In one paragraph can you summarise the Israel / Hamas conflict?

[curmudgeonlydoesit]

as if I was 12 please?

2religious groups -neither group following the laws of that religion

And this thread shows how even the views about how the conflict arose are not agreed upon by anyone……

This contains so many inaccuracies. So much misinformation.

Two populous nations each refuse to give up fighting for power over the same tiny piece of land. And kill a lot of babies in the process. People elsewhere in the world get to feel righteous and superior by supporting one side or the other and continue not to give a damn about the 20+ other murderous wars going on around the globe.

Omid Djalili has an interesting take regarding Iran's role, well worth a read:

https://twitter.com/omid9/status/1719451267997593645

This!

It has a lot more to do with the UK and America...a lot has to do with money

OP wiki isn't perfect but it's a start and might give you enough knowledge to at least be able to critically assess some if these replies, which rather vary in accuracy.

I don't know why people can't read about this properly, or watch one of the many YouTube videos on the subject.

It's complicated, but not beyond the realms of comprehension for most people.

So lazy to ask people to summarise for you

You know this is nonsense - this is my understanding of why ...

Jews suffered terribly at the hands of the Nazi's and they asked the British if it would be ok to have a homeland in Palestine.
The demand for a homeland grew from the mid/late 19th Century to early 20th century, and the Balfour declaration came in 1917. The Balfour declaration was in any case quite non-committal.

"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."

Plus, many of the Jewish population came from (a) Russia and other Eastern European states and (b) other Arab countries - nothing to do with the Nazis.

They wanted somewhere where they could be safe and never persecuted again. The British said "sure, no problem, you can have Palestine" so the Jews moved in.
Jewish immigration grew from the early 19th century, although peaked in the 1930 and 1940s.

Britain definitely didn't say "no problem". Indeed, Britain opposed the foundation of a Jewish state in 1948.

The Palestinians said "WTF?" and the Jews said "Sorry, it's ours now. Out."
In reality, much of the land was sold by Arabs (admittedly absentee landlords) to Jewish immigrants. It's true that there has been Arab opposition to Jewish immigration right from the start.

Happy to be corrected as my understanding is nowhere near complete.

And just in terms of context, there are just 16.1 million Jews worldwide and one Jewish State. There are 1.8bn Muslims worldwide (around 25% of the population) and around 50 Muslim majority countries.

I also think what gets lost is that "Nationalism" with a capital N is quite a recent phenomenon. Happy to be corrected, but broadly speaking Palestinian Arabs didn't think of themselves as living in a country called Palestine - and Arab Nationalism grew roughly concurrently with Zionism, and often in response to it.

I had no idea there were so few Jewish people. I see the figure came from Wikipedia so presumably a reasonable estimate (peer checked). I imagine that low number is representative of the prejudice and repression Jews have faced across history. I wonder what the number would be today but for the holocaust. Are there any sensible projections on that, to help frame and understand the horrific depth and consequences of the holocaust?

@NotSuchASmugMarried what a crazy thing to say. would you be happy if we were moved out of the UK because we have the whole of Europe?

The Jews were forced out of Europe.

Actually the Jews have repeatedly been forced out of European countries, it certainly didn't start with the Holocaust.

This is the craziest thing I've ever read

Because humans are not so far removed from the tribal monkeys we evolved from. We always have and always will fight over religion, land and water…The big difference now is that its not restricted to fighting the tribe next door, we can easily involve the whole world with 24hr news and social media.

And yet people expect Jews to accept that for example Poland was once home to the largest and most significant Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world and a principal centre overall of Jewish culture. How many Jews are estimated to live in Poland today? Less than 5,000.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/gazas-centuries-war-brief-history-2023-10-30/

I don’t know if any projections but I do know that the global Jewish population still hasn’t recovered to the number it was in 1939.

Indeed, some want them to have nowhere and some want Hamas to wipe out of all Israel and Jewish people. Yet Israel get all the hatred. So much misinformation around stealing land and constantly repeated as fact.

Glad the democratic countries of the West realise that Israel need support.

I think you are mixing up Hamas with Palestinians here, comes across as deliberate but I hope you are just a victim of Israeli propaganda.