33 replies to this topic

[Cat]

I've been wanting to learn more about the conflict over there. I've been trying to read up on the history of it all but it seems many of the websites on the internet are coming from a bias and I think I'm reading some very slanted history.

Is there a website or a documentary that any of you guys recommend?

[Khyber53]

If looking at the modern conflict, I might suggest this as a start for the modern conflict:

British Mandate For Palestine

You can work backward from there by going through the Ottoman Empire, the Crusades, Muslim conquest, the Diaspora, Roman conquest, the Babylonian Captivity, the children of Israel, Canaan and Ur. The geography, geology and biology of the area are important to because the area we call Israel is unique in some of the resources it holds and the way the landscape can support a people.

As real estate, it's ehhh, not bad in comparison to much of the world, but compared to that particular part of the world, it's one of the better hunks of land to live on.

[natty]

Yeah I'd say wikipedia is the best place for info. It won't spell it out for you and you have to be very careful with bias injected into some topics(check references) but it's a great source.

[Claws]

I can give you a quick overview:

The Palestine people have been/are being hammered for years.

[PanthaSan]

Synopsis:

The Jews did not like being ruled....wanted a place of their own....wandered the desert for a bit.....stole some land....got backing from the US....been fighting the original residents ever since.

[Davidson Deac II]

Neither the Palestinians or Jews had a land of their own for a long time. Turks rule Palestine for hundreds of years, then the brits took over for a few years. Area was to hot to handle after world war II, in large part due to influx of Jewish Refugees. Brits hand problem to UN, UN tries to solve issue by dividing Palestine in half. Neither side likes the solution. Jews reluctantly accept because they are outnumbered and outgunned by by Palestinians and their Arab neighbors. Palestinians decide to go to war, and get their asses handed to them by the Jews. Palestinians now trying to get back what they would have already had if they had accepted the solution imposed by the UN. Israelis develope a seige mentality and start reacting to harshly to palestinian threat.

[pstall]

Arab League of Nations were the Bobs of the whole transaction. Then bolted.

[neverlosethefeeling]

Notes from a class I took not too long ago. Enjoy.

As many conflicts we have seen, the roots to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are deep and complex. Often territorial disputes mix with imperialism, neo-colonialism, and religious or ideological differences. Add to this a context like the Cold War and you have a dispute hard to resolve.



Background
In class I laid out the roots to the conflict. To further clarify the tangled web I will divide them here in a different way



1. Palestinians The Palestinians are the original inhabitants of Palestine. Their territory though has been part of other empires for ages:

· Syrian province of the Ottoman Empire Until World War I the Ottoman Empire was the latest to rule Palestine.

· British Mandate The Treaty of Serves (1920) created Turkey and made Palestine into a British Mandate

· UN Mandate When Britain left Palestine in 1948 the UN took over



2. Jews The Jews consider Palestine the country God gave them. It were the Romans in 70 CE or AD who banished them.
* Zionism is the idea to re-establish a Jewish state in the promised land. It was spearheaded around 1800 by Theodore Herzl’s World Zionist Movement
* Balfour Declaration In the 1917 Balfour Declaration (read and add to your notes), the British promised the so-called Zionists assistance in return for Jewish support of the war.



3. Palestine Ultimately both the Palestinians and Jews will lay claim to the land. Initially this was peaceful, however further historical developments would change this.
* Early Jewish immigration Jews legally bought land form Palestinians. This created peaceful coexistence between the groups, in part because the Palestinian greatly outnumbered the Jews (look at map)
* British Mandate Although Jewish immigration increased there was still enough land to share. Study map to see where Jews settled down
* Holocaust The rise of the Nazis and the Holocaust fuelled an unprecedented migration of Jews to Palestine. It created severe tension between Palestinians and the new settlers as land became scarce (look at map) and Jews started to outnumber Palestinians in certain areas (study where).
* British Partition Based upon area ownership and population, the British proposed separate territories for the Jews and Palestinians. Why could neither accept this?
* UN Partition After the British left the UN came with a new plan. Why would this not work either



4. Israel After the Jews declared the state of Israel, their territory, initially based on the UN partition plan, would further expand as a result of Arab wars waged against them in response of what the latter deemed and illegal action

· 1947 Look at what territory was gained

· 1967 again Look at what territory was gained. Israel would eventually give back the Sinai Desert

Wars



Needless to say, the Palestinians strongly opposed the foundation of the State of Israel. As we have seen in class, their efforts to forcefully eradicate the latter only resulted in further loss of territory and suffering as a result of Israeli defense and retaliation against Arab action.

1. The 1947 invasion of Arab nations created a war that lasted on and off until 1949, with a clear victory for Israel. Subsequently the Israelis exiled 700,000 Palestinians.
2. The 1967 Six-Day War of Arab nations under guidance of Egypt after a heavy arms buildup and preparatory measures brought the Arab nations a humiliating defeat. It is in this was that Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza; the two Palestinian dominated areas, and forcefully expatiated (look at map) all remaining Palestinians on Israeli soil into these areas and into Jordan. This started the Palestinian refugee camps.
3. The 1973 Yom Kippur/Ramadan War (Egypt and Syria) made the Arabs realize that the state of Israel could not be fought with military force


Guerrilla



After it was clear that an all-out Arab military victory was unlikely, exiled Palestinians began to create their own liberation/terrorist movements:

1. PLO Yassar Arafat founded the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1964 as the coordinating organization for resistance against Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory. The PLO mainly waged attacks on Israelis from its bases in the Palestinian Refugee camps on the Israeli border. Israel would often in retaliation, bomb these camps.
2. PLO affiliates: over the years, many groups affiliated with the PLO were founded.




