History of Palestine

Palestine is a small territory in the Middle East that has experienced frequent political conflict due to its importance to several world religions and that it lies in a valuable geographic position between Africa and Asia. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire in World War I (1914–1918), Palestine was defined as the area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.

Much of the land in this geographic region is now part of present-day Israel, resulting from a 1947 partition—or division—of the territory. Today, Palestine includes the West Bank, an area sandwiched between Israel and Jordan; and the Gaza Strip, which borders Israel and Egypt. Although more than 135 United Nations member countries recognize Palestine as an independent state, Israel, the United States, and some other countries do not.

Since the establishment of Israel, tensions have existed between Israelis and Palestinians, and has resulted in ongoing violence in the region. Several agreements have attempted to calm violence, but they have been largely unsuccessful. Some international observers expressed fear of a full-blown Israeli-Palestinian conflict following violence in 2022. That year marked the most deaths as a result of fighting between the two sides since 2005.

Background

The name Palestine comes from the Greek word Philistia, and dates back to the twelfth century BCE. Philistia was home to the Philistines, a group that occupied part of the region during that time and are prominently mentioned in the biblical Old Testament. The word Palestine does not appear in written record until the Fifth century BCE. Today, the people of Palestine are called Palestinians.

Humans lived along the shores of the eastern Mediterranean since before 10,000 BCE. Its original inhabitants were nomadic hunter-gathers who probably immigrated from Mesopotamia, the region of modern-day Iraq and Iran. Palestine has been ruled by a number of groups throughout its history. These include the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Seljuk Turks, and Egyptians. In ancient times, Palestine was part of a region referred to as Canaan in Mesopotamian texts and trade records that date as far back as the eighteenth century BCE. The Hebrew kingdoms of Israel and Judah were located in Canaan. About 2000 to 1550 BCE, the region began trading with other nations and prospered. This continued until Canaan’s incorporation into the Egyptian Empire between 1570 and 1069 BCE.

The Turkish Ottoman Empire ruled much of the area from 1517 to 1917, but the British took control of Palestine and the former empire’s other territories after World War I. At this time, the League of Nations issued a British Mandate for Palestine, which gave Britain administrative control over the region. The document also included plans for creating a Jewish national homeland in Palestine. This officially went into effect in 1923 despite many Palestinian Arabs opposing British and Jewish interests in the region. All of the other territories of the former Ottoman Empire eventually became fully independent except for Palestine. During the mandate, from 1922 to 1947, large-scale Jewish immigration took place. Many flooded in from Eastern Europe, with numbers rising in the 1930s due to Nazi persecution. This led to an Arab rebellion in 1937. Terrorism and violence persisted on both sides.

The Partition of Palestine and Birth of Israel

In 1947, the United Nations introduced a plan to partition—or divide—Palestine into two parts to include an independent Jewish state and an independent Arab state. The city of Jerusalem had been claimed by both the Jews and Arabs and was set to be an international territory with special status. While Jewish leaders accepted this plan, many Palestinian Arabs opposed it. According to the Arab groups who spoke out against the strategy, Arabs represented a majority of the population in certain regions and should have been granted more territory. Soon, they started forming volunteer armies throughout Palestine. Britain withdrew from Palestine in May 1948 and Israel declared itself an independent state.

In 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was formed with the goal of establishing a Palestinian Arab state in the land that had been administered under the British Mandate. The PLO considered this land to be illegitimately occupied by the state of Israel. The original goal of the PLO was the destruction of Israel in order to attain Palestinian statehood. In 1969, Yasser Arafat became the chairman of the organization and held the position until his death in 2004.

Growing Tension with Israel

Tension began to grow between the new state of Israel and neighboring countries. In April 1967, this came to a head when Syria attacked Israel with an air assault. The Soviet Union then provided Egypt with information that Israel was moving troops to its northern border with Syria with plans for a full-scale invasion. Although this information was incorrect, it prompted Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser to move his forces into the Sinai Peninsula, where they overthrew a United Nations peacekeeping force that had been guarding Israel’s border for a decade. Israel then launched an aerial attack against Egypt on June 5, 1967. Both nations claimed they were acting in self-defense. Jordan and Syria sided with Egypt in the conflict, which ended on June 10. Ultimately, Israel made major territory gains from what would later be known as The Six Day War. This included the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights. However, the short-lived war would lead to even more tension and armed conflict between Israel and its neighbors in the decades ahead.

In 1987, the First Intifada broke out as Palestinian militia groups revolted against Israel. The term intifada is Arabic for “jumping up.” Hundreds of people were killed. The Oslo Peace Accords were initiated in the early 1990s in an attempt to end ongoing violence. The first Oslo Accord created a timeline for a Middle East peace process. It also laid out a plan for an interim Palestinian government in parts of Gaza and the West Bank. The agreement was signed in 1993 and also resulted in the PLO accepting Israel’s right to exist in exchange for Israel’s formal recognition of the PLO.

