Ancient History
The first recorded incident in this region is when Nebuchadrezzar II of Babylonia, in 587/586 BCE, destroyed the first temple built by King Solomon in in 957 BCE. But we won’t be focusing on this… We will look at Modern History.
Modern History
While both the Jews and the Arab Muslims date their claims to the land back about 2-3 thousand years, the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict began in the early 20th century, around 1900.
It all starts with the Ottoman Empire.
So, this is what the Ottoman Empire looked like in the period between 1800 to 1914.
And this is what it looked like in 1900 – the green shaded area up top and this yellow outlined area as under.
Within the Ottoman Empire, in the area what we now call Israel, all the three – Muslims, Christians and Jews all were living together.
However, around 1900, the Muslims of that region had started to think of themselves as more than just residents of an area but ‘ethnic arabs’ of the land they called Palestine.
Meanwhile, around 1880 the Zionism movement had started to gather steam in Europe, which stated that Judaism as a religion should have a nation state of its own. And after many years of persecution across both Europe and the middle-east, they saw a nation-state for Jews as their only way of ensuring the safety of Jews. And they believed that the land around the first Temple built by King Solomon was that nation. Between 1880 and 1910, approx 30000 Jews moved into that area as well, which the Palestinians had begun to think of as their land…
After World War I, the Ottoman empire broke up and the middle east was split up to be controlled by the British & French with them controlling the areas as under.
Now this is first time ever that this area was officially called ‘The British Mandate of Palestine‘.
The Balfour Declaration – 1917
The Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the British government in 1917 during the First World War announcing support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine.
The opening words of the declaration represented the first public expression of support for Zionism by a major political power. The term “national home” had no precedent in international law, and was intentionally vague as to whether a Jewish state was contemplated.
The intended boundaries of Palestine were not specified, and the British government later confirmed that the words “in Palestine” meant that the Jewish national home was not intended to cover all of Palestine. The second half of the declaration was added to satisfy opponents of the policy, who had claimed that it would otherwise prejudice the position of the local population of Palestine and encourage antisemitism worldwide by “stamping the Jews as strangers in their native lands”.
The declaration called for safeguarding the civil and religious rights for the Palestinian Arabs, who composed the vast majority of the local population, and also the rights and political status of the Jewish communities in other countries outside of Palestine.
Post 1917 Jewish immigration
Meanwhile, the British continued to allow Jewish immigration into that land well into the 1930s as it wasn’t really ever looked at by them as a Palestinian nation-state.
Meanwhile, the Palestinians were unhappy with the massive influx of Jews into what they saw as ‘their land’ and there were frequent clashes between the 2 groups. Jewish Militias (including many women) were also formed to fight both Palestinian Arabs and to try and overthrow the British, to be independent.
Then between the late 1930’s & 1945 came the holocaust and thousands of Jews again fled Europe to settle into British Palestine.
The clashes between the Jews & the Arabs increased significantly between 1945 & 1947, forcing the 1947 UN resolution for British Palestine to be officially split into a separate Jewish state (Israel) and a separate Arab state (Palestine), with Jerusalem becoming an international city.
Now this plan was accepted by Jews but rejected by the Arab side and never recognised. They looked upon Israel as an illegitimate nation and they chose instead to attack Israel to eliminate it as a nation-state.
ATTACK NO 1 against the Israel – 1948.
In 1948, the Palestinians, alongwith the support of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan & Egypt attacked Israel with the intention of capturing all of British Palestine as a nation state of Palestine. Israel both defended itself and counter-attacked, and ended up capturing much more Palestinian territory.
This, in my opinion, Israel was well within their rights to counter-attack and annexe extra territories, since they were the ones being attacked, and hence had all rights to counter-attack.
And hence was redrawn the map, which has gone on to become the official map of the region, since then.
The original partition had allocated 55% of the territory to a Jewish state and 45% of it to a Palestinian Arab state,
The war of 1948 put Israel in control of 78% of the territory. The remaining 22%, comprising Gaza and the West Bank, where Gaza was controlled by Egypt and the West Bank by Jordan.
1949-1967
After 1949, all the Arab states around Israel retaliated against their own Jewish population, for almost 20 years, resulting in Jews being expelled or leaving from almost all the Arab nations around the middle-east & North Africa, and settling in Israel.
The 6-Day Way (1967)
Fought between 5 and 10 June 1967, the 6-day war was a pre-emptive attack by Israel on Egypt, Syria, Jordan.
Relations between Israel and its neighbours had not normalised after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. In 1956 Israel invaded the Sinai peninsula in Egypt, with one of its objectives being the reopening of the Straits of Tiran that Egypt had blocked to Israeli shipping since 1950. Israel was eventually forced to withdraw, but was guaranteed that the Straits of Tiran would remain open. A United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) was deployed along the border, but there was no demilitarisation agreement.
