JB Shreve presents the End of History

Reading Time: 10 minutesToday we are going to look at the early years of Israel and Palestine. But before I move any further into the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict we should pause and take a brief accounting of what was going on in the wider region of the Middle East at this point in time after the establishment of the state of Israel. The world had shifted dramatically and not only with the establishment of the state of Israel.   The end of World War 2 brought with it the end of the colonial system and the beginnings of the Cold War between the remaining superpowers in the world, the United States versus the Soviet Union. Within that context many of Europe’s former colonial holdings in the middle east, as well as throughout the world, were beginning their journey as independent states.   When I did the original podcast series on this history I compared this particular time period to a sort of primordial goo from which all of the new nations of the Middle East were climbing out of. They were new and very fragile. The slightest bit of interference from outside sources had enormous consequences. Meanwhile, they were each trying to figure out what they were all about for themselves. (If you want to take a deeper dive on the History of the Middle East you should check out this series A Brief History of the Middle East for the Rest of Us.) The Early Years of Israel and Palestine: The Arab States For the new Arab states of the Middle East they were only 30 years removed from the end of one of the world’s great empires (the Ottomans). Some had difficulty imagining themselves as truly independent states. Something in all of their shared cultures and religions needed to still bind them together. Ideas of Pan Arabism were very popular during this time for such states, even if its implementation was somewhat unsuccessful. Alongside ideas of Pan Arabism there were individual military and political power players who were trying to move to the front of the line when it came to who was in charge of their country. As a result of this there were a lot of coups throughout the Middle East throughout these first few decades after World War 2.   In the early years of Israel and Palestine the Palestinian identity was hijacked by many of these Arab states and their various leaders. The Palestinians made a great propaganda element for their ideologies and ambitions. Each new Arab leader who rose to prominence in his own country would explain how he was the one who truly cared about the plight of the Palestinians. These claims seldom resulted in any true or beneficial achievements for the Palestinians who were living in refugee camps but the merging of the Palestinian people from real victims to mere ideological and propaganda elements was beginning. The Early Years of Israel and Palestine: The Vision and Ideals of the New State of Israel   For Israel, the early years of Israel and Palestine were the boon years. The Jewish people had longed for this homeland for centuries. Now that it had been realized every vision and idea and concept that had been hoped for was on the table. Many of the new Israelis and statesmen envisioned that their nation would be a beacon of light and modernism in the new world order. They would represent all that was good and noble of humanity. Many are surprised to learn that even at the present Israel is not a highly religious nation. While there are definite historic religious realities Israel has one of the highest percentage of populations who claim to atheism today.   The new Israelis also did not want to be seen as victims.

