Israel-Palestine conflict: history of one hundred years of war

Israel-Palestine conflict: 2021 Updates; The Hamas, US prez, Gaza, Benjamin Netanyahu and the history of one hundred years of war.

Who is the legal heir of Jerusalem? It is the most confusing and heated up question arising globally for the past hundred years. It is still confused as to who the invader is and who lost their land. It is not just the rivalry of two nations, but also the fight between two religions.

Al Aqsa Mosque incident

The conflict has again come in the global headline recently on the last Friday of Ramadan last week. A protest has been made by the Palestine rebels at the Al Aqsa mosque of Jerusalem after the prayer. The protest was brutally suppressed by the Israeli police which caused a great casualty of about 150 people. The Israeli police claimed that the provocation for the suppression was due to the anti-Israel slogans raised by the protestors. The police entered and used grenades’ and bullets inside the mosque to suppress the protestors causing the incident to be reported by the international media.

All of these happened as the result of a court order. There have been four Palestine families settled in Sheik Jarrah.  Police have been trying to evacuate these families for the Jewish settlers. These families approached the court for help. Police didn’t wait for the court order and they continued their harassment of these families. This was the reason behind the protest in front of AL Aqsa mosque. The protestors gathered there were offering help to these families.

The Al Aqsa Mosque

Both settlers have given great importance to the Al Aqsa mosque. Israelis call this mosque ‘The Temple Mount’. Jews consider this mosque as the most sacred place for worshipping. According to the bible, it is the second most important place. For Islam religion Al Aqsa is their third sacred place.

Zionism

To know more about the conflicts we must start from the beginning of Israel-Palestine conflict history. Palestine was once a part of Ottoman Empire. According to the historical documents of 1888 there was 80 percent of Muslim population, 10 percent of Christian population and 3 percent of Jewish population in Palestine. In 1898 Zionist organization has started by Theodor Herzl. The aim of this movement was to gather all Jews around the world to form a new nation for Jews. As a part of this movement many Jews returned to Palestine.

The effect of First World War

The First World War started in 1914 and the Ottoman Empire was on the opposite side of Britain and France. British believed that they could only defeat the Ottoman Empire with the help of Arabs and Jews and they signed agreements with them. The agreement signed with the Jews was called the Balfour declaration. According to the Balfour declaration British agreed that if Jews help Britain in the First World War they will help the Jews to build a nation in Palestine. Then Britain went to Mecca and made another agreement with Sheriff Hussein that if Arabs help Britain they will give all territories of Mecca to them. At the same time Britain made an agreement with France that they will get an equal share of Arabian Peninsula to France. This was quite an ironic situation. Britain made agreements with three nations for the possession of a single place. 

After the First World War Britain made the whole Arab peninsula as their colony.

They used divide and rule policy by providing different administration policies to the Christians, Jews and Muslims. With respect to the Balfour declaration Britain allowed the immigration of Jews to Palestine. The Arab population was quite irritated by the immigration of Jews. So they started revolting against the immigration. But the British government suppressed the Arab population with the help of Jews. It was the beginning of the great rivalry. 

The White Paper

Britain issued a white paper on this time which demanded the prohibition of overflow of Jewish immigration. They claimed that within ten years they will form a joined Jew-Arab nation. Both the Jews and Palestinians were against the white paper and they denied it without a second thought and both of them demanded separate nations for them. At this era Hitler started his hunt up on the Jews and Jews found Palestine as the safest place to settle and thus the immigration continued.

The effect of Second World War

After the Second World War British failed to handle this place of continued conflict. So they thought that it would be better to release the conflicting colony than keeping it. So in order to reestablish peace the British went to the UN to find a solution. The solution put forward by the UN was the equal partition of the region to both nations to build their own country. Jerusalem was made as the international territory for the sake of both nations. Jews agreed to the solution and in 1948 the nation named Israel was established.

The first Arab-Israel War

The Arab population was not so happy by the formation of Israel and they formed Arab League including all the Arab nations and declared a war against Israel. From 1928-1949 Arab-Israel war happened and Israel won the war. Israel then expanded their nation by capturing enemies’ territories including Jerusalem.

The Second Arab-Israel War- “Six Day War”

In 1967 another war happened between the Arabs and Israel. It was called a six day war and Israel won the war again. Israel captured more territories during the war. After the war Israel agreed to give back all the captured land by the peace treaty put forward by the UN. After this peace treaty MOST OF THE Arab nations came to a peace relation with Israel and the Arab-Israel conflicts ended there.

The beginning of Palestine-Israel conflict

In 1960, an organization named Palestine Liberation Organization was started. Their first demand was to eliminate all Jews from the entire area and make it under the Palestine government. But later they stood up with the UN and agreed to be happy with the given land. After that a sudden extremist movement was started in Israel that they helped their citizens to settle in the place given to Palestine. Israel police and military were sent to these regions for the help of their citizens in those regions. In order to stop this, the people of Palestine started a movement called Intifada (shaking of Palestine) in 1980. At the beginning this was a peaceful movement but later it went on to a massive violence. An extreme militant organization called Hamas in Gaza was formed. This lighted the conflicts to a greater level. Later in 1993 an Oslo Accord was put forward by the international community headed by the US. The document was to settle both nations peacefully to their given territories. But the extremist organizations of both sides disagreed with the document. They stuck to the point that they would only stop the conflict until they get a non dividend Israel-Palestine land.

The rise of Benjamin Netanyahu

The name Benjamin Netanyahu got popular because of his strong opposition to the withdrawal of Israeli militants from Gaza and West Bank in 1993 due to the peace accord. Netanyahu got his first prime ministership on 29, May 1996 by a victory margin of one percent over Prime Minister Shimon Peres. In 1998 Netanyahu was forced to resign for the sign of the Wye Memorandum.  In the 2009 election Netanyahu regained his Prime ministership by defeating Tzipi Livini.

In 2007 a temporary government was formed in Palestine. But the West Bank region was under the control of the Israeli army. In 2014 Hamas started an open war with Israel. The reason behind the war was the death of three Israeli students in Gaza. Israel took their revenge by murdering a Palestine student. In return Hamas sent 40 rockets to Israel. But the Israeli forces under Netanyahu were too strong and they fought back very massively. Around 2100 Palestinians and 73 Israelis died during the fight. In 2020 the Netanyahu government failed to pass an annual budget for 2021 and that led to the dissolution of the government.