This seems to be the most unbiased document on the subject:
Based on biblical traditions, it is estimated that king David conquered Jerusalem about 1000 B.C. and established an Israelite kingdom over much of Canaan including parts of Transjordan. The kingdom was divided into Judea in the south and Israel in the north following the death of David's son, Solomon. Jerusalem remained the center of Jewish sovereignty and of Jewish worship whenever the Jews exercised sovereignty over the country in the subsequent period, up to the Jewish revolt in 133 AD.
The Assyrians conquered Israel in 722 or 721 B.C. The Babylonians conquered Judah around 586 B.C. destroyed Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem, and exiled a large number of Jews. About 50 years later, the Persian king Cyrus conquered Babylonia. Cyrus allowed a group of Jews from Babylonia to rebuild Jerusalem and settle in it. However, a large number of Jews remained in Babylonia, forming the first Jewish Diaspora. After the reestablishment of a Jewish state or protectorate, the Babylonian exiles maintained contact with authorities there. The Persians ruled the land from about 530 to 331 B.C. Alexander the Great then conquered the Persian Empire. After Alexander's death in 323 B.C., his generals divided the empire. One of these generals, Seleucus, founded a dynasty that gained control of much of Palestine about 200 B.C.
About 61 B.C., Roman troops under Pompei invaded Judah and sacked Jerusalem. The land came under Roman control. The Romans called the area Judea. Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem in the early years of Roman rule. Roman rulers put down Jewish revolts in about A.D. 70 and A.D. 132. In A.D. 135, the Romans drove the Jews out of Jerusalem. The Romans named the area Palaestina, at about this time.
During the seventh century (A.D. 600's), Muslim Arab armies moved north from Arabia to conquer most of the Middle East, including Palestine. Jerusalem was conquered about 638 by the Caliph Umar (Omar) who gave his protection to its inhabitants. Muslim powers controlled the region until the early 1900's. The rulers allowed Christians and Jews to keep their religions. However, most of the local population gradually accepted Islam and the Arab-Islamic culture of their rulers. Jerusalem became holy to Muslims as the site where, according to tradition, Muhammed ascended to heaven after a miraculous overnight ride on his horse Al-Buraq. The al-Aqsa mosque was built on the site generally regarded as the area of the Jewish temples.
The Seljuk Turks gained control of Jerusalem in 1071. Seljuk rule of Palestine lasted less than 30 years. In 1098, the Fatimids, based in Egypt, took advantage of the Seljuk struggles with the Christian crusaders from Europe. They allied themselves with the Crusaders and captured Jerusalem, Jaffa and other parts of Palestine in 1098
A great slaughter of the Jewish and Muslim defenders followed, and no Jews were allowed to live in Jerusalem. The crusaders held the city until 1187, when the Muslim ruler Saladin attacked Palestine and took control of Jerusalem.
The result was to greatly depopulate and impoverish the coast of Palestine for hundreds of years.
In the mid-1200's, Mamelukes, originally soldier-slaves of the Arabs, based in Egypt established an empire that in time included the area of Palestine. Arab-speaking Muslims made up most of Palestine's population. Beginning in the late 1300's, Jews from Spain and other Mediterranean lands settled in Jerusalem and other parts of the land. The Ottoman Empire defeated the Mamelukes in 1517, and Palestine became part of the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish Sultan invited Jews fleeing the Spanish Catholic inquisition to settle in the Turkish empire
In 1798, Napoleon entered the land. The war with Napoleon and subsequent misadministration by Egyptian and Ottoman rulers, reduced the population of Palestine. Arabs and Jews fled to safer and more prosperous lands. Revolts by Palestinian Arabs against Egyptian and Ottoman rule at this time may have helped to catalyze Palestinian national feeling. Subsequent reorganization and opening of the Turkish Empire to foreigners restored some order. They also allowed the beginnings of Jewish settlement under various Zionist and proto-Zionist movements. Both Arab and Jewish population increased. By 1880, about 24,000 Jews were living in Palestine, out of a population of about 400,000.
