Israel, Palestine and the History That Cannot Be Ignored
The history of Israel and Palestine is frequently presented through selective starting points.
Some accounts begin in 1948. Others begin in 1967, with the Six-Day War and the Israeli occupation of territories captured during that conflict. Others begin with the Gaza wars or October 7, 2023.
But none of those starting points tells the whole story.
To understand why Israel places such extraordinary importance on security, why so many Israelis view the conflict as a matter of survival, and why the Israeli response to attacks is shaped by generations of historical experience, the story has to go much further back.
It requires an honest examination of Jewish history, the ancient Jewish connection to the land, centuries of antisemitic persecution, the development of modern Zionism, the British Mandate, Jewish immigration, Arab opposition to Zionism, the massacres of Jewish communities during the Mandate, the Holocaust, the 1947 partition proposal, the wars surrounding Israel's establishment, Palestinian nationalism, the Oslo process, Hamas and October 7.
History should not be rewritten to make either side more comfortable.
The Jewish connection to the land predates modern Israel by thousands of years
The Jewish connection to the land of Israel did not begin with the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.
Jewish civilization, religion and national identity developed in the land thousands of years ago. Jewish communities also continued to exist there through successive periods of foreign rule.
Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed and Tiberias were among the historic centers of Jewish life.
Modern Zionism therefore did not invent a Jewish connection to Palestine. It transformed an ancient connection into a modern political movement seeking Jewish national self-determination.
This distinction is essential.
The historical question is not whether Jews suddenly arrived in a foreign country in the twentieth century. They did not.
Jewish immigration was driven by persecution and the search for safety
Modern Jewish immigration accelerated at a time when Jews throughout Europe were facing increasingly severe persecution.
For centuries, Jews had experienced discrimination, expulsions, pogroms and violent persecution. In the twentieth century, this culminated in the Holocaust, in which approximately six million Jews were murdered by Nazi Germany and its collaborators.
For many Jews, Zionism was therefore not simply an ideological ambition.
It was also a response to a terrifying question:
Where can Jews live safely when other societies repeatedly demonstrate that they may not be safe for us?
The Balfour Declaration of 1917 expressed British support for establishing in Palestine a national home for the Jewish people while also stating that the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish population should not be prejudiced.
In 1922, the League of Nations incorporated that policy into the British Mandate for Palestine and explicitly recognized the “historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine.” Britain was charged with facilitating the establishment of the Jewish national home while safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all inhabitants. (un.org)
Jewish immigration under the Mandate was therefore not simply an illegal invasion.
It was regulated by the British authorities and operated within the framework of the Mandate.
At the same time, Arab opposition to Jewish immigration and Zionism became increasingly intense.
The violence against Jews did not begin with Israel
This is one of the most important facts to understand.
Israel did not exist as a state when some of the most notorious attacks against Jewish communities in Mandatory Palestine occurred.
The Hebron massacre of 1929 is a particularly stark example.
On August 23, 1929, Arab rioters attacked the Jewish community of Hebron. Armed attackers entered Jewish homes and murdered 67 Jews in cold blood, including women, children and elderly people.
The victims were not soldiers killed on a battlefield.
They were members of Hebron's Jewish community.
Jewish homes and synagogues were attacked and looted, and the surviving Jewish community was eventually evacuated.
Across the wider violence of August 1929, 133 Jews and 116 Arabs were killed, according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. (encyclopedia.ushmm.org)
The causes of the wider violence included Arab opposition to Zionism and Jewish immigration, religious agitation surrounding the Western Wall, political incitement and fears concerning the development of the Jewish national home.
But whatever the political context, the moral fact in Hebron remains clear:
67 Jewish men, women and children were murdered.
That should not be softened into the vague phrase “communal violence.”
There is also an important fact demonstrating why the historical record must be precise rather than ideological: some Arab residents of Hebron protected Jewish neighbors from the attackers. Nineteen Arab families are documented as having sheltered Jews.
Those Arabs deserve recognition for what they did.
The perpetrators deserve condemnation for what they did.
The two facts can exist simultaneously.
Hebron was not an isolated episode
The 1929 massacre was part of a broader pattern of violence against Jewish communities during the Mandate period.
There were serious outbreaks of violence in 1920, 1921 and 1929, followed by the Arab Revolt of 1936–39.
The significance of this history is not that every Palestinian Arab participated in violence.
They did not.
The significance is that Jewish civilians repeatedly experienced lethal attacks and developed a deep fear that Jewish communities could be destroyed if they were unable to defend themselves.
