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1. Palestinian-Israeli Conflict Background, the Creation of Israel,
and the Palestinian Nakbah
2. Geography of Conflict
6. A little history Both Jews & Palestinians have lived in the area for a long time, although in varying numbers
3000-1500 BC Canaanites
1200-1100 BC Philistines (Palestinians) & Jews invade & settle the area
Distant history of Jewish statehood in the region
1000 BC Jews unite, defeat other groups, & found Kingdom of Israel. Lasts in unified form for about 70 years
722 BC-600s AD various Jewish states rise & fall but area mostly under control of empires (Babylonian, Roman, etc.)
7. (More history) Recent history of Palestinian & Ottoman control of the region, 640s-1918
Rise of Islamic empires, 7th c.
Ottoman rule, 14-20th c.
Indirect Empire: Palestinian “notables.”
Jews a mostly tolerated minority (sometimes persecuted, although status largely better than for Jews in Europe)
Jerusalem a religious center for Judaism, Christianity, & Islam
8. Palestinian Politics, early 20th century Largely (90%) rural population
Varying senses of identity: Local, Palestinian, Muslim, Ottoman, Arab
Palestinian politics dominated by “local notable” families
Divisions with the community exacerbated by the British
Varying ideas of new political configurations:
Palestine as southern Syria under Arab rule
1930s: emergence of new Palestinian leadership
9. Zionism Basic tenets:
Jews constitute a nation
Jews should create & live in a Jewish state in Palestine
Largely secular
Inspirations
Persecution of Jews in Europe
Age of Nationalism
Late Colonialism
Various strands
Labor Settlement Movement (Labor Zionism) – 1904-1914
Land Purchases
Socialism
Self-reliance & “closed shop” labor
Revisionist Zionism (“Eretz Israel -- territorial maximalization)- 1920s onward
Main means of organization
World Zionist Organization/Jewish National Fund
10. Early demographics of Palestine 1878: 443,000 Arabs; 15,000 Jews
1914: 560,000 Arabs; 80,000 Jews.
Arab pop: 84 % Muslim (mostly Sunni), 16 % Christian
Jewish pop: about 70% longtime inhabitants, about 30% Zionists
1933: about 950,000 Arabs; 280,000 Jews
1946: 1.26 million Arabs; 608,000 Jews
12. The Creation of Israel: How and Why British (London) support for Zionism, 1917-1939
Balfour Declaration
Palestine Mandate
Power Vacuum
High level of Zionist organization & mobilization
Diplomatic strategies
Armed strategies
Economic/demographic strategies: Creating “Facts on the Ground”
WWII and the Holocaust
New waves of immigration
New international support (U.S., Russia)
13. Challenges to Zionism Growing British resistance
Arab and Palestinian resistance
Internal disputes
Divided Jewry (pre-WWII)
Political disputes (Ben Gurion vs Jabotinsky)
The Holocaust
14. |WWII & Jewish immigration Holocaust prompts renewed Jewish emigration to Palestine
Jewish perspective: Jewish state needed for their protection (war largely dissolved former Jewish resistance to Zionism)
Palestinian perspective: Arabs shouldn’t have to pay for Europe’s injustice towards Jews
New U.S. support for Zionism
UN Partition Plans (see following slide) propose 2-state solution
16. Establishment of Israel, 1948 British withdrawal, 1947
Attacks by both Jews and Arabs on British forces
UN Partition Plan 1947
Civil war 1947-48
Bombings and terror used by both sides
Deir Yassin 04/48
14 May 1948 Israeli Proclamation of independence
Arab-Israeli wars, 1948-49
18. Results of the 1948-49 War Expanded Israel state boundaries
Jordan controls West Bank; Egypt controls Gaza
700,000 Palestinians expelled or fled from Palestine (al-Nakbah,the disaster)
470,000 enter camps in Arab Palestine & Gaza
Rest dispersed (Palestinian Diaspora)
Exodus of 325,000 Jews from the Arab world to Israel
End of 1949: Israeli population about 1 million