A Short History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Author’s Note: This is a much longer letter than normal, but the topic is important and deserves a thorough analysis.
Growing up, I didn’t encounter much antisemitism. The only incident I remember took place in 1993, when someone painted a swastika on the bricks of my local synagogue. The first time I ever felt in danger because of my religion was in 2017, when Neo-Nazis paraded through the streets of Charlottesville. The Tree of Life shooting in 2018 in Squirrel Hill also hit close to home, as my grandmother lives nearby and has attended that synagogue many times. I’ll admit that I may miss out on antisemitism because I choose not to wear a yarmulke or tzitzit when I’m out and about.
While antisemitism hasn’t touched me on a personal level, I’ve always been well aware of the animosity towards Jews throughout the world, historically and in the present. Consider the disproportionate number of attacks on Israel at the United Nations. Between 2015 and 2022, the UN General Assembly condemned Israel 140 times, compared to China and Cuba (0), Russia (23), Iran (7), North Korea (8), and Syria (10). From 2006 to 2022, the UN Human Rights Council condemned Israel 99 times, compared to Syria (41), Iran (13), and Russia (4). While anti-Jewish and anti-Israel sentiment at the United Nations is as expected as it is upsetting, it has been more disappointing to read about recent events on college campuses.
Young Americans, especially at the most elite universities, have been taught to divide the world into the oppressors and the oppressed, and they have been inundated with ideas about colonialism. Jews are no longer a tiny, historically oppressed minority. As Heather MacDonald writes, “In a world where the West is built on white supremacism and oppression. Israel is the Western settler-colonialist oppressor par excellence.” For many, Israel’s treatment of indigenous Palestinians is the equivalent of what British settlers did to Native Americans.
While Israel has its faults, those who proclaim “From the River to Sea, Palestinians Must be Free” are mistaken to argue that Jews have no claim to the land between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea. There are good reasons why we Jews always face East toward Jerusalem when we pray, why we fast on Tisha B’Av (the day the ancient Temples were destroyed), and why, at the conclusion of the Passover Seder, we say “Next year in Jerusalem.”
Not all the stories in the Bible are true, but we know that Abraham and his descendants originally settled in the land of Canaan. While the Jewish people traveled to neighboring lands and were enslaved by the Egyptians, they eventually made their way back to Jerusalem and the surrounding areas. Around 1100 BCE, King David expanded the small collection of tribes into a kingdom that included modern day Syria and Jordan. David passed the kingdom to his son, Solomon, who built the First Temple. Jews lived in this area until the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III annexed the Galilee and Transjordan and deported the Jews. A little later, in 598 BCE, Babylon invaded Judea and plundered the temple. The Jewish people persisted, returned to the land, and rebuilt the temple only for it to be destroyed a second time by the Romans in 70 CE. (See the map below of the ancient Kingdom of Israel)
For nearly two millennia after the destruction of the second temple, Jews lived in foreign lands where they faced constant oppression and discrimination. Although Jews in the Ottoman Empire faced better treatment than in Christian Europe, they still experienced discrimination.
Even while Jews were spread throughout the diaspora, a small number made their way back to the historic land of Israel in the 1500s. According to Daniel Gordis, author of Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn, these Jews, known as the Old Yishuv, were “poor, deeply religious, and committed to having as little to do as possible with people outside their community.” When Theodor Herzl launched the Zionist project in the late 19th century, about 30,000 members of the Old Yishuv lived in the land of ancient Israel, mostly in Jerusalem.
The Early 20th Century
As more and more Jews from around the world made their way back to ancient Israel (a process known as “Making Aliyah”) in the early 20th century, the British Empire tried to partition the land to keep the peace. The initial idea, as voiced by British Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur Balfour in 1917 and the San Remo Conference in 1920 (Britain, France, Italy, and Japan convened to discuss the division of the land that had been held by the Ottoman Empire), was for the Jews to receive a very small strip of land and for the Arabs to receive the rest.