Reading Time: 5 minutesFor Jewish people the holocaust is recognized as the darkest days of their modern history. For Palestinian people “al nakba,” the catastrophe, holds that place and is the great Palestinian crisis of the 20th century. The paradox of the results of the 1948 Arab Israeli War was that it meant a new stage of existence for the Jewish people. They had a home, a place of safety, and ground to fight for. For the Palestinian Arabs it meant the exact opposite. The 1948 Arab Israeli War was their undoing. After the armistices were concluded they had no home, no ground to fight for, and no rights. Shaping the Palestinian Crisis By the end of the Palestine Mandate, as the British were leaving, Palestine had a population of 1.2 million Arabs. By the end of the Civil War and the 1948 Arab Israeli War, more than 750,000 of these Palestinian Arabs had fled or had been expelled. Among those who were expelled, more than half of those expulsions took place during the Civil War. Among the leaders and policies of the Zionist organizations there had been a deliberate and specific plan to leverage the chaos of the Civil War and remove as much of the Palestinian Arab population as possible. More than 400 Palestinian villages were depopulated by the IDF.   That Ben-Gurion’s ultimate aim was to evacuate as much of the Arab population as possible from the Jewish state can hardly be doubted, if only from the variety of means he employed to achieve his purpose…most decisively, the destruction of whole villages and the eviction of their inhabitants…even [if] they had not participated in the war and had stayed in Israel hoping to live in peace and equality, as promised in the Declaration of Independence. Israeli author Simha Flapan The Birth of Israel   During May [1948] ideas about how to consolidate and give permanence to the Palestinian exile began to crystallize, and the destruction of villages was immediately perceived as a primary means of achieving this aim…[Even earlier,] On 10 April, Haganah units took Abu Shusha… The village was destroyed that night… Khulda was leveled by Jewish bulldozers on 20 April… Abu Zureiq was completely demolished… Al Mansi and An Naghnaghiya, to the southeast, were also leveled. . .By mid-1949, the majority of [the 350 depopulated Arab villages] were either completely or partly in ruins and uninhabitable. Israeli author Benny Morris The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949 Other historians report that as many as 33 massacres of Palestinian Arabs took place during this time. Leaders among the Zionists believed that the Civil War afforded to the Jews of Palestine the opportunity to get away things they would not otherwise be able to get away with once the partition was in place. They believed that the only hope for a Jewish homeland was to rid Palestine of its Arab population while they could get away with it. The Palestinian Crisis and Plan Dalet   The underground militia, including Begin and the Irgun, were among the most active extremist organizations. Their activity was included among the various massacres against Palestinian Arabs. There were more official policies and strategies among the leaders of the Zionists in Palestine however.

Reading Time: 13 minutesIn yesterday’s post we looked at the Civil War that preceded the declaration of the State of Israel. A lot of commentators and historians mistakenly include this civil war as part of the overall 1948 Arab Israeli War. This is incorrect though. There were different fights, motives and causes of the Civil War when we compare it to the Arab Israeli War that we will look at today.   Deir Yassin The Civil War in Palestine would eventually draw to a close not by way of truces or treaties but by being swallowed up in the next series of events in the history that overwhelmed the fighting between Palestinian Arabs and Palestinian Jews. In the final phase of the Civil War however I noted earlier how much of the fighting had degenerated into massacre versus counter massacre. Both sides were guilty of this – Palestinian and Jew. I think it is important to visit one of these more infamous massacres however simply because it played well into what was about to occur in Palestine. Deir Yassin is a small Palestinian city west of Jerusalem. Its strategic value in the fighting was minimal. In fact, had it not been for the atrocities that took place here Deir Yassin would probably have been remembered to history as simply a subplot to the more important battles taking place in nearby Palestinian cities in the fighting between the Palestinian Jews and Arabs. Prior to the infamous attack most of the Arabs in Deir Yassin lived at peace with their Jewish neighbors. A peace pact had even been signed between them earlier that year.   In April 1948 the Irgun and Lehi (another unofficial militant organization belonging to the Zionists) attacked Deir Yassin. The reported motives for the attack remain unclear to this day. Some say it was to keep supply roads open to the Jews fighting in Jerusalem. Others believe it was a deliberate terrorist attack meant to inspire fear in all of the Palestinian Arabs. Whatever the reason might have been, Deir Yassin was one of the fear offensive attacks of the Palestinian Jews during the Civil War. Most of their fighting had been defensive in nature up to this point.   The attack on the small city, some might call it a village, of Deir Yassin is significant for the level of violence and atrocities that were carried out. Unfortunately, this is also where the story of the conflict between the Arabs and Jews in Palestine (soon to be Israel) becomes very complicated because facts become contested at every turn and muddled by controversy. The Irgin and Lehi quickly and easily conquered Deir Yassin. Death counts among the Arabs ranged from 100 to more than 300 depending upon whose count we believe. Women and children were among the victims. Grenades were thrown into homes of people who did not even know what the fighting was about. Decapitated and disemboweled Arab corpses were found in the aftermath and at least one well respected Israeli historian has reported that accounts of rape by Irgun and Lehi fighters are also included in the post battle accounts.   For the entire day of April 9, 1948, Irgun and LEHI soldiers carried out the slaughter in a cold and premeditated fashion…The attackers ‘lined men, women and children up against the walls and shot them,’…The ruthlessness of the attack on Deir Yassin shocked Jewish and world opinion alike, drove fear and panic into the Arab population, and led to the flight of unarmed civilians from their homes all over the country. Simha Flapan The Birth of Israel  

