From the Roman invasion to English rule
Macedonian rule was followed by a period of relative independence. This period lasted until the Roman conquest by Pompey, who entered Jerusalem in 63 B.C. In 70 A.D. Titus destroyed the city. All that remains of the Second Temple is the Western Wall, later known as the Wailing Wall. In the early 2nd century A.D. Emperor Hadrian forbade Jews from entering Jerusalem and from that time on, Jews began to spread throughout the world. From then until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, there was no Jewish government in Israel. Palestine. Although some Jews have always lived in Palestine, their number has varied according to the tolerance of successive rulers.
After the division of the Roman Empire in 400 A.D. Palestine was under Byzantine rule until the Arab conquest in 637 AD, when the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock were built in the Desert of the Sun, in what was then the Temple of Solomon. After Mecca and Medina, Haram Al-Sharif has become an extremely sacred place for Muslims. After the cessation of the Crusades from 1099 to 1190, the Arab ruler Saladin invited the Jews to return to Palestine. In 1517, the country was conquered by the Turks, whose rule lasted until the First World War. During this time, the Wailing Wall remained a Jewish place of worship.
In late 1917, British troops occupied Palestine. From this it can be seen that, apart from the intervention of the Crusades, Palestine was ruled successively by the Arabs, then by the Turks for more than 1,300 years, and by the Turks for more than 1,300 years. to the Byzantine era. Palestine’s population is mainly Semitic Arab, including Muslims and Christians. There was also a small number of Semitic Jews. Both the Arabs and the Ottoman Turks gave the Jews the right to continue practicing their religion and to maintain the spiritual ties of Judaism with Palestine. Increase.
During the British occupation in 1917, Jews made up less than one tenth of the Palestinian population, 90 per cent of whom were Arabs and all Muslims (80%) are Christians (10%). Palestinian Arabic traditions, customs and language constitute the dominant culture in Palestine.
In 63 A.D. Palestine was incorporated into the Roman Empire. The Romans severely repressed the resistance of the Maccabees, Zealots and other Jewish tribes. As part of this repression, thousands of rebels were crucified around AD 30 in the time of Jesus of Nazareth. In 70 A.D. the Roman emperor Titus destroyed the Temple of Solomon. Years later, in 135 AD, the Jews were driven out of Jerusalem and the emperor Hadrian built a pagan city on its ruins. From the year 330 Palestine came under Byzantine rule. In 638, Omar al-Khattaab entered Jerusalem, ending the Byzantine era and ushering in the Arab-Islamic era. According to the Islamic tradition, the prophet Muhammad (Mohammed) ascended to heaven in this city, thus making Jerusalem a sacred place for the three great monotheistic religions born of a common trunk.
The Islamic faith and the Arabic language unified the Semitic peoples, except the Jews. With brief intervals of partial domination by the Christian and Mongol crusaders in the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries, Palestine had Arab governments for almost a millennium and Islamic ones for a millennium and a half. In 1516 the Ottoman Empire conquered Jerusalem and maintained its hegemony there until the end of the First World War. From 1878 onwards, the first settlements of Jews in Palestine began to be established, driven by the Zionist movement. Some 25,000 immigrants illegally entered from eastern Europe. The French baron of Jewish origin, Edmond Rothschild, supported the Zionist activities economically.
In 1895 the total population of Palestine was 500,000 people: 453,000 were Palestinian Arabs and occupied 99% of the land; 47,000 were Jews and owned 5% of the land. The Jewish National Fund, founded by the Fifth Zionist Congress, was responsible for land purchases and between 1904 and 1914 there was a second wave of migration. In 1909 the first kibbutz (collective farm) was installed north of Yaffa. At the outbreak of World War I, England promised independence from Arab lands under Ottoman rule, including Palestine, in exchange for its support against Turkey, an ally of Germany. In 1917, the British Foreign Minister sent a letter to Baron Rothschild (known as the «Balfour Declaration») committing England’s efforts to create a Jewish National Home.
The Palestinians held their first conference in 1919 and opposed the Balfour Declaration, as they aspired to the creation of an independent Palestinian state, as the British had promised in exchange for their support during the war. In 1920 the San Remo Conference granted a British mandate on Palestine. Two years later, the Council of the League of Nations issued a mandate to promote the establishment of a National Home for the Jewish people in that territory. For six months, Palestinians staged strikes and mobilizations in protest at land confiscations and illegal immigration, which were aimed at increasing the small Jewish population and justifying their territorial aspirations.
