Palestine parts of Gaza and West Bank. Another Oslo Accord was signed in 1995, but ultimately the Oslo Accords failed in bringing any form of peace to the region.
The second Intifada began in 2000, due to Ariel Sharon, a Jewish Israeli, visiting the al-Aqsa mosque, which lasted around 5 years filled with riots, fights, and multiple suicide bombings. In 2007, Hamas, a militant group, who won the Palestinian legislative elections defeated Fatah, the political group that controlled PLO and gained control of Gaza. Hamas and Fatah later agreed to a unified Palestine in 2014. Currently, Mahmoud Abbas is the President of Palestine.
Today
Today, Palestinians are living an oppressed life in fear of being killed or displaced every day. While Palestinians occupy regions of the West Bank and Gaza, the Israeli government continues to conquer and disrupt areas that were agreed to be under Palestine control.
The Israeli Supreme Court in February declared Israelis the right to many homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, which will lead to the forced eviction of Palestinian families from their homes for many years. Al Aqsa, which is the third holiest site of Islam, has become the center of violence with vicious attacks led by Israeli police on May 7th on Palestinian worshippers, who remained after prayers to protest the forced expulsion of Palestinians. This followed airstrikes between Hamas and Israel with Israel intercepting many of the rockets with their Iron Dome defense system. This recent Israeli bombardment of Gaza has led to the death of many innocents.
While the recent horrors are garnering mainstream media attention and social media coverage, this is just one of the many untold stories of colonialism and the killing of Palestinians. Their fears stem from lived terrors and experiences of death, imprisonment, starvation, and displacement. The tales of violence and accounts of people including children being bombed, tortured, beat up, spit on, and imprisoned are far worse than what we can imagine.
This is no longer a fight over land or religion, as people often misunderstand. It has not been about that for years. We can no longer stay away from speaking on it calling it ‘controversial’ or ‘too hard to understand’. We cannot stand and watch in silence while an entire community is being ethnically cleansed. To pay no heed to it is ignorance. We must do our part to speak up and show a collective will to end this decade-long suffering of Palestinians.
To stand with Palestine is to stand with humanity.
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