Palestinian Israeli Conflict Essay -- History, Jews and Arabs

Part I: Palestinian/ Israeli Conflict History Jews and Arabs had mutual tolerance for each other until Theodor Herzl started the modern Zionism movement ("History 10 Handout" page 1-5). Zionism is the belief that Jews should have their own homeland, and in 1917 the British decided to back Zionism with The Balfour Declaration (Mattar et al. 380-382). After the Balfour Declaration the Jewish people started massive immigration to Palestine and the Arabs living in Palestine strongly objected to this Jewish immigration. A big part of why the British decided to back the Jews were that all the Jewish people had to suffer through the years of terror that the Holocaust brought. They needed a place to go and their old Holy land seemed like the perfect place at the time ("History 10 Handout" page 1-5). The British backed out of Palestine because they were getting complaints from both the Jews and the Arabs. The United Nations made a plan to partition Palestine in 1947, it passed the UN with a two-thirds vote (Brooks, â€Å"British Mandate for Palestine: Arab-Israeli Wars† Web). However the Arabs refused to accept the compromise and on May 14, 1948 Israel declared itself a state with the US and the Soviets approval. On May 15, 1948 Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan invaded Israel because of its statehood ("History 10 Handout" page 1-5). This started Israel’s War for Independence which was overall a victory for Israel. The soldiers fighting for the invading countries were not experienced in battle and fell to Israel, instead of a clear cut victory they in placed an armistice ("History 10 Handout" page 1-5). The Israel War for Independence produced over 50,000 Arab refuges and forced most of them to live in rural farming villages kn... ...ack). Therefore, the Palestinians need to form a democratic political system where Hamas is no longer in charge. They also need to form a legitimate fighting force run under a government so the terrorist’s attacks will stop because the government will be in control. The attacks will come to a halt when a democratic government is in place because a real government would not put up with this behavior. These steps are not that difficult in anyway and can be taken immediately if wanted to. Overall the conflict in Israel will never be fixed if the two sides cannot cooperate with each other and see the other side. Although Israel may have the power in the relationship, Palestine can still take steps of their own to solving the conflict. Both sides are at fault for the problems they had and no side greater than the other, peace can be achieved if they want it.