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

[curmudgeonlydoesit]

as if I was 12 please?

It's not been a 'war' until now.

Prior to 7th October back to 1948 it has been a legal sovereign state being repeatedly harassed by genocidal terrorist groups.

Now it's a 'war' started by a murderous group of fanatics who were stupid enough to attack one of the biggest, most well-trained and well-equipped armies in the world.

It’s been a state heavily propped up by the US which has been behaving illegally by progressively and violently invading land outside its agreed borders.
I don’t know what you’d call it but if the outside occupants fight back many people would call that a war.

Palestine has been colonised by Israel for 75 years, with huge support from the western world. During that time, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced from their homes in the late 40s and became part of the diaspora (this is what we call the Nakba or catastrophe), and in the land formerly known as Palestine, there are Palestinians in Gaza, the west bank and Israel. Palestinians in Gaza are subject to a blockade, Palestinians in the west bank are subject to settler colonisation, settler violence, indefinate imprisonment and restricted movement to name a few violations. Palestinians in Israel are subject to an apartaid system - there's plenty of scholars whose work you can find online that provide evidence of this. Prior to the state of Israel, Palestinian Jews, Christians and Muslims lived peacefully alongside one another.

Is that what you’ve been taught @Shouldimove? Assume you’re Palestinian as you say ‘we’? Perhaps research the history from unbiased sources properly rather than just accept your indoctrinated version of events.

Yes, I am part of the Palestinian diaspora, I am also, very much British.

I've researched and I've lived in Palestine myself for a short period. I have unlearned a lot of the narratives that were passed down to me in my youth and I can confidently say that I have empathy for innocent civilians on both sides.

Please don't negate my post just because of my heritage and please don't be angry that finally, after 75 years of occupation, Palestinian voices and experiences are being heard in the west.

The OP requested one paragraph. I've done my best to summarise the history and the present situation in one paragraph. I'm not a historian and I'm not an academic, but I have lived experience. I'm sorry you don't like the truth.

I note that I think you've only taken offense with my post on this thread? Apologies if I've missed another one of your posts but I would question why you felt the need to comment on mine? Is it because I revealed my background? Discrediting people just for their background isn't a good look for you.

By that logic we should do away with countries really.

@TeddleshonIf Argentina had won the Falkland War they would no longer be British.

Correct, but under @Jeezypeepers model for "How war works" Britain would have been entitled to occupy half of Buenos Aires and a large chunk of the Argentinan countryside after having won that war. Which patently didn't amd wouldn't happen.

I can do it in a very short paragraph - it's 6 of one and half a dozen of the other- both leaderships as truly awful as each other -both have a valid point- both letting their citizens down badly

@YireosDodeAver Apologies if I’m missing something but the 1948 Arab - Israel war was fought after a military coalition of Arab states refused to accept the UN partition plan for Palestine. They lost this war and as a result Israel took control of the majority of the land.

Yes Israel ended up with more land than was originally allocated to them but this has happened countless times throughout history, including after WWII.

If the Arab states had won then do you really think Israel would exist?

"Palestine has been colonised by Israel for 75 years"

Not quite correct.

Nearly 80% of the historic land of Palestine and the Jewish National Home, as defined by the League of Nations, was severed by the British in 1921 and allocated to Transjordan.
Jewish settlement there was barred.

The UN partitioned the remaining 20-odd percent of Palestine into two states. With Transjordan’s annexation of the West Bank in 1950 and Egypt's occupation of Gaza, Arabs controlled more than 80% of the Mandate territory, while the Jewish State held a mere 17.5%.

The Peel Commission in 1937 concluded that the only logical solution to resolving the contradictory aspirations of the Jews and Arabs was to partition Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states.
The Jews would have received only 15% of eastern Palestine between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. A small area, including Jerusalem, was to remain under British control, but 80% of the land was to be united with Transjordan and become independent.

The Arabs rejected the plan because it forced them to accept the creation of a Jewish state and required some Palestinian Arabs to live under “Jewish domination.”

Muslim religious leaders said supporters of the plan were heretics, while the political machine, controlled by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, labelled them traitors.

