To want a basic explanation of what is happening between Israel and Palestine?

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I want to understand and I obviously see that there's some incredibly despicable behaviour being perpetrated. I just don't know anything about the history and I have adhd so I struggle to focus for long enough for my husband to explain it x

Try looking at stuff aimed at children - the BBC newsround website and TV programme explains news in a simple, concise, easy to understand way. I find it quite helpful. There are also lots of short videos on YouTube that explain news in a child friendly way.

I'm not remotely an expert so this could be all wrong but my ignorant understanding is....
Jews persecuted throughout history , driven from homeland by the Romans. After 2nd world war west decided to give them a homeland which already belonged to the Palestians. Palestinians have been pushed out into less and less land, into what is now Gaza Strip effectively a prison. Generations of trauma. Hammas group (bit like IRA ) commit atrocities and the whole trapped population of Gaza must pay the price.

Search for the podcast "The Rest is Politics" and find the episode from a few days ago called "Israel at war". There's a bit of intro chat and then one of the presenters gives a very brief (2-3 mins) rundown of the history.
Obviously it's brief, and they acknowledge that some people will feel they've missed out important bits, but it's a good overview to start from I think.

Ok. Israel is a state created by Jewish people who, in the main, were from Europe and survived the Holocaust. Very broad simplification. They wanted to set up a Jewish state in Israel which was the original home of the Jews and Jewish faith. In doing this they displaced the Palestinians (the area was called Palestine untill Israel was created). These people are Muslim.

Hence the support for hamas from other musilm countries. The us supports Israel because there are millions of Jews in the USA.

The Palestinians want the land back. They have been forced into a small area called the west Bank. However Jewish settlers have moved into this area too.

So we have the Jewish homeland of Israel from which the Jews were forced to leave by the Muslim Arabs. Being retaken by the Jews in the 1940s and the Arabs fighting several wars with Israel since.

Hammas group (bit like IRA ) commit atrocities and the whole trapped population of Gaza must pay the price.

FFS, bet you have never been anywhere near Northern Ireland. Until you can explain the difference between an open prison country (piece of land) of Gaza and Northern Ireland where people just live freely wherever they choose...

Ridiculous assumption that they are in anyway the same.

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

https://theconversation.com/the-history-of-israel-and-palestine-alternative-names-competing-claims-163156

This gives a bit more history than the BBC articles.

Disagree about your IRA comment@MariaLuna . There has long been an affiliation between Hammas and the IRA. Both Irish Catholics and Palestinians were forcibly removed from land held for centuries by themselves. In Northern Ireland occupied by people chosen by the English, firstly Scottish settlers known as the Ulster Plantation and in Palestine by the creation of the state of Israel.after WW11, often attributed to the collective guilty consciousness of the Allies regarding the Jews treatment under Hitler 's regime.
Israel has repeatedly encroached on land allocated to the Palestinians by also establishing , by force, settlements. Now the Palestinians have resorted to these violent attempts to force Israel to withdraw . And as like the IRA bombing campaigns , it is the civilian population that are caught up on the worst atrocities.

Neither side is in the right of this particular conflict on my opinion.

Listen to a podcast called The Rest is Politics. Rory Stewart gives a really good summary near the start of Monday’s edition.

No, @MariaLuna is correct that there's no real equivalence between the Northern Ireland and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts.

Bar the clear fact PIRA was part an international terrorist network with Hamas, Hezbollah, ETA, ANC'S MK, FARC-EP, Colonel Gaddafi's Libya and Iran. PIRA regarding the two conflicts as "one struggle" really doesn't make it so! 🤷‍♂️

What you're is missing is that PIRA and UVF didn't control vast swathes of Northern Ireland.

Hamas controls Gaza.

Because of that reality most Catholics and Protestants didn't support these terrorist groups.

On the other hand, because Hamas controls Gaza most Palestinians support them.

Immediately, your comparison with Northern Ireland is defeated.

And I speak as a Northern Ireland Catholic too whose family always opposed PIRA.

It is the ignorant or PIRA supporter who would seriously link the two. And provide an oversimplified, distorted history to "prove" it as well. History really doesn't work like that!

You might as well say that European countries are similar to Israeli-Palestinian conflict since similar things happened.🤦‍♂️

Gaza was the area that the Palestinians were allocated, not chosen by themselves . Indigenous Irish were also forcibly removed to areas they had no choice over. Not oversimplified distorted history . Just facts .
I wouldn't say that they are linked but many people can empathise with the Palestinians.

Occupation by a foreign country will breed resentment.

Obviously this is my perception of it , you have yours . But I believe many Irish who are not antisemitic are anti Israel .