The Rise of Zionism - In the nineteenth century, the emancipation of Jews in Europe and nationalist ideas were blended with traditional Jewish ideas about Israel and Zionism. The marriage of "love of Zion" with modern nationalism took place first among the Sephardic (Spanish and Eastern) Jewish community of Europe, where the tradition of living in the land of the Jews and return to Zion had remained practical goals rather than messianic aspirations, and where Hebrew was a living language
The Zionists wished to establish a "Jewish Homeland" in Palestine under Turkish or German rule. They were not concerned about the Arab population, which they ignored, or thought would agree to voluntary transfer to other Arab countries.
At the same time, Palestine's Arab population grew rapidly. By 1914, the total population of Palestine stood at about 700,000. About 615,000 were Arabs, and 85,000 to 100,000 were Jews.
World War I - During World War I (1914-1918), the Ottoman Empire joined Germany and Austria-Hungary against the Allies. An Ottoman military government ruled Palestine. The war was hard on both Jewish and Arab populations, owing to outbreaks of cholera and typhus, however, it was more difficult for the Jews. For a time, the Turkish military governor ordered internment and deportation of all foreign nationals. A large number of Jews were Russian Nationals. They had been able to enter Palestine as Russian nationals because of the concessions Turkey had granted to Russian citizens, and they had used this method to overcome restrictions on immigration
Britain and France planned to divide the Ottoman holdings in the Middle East among themselves after the war. The Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 called for part of Palestine to be under British rule, part to be placed under a joint Allied government, and for Syria and Lebanon to be given to the France. However, Britain also offered to back Arab demands for postwar independence from the Ottomans in return for Arab support for the Allies and seems to have promised the same territories to the Arabs. In 1916, Arabs led by T.E. Lawrence and backed by Sharif Husayn revolted against the Ottomans in the belief that Britain would help establish Arab independence in the Middle East. The Arabs later claimed that Palestine was included in the area promised to them, but the British denied this.
The Balfour Declaration - In November 1917, before Britain had conquered Jerusalem and the area to be known as Palestine, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration. The declaration was a letter addressed to Lord Rothschild, based on a request of the Zionist organization in Great Britain. The declaration stated Britain's support for the creation of a Jewish national home in Palestine, without violating the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities
. After the war, the League of Nations divided much of the Ottoman Empire into mandated territories. The British and French saw the Mandates as instruments of imperial ambitions. US President Wilson insisted that the mandates be constructed to foster eventual independence. The British were anxious to keep Palestine away from the French, and decided to ask for a mandate that would implement the Jewish national home of the Balfour declaration, a project that would be supported by the Americans.
. The Arabs opposed the idea of a Jewish national home, considering that the areas now called Palestine were their land. The Arabs felt they were in danger of dispossession by the Zionists, and did not relish living under Jewish rule. Arabs lobbied the American King-Crane commission, in favor of annexation of the Palestine mandate area to Syria, and later formed a national movement to combat the terms of the Mandate. At the instigation of US President Wilson, the King Crane commission had been dispatched to hear the views of the inhabitants. At the commission hearings, Aref Pasha Dajani expressed this opinion about the Jews, "Their history and their past proves that it is impossible to live with them. In all the countries where they are at present, they are not wanted...because they always arrive to suck the blood of everybody..."
Originally posted by RaventheOnlySo you're dragging up something from 400BC from the Greek era? Even though there was a Jewish homeland after this period.
Before Rome there was the Pelapinisian War. 😐 Greece and Persia. 😐 maybe you need to get a little deeper and stop assuming things. the Rome you are talking about was after 0 A.D. I am talking far before that....
How exactly is that relevant to this discussion? 😐
By this time, Zionists had recognized the inevitability of conflict with the Palestinian Arabs. David Ben Gurion, who would lead the Yishuv (the name for the Jewish community in Palestine) and go on to be the first Prime Minister of Israel, told a meeting of the governing body of the Jewish "Yishuv" (community) in 1919 "But not everybody sees that there is no solution to this question...We as a nation, want this country to be ours, the Arabs as a nation, want this country to be theirs."
