Backdrop to Intifada

1
Backdrop to Intifada

• An abbreviated Background to the
  Palestinian-Israeli Conflict

2
Four main thoughts

• Essential struggle control over land
• Import of external allies and actors- their
  presence and absence
• Power imbalance between state and movement
• No monopoly on Victimhood and Justice

3
Geography of Conflict
4
Note Unless otherwise noted, all maps in this
presentation from http//www.dartmouth.edu/gov46/
5
(No Transcript)
6
These maps prepared by pro-Israeli sources show
the size of Israel-Palestine relative to other
parts of the world.
7
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.)

8
(More history)

• Recent history of Palestinian Ottoman control
  of the region, 640s-1918
• 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

9
Rise of Zionism, late 19th-early 20th c.

• Basic tenets
• Jews constitute a nation
• Jews should establish a Jewish state in Palestine
• Largely secular
• Inspirations/Context
• Persecution of Jews in Europe Russia
• Age of Nationalism, European colonialism,
  Manifest Destiny

Theodor Herzl, ideological father of Zionism
10
Palestinian Politics, late 19th-early 20th
century.

• Largely (70) rural population
• Varying senses of identity Local, Palestinian,
  Muslim, Arab, Ottoman
• 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

11
Enter the British

• The British Mandate, 1918-1947
• Conflicting promises Three documents
• Husayn-McMahon Correspondence (1915-16)
• Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916)
• Balfour Declaration (1917)
• Zionist migration
• Civil strife, 1920s-1940s

12
(No Transcript)
13
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

14
Events Perspectives

• 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 shouldnt have to
  pay for Europes injustice towards Jews
• UN Partition Plans (see following slide) propose
  2-state solution

15
(No Transcript)
16
Establishment of Israel/al-Nakbah, 1948

• British withdrawal, 1947
• Attacks by both Jews and Arabs on British forces
• UN Partition Plan 1947
• 14 May 1948 Israeli Proclamation of independence
• Civil Arab-Israeli wars 1947-49
• Bombings and terror used as repertoire of
  contention by both sides

17
Results of the War

• Expanded Israel state boundaries
• Jordan controls West Bank Egypt controls Gaza
• 700,000 Palestinians expelled or fled from
  Palestine (al-Nakbah)
• 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

18
(No Transcript)