The English government published a new «White Paper», which restricted Jewish immigration and offered independence from Palestine after 10 years. The resolution was rejected by the Zionists, who organized militias and launched a bloody campaign against the British and Palestinians. On 9 April 1948, a detachment of the «Irgun» organization, commanded by Menahem Begin, invaded the village of Deir Yassin and killed 254 civilians. The terror caused the exodus of tens of thousands of Palestinians. At the end of the Second World War, the United Nations approved the partition of Palestine (Resolution 181). The Palestinians, who constituted 70 per cent of the total population and held 92 per cent of the land, were reduced to 43 per cent of the territory. The rest was given to the Jews, who made up 30% of the population and owned only 8% of the land. Jerusalem was considered to be within the 1 per cent that would remain as an international area.
Proclamation of the State of Israel and Six-Day War
On 14 May 1948, the Jews proclaimed the State of Israel. The following day, the first Arab-Israeli war broke out and the «Middle East conflict» was born. Palestine was divided into three parts: the part occupied by Israel; the West Bank of the Jordan (West Bank) which passed to Jordan, and Gaza, which came under the administration of Egypt. Some 700,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes, fled to neighbouring countries and settled in refugee camps. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was established in 1964 to defend the interests of the Palestinian people and affirm their identity at the regional and international levels. In 1969, Yasser Arafat was elected as the organization’s chairman.
Palestinian groups operating underground, such as Fatah, were suspicious of this organization promoted by the Arab governments and also of its emphasis on diplomatic struggle. Convinced that the recovery of the territory would be possible only through military operations, they carried out the first armed action in Israel on 1 January 1965. In 1967, the Six-Day War broke out: Israel occupied all of Jerusalem, the Syrian Golan, Egypt’s Sinai and the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza. The UN called on Israel to withdraw from the forcibly occupied Arab territories and declared the right of the Palestinians to return and self-determination.
The defeat of the Arab armies reinforced the conviction that guerrilla warfare was the only way. In March 1968, during a battle in the village of Al Karameh, the Palestinians forced the Israelis to retreat. The skirmish went down in history as the first victory of Palestinian weapons. The armed groups joined the PLO and gained the support of the Arab governments. The political and military strengthening of the Palestinians was perceived as a threat by King Hussein of Jordan, who had until then acted as his representative and spokesman. In September 1970 this situation became untenable.
Elements of the Palestinian resistance in Jordan, known as fedayines (from the Arabic fidadi’i, «he who sacrifices his life for the cause») were attacked by King Hussein’s forces, composed mostly of Bedouins, in response to several hijacking of civilian aircraft by the Palestinian Liberation Front, led by George Habash. A 10-day civil war resulted in 3,500 deaths and extensive material destruction in Jordan. The PLO was expelled from Jordan and established its headquarters in Beirut. The new exile reduced the possibility of carrying out armed actions inside Israel and radicalized groups such as «Black September» emerged, whose name derived from the struggle between Jordanian government forces and Palestinian fedayines, Who carried out attacks against Israeli institutions and companies in Europe and other parts of the world.
La dirección de la OLP pronto comprendió la necesidad de cambiar su táctica; sin abandonar la lucha armada, inició una gran ofensiva diplomática y pasó a dedicar gran parte de sus esfuerzos a consolidar la unidad e identidad palestina. La Conferencia de Argel de los No Alineados, celebrada en 1973, identificó por primera vez el problema palestino, en lugar de la rivalidad entre Israel y los países árabes, como la clave del conflicto en Oriente Medio. 14En 1974 una conferencia cumbre de la Liga Árabe reconoció a la OLP como «único representante legítimo del pueblo palestino». En octubre de ese año la OLP fue admitida como observadora por la Asamblea General de la ONU, que reconoció el derecho del pueblo palestino a la autodeterminación e independencia.
On 10 November 1975, the UN General Assembly adopted, by a vote of 72 to 35 (with 32 abstentions), Resolution 3379, which established that «Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination». The resolution was revoked on 16 December 1991, by a vote of 111 to 25 (with 13 abstentions). The PLO’s program, agreed in 1968, called for the armed struggle against the «Zionist occupation» to free all of Palestine, including the international borders of the State of Israel, recognized before the 1967 war. «Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. This is the general strategy, not merely a tactical phase». This necessarily implied the end of the present State of Israel.