So basically in a nutshell...there was no Israel prior to WW2, after WW2 west (mostly us, uk) decided to give homeland to Jews in what is now called Israel. This land was known as Palestine/Arab land and most of current citizens of Israel have no ancestry to this land (they're Europeans). Hence why its called occupied land...the state of Israel is considered to be illegal, propped up by US/West at the.expense of poor Palestinians, who have been under siege for decades now....so one can understand the legitimate struggle of Palestinians.

Sorry, but you are peddling oversimplified, distorted history. I recommend you get a copy of "Unhappy The Land" by Professor Liam Kennedy from Tipperary and "Dancing To History's Tune" by Professor Brian Walker of the Institute Irish Studies.

Excellent books that set a lot of the history straight.

You're arguing that history is linear. The false equivalences you attempt to make wasn't even cited throughout the conflict. Partition was amongst other things, but not something from 400 years ago. It's a logical fallacy called post hoc, ergo propter hoc aka after this, therefore because of this.

Anyway, see attachment from Professor Walker. Like I said, you might as well lump in ALL of European history with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because Northern Irish and Irish history wasn't very different to wider European history. Walker makes that point.

It's just laughable to keep making a false equivalence between the two conflicts. Not all opinions are equal either.

I am not going to get bogged down in Irish comparisons - you asked for simplicity...

First you have to separate Hamas from Palestinians OP. They are a terrorist organisation, and whilst they do control Gaza, their key mission is to return Israel to the Palestinian people. Some Palestinians have always supported Hamas insofar as they are fighting for Palestinians to reclaim their land, most however, will not be in support of the recent attacks and atrocities.

The rough history you've been given should give you the basics, I'll only add that in recent decades Israel was being operated as a Two State Solution (so Jews in Israel and Palestinians on the West Bank/Gaza) - this was sort of agreed by the PLO (remember Yasser Arafat?) in the 70s, but over time, more power and more land being under Jewish control has caused resentment and fighting. The Palestinian people felt oppressed whilst the Jewish people considered Israel not only the true land of their 'heritage' but their only possible home - as effectively the state of Israel had been created for them post war. The fact that it displaced so many Palestinians however, meant that it was never going to please everyone.

It's a miserable and difficult to solve problem, and now - as usual - it is the civilians on both sides who are subject to unspeakable suffering.

I disagree with you .

What difference will it make to your life? Media has dictated that you must think about and care about this now, despite you not having a clue. Don't you feel even slightly manipulated?

This has been going on for many years, the only nutshell run downs you will receive will be biased.

I have taken an interest prior and it would be a gargantuan effort (cba) to give a balanced fully informed view.

Did you Google first? This is a nuanced complicated situation.

also people with ADHD (like me and many users here) can understand complicated situations just fine when presented with information like above.

Also the comparison with Ireland fails as Irish people are the ethnic group within their own country, but Palestine was once Judaea, it was the country of the Jews. Jerusalem holds huge significance for Jews but also for Muslims (who had taken it over as part of the Ottoman Empire), and Christians. There have always been Jews in this part of the Middle East, under Arab rule they had to live as lower class citizens in their own country, denied rights for centuries . Add to that the trauma and grief of the Holocaust.
It is a really complex problem because there are many centuries of conflicting claims, takeovers, and a traumatic history, with fear and anger on all sides.
Hamas are terrorists though, I do not believe that they act in the interests of the people living in Gaza, I think the intention now is to pull other countries into a much larger war.

I don't understand why people get angry on these sort of threads. All it takes is someone daring to get it wrong. No need for it.

I don’t think it’s just hamas or Palestinians against Israel I think it’s the majority of the middle east who don’t want Israel there.
it could have been sorted reasonably if the surrounding Arab countries each gave some land to be shared out between I and P and supported a compromise but it suits them to hate I and leave the Palestinians suffering.
also I doubt Israel would have won the past wars they have fought without the USA backing them and providing weapons like they are now. This is why many hate the US -their support of I.

So many Palestinians have a miserable existence but no one including Arab countries will help sort it.

Its so coincidental that after COVID we had Ukraine, and now this. Another excuse to put the price of petrol up, and everything else no doubt. They want us in a constant state of fear. I refuse to watch the news.

Where we are now is we have 2 children who've been arguing all morning and you don't care anymore what started it, you just want them both to stop and grow up. Ideally you'd send them to their own rooms but unfortunately they share a room and they'll both never ever be happy about that situation.

The israel-palestine conflict is just the latest version of a conflict about the control of Jerusalem and the surrounding region that has been going on in one form or another for thousands of years. In this latest case it is about two peoples who both believe they have the right to a state in exactly the same place as each other. I'll be honest, I do not think there will ever be an end to conflict in this region.

Considered to be illegal by who exactly?

Many countries around the globe...it'd an illegal occupation. The current occupiers aren't even from that land, they're predominantly European settlers.