Palestine and Israel: A Century of Conflict
Israel and Palestine have been engaged in one of the most complex and long-lasting conflicts in the modern world. With deep historical roots, the struggle in the 20th and 21st centuries has been over land, national identity, religious questions, and foreign colonial interests.
The land occupied by Israel and Palestine today, divided into the West Bank and Gaza, has been at the intersection of civilizations since ancient times. When the area formed part of the Ottoman Empire, from 1517 until the First World War, the population was predominantly Arab, with small Jewish communities, mainly in cities such as Jerusalem, Hebron, and Safed. The peoples have long coexisted, being closely related both ethnolinguistically and culturally.
Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire governed Palestine from 1920 to 1947. As part of the territorial reorganization after the First World War, the recently created League of Nations awarded the United Kingdom the mandate to govern Palestine. The United Kingdom promised to grant the territory self-determination in the future, ensuring the creation of a state for the Jewish people while respecting the Arab population of Palestine.
During the British mandate, two nationalist movements clashed: Zionism, which sought the creation of a Jewish state, and Arab-Palestinian nationalism, which wanted an independent, undivided Palestine and viewed the British mandate as a colonial occupation. These competing visions lie at the heart of the current conflict.
When the British mandate ended in 1947, the UN proposed a partition plan (Resolution 181), that would divide the territory into Jewish and Arab states, placing Jerusalem under a special international regime as a multicultural city that was sacred for the Christian, Islamic, and Jewish populations. Although the Zionist leaders accepted the UN proposal, the Arab countries rejected it. In 1948, General David Ben-Gurion declared the independence of the State of Israel, sparking the First Arab-Israeli War. Israel occupied West Jerusalem and expanded the territory assigned to it under the UN’s partition plan. Meanwhile, Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip and Jordan seized the West Bank.
As a result of this initial war and Israel’s victory in it, Palestine experienced the “Nakba” or catastrophe: Israel expelled more than 750,000 Palestinians from its territories, displacing them to Gaza and the West Bank, as well as to Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. This event shaped Palestinian identity as an exiled and occupied people. Since then, Israel has prohibited the return of the expelled Palestinians and their descendants.
The conflict reached a turning point in 1967 with the Six-Day War. Israel defeated a coalition of Arab countries formed by Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. Israel increased its occupation and control of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights —an occupation that continues to this day—, as well as the Sinai peninsula —returned to Egypt in 1981—, and Gaza, which it controlled until 2005. The United Nations has declared its illegality according to international law, and it remains one of the main areas of conflict.
Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation intensified with the creation of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Led by Yasir Arafat, this movement gave rise to the armed resistance to Israel during the 1970s and 1980s. The PLO even attacked civilian targets in Jerusalem. In 1987, the Palestinian people took up arms in the First Intifada; followed by the Second Intifada in the early 21st century.
Throughout this period of conflict, multilateral diplomacy has failed to deliver a lasting peace agreement. In 1993, Israel and the PLO signed the Oslo Accords that created the Palestinian Authority and established a plan to create a Palestinian State. However, these agreements did not hold. The United States, the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations —the so-called Quartet on the Middle East— have all attempted to find diplomatic solutions to the conflict, but have failed to do so.
International law has also been unable to stop the Israeli army from abusing the human rights of Palestinian civilians. In 2002, Israel began to build a 712-kilometer wall the length of the West Bank, under the pretext of “defending the Israeli population” after the Palestinians’ Second Intifada. The wall has dramatically divided the local populations, creating two tiers of citizens. Those living on the Israeli side enjoy every freedom and public services, while those on the Palestinian side face restrictions to their mobility and rights, and lack economic and job opportunities. Organizations such as Amnesty International have criticized the apartheid-like conditions that this situation has created for Palestinians.
Throughout the 21st century, this conflict has been marked by constant armed attacks, including bombings in Gaza and in Israeli territory. The illegal expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank has fueled tensions and complicated any prospect of a two-state solution, while Washington’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel has further damaged the prospect of a peaceful solution.
During the most recent wave of violence, since October 2023, thousands of Palestinian civilians have died, and vital infrastructure in Gaza has been destroyed by the Israeli army. The South African government and various human rights organizations have accused the Israeli army of committing genocide against Palestinians. Israel has argued that it is acting in legitimate defense and demands the release of hundreds of civilian hostages. These were taken by Hamas in October 2023, in an attack that triggered a disproportionate military response by the government of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and divided the Israeli population, with some objecting to the government’s actions. Israel is not monolithic; criticisms of the Israeli military offensive have been made both domestically and abroad.
A century of clashes between the Israelis and Palestinians has made this the most painful and drawn-out conflict of our time. Neither multilateral diplomacy nor a desire for peace has been able to put an end to the daily massacre in one of the most sacred lands in the world. The first quarter of the 21st century has seen escalating violence, deepening conflicts, and the destruction of the Gaza Strip.
