Israel/ Palestine: The origin story

A detached exploration of the conflict's genesis from 1880-1948

I’ve spent the last few Sundays untangling and summarising the history of the Israel/Palestine conflict between 1880 - 1948 since this is the defining period in the conflict. You won’t get very far in understanding what’s happening today without this critical context.

This is an attempt at a non-polemical appraisal of the events that catalysed the situation today, using census data to provide demographic snapshots over time. For people unfamiliar with the conflict: I hope this provides you with a foundational understanding. For those who are more familiar: I hope you learn something new.

Comments, questions and constructive disagreement are actively encouraged. Let’s get to it.

Ancient history 

The ancient history of the Israel/ Palestine is long and complex but here’s the TLDR before we get into the details from 1880 onwards:

• For thousands of years there have been indigenous Jews, Muslims and Christians living in what is now Israel/ Palestine

• At different points both Jews and Muslims have formed the majority of the region’s inhabitants

• Around 2000 years ago the majority of the region’s population were Jewish

• Over the centuries the region underwent numerous conquests, including by the Romans and Byzantines and the Jewish population declined. Reasons for why the Jewish population declined are hotly contested.

• For the last 12 or so centuries Muslims had been the majority until around 1948 (when the state of Israel was created).

1880 onwards

Demographic breakdown:

Based on census data. Percentages may not round up to 100 due to absence of decimal places.

If you were to travel back in time to Palestine in 1880, you’d find native Muslim, Christian and Jewish Arab populations coexisting together. You might also come across some of a small number of recently arrived European Jews who had come to Palestine fleeing a wave of grim pogroms and persecution across Europe. 

At this point in time, Palestine had been part of the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years and many of the Arab population in the region (both in and outside of Palestine) increasingly wanted independence from the Ottomans. At the same time, the British had their own empire and were vying for control and influence in the Middle East. 

So, in 1916 some Arabs (under the leadership of King Hussein of Saudi Arabia) collaborated with the British in a fairly successful uprising against the Ottomans. In return for their support, the British promised to recognise and promote Arab independence in an agreement that would bring Palestine under the governance of King Hussein.

What the Arabs didn’t realise was that just months earlier the British had made a secret deal with the French (Sykes-Picot agreement) to divide up the Middle East and govern it between themselves. Under Sykes-Picot, the British would be in control of Palestine - a direct contradiction to the promises of Arab self governance.

Meanwhile, Theodor Herzl, the pre-eminent architect of Zionism (the belief in the creation a Jewish state in Palestine) had been lobbying Britain to grant a Jewish homeland in Palestine for some time. Herzl saw the return of Jews to Palestine as a solution to the persecution being faced by Jews in Europe. He also saw it as a means of fulfilling historical religious prophecies (although this was very much a secondary motivation for him personally.)

Whilst the Zionist community had been offered alternative homelands including in Argentina, Alaska and Uganda, some of them thought these were pretty random and wanted to live in Palestine given their biblical connection to the land. It’s worth noting that not all Jews were Zionists (believers of a Jewish state in Palestine). Due to a wide variety of religious, political, ethical and security-related reasons, Zionism was actually a minority movement in the global Jewish community up until at least WW2. Notably, the only Jewish member of the British cabinet at the time of the Balfour declaration, Edwin Samuel Montagu, actually opposed Zionism.

Eventually the British agreed to the idea of a Jewish state in Palestine - this is known as the 1917 Balfour declaration (after British politician Arthur Balfour). Fundamentally, this 67 word declaration granted national and political rights to the global Jewish people whilst only granting civil and religious rights to the native Muslim and Christian Palestinians - essentially stripping them of any agency or control. When the Palestinians found out they were outraged but their diplomatic protestations were ignored. Their requests for meetings with the British went unanswered.

You’d be forgiven for assuming that Balfour was acting out of compassion. A more likely explanation is that Balfour was channelling his desire to minimise the presence of Jews in the UK and Europe by encouraging them to Palestine. He once described Jews as an “alien and hostile people”. Most people today don’t realise just how pervasive anti-semitism was at the time across Europe - it wasn’t just a German idiosyncrasy.

Image shows Arthur Balfour in Jerusalem

Anyway, by this point a pretty big problem was emerging - the British had made three conflicting promises for the same piece of land.

You might be wondering why the British were acting as a power broker in faraway lands in the first place. Such is the mindset of Empire. In any case at the end of 1917 Palestine came under British control. 

