Thread by @AGHamilton29

Fine. I don't think the history is the priority here because you have to deal with the reality that's on the ground now, but let's talk about the history for those actually interested.

This is going to be a long thread.

https://twitter.com/JthollandWingo/status/1393784899669274626

Around WWI stretching to post-WWII, several European countries controlled most of the ME via a series of colonies/mandates. Among them was a mandate called Palestine in modern-day Israel/Jordan. Those European countries slowly started dividing up the ME into free countries.

That is how most ME countries were formed around that time, not just Israel.

In 1917, Britain released the Balfour declaration committing to eventually form a Jewish homeland within the mandate of Palestine.

That led to a huge spike of immigration of Jews to the British mandate (which Jews considered to be their ancestral homeland). The native population was not happy about that (as tends to happen w large waves of immigration), which led to a lot of clashes/violence.

Rise of Nazi Germany leads to more danger for Jews in Europe and more immigration. Leader of the Arabs in Palestine, Haj Amin al-Husseini, even traveled to meet Hitler in Berlin in 41 to try to convince him to help with the "Jewish problem".

jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-mufti-and-…

After WWII, with the uN forming and US pressure, Britain and others are urged to give up remaining areas.

In 1947, UK partitioned an area they controlled into 2 countries. I'm talking about them spitting up India and forming India and Pakistan, of course.

A lot of people don't realize that partition took place the same year because it was generally acceptable so you didn't have a displaced population, resulting war etc.

Unlike the partition plan for the mandate of Palestine.

In 1947, United Nations provides a similar partition plan for Palestine that would split it up into an Arab and Jewish country (thereby fulfilling the UK commitment from 1917). Jews accepted it, the Arab population and the surrounding Arab states did not.

This is where the stolen land myth originates. The Arab states unwilling to accept a Jewish state there band together and 5 armies invade/attack the newly formed Jewish state. Many of the Jews had immigrated after WWII so had experience fighting wars.

The next part is a little more controversial. Those Arab countries did tell the local Arab population to clear out until they could defeat/expel the Jews, but it was also a brutal war, and Jews also expelled some of the Arab population.

The Arab armies were defeated.

Israel was thus formed in 1948. Arab armies withdrew. The areas you now know as Gaza and West Bank were annexed by Jordan and Egypt (along with their Arab populations). Imp context is Jordan also expelled all Jews from the West Bank at that point.

Also important context is that most Arab countries then began several decades of policies meant to expel Jews from their countries. Overall, 850K Jews were ethnically cleansed from the Arab states over a few decades and overwhelmingly moved to Israel.

Meanwhile, those same Arab states had no interest in letting the Palestinian Arabs assimilate into their societies. Instead, they were treated like permanent refugees.

1967 comes around and the Arab states still fuming over their loss in 47-48 prepare for another crack at it.

Another war is started over an attempt to destroy Israel, but once again the Arab states are quickly defeated. That leads to Israel taking control of Gaza and the West Bank from Jordan and Egypt. That's where you end up with a lot of the current dilemma.

Israel now had control of land with an Arab population that didn't want it to exist, but Jordan and Egypt also didn't particularly want the land back because they didn't want responsibility for the Palestinian Arabs there. Arafat and the PLO start operating out of Jordan.

However, Arafat & PLO soon start using Jordan as a base for a lot of terrorism. Jordan's rulers get tired of it and end up going to war and massacring a bunch of Palestinians ("Black September"). Jordan kicks PLO out to Lebanon, which then post-civil war expels them to Tunisia.

Israel however has the ongoing problem of controlling land that they need for security reasons but with a population that has no interest in becoming Israelis and wants the state's destruction. That's how you end up with eventual recognition of the PLO and peace talks.

You then have quite a few agreements that all amount to Israel saying we will give up aspects of control of this land and give Palestinians more autonomy in exchange for promises of security. Each time the autonomy was conceded, but the security was short-lived.

Then with the peace process going nowhere, Israel takes a controversial/unilateral step in 2005 of completely withdrawing from Gaza & giving Palestinians full control of the area. More controversial, they forcibly remove all the Jews/settlements living outside the planned border.

The idea there was that Israel would not have constant engagements and Palestinians would get a chance to show what they would do with an autonomous state. In Jan 2006, Palestinians have elections where they select Hamas, a designated terrorist group, to take control.

Palestinians have no held elections since, but some were planned this year (imp context for the current escalation). Hamas devotes all the money/aid they get to stockpiling weapons (thus the thousands of rockets) and preparing for future offensive attacks on Israel.

There is plenty of stuff that I omitted, but that's the basic history of how we ended up here. Like I said, I don't think the history is as important except in how some people abuse it to try to justify bad behavior now.