History You Didn’t Learn: History of Palestinian Colonization
Since antiquity, the Levant region has been a rich site of mobility and migration, both in regards to cultural and population exchange. Known as the Fertile Crescent, this land is agriculturally abundant and yields a rich harvest, making it highly sought after and thus much of the basis for conflict between various ethnic groups throughout history. This highly contested region has always held great political significance, and today it is no different.
Timeline of Modern Palestinian History
1517-1917: Palestine is part of Ottoman Empire
The story of Palestine has been one marked by colonization and conflict for centuries. Up until 1453 CE the region had been held under siege by the Byzantine Empire, and for the next few centuries Palestine was under rule of the Ottoman Turks.
1916: Sykes Picot Agreement
The Sykes-Picot agreement, also known as the Asia Minor agreement, was signed in 1916 in secret between the British, French, and Soviet Russian governments in regards to how to split apart territory previously held by the Ottoman Empire. These colonial governments sought to negotiate who had control over land and resources, and the agreement divided the Middle East without the consent or knowledge of anyone there. As a holy place, the region of Palestine was highly sought after by these governments, and this agreement determined that Palestine was to be under jurisdiction of an international administration.
1917: Balfour Declaration
British Foreign Secretary Lord Balfour wrote in a letter to Lord Rothschild that “His Majesty’s Government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.” Thus the British endorsed the declaration that the entire region of Palestine was to become the Jewish homeland.
1918: Mandate for Palestine
At the end of the first world war, the League of Nations legitimized the Balfour Declaration when it issued a mandate for Palestine which placed the region under Britain’s administrative control, with the British promising the establishment of a Jewish national homeland in Palestine. Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill claimed that establishing a national home for the Jews would be “good for the world, good for the Jews and good for the British Empire... good for the Arabs who dwell in Palestine.”
Thus, British sympathy to the political ideology and nationalist movement of Zionism enabled the securing of a Jewish homeland.
1921: British Mandate of Transjordan
Churchill haphazardly divided Palestine according to arbitrary borderlines in order to turn nearly four-fifths of Palestinian land into Transjordan, an Arab territory.
1923: The British suspended the Palestine constitution because of Arab refusal to cooperate.
1936-1939: The Great Palestinian Revolt
There was a revolt and strike in Palestine against British colonial control and in resistance to British support for a Jewish national state, thus leading to an increase of Jewish immigration the region. However, this revolt was ultimately economically disastrous for the Arab world.
1947: UN Partition Plan
After more than two decades of British presence in Palestine, the United Nations proposed a partition plan in 1947 to divide the land and create two separate states: the state of Israel as the homeland for the Jewish people, and an independent Arab state. Less than a year after this partition plan was proposed the British withdrew from Palestine and Israel was declared an independent state.
1948-1949: Arab-Israeli War
Known to Jews as Israel’s independece war, this creation of a new nation-state resulted in the forceful displacement of Arab people indigenous to the Palestinian region. The ongoing struggle for territory expansion led to the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, which involved Israel, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Lebanon. This war opened a can of worms that continues to harbor global political significance and interest.
Known to Palestinians as “The Nakba” or catastrophe to the Arab world due to the mass expulsion of Palestinian Arabs due to the British Mandate for Palestine in order to create Israel (1947-49). Many Palestinians--both Christian and Muslim--left their homes thinking they would return soon; many left with their house keys and the deeds to their house, but they found out the could not go back. Ultimately, about 900,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced from their homes.
In 1948, the UN proposed a resolution in which refugees return to their homes “and live in peace with their neighbors.” By the end of the war, Egypt controlled the Gaza strip, the West Bank was annexed by Transjordan, and Israel occupied the territory of Palestine. Between 1949 and 1967, the city of Jerusalem and most Jewish holy sites lay under the control of Jordan.
On May 14, 1948 the Jewish People's Council officially declared the establishment of an independent state of Israel. It is commonly accepted that the US was the first to recognize the state of Israel, with recognition by Soviet Russia followed close after. An entire generation was taught that Israel was built on an empty land, and there was a huge effort to erase the fact that Palestine ever existed.
1964: Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO)
First founded in Egypt in 1964, the PLO initially sought to promote Arab union and to create a liberated Palestine in the land now known as Israel. Over time, however, the PLO positioned themselves as the central organization representing all Palestinian civilians whose main goal was to catalyze the destruction of Israel.
