Long Term and Short Term Causes of the Arab/ Israeli Conflict

The Arab Israeli conflict.

The Arab/Israeli conflict is a conflict between the Arabs and the Jews over a small piece of land known as the holy land which is an area in the Middle East of the Arab world. The Arabs call the land Palestine, the Jews call it Israel but both religions have strong religious links with the land. There is conflict between the two religions because they both believe that the land belongs to them.

it all started back in 135 AD when the Jews were expelled from they're homeland in Palestine causing them too spread out across Europe creating the Diaspora. Although the jews had been forced to leave the homeland they never lost their identity as jews and still longed too return to their homeland in palestine. when jews dispersed to live in other countries due to their way of life ant their natural successfulness people began to envy the jews and go the that jews thought they were superior to them which later lent to anti-semitism (hatred of jews).

While the Jews were rejected and persecuted every were they went, the Arabs eventually in 638 AD overthrew the roman rule and captured Jerusalem. Jerusalem became the 3rd holiest city of Islam as Palestine benefited from Muslim rule during the golden age. Then in 1517 the ottoman turks defeated the Mamelukes and took rule of Palestine. But the in 1897 the first Zionist congress calling for "a home for the jewish people in Palestine secured by public law". then with the out break of the first world war in 1914 the british promised the independence of arab states under ottoman rule, including palestine, in return for arab support against turkey who had entered the war on the side of germany. However in 1917 the British foreign minister issued a letter called the Balfour declaration supporting the Jewish race creating a national home in Palestine. but before this in 1916 Britain and France had signed the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which divided the Arab region into zones of influence. Lebanon and Syria were assigned to France, Jordan and Iraq to Britain and Palestine was to be internationalized. in 1918 britain aided by the arabs captured palestine from the the ottoman turks but britain had now made too many promises that hey couldn't keep . Many Arabs opposed British troops because of England's failure to fulfill its promise and were also getting angry about the increase of jewish migrating to palestine. Arabs became concerned that Jewish immigration would threaten their position in Palestine which lead to large scale attacks on the jews. At the time of Hitler's dictatorship in Germany, Jewish immigration increased dramatically in 1933. An Arab revolt started which Britain suppressed with the help of Zionist militias. Zionist settlements climaxed in 1936. In 1947, Britain forbid Jewish refugees from nazi concentration camps to land in Palestine to prevent war between Jews and Arabs, which resulted in worldwide criticism of Britain. Britain withdrew itself from the situation handing over the mandate over Palestine, leaving the United Nations to deal with the situation. The United Nations proposed that Palestine was divided into two states, one for the Arabs and one for the Jews, however the Arabs opposed this idea claiming that the UN plan allotted too much territory to the Jews. the arabs thought it was unfair that the jews should get more land because the arabs were by far the larger population but because of the holocaust the was a lot of sympathy for the jews and this may be why the got more land.

On May 14th 1948 Israel became Independent, which triggered the first war, violence between Jews and Arabs had been frequent since Great Britain received the League of Nations mandate for Palestine in 1920. Arab forces invaded Israel and gained some territory in the south and took Jerusalem's Old City. In June there was a four-week truce, however this was followed in July by significant Israeli advances before another truce. Fighting started again in August and continued until the end of 1948. An Israeli advance in January 1949 isolated Egyptian forces and led to a cease-fire. Approximately 400,000 Palestinian Arabs had run away from Israel and were settled in refugee camps near Israel's border, which was an important cause of conflict. Palestine was no longer a whole country. It was now divided into three separate parts. The Jewish area now covered over 77% of the territory and parts of the other section of the country where owned by owned by Jordan and Egypt. From 1949 to 1956 violence between Arabs and Israelis was minimized