The conflict between Israel and Palestinian traces back to the 19th century when Zionists made an attempt to establish a homeland for the Jews in Palestine, controlled by Ottoman that was colloquially known as Turkish Empire that had controlled a major parts of Southeast Europe, Western Asia and Northern Africa during the 14th and 20th centuries. When Britain became a powerful imperialist force in the world, they wanted to release Palestine from the bondage of the Ottoman Empire so that they sought the support of the Jewish people, the Arabs and France with a promise of separate states for all of them.During that time the Zionist Movement became strong and they raised their slogan to establish a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine.
The term "Zionism" is derived from the word Zion, a hill of Jerusalem on which the city of David was built. In the late 19th century, numerous groups,throughout eastern Europe, were attracted towards promoting the national resettlement of the Jews in their homeland. They were widely known as the "Lovers of Zion." Zionism as a movement was originally concerned with establishing a political and religious state in Palestine for the entire Jewish community. Zionists believe Judaism is a nationality as well as a religion.
The basic reason for the conflict is the rise of the two national movements, Zionism and Arab nationalism, for the establishment of two theocratic states. The long cherished dream of the Jewish people to return to Zion is areligious thought for more than a millennium for the re-establishment of the Jewish Nation. The Zionist movement for the creation of a homeland for the Jewish people was established as a political movement in 1897.Theodor Herzl, a secular Austrian-Jewish journalist, was the first to sow the seed of Jewish nationalism and turn it into an international movement around 1896.
Britain’s then-foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour, wrote a short letter, in 67 words, addressed to Lionel Walter Rothschild on November 2, 1917. Balfour desired to do something for the Jews community as they had suffered a lot at the hands of the Christian world and also due to their faith in monotheism and notions of social justice as instructed by the Old Testament. Lionel Walter Rothschild was the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews from 1925 to 1926.The letter is known as the Balfour Declaration 1917.By the declaration, the European power promised the Zionist movement an independent state where Palestinian Arab natives made up more than 90 percent of the population.
The Balfour declaration led to the consolidation of Jewish immigrants to their dream land. Consequent to the Nazi concentration camp and the Holocaust during the World War II, the urgent need and relevance became strong for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, and thereby the creation of Israel was declared in 1948.The Balfour Declaration was a public pledge made by the then Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Britain's Jewish communityin 1917 promising the British support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine.
The establishment of Israel and the World War II led to the banishment of thousands of Palestinians who, that being so, became refugees. It mainly caused the starting of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people. In turn the Palestinians, with the support of the Arab world, sought to establish their own sovereign state within the territory of Palestine. Most of the West Bank is, at present, administered by Israel even though 42% of the area is under varying degrees of autonomous rule by the Fatah-run Palestinian Authority. But the Gaza Strip is under the control of Hamas.
Even though numerous peace negotiations have taken place over the years, the tension still exists with violence, including continued attacks by Palestinian militants and military operations by Israel. The United States and other countries have played a vital role for the restoration of peace, but it is an oasis.The history shows that the Palestine province has been inhabited by the Jews from time immemorial, say from about 3500 years, even before the birth of Lord Jesus Christ and Prophet Mohammed, the founder of Islam. Muslims started migrating to Palestine only during the 7th century subsequent to the attack of Muslim army in Jerusalem that was conquered in November 636 from the Byzantine Empire under the leadership of Umar ibn al-Khattab. The tension leading to direct conflict started between the Jewish people and the Muslims with theinflux of Islam to the province.
The first violence, as recorded, between Arabs and the Jewish people in Palestine was the accidental shooting death of an Arab man by a Jewish guard at Safed, a city in Israel, when a wedding took place in December 1882. It was reacted with a mob of about 200 Arabs who descended on the Jewish settlement and threw stones and damaged their properties. Since then the tension leading to the conflict between the two groups had started and still continuing. So also local residents considered European immigration to be a threat to the cultural make-up of Palestine.
The Jews started acquiring lands and extending their areas for theirsettlement. The Arab population in the Palestine region then began protesting against the acquisition of lands by the Jewish population. As a result, in 1892 the Ottoman authorities banned land sales to foreigners. By 1914 the Jewish population in Palestine had risen to over 60,000out of which around 33,000 were of being subsequent settlers.However, the Jewish immigration to Palestine continued to grow significantly, mainly because of the growth of anti-Semitism in European countries. As a result90,000 immigrants settled in Palestine between 1919 and 1926 because of the anti-Semitic manifestations, such as the pogroms in Ukraine in which 100,000 Jews were brutally murdered. After a few years the Jewish population in Palestine doubled.
The period of 1930s was a crucial period for both of them, for escalating tensions led to the Arab Revolt that lasted from 1936 to 1939. That being the situation, in April 1936, the newly formed Arab National Committee exhorted Palestinians to launch a general strike and boycott Jewish products to protest British colonialism and growing Jewish immigration. Subsequently another the revolt began in late 1937 that was led by the Palestinian peasant resistance movement targeting British forces and colonialism so that Britain had massed 30,000 troops in Palestine and villages were bombed by air and homes were demolished by the second half of 1939.
(to be continued.... )
- DR.ABRAHAM CHETTISSERY
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