Reading Time: 10 minutesMost histories of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict move from the mandate period into the 1948 Arab Israeli War. This retelling of the story skips over important events that transpired within the brief space of time between the end of the British Mandate and the beginning of the Israeli state. This is the time of the Palestine Partition and Civil War. These events are usually thrown in as part of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War but they should belong to themselves if we are wanting to truly understand the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. These events represent the civil war in Palestine that occurred at the end of the British Palestine Mandate and just before the declaration of the state of Israel. It is when tensions and violence between the two sides of the escalating conflict could no longer be contained. It is also when the entity known as Palestine was effectively ended. The Palestine Partition was meant to preserve a homeland for both the Jews and the Palestinians. In the end it set the stage for the conflict that endures to this day.   The British at the Time of the Palestine Partition   By the end of World War 2 the British were significantly weakened by the violence and fighting of World War 2. The vast empire upon which the sun had once both risen and sat was crumbling. They could no longer maintain their grip on the global colonial holdings that had once made the empire so strong. As a result, they were looking for ways to withdraw in both an orderly and dignified fashion. Many of the events and situations that took place in Palestine were being mimicked elsewhere in the British Empire, such as India and Pakistan. Palestine was unique to the British however in that they were fed up with the constant state of displeasure and frustration there. Try as they did since the Balfour Declaration during the first World War, the harder they worked to please both sides of the Palestine question the more they effectively angered and alienated all parties. The British found themselves the masters and authors of an impossible situation. Films and footage of the holocaust camps in Europe were leaking out across the western world and building greater sympathy for the cause of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. This sympathy increased the pressure for greater Jewish immigration into Palestine. On the other hand the British recognized how threatened the local Arab Palestinian population was by new Jewish immigrants arriving to their borders. The Palestinian Uprising of 1936-39 was still fresh in everyone’s mind. If more violence and bloodshed was to be held at bay, Jewish immigration had to be limited. The British were aware that the end of the Palestine Mandate was within sight and they did not want to leave or be blamed for a situation overflowing with violence and chaos.   The British saw a clear sequence of events unfolding in Palestine that had to be stopped. Increased Jewish immigration into Palestine would lead to renewed uprisings and violence from the local Palestinian population. The British did not have the manpower or the weaponry to suppress such an uprising like they did in 1939. This would lead to all out war and the British would be forced to retreat from Palestine as the local populations descended into chaos. The only reasonable solution to stopping this sequence of events was to stop it at the root and limit Jewish immigration. Unfortunately for the British, that was not going to happen. Increasing world sympathy for a Jewish homeland was partnered to outrage by many of the ha...

