Israel and Palestine – The History

Well, in my last article “Armageddon…The Beginning of the End”, I talk mostly about the recent conflict between Israel and Palestine and the role that the U.S. has played in the Middle East under the democrat’s administrations, first under Barack Obama and now under Joe Biden. Today, however, I want to take a slight change in course, yet, very much inspired in this ageless conflict.

As I was doing my due diligence, my research, for last week’s narrative, it dawned upon me, how little did I really know about the timeless Israeli / Palestine conflict. Matter of fact, I think it is fair to say, most of us, we all have just lived our lives with the ongoing notion that Israel and Palestine, notwithstanding some few and far between times of peace here and there, have always been at war.

If we rely on history as a means of forecasting the future, I think it is also probably fair to say that the war between these two will never end – it is there to stay; ingrained, deep-rooted, and entrenched in history. Paradoxically, to many of us, myself included, our taking for granted this renown conflict has also relegated us from taking a true interest, other than, perhaps, our casual, superficial and/or inconsequential acknowledgement of their existence, and then again, only with the start of each new war, albeit, with a subliminal diminishing relevance if only because, again, no longer can their wars really be construed as real news – can they not?

Despite our prevalent indifference for this conflict yet, given the magnanimous repercussions that all rifts in that part of the world, can have as related to mankind’s future, I think it behooves us all to familiarize ourselves with the history behind this timeless conflict. To that end, my narrative today deals exclusively with the background leading to today’s continued warfare of these diehard adversaries. In doing so, I trust that you, as well as I, will gain a richer insight, a deeper awareness, and a better understanding of this ageless conflict.

Geographically, Israel is in the Middle East, along the eastern coastline of the Mediterranean Sea, bordered by Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. It lies at the junction of three continents: Europe, Asia, and Africa. It is long and narrow in shape; the country is about 290 miles (470 km.). Before WWI there was no Israel. All the area where Israel stands today and the surrounding territories were a part of the Ottoman Empire – a state which, between the 14th and early 20th centuries controlled much of Southeaster Europe, Western Asia and Northern Africa. Most of the people in the Ottoman Empire were Arab Muslims, however there were also some Christians and Jews as well.

After WWI, Britain took control of the areas known today as Israel. Britain ruled Palestine and on April 25th, 1920 was granted a Mandate for Palestine which was approved by the League of Nations on July 24rh, 1922. Meantime, the area saw a significant increase in Jewish migration – a movement called “Zionism” – the later defined as: “a movement for the re-establishment and the development and protection of a Jewish nation and/or a Jewish State in what now is Israel.” Originally, the British showed support for the creation of a Jewish State, however did not commit to either Israel or Palestine to recognize them as a State. During this time, tensions increased between Jewish migrants in the area and Palestinians as the later were forced to evacuate lands that they had occupied and farmed for hundreds of years.

Tensions escalated to where there was an uprising by the Palestinians against the British. The uprising was unsuccessful, leading to the death so some 5000 Arabs. Then came the Holocaust. Between 1941 and 1945, the Germans systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe. By this time, hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees, were scattered all over Europe, with many of them migrating and taking refuge in the area today known as Israel.

After WWII, the Brits decided to hand-over Palestine’s future to the United Nations [UN], to wit, one of the most disgusting political organization ever to exist. It was the UN who, originally came up with a plan to partition the above-referred to area into two separate states – one Arab and one Jewish, with the city of Jerusalem as a separate international territory – this did not work out. The Palestinians thought the plan was unjust arguing that even though the Arab population was twice that of the Jewish, they, the Arabs, had been assigned less than ½ the land.

On May 14th, 1948, the day the British Mandate over Palestine expired, the Jewish people gathered and approved a proclamation formally declaring the establishment of the State of Israel. Following was a war between Israelis and Palestinians – the latter supported by neighboring Arab states. By 1949, Israel won this war and claimed for themselves more land than originally granted by the UN Partition Plan. Jordan, who had sided with the Palestinians, occupied land which became known as “the West Bank.” Egypt, on the other hand, occupied a strip of land known as “Gaza”. The city of Jerusalem, at the heart of the conflict, religiously significant to both the Jews and the Muslims was divided between Israeli and Jordanian forces – West Jerusalem as an Israeli possession and East Jerusalem as Jordanian territory – neither party ever acknowledging a peace agreement.

