Zionism
Any type of understanding of the current conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians needs to start with an understanding of what Zionism is.
Throughout history, Jews in Europe have been persecuted. They have lived in countries that are not their own and have often been the scapegoats when things were going badly politically. In the late 1800, a man named Theodore Herzl decided that in light of the continued persecution of Jews throughout history, Jews needed a national homeland. His epiphany came in the aftermath of the trial of Alfred Dreyfus, a French military captain who happened to be Jewish. Dreyfus was tried of false charges of treason and found guilty in 1894. In 1896 new evidence came to light which showed Dreyfus to be innocent. Sadly, this evidence was ignored and Dreyfus remained imprisoned.
For Herzl, the Dreyfus affair showed that even “assimilated” Jews like himself and Alfred Dreyfus are not immune to anti-semitism and the only way to remedy this situation was to create a national homeland for the Jews. The first Zionist conference was held in 1897. At this conference, several places were brought forward to the possible Jewish homeland to include Argentina. Eventually Palestine was chosen.
Under what is termed the Zionist movement, Jews from around the world started immigrating to Palestine. At first they lived peacefully with the local inhabitants. Eventually however, relations soured because it became obvious that their intention was to take the entire land of Palestine as their own. In 1948 the British, who had been in control of Palestine, left. When they left, the Jews that had immigrated and the local Palestinians went to war. The was is called the “War of Independence” by Israelis and “The Catastrophe by Palestinians. They call it the Catastrophe because during and after that war, tens of thousands of Palestinians were either killed or forced from their homes and hundreds of Palestinian villages were destroyed or repopulated by immigrating Jews. It truly was a sad day for Palestinians who had lived on the land for generations.
This is just a short history of Zionism. I encourage you to read more. It is important to remember that the Zionist movement had the goal from the beginning of displacing the Palestinians from their land. Many of us have heard the phrase “a land without a people for a people without a land” in reference to the new Jewish homeland. Based on that phrase the new Jewish homeland seems like a wonderful thing. When you consider that even at the first Zionist conference the delegates discussed what to do about the “Palestinian problem” it doesn’t seem like such a perfect fit.
No matter how you look at it, the conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis started when a group or Europeans decided to take someone else’s land. They certainly had good reason to want a homeland. Especially when you consider that in the late 1800s the culmination of Jewish persecution hadn’t even taken place yet. I’m of course referring to the holocaust where six million Jews were systematically murdered. I just find it sad that the answer to persecution is to take someone else’s land and then systematically persecute them.