Reading Time: 12 minutesEarlier in this story on the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict I wrote about one of the distinct and successful aspects of the modern Zionism and its two streams of thought and activity. On the one hand you had people like Chaim Weizmann who represented the more conservative and institutionalized brand of Zionism. This stream of thought and activity within Zionism sought to elevate the Jewish quest for a homeland among the world powers by becoming one of them. They would walk with the leaders of the world, gain their trust and respect, and through diplomatic means find their goals accomplished. On the other end of the spectrum of thought and activity among modern Zionists were the likes of Ze’ev Jabotinsky and what Jabotinsky called Revisionist Zionism. This was a much more militaristic brand of Zionism. Future generations would even call their actions terrorism. They were those who were pursuing the goal of a Jewish state by any means necessary. Today I want to continue with this thought process and look at the next generation of leaders within Jewish Zionism. This would be the generation that followed that of Weizmann and Jabotinsky and it would become the generation who finally established the Jewish homeland and the State of Israel as well as established the policies and political tones of the new states up through the 1980s. Like Jabotinsky and Weizmann, these are the founding fathers of Israel. Today we meet David Ben Gurion and Menachem Begin.   David Ben Gurion, Founding Father of Israel If there is a man who could fit into a comparative role to George Washington for the nation of Israel it was David Ben Gurion. Ben Gurion was a pragmatist and a realist politically speaking. He did not believe in friends. He believed in interests and the most important interests were those of the nation of Israel. He understood how power worked and he aimed to make Israel part of that power in the world. After the founding of the state of Israel Ben Gurion became the nation’s figure head supplanting a role that many believed rightly belonged to his intellectual and philosophical mentor, Chaim Weizmann. Weizmann would get his credit and his honorary titles, including the presidency, but by the 1940s Ben Gurion was the leader of Israel and a titan to contend with for all of his adversaries both within and outside of the Zionist organizations. Ben Gurion was born in Poland, part of the Russian Empire in 1886. He was involved in Zionist organizations locally as a student but by the time he was 20 he had immigrated to Palestine. Later in his memoirs Ben Gurion noted that he never accounted anti-Semitism as part of his own motives for Zionism. His motivation for a homeland for the Jews was simply a love for the land. In Palestine Ben Gurion was quickly involved in the political leadership of the Zionist organizations there. He was active in the agricultural work and to some extent with security roles of the agricultural settlements. He studied law in Constantinople and began to immerse himself in international political knowledge just as the Ottoman Empire was beginning to disintegrate. He officially took on the name of Ben Gurion, having been born David Grun and acquired the skills of journalism as well. At the outbreak of World War I Ben Gurion still saw the future of the Jewish State linked to the success of the Ottoman Empire. Accordingly, he worked to organize a volunteer Jewish units to support the Ottomans but he was quickly deported first to Egypt and from there he moved to the United States. In the US Ben Gurion toured the cities trying to raise support for a Jewish army unit that would back the Ottomans in the war of which the US was still not yet part of.

Reading Time: 9 minutesThe Horrors of the Holocaust in Europe Anti-semitism in Europe did not begin with Hitler and the holocaust. We have already seen how it was a dominant strand of culture in Europe for centuries and by the 19th century was even increasing in violence and ferocity. In fact, much of the growth of Zionism was fueled as a response to the widespread and violent pogroms of a declining Russian empire in the 19th century. But Hitler and the Nazis took all of this to a whole new level through their plan known as the Final Solution for the Jews. This was a systematic, strategic plan for permanent and absolute destruction of the Jews that stretched as far as the Nazi armies could muster conquest. The world had seen genocide and ethnic cleansing before but nothing to the degree and organization that was perpetrated by the Nazis in Europe. Hitler’s victims included people groups beyond the Jews. Gypsies, homosexuals, Poles, Soviet POWs and the mentally and physically disabled were also included among those targeted in the final solution but none figured as large into the equation of Hitler’s atrocities as did the European Jews. Few of the people reading this would be unfamiliar with the atrocities of the holocaust but it is worth noting to consider the scale of the slaughter of European Jews and how that would eventually figure into the founding of the state of Israel. Some scholars have noted that as many as 2/3 of the Jews of Europe, 6 million Jews were killed in the course of the holocaust. Many were shot or died in transit from ghettos which the Nazis at first confined the Jews to. Upon being transported from the ghettos those who survived the transit were taken to the death camps whose names are famous and iconic for their place in history and in the holocaust. These are camps like Auschwitz and Treblinka along with many others. These camps were designed not simply to kill people but to kill people en masse. Life in the ghettos amounted to little more than hell on earth. Stripped of their homes and possessions Jewish families were tossed into these communal prisons and forced to set up a council to represent them before the Nazis. A slow, cruel, and certain progress of humiliation and death thus ensued as Jewish leaders in the ghettos were forced to negotiate for the simplest of issues with their Nazi persecutors. By the end of the process the stakes being negotiated were often the lives of Jewish, men, women and children themselves. The ghettos worked to psychologically destroy the individual condition of each resident who might survive by taking away all dignity and making them turn on their fellow Jews and even family members. In Auschwitz a man named Dr. Joseph Mengela performed medical experiments on Jewish prisoners; men, women, and children alike. These experiments were similar to what a lab rat might endure today. The victims were subjected to pressure chambers, amputation, and other tortures to see how the human body would respond. Children had chemicals injected into their eyes to change the color of their eyes. Most of these human subjects slowly but eventually died under the weight of the torture and were dissected afterward. Families were torn from one another with parents and children often forced to watch one another be killed. In the book Night by Eli Wiesel the story is told of a Jewish son who beat his own father to death when the man could not quit crying. The book is a novel but recounts the realities of circumstances witnessed and experienced by Wiesel in the death camp of Auschwitz. Mothers and daughters were raped by their captors and husbands were often forced to watch or stand by impotently while their wives and daughters were taken awa...