Some of the Arabs responded to the proposals with violence. While these attacks were mostly of a limited nature, tensions exploded when images of damage at the Dome of the Rock surfaced in 1929. (The images were fake.) Muslim leaders blamed the Jews and mobs attacked and destroyed the Jewish community of Hebron, which had been established four centuries earlier by Jewish refugees from Spain.
In November 1936, the British sent Lord William Peel to study the region. Peel surveyed the land and heard testimony from the local populations. A year later, the Peel Commission released recommendations and maps. Only a tiny section of the coastal plain would go to the Jews. Although disappointed by the amount of land they would receive, David Ben-Gurion and the Twentieth Zionist Congress accepted Peel’s recommendations. The Arabs rejected them. (See the map below)
Another partition proposal came in the form of a British White Paper. Issued in 1939, the proposal imposed a restriction on the sale of land to Jews and a ten-year plan in which Palestine would become an independent state with an Arab majority. The Jews accepted the proposal. The Arab Higher Committee rejected the proposal.
Following WWII and the horrific events of the Holocaust, the British handed the issue over to the newly created United Nations. On September 1, 1947, the UN proposed a partition. The Jews would receive a state made mostly of desert. More disappointing for the Jews, the proposed state of Israel would have an estimated population of 498,000 Jews and of 407,000 Arabs, while the Arab state would be home to 725,000 Arabs and 10,000 Jews. Under the plan, it wouldn’t take long for the Jewish state to become majority Arab. The Jews accepted the partition; the Arabs rejected it.
Events from 1948
When Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948, troops from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen and Saudi Arabia invaded the small state. Israel successfully repelled the invasions and grew its territory. (See the 1947 UN Partition Plan and Post-War Armistice Lines below)
So far, I’ve painted a picture of the Jewish people wanting only a small fraction of the area that used to be theirs. However, it’s essential to acknowledge that Israel’s leader, David Ben-Gurion, understood the demographic dilemma. He knew that any Jewish state would require a Jewish population larger than the Muslim population. Consequently, he directed the Israeli military to execute Plan Dalet during the War of Independence.
The original plan was to force Arabs out of their villages only if they resisted. If the Arabs chose not to fight back, they could remain in their towns under Jewish sovereignty. However, many Arabs fled due to their leadership fleeing, rumors of Jewish atrocities, and, in some cases, because Jews forced Arabs out. So yes, the Israelis, in a war for survival, displaced many Muslims. Arabs call this the “nakba” or “catastrophe.”
Some of the fighting was vicious. In April 1948, Israel paramilitary groups attacked the village of Deir Yassin. It's estimated that between 100 and 120 Palestinian civilians, including women, children, and elderly individuals, were killed. There are lots of debates between Israel-defenders and Israel-opponents about what happened. While allegations of rape and mass murder have been debunked by contemporary scholars, the event did spark fear and panic among Palestinian communities. Other horrific events include the fighting in Tantura, where Israeli forces killed hundreds of unarmed Palestinians. The fighting in Lydda also resulted in many civilian casualties.
By the war’s end, 700,000 Palestinian refugees had sought refuge in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. Here it’s important to point out that, between 1948 and 1965, the same number of Jews would be expelled out of Arab lands. But as Gordis points out, “Israel welcomed the Jewish refugees with open arms, whereas Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt, deliberately perpetuated their homelessness.” Maintaining the refugee status of the Palestinians who had entered their countries gave Arab countries “a card they were intent on playing as the conflict unfolded.” In short, many Palestinians fled the land but they only did so after surrounding Arabs countries started a war of destruction. Also, Israel gained more territory but only after Arab nations launched a war to destroy Israel. This story repeated itself two decades later in 1967.
The Six Day War
Egyptian armored vehicles entered the Sinai Peninsula on May 7, 1967. On May 15, Cairo Radio announced, “Our forces are in a complete state of readiness for war.” On May 16, Nasser instructed the Secretary General of the UN to remove its troops from the region. (Since 1957, the UN Emergency Force had stationed several thousand troops in dozens of observation posts along the international border of Gaza and the very southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula). By May 19, all UN troops had left the area. In a speech to the Arab Trade Unionists on May 26, Nasser announced, “Our basic objection will be to destroy Israel.”