1967: The Six Day War
Israel takes Gaza and the Sinai peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank and Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria.
1969: Yasser Arafat and the PLO
Military leader Yasser Arafat became chairman of the PLO’s Executive Committee in 1969, in which Arafat oversaw a plan to gain global legitimacy. In 1974, the Arab League recognized the PLO as the “sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.”
1978: Camp David Accords
This series of agreements was signed between Egypt and Israel establishing a diplomatic relationship in pursuit of peace in the region through the formal Arab recognition of Israel’s right to exist.
1987-1993: The First Intifada
Arabic for uprising, the First Intifada was a series of uprisings in which Palestinian youth protested against Israel within the West Bank and Gaza out of desperation due to the dispossession of their homeland and expulsion from their homes.
1993: The first of the Oslo Accords
Signed in Washington D.C. in 1993, the Arab-Israeli peace process was a negotiation between Israeli government and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) which brought an end to the intifada. The Oslo Accords subsequently created the Palestinian Authority (PA) which would was to assume governing responsibilities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over a five-year period, and promoted mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO.
1995: The second of the Oslo Accords
Part two of the Arab-Israeli agreement was signed in Taba, Egypt in 1995. This established limited control for the Palestinian Authority over Gaza and the West Bank while simultaneously allowing Israeli annexation of much of the West Bank. This was thus viewed as a stepping-stone toward the ultimate goal of ending violence and promoting peace.
2000-2005: The Second Intifada
The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) declared 6 October 2000 “a day of rage,” urging Palestinians to autonomously attack Israeli military camps in the occupied territories. Much more violent than the last, the Al-Aqsa Intifada or the second uprising was declared by Palestinian militants as a result of Israeli occupation policies and primarily in response to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who brought 1000 Israeli police with him as he visited the Temple Mount—a holy site sacred to both Jews and Muslims. In 2002, Israel began construction of separation walls to enclose the West Bank. Violence ensued on both sides, eventually subsiding in 2005, leaving the economy and hope for peace in shambles. By the end of the second uprising, Israel withdrew its army from Gaza.
2006: Hamas takes over
A militant Palestinian nationalist and Islamist movement called Hamas won the majority in the Palestinian Legislative Council elections over Fatah, the Palestine National Liberation Movement that was founded in the late 1950s by Yassir Arafat. This lead to an escalation of infighting between Hamas and Fatah forces clashing within the Gaza Strip, leading president of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas to declare a state of emergency in June 2007 and to dissolve the Hamas-led government. Resolving this conflict left Hamas in control of the Gaza Strip, and a Fatah-led emergency cabinet had control of the West Bank. Seven years later, Hamas and Fatah agreed to form a unified national Palestinian government.
The US government has designated Hamas as a foreign terrorist organization since 1997.
2007: Gaza blockade
Israel began to impose a blockade, limiting Palestinian civilians’ access to basic resources and necessities such as food, water, electricity, and medical care. This blockade remains in place today.
2014: Operation Protective Edge
Israel launched a military occupation in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, sparking another bloody war between the Israeli Defense Forces and Hamas militants firing rockets back and forth at each other.
2018: Great March of Return
This grassroots social movement was intended to be a series of nonviolent protests at the Gaza border. Activists were protesting Israel’s Gaza blockade, as well as were demanding the recognition of the Palestinian Right of Return as promised in the 1948 UN partition plan, in which Palestinian refugees ought to be allowed to return to land they were displaced from.
The reality is that territory occupation and land usurpation has seemingly always been a source for conflict, and it makes us wonder if the human condition is innately characterized by the desire to oppress others. The consequences of settler-colonialism from European interference has led to a highly complex conflict, one marked by power imbalance and resource scarcity.
Today, the Israeli economic embargo against Palestine is still in place, and the mobility of Palestinian civilians is severly limited in order to promote the land of Israel as the Jewish homeland. For instance, Jewish Birthright trips allow Jews from anywhere around the world to have an expense-paid trip to visit Israel/Palestine, but Palestinians and the 7 million people in the Palestinian dispora can never return to the land. As a result, many Palestinians are spread around the world with no documentation, as not all of them could get citizenship within other countries, and thus remain stateless.
By Katelin Ling Cooper and Hanin Najjar
