The Israeli-Palestinian war, which has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions, began with colonization over a century ago. Western media, academics, military experts, and foreign politicians have called the Israeli-Palestinian conflict intractable, challenging, and stalemate for decades…
Here is a summary of one of the world’s longest wars, known as the Israel-Palestine war:
Arthur Balfour, Britain’s foreign secretary, wrote Lionel Walter Rothschild on November 2, 1917.
The British government pledged to build a Jewish national home in Palestine in the Balfour Declaration. From 1923 to 1948, a British Mandate allowed mass Jewish immigration and protests and strikes. Palestinians worried about changing demographics and British expropriation of their property for Jewish settlement. The Balfour Declaration is important to Palestinian history.
The 1936–1939 Arab Revolt was a response to British colonialism and Jewish immigration. The Arab National Committee protested with a nationwide strike, tax withholding, and Jewish goods boycott. British ruthlessly suppressed the six-month strike, resulting in many arrests and property demolitions. The Palestinian peasant resistance organization spearheaded the second revolution against British forces and colonialism. Britain had 30,000 troops in Palestine by the second half of 1939, causing bombings, curfews, and administrative detentions. The British formed armed formations and the “counterinsurgency force” Special Night Squads with Jewish settlers. The pre-state settler community surreptitiously developed weapons factories and imported armaments for the Haganah, the Jewish paramilitary that subsequently formed the Israeli army.
Jewish population in Palestine reached 33% in 1947, yet they held just 6% of the land. The UN presented Resolution 181, dividing Palestine into Arab and Jewish states. The Palestinians opposed the plan because it gave the Jewish state 56% of Palestine, including much of the fertile coastal region. Palestinians owned 94 percent of historic Palestine and made up 67 percent of its people.
Before the British Mandate dissolved in 1948, Zionist paramilitaries began destroying Palestinian cities and villages to expand the Zionist state. April 1948 saw over 100 Palestinians slaughtered, setting the tone for the operation. Around 15,000 Palestinians were killed in the destruction of 500 villages, towns, and cities from 1947 to 1949. The Zionist movement took 78% of historic Palestine, leaving 22% for the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Six million Palestinian refugees dwell in 58 dismal camps in Palestine and surrounding countries, after 750,000 were displaced. Israel, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria signed an armistice on May 15, 1948, ending the first Arab-Israeli war in January 1949. Resolution 194 of the UN General Assembly requested Palestinian refugees’ right of return in December 1948.Post-Nakba years
At least 150,000 Palestinians lived under military occupation in the newly founded state of Israel for almost 20 years before being granted Israeli citizenship. Jordan administered the West Bank in 1950, and Egypt administered Gaza. They created the PLO and Fatah in 1964 and 1965, respectively.
The Six-Day War in 1967 saw Israel seize the Gaza Strip, West Bank, East Jerusalem, Syrian Golan Heights, and Sinai Peninsula. West Bank and Gaza Strip settlement development followed a decade of Naksa, or forcible displacement. Jewish settlers had all the rights and advantages of Israeli citizens, but Palestinians lived under a military occupation that discriminated against them and banned political and civic expression.
The first Palestinian Intifada began in December 1987 when an Israeli truck hit two Palestinian laborers’ vans, killing four. Young Palestinians stoned Israeli tanks and soldiers in the West Bank, spreading protests and creating Hamas, a Muslim Brotherhood offshoot that fought Israel. The Israeli army’s harsh response included summary executions, university closures, activist deportations, and home devastation.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) was established in 1993 with limited self-rule in parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, ending the Intifada. The PA is viewed as a corrupt subcontractor to the Israeli occupation that works closely with the Israeli military to repress dissent and political activism against Israel. Israel’s 1995 electronic fence and concrete wall around Gaza cut relations with the Palestinian areas.
The second Intifada began in 2000 when Likud opposition leader Ariel Sharon provocatively visited the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound with thousands of security troops in and around Jerusalem. A two-day clash between Palestinian protesters and Israeli soldiers killed five and injured 200, leading to a huge armed insurrection. Israel devastated the Palestinian economy and infrastructure during the Intifada, reoccupying Palestinian Authority lands and building a separation wall and settlements.
International law prohibits settlements, but hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers have created colonies on stolen Palestinian land. When Oslo Accords were signed, around 110,000 Jewish settlers lived on the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Israeli colonies were razed and 9,000 soldiers and settlers left Gaza in 2004 after the Palestinian partition and Gaza blockade. After the Fatah-Hamas civil war killed hundreds of Palestinians, Israel accused Hamas of “terrorism” and imposed a land, air, and naval embargo on Gaza in 2007.
Four protracted Israeli military strikes on Gaza happened in 2008, 2012, 2014, and 2021. Palestinians, including children, have been slain and tens of thousands of homes, schools, and offices damaged. The siege prevents steel and cement from reaching Gaza, preventing redevelopment. The 2008 attack employed banned weapons like phosphorus gas. In 50 days in 2014, Israel killed 1,462 people and 500 children. Israel’s Operation Protective Edge wounded 11,000 Palestinians, destroyed 20,000 houses, and displaced 500,000.