In the years that followed, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled the territory and became refugees in neighboring Arab countries and territories. Fast forward to 1967 and then came what is known as the “Six Days War.” The war ended with Israel’s control of Gaza, The West Bank and the Sinai Peninsula. In 1979, Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty whereby Israel agreed to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula but retained possession of Gaza, The West Bank and East Jerusalem. The unilateral annexation of East Jerusalem by Israel in 1980 was considered “illegal” by the International Community.

In 1987 there was a Palestinian uprising named “The First Intifada” – the original meaning in Arab of the word “intifada” is “shaking-off and/or getting rid of.” The Palestinian protests [intifada] were against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza which had begun twenty years back in 1967. In the 1990’s there were some steps taken towards a peaceful settlement when the Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization a/k/a “the PLO” Yasser Arafat met with then Jewish Premier Yitzah Rabin as both tried to work what came to be known as “a two-state solution.” As much as they came close, a final agreement was never sealed.

In the year 2000, there was second, yet more deadly Intifada which lasted almost five years. By 2005 Israel withdrew from the Gaza strip. Since then [2005], Israelis dispute that Gaza is “occupied” and/or “illegally occupied by Palestinians” however Israel has been largely and directly in control of Gaza’s maritime and air space territories so the International Community, for the most part, still considers the region as “Occupied Territory.”

The obvious duplicity in the tenure and possession of the Gaza territory resulted in violent clashes and rifts amongst several factions of the Palestinian leadership – between Hamas and rival faction Fatah -the latter formerly known as the POL. To this day, the Palestinian territorial leadership is divided. Hamas, a reputed “terrorist” organization controls Gaza and is recognized by the United Nations, but not by the U.S., Australia and Israel. Vis-à-vis, a coalition government dominated by the Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO] and its biggest faction “Fatah” controls the West Bank.

All of this history is fundamental for understanding the conflicts of today. From the Jewish peoples’ perspective, it has been about the trauma of the events of the past century; a number of wars with its surrounding Arab neighbors, decades of terrorist attacks, all of which provide a context for their defensive behavior over the years, often criticized as overly aggressive and belligerent by the International Community.

Palestinians, on the other hand, point to their displacement, discrimination and continued Jewish settlements and military rule. To this day, Israel maintains tight controls over Gaza’s borders and, in the West Bank, Israel has boots on the ground and significant control over the every-day life of Palestinians. Over time, Israel has continued to allow for more and more Jewish settlers to move in stirring new tensions in the area. Jewish settlements in Palestinian land, in the “Occupied” territories, are considered illegal under International Law.

I should point out that, again, to this day, there is a significant population of Palestinians, over 1.8+ million known as Arab-Israelis living in Israel, never mind that most of them claim to be discriminated upon while several world organizations still accuse Israel of acts of Apartheid. As we speak, Israel lays blame on Hamas for their attacks by the firing of thousands of rockets from Gaza aimed at the Israeli civilian population. Hamas and the Palestinians argue that their rockets are a reaction to Israeli’s oppression and their ongoing resistance to Israeli occupation – and the beat goes on.

An important part of the ongoing Israeli / Palestine puzzle is the role played by the Islamic Republic of Iran as perceived in the bigger scope of this conflict. Iran officially endorses the creation and the recognition of a Palestinian State. Iran, vehemently rejects the so-called “two-state” solution. Following the Iranian Revolution in 1979, Iran formally ended its alliance with Israel and supported the Palestinians by symbolically turning over the Israeli embassy in Tehran to the PLO.

Hamas’ terrorists meantime are fully endorsed and funded by Iran who supplies them with all kinds of military weaponry and technologies including but not limited to air power and M-302 rockets and drones. All the while as the U.S., under the esteemed leadership of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, did not hesitate to give Iran $150 billion dollars as part of an obscure nuclear deal formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA], reached on July 14th, 2005 – one whereby the funds provided by the Obama administration were known to be earmarked to subsidize Hamas and many other proxy terrorists organizations vouching for the destruction of the United States and its Israel ally. To add insult to injury, Communist Jewish turncoat Bernie Sanders recently introduced a Bill to “Block the sale of Arms to Israel” – a bill strongly supported by the four congresswomen known as “The Squad”, Reps. Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley, together with Vice-President Kamala Harris.

Anyways folks, as I said earlier, I sincerely hope that this narrative serves its purpose to give us all a better understanding on the history of this Israeli / Palestine conflict. As a basis, again, for an enlightened insight into the shameful, disgraceful, and shocking role that our new United States is playing in the greater scope of things – all the more reason to despise Joe Biden, Barack Obama and a democrats’ caucus which openly hate Israel and everything that both Israel and the United States stand for. May God save us and may God save Israel and the United States of America.