The story will take you back to the late 19th century when the Ottoman Empire controlled major parts of Europe. With time, the Ottoman empire started losing its grip from several regions in Europe due to the rise in Nationalist sentiments among people, where people wanted to form their own countries based on their identity. Which resulted in the creation of Germany for Germans, Italy for Italians in the late 19th century.
From here came the first spark of what was about to become the most challenging world affair in the next 100 years. A product of Nationalism in Europe was the “Zionist movement”.
The Zionist movement encouraged Jews to move back to their holy land where their religion was established 3000 years back i.e. Palestine (now known as Israel). Apart from nationalism in Europe, one more reason why the Zionist movement became so influential was the persecution of Jews all over Europe. Jews were persecuted, killed and tortured on large scale mostly in eastern European countries, which even further urged Jews to become a part of the Zionist movement.
From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, Jews started migrating to Palestine in small number. Then came the involvement of the biggest colonial power of the word “Britain”.
1917: Balfour Declaration
This is also known as the start of the Israel/Palestine conflict. UK foreign minister Arthur Balfour declared in 1917 that, as soon as world war 1 ends, UK will support and assist Jews to migrate to Palestine and give them the rights to call it their national home.
1917 Sykes-Picot Agreement
Playing the double game, Britishers secretly sign an agreement with France and Russia by promising them several regions of the Middle East after the war ends. For eg: Syria/Jordan for France and parts of turkey to Russia, whereas it kept Palestine for itself.
At the same time, Britishers promised to hand over Palestine to Arabs after the war ends, to gain their support fighting the Ottoman empire.
1920: British Mandate of Palestine
After the end of World War 1, the British control Palestine’s as per the Sykes-Picot agreement. As per the Balfour Declaration, Jews start migrating to Palestine…Jews started purchasing land from poor local Arabs on a very large scale, this practice was known to be Jewish settlements. As a result, the population of Jews rises to 30% from 3% in Palestine.
1936: Arab revolt against British
After watching the migration of Jews on such a large scale, Arabs started revolting against Britishers for supporting the Jewish settlements. As a result, Britishers imposed restrictions on the number of Jews migrations to Palestine.
1939: World War 2
As world war 2 began, we saw the biggest Genocide of Jews by Hitler. This event is also referred to as the Holocaust of Jews, as more than 42 lakh Jews people were killed. During this period, through the Zionist movement Jews started migrating to Palestine in enormous numbers. Palestine was the only place they acknowledged as their homeland and a place where they are safe.
After world war 2, the scenario in Palestine got even worse. Jews started overthrowing local Palestine from their land which resulted in clashes between Jews and Arab Palestine. Witnessing this, UK steps back and let newly formed United Nation (UN) take control of the situation.
1947: Creation of 2 state
After the UN takes control of Palestine, they straightaway declared a separate state for jews known as Israel and a separate state for Palestinian Arabs through popular consent. The distribution of the land was done based on the majority of the population living in the area. In a region where the majority of the population belongs to Jews, that area would be given to Israel and vice versa. Which resulted in a large Humanitarian crisis, Palestinians Arabs which were in minority had to leave their home and migrate to neighbouring Arab countries. Almost 7 lakh Palestinians had to leave their home and relocate as refugees.
The only region excluded in this agreement was “Jerusalem”, due to its mixed population and its spiritual importance in all the three religion i.e Jews, Islam and Christianity. International control was imposed under Jerusalem.
1948-49: Arab-Israeli War
As soon as the 1947 agreement came out and Israel got recognition as a Country from United Nation, the neighbouring Arab countries like Syria, Egypt, Iraq attacked Israel.
Israel not only resisted the attack but conquered many parts of Palestine. Whereas, Egypt conquered Gaza and Jordan conquered the West Bank. Palestine size was reduced to half after the 1948-49 war.
1967: Six-day war
Once more, Israel imposes preemptive strikes against Syria, Egypt, and Jordan. As a result, Israel occupies Gaza and the Sinai peninsula from Egypt and Golan Heights from Syria.
Israel triples its size by conquering several regions of neighbouring Arab nations.
1973, Yom Kippur War.
On the occasion Jews holy festival of Yom Kippur, Egypt and Syria plan an attack against Israel to regain lost territories from 1967. As a result, Israel suffers a major setback initially and then comes out with a stronger attack against Egypt. The highlight of the war was, Egypt and Israel coming down to the table for settling.
1978: Camp David Accords
Finally, the first peaceful negotiation took place between Israel and an Arab state. Here, the Sinai peninsula was returned to Egypt by Israel which was taken by them during the 1967 war, as a result, Egypt became the first Arab nation to recognize Israel as a country.
Egypt faced a lot of criticism over this agreement by fellow Arab nations, as a result, Egypt’s president Mr Anwar Sadat was assassinated out of anger in the following year.
Palestine – Israel Conflict: Palestine Liberation Organisation(PLO)PLO was a Palestine Nationalist organization that was formed on the idea of Independent Palestine by Political and terror tactics. PLO was led by world-renowned leader Yasir Arafat.
1987-93: 1st INTIFADAS,
Intifada means to revolt, this Intifada was started by Palestine under the influence of PLO against Israel. During this uprising, several clashes occurred and violence took place. As a result, hundreds of jews and thousands of Palestinians lost their lives. This gave a motive and sense of revenge to several independent organizations in Palestine. A product of such revolt is “Hamas”, which is an extremist and more nationalist organization of Palestine. Which is based on the idea of Independent Palestine but only through Terror tactics and demolishing the name of Israel from the map of the Middle East.
1993: Oslo Accord
This agreement initially took place in Oslo but finally was revealed in Washington. This agreement took place between Israel and PLO.The agreement stated, PLO will give recognition to Israel as a country, in return Israel will give PLO recognition as the representatives of the Palestine people.
2000: Camp David II
After the Oslo Accord in 1993, one more peace talk took place in 2000 which is known as Camp David II. Israel and Palestine failed to come on any common grounds because of which the peace talks failed.
2000-2005: 2nd INTIFADA
Israeli President Ehud Barak marched towards temple mount with 1000 security forces. This temple was considered to be a holy sight among Palestine’s, infiltrated with anger Palestinians start an uprising, which led to violence on a large scale. As a consequence, thousands of Jews and 3500 Palestinians lost their lives.
2006: Elections in Gaza
After 2nd INTIFADA, Israel backed off from Gaza. Post that, Gaza conducts elections and Hamas comes out as the most influential party. Due to differences in ideologies of PLO and Hamas, PLO rejects Hamas admission in the Palestinian government.
2007: Hamas takeover Gaza
In 2007, post the elections in Gaza and breakdown in talks between Hamas and Fatah to form a Palestine authority in Gaza, a civil war started. Fatah(The political party of PLO) and Hamas fought with each other over Gaza. Hamas came out to be more powerful and till today, Hamas has a firm grip over Gaza. Hamas handling of Gaza is very different from PLO, it believes in military actions which led to violence and regular attacks over Israel.
As a result, Israel blocks all the humanitarian support to Gaza from all over the world. Till today, three wars have been fought in Gaza i.e. 2008,2012 and 2014. Which has killed thousands of civilians, and today Gaza is one of the most disturbing states as per the living conditions in the entire universe.