Following the Balfour declaration European Jewish migration to Palestine accelerated rapidly and by 1922 the population looked quite different:

The demographics of Palestine were shifting at speed and violence between Jews and Palestinians was on the rise in parts of Palestine. That said, in other areas there were harmonious relations - it was quite common for cosmopolitan Muslims, Christians and Jews to mix and socialise. At a personal level, my Palestinian Muslim grandparents’ closest friends in Jaffa (now Tel Aviv) were Jews, for example. 

In fact, as early as 1919 the First Palestinian Congress issued a manifesto which simultaneously rejected Zionist immigration whilst extending a welcome to the native Jews of Palestine, specifically stating: “they [the native Palestinian Jews] are as we are, and their loyalties are our own." 

As time passed, Palestinians were getting increasingly alarmed by the Balfour declaration and the rise in European Jewish immigration. Many Palestinians realised that the creation of a Jewish state would require the displacement of at least some of the native Palestinian population.

Evidence shows Theodor Herzl himself (the grandfather of Zionism) realised that the choice was a binary one: either a Jewish-majority state would be created in Palestine and Palestinians would have to be expelled, or there would be no Jewish state in Palestine. The demographic imbalance of Jews vs Muslims/ Christians certainly supported this view. Here's Herzl as early as 1895 where he explicitly references planned expropriation:

"We shall try to spirit the penniless [Palestinian] population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly”. 

Whilst the British had encouraged Jewish migration to Palestine over the previous decades, they were starting to realise how much they’d totally mismanaged everything and the tension in Palestine was fast becoming a headache for them. Britain had made opposing promises to both the Palestinians and the Zionists that they didn’t seem willing and/or able to keep. Britain wanted out.

So, in 1937, the British government appointed a commission to address the escalating tensions between Jewish and Arab communities. The Peel commission recommended a partition plan that would separate Palestine into distinct Jewish and Arab states, with Jerusalem and its surrounding areas placed under international administration. According to academic Natasha Gil, Jews owned 6% of the land and were offered 20% of Palestine. The idea was that the Arabs would be transferred (by force if necessary) to the new Arab state. The partition plan was a fail - both the Arab and Zionist communities rejected it. 

Skip to the 1940’s and the world had just witnessed the single darkest chapter in human history - the systematic and orchestrated killing of 6 million Jews in the Shoah (Holocaust).

Image shows Jewish children in a concentration camp in Auschwitz

After centuries of persecution culminating in a genocide of unthinkable scale, there was an understanding globally that the Jews needed a homeland for themselves. Some Jews left their homes in Europe for the US and UK but the welcome from these countries was, to say the least, underwhelming due to post-WWII economic malaise and lingering anti semitism. Some Jews emigrated to Palestine. Note that by 1945 the Jewish population reached 31% (up from just 3% in 1880).

In 1947, the United Nations proposed its own partition plan, again recommending the division of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states, with Jerusalem under international administration. On November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly approved the partition plan, with the majority of the Western nations and the Soviet bloc supporting it. The Palestinians and Arab states rejected it arguing that it did not adequately consider the rights and aspirations of the indigenous Arab population. According to Natasha Gil, at this point Jews owned approximately 7% of the land but were offered 55% of Palestine.

By this point in the 30s and 40s, there were revolts and violent attacks by both Arabs and Jews against the British, as well as increasing violence between Jews and Arabs. It was in this context that just before the expiration of the British Mandate over Palestine, the State of Israel was declared on May 14, 1948. This declaration was followed by the invasion of Arab armies from neighbouring countries, marking the beginning of the First Arab-Israeli War.

The Jewish militias were well organised and well armed in terms of weaponry - some had been preparing for large scale conflict for years. Whilst the Arab countries outnumbered their Israeli counterparts significantly in terms of troops, there was poor coordination amongst them and their weaponry was less sophisticated.

Israel won a resounding victory and now controlled ~78% of historic Palestine representing unprecedented changes to the map and regional power dynamics.

In the context of the newly created Israeli state and the increasing violence (by this point multiple massacres had taken place on both sides), over 700,000 Palestinians (~80% of the population) fled their ancestral homeland in 1948 or were expelled by Jewish militia. Contrary to common perception, of those who fled, around half of them actually did so before May 1948 (when Israel was declared and the war started) - a testament to the climate of fear and intimidation they were facing even before the war. In addition, 500+ Palestinian villages were destroyed or depopulated. This episode is known to Palestinians as the “Nakba” (“catastrophe” in Arabic).

