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You will always get answers that are considered biased by one side or the other. That is why you need to look for facts and confirm their validity from reliable
sources. These sources are there. I am a Palestinian, and my answer will be considered biased by the pro-Israeli side. You've got several pro-Israeli answers here
already, and yes they are biased to the Israeli side. I will give here a brief and factual history of the conflict. I am ready to reply to any challenge from the Israeli
side to the facts in my answer.

The seed of this conflict was planted in 1882 when the Zionist movement started with a group of secular (non-religious) European Jews to establish a homeland
for the Jews in Palestine. Up to the 1920's, Jews lived in peace with Muslims and Christians in Palestine for about 1300 years (except when the European
Crusaders killed all the Jews and Muslims in Jerusalem 900 years ago). Most of the Jews who lived in Palestine till then were Arabs.

When Britain occupied Palestine during World War 1, it gave a declaration (Balfour Declaration 1917) to the Zionist Federation that Britain will facilitate
establishing a national home for the Jews in Palestine. There was one big problem however: the land already was populated by native Arabs (Mostly Muslim, but
with significant Christian 7% and Jewish minorities 9%).

Britain opened the door to Jewish immigration from Europe, which increased in the 1930's and 1940's because of Nazism and the Holocaust. In 1948 the Jews
made up 33% of the population of Palestine, but owned only 7% of the land. The UN voted in 1947 (UN Res. 181) to split Palestine 55% for the Jews and 45% for
the Palestinians to establish a Jewish and Arab States in Palestine, and to make Jerusalem an international area. War broke out between the Arabs and Jews in
1948 and the Jews occupied 80% of Palestine and established Israel on it. In the process Israel ethnically cleansed (forcibly removed) 80% of the Palestinians
from the land they occupied and destroyed and depopulated more than 400 Palestinian villages, massacred thousands of Palestinians and made 0.75 million
Palestinians refugees.

The UN voted in 1948 (Security Council Resolutions 93 and General Assembly Res. 194) to tell Israel to allow the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes,
but until today Israel never complied. In 1967 Israel militarily occupied the remainder of Palestine (The West Bank and the Gaza Strip). The Security Council again
voted in 1967 and 1973 that Israel return to the 1967 borders and allow the refugees to return, but Israel never complied (Security Council Res. 237, 242, 338).

This gives you a brief history of the roots of the problem. The Palestinians now negotiate to get only the lands occupied in 1967 back to establish their own state
on it, and for Israel to allow the deposed people in 1948 and 1967 to return to their original homes.

Israel is only accepting to return only parts of the lands occupied in 1967. The land they accept to return has no borders with the outside world (making it an
effective jail guarded by the Israelis). They also refuse to allow the refugees to return. They also have built many illegal settlements in the West Bank and planted
nearly 500,000 Israeli extremists in them. Israel has taken control of nearly 5/6 of the water resources in the West Bank, and has built an apartheid wall that dwarfs
the Berlin wall around and through Palestinian cities and villages in the West Bank (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyO2F3HD4…
). They also refuse to return East Jerusalem, which is part of the West Bank, to the Palestinians.

Again this is a very brief background. It in no way describes the daily suffering, abuse, humiliation, terror and deprivation of basic human rights the Israelis inflict on
the Palestinians.

You can get more information from Wikipedia in the link below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_pale…

If you prefer documentaries, the following two documentaries are the best you can find on the subject:

1) Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land (79 minutes)

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=…

2) Occupation 101 (88 minutes)

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=…

This video from CBS 60 Minutes program (Jan 2009) is also a good one (13 minutes)
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4…
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Other Answers (10)
• Daniel C
Ok, basically, despite all the biblical history and middle ages Crusades all, the Middle East was actually united as British Territory until near the end of WWII,
where the Jews rose in revolt against the British for an independent Jewish state. And after the revelation of the Holocaust in Europe, there was also a big
sympathy movement for them, so they more or less got their independent state.

Unfortunately, Palestine had more than only Jews living there, and the Palestinians suddenly found themselves living in a Jewish state as a minority people, so
there is great upset and demands for a PALESTINIAN state now, and after years of insurgent fighting, (wiki PLO and Arafat), a piece of land on the west bank was
actually set aside for them during peace talks. Problem now is 1) that that piece of land is not their homes so they were actually being evicted, and 2) Rogue
palestinians still hate Israel enough to launch attacks into Israel, in violation of the peace terms.

So after all the fighting, both sides now hate each other with a passion, and Israelis look unfavourably on Palestinian claims to Israel as they did nothing to fight the
British for freedom, while Palestinians hate Israel for claiming their homes as Israeli territory.
 You might want to wiki the Oslo Accords too for background.
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• phloyd
"I have tried researching it a million times but keep getting biased opinions and different stories" haha, why'd you come here then??

