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The events in the pasts months have brought forth a great deal of attention to the Israeli Palestinian conflict, but I have also come to understand that many do not understand the history behind the ongoing dispute, or fail to recognize the importance of the matter; what it may mean for the shattered state.
Since around 750 BC, Jews have been constantly conquered, prosecuted, and stripped of their lands. The city of Jerusalem is no exception to this, it has been under siege during various periods of time, but the Israeli-Palestinian dispute over the city would only surface in the 1920s, as the heinous actions of Adolf Hitler pushed Jews further west, only fueling the fire that burned among the people. Even then, it was more of an Israeli-Arab conflict.
To be clear, not all Muslims are Arabs, not all Arabs are Palestine, and not all Palestinians are Muslim. Seeing as people often mistake one for the other. For example, most people don’t believe that I am Muslim because I’m black and not Arab. Arabs themselves are an incredibly diverse group of individuals, and although most nations are Islamic states, there are many pockets of Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, etc.
Today most of the animosity and negativity between Muslim and Jewish communities is largely due to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. According to Dr. Yasir Qadhi, “Historically large pockets of Jews had been living in Muslim lands in complete harmony” (Is Islam Anti-Sematic). Settling in places like Iraq, Tanzania, Morocco, Yemen, etc. And when Jews faced persecution or expulsion from European Christians they took refuge in Muslim lands. Arabs have shown themselves to be ethnically Semitic, this can be seen as the most important Jewish figures like Stadia Gaon and Maimonides, who was also a personal physician of Saladin, lived among them. Arabs, themselves are more anti- zionists than they will ever be anti-semitic.
As mentioned before the Holocaust strengthened the jews’ desire for a Jewish state causing the rift between Jews and Palestinians to grow larger being as the devastation prompted the United Nations to issue a state for the Jews. In exchange for their contribution to the fight against Nazi Germany, the Jews were promised a state at the cost of Palestine. According to Vox, following World War II there was a notable surge of Jewish migrants into Palestine, further increasing tensions between the two ethnicities; due to the influx, the British began to limit Jewish Immigration to the Palestine state. (The Israeli-Palestine conflict: a brief, simple history).
The British went further and put limitations on Jewish land buys in what survived from Palestine, repudiating the arrangement of the Mandate (Article 6) that expressed “the Administration of Palestine...shall encourage, in cooperation with the Jewish Agency...close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not acquired for public purposes.” By 1949, nonetheless, the British had designated 87,500 sections of land of the 187,500 sections of cultivable land to Arabs and just 4,250 sections of land to Jews.
In 1967, dividing of Palestine was issued to allow a Jewish state to thrive, promote Palestinian independence and end sectarian violence, but that would not be the case as neighboring Arab countries rejected the idea as they saw it to be another act of colonialism. The Arab League declared war.
Political and civil disputes have constructed the now shattering nation from the ground up, but they continue to build walls taller than the U.S. or USSR could have ever made the Berlin Wall.
To Be Continued...
Citations
“The Complex History of the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict | Promises & Betrayals | Timeline.” YouTube, uploaded by Timeline - World History Documentaries, 4 Oct. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VBlBekw3Uk.
“History of the Jews.” YouTube, uploaded by GEO History, 13 Mar. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=KR9sWRzbdJw.
“The Israel-Palestine Conflict: A Brief, Simple History.” YouTube, uploaded by Vox, 20 Jan. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRYZjOuUnlU.
Qadhi, Dr. Yasir. “Is Islam Anti-Semetic?” YouTube, uploaded by The Thinking Muslim, 12 Apr. 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=amFJImNyQSY.
“Mediation in the Israel-Palestine Conflict.” The IMW Post, 26 June 2020, imwpost.com/mediation-in-the-israel-palestine-conflict.
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