So what is the deal with Israel?

I'll forward this post by saying that I had never really looked that much into Israel and it's history, as well as that of the rest of Palestine. I did know that it was established to some degree after one of the world wars, and that it was smack-dab in the middle of a largely Muslim region, in an area considered holy by Muslims, Jews, and Christians. After some further research that wasn't truly extensive, I now have a better idea about the inception of the country and the conflict surrounding it then and now.

I can understand some of the conflict, since the former minority of the Palestinian region moved in people from other regions of the world as they were escaping other kinds of persecution, to the point that they became the majority. I suppose being able to have their own armed forces under the control of the religiously minded may have been part of the appeal, besides living in the land of people they were related to... very distantly. But so many Jews came to live in Palestine that they displaced many of the people who originally lived there due to religious tension, instead of being able to coexist. Due to the Arab/Israeli conflict in 1948, refugees of both Jewish and Palestinian descent fled the country. After the conflict had ended, the refugees of Palestinian descent were disallowed from being able to come back and claim any of their property. However, this policy was also extended to Palestinians who had not fled, with the introduction of a citizenship status called "present absentee," basically making it so that if a Palestinian left their home, they were considered absent, and their property could be seized and reappropriated for the immigrant populations. Arabs were not barred from moving into Israel, but those returning would be unable to claim their previous holdings. However, it would seem that Jews were somehow exempted from this change in status, thus adding to the tension and feelings of mistreatment in Palestinian minds, and giving fuel to fires of war brewing in other countries.

So far, we have a colony of Jews who had decided they wanted a country for their own religion (guess they thought since there are predominantly Christian and Muslim countries, they wanted one too) and moved into the old promised land of their forefathers to set it up. They pushed out a large population with a similar claim but conflicting... ideals, customs... whatever the religiously minded like to fight over when they meet someone different. But they didn't do it themselves. A large part of the events leading up to the migration to Israel were the result of a movement known as "Zionism." To briefly describe it, it's pretty much jingoism if it had a religion instead of a nation in mind, until a nation was included for them to go on about. They did have a certain amount of vindication for the movement, considering the ethnic cleansing taking place in various countries even before WWI, but they took an angle that expelled another culture from an area with closer ancestral and definite personal ties to the land.

A large part of the issue stems from the fact that they were taking in more Jewish immigrants than they were legally supposed to shortly before the Mandate of Palestine was terminated. However, at that time, Great Britain was in control of the region, and trying to establish the grounds for the self-governance of the region after their planned termination of the mandate proved to be one of the largest problems, since the Arabs seemed adamant about not cooperating with the Jews about... well, anything. The first paragraph on page 6 (you can check via the link) has a bit about how the Arabs viewed the Jews;
"Arab leaders refused this offer [For an Arab Agency, to act along with the Jewish Agency] on