That fear existed before the State of Israel existed.
Partition became the central political question
The fundamental problem was increasingly clear:
Two national movements claimed the same land.
The Jewish national movement wanted a Jewish national home and ultimately Jewish self-determination.
The Arab population sought political independence and opposed the establishment of a Jewish state in territory they considered their homeland.
In 1937, the British Peel Commission proposed partition.
The Arab leadership rejected partition.
The Zionist leadership did not accept the specific borders and conditions of the proposal, but accepted the principle of partition as a basis for further negotiation. (un.org)
In 1947, the United Nations proposed partition again.
Resolution 181 recommended the establishment of an Arab state and a Jewish state, with Jerusalem under a special international regime.
The Jewish Agency accepted the plan.
The Palestinian Arab leadership and Arab states rejected it.
War followed.
The outcome was catastrophic for both populations.
Israel emerged as a state.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians became refugees.
Jewish communities across the region also experienced persecution, expulsion and mass displacement in the following years, with hundreds of thousands of Jews eventually leaving or being expelled from Arab and Muslim-majority countries.
The history of 1948 therefore cannot honestly be reduced to one population simply taking everything from another.
It was the beginning of a massive and tragic transformation of the region affecting both peoples.
Palestinian rejection was not the only factor — but it cannot be ignored
It would be historically inaccurate to claim that Palestinians have rejected every attempt at negotiation.
The Oslo process is an important counterexample.
In 1993, Israel and the PLO signed the Oslo Accords. The PLO recognized Israel and renounced terrorism, while Israel recognized the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people. (history.state.gov)
Yet Oslo ultimately failed to produce a permanent settlement.
There were also later negotiations, including Camp David in 2000 and the 2008 negotiations between Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas.
The historical record therefore contains both rejection and negotiation.
But it is undeniable that Arab and Palestinian leadership repeatedly rejected particular partition proposals and that rejection became a major factor in the failure to establish two states during earlier opportunities.
The emergence of Hamas changed the nature of the conflict
Hamas represents an important departure from the Palestinian factions that entered the Oslo process.
Its ideology has rejected the legitimacy of Israel and promoted armed resistance.
The distinction between Hamas and Palestinian civilians is nevertheless essential.
Hamas is an organization.
Palestinians are a population.
They should not be treated as synonymous.
But neither should Hamas's ideology or conduct be minimized when discussing the Israeli security mentality.
October 7 cannot be separated from everything that came before it
On October 7, 2023, Hamas-led forces attacked Israel.
Israeli civilians were murdered and taken hostage, and international investigations subsequently documented serious crimes including murder, hostage-taking and sexual violence.
For Israelis, October 7 was not simply another episode in a long political dispute.
It revived an ancient fear: that Jews could once again be hunted and murdered because they were Jews.
This historical memory matters when assessing Israel's response.
Israel's military response cannot be understood without understanding what Israelis believed they were facing.
Gaza and the question of Hamas
Hamas's military infrastructure has included an extensive underground tunnel network, including documented tunnel infrastructure beneath or near civilian facilities.
The use of civilian environments for military purposes creates an extraordinarily difficult battlefield.
It does not mean every civilian structure is a military target.
But it does mean that the conventional image of a war in which soldiers and military installations exist separately from civilian populations does not accurately describe Gaza.
The Israeli military argues that Hamas embeds military infrastructure among civilian populations.
That allegation has been supported in some cases by evidence of tunnels and military infrastructure beneath or adjacent to civilian facilities, although individual claims must be evaluated individually.
The existence of such tactics is important because it explains why Israel's military operations have frequently taken place in extraordinarily dense civilian environments.
The Israeli security mentality is therefore historically understandable
Imagine being born into a society whose collective memory includes:
centuries of antisemitism;
pogroms and expulsions;
the Holocaust;
the murder of Jewish civilians in Mandatory Palestine;
wars immediately following Israel's independence;
terrorist attacks;
suicide bombings;
rockets fired at Israeli towns;
and finally October 7.
It is impossible to understand Israeli society without understanding that history.
It is also impossible to understand why Israelis can view military strength as a matter of survival rather than simply territorial ambition.
That does not mean that every Israeli government decision is automatically correct.
It means that the reason Israel places security at the center of its national existence is not mysterious.
Jewish and Arab coexistence is real
There is another part of Israel that is often missing from international discussions.
Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel live alongside one another every day.
They work together.
They study together.
They use the same hospitals.
