Israeli and Arab conflict - Essay Example

It starts with the Biblical story of Abraham who moved from the land of Ur in present-day Iraq/Iran to the land of Canaan as it was then called. According to Biblical traditions, Abraham was promised the whole land adjacent to the Red Sea and within the west of the Jordan river. However, there were some native Canaanites on the land. Abraham's grandson, Jacob (Israel) moved to Egypt with his children and grandchildren. They lived in Egypt for a few hundreds of years and became a great and populous nation.

They then returned to the land of Canaan a few generations after Abraham. The descendants of Abraham became known as the Israelite community. They lived side-by-side with the natives of the land of Canaan. This include the Philistines, the Jebusites, the Hittites and many other native tribes. After a few centuries, the Israelite community became more numerous in the land and with the rise of David as king and leader of the community, it was transformed to a state and its capital was established in Jerusalem.

The State of Israel was however divided into two: Judah in the South and the Northern Kingdom. The northern Kingdom was destroyed and the people were sold into nations around the world. The people from Judah however remained a united state around the capital Jerusalem. Eventually, the Roman defeated Judah in AD63 and the remnants of Judah were sold as slave in the Diaspora (Safrai 1). In the Diaspora, the people of Judah continued to maintain their traditional practices and maintained their identity.

They became known as the Jews. Meanwhile, the Romans renamed the State of Israel Palaestina which became known as Palestine (Safrai 1). As the Roman power faded, the land of Palestine was inhabited by people from other Middle Eastern origins and this include the Canaanites, Philistines and others who lived in the land before Abraham moved onto it. After the Romans, the land came under the control of the founder of Islam and his successors. As a result of that, they converted to Islam and assimilated to the main sphere of Arab communities.

However, the land of Canaan/Israel became known as the Holy Lands and it changed hands for generations before the Crusaders contested over the land for generations. Eventually, it became part of the Ottoman Empire in the 1500s and it remained under Ottoman rule until 1918. British Rule & Palestine The Ottomans were Muslims, however, they never considered themselves Arabs (Willner et al 487). There was therefore a clear distinction between Ottomans or Turkish Muslims and Arabs of the Middle East and North America.

During the era of the Ottoman domination of the Middle East and North America, the Arabs were ruled by Ottoman governors. Hence, the British defeat of the Ottoman Empire came with a promise of liberating the Arabs after the war (Willner et al 489). Britain used a complicated system of forming alliances and diplomatic ties with different peoples around the world during the First World War period which was fought between 1913 and 1917. The defeat of the Ottoman Empire was part of the “Asian Theater” of a larger war that was fought in Europe and other parts of the world.

Britain had used the help of the Americans, Monarchical Russia and many others to defeat the Germans in the European War. They had also promised the Jewish Group seeking a homeland for the Jewish people known as the Zionists in Europe and around the world that they will help