However, without giving up this goal, the PLO has come to accept as a «temporary solution» the establishment of an independent Palestinian state «in any part of the territory eventually liberated by weapons or from which Israel withdraws». In 1980, Israeli Prime Minister Menahem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat signed a peace agreement at Camp David with US mediation. Israel committed to withdraw from the Sinai peninsula. Settlements in the West Bank soon multiplied, with Palestinian land grabbing increasing tension in the occupied territories. Successive votes against these measures at the United Nations were devoid of any practical effect, since the US veto in the Security Council made any kind of sanction against Israel impossible.
In July 1982, in an attempt to «settle definitively» the Palestinian problem, Israeli forces invaded Lebanon. They sought to destroy the PLO’s military structure, capture as many of its leaders as possible who carried out attacks along Israel’s northern border, annex southern Lebanon and install a docile government in Beirut. The massacre in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, carried out by the Lebanese Army under the command of the Israeli Minister of Defence, Ariel Sharon, has raised international sympathy for the suffering of the Palestinian people. The organization’s headquarters was established in Tunis and, on a tour of Europe, Yasser Arafat was received with honours as head of state in several countries, particularly the Vatican.
The PLO has quietly entered into talks with Israeli leaders who are inclined to a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians. The invasion of Lebanon led to the emergence of small but active peace groups within Israel, which demanded a dialogue with the PLO. Some radical Palestinian groups questioned this approach and disagreed with Arafat’s political line. The PLO split and its factions clashed, sometimes violently. In 1987, after years of internal difficulties, the Palestinian National Congress, meeting in Algiers, reconstituted the unity of the PLO. The funeral of several young Palestinians killed in clashes with Israeli military patrols that same year led to further confrontations, general strikes and civil protests.
The Intifada (popular uprising) began in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The Intifada marked a new stage in the Palestinian struggle: for the first time, the population-young people, children and old-men-were rising up against the occupying army. Many unarmed civilians were throwing stones in street fighting, a fact that caused global impact due to the use of heavy weaponry by the Israeli occupation to suppress protests. The intifada lasted for approximately five years and undermined the already precarious economy of the inhabitants of the occupied territories. On 14 November 1988, the Palestinian National Council (parliament in exile), meeting in Algiers, proclaimed an independent Palestinian state, in accordance with UN resolution 181 of 1948 which divided Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Palestinian Arab.
This meant accepting the State of Israel. Days later, 54 countries recognized the new State. Arafat was elected Palestinian president and in that capacity spoke at the UN General Assembly. Repudiated terrorism, accepted the existence of Israel and called for international forces to be sent into the occupied territories. Following his speech, US President Ronald Reagan decided to start talks with the PLO. When the Gulf War broke out in 1991, the pro-Iraqi sympathies of the Palestinian people were clearly expressed. This support deprived the PLO of the financial support of the rich Gulf monarchies, which were opposed to the regime in Iraq.
In September 1991, Arafat was confirmed as president of Palestine and the PLO, and the Palestinian National Council accepted the resignation of Abu Abbas, leader of the Palestine Liberation Front. Abbas was sentenced in absentia by an Italian court to life imprisonment for the kidnapping of the cruise ship «Achille Lauro» in 1985. In 1991, the first Middle East Peace Conference was held in Madrid under the auspices of the United States and the former USSR. Palestinians and Israelis agreed on mutual recognition. In September of that year, the Declaration of Principles between Israel and the PLO was signed at the White House, which set a five-year deadline for Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied territories and for discussion of the final status of the Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem, culminating in the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
The Israeli parliament ratified the recognition of the PLO and the Declaration of Principles. The PLO Central Council adopted the text on autonomy. Hamas and Hizbullah in the Palestinian camp, as well as settlers from settlements located in the occupied territories and the extreme right on the Israeli side opposed the agreement. In a climate of hostility, the Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza and Jericho, scheduled for 13 December, was postponed. In May 1994, Rabin and Arafat signed the self-government agreement «Gaza and Jericho first», while the Israeli withdrawal continued, allowing the return of PLO soldiers exiled to Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Jordan or Algeria.
After 27 years of exile, Arafat arrived in Gaza in July and took over as head of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) Executive. In the areas of Palestinian self-rule, an influx of Palestinian and foreign capital, as well as international aid, began to prepare the foundations for a future state. The struggle between the PLO’s historic leader and his Islamist opponents, opposed to the agreements with Israel, became increasingly violent. Arafat wanted Hamas to participate in the Palestinian general elections of January 1996, which would have given it greater legitimacy as a leader. The Islamists boycotted the elections. Arafat was elected president with 87% of the vote and the official candidates won 66 out of 88 seats.
