Israel-Palestine Conflict
The Arab-Israeli conflict is an interment and ongoing series of clashes between the Jewish nation of Israel and the Arab Palestinians, allied with some of the surrounding Arab countries. The conflict has, in some form or another, lasted the whole of the 20th century, and a solution still remains elusive.
Beginnings
The conflicts origins trace back to the late 19th century. In response to the ongoing anti-Semitism in Europe, Jews such as Theodore Herzl began to advocate the return of Jews to their ancient homeland of Israel, known to its Arab inhabitants and most of the world as Palestine. This idea soon became known as Zionism. Zionism gained a following among some Jews, and in 1897 the first Zionist conference was held in Basel, Switzerland. Inspired by Zionist ideas, several tens of thousands of Jews had immigrated to Palestine by the start of World War I.
At the end of that War, the Muslim Ottoman Empire, which had been in control of Palestine, and indeed much of the Middle East, was dissolved. Palestine became a mandated territory of Great Britain. During World War I, British Foreign Minster Arthur Balfour had issued the Balfour Declaration, a statement that Britain supported the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, as long as the civil rights of the Arab population were preserved.
Following its handover to the British, Jewish immigration to Palestine increased greatly. Between 1915 and 1931, British Palestine recieved almost as many Jewish immigrants as it had in the entire time before World War I. This alarmed the Arabs, and tensions between the two communities increased, leading to rioting on several occasions in the 1920's and 1930's. At this time, British officials looking for a solution to the problem began to propose the division of Palestine into Jewish and Arab components. Since Jews and Arabs were both scattered throughout the country, and since both would want control of the holy city of Jerusalem, dividing the country up proved to be a practically unsolvable problem. The British also implemented measures restricting further Jewish immigration to Palestine, in hopes of comforting Arab fears of a demographic takeover and reducing tensions.
The problem, however, wasn't going away. In 1933, the extremely anti-Semitic Nazi party, led by Adolph Hitler, came to power in Germany, which, at the time, had a fairly large Jewish population. The Nazis immediately passed laws discriminating against German Jews, going so far as to strip them of German citizenship. Zionism, which had so far been a minority opinion among European Jews, drastically increased in popularity as German Jews began to see Palestine as a haven from the rapidly worsening environment at home.