In the months prior to June 1967, tensions became dangerously heightened. Israel reiterated its 1956 position that the closure of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping would be a cause for war. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser announced in May that the Straits would be closed to Israeli vessels, and then mobilised Egyptian forces along the border with Israel, ejecting the UNEF. On 5 June, Israel launched a series of airstrikes against Egyptian airfields, initially claiming that it had been attacked by Egypt, but later stating that the airstrikes were pre-emptive. While the strikes by Israel seem pre-emptive, officially the question of which side caused the war is one of a number of controversies relating to the conflict. Israel killed over 20,000 troops of Egypt, Syria and Jordan in this war, while losing fewer than 1,000 of its own.
In the 6-day war, Israel ended up capturing a lot of territories from its neighbours:
– West Bank from Jordan
– Golan Heights from Syria
– both Gaza & the Sinai peninsula from Egypt.
ATTACK NO 2 against Israel in the form of the Yom Kippur War in 1973
On Oct 6, 1973, on Yom Kippur (Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the year in Judaism), Israel was attacked by a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt & Syria and included Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Jordan, Iraq, Libya Libya, Kuwait, Tunisia, Morocco, Cuba, supported by the Arab League & Soviet Union. The goal was to FINISH off Israel as they did not accept its existence.
To put this in context for Indians – the Yom Kippur war was like India being attacked on Diwali by Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, China, Iran and Russia with the goal of capturing ALL of India and denying the existence of a separate country called India.
Anyway Israel WON the Yom Kippur war (which lasted from Oct 6 – Oct 25, 1973) comprehensively, and not only beat back all the attackers but dealt a massive humiliation to the massive coalition against them.
Camp David Accords 1978
Israel continued holding on to all those territories till 1978, until the Camp David Accords of 1978 where they gave the Sinai peninsula back to Egypt as a part of the peace treaty. They still continue to hold on to the Golan Heights as a buffer zone between themselves & Syria.
There was widespread condemnation of this ‘peace’ between Egypt and Israel with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat being assassinated soon after.
Meanwhile, in 1960, the Palestinians had formed the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organisation) to seek a complete independent Palestinian nation-state comprising of all the land that was British Palestine before 1947. They did not recognise Israel as a country and listed one of its official political aims that Israel as a country should be erased off the map.
While the six-day war & the Yom Kippur war was lost by all anti-Israel forces, the neighbouring Arab/Islamic states continued to support the PLO politically, financially and militarily. Initially it was covert but slowly it became more & more overt, until, in 1982 Israel officially attacked Lebanon for supporting the PLO.
After 1982, the PLO softened its stance and accepted the existence of the nation state of Israel and agreed to divide the land between the 2 countries as per the 1947 UN plan.
However, the conflict continued…
Now while this was happening, Israel, to ensure that the least amount of land can be considered ‘Palestinian’, started to move large groups of people into the Israeli controlled Palestinian territories to create ‘settlements’.
Some of these ‘settlements’ are town-sized and some of them are smaller. These are being actively encouraged by Israel with them offering the land very cheap to jews and also providing protection. Many of them are walled off communities. These ‘settlements’ was a pre-emptive action by Israel to try to have jews ‘occupy’ as much of erstwhile Palestinian territories as possible.
These settlements have grown significantly over the years…
Almost all the settlements have Israeli soldiers guarding them, thereby indirectly giving Israel ‘control’ over these settlements. This is clearly being done by Israel to make it almost impossible for the Palestinians to have a contiguous Palestinian nation-state.
The settlements have been a cunning salami-slicing annexation of West Bank territory by Israel, ongoing for decades.
The Palestinian response – the First Intifada (1987-1993)
Intifada means uprising. Palestinians started the same through protests which soon escalated into violence – including stone pelting, crude bombs and other attacks on Israeli ‘settlements’. Approx 200 Israelis and 1000 Palestinians died in this 6-yr period.
Creation of Hamas and splitting of the PLO
Sometime during the first Intifada a group of Palestinians in Gaza separated from the PLO, which they saw as too soft and secular and formed Hamas, a radical islamist organisation. Hamas, has its primary goal as the complete destruction of Israel. Hamas’ strategy against Israel was much more violent than the PLO.
Oslo Accords (1993)
Signed to bring to end the First Intifada where both Israel & Palestine (represented by the PLO) agreed to make peace and Israel gave over local governance, civic & security control of certain regions in the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority (PLA) – the ‘government’ set up with the PLO as the main party.
This was heavily opposed by the hardliners on both sides. Hamas tried to undertake suicide bombings to sabotage the process.
Even the hard right Israelis protested against Yitzak Rabin for signing the Oslo Accords and giving up control of even the small amount of area that they did, to the PLO. Soon after the peace accords were signed, a far-right Israeli activist shot Yitzak Rabin dead.