I've answered this question quite a few times before but I'll boil it down into the shortest possible history I can. Basically several thousand years ago there was a
people in that region called the Jews and they had several kingdoms and a religion of their own and they wrote a big book about how special they are. The
Romans then took control of the area and ruthlessly put down several large rebellions which led most of the Jews to disperse by the 4th century and they renamed
the area Palestine (the Jews became a small minority in Palestine and remained so for the next 1700 years). In the 7th century the Muslims took control of region
and but for 100 years or so of Crusader states, various Muslim empires controlled the region up until the WWI. After WWI Britain took control and allowed some
Jewish immigration which later turned into a flood of migrants due to the rise of Nazi Germany. After the WWII the UN decided to give over have of Palestine to a
new Jewish state despite the fact they had only one third of he population, this caused a war with the Arabs, after which newly formed Israel had taken control of
78% of Palestine. In 1968, Israel launched a war after tension with its Arab neighbours and occupied the remaining portion of Palestine - the West Bank, Gaza
Strip and East Jerusalem. Ever since, Israel has been building settlements on this captured territory and removing Palestinians from their homes and land
(although they withdrew from the Gaza Strip) as a means to annex as much of it as they possibly could.
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• Vlad Impale
To be unbiased. The Jewish religion started in a place called Judah in Modern Day Israel. When the Roman (Christians) came from Europe the Jews were forces
out and lost their homeland.

The Jews were scattered everywhere in the world. Then Jews had to learn how to do business and move around. The European Christians blamed the Jews for
Jesus's death. Also they were jealous of their success.

The Europeans through many many centuries intiated very anti-semetic policies against the Jews finally resulting in the death of 6 million European Jews in 1945.

So Europeans felt a great deal of guilt, also oil was discovered in the Middle East. The Europeans hated the Arabs because of the crusade. So they said to all the
Jews. "Ok we will support you a homeland in the Middle East, provided you keep the Arabs weak"

So basically the Jews can back to a homeland which they were ethnically cleansed, and now they are ethnic cleansing the occupant Palestinians who were like
temporary tenants in that land.
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• affinity...

ews are originally from Israel.

Many were forced out against their will by foreign occupiers.
Some Jews stayed. In the 7th century, some Arabs invaded.

From the 1800s to 1940’s both Arabs and Jews had large immigration into the area.
Arabs sold a lot of land to Jews at high prices.
Both groups wanted independence.

Arabs began ethnically cleansing Jews in 1929 from Hebron.

The British took almost 80% of palestine and gave it independence in 1947 and renamed it Jordan.
They immediately seized all Jewish property and began ethnically cleansing the palestinian Jews from the 80% of palestine that was now called Jordan and
pushing them in to the remaining 20% of palestine. (In part this is important because even though "palestine in 1948" was only 20% of the size of "palestine in
1947," people treat statistics on "palestine" as if it is the same size.)

The remaining 20% of palestine that was not indepedent yet now had the palestinian Arabs that had lived in that 20% + all the Jews that had lived in 100% of
palestine squished in to it.
 At that time, Palestinian Jews owned about 7% of all the land in "palestine in 1948." Palestinian Arabs owned about 5% of all the land in Palestine. The
Government (UK) owned about 70% and Non-Palestinian/foreign Arabs owned the rest. (For over a thousand years, most land in palestine has been government
owned and rented out.)
The UN voted to give both groups independence by creating 2 new states with borders and govt based on demographic majority. This is democracy.

Majority Jewish areas would be Israel; Majority Arab areas would be an Arab state; and majority Jewish Jerusalem would be an international city.

Jews accepted it.

Arabs rejected it and promised to commit genocide.

And they tried.

Arabs attacked Israel immediately and did ethnically cleanse ALL Jews from all land seized by Arabs in 1948. They ethnically cleansed Jews from Jerusalem and
the West Bank and Gaza. (That is why there were no Jews there in 1967 when Israel won the land from Jordan in a war after Jordan attacked Israel first.)

Jews invited Arabs to stay. Many did. Today 20% of all Israeli citizens and elected MKs are Arab Israeli citizens. Did ANY Jews push any Arabs out? Probably. But
that was the exception and the 20% figure of Arab Israelis shows that.

Also in 1948, Arab states ethnically cleansed about 800,000 Jews, seized their property and killed them or forced them to leave, pushing them out of Arab states
and in to Israel.

