10 May 2023 | Author/Destination: Levant / Levante | Rubric: General, Union for the Mediterranean
Reading Time: 9 minutes
David Ben-Gurion declaring independence in Tel Aviv on 14 May 1948 beneath a large portrait of Theodor Herzl, founder of modern Zionism © Rudi Weissenstein – Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs
In 1948 the
Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel sparked the
1948 Arab–Israeli War, which resulted in the
1948 Palestinian exodus (
Nakba) from the land that the
State of Israel came to control and subsequently led to waves of
Jewish immigration from other parts of the Middle East. The latter half of the 20th century saw a series of further conflicts between Israel and its neighbouring Arab nations, most notably the
Six-day War, which resulted in further expulsions and subsequent waves of inward migration, and the
occupation and settlements of the
West Bank,
Golan Heights and
East Jerusalem.
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29 November 2021 | Author/Destination: Levant / Levante | Rubric: General, Union for the Mediterranean
Reading Time: 2 minutes
Towns and villages depopulated during the 1947–1949 Palestine war © Wiki Commons
During the
1947–1949 Palestine war around 400 Arab towns and villages were depopulated, with a majority being entirely destroyed and left uninhabitable (
Nakba). Today these locations are in
Israel; many of the locations were repopulated by
Jewish immigrants, with their
place names replaced with new Hebrew place names.
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6 January 2018 | Author/Destination: Knut Wingsch | Rubric: General, Editorial, Union for the Mediterranean
Reading Time: 1987 minutes
© Oncenawhile
(Latest update: 23 August 2022) The Arab–Israeli conflict is the political tension, military conflicts and disputes between a number of
Arab countries and
Israel. The roots (
European colonial period,
Ottoman Empire, widespread
Antisemitism in Europe,
Jews in the Russian Empire,
Baron Edmond James de Rothschild (
Jewish land purchase in Palestine),
Theodor Herzl,
Jewish National Fund (
Israel Bonds),
timeline of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict,
World War I,
Sykes–Picot Agreement (
San Remo conference,
Mandate for Palestine,
UN Charter, Chapter XII – International Trusteeship System, Article 80 (commonly known as the “Palestine Article” used by both conflict parties, Israel and Palestine, to create the wildest interpretations, speculations and conspiracy theories to assert the respective alleged right to the total land area),
McMahon–Hussein Correspondence),
Balfour Declaration,
World War II,
The Holocaust (
International Holocaust Remembrance Day),
Évian Conference,
Mandatory Palestine,
Forced displacement, and
United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine) of the modern Arab–Israeli conflict (or the history of collective failure) are bound in the rise of
Zionism and
Arab nationalism towards the end of the 19th century. Territory regarded by the
Jewish people as their
historical homeland is also regarded by the
Pan-Arab movement as historically and currently belonging to the
Palestinians, and in the
Pan-Islamic context, as
Muslim lands. The
sectarian conflict between Palestinian Jews and Arabs emerged in the early 20th century, peaking into a
full-scale civil war in 1947 and transforming into the
First Arab–Israeli War in May 1948 following the
Israeli Declaration of Independence (
Nakba and the
assassination of UN mediator Folke Bernadotte by the terror organization
Lehi/Stern gang. Among them, the later Israeli PM
Yitzhak Shamir). Large-scale hostilities mostly ended with the cease-fire agreements after the 1973
Yom Kippur War, Ramadan War, or October War. Peace agreements were signed between Israel and Egypt in 1979, resulting in Israeli withdrawal from the
Sinai Peninsula and abolishment of the
military governance system in the
West Bank and
Gaza Strip, in favor of
Israeli Civil Administration and consequent unilateral, internationally not recognized, annexation of the
Syrian Golan Heights and
East Jerusalem. Even when the text is about 556 pages long, it is just a summary. The multitude of links point out that there is a lot more to learn in detail. At first, it is a timeline of the major developments in the region and it leads to today’s challenges. The starting point is the view of the
international community, especially the European Union and North America, on the conflict, enriched with excursions into the ideas, convictions, believes, and thoughts of the direct and indirect involved parties to the conflict.
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