Meanwhile conflicts continue across most of Palestine and the Gaza strip and the Isreali areas near those borders.
They continued as a low-grade conflict till the US tried to intervene again and make peace with The Camp David summit in 2000, which was supposed to take the Oslo accords forward towards more peace. However, the summit came out empty with no accords or treaties being agreed upon by both parties – the Israelis or the Palestinians.
The Second Intifada (2000-2005)
The failure of the Camp David Summit seemed to encourage the Palestinians to launch the 2nd intifada. This was much more violent than the first with over 1000 Israelis and over 3200 Palestinians dead. Suicide bombs, car bombs and rocket attacks were used a lot.
The comfort level between Israel & Palestine further declined with Israel building walls and adding checkpoints to limit the movement of Palestinians as much as possible.
Gaza
in 2005, Israel officially withdrew from Gaza, both in control & governance. The 2nd intifada seemed to have had its impact.
The Hamas then won the ‘elections’ that were held in Gaza against the PLO, and threw out all PLO members from Gaza, in a short but definitive ‘civil war’ within Palestine, leading to a clear split between the Palestinian Authority (led by the PLO) which controlled the West Bank and Hamas which controlled Gaza.
After the same, Israel put Gaza into a total blockade cutting off all land / sea access, with the only option for Gaza & Hamas is to use the tunnels that they have built beneath their land going all the way into Egypt, as a source to bring in the arms & ammunitions they need, which they cannot ‘officially’ bring through the Israeli blockade.
The conflict continued with a low-grade conflict between Israel and PLA / PLO in the West Bank and a high grade highly dangerous conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza strip.
Meanwhile, Israel continued its settlement activity in Israeli-controlled West Bank to continue to make it harder and harder for Palestine to have a large contiguous nation-state for itself.
So, what’s happening since 2021? Is it the Third Intifada?
In my opinion, YES, this is the beginning of the 3rd intifada.
It started with 2 incidents at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and an area called Sheikh Jarrah, and an ultimatum by Hamas.
Al Aqsa Mosque
On April 13, Israeli police entered Al-Aqsa mosque and cut the cables of the minarets’ loudspeakers. This was because the azaan was interfering with the Israeli Memorial Day event which was being conducted not too far away from the mosque.
Then on 7 May, Israel restricted the number of people in the Al-Aqsa mosque to 10000 and deployed large numbers of police as around 70,000 worshippers showed up. After the evening prayers, some Palestinian worshippers began throwing previously stockpiled rocks and other objects at Israeli police officers. Police officers fired stun grenades, tear gas & rubber bullets at the protesters in the the mosque compound. More than 300 Palestinians were wounded.
Sheikh Jarrah
Israel’s laws allow Jews to file claims over land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem which they have owned prior to 1948. A Jewish trust bought the land in Sheikh Jarrah from Arab landowners in the 1870s in Ottoman Palestine. However, this is disputed by some Palestinians who have produced Ottoman-era land titles for part of the land. The land came under Jordanian control following the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. In 1956, the Jordanian government, in cooperation with the UN housed 28 Palestinian refugee families on land owned by Jewish trusts, and managed by the Jordanians. 28 houses were built for Palestinian residents under the agreement. After the Six-Day War the area fell under Israeli occupation. In 1972, the Israeli Custodian General registered the properties under the Jewish trusts, which in turn demanded that the tenants pay rent. Eviction orders began to occur in the 1990s. The Jewish trusts sold the homes to another organisation, which has since made repeated attempts to evict the Palestinian residents. Palestinians tenants consider that, since the land is outside Israel’s recognised borders, Israeli courts have no jurisdiction there. Israelis have succeeded in evicting 43 Palestinians from the area in 2002, with three further families since then.
In 2010, the Supreme Court of Israel rejected an appeal by Palestinian families who had resided in 57 housing units in the area of Sheikh Jarrah, who had petitioned the court to have their ownership to the properties recognised. An Israeli court had previously ruled that the Palestinians could remain on the properties under a legal status called “protected tenants” but must pay rent. The move to evict them came after they refused to pay rent and carried out illegal construction on the properties. In 2021 Israel’s Supreme Court was expected to deliver a ruling on whether to uphold the eviction of six Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood on 10 May 2021, after a court ruled that 13 families comprising 58 people must vacate the properties by 1 August. On 9 May 2021, the Israeli Supreme Court delayed the expected decision on evictions for 30 days.
Hamas’ Ultimatum
Hamas delivered an ultimatum to Israel to remove all its police and military personnel from both the Al-Aqsa mosque site & Sheikh Jarrah by 10 May, 6pm. Minutes after the deadline passed, Hamas started fired more than 150 rockets into Israel from Gaza and orchestrated riots by Israeli Arabs in Lod and other cities. The rocket attacks continued for days, almost all of them blocked & thwarted by Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system.