Immediately after the war, Israel offered peace and invited 100,000 refugees to return immediately as a show of good faith. Arab states refused to negotiate peace
as doing so would implicitly accept that Israel exists. And Arab states forced the palestinian refugees into refugee camps and refused to allow any to return as per
Israel's offer.

Much of the WB and Gaza is land that is either govt owned or Jewish private property whose owners were expelled by the palestinians / jordanians in 1948. But,
they want to keep that land "Jew free." So, they call Jews living there "settlers" and an "obstacle to peace."
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• X-zenon III
Hi chelsea . . I am an egyptian so i ll give u the short true answer b4 zionists jump here and give u a smart fake answer that mix half the truth with lies and spread
it every where . . . So once the whole middle east was governed by muslim leader it was smthng like the u.s.a then british occupation broke this country into lil
countries and draw the borders british pplz decided to give a country called palastine to jews (4 biblical reasons) so they went as gangs killed the arabs and other
times bought their lands they bought like 2-3 % of the whole country . . . Then arabs tried to help but they got defeated and those gangs declared their state at
1948 and since that time "israel" appeared to the world and kept stealing more land and getting more support and fund and weapons so they attacked several arab
neighbours in 1967 and stole more land 4m egypt (sinai) syria (golan) lebanon(sheba) and jordan arabs fought back in 1973 and egypt got sinai back with both
negotiations and fight . . . However palestine is still stolen and they keep building settlments and killing palestinians and call anyone who struggle or revenge 4 his
dead father or 5 sons killed or who is simply patriot a terrorist . . . This is the basic truth without adding or removing . . And anyone who say other than that is
lieng . . . Peace
Source(s):
There were jews(the semitic ones) , christians and muslims living peacfully in palestine b4 that the ones who formed israel are 4m europe , russia , poland , africa .
. . And they r not the "chosen people" . . . Peace chelsea and i hope that i gave you a detailed answer oh i 4got to tell u that jews never controlled palestine except
4 70 years with the prophet and king david . . (you can read in the bible how much violance and killing (of the owners of that land palestinians or simply arabs) they
did to establish this kingdom . . .
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• Arthur W
There are two sides to every conflict. \the positions are so polarised that anyone who answers it will effectively be emphasising with one side or the other. There's
no such thing as a neutral answer.
If you really want to understand it. Take a holiday in Israel. Then take a tour of the West Bank. You'll hear both perspectives. Don;t visit Gaza as you might be
taken hostage.
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• Lupines
Qaddafi let the "cat out of the bag" when he spoke at Arab Summit 2008. The simple fact of the matter is that the Arabs looked for any way to push the Jews into
the sea, they did it in wars and massacres and when those failed, developed a political cause called "Palestinian" people which still continues today.

Quote Qaddafi: "Does Palestine only consist of the Gaza and West Bank? If so, that means that the Israelis did not occupy it in 1948. They left it for you for twenty
years, so why didn't you establish a Palestinian state? Wasn't the Gaza Strip part of Egypt and the West Bank part of Jordan? The Jews left them for you for 20
years, from 1948 to 1967. If that is Palestine, why didn't you establish a state there?
 "What is the justification for all the wars, the sacrifices, and the economic embargo on Israel before 1967? The Israelis can sue the Arabs now, and demand
billions even trillions in compensation, for the damage caused to them in 1948-1967. You Arabs ADMITTED the Palestinian cause began AFTER 1967. So the
Israelis can ask 'Why did you fight us before that?' They will demand compensation for the so-called embargo on Israel, and for the economic damage caused to
the Israelis. If the Israelis sue you, they will win. They will say 'we were like an innocent lamb surrounded by wolves, we've been saying this since 1948.' Now the
Arabs themselves have admitted that Palestine was occupied in 1967. Now they demand that Israel return to its pre-1967 borders, saying that this will resolve the
problem and they will recognize Israel.

Why didn't you recognize Israel before 1967? ... this is unacceptable, it doesn't make sense." -- Qadafi to Arab Summit 2008 http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=QP2ePHOLS…

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity.
In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese." -- PLO Executive Committee member Zuhayr Muhsin, March 31,
1977, interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw."

"Palestine and Jordan are one..." said King Abdullah in 1948.

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• Alejandr...

There is no conflict between Palestine and Israel because Palestine no longer exists. To ask a question like you have, you would need a BA in history to get close
to it. Everyone has an opinion, but your best bet is to look it up on Google, but be prepared to find it hard reading and understanding!!
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• Zion Forreal
There's no conflict.... it's just eradicating the pests (palestinians arabs muzzllims)... Israel is the good guys
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Serene E•
Go up to SEARCH Y ANSWERS and type in your question. Been asked and answred a million times!!
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