The British hoped to establish self-governing institutions in Palestine, as required by the mandate. The Jews were alarmed by the prospect of such institutions, which would have an Arab majority. However, the Arabs would not accept proposals for such institutions if they included any Jews at all, and so no institutions were created. The Arabs wanted as little as possible to do with the Jews and the mandate, and would not participate in municipal councils, nor even in the Arab Agency that the British wanted to set up.
In the spring of 1920, spring of 1921 and summer of 1929, Arab nationalists opposed to the Balfour declaration, the mandate and the Jewish National Home, instigated riots and pogroms against Jews in Jerusalem, Hebron, Jaffa and Haifa. The violence led to the formation of the Hagana Jewish self-defense organization in 1920
The riots of 1929 occurred against the background of Jewish-Arab nationalist antagonism, and were also fueled by false rumors that the Jews intended to build a synagogue at the wailing wall, or otherwise encroach upon the Muslim rule over the Temple Mount compound, including the Al-Aqsa mosque.
Jewish immigration swelled in the 1930s, driven by persecution in Eastern Europe, even before the rise of Nazism. Large numbers of Jews began to come from Poland owing to discriminatory laws and harsh economic conditions. The rise of Hitler in Germany added to this tide of immigration. The Jewish Agency made a deal, the Hesder, that allowed Jews to escape Germany to Palestine in return for hard currency that the Reich needed. The Hesder saved tens of thousands of lives.
Arab Revolt and the White Paper - In 1936 widespread rioting, later known as the Arab Revolt, broke out. The revolt was led by Husseini family and by Fawzi El Kaukji, a former Turkish officer, and it was apparently financed by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Hundreds of Arabs and Jews were killed in the revolt
The Peel and Woodhead commissions of 1937 and 1938 recommended partitioning Palestine into a small Jewish state and a large Arab one. The commission's recommendations also included voluntary transfer of Arabs and Jews to separate the populations. The Jewish leadership considered the plan but the Arab leadership, in particular, King Saud of Saudi Arabia, rejected partition and demanded that the British curtail Jewish immigration. Saud said that if the British failed to follow Arab wishes in Palestine, the Arabs would turn against them and side with their enemies.
In response to the riots, the British began limiting immigration and the 1939 White Paper decreed that 15,000 Jews would be allowed to enter Palestine each year for five years. Thereafter, immigration would be subject to Arab approval. At the same time, the British took drastic and often cruel steps to curtail the riots. Husseini fled to Iraq and then to Nazi Germany, where he subsequently broadcast for the Axis powers, was active in curtailing Jewish immigration from neutral countries and organized SS death squads in Yugoslavia.
Rickety boats full of refugees tried to reach Palestine. Many of the ships sank or were caught by the British or the Nazis and turned back, or shipped to Mauritius or other destinations for internment.
Reports of Nazi atrocities became increasingly frequent and vivid. Despite the desperate need to find a haven for refugees, the doors of Palestine remained shut to Jewish immigration. The Zionist leadership met in the Biltmore Hotel in New York City in 1942 and declared that it supported the establishment of Palestine as a Jewish Commonwealth.
After the war, it was discovered that the Germans had murdered about six million Jews in Europe, in the Holocaust. These people had been trapped in Europe, because virtually no country would give them shelter. The Zionists felt that British restriction of immigration to Palestine had cost hundreds of thousands of lives. The Jews were now desperate to bring the remaining Jews of Europe, about 250,000 people being held in displaced persons camps, to Palestine.
The Arabs brought pressure on the British to block such immigration. The British found Palestine to be ungovernable and returned the mandate to the United Nations, successor to the League of Nations.
Partition - The United Nations Special Commission on Palestine (UNSCOP) recommended that Palestine be divided into an Arab state and a Jewish state. The commission called for Jerusalem to be put under international administration The UN General Assembly adopted this plan on Nov. 29, 1947 as UN Resolution (GA 181), owing to support of both the US and the Soviet Union, and in particular, the personal support of US President Harry S. Truman.
