Given that next year I will be studying the Arab world for the first time, I figured this may be a good starting point, a "way in" to the overwhelming topic of war and peace in the Middle East. But, having looked at just two hits from my google search of "understanding Israeli-Palestinian conflict" I am already feeling fuzzy-headed. Unfortunately it is assumed that you already know about the previous century of religious tension and development, let alone the recent developments riddled with political clashes, secular violence and foreign involvement.
So, as I have been some what neglecting this blog recently, I will use it to document my quest to gain a basic understanding of this vital issue. In the late 1800's and early 1900's the Jewish and Arab populations of the Middle East underwent a nationalist movement. The Jews Zionist movement highlighted their support of a Jewish nation-state called the Land of Israel where they would be free from anti-Semitic discrimination and not integrate with other religions (although such a movement has been part of the Jewish religion for millenia, it was only officially established in 1897 as a response to persecution). Meanwhile, Palestinian nationalism is not so easily defined. With different groups aligning themselves with different villages, regions and religions and some aligning themselves against colonialism or rule by other states - known as Pan-Arabism (“Palestine was conquered in times past by ancient Egyptians, Hittites, Philistines, Israel, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Romans, Muslim Arabs, Mamlukes, Ottomans, the British, the Zionists…the population remained constant-and is now still Palestinian.”). Regardless of specific beliefs, there was a distinct emphasis on self-government by Palestinian people. These similar yet conflicting movements collided in the Levant (the region shown below).
At the end of the 1800's, the majority of inhabitants of Palestine were Arab Muslims whilst the majority of Jews lived in Europe or the Mediterranean. However, as the Jews began to descend on, what they see as their historic homeland, tension mounted. In the late 19th century small acts of violence and retaliation took place in communities between the Jews and the Arabs. For example,
Another incident happened in Petach Tikva, where in early 1886 the Jewish settlers demanded that their tenants vacate the disputed land and started encroaching on it. On March 28, a Jewish settler crossing this land was attacked and robbed of his horse by Yahudiya Arabs, while the settlers confiscated nine mules found grazing in their fields, though it is not clear which incident came first and which was the retaliation. The Jewish settlers refused to return the mules, a decision viewed as a provocation. The following day, when most of the settlement's men folk were away, fifty or sixty Arab villagers attacked Petach Tikva, vandalising houses and fields and carrying off much of the livestock.
At first the objection to immigrants was on cultural, not religious grounds (as most Jews were from Russia and Europe). However, as waves of Jewish settlers flooded the region their Zionist aspirations became apparent. Consequently, the Arab population began protesting against the acquisition of lands by the Jewish population. Thus, in 1892 the Ottoman authorities (under which Palestine was ruled) banned land sales to foreigners. Still, by 1914 the Jewish population in Palestine had risen to over 60,000 and with WW1 on the horizon, things were not about to improve.
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