JOIN USExplained: How religion fuels the Israel-Palestine conflict
The conflict between Israel and Palestine is a confluence of political, legal and historical tensions, but the religious undercurrent that sowed the seeds of the entire struggle has always suffused what is, in essence, a territorial dispute.
Israel and Palestine claim ownership over the Mediterranean strip of land not only as two populations but also as two distinct religious communities.
After facing years of anti-Semitism and persecution, a break-away group of European Jews in the nineteenth century threw their weight behind a return to Zion, a metaphor for the Biblical promised Jewish homeland called Israel and the namesake for the Zionist movement. The small, but vocal, movement spread across the globe and finally resulted in the United States and Britain lending support for a Jewish state.
Before the 19th century, the region known as Palestine under Ottoman rule had been religiously diverse and home to Muslims, Christians and a small minority of Jews who co-existed largely in peace.
The fall of the Ottoman empire in 1922 and the subsequent Balfour declaration are usually considered the twin dominos that ultimately led to the creation of the state of Israel. The Balfour declaration established formal British support for a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine and was later adopted by the League of Nations, which handed Britain the responsibility of overseeing the endeavour.
The Jewish migration into Palestine that followed jolted the Arabs, who had been living in Palestine for centuries, to turn increasingly towards resistance and violence, culminating in a revolt in 1936. In the years thereafter came the rise of Hitler’s Nazi party and the Holocaust, at the end of which stateless Jews who had survived the genocide began migrating en masse to Palestine, despite British restrictions on the number of immigrants.
The British handed off the problem of the Jewish state in Palestine to the United Nations, which voted to partition Palestine, which was strongly opposed by the Arabs and fighting broke out. When British troops left the region in 1948, the Jews finally declared the state of Israel.
This began a cycle of invasions, wars, uprisings, dispossession of land and property, militancy and diplomatic deals that lasted for decades. All of Palestine is now occupied by Israel, with autonomy in some parts but constantly surrounded by Israeli troops and in fear of being replaced by Jewish settlers.
Drawing on biblical prophecy and history, the Jews have centred much of their attention on the religious city of Jerusalem, which Muslims and Christians also revere deeply. The Temple Mount in the heart of the Old City is the thorniest bone of contention, housing some of the holiest sites in all three religions.
The recent attacks have escalated as a response to what the Palestinians perceive as Jewish settlers trying to grab a firmer foothold in the Old City and eventually take over complete control — a fear symbolic of the decades-old religious tensions that have drawn battle lines between the two communities.