Palestinians feared for their lives taking with them their house keys and a bare minimum of possessions. The refugees went to neighbouring Middle Eastern countries taking what little they could with the intention of returning once things had settled down - their furniture remained in their homes.

Image shows Palestinian refugees fleeing their village in the Galilee

Now is probably a good time to stop and reflect - why hadn’t the Palestinians just accepted the UN partition plans? A few reasons: 

• It would mean the dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their native land, including the most fertile areas. People (and countries) don’t just abandon their land and homes. And certainly not 55% of it. Remember at the time Jews were only around 31% of the population and owned just 7% of the land. Additionally, most of the Jews were recent, non-indigenous arrivals.

• It was clear that some (not all) of the European Jews had their sights set on expanding the territory far beyond the borders outlined in the partition plans.

• Both the partition plans and the preceding decades of European Jewish migration had been forced on them by the British in direct contradiction of what they had promised. This was made even more hypocritical by the fact the British themselves were reluctant to take in many Jewish refugees post WWII.

To zoom out for a second, the official demands of the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) - as things stand today - are that Palestinians would accept getting just ~20% of historic Palestine as their homeland (albeit even that is a deluded fantasy). Meanwhile Israel’s leaders have made it clear that they will never accept a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

After Israel's establishment in 1948, “absentee” laws were enacted by the Israeli government to prevent the return of Palestinian refugees. These laws legalised the seizure of Palestinian refugees’ bank accounts, land and property and transferred it all to Israeli Jewish organisations. As early as December 1948, the UN General Assembly called for refugee return, property restitution and compensation (resolution 194 II) but until today this has never been accepted by Israel.

In parallel, in the years prior to and following the establishment of the Israeli state, the treatment of Jews in some Arab countries deteriorated rapidly with many experiencing violence, discrimination or expulsion. Having been an integral part of their communities in Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Egypt, Morocco and other countries with deep and ancient roots to the land, Jews were often now treated as foreign enemies.

Some historians such as British-Israeli historian and Oxford University Professor, Avi Shlaim, argue that Israel’s Mossad and Zionist Iraqi Jews coordinated multiple bombings targeting Iraqi Jews and Jewish interests in false flag operations designed to make Iraqi Jews feel unsafe in their native country. The bombings in question took place between 1950-51. The Israeli government has denied its involvement.

Either way, many Jews from Iraq and other Arab countries did end up fleeing to Israel - often with the help and encouragement of the newly formed Jewish state who were keen to bolster their demographics.

Ironically, on arrival in Israel the Jews from neighbouring Arab countries were treated as uneducated and primitive and were very much second class citizens. They were given new Hebrew names and were discouraged from speaking their native Arabic - the language of the enemy. In a particularly disturbing series of events, hundreds or even thousands of Yemenite babies and infants were allegedly taken from their parents. Hundreds of documented, first-hand testimonials from the affected families have been made over the years to support these allegations.

In these two separate exoduses - the Nakba for Palestinian Muslims/ Christians and exodus of Arab Jews fleeing Arab countries - there is a significant commonality of experience. They all lost everything they owned and valued. They probably also all wondered what they had done to deserve their fate.

So what’s next

Clearly much has happened since 1948 which I have not covered here. My simple aim with this piece was to offer a glimpse into a brief window of history - there’s only so much one can cover in 2000 words.

But I focussed on this period for one reason: as rational beings we understand that in order to solve complex problems we must identify the root cause. To my mind the root cause here is surprisingly straightforward: the Palestinians were forced to pay the price for the original sin they didn’t commit - centuries of European anti-semitism, persecution and genocide against Jews that took place thousands of miles away.

The tragic suffering we have seen in recent months on both sides reflects the reality that when deep injustices are left unaddressed, they compound and fester. This is far less a political statement, much more an acknowledgement of basic human psychology. You don’t need a PhD in Middle Eastern studies to understand that suffering begets more suffering. 

My only hope is that we are now nearing the terminal velocity of the flywheel of revenge and retribution. Perhaps over a multi-decade timeframe something resembling an internationally-engineered solution for an equitable peace may emerge.

I won’t hold my breath though and I suggest you don’t either.