They eat in the same restaurants.
They conduct business together.
They raise families in the same country.
That does not mean there are no tensions, discrimination or inequality.
It means coexistence is demonstrably possible.
Anyone who has actually spent time in Israel can see something that is often absent from political rhetoric: ordinary Jews and Arabs can sit at the same table, work together and live ordinary lives.
That reality deserves attention.
What should the international community understand?
The greatest problem with much of the international debate is not necessarily that people support Palestinians.
Palestinian civilians have suffered enormously, and their suffering deserves compassion.
The problem arises when compassion becomes selective.
Jewish suffering should not become invisible because Palestinians are suffering.
October 7 should not become a footnote.
The Holocaust should not become irrelevant.
The Hebron massacre should not be described merely as “communal violence.”
The repeated rejection of partition proposals should not be erased from the historical record.
Hamas's ideology and attacks should not be conflated with every Palestinian.
And Palestinian civilians suffering should not be dismissed simply because Hamas committed crimes.
A serious discussion must be capable of holding all of these facts simultaneously.
The lesson is simple: study the history before judging the present
It is entirely legitimate to criticize Israel.
It is entirely legitimate to advocate for Palestinian statehood.
It is entirely legitimate to criticize Hamas.
It is entirely legitimate to demand protection for Palestinian civilians.
And it is entirely legitimate to defend Israel's right to exist and to protect its population.
What is not intellectually responsible is to select one part of the history and pretend it is the entire story.
The Jewish people did not appear in the Middle East in 1948.
The Palestinian national movement did not appear from nowhere either.
Two peoples developed powerful national identities around the same land.
Both experienced trauma.
Both experienced displacement.
Both have legitimate human attachments to the territory.
But Jewish history contains an additional reality that must never be forgotten:
Jews spent centuries being told that they did not belong wherever they lived.
Zionism emerged, in large part, from the determination that there should finally be somewhere Jews could exercise self-determination and defend themselves.
That determination was shaped not only by ideology but by experience.
And when one looks at the history of the region — from the Jewish communities that existed long before modern Israel, through the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate, the violence of the 1920s and 1930s, the Holocaust, the rejection and acceptance of successive political proposals, the wars, terrorism, Oslo, Hamas and October 7 — Israel's extraordinary emphasis on security becomes considerably easier to understand.
That does not require hatred of Palestinians.
It does not require denying Palestinian suffering.
It requires something much simpler: understanding the history before passing judgment. Take care!
Prof. Carl Boniface
Discussion
After reading the article, discuss the following questions with your classmates. Try to support your opinions with information from the text rather than relying only on your personal beliefs.
Understanding the Text
Why is it important to study the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before forming an opinion about the present situation?
What does the article say about the historical connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel?
Why was Jewish immigration to Palestine particularly important to Jews fleeing persecution in Europe?
What happened during the Hebron massacre of 1929? Why does the author believe this event is important when understanding Israeli attitudes toward security?
What was the purpose of the 1947 UN Partition Plan? How did the different sides respond to it?
Why does the article distinguish between Hamas and Palestinian civilians?
Think Critically
Do you think it is possible to understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict without studying its history? Why or why not?
The article says that “history should not be rewritten to make either side more comfortable.” What do you think this means?
Can recognizing Palestinian suffering and recognizing Jewish historical suffering both be true at the same time? Explain your answer.
Why might two people look at the same historical events and reach completely different conclusions?
What is the difference between criticizing the actions of a government and criticizing an entire population?
The article says that Jewish and Arab people can live together peacefully in Israel. Does this change your understanding of the conflict? Why or why not?
Debate
Divide the class into small groups. Discuss the following statement:
“Before taking a position on a political conflict, people have a responsibility to understand the historical context.”
One group should argue FOR the statement.
Another group should argue AGAINST it.
Use examples from the article to support your arguments.
Vocabulary & Expression
Discuss the meaning of these expressions from the article:
historical context
national self-determination
collective memory
political movement
partition
persecution
displacement
coexistence
security mentality
armed resistance
historical narrative
passing judgment
Then choose three expressions and use each one in an original sentence.
Speaking Challenge
Imagine you are attending an international conference where people have very different opinions about Israel and Palestine.
Complete this sentence:
“Before I form an opinion about this conflict, I think it is important to understand…”
Give three reasons and explain each one.
Remember: The objective of this discussion is not necessarily to reach the same conclusion. The objective is to listen, question, research, and explain your position clearly and respectfully.
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