Truman wrote in his diary, however, "I think the proper thing to do, and the thing I have been doing, is to do what I think is right and let them all go to hell."
The intention was an economic union between the two states with open borders. At the time of partition, slightly less than half the land in all of Palestine was owned by Arabs, slightly less than half was "crown lands" belonging to the state, and about 8% was owned by Jews or the Jewish Agency. There were about 600,000 Jews in Palestine, almost all living in the areas allotted to the Jewish state or in the internationalized zone of Jerusalem, and about 1.2 million Arabs. The allocation of land by Resolution 181 was intended to produce two areas with Jewish and Arab majorities respectively. Jerusalem and environs were to be internationalized. The relatively large Jewish population of Jerusalem and the surroundings, about 100,000, were geographically cut off from the rest of the Jewish state, separated by a relatively large area, the "corridor," allotted to the Palestinian state.
Originally posted by WindDancerIt may be a start yes, and whether the Israelis see this through is another matter.
It may not be a good way, but still is a start into something. No matter to what length the argument might come to, the main objective of the peace process is that the Israli settlers and the soldiers that protect them to move out of the terrorities. Sharron argue intensively with his parliment to get at least something going. It may seen like empty gift, but still is a beginning to something positive. Once the settlers move out it is most likely that the Military personal will move out eventually out the strip.Indeed, the violence will not stop suddenly but if everything works out the attacks will eventually get lesser and lesser. Another thing you said in another posts is that there is no point in going back into Origins of the Conflict. No point in that really, because sooner or later the argument will turn into a religious debate.
But, you can't achieve lasting peace between two peoples unilaterally.
Basically it seems that the Jews conquered the lands first, under David, then the romans came in and established Palestine and drove out the Jews.
Satus Quo for another couple of centuries. Then the Ottoman Empire came along and started allowing Jews to settle.
Then the Zionists wanted a jewish homeland so they began lobbying countries like France, Britain and the US to allow them to settle in the area.
Then they decided that they could just get all the jews in Europe to go there and then they would be the majority and there would be no choise left to the Palestinians but to accept it.
Then the UN divided the country and gave hafl to the jews and half to the Palestinians, keeping Jerusulem under international control
Which pretty much brings us to Arafat. The way I look at it, the Palestinians are in the right
I’m just wondering: We say “Jews/Israelis” and “Palestinians/Arabs”. But are they not the same people in reality? Aside from religion and language???
With that being said: Israel MUST withdraw from the OCCUPIED(!) territories. The Palestinians should be allowed to create their own state, without the Israelis constantly closing borders and using heavy military against slings.
I think most Israelies would like peace as much as the next Palestinian. It’s the religious extremist who mess this up…
And how Ariel Sharon (the “Butcher of Lebanon”, tried and convicted as responsible for the massacre on women and children in a refugee camp in Lebanon in 1982, convicted to NEVER be able to hold a political office in Israel) became the leader of Israel is COMPLETELY beyond me.
Yasser Arafat was no saint. But he was a rallying point for the Palaestinians. I fear that unless a new leader, that all agree upon, is found fast it'll go very wrong.
Originally posted by Raz
So you're dragging up something from 400BC from the Greek era? Even though there was a Jewish homeland after this period.How exactly is that relevant to this discussion? 😐
All points in history are relevent. Considering they were saying who was where first. The Jews were there first period. Ever heard of the kingdom of Solaman? Abraham ring a bell? The Muslim religion itself agrees that the old testimant and new testimant are history.... therefore the Jews are the rightful originals to the land and have been kicked out many times.
Originally posted by MC Mike
I feel sick. Some Bush supporting conservative girl was [b]glad he was dead, and making jokes about it. FFS! He just DIED. Even if Saddam of Usama died, I wouldn't start making ****ing jokes about it.Ignorance, Arrogance... what else must I be witness to in my own country? [/B]
yea you wouldn't be dancing in the streets if Hitler or Stalin had just been assasinated 🙄