the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict: In the Beginning
Jews are descendants of ancient Canaanite people, the Israelites, who lived in the area currently now known as Israel and the West Bank for 2,000 years until the suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 AD. Hadrian then expelled the Jews. They recorded their history in the Tanahk (Jewish Bible) aka the Christian Old Testament. Judaism has evolved from the time of the Diaspora but a return to Zion, the Holy Land, was always part of it.
In the 19th century Great Britain and other countries in Europe became the dominant financial, manufacturing and military powers on earth with Britain the most powerful. In this time the Levant or Middle East was ruled by the Ottoman Empire though it's medieval, guild controlled Islamic society was unable to compete with Europe and Russia and was making efforts to 'reform' ie Europanize itself. European travellers in Palestine in the 19th century reported it was a wasteland in which they required armed guards for protection.
The Palestinians were living in the Ottoman Empire, ruled by Turks. They spoke Arabic having been conquered and converted when they were Byzantine Christians but are genetically descendants of ancient Canaanites as were the Zionist Jews. Palestine was a very poor area, the majority of inhabitants were permanently indebted peasants or fellaheen ruled and exploited by the 'notables' or effendi landowning class who claimed descent from the Arabian conquerors of the 7th century.
Britain had a Great Power interest in Palestine, it was close to the Egypt and Suez Canal but there was also a quirky religious tradition, a wide-spread British-Israelism movement with which many upper-class Victorians identified and a belief known as Christian Restorationism which taught that return of the Jewish people to the Holy Land must occur before Christ's Second Coming. The British had no interest in the wishes of the Palestinians. Joseph Balfour, the Foreign Secretary famously said "In Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country."
There were always some religious Jews living in the Jerusalem area but in the late 19th century a new and increasing number of Jews, the Zionists, began to arrive and purchase land and settle in towns and create farming settlements. They were escaping persecution and they had a dream, if they could create a state, a Jewish country, then Jews would be safe. That dream seemed impossible but they concentrated on the possible.
There was an argument made when I was a boy that the Jews had suffered so much that they deserved to have a state. Today, there is an argument made that the Palestinians have suffered so much and the the British politicians lied so much that Israel should never have been allowed. Somehow the first argument was replaced by the second one while I was at the beach one summer and didn't notice. I do not attempt to consider the suffering, pain and heartache felt by any of the people involved in or affected by these events.
I am not a believer in any religion. I ascribe no value to Jewish religious ideas about JHWH giving the land of Canaan to the Jews or that their past history gives them any right of return and neither do I accept Muslim views of Palestine as a blessed land, al Quds, al Buraq, etc from where Mohammed rose to the 7th heaven. I only care about facts on the ground.
Where possible I have taken the facts from Palestinian and pro-Palestinian sources or compared them to the dominant history.