Reading Time: 18 minutesOne of the consistent trends I’ve witnessed in studying the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the way people’s perspectives of the conflict change as they get closer to it. You will see this among reporters and academics. Academics and reporters who teach about the topic often tend to be very pro-Israeli. Meanwhile, those reporters who live in the midst of the conflict and witness its day to day realities firsthand increasingly move to a pro-Palestinian position over the course of their reports. I mention this only to point out how after the Balfour Declaration and during the Palestine Mandate, the British followed this same path. They entered into the era of the Palestine Mandate with a spirit of pro-Zionism. By the end of it all, as they deserted Palestine after World War 2 they were not merely pro-Palestinian but they were anti-Israel. There were specific occasions and circumstances where the British made sure to arm some of the Arab groups with weapons as they left the country in the mid 1940s. The Mandate would change the shape of British perspectives and also of Zionist and Arab perspectives on the ground. It was a time when the seeds of division transformed into the fruit of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Palestine Mandate The Palestine Mandate was part of a whole system of mandates set up at the Paris Peace Conference that closed out World War I. The idea behind the mandate system was to get rid of the old system where great powers set up colonies and imperial holdings in conquered lands. Instead the people of the world would be given the gift of self-rule. All the groups of the world who wanted it could now have their own nation. The problem, as far as the leaders of the Paris Peace Conference were concerned, not all these people groups could handle immediate status as nations. Some of them had to go through a process of development and systems and infrastructure had to be built. The mandate system was the solution to this problem. The mandates were contrived to provide a system by which the new groups could evolve into nations under the tutelage of the great powers. It is worth noting that it seemed the darker one’s skin was, in the sight of the European power brokers in Paris in 1919, the less capable a group was to rule themselves. According to the great powers light skinned people were ready for self-rule; darker skinned people no so much. Initially the Palestine mandate was established to create a future state for both Palestinians and Jews. The British were going to help the two groups develop a system of self-government including both and it allow for a peaceful transition whenever the people were eventually ready for full statehood. From the very beginning both groups, the Palestinian Arabs and the Zionist Jews living in Palestine began organizing themselves. The Arabs developed a Muslim-Christian Association made up of representatives from all the major towns in Palestine. They held their first Palestine Arab Congress in Jerusalem as early as 1919 with a specific statement of opposition to the Balfour Declaration. The Jewish residents also set up their own local organization to represent the will and intent of the Jews living in Palestine. The Zionist Commission, as this came to be known, would be the official voice of Palestinian Jews even as they worked in conjunction with the larger World Zionist Organization to fulfill the ultimate aims of a Jewish State in Palestine. The first British High Commissioner of the Palestine Mandate, or British authority, was Herbert Samuel who arrived in 1920. Samuel was a British born Zionist Jews who had previous experience in British politics and policy but his appointment was immediately controversial and he found himself in a position where it was impossible to please the two parties that were growing increasingly belligerent toward one another.