Arafat, who had been exiled from Gaza for twenty-seven years, returned in 1994 and led the newly-formed Palestinian Authority. Oslo II in 1995 laid out a plan for complete withdrawal of Israel’s troops from parts of the West Bank and other areas. It also set a timeline for Palestinian Legislative Council elections. However, the accords did not meet their ultimate goal of bringing Israel and Palestinians to a peace plan.

Violence continued in the region with the Second Palestinian Intifada, which began in September 2000. This followed a visit from right-wing Jewish Israeli Ariel Sharon to the Muslim holy site at the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Many Palestinians felt this was offensive. This was followed by protests, riots, suicide bombings and other attacks, which collectively put an end to the peace promise between Palestine and Israel. Violence lasted for almost five years. Arafat died in 2004, and by August 2005, the Israeli army withdrew from Gaza. This era of violence resulted in about three thousand Palestinian and one thousand Israeli deaths.

Hamas and Growing Terrorism

Hamas, a Sunni Islamist militant group, won Palestine’s 2006 legislative elections, resulting in fighting between Hamas and Fatah, the political group that controlled the PLO. Hamas defeated Fatah in a battle for Gaza in 2007. Hamas is considered a terrorist group by many countries, having utilized suicide bombings and repeatedly calling for the destruction of Israel. Hamas and Israel fought several times from 2008 to 2014, including Operation Cast Lead in December 2008, Operation Pillar of Defense in November 2012, and Operation Protective Edge in July 2014. Hamas and Fatah struck an agreement in April 2014 that would form a unified Palestinian national government.

Topic Today

Today, Palestinians are still battling for an official state that is recognized by all nations. Although Palestinians control key areas like the West Bank and Gaza Strip, some Israelis continue to settle in these areas with their own government’s approval. Many international groups consider these occupations to be illegal. A number of Israelis also oppose these settlements and would like to seek peaceful ways to settle land disputes with the Palestinians.

Hamas leaders presented a document that proposed the formation of a Palestinian state in May 2017. The document used the 1967 defined borders and proposed Jerusalem as its capital. However, Hamas refused to recognize Israel as a state. Israel rejected the proposal.

In May 2018, the U.S. Embassy to Israel relocated from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which grew tensions in the region once more. Many Palestinians interpreted this move as a signal that the U.S. supported Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. This resulted in Palestinian protests at the Gaza-Israel border. Israel responded with force and dozens of protesters died.

According to the group Human Rights Watch, Israeli authorities have doubled down on their policies against Palestinians. In May 2021, the Israeli military said it struck about 1,500 targets in Gaza between ground and air attacks. The United Nations estimated that this led to the death of 120 Palestinian civilians. Palestinian armed groups, including Hamas, launched more than 4,000 rockets and mortars toward Israel, which led to the death of 12 civilians in Israel and seven Palestinians in Gaza. Human Rights Watch asserted that Israel committed serious violations of the laws of war along with war crimes. They cited Israeli strikes that destroyed several high-rise Gaza towers that were full of homes and businesses—there were no apparent military targets in these attacks, which killed civilians. Israel also started restricting the movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza, which the Human Rights Watch said robbed more than 2 million Palestinians the right to freedom and movement, while also limiting their access to electricity, health care and water. That year, the Israeli government also demolished hundreds of Palestinian homes in the West Bank, displacing nearly 1,000 people. At the same time, the government aided with the transfer of Israeli citizens into the West Bank.

Many observers expressed fear of a full-blown Israeli-Palestinian conflict after 2022 marked the bloodiest year between the two since the end of the Second Intifada in 2005. Amid these concerns, United Nations Special Coordinator Tor Wennesland called for stronger international commitment toward finding a two-state solution. As of November 2022, Wennesland and his team had been engaged in continued discussions with Israeli and Palestinian officials. About 150 Palestinians were killed in 2022, with most of the deaths related to an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) offensive centered on Jenin and nearby Nablus. A well-known Al Jazeera journalist, Shireen Abu, was one fatality of the violence. Palestinian attacks also killed 30 Israelis that year—the most since 2008. An article in The Guardian pointed out similarities between the increasing violence in the region and the Second Intifada, including punishing sieges on Palestinian neighborhoods and cities by Israel. Many Palestinians in the Gaza require humanitarian aid to subsist. The United Nations provided fuel to the Gaza power plant and assistance to more than 100,000 families in 2022. In August 2022, a ceasefire was mediated by Egypt, with a goal to end hostilities and permit deliveries of fuel and other supplies to Gaza. As of January 2023, the ceasefire had been maintained.

However, a December 2022 poll by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research found that 65 percent of people in the West Bank supported an armed struggle between Palestine and Israel. According to The Guardian, most young Palestinians do not believe in a better future and think that their only choice is to pick up a gun and fight. The West Bank has no shortage of guns, with many being smuggled over the border from Jordan and stolen from IDF bases.

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