The Israel-Palestine Conflict

Where is Israel/Palsetine/Canaan?? Israel=Canaan=Palestine Israel=Canaan=Palestine

History of Palestine/Israel  1900 BC - 70 AD   Jews live in Canaan (Israel/Palestine)

History of Palestine/Israel  1500’s – 1922 (after WWI)  Ottoman Empire (Muslims) owns/controls Palestine/Israel

History of Palestine/Israel  VERY IMPORTANT: Both Jews and Muslims developed long term ties and claims to the land (holy sites, etc.)

History of Palestine/Israel  1920’s – 1948: British Ownership  Britain gains ownership in the area  Arabs (Palestinians) still live there  Many Jews were starting to migrate back to their “homeland” (Zionism)  Zionism: movement to establish a state/country in the area that is defined as Israel.

British Empire

History of Palestine/Israel  Early 1940s: Holocaust  Many Jews migrate back to Israel/Palestine to escape persecution from the Nazis  After the Holocaust, the United Nations thought it would be a good idea to create a Jewish state for Jews to live….they chose the land of modern day Israel/Palestine  Essentially, Israel was created overnight

History of Palestine/Israel  1947 (After WW II)  In response to the Holocaust, the newly formed UN proposes different Jewish and Arab States in Palestine/Israel  They looked at where the current populations lived and divided it accordingly

After the UN proposal (1947)  Conflict has resulted ever since…especially over these four areas  West Bank – area on west bank of Jordan River  Gaza Strip – eastern coast of Mediterranean  Golan Heights – Israeli occupied territory bordering Syria  Sinai Peninsula – area near southwestern border of Israel

History of Palestine/Israel  1967: Six Day War  Arab nations (Egypt, Syria, Lebanon) were organizing an Arab attack on Israel  Israel launched a pre-emptive attack taking control over the four areas previously listed  This one of the most tense times between the two cultures (Jews and Arabs)  Most of the conflict between the two groups has been in the form of terrorism…not war

What does it look like?

Gaza Strip 5 October 2000 Funeral of a Palestinian killed the day before. Khan Younis. 5 October 2000

Demonstration of support for Arafat during the Camp David negotiations. Ramallah. July 2000

Two main groups involved Two main groups involved  Palestinian Arabs (Muslim)  Israelis (Jewish)

The Palestinian Arabs  Other titles: Palestinians, Muslims, Arabs, PLO  Palestinian Arabs are a stateless nation  Stateless Nation: a nation of people that doesn’t have a territory to occupy (p 526)  They are still organized as a people; they call themselves the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization)  PLO: a group formed in the 1960s to regain the Arab land in Israel for Palestinian Arabs (p 513)

The Palestinian Arabs (continued)  PLO leader was Yasser Arafat (right) until he died in 2004…now it is Mahmoud Abbas (left) who was voted in after Arafats death

Israelis  Other names: Jews  People who occupy and run the modern state (country) of Israel  They are mostly Jewish. Some Muslims and Christians  Type of Govt: Parliamentary Democracy