Israel has hit back by demolishing many buildings and terrorist bases in Gaza and conducting air-raids on Hamas strongholds. Thereafter, there was a cease-fire between the parties as they ‘negotiate’. Nothing has come of the negotiations yet.
Israel , PLA, Hamas & elections
For several reasons too complicated to get into here, Israel’s electoral politics is unique in a way with a different kind of representative democracy. This unique situation has made it very difficult over the past few years for any one political party to have a clear majority and hence there have been a series of coalition governments in Israel of all kinds and often-times bringing together political parties who are rather diverse in their political positions.
In 3&1/2 years between April 2019 & November 2022, Israel has had 5 elections. There has been serious political instability, which has also led to a blow-hot-blow-cold interaction between Israel, PLA and Hamas.
Meanwhile, the West Bank has not had elections for over 2 decades. And the Gaza strip has no concept of elections, since it is controlled by Hamas, an Islamist regime.
2022 a bad year for Palestine
2022 has been the worst year for Palestine & Palestinians for a long long time. Nearly 200 Palestinians have died in the West Bank & East Jerusalem in IDF (Israel Defence Forces) raids or conflict with the Israeli armed forces.
2022 November – the UN gets involved
On 11th November 2022, the UN adopted of a resolution to seek an International Court of Justice opinion on Israel’s “prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.” The newly elected PM, Benjamin Netanyahu called the referral “despicable” and said “The Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land nor occupiers in our eternal capital Jerusalem and no U.N. resolution can distort that historical truth.”
Bloody January
January 2023 has been one of the worst and bloodiest months in the Israel – Palestine conflict. There have been deaths on over 20 out of the 28 days that have passed this month. The worst being that during a raid on Jenin camp, nine Palestinians including a 60-year-old woman were killed. Israel’s military stated that it was response to intelligence message about imminent attacks by Islamic Jihad against Israelis. And when they raided the camp, they were attacked and hence had to retaliate.
In response to the Jenin raid, in a shooting attack by a Hamas gunman, seven Israelis were killed and three wounded while they were praying in a synagogue in Neve Yaakov, East Jerusalem.
Things are very tense right now and looks like the intifada which started in 2021 has raised its ugly head again.
The rest of the region
Since the 1978 Camp David Accords, most of the Arab countries around have made peace with Israel though most had not signed any peace treaties, though other treaties have been signed, including the the most-recently signed Abraham Accords between UAE, Bahrain & Israel, signed in September 2020 in the presence of Donald Trump.
In Summary
Is Israel’s fear legitimate? Yes.
Israel is a population of 10million people, surrounded by 250mn people many of who have attacked Israel in the past – twice officially with the stated goal of seeking its elimination. And they continue to covertly support Hamas. That makes Israel extra wary and they continue to be aggressive against their neighbours. However, given that their military prowess is now significantly greater than any of their neighbours, they can feel rest-assured that they really have no credible fear of annihilation. That said, I don’t think Israel will ever trust any country ever again.
Is Gaza an open-air jail? Yes.
The only source for Gazans for employment is Israel. Whenever it wants, it blocks off access to Gazans to its areas and unemployment shoots through the roof there. Poverty is rampant and there is little or no ‘freedom’. The tunnels are the only solace they have but those too are regularly targeted by Israel with Hamas building new ones continually. Common Gazans rely heavily on foreign aid. Overall, it is quite a horrible situation for them.
Is Hamas a terrorist organisation? Yes.
They are not secular. They are an islamist organisation. They attack civilians. They use women & children as human shields. They intentionally set up their military bases in residential areas. They continue to have their official stated goal of the annihilation of Israel.
Is the Fatah / PLO become weak. Yes.
The softening of their stand against Israel does not seem to have worked. They lost elections in Gaza. They almost lost elections in the West Bank too. While they have strong control over the Palestinian refugee camps which exist in neighbouring Arab countries, however, they are nowhere close to their peak power.
How can this end?
The only way this ends, as every smart person has re-iterated, is with the formation of the 2-states as per the UN 1947 plan with Jerusalem being an independent city-state or it being split on the lines of Berlin.
After being attacked twice after that, one of them being on the holiest of days of the Jewish calendar, will Israel ever trust Palestinians and the Arabs around them? I don’t know. Also, if the Hamas & the Fatah (the re-structured PLA) can’t get together, then it may need to become 3 countries.
I don’t think the aim of Israel to control all of the West Bank and Gaza OR the aim of the Palestinians / Hamas of eliminating the state of Israel, will ever happen. It’s best that both parties come to that realisation and make peace with each other and with the idea that there will be 2(or 3) nations!