Question 1: Why did the conflict get to this point?

These days Israel is part of every other headline. The focus has shifted to how it is depriving Gaza and its inhabitants of the minimum human needs. Aid workers are denied entry. Journalists are denied entry. Food, water, and medicine is denied entry. Believing the reports from the Human Rights Watch to be true, many if not all Gazans are at the risk of starvation. Even now, the Israel-Hamas Conflict is treated as if it began on October 7th, 2024. It was not. The roughly 1,200 Israelis were not the first victims of this conflict. What transpired on that day, was the result of a decades long conflict. Dating back to the era of empires and war.

Patient Zero: The Balfour Declaration

Claiming historical ties to the land, Jews began immigrating to Palestine after the British Empire had taken over. Known as the Balfour Declaration, the British Empire designated the land of Palestine as a safe haven for the Jews. With its support for a “national home for the Jewish people” the Jews began mass migrating to the region. The land of Palestine was not vacant. There were groups of Arabs already residing there. Consequently, Jews were not as welcomed to the land as they had hoped.

WWII, Holocaust, and Surge in Migration

From 1939 to 1945, there was a substantial surge in Jewish immigration to Palestine. WWII and Hitlers obsession with cleansing the world of the Jews acted as a significant catalyst. More than six million victims of the Holocaust gave the Jews the last push they needed. The West was also convinced that the Jews need a safe homeland of their own. Roughly 630,000 Jews were already in the territory. Bearing the labels of Holocaust survivors or refugees from European antisemitism.

Unwelcoming Hosts and Rejected Partition

After WWII, the British transferred the responsibility to the UN. Looking for a solution to keep both parties satisfied, the UN proposed a two-state solution in 1947. The Arab residents were not as cooperative as the Jews. Yet, the Jews declared independence and created the State of Israel based on the UN’s plan. This did not sit well with the neighbour states; all of which were Arab Muslim majority states; Hence the first Israel-Arab war in 1948. Ironically, these states’ opposition to the State of Israel did not equate their support of a State of Palestine. Having their own interests, Jordan annexed the West Bank, while Egypt took over Gaza. 

The Illegitimate Son: Palestinian Statelessness

After the first Arab-Israeli war, Arab states’ indifference to the Palestinians became as clear as day. Despite being a newly born state, Israel was quite ready for an all out war. Not only did not back down, but it also succeeded in pushing the Arab states even further. Under the rubbles of war were hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Civilians with nowhere to turn to. Run out of their homes, no Arab neighbor offered full citizenship. Refugee camps became semi-permanent. An illegitimate child no-one would take responsibility for. So, Palestinians turned to self-governance; hence, the PLO, Fatah, and later on Hamas.

The Path of Violence

From the beginning, the conflict was marked by violence. Palestinians had no hope for peace. Their own people left them high and dry. Losing trust in diplomacy, armed struggle became the default. While Israel was armed and ready to go at a moment’s notice, Palestinians had nothing in the beginning. However, same as a cat cornered in an alley, they showed their claws. Since 1948, these claws have evolved -from stones to rifles to rockets and missiles.

This very brief history of how we got here is not meant to assign blame. It is not an effort to favor one side over the other. It is simply a glance. A brief summary of some of the key milestones to show how overlapping ambitions, betrayals, and wars forged a reality in which mutual recognition was almost impossible. October 7th, 2024 is a bleak and dark point in the region’s history, if not human history. Whether it was Hamas’s intention to put a long-lasting scar on the State of Israel or a coordinated excuse for Israel to legitimize its military campaign all over the Middle East, October 7th did not happen in a vacuum. It was another milestone in a century-long story.