Other Arab nations prepared for war. By June 4, the Egyptians had 100,000 troops and 900 tanks in the Sinai. To the north, Syria had 75,000 men and 400 tanks. To the east, the Jordanians had amassed 32,000 men and 300 tanks. Seeing the array of threats and the impending invasion, Israel launched a preemptive strike and defeated the Arab armies, tripling its land mass in the process. Even though the Israeli preemptive strike was moral and legitimate, there were actions that don’t paint Israelis in the best light.
Consider events from the Mughrabi Quarter. As Gordis writes, “Black and White photos of the Western Wall taken prior to the 1967 war depict a tight, narrow alley running along the wall.” Just beyond that narrow alley was an encampment called the Mughrabi Quarter. Displaced by the fighting in 1948, over 100 families had sought refuge there and had lived there ever since. On the evening of June 10, 1967, the families in the Mughrabi Quarter were instructed to leave the area. Soon thereafter, Israeli army bulldozers leveled the homes in order to accommodate the expected thousands who would visit the Western Wall of the ancient temple.
When questioned by reporters about the building of settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, Prime Minister Menachim Begin responded, “You annex foreign land, not your own country. Besides, what is this term “West Bank”? From now on, the world must get used to the area’s real—biblical name—Judea and Samaria.”
While I believe that Israel had a right to build on territory captured in a war it had not sought, I also believe that building settlements poisoned opportunities to make peace. Back in high school and college, I thought the settlements were an obstacle to peace but I didn’t get angry about them. I had a number of Israeli cousins who lived in the settlements and my father would visit them on occasion.
On this issue, I’ve changed my mind. I’ve been influenced by, among other things, a documentary called Israelism that Jackie and I watched. It interviews Americans Jews who grew up learning that Israel could do no wrong. These Americans made Aliyah, joined the Israeli army, and were disappointed by their experience of patrolling Gaza and the West Bank. The makers of the documentary also interviewed Palestinians talking about the limitations of living life in the West Bank. I love the idea that Jews should have a country to call their own, but I’ve come to view Israel’s settlement policy as a major, major mistake. Still, we can’t ignore the fact that Israel stood ready to demolish the settlements in order to make peace. So we turn to the 1990s and the Oslo peace process.
The Modern Peace Process
In September 1995, Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat signed an agreement that divided the West Bank into Areas A, B, and C, which would be controlled by the Palestinians, a joint Israeli-Palestinian authority, and the Israelis, respectively. This agreement kicked off the Oslo process, which had the long term goal of creating a Palestinian state. But as the peace process commenced, Hamas and other extremist groups targeted Israeli civilians with suicide bombs. As Gordis writes, “Arafat only rarely publicly denounced the culpable parties. Occasionally, he had them arrested, only to release them when the world’s attention had shifted.”
But Israelis were not free of blame. On February 25, 1994, Baruch Goldstein opened fire on Muslims in the middle of prayer, murdering twenty-nine Palestinians. It wasn’t just terrorists like Goldstein. There was a belief among religious Israelis that God had given the land to the Jewish people and only the Jewish people. This is why Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior Likud members attended a rally in Jerusalem where protesters branded Rabin a “traitor,” “murderer,” and “Nazi.” This is why Yigal Amir, a religious Jew, assassinated Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin in 1995.
Rabin’s sucessor, Shimon Peres, was committed to the peace process and moved Israel out of some major cities of the West Bank. “But instead of thanks,” said Peres, “We got bombs.” Within a span of nine days, attacks in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and Ashkelon killed almost sixty Israelis. Israelis, outraged and frightened, turned to Benjamin Netanyahu. The move to the right only lasted a few years. In 1999, Israelis elected Ehud Barak, who campaigned on finding peace with the Palestinians.