Reading Time: 9 minutesPart 3 in my Complete and Balanced Historical Guide to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict looks at the Balfour Declaration. A common statement of exasperation heard in the west when people look to the Israeli Palestinian conflict is something along the lines of “Those people have been fighting each other for thousands of years and nothing is ever going to change that.” This statement is historically inaccurate and even hypocritical.   I referenced this in different podcast episodes and posts on the history of the middle east but we should keep in mind that it is western cultures who have given us such things like the Hundred Years War, two world wars, nuclear weapons and detonating atomic bombs on wartime targets, and also introduced words like holocaust and genocide into the political modern lexicon.   The Middle East certainly hosts some of the oldests civilizations in the world but to say that the people of the middle east have been fighting each other for thousands of years is simply untrue and this is particularly untrue in the case of Palestine. Palestine Before World War I   As has been mentioned earlier the area of Palestine was relatively peaceful prior to the 20th century. There were issues in the north in the areas of modern Lebanon and Syria but not in Palestine. Even as the Jewish immigration increased during the course of the late 19th century this peaceful status did not change until just before World War I.   This was largely because Palestine was part of the larger Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire had once been one of the strongest powers in the world but it was fading over the course of the 19th century. As it faded external forces began to take their toll on Palestine and the surrounding regions of the Middle East. The new great powers of the planet, chiefly Great Britain and France, began to lurk at the doors of the empire to scoop up new colonial holdings. In the early years of the 20th century a coup toppled the ruling order of the Ottoman Empire and installed a group of new leaders. While they sorted their own power struggles out things began to shift more rapidly on the ground in the western parts of the empire in areas like Palestine. Jewish immigration was increasing thanks to the efforts of the Zionist organization. They still met resistance from the new Ottoman rulers but they were also able to circumvent the Ottoman rulers more easily. Meanwhile, the Arab residents of Palestine were as concerned of British and French eyes on their land as they were of Jewish eyes.   This loosening of the Ottoman grip on power in the region during the first couple of decades of the 20th century and the rising influence of Jewish immigration and threat of European imperialism were the sparks that were needed for the rise of Arab nationalism that had been so long delayed in Palestine.   In 1913 the First Arab Congress, also known as the First Palestine Congress met in Paris France to initiate an organization and plans of reform for the Arabs living within the Ottoman Empire. The Congress meetings would last for two months and while its ranks included a large number of Lebanese Arabs there were also representatives of other countries and ethnic groups within the middle east, including the Zionists. The Arab Congress of 1913 was not successful in many of its aims as the outbreak of World War I changed many of the realities on the ground before any of their proposals could be implemented but it was significant for what it marked historically.   By way of the Arab Congress, Palestine officially now had two nationalist groups vying for power with one another within Palestine. There were the Arab Nationalists and the Zionists. Groups who had been living together in relative peace and ease now began to shift into a new perspective as see...