The Zionists opposed the Peel Plan’s boundaries because they would have been confined to 1,900 out of the 10,310 square miles remaining in Palestine. Nevertheless, the Zionists decided to negotiate with the British, while the Arabs refused to consider any compromises.

In 1939, the British White Paper called for establishing an Arab state in Palestine within ten years and limiting Jewish immigration to no more than 75,000 over the following five years. Afterward, no one would be allowed in without the consent of the Arab population. Though the Arabs had been granted a concession on Jewish immigration and been offered independence—the goal of Arab nationalists—they repudiated the White Paper.
With partition, the Palestinians were given a state and the opportunity for self-determination. This, too, was rejected.

JustMaggie · 31/10/2023 09:11

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. 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. The Palestinians said "WTF?" and the Jews said "Sorry, it's ours now. Out.”

Yep, this.

Yep, this.

No, not that at all. It was the United Nations General Assembly:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Israel#State_of_Israel

Fair point. Very much driven by the UK and the US, though.
Very ill-thought through, in any case. It was never going to work.

@Shouldimove Part2

The Arabs declared they would go to war to prevent the creation of a Jewish state.
On May 4, 1948, King Abdullah of Jordan's Arab Legion attacked Kfar Etzion The defenders drove them back, but the Legion returned a week later. After two days, the ill-equipped and outnumbered settlers were overwhelmed. Many defenders were massacred after they had surrendered. This was before the invasion by the regular Arab armies that followed Israel’s Declaration of Independence.

The partition resolution was never suspended or rescinded. Thus, Israel, the Jewish State in Palestine, was born on May 14, as the British finally left the country. Five Arab armies (Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon and Iraq) immediately invaded Israel.
Their intentions were declared by Abd al-Rahman Azzam Pasha, secretary-general of the Arab League: “It will be a war of annihilation. It will be a momentous massacre in history that will be talked about like the massacres of the Mongols or the Crusades"

The Jews won their war of independence with minimal help from the West. In fact, they won despite actions that undermined their military strength.

The Arab war to destroy Israel failed. Indeed, because of their aggression, the Arabs wound up with less territory than if they had accepted partition !

As British colonial rule came to an end in Palestine in the late 1940s, violence intensified between Jews and Arabs, culminating in war between the newly created State of Israel and its Arab neighbours in May 1948.

There was Egyptian military rule in Gaza from 1949-56 and then from 1957-1967
Egypt held the Gaza Strip for two decades under a military governor,

Perhaps research the history from unbiased sources properly rather than just accept your indoctrinated version of events.

O physician, heal thyself.

@blankeyblank . Thanks for all of that.

Ill come back to reply properly as I can't ingest all this right now. However I'll leave you with this, and link the full article describing settler colonialism:

Settler colonialism is an ongoing system of power that perpetuates the genocide and repression of indigenous peoples and cultures. Essentially hegemonic in scope, settler colonialism normalizes the continuous settler occupation, exploiting lands and resources to which indigenous peoples have genealogical relationships

https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780190221911/obo-9780190221911-0029.xml

I have seen first hand that Israel ticks all of these boxes. But don't trust me (I am after all, a descendant of the Occupied), seek for the sources and you will find them. Just a word of warning, Israel and America have an agenda and their narratives won't corroborate mine. That doesn't mean what I'm telling you is illegitame though.

Edit: I told a lie just then, Israel will actually tell you what their agenda is: https://www.instagram.com/p/CyauHSWo4CM/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

It absolutely can’t be summarised in a paragraph, and the replies here prove that.

The only way to understand anything is to study it properly, reading information from a variety of trustworthy sources, history books etc. written by knowledgeable people who have studied widely themselves. There’s plenty of opinion pieces out there that give you a skewed view because the writer is on one side or another. You have to look into things like this much more deeply if you want to understand. There are no shortcuts, you either have to put in a lot of effort or accept that you don’t understand it.

The trend for wanting everything to be summarised for us in a short easily digested package is very damaging. It’s dumbing down, encouraging people to believe that everything is quite simple when it isn’t. There’s an excruciating TikTok video going round at the moment with someone “explaining” this conflict in about a minute in the usual lighthearted way. Loads of people are saying it’s brilliant, and loads more are pointing out that it’s inaccurate and there is a lot more to it than what she’s saying.