The Canaanites who lived on the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea in the 13th century B.C. were shocked to find invaders with feathered headdresses swarming over the land. How much greater would have been their astonishment had they known that three thousand years later the land would be called by the name of those Philistine invaders. Philistia or Palestine as the Romans called it has been overrun so many times by conquerors that one hasn’t enough fingers to count them.
After the departure of the Romans and their successors, the Byzantines, the Arabs conquered Palestine in the seventh century A.D. Although the Arab contingents were small, they impressed their stamp on Palestine in a way no other conqueror has been able to emulate. The Crusaders, the Mamlukes, the Ottoman Turks, and the British have all come and gone. Even the Israelis, who completed their conquest of Palestine in 1967, are now withdrawing from parts of it. While the Palestinians claim the Canaanites as their early ancestors and all succeeding conquerors have left their marks on the land and the people, it is the Arab culture that remains a vital feature of the area to this day.
The Modern Conflict
The watershed event in recent Palestinian history is what the Palestinians call The Disaster of 1948. Thousands of Palestinians were displaced from their homelands and became refugees. The refugees swamped the Gaza Strip which came under the control of Egypt. At the same time, all of the West Bank lost access to its ports and markets along the coast and many of the villages of the hill country of the West Bank were cut off from their traditional farming land. The refugee absorption problem on the West Bank was not as acute as it was in Gaza since there was more room to relocate new arrivals. The Gaza Strip is a much smaller area (360 square kilometers) than the West Bank (5,500 square kilometers).
There is now a considerable disparity between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Crammed into the tiny Gaza Strip are 1,500,000 people, of whom 1,000,000 are refugees. Scattered throughout the West Bank is a largely rural population of 2.5 million people, 770,000 of whom are refugees.
The Second War and its Consequences
The Six-Day War in 1967 also resulted in the displacement of large numbers of refugees from the West Bank to that part of the Kingdom of Jordan east of the Jordan River. There are roughly 1,900,000 Palestinian refugees in Jordan. Of these, 350,000 are living in 10 camps while the others are integrated into Jordanian towns and villages. These refugees have the rights of Jordanian citizenship. In addition, Lebanon and Syria each have around 425,000 refugees.
In 1967 when the Gaza Strip and the West Bank came under the Israeli Occupation, there was a demand within Israel for unskilled labor in construction, agriculture, and service industries. Palestinian laborers found employment in Israel and many of the refugee families became completely dependent on this income. Palestinians with professional skills sought employment elsewhere, in other countries, especially in the Gulf States.
The First General Uprising
The Palestinians sense of despair and their rage against political injustice erupted in 1987. The Intifada (shaking off) was a violent reaction to the Israeli occupation. The younger members of society were the instigators of this uprising but it soon spread throughout Palestinian society. The world's attention was again focused on the Palestinian Issue with the result that peace negotiations began in 1992. By 1994 some areas of Gaza and the West Bank were beginning to come under control of the Palestinian Authority. Negotiations continue as to what part of the territories conquered by Israel in 1967 will be returned to the Palestinians. A major sticking point is the city of Jerusalem.
The Beginning of the Peace Process
The peace process between Israel and the Palestinians offered great promise to both peoples and the entire region. However, as time passed, the expected benefits failed to materialize. Both sides blamed the other. Neither side is guilt free. The Palestinian Authority was unable to quell terrorist attacks on Israelis. They failed to develop into a reliable, strong civil government. The Israelis continued to expand Israeli settlements by taking Arab lands. The Palestinian economy continued to deteriorate – some of the fault for that was Israeli; some was Palestinian.
The Second Intifada
As conditions deteriorated, tensions rose. On the last Friday in September 2000 following a visit to the Temple Mount by Ariel Sharon, violent incidents between Palestinians and police began. During the day, four Palestinians were killed and over 200 Palestinians wounded. More than 70 Israeli policemen were also injured. After the events on the Temple Mount, demonstrations and violent incidents broke out throughout the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and also within Israel, during the course of which dozens of people were killed. This was the beginning of what became known as the Al Aksa Intifada.
Since then, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed and thousands injured. Farms and homes have been destroyed by the Israeli army. Palestinians have hindered their cause by conducting suicide bombings within Israel in which many innocent Israeli citizens have been killed or injured. Continued attacks and counter attacks by both sides make it difficult to be optimistic about the future.
Renewed Peace Talks
With the death of Yasser Arafat followed by peaceful elections and the evacuation of the settlements in Gaza by the Israeli government, there was once again some optimism that a peaceful solution could be reached.
And in fact the violence of the uprising did fade away to a mostly peaceful situation today minus the brief war in Gaza in the winter of 2008/2009 and only rare major incursions by the Israelis and minor attacks by Palestinians since then with no suicide bombings.
Internal Division
However, the results of the peaceful Palestinian elections did not last for very long. Two rival factions (Hamas and Fatah) began fighting with each other for power in the Palestinian Territories and in 2007 Hamas violently took over Gaza. In response Fatah took control of the West Bank and the two factions began fighting and expelling members of the rival party.
Since then the situation has calmed down from violent fighting between the two factions, however, the situation still eludes any political settlement with there constantly being talks of reconciliation that fail to materialize.
The Last Few Years
Meanwhile reconciliation with Israel also continues to be elusive. Between the West Bank and Israel there have constantly been small hopes of renewed talks that continually fail to materialize. And between the Hamas controlled Gaza Strip and Israel things have been considerably worse. Because of Israel’s dislike for Hamas and militants firing rockets into Israel from Gaza, Israel blockaded Gaza completely and had very rarely allowed even basic necessities into the country. This has created very difficult living circumstances for everyone in Gaza in which they get most of the stuff they need to live smuggled in through tunnels from Egypt.
The situation was worsened further in the winter of 2008/2009 when Israel went to war in the Gaza Strip. The war only lasted a few weeks; however, it turned out to be exceptionally violent with accusations of violations of human rights on both sides. The war left over a 1000 Palestinians dead and devastated the already desolate situation. And because of the blockade rebuilding from the war has been extremely difficult to impossible.
On top of this, the situation in Gaza only looks to worsen in the near future as Egypt is currently building a new underground wall that will shut down most of the tunnels that bring the basic necessities to the people of Gaza.