Reading Time: 23 minutesIn yesterday’s post on the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict we looked at the history of the land of Palestine and how and why it holds a special significance to the Jewish people. We also saw how the Jews were expelled from the land of Palestine and scattered throughout the world with the diaspora. The story of the hardships and suffering of the Jewish people did not stop there. For centuries their place as a minority group with alien religious beliefs and traditions earned them the unique place within the societies where they had been scattered to as the scape goat whenever things would go badly for the communities they were living within. This is the environment that the history of Zionism was birthed in.   The Plight of the Jews, Memories of Jerusalem and the Seeds of Zionism   This seems to be especially true in the European world. Part of that had to do with the backwardness of Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. The real height of civilization during these centuries was based more in the Middle East under the Ottoman Empire. When you read through plays and literature from classic writers like Shakespeare you can see the unique identity stereotyped to Jews in European society. They were portrayed as the “shylocks” and devious lenders or unscrupulous traitors. For a lot of the Catholic world they were taught that it was the Jews who had crucified Jesus (which does not really hold up to the facts presented in the New Testament gospels). Whenever plague would break out in Europe, or a natural disaster, or a local tragedy like missing children, a familiar picture during these times is of the local Jewish community being blamed for the tragedy somehow. Then what would follow was the local, backwards community turning into a band of pitchfork and torch carrying mobs and they would carry out their own atrocities against the local Jews.   For centuries this was a constant threat for Jews living in the diaspora. At any moment, the world around them could turn on them and they would catch all sorts of oppression and misery as society’s scapegoats.   So within that kind of existence it is not hard to imagine how a sort of nostalgia for the way things were once upon a time began to develop. Jewish kids would grow up and at some point in their experience the townsfolk whom they lived among would blame them and their families for whatever was going wrong in the world. Then those same Jewish kids would watch as neighbors attacked their families and looted their homes. When the dust settled after these attacks, the parents, the uncles and aunts, and the grandparents, would all gather together and they would pull out the sacred scriptures and recount the stories of a time when it was different. They would tell about the kingdom of David and of Moses and Abraham and the patriarchs and of a place where not only were Jews NOT the scapegoats and victims of their society but they were bonded together with a national identity. They had the temple. They had a king. They were strong and victorious. They had armies and wise men.   It was all a long time ago. It did not exist anymore. But God had allowed them to be taken captive once before with the Babylonians according to the sacred scriptures. They had been able to return once. Might there be a hope for that happening ever again?   This would have been the seeds of Zionism.   It was small at first. But little by little one story after another used to cope with one tragedy after another it helped shape an image of the land of the Jews and Israel as something special and significant and perhaps it was out there again somewhere.   This would have been burned into the conscience of J...

Reading Time: 15 minutesRead most modern accounts of the history of the Middle East and you will quickly learn to believe that everything started with the creation of the state of Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. This is not true! In fact, so much of the modern historical accounts of the region are unnaturally tilted toward the conflict between Israel and Palestine. This conflict carries enormous emphasis in the west and within Israel and Palestine but it is not true of the wider region. The historical conflict between Israel and Palestine has the dangerous habit of becoming a cause used to stir up agitators for political ends. It is often difficult to discern facts from agendas in what we know and learn about the conflict today. Consider the following:   * Until very recently (probably 2010) most of the American media and academic community was significantly tilted in favor of Israel when it came to this conflict. This affected the way news was reported, history was written, and perspectives were formed. * Many believe this is a conflict that stretches back to the beginning of time. It doesn’t. This conflict is less than 100 years old.   This look at the history of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict is designed to give you, the reader, an honest and fact-based accounting of the history of the conflict. Like all of my studies and papers here at the End of History I am NOT looking for an American perspective. I am looking for the truth. As you read this you will find additional resources, links and tool to learn more and stay up to date on the conflict. Feel free to leave your feedback and thoughts. Ha’eretz To understand the nature of the conflict between Israel and Palestine we have to understand the significance of the land itself. That’s a dangerous statement and I hesitate to say it because it sounds real close to supporting a view of “holy land.” I don’t believe in holy land. Land is land. Dirt is dirt. Rocks are rocks. One piece of ground is no more special than another piece of ground relatively speaking. What changes that is a person’s relationship with the land. One thing we will see over the course of this series is the uniqueness of the relationship between the people of Israel and Palestine and the land. There is a way that a modern Israeli sees the land, and a way that a Jew sees the land. These are two different perspectives but both really relevant to the story of the conflict. These two perspectives partly explain why modern Israelis and Jews are so committed to the land which they call Ha Eretz. They have a historical connection. For some that connection started thousands of years ago. For others it started around 1948, or maybe a bit earlier with the Zionist movement. The Palestinians and Muslims also have a connection to the land. This is the home of their fathers and forefathers. There is also a difference between Palestinians and Muslims. For Muslims, Jerusalem specifically represents one of their holy cities and they have a historical relationship with the land over the last 1000+ years of warding off invaders from their homeland. For Palestinians who are not Muslim but might be Christian or atheist, the land is the symbol of their freedom and also their oppression since the declaration of the state of Israel. It is the basis of their nationalist identity. We have to get the importance of the land in order to “get” the nature of the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Abraham and the Land of Promise – Israel The story begins with Abraham some 4,000 years ago in Mesopotamia. Abraham would become one of the most famous people in all of history and certainly the most famous in the Middle East. All three of the world’s largest faiths claim him as the father of their faith. The Jews and Muslims (which means Israel and large segments of modern Palestine) both look to him as their for...

