The Palestine Israeli conflict dates back to around the end of the nineteenth century. The conflict is fought between the two groups which are the Palestinian Arabs and the Zionist (Israeli) Jews. One might think the conflict would be between the two group’s different religions, but the reason for the hatred between the two groups is the “Holy Land”. At the end of the First World War the land was still known as Palestine but slowly the land has been taken over by migrating Zionists. What once was a place of relative peace at the time had become at warzone of one of the greatest conflicts of the modern era.

                The conflict began around the end of World War 1 at the end of the nineteenth century. At the time there was a surge of nationalism, in which groups of people took great pride in where they were from. The Jews had been scattered from their homeland for many years, and so to fix this the Zionist movement began. Many Jews began to migrate back to their homeland of Israel or at the time Palestine. At that time Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire and wasn’t a state of its own, and the increasing population of Jews was insignificant to the number of Palestinian Arabs in the area. The real conflict did not begin until after the First World War and the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

                When the Ottoman Empire was defeated in World War One the area of Palestine became a trouble spot of competing territorial claims. The British who had claim to the territory were torn as to who Palestine would go. During the war the British promised the Arabs that if they were to help the British then after the war they would set up an independent Arab state in Palestine. However in 1917 the British Foreign Minister, Lord Arthur Balfour, issued the “Balfour Declaration” announcing the governments support for the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. With these conflicting interests the British decided with the help of the League of Nations to divide the region into Israel and Palestine.

                The Arabs were of course angered at the fact that Britain had backed out of the deal with them and in 1920 and 1921 clashes broke out between the two groups. During and after World War Two many Jews migrated and purchased land in Palestine. This only increased hostilities between the two groups. Following World War Two Britain relinquished its mandate over Palestine and gave it to the newly formed United Nations. The UN surveyed the problem and found the best solution to be to partition Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. The Jewish leaders accepted the partition plan while the Arabs did not. The fighting began days after the adoption of the partition plan and it lasted until 1949, with the Zionists as the victor. After the signing of the armistice the Palestinians lost even more land. Thousands of Palestinian refugees left now Israeli territory with nowhere to go. Several other conflicts occurred such as the Six Day War in 1967, each ending the same way with the Israeli’s as the victors and the Palestinians losing more and more land.

                I believe that the Palestinian Israeli Conflict is a very important matter in this modern era. The amount of violence and hatred between these two groups is terrifying with the mistreatment of the Palestinians and the terror attacks the Palestinians do to the Israeli’s. If I had to choose a side however I would side with the Palestinians because they were kicked out of the place that had been their home for hundreds of years. It would be like if the Native Americans took over America and had all Americans placed on the east coast. While I accept that the Jews have some right to a homeland, the way this problem has been solved is not good for either side.

For more information check out this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngFYOLOkmaI

Sources: http://www.ifamericansknew.org/history/

http://www.merip.org/primer-palestine-israel-arab-israeli-conflict-new

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian_conflict