Israel-Palestine conflict and its history
- The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is an ongoing violent struggle between Israelis and Palestinians.
- Various attempts have been made to resolve the conflict as part of the Israeli–Palestinian peace process.
- It has been referred to as the world's "most intractable conflict", with the ongoing Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip reaching 54 years.
- The Israeli–Palestinian conflict has its roots in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with the birth of major nationalist movements among the Jews and among the Arabs.
- After the Ottoman Empire was defeated in World War I, the British took control of the area known as Palestine.
- The land was inhabited by a Jewish minority and Arab majority.
- The Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the British government in 1917 during the First World War announcing support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine and this gave rise to tensions.
- The Jews, fleeing persecution in Europe and seeking a homeland after the Holocaust of WWII, arrived in huge numbers between the 1920s and 1940s.
- The swelling numbers led to violence between the Arabs and the Jews and resentment against the British rule.
- On 29 November 1947, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted Resolution 181(II), recommending the adoption and implementation of a plan to partition Palestine into an Arab state, a Jewish state and the City of Jerusalem.
- That plan was accepted by Jewish leaders but rejected by the Arab side and never implemented.
- The Israeli Declaration of Independence, formally the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel was proclaimed on 14 May 1948 by David Ben-Gurion, the Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization and soon to be first Prime Minister of Israel.
- Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced out of their homes when the State of Israel was created in historical Palestine in 1948.
- The Arab League decided to intervene on behalf of Palestinian Arabs, marching their forces into former British Palestine, beginning the main phase of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.
- The war ended with Israel holding much of the former Mandate territory, Jordan occupying and later annexing the West Bank and Egypt taking over the Gaza Strip.
- Jerusalem was divided between Israeli forces in the West, and Jordanian forces in the East.
- In 1964, however, a new organization, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), was established by Yasser Arafat.
- The second Arab-Israel conflict, also known as six-days war, occurred in 1967.
- Consequently, Israel gained military control of the West Bank from Jordan and the Gaza Strip from Egypt.
- The PLO was unable to establish any control on the ground and established its headquarters in Jordan.
- The first Palestinian uprising began in 1987 as a response to escalating attacks and the endless occupation.
ISSUE OF JERUSALEM
- Jerusalem has been at the centre of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
- According to the original 1947 UN Partition Plan, Jerusalem was proposed to be an international city. But in the first Arab Israel war of 1948, the Israelis captured the western half of the city, and Jordan took the eastern part, including the Old City that houses Haramesh-Sharif.
- Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed it later.
- Since its annexation, Israel has expanded settlements in East Jerusalem, which is now home for some 220,000 Jews.
- Jews born in East Jerusalem are Israeli citizens, while Palestinians in the city are given conditional residency permits.
- Palestinian leaders across the political spectrum have maintained that they would not accept any com promise formula for a future Palestinian state unless East Jerusalem is its capital.
- The Israeli–Palestinian peace process led to the Oslo Accords of 1993, allowing the PLO to relocate from Tunisia and take ground in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, establishing the Palestinian National Authority.
- The Oslo Accords are a set of agreements between the Government of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
- The Oslo I Accord was signed in Washington, D.C., in 1993.
- The Oslo II Accord was signed in Taba, Egypt, in 1995.
- The Oslo Accords created a Palestinian Authority tasked with limited self-governance of parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
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