Barak withdrew troops from Southern Lebanon. Then the Israeli leader met with President Bill Clinton and Yasser Arafat at Camp David. At this summit, Ehud Barak offered 92% of the West Bank and sections of Jerusalem for the Palestinian state. Arafat didn’t only reject every part of the peace proposal, he and his negotiating team didn’t even make a counteroffer. In the final month of his presidency, Bill Clinton tried one last time, proposing a new Palestinian state that would include 94 to 96 percent of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and a capital in East Jerusalem.
But instead of making a counter offer, the Palestinians turned to violence in a period known as the Second Intifada. An attack on a Tel Aviv disco killed 21 Israelis, mostly teenage girls. An attack on a pizzeria in downtown Jerusalem killed 15 and injured 130. On the first night of Passover in 2002, a Palestinian terrorist detonated a large explosive at a hotel in Netanya, killing 28 civilians and injuring 140 people. Between September 2000 and September 2004, there were over 200 attacks that killed over a thousand Jews. As Gordis writes, “The actions by the Palestinians—from refusing to make a counter offer and then turning to violence—killed the Israeli peace camp.
Ariel Sharon and Getting Out of Gaza
In the aftermath of the Second Intifada, Israelis elected Ariel Sharon as Prime Minister. Sharon launched Operation Defensive Shield, taking back the cities that Israel had transferred to the Palestinians as part of the Oslo Accords.
Sharon, who spent his political career defending settlements as a member of the Likud Party, decided that the costs of Israeli’s presence in Gaza were too large. Ignoring pressure from his right flank, Sharon uprooted all the settlements and extracted the Israeli military. Gazans would govern themselves without an Israeli presence. When elections were held in 2007, Hamas won a large victory.
What happened when Israel chose to end the Gaza occupation and give all of Gaza to the Palestinians for them to govern themselves? Instead of building hospitals and schools, Hamas built tunnels and turned hospitals and schools into military sites. From its inception, Hamas has had a single goal: killing Jews.
While Hamas began planning for what would become October 7, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who campaigned on getting out of the West Bank just as Sharon had gotten out of Gaza, met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on a number of occasions. At the last session, Olmert offered Abbas an independent Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem. Through territorial swaps, Olmert offered the Palestinians almost 100 percent of the territory of the West Bank and Gaza that the Arabs had held before the 1967 war. But Abbas rejected the proposal and never made a counter offer.
I’ll end with a short personal story. Recently, Jackie and I walked our dog on the Downtown Mall in Charlottesville and passed a store called “The Beautiful Idea.” A sign on the window read: “We Support a Free Palestine.”
I wondered to myself: why are there no signs on the windows objecting to the genocide happening to Muslims in Xinjiang in China? Why no signs about the Rohingya people being subjected to horrible persecution in Myanmar because of their Islamic faith? What about signs protesting what Russia is doing in Ukraine? Why is it only the Jewish state that is under attack? As Bari Weiss writes, “Why is just this one state illegitimate, given that so many other modern states (e.g. India, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria) were likewise forged in war and displacement, their borders drawn by imperial powers.”
Yes, the victors of World War I wrote the modern maps of the Middle East even though none of these powers had any real claim to the land. But all throughout world history, peoples conquered land and made decisions about the land. It wasn’t just white Europeans who had empires. There were the Aztecs, the Mayans, the Mongols, the Ottomans, the Chinese, and the Zulus. As Jonah Goldberg writes, “Every continent save for Antarctica has seen a lot of stuff that fits this description of settler colonialism.”
I’m okay with Israel being held to a high standard. It is a democracy after all. But this notion that Israelis are simply a bunch of white colonialists is absurd. About 40-45% of Israeli Jews are of Mizrahi or Sephardic origin. In other words, their ancestry dates back to the Middle East and North Africa, because hundreds of thousands of Jews were expelled from Arab lands! I want to ask the progressives working at “The Beautiful Idea” or protesting on college campuses: why the double standard?