In the wake of the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel, many people across the world have awakened to an issue that they were unaware of, and much information, both true and false, has been disseminated since then. The way the attack has left people pitting themselves against each other is incredibly non-productive. This is an extremely brief overview of the history between Palestinians and Israelis, as well as their respective land claims. As everyone should always do, double check this information, who is telling the stories, and what those organizations are serving. 

Note: The conflict between Israel and Palestine is about land, not religion. Zionism was created by Theodor Herzl, and is the idea of Jewish nationalism, and having an independent Jewish state. 

Everything began in 1917, when the British Government issued the Balfour Declaration in hopes to garner more support from their Jewish population. The Balfour Declaration promised “The establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”. This was a bold promise to make, as World War I was still raging, and the Ottoman Empire still had control over Palestine. The year before this in 1916, Britain had promised Palestine to themselves, and in 1915, they had promised Palestine to the ruler of Mecca. To put it shortly, the British had promised Palestine to the Meccans, the Zionists, and themselves, all during World War I. After the war when Palestine was no longer under Ottoman rule, the British established a colony in Palestine, which created a lot of tension. 

While this was happening, the British did attempt to honor the Balfour Declaration by facilitating Jewish immigration to Palestine when conditions were suitable. Between 1920 and 1939, the Jewish population in Palestine increased by over 320,000 people, or just about 30% of the whole population. By the growing Jewish population controlling the land and the labor, they were trying to create a secure community in Palestine – yet, their practices increased tensions between the Jewish people and Arab Palestinians in the 1920-1930s. 

Palestinian Arabs who had been living in Palestine during this entire time began to think of themselves as the Palestinian nation. This increasing sense of nationalism led to a Palestinian revolt against the British in 1936. In the aftermath, the British issued a report limiting Jewish immigration to Palestine and calling for the establishment of a joint Arab and Jewish State in Palestine by 10 years from then. This left no one happy – the Zionists were angry with Britain for limiting Jewish immigration at their most needed time with the rise of Anti-Semitism in Europe right before World War II, and the Arab Palestinians were unhappy with the prospect of waiting ten years for the establishment of a state. 

After World War II, the British handed the issue of Palestine over to the United Nations. In 1947, the United Nations voted to partition Palestine into separate Palestinian and Jewish states. Called the “Partition Plan,” it called for two states of roughly the same size, but the borders were complicated. Issues with the Partition borders arose, and soon the 1948 Arab/Palestinian-Israeli war broke out. The Israelis won, and when an armistice was signed in 1949, Israel occupied ⅓ more land than they would’ve had under the UN Partition Plan.

Meanwhile, Jordan controlled and later annexed the West Bank and Jerusalem, and Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip. Over 700,000 Palestinians fled their homes and became refugees in the surrounding Arab states. To Israelis, this war was the beginning of their nation, to the Palestinians, they called it the Nakba, or the Catastrophe, as they became stateless. 

Nothing changed until 1967, when Israel and several other Arab states went to war. This war left Israel all of the land that was previously partitioned under the Partition Act to the Israelis, including the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as the extended Golan Heights and Sinai Peninsula. The UN proposed resolution 242 to create peace, to no avail. After the war, the conflict morphed away from including Arab states to more of a Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The Palestinian Liberation Organization was created and oversaw guerrilla groups that attacked civilians, but they also used non-violent measures to try to create a Palestinian state. Meanwhile the Israeli government established Jewish settlements in what had been Palestinian territory – namely East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip. These settlements consist of 350,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank, and over 200,000 in East Jerusalem. 

These settlements are illegal according to international law, however the Israeli government counters by saying that Palestine isn’t an actual state, therefore it isn’t illegal to settle in these territories. By the late 1980s, Palestinians launched the First Intifada, which translates to “shaking off.” This began with boycotts of Israeli products and services and refusing to pay Israeli taxes, but when the Israeli armed forces cracked down on protestors, violence ensued. The First Intifada also saw the founding of Hamas, which launched the first suicide bombing against Israel in 1993. 

Hamas gained support partly because of using force and violence to support their cause, but mostly because of its social welfare projects in Gaza. Hamas built and staffed schools, mosques, and clinics. The most important thing to come out of the First Intifada was the emergence of peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians, the Oslo Accords, and other attempts at peace. This still left a lot of issues to resolve. Besides splitting the land into two states, there was the question of Jewish settlement as well as the right for Palestinian refugees (the ones that had fled during the Nakba) and their descendants to return to Palestine.

Then, in 2000, Israeli Prime Minister candidate Ariel Sharon led a group of 1,000 armed guards to the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. This event sparked a massive protest, which eventually led to the much more violent Second Intifada, in which more than 3,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis were killed. 

In 2002, the Israelis, claiming to act in defense of civilians, began construction of a wall around the West Bank, but instead of following the borders established after the 1967 Partition Plan, the barrier was built to include many Israeli settlements on the Israeli side. To Israelis, this was about self-defense, but to Palestinians, it was an illegal land grab. 

In 2005, the Palestinian president died, and in an election shortly thereafter, Hamas won a majority of the parliamentary seats. Hamas and the Palestinian Authority had divided how to govern Palestine, albeit ineffectively, until 2007, when Hamas divided the Palestinian Authority from power. In the past 15 years, Hamas has frequently launched rocket attacks similar to the one on October 7th into Israel, and Israel has responded with extended and extremely violent invasions of Palestinian territory, which has seen thousands of Palestinians killed, many of them militants, and many civilians. Both parties claim to be responding to the provocations of the other, but much of the conflict reflects the consistent failure on all sides to understand the legitimacy of the other’s narrative. 

For both Zionists and Palestinian national visions to eventually work, it’s necessary to understand the legitimacy of each’s historical narrative. This 75 year long volley of violence back and forth has persisted for a long time. It is important to educate on the history, on the present, and to not villainize opposing views.