In the 7th century, a new religion, Islam, arose in the Middle East. The Muslim Arabs conquered Palestine and began to settle onto the land. They built the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, where they believed Prophet Muhammad ascended into heaven to receive parts of the Qur’an. They were able to live peacefully and continued to spread their religion.
However, in the 16th century, the Turks conquered much of the Middle East, overthrowing the Arabs. The Arabs were consequently forced to pay taxes and provide soldiers for their Turkish masters.
The Arabs desperately wished to re-establish Arab rule in the Middle East and by the late 19th century, had tried several times to remove their Turkish rulers. The Arabs call for independence came in 1913 when the first Arab National Congress was held and in 1914, the Arab Nationalist Manifesto was published.
The First World War was a turning point for the Arabs in their quest for independence and the Jews struggle for their homeland. Turkey fought against Britain and the British, fearing their oil supplies from Persia may be cut off, decided to encourage the Arabs to rebel against their Turkish rulers to get independence. Soon, the Arabs were able to overturn the rule of the Turks and felt they deserved complete self-government.
However, in 1919 at the end of the First World War, Britain and France were given mandates in which they were to govern certain countries in the Middle East. This included Palestine. This angered the Arabs even more as their land was being taken away from them by having another ruler and the increase of Jewish immigrants.
Towards the end of World War 1, the British government decided to endorse the creation of a Jewish home in Palestine. Britain believed that the Jews in America could influence the government’s actions and declared their support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The decision was made public in a letter from Lord Arthur Balfour addressed to a lead British Zionist, Lord Rothschild. The contents of Balfour's letter became formally known as the "Balfour Declaration”.
During the 7th and 8th century the Arabs were living in Palestine and believed they had the right to the land as they had been living their for around 1300 years. Between 1880 and 1914 Jews began to return to Palestine angering the Arabs.
The holocaust played a huge part in further distancing the Arabs and the Jews. The Germans blamed the Jews for losing World War 2 and therefore set out to persecute the Jews. During the Second World War the Jews were persecuted by the Nazis and sent to
concentration camps. By the end of the war in 1945 6 million Jews were killed and 250,000 were freed from the concentration camps. As news about the holocaust emerged there was widespread sympathy for the Jews especially in the U.S.A. which had a large Jewish population. As a result of this 100,000 Jewish refugees were given immediate permission to enter Palestine but the British were aware of the conflicts this would cause and how it would anger the Arabs and narrowed it down to 1,500 Jews a month.
There were also the pogroms where the Russians blamed the Jews for the assassination of Tsar Alemandre and so the Jews were treated as slaves. This meant that many Jews began to return to Palestine to escape their persecution and the Zionist movement arose to restore the Jews to Israel ignoring the existing Arab population. Zionists were basically were all the people who believed in a Jewish national homeland and is used because Zion is the Jewish word for Jerusalem (the land the Jews believed was their homeland).
With the end of the holocaust and the pogroms, followed by the Jews expulsion from Western Europe, The Jews began to make their way back to Palestine, in the hope to regain control over their homeland.
This movement of the Zionists deeply angered the Arabs and with more and more Jews returning to Palestine, The Arabs felt their land was under threat which caused a lot of violence in Palestine. The Arabs rioted for days. This incident created a history of hostility between the Arabs and the Jews in Palestine. Eventually, Britain was asked to step in and consequently, the immigration of the Jews to Palestine was stopped.
After the Holocaust, immigration back into Palestine was permitted and to prevent any further riots, in 1947 the UN partitioned the land into Arab and Jewish states. On November 29, 1947, the United Nations voted to divide Palestine into two independent nations, one Arab and one Jewish. On May 14, 1948, a new nation was born: Israel.
Since the declaration of an Israeli state in 1948 and all the Arab-Israeli conflicts that followed, the Palestinians gradually lost their grip on what used to be their homeland and are still fighting for it today. Around 750,000 Palestinians left their homes within what was to become the state of Israel to seek refuge in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Syria and Lebanon countries for safety, but many stayed within Israel and its Occupied Territories where refugee camps were set up to accommodate them.
However, it is not just the Jews and Arabs who are in a dispute over the Israel - Holy Land. The Palestinians themselves differ over their ideas. There are the Hamas and the PLO.
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