Intifadah


Palestinian resentment against Israeli control of the West Bank and Gaza led in 1987 to the Intifada (read Israeli Perspective and Palestinian perspective, add to your notes). The uprising, an Arabic term meaning uprising or shaking off started with demonstrations throughout the occupied territories. Entire towns refused to pay taxes to Israel. Palestinians quit their jobs with Israeli employers. Most of the demonstrations started peacefully, but grew increasingly violent and well organized.

Peace Efforts



Over the years many groups have sought to bring peace to Palestine; all have failed.

1. UN: On several occasions, the United Nations tried to mediate between and separate the belligerents, often with mixed results. It’s actions in the Gaza strip and the Sinai, could not prevent the Six day War and the Yom Kippur War, but did bring stability afterwards.
2. Camp David Accords: The first significant step in the détente between the Arab nations and Israel came when president Anwar Sadat of Egypt sought Jimmy Carter’s help for establishing peaceful relations with Israel. The 1978 Camp David Accords were a victory in the sense that it was the first brokered peace deal that would set the stage for an eventual breakthrough in the conflict. Sadat would pay for this with his life as radical Arabs assassinated him in 1981.
3. Oslo Agreements: Under mediation of the US and others, the pressure of the Intifada resulted in the September 1993 Oslo Peace Accords. This was a major breakthrough in Arab-Israeli relations in that:
* The PLO recognized the state of Israel and the right of Israelis to inhabit former Palestinian territory
* Israel recognized the right of Palestinian self rule and the PLO as the legal representative of the Palestinians

Under a complicated formula, Israel and the PLO would gradually share authority in the territory Israel occupied in 1948. Look at the map.

[neverlosethefeeling]

Epilogue: Crushed Hope



Scholars agree that Israeli-Palestinian peace process took a turn for the worse with the election of Ariel Sharon to prime minister of Israel, George W. Bush to president of the United States, and the uncompromising stance of Yasser Arafat in regard to adjustments to the Oslo Peace Accord. On September 28, 2000 Ariel Sharon, a hardliner in regard to the Palestinian Israeli conflict, visited the Temple Mount and the Western or Wailing Wall; a feat previous prime ministers had not done as it was sure to provoke Palestinian reactions as the latter also regard this hallow ground. During his visit Prime Minister Sharon he declared Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel. Since the Muslim holy shrine of the Al Aqsa Mosque is housed in the same complex and the Palestinians view Jerusalem also as their capital, they reacted to Mr. Sharon’s actions with the second Intifada (Israeli point of view, Arab point of view); also called the Al Aqsa Intifada. For more information see NPR.



This time however the gloves were off. Whereas the last Intifada had become a catalyst for a peaceful solution, the 2000 Intifada only polarized the positions. Israel actively hunted Hamas (explanation) and other extremist members in the West Bank and Gaza refugee camps. The Palestinians answered with refusal to negotiate and retaliated with sending suicide bombers NSFW! (sometimes children) into Israel and attacking Jewish settlements in Gaza and on the West Bank. In return, the Israeli Army made several incursions into the refugee camps and physically isolated Yassar Arafat in his compound in Ramallah. Accusations of savagery are traded back and forth. President Bush has steadfastly supported Prime Minister Sharon in his approach to the crisis.



Because of this position, together with America’s invasion of Iraq, Muslims consider President Bush a threat to their religion and existence rather than a possible negotiator for peace. In response to the impasse in peace negotiations and the Palestinian violence to which its citizens are exposed, Israel has started to erect a most controversial security barrier. The wall cuts Palestinian lands in half and takes away parts of the West Bank. However an Israeli supreme court ruling has forced the Israeli government to adjust the course of the barrier to lessen the possible disenfranchisement of Palestinians.



Recently, Ariel Sharon has unveiled a peace plan that would force Israeli settlers out of the Gaza strip. The proposal has met huge opposition of his own party, settlers, and orthodox Jews. With the death of Yassar Arafat (Palestinian obituary) it is anybody’s guess what directions the peace negotiations will take. What do you think needs to happen to give peace a chance in Palestine/Israel?

If you read all of that, God Bless you. None of the links would copy over from the notes so I went in and inserted all of those hyperlinks for you.

Ask and you shall receive.

Edit: I should add that there is not much since circa 2006 in these notes (even though I took the class in Fall '08). But there's obviously no mention of Netanyahu and Sharon suffered his stroke/heart attack or whatever he had in 2006.

Edited by neverlosethefeeling, 06 August 2010 - 10:41 AM.

[Davidson Deac II]

Realistically, if I were you and you really want to read about it, try the public library or buy a book. Most websites tend to be slanted to one side or the other.

[Cat]

Wow Thanks!

I think that gives me a good base to start at. I've been reading about the 6 day war. I'd love to find a good documentary on that war and what lead up to it.

[Humble Dew]

stole some land.... no bias there.

[The Saltman]

I thought it was pretty unbias actually

[Humble Dew]

When I was in HS, I guess I stole the Snap-On Tools hat I got from a bully who took it from me a week earlier.

[neverlosethefeeling]

I thought it was pretty unbias actually

And it's that type of thinking that gets nothing accomplished over there :thumbsup: lol