The election of Benyamin Netanyahu, a conservative leader of the Likud party, as Israeli prime minister (see Israel) in May exacerbated tensions between the two countries. The difficult negotiations culminated in the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the city of Hebron in 1997. In the same year, on the basis of agreements between the two sides, Palestinian political prisoners were released from Israeli prisons. The talks broke down in late 1997, when Netanyahu disregarded the agreement and continued to build new illegal settlements. The event led to violent clashes and harsh international condemnation. Arafat stated that, after the five-year period set out in his commitments, he would declare an independent Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem.
In 2000, US President Bill Clinton invited Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to meet at Camp David. The US and Israeli proposals for a final settlement did not meet basic Palestinian demands: they did not dismantle illegal settlements in the West Bank, do not contemplate the return of refugees or Palestinian control of borders. Jerusalem, a holy city for Muslims and Jews, became the greatest obstacle to negotiations as the parties intended to establish their capital there. The tension was exacerbated by the visit of former Israeli defence minister Ariel Sharon to the mosque esplanade in Al Quds/Jerusalem, a sacred site for Muslims and Jews.
It was the beginning of a new intifada; a series of suicide bombings in Israeli urban centres caused numerous Israeli civilian casualties and Tel Aviv resumed its bombardments on Palestinian towns, which left 400 dead. Sharon’s victory in the Israeli elections of February 2001 was a new blow to the peace process. That month the UN Secretary-General released a document stating that the economic blockade imposed by Israel on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip was putting Arafat’s government on the verge of collapse because of lack of funds. UN Special Envoy to the Middle East, Terje Roed-Larsen, warned that if other countries did not urgently support the Palestinians on a monetary basis (according to the report, $1 billion was needed for the rest of that year) violence would increase.
During the following months, fighting intensified. The Israeli onslaught and stalemate in negotiations increased resistance to occupation, and Sharon responded with targeted assassinations of suspected terrorists and expanded his offensive by attacking Palestinian towns and villages with helicopters and warships. Several hundred Palestinians were killed during the rebellion and military actions continued with the occupation of territories under relative Palestinian control. After the attacks on New York and Washington of September 11, 2001, Sharon believed that international public opinion and the attitude of Western governments could turn in his favor, and he deepened his offensive against the Palestinian rebellion.
Because of the need to add allies to his anti-terrorist campaign against the Afghan Taliban regime, George W. Bush preferred to stay away and avoid confrontations with the rest of the Arab countries. Numerous suicide bombings by radical Palestinian militants signalled a new phase in the confrontation. To enhance security, Sharon has restricted the transit of goods and people across the borders of the West Bank and Gaza Strip since the beginning of the insurgency. The move hurt both workers and Palestinian businesses. In December, Sharon cut off all negotiations with Arafat. The new Israeli strategy was based on not considering the Palestinian leader as a valid interlocutor.
Restrictions on the movement of goods and people in Israel and the occupied territories after 18 months of rebellion have brought the Palestinian economy to the brink of bankruptcy. The continued closure of border posts caused irreparable damage. Unemployment tripled, affecting almost 30 per cent of the Palestinian workforce. The Arab summit was held in Beirut in March, but Arafat could not attend because Sharon had him besieged in his bunker at Ramallah for more than a month. Despite the chaos that marked its beginning, the summit culminated in the adoption of a peace plan which included an historic decision: the signatories committed themselves to recognize the State of Israel, provided that it retreats to the pre-1967 borders and allows for the return of the three million Palestinian refugees, and the formation of a Palestinian state with part of Jerusalem as its capital.
Israel called the proposal «unacceptable». In April, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine agreed for the first time on a joint plan of struggle «to deal with any Israeli attack». Most of the 82 suicide bombers who had attacked targets in Israel and Jewish settlements since the beginning of the Intifada were members of those fundamentalist organizations. The same month, the Jenin refugee camp was the scene of bloody Israeli bombing and hundreds of Palestinians were killed. Terje Roed-Larsen, the UN envoy, called what happened in Jenin a «morally repugnant humanitarian disaster» and declared Sharon «persona non grata». Following the incursions into Jenin and other areas under relative PNA control, Israel took prisoners of some 5,000 Palestinians.