Reading Time: 1 minuteThis special founding fathers podcast episode was made for independence day. I hope you enjoy! I wanted to take a quick look at the founding fathers, separated from the myths and legends we frequently come to know them through. No disrespect is intended but I don’t think these guys are worthy of the near divine-like status many Americans give to them. This is a peak into things you might not know about the founding fathers and really about the weirdness of the founding fathers. Enjoy this podcast about the founding fathers.     Here’s a link to one of the sources I referenced in this episode: The Dark Side of Thomas Jefferson If you enjoy podcasts on American history you might also enjoy this one. the End of History Episode 195: Things You Might Not Know About the Founding Fathers If you enjoy these podcast about the founding fathers from JB Shreve and the End of History please consider subscribing to the feed below or to my podcast feed wherever you download your favorite podcasts. ↑ Grab this Headline Animator

Reading Time: 1 minuteThe US and Iran are heading toward war. This is where the story has been moving all along. This finale in my podcast series on the history of Iran explains why it is going to happen. This is part 6 in my podcast series on the history of Iran. Listen to this series and understand what is taking place when the big news hits – even before the big events happen.   the End of History Episode 194: The Next War – The History of Iran Part 6  Additional Reading: Everything you wanted to know about Iran’s Nuclear Program Profile of Iranian Nuclear Program The Difference Between Civilian and Military Nukes         ↑ Grab this Headline Animator

Reading Time: 2 minutesThis is the History of Iran podcast episode 5 in the series. Following the death of the Ayatollah Khomeini Iran’s history enters into an era that, for most Americans, is largely unknown. These are the years of lost possibilities when the history of Iran, the Middle East and the US might have gone much differently if only a few minor changes had been made or a few opportunities snatched up. This is episode 5 in our podcast series on the History of Iran. We look at Iran in the 1990s to 2015 and see the conditions that formed to shape up for our final episode – The Next War. JB Shreve and the End of History  Episode 193: Years of Lost Possibilities – History of Iran and the Next War Part 5   ↑ Grab this Headline Animator

Reading Time: 2 minutesThis is the history of Iran podcast episode 4. Part 4 in our series looks on the History of Iran and the Next War looks at the decade following the Islamic Revolution of 1979. We look at the severing of Iranian relations with the west, the Iran-Iraq War, and chaos and atrocities unleashed by the Ayatollah Khomeini and the end of Iranian relations with the western world.   the End of History Episode 192: The Islamic Republic of Iran Is Born – The History of Iran and the Next War Part 4   Look at the additional blog posts today to see some of the videos and images referenced in this podcast episode about the “human wave” attacks and “child soldiers” of the Iran-Iraq War as well as the Ayatollah Khomeini’s bizarre funeral.   ↑ Grab this Headline Animator  

Reading Time: 2 minutesHistory of Iran podcast episode 3. This is Part 3 in my podcast series on the History of Iran and the Next War. Enjoy this story of the 1979 Islamic Revolution podcast. 1979 Islamic Revolution Podcast Today we pick up after the 1953 coup and follow the story through to the 1979 Islamic Revolution – which ended up changing the world we all live in. We learn about the Ayatollah Khomeini, where he came from and how he rose to power. We also look at how the Shah made it so easy for the 1979 Islamic Revolution to occur. And last but not least, we look at how the revolution developed in a way that the whole world was surprised – although they probably should not have been.   the End of History  Episode 191: Islamic Revolution – The History of Iran and the Next War Part 3   You can download or stream the entire series at SoundCloud  or right here at the web site.   ↑ Grab this Headline Animator