Can someone explain the Israel/Palestine conflict please

[HappySonHappyMum]

Just that really - I've read some explanations but I really can't get my head around who is in the wrong and who is in the right. Who do the UK support and why, who does the world support? It's so confusing but I feel I should understand it all - the violence is awful.

I don't have the answer but I'd like to join in hope of getting one!

It doesn't work like that. There isn't a goodie and a baddie.

I’ve had a read Op and it’s really hard! I guess that’s why the brightest minds in the worlds haven’t solved it and it’s still going on.
It will also massively depend who you ask!
You ask a pro-Palestian, their land is being grabbed and taken and they’re being oppressed.
You ask an Israeli and they needed a land to settle in when they were being oppressed...
I’m trying to read and stay informed and not get too emotional/political and keep and open mind.
Still reading, still learning!

No one is in the right, and there aren’t just two sides either. It’s an awful, awful situation arising from a history of racism, imperialism, genocide and fear.

I'm struggling to get my head around it all as well.

So if I get this wrong I apologise.

After ww2 the allies and the UN helped settle a large number of Jewish survivors in a region near Jerusalem and created the Jewish state of Israel. This happened to be where the Palestinians lived and disagreed with being divided into a Jewish state and an Arab state.

The two have been fighting over land ever since. They both appear to bomb each other and kill civilians. Israel have access to some big league supports in the form of the US I believe.

If I have this wrong I am happy to be corrected as im so bloody confused about it myself.

Can I ask why the US seem to support Israel? They seem to sell them a lot of weapons - why have they chosen sides? Surely there's more to that support than just money?

@Pandoraslastchance

I'm struggling to get my head around it all as well.

So if I get this wrong I apologise.

After ww2 the allies and the UN helped settle a large number of Jewish survivors in a region near Jerusalem and created the Jewish state of Israel. This happened to be where the Palestinians lived and disagreed with being divided into a Jewish state and an Arab state.

The two have been fighting over land ever since. They both appear to bomb each other and kill civilians. Israel have access to some big league supports in the form of the US I believe.

If I have this wrong I am happy to be corrected as im so bloody confused about it myself.

It predates the declaration of the state of Israel in WW2 but that definitely escalated things.

Look up Mandatory Palestine and Balfour Declaration.

www.amazon.co.uk/Middle-East-Dummies-Craig-Davis/dp/0764554832?tag=mumsnetforu03-21
I tried reading this but didnt get very far.

From what I can understand, is after the 2nd world war, there was a big thing about the Jewish people who had been subject to such atrocities and genocide by the nazis, no longer had a homeland and had been displaced over centuries. There were several places being considered to create a homeland, but due to the significance to the jewish people of Jerusalem and the fact they had been exiled from there by the romans centures ago, this is why Israel was apparently chosen. It was controversial even then as obviously various governments of different countries far away, divvying up the middle east to create a new country was going to be unpopular with the people who who were already living there, the palestinians, who were thought of as a bit primitive. Anyway, Israel was originally much smaller than it is now, but any jewish person can claim israeli nationality and move there if they want, to prevent something like the holocaust ever happening again as they are always supposed to be safe there.
The reality of it though, is they are a Jewish country in the middle of the middle east which the rest of it are pretty much all muslim, and there has been conflict about the fact that israel keeps expanding itself by force, taking more and more of palestine, and because its a jewish land with Jews from all over the world, then they seperate their people by religion rather than where they were born and its now a kind of apartheid state and Israel has a lot of funding from western countries who are pretty damn happy to have a bit of the middle east under their control.
The pushback from the palestinians is huge, but they dont have a lot to fight with. Homemade weapons and rockets and stones are thrown, and the israeli army is huge and well funded and its turned into a Jews against Muslims issue, and therefore I dont think its going to end any time soon, and neither side seem to want to coexist - im sure individual people do, but not the ones in power, as is always the way.

Oh and if you support the Israeli side, youre an islamphobe, and if you support the palestinians youre an antisemite

Can I ask why the US seem to support Israel?

It makes political sense to. Lots of wealthy Jews in ‘Murica donating millions to the government and NATO in particular.

My Dad is Jewish and he has always been very anti-Israel. He isn’t alone with this, lots of Jews feel the same way.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-44124396

This is helpful

The bit I don't understand is why any criticism of Israel is antisemitism? I think the way Israel has kept expanding by force and the way the Palestinian people have been treated is appalling. I have nothing but sympathy for the Jewish people and the way they've been persecuted through the centuries, but how does that make his behaviour OK?

• this behaviour....

A lot of Palestinian people lived on land owned by Arabs, after WWI the Arabs started selling the land and a lot of Jewish people bought parcels of the land. So by the end of WWII when the Jewish people needed a homeland it seemed like a good place to start.

Neither side is really to blame for how this started, the UK and US (particularly the UK historically) are. The problem is that the area is important for shipping and the UK and US were more than happy to have an Ally in that region to keep stability. Also there was a desperate need to help the Jewish people after the Holocaust.

At a very macro level, it's a proxy war between Christian extremists in the USA and Islamic extremists in Iran, with both the Jewish Israeli and the Palestinian peoples as collateral damage.

The two have not been fighting over land - that makes it seem like a fair fight. We are talking about the ethnic cleansing of a people who have been there for generations because another group of people feel they have a God given right to it. How else do you explain the growth of Israel while Palestine dimishes with every year.

The current backlash from Hamas, is a reaction to oppression by Israeli police during Ramadan, and further evictions of Palestinans in Sheikh Jarrah by yet more settlers claiming land to be theirs.

‘If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.’
Malcolm X

So what have the UK done to make it worse - why aren't we helping these poor people and helping them to reach a peaceful agreement?

I don't get why they cannot create a Palestinian state, why isn't this an obvious answer?

The Allies didn’t simply want to help the Jewish people, though. The issue of a homeland for Jewish people was supported by world powers for thoroughly racist reasons, to “solve” the “problem” of Jewish people in Europe. Also violence in Palestine between Arabs and Jews about Jewish immigration had been present since the 1880s.

The UK tried to forcefully stop the migration of “too many” Jews to Israel after WWII with a military blockade. The story of the SS Exodus frankly makes me ashamed to be a human.

Meanwhile of course world powers were playing fast and loose with Palestinians who lost their homelands (and many lives) and are still today severely restricted in where they can live and go; and there are substantial factions in the Middle East who support the complete destruction of Israel. Israel feels completely beleaguered and basically as a nation suffers from PTSD. So, no easy fixes.

@PicsInRed

At a very macro level, it's a proxy war between Christian extremists in the USA and Islamic extremists in Iran, with both the Jewish Israeli and the Palestinian peoples as collateral damage.

yeah, i think thats a good summary

@HappySonHappyMum

So what have the UK done to make it worse - why aren't we helping these poor people and helping them to reach a peaceful agreement?

because anyone that even suggests such a thing is labelled an antisemite. If you are a public figure and even suggest two states existing peacefully alongside each other, it will be twisted as if you are an antisemite. Even if you are jewish

Its easy to make people turn a blind eye by calling opposers racists etc, and if the oppressing force has a lot of power, then they can pretty much do what they want. The UK doesnt tend to help anyone unless 1. they are sure they can win. 2. its a vote winner, and 3 (most importantly) theres money to be made in it.

Well, to be fair, I think that a lot of pro- Palestinian sentiment in the Western press IS motivated by anti-semitism. That doesn’t mean that Israel is in the right, but I do question the motives of a lot of the reporting. I don’t think it is all motivated by heartfelt concern for the Palestinian people.

Dan Snow does some really good podcasts that cover this as well

Politics.
Half of Israelis will give up land for the creation of a Palestinian state, to include security and peace.
Unfortunately the other half are hardliners, vote for the present Government, and have no intention of giving up anything.
They are happy to live with the status quo.

In the 80's, under Ytzach Rabin, the Israeli Government began serious talks about the creation of a Palestinian State alongside Israel.
Unfortunately, Yasser Arafat, Palestinian leader, preferred being seen as a freedom fighter than peace maker, and the talks went nowhere.
Then a hard right Israeli shot Rabin, and that was the end of any hope of a peace settlement.