In June 2002, Bush called on the Palestinians to repudiate Arafat’s leadership and seek a leader who was not «committed to terrorism». In December, Arafat postponed elections, holding Israel responsible. In March 2003, Mahmoud Abbas (a moderate politician known as Abu Mazen) took over as Palestinian prime minister. In April, Bush presented to Sharon and Abbas a new peace plan known as the «Road Map», driven by the so-called «Middle East Quartet» (US, EU, UN and Russia), which should lead to the creation of a Palestinian State and the resolution of all outstanding problems by 2005. Accused by radical sectors of making too many concessions to Israel, Abbas resigned in July.
Separation of the West Bank by a wall/ Complete blockade of Gaza
Violence intensified. This was accompanied by the construction of a separation wall in the West Bank, which according to Israel sought to prevent terrorists from entering. The Palestinians viewed the wall as an attempt to unilaterally demarcate borders with a possible Palestinian state, on terms advantageous to Israel. The UN General Assembly demanded that Israel stop the work, but the European Union and the US did not. requested the International Court of Justice to refrain from pronouncing on the legality of construction. The barrier deprived thousands of Palestinians of access to essential services such as water, health and education, as well as sources of income such as agriculture and other forms of employment.
In March 2004, following a double suicide bombing by Hamas in the port of Ashdod, Israel responded with a plan to «target» Palestinian radical movement leaders. With a missile fired from a helicopter, Israel killed the spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, 67 years old, as he was leaving a mosque in Sabra (Gaza). Although the assassination provoked the unanimous rejection of the international community, the U.S. vetoed a motion of condemnation in the UN Security Council. Sharon announced in April 2004 the «Unilateral Disengagement Plan with the Palestinians» which included the evacuation of settlements from the Gaza Strip and the dismantling of six West Bank settlements.
In return, Israel sought US support. for the maintenance of «settlement blocks» in the West Bank, where most of the 230,000 Israeli settlers live, and a statement by President Bush denying the right of return to Palestinian refugees. In October, Israeli forces demolished the homes of hundreds of Palestinians and demolished infrastructure works, killing more than 70 people in what was the bloodiest attack on the Gaza Strip in years. The attack took place after two Israeli children were killed by a rocket fired by Hamas. On 11 November 2004, Arafat died in Paris. The state funeral was held in Cairo (Egypt). Finally, Arafat was buried in the headquarters of the Palestinian National Authority in Ramallah, despite his wish to be buried in Jerusalem (denied by Israel).
Rauhi Fatuh, chairman of the Palestinian Legislative Council, assumed the presidency of the PNA for 60 days until general elections were held, while Abbas was appointed chairman of the PLO’s executive committee. In the elections of early February 2005, Fatah candidate Abbas was elected president of the PNA with 62% of the vote and immediately tried to persuade the radical groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad to cease their attacks on Israel. In February, Abbas managed to convince Hamas and the Jihad to declare an unofficial period of ceasefire. With this fragile framework, Abbas and Sharon announced their willingness to meet in Egypt to start talks, but this meeting never took place.
In August, the Israeli army completed its withdrawal from Gaza, which included the evacuation, often by force, of some 8,500 settlers, ending 38 years of military occupation of the area. The continuation of this process became unknown when Sharon suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and fell into a coma in January 2006. That month, unexpectedly, Hamas won the parliamentary elections and won 76 of the 132 seats contested. Fatah refused to participate in the new government formed by Ismail Haniyeh, who took office as prime minister in February. The Israeli interim prime minister, Ehud Olmert, announced that he would not negotiate with the new government unless Hamas renounced violence and recognized the State of Israel, and stopped transferring the tax-derived funds and customs revenues collected by Israel on behalf of the PNA.
The freezing of Israeli transfers of funds and the suspension of the US’s multimillion dollar economic aid. and the EU, left the Palestinian government on the brink of financial asphyxiation. The Hamas government resisted international pressure to get it to recognize Israel and asked Muslim countries for help in paying back public salaries for months. Throughout the period, Israel continued its policy of «targeted assassinations» of leaders and militants of Palestinian organizations. In May, clashes between Fatah-loyal police and a new security force created by Hamas raised fears of civil war among Palestinians.
Abbas, in a difficult situation since Hamas came to power, announced that he would call a referendum on the recognition of Israel and the feasibility of two states-one Israeli and one Palestinian-as a solution to the conflict. Prime Minister and Hamas leader Ismail Haniya was replaced by Abbas in June 2007 by Salam Fayyad. The Chairman justified the decision on the grounds of a «national emergency». Israeli Prime Minister Olmert and President Abbas met in the West Bank in August 2007. Both were happy and optimistic about the possible creation of a Palestinian state. Haniya said that it was a new «long way that would not produce any positive effect for the Palestinian people».
