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Olivia Hauge
EN 101
Professor DiPasquale
Due: 15 January 2015
The Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Past and the Present
The Arab-Israeli conflict has plagued the area of Judea and Samaria with much dissent
over the past few decades, with both Palestinians and Israelis claiming rights over an ancient and
sacred land. Although there had been some issues before the State of Israel was created in 1948
between the Jews and the Palestinians, the situation erupted during World Word II when a large
population of Jews from Europe began to settle in Palestine. These issues were both nonviolent
and violent, and in the end, the Palestinians were removed from their land. On the 14th May of
1948, Israel was created as a Jewish homeland. It was wrong of Britain to decide the fate of the
Palestinians, and it was even worse for the rest of world to allow what happened to happen.
Even though this was wrong at the time, there is currently no definite right answer for the
situation that could remedy the injustices that the Palestinians faced while not causing any for the
Israelis to encounter today.
In order to understand the Arab-Israeli conflict, one must know of the events that had lead
up to the creation of the State of Israel. It began in the late 1800s with Theordor Herzls belief
that a Jewish state should exist; this became known as the nationalist movement of modern
Zionism. Before World War I, the Ottoman Empire, which would later be broken up into
mandates by the Sykes-Picot-Sozonov Agreement, consisted of numerous states, including
Palestine, which would be under Britains control from the agreement. Towards the end of the
war, the British secretary of state created the Balfour Declaration, in which he stated that the

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Jews should have a home in Palestine, but he did not believe that Palestine should be the
homeland of the Jews from his understanding of what could erupt.
In the following years, a large population of Jews began to come into Palestine, and with
this large populace, Jewish groups began to form, in favor of Jewish settlement. One of these
groups was the Haganah Gang, which mainly wanted to protect Jews from any Palestinian
violence. Later on, when Israel becomes a state, they became the Israeli Defense Force. The
other two groups were the Irgun and Stern Gang, who acted as more terroristic organizations
against the Arabs. With the rise in violence between the Palestinians and the Jews, the British
came up with the Peel Commission Report, which stated that Arabs and Jews cannot live
together and there should be a two-state solution. In an attempt to control and contain the
violence, Britain issued the White Paper of 1939, which stopped all Jewish immigration into
Palestine. In the following years, the situation for Jews in Europe began to become threatening
and dangerous due to the rise in Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, and they did not have many places to
go, which resulted in more than 6 million Jewish deaths throughout the Holocaust. After World
War II, the United Nations was created, and Palestine was given to it. They came up with a plan
for a two-state solution and for Jerusalem to become an international city, which was known as
the UN Partition Plan of 1947. The Palestinians rejected this plan because they had their right to
the land.
In April of 1948, the Irgun and Stern Gangs decided to stampede the Palestinians out of
their homes so they could claim the land. It started in the village of Deir Yassin, and the Deir
Yassin Massacre, resulting in the loss of many innocent lives, caused fear in the Palestinians.
This eventually led to the exodus of nearly 800,000 Palestinians from their homes; many of

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them fled to nearby Arab countries, but mainly Jordan. One month after this massacre, Israel
was created as a Jewish homeland, on the 14th of May.
Because of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory, the Israelis are able to violate
the human rights of Palestinians through poor treatment that include punitive arrests, unfair
trials, torture of detainees, forced evictions, demolition of homes, brutal violence, and more.
Their movement is controlled in and out of the West Bank, and they are often given a hard time
when they try to enter and leave the area. The majority of Palestinians make around five dollars
a day, and some make even less than that. Many of them are starving and are unable to get the
medical service that they need.
The injustices and the hardships that the Palestinians had to face and still have to deal
with today are not going to just go away with the ignorance that the world gives to their
situation. Violence, acts of terrorism, and fear ensues both Palestinian and Israeli civilians from
this conflict. Although the world cannot make amends to what the Palestinians had to go
through, from being forced off of their land, having the burden of possessing the key to their
home that they can no longer go to, and suffering in camps, it should not just sit around. Instead
of pouring efforts into a one-state or two-state solution that will not be agreed upon by Israelis
and Palestinians for quite a while, they should be refocused on making the current Palestinian
situation better. Even though either side will not move their position on the matter, it does not
mean that one side should have to suffer the entire time that it will take to come up with a
solution.