The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a long-standing military and political conflict in the Levant that dates back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The conflict is over who gets what land and how its controlled. The roots of the conflict are complex and multifaceted, but some of the key factors that have contributed to the conflict include:
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Zionism: The rise of Zionism, a movement that sought to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine, played a significant role in the conflict.
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Balfour Declaration: The Balfour Declaration, issued by the British government in 1917 in support of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, further inflamed tensions between Jewish and Arab communities in the region.
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Partition Plan: The United Nations vote in 1947 to partition land in the British mandate of Palestine into two states - one Jewish, one Arab - following the destruction of much of European Jewry in the Holocaust, was a key turning point in the conflict.
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Arab-Israeli War: Neither the Palestinians nor the neighboring Arab countries accepted the founding of modern Israel, and fighting between Jewish armed groups and Palestinians escalated until the armies of Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan, and Syria invaded after Israel declared independence in May 1948.
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Occupation: The 1967 war, in which Israel seized the West Bank and Gaza Strip, two territories home to large Palestinian populations, is particularly important for todays conflict, as it left Israel in control of these territories.
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Refugees: An estimated 750,000 Palestinians were forced out of their homes during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and today their descendants live as six million refugees in 58 squalid camps throughout Palestine and in neighboring countries.
The conflict pits Israeli demands for security in what it has long regarded as a hostile region against Palestinian aspirations for a state of their own. The motivations behind Palestinian violence against Israeli civilians are many, and not all violent Palestinian groups agree with each other on specifics, but a common motive is the desire to destroy Israel and replace it with a Palestinian Arab state.
