The recent attacks in the Middle East showcase complete devastation as war continues between the Israel Defense Forces and Palestinian militant group, Hamas. The current conflict erupted last Saturday, October 7th, when Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel while many Israelis were out enjoying the end of the seven day long Jewish festival, Sukkot. It’s been reported that Hamas shot rockets at civilians, live streamed brutal executions and kidnapped hostages. ABC News reported that at least 1,300 people in Israel have died, and 3,227 others are currently injured.
In response, Israel has executed retaliations that have also been extremely brutal to Palestinian civilians. As Israel continues to bomb Gaza, officials have also cut off water and electricity to the area. Gaza is extremely densely populated by Palestinian civilians with the 25 mile strip of land being home to over two million residents. As Palestinian civilians struggle with finding any type of access to food, water or electricity, hospitals are dwindling and finding asylum is way more easier said than done. Still the IDF is urging Palestinian civilians to evacuate their homes to avoid harm, as neither Israel or Hamas seem to be letting up on this war any time soon. ABC News also reported that so far at least 2,329 people have been killed in Gaza with 9,714 others injured.
As stories and harrowing images of the war continue to circulate online, the world has been trying to grasp this situation. On social media there has been an influx of drastic images hitting people’s timelines and an outpour of emotional responses. Many human rights activists have zoned in on the issue as well, bringing awareness to the historical oppression Palestine has faced over centuries. Western leaders such as President Joe Biden himself have shared their support for Israel. Across the world there have been public demonstrations either in support or against Israel or Hamas, with many arguments emerging over choosing a side to support. It seems like everyone has something to say about this war.
For many of us observing from the outside, this war is extremely complicated with many layers as this conflict has been going on for decades and is politically, emotionally and religiously charged. Because of this, a lot of propaganda has also been circulating in the media-making it difficult to navigate what is real. Social media also makes space for ignorance and inhumanity to emerge as people pick and choose what to hear to fit a narrative that makes the most sense to them. With misunderstandings and misinformation running amok in the media, people are associating this war with different causes unrelated at all to what’s going on, they’re grouping all people into one category based on their ethnicity or religion and some are even calling on genocide. False images of the war have increasingly been reported on the social media platform X, including an image someone was alleging to be a Hamas fighter shooting a rocket at IDF commanders. This image which had over 1 million impressions was actually from a video game.
A lot of world leaders have put insane amounts of money into this land, and while the war is politically charged, the people who are always going to suffer the most are innocent civilians.
It’s important that if you’re going to rally for a cause, to not just use social media as your outlet for information, because as much as we would like to be able to trust the media wholeheartedly, we can’t. What we can reference however is history.
Bryan Stevenson’s Equal Justice Initiative eloquently points out how a nation cannot confront present-day issues without understanding the history that led up to them. I think this is very important to consider with the Israeli-Palestine conflict because the beginning of this problem can be attributed to none other than colonization-in this case by the British.
In the early 19th century, when Israel was still Palestine, the land was run by the Ottoman Empire. The area has always been a holy mecca for the three monotheistic religions. During this time, Jewish, Christian and Muslim people all coexisted peacefully together. In schools, aspects of each faith were taught and all religious holidays were observed.
When European merchants and missionaries visited the land, there was a growing interest in Palestine, and efforts to make it more accessible by Europeans developed. The British eventually went to war with the Ottoman Empire and won. They established a colony in Palestine. During this time, as many growing sentiments of nationalism were emerging in Europe, many Jewish people in Austria-Hungary knew they had to leave Europe to establish their own state-these Jewish people were known as Zionists.
In 1917, the British issued the Balfour Declaration which supported Zionists in establishing their own state in Palestine. This brought in hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants into Palestine. The British also created separate institutions for Christian, Jewish and Muslim people-a manipulation tactic to divide the public to make them easier to control.
As the Jewish population grew, they focused on purchasing land to settle in and push Palestinians out. This created mass tension as Palestinians believed they were an occupied nation. A conflict erupted between Palestine and Israeli and British forces-resulting in the British slowing down Jewish immigration and establishing a plan for a two-state resolution in 10 years. Neither side was satisfied with this and eventually the British passed the Palestine colony on to the United Nations.
The UN did an equal if not even more terrible job at handling the area. In 1947 the UN tried to establish two state boundaries that were unsatisfactory on both sides and resulted in the Arab-Israeli war in 1948. Israel won and obtained a third more of the land. This was a pivotal moment for both Israel and Palestine as Israel saw this as the beginning of establishing a nation and Palestine named this Nakba (“catastrophe”) as hundreds of thousands of residents lost their homes.
Down the line in 1967, another war-The Six Days War-erupted and was won once again by Israel. By then they had gained total occupation of Palestine. The UN then passed Resolution 242 which focused on having Israel withdraw out of the newly gained land and also highlighted recognizing the state rights of both Israel and Palestine to exist-this however was an ultimate failure by the UN.
Yasser Arafat, who was the first president of the Palestinian authority started the Palestinian Liberation Group-which used both guerilla warfare and peace protests to advocate for a Palestinian state. During this time the Israeli government was planting Jewish settlements on Palestinian land which was technically illegal.
In 1987, Palestinians held an uprising against Israeli occupation. This was known as the first “Intifada” which translates to “shaking off.”
This began with boycotting, Israeli goods and services, and also not paying Israeli taxes-which caused the Israeli government to retaliate once again. As violence continued to manifest, Hamas was formed in 1993 when they executed their first suicide bombing. They were known for their militant extremism, but also gained attention from the Palestinian public for their welfare projects which helped schools and hospitals.
As the UN and Western leaders continued failed peace talks-including the Clinton Talks failure-the Israel-Palestine conflict continued to worsen. In 2002, Israel started to build a wall along the West Bank in an act of self-defense. While doing so, they included illegal Jewish settlements on Palestinian land-trying to claim it as their own.
In 2005, Yasser Arafat passed away and Hamas was elected shortly after to hold the majority of Palestinian parliament seats.
In the past 10 years, Hamas has frequently launched rocket attacks into Israel, and Israel has responded with invasions of Palestinian territory that have killed thousands upon thousands of Palestinians each strike–a lot of them innocent civilians.
“Both parties claim to be responding to the provocations of the other, but much of the conflict reflects a consistent failure on all sides to understand the legitimacy of the others narrative,” said author and historian John Green in his Youtube “Crash Course” on the conflict.
For Palestine, the Palestinian people have been denied a state for centuries. For Israel, the Jewish people needed a state to call their own in the midst of a drastic rise of antisemitism in Europe.
“For both Zionist and Palestinian national visions to eventually work, it’s necessary to understand the right of each to exist, and the legitimacy [each nation’s] historical narrative,” Green added.
With the current state of conflict, I think as outsiders it’s also essential for us to recognize the failures of Western powers and the UN throughout the British colonization of Palestine to the various lackluster attempts at establishing two peaceful sovereign states. In order to push for peace we can’t just keep continuing to argue over which side is right or push false narratives and hate in the media. We need to hold world leaders accountable for the wrongs committed in the past to confront current issues from a more comprehensive stand point. Otherwise there will always be a divide and once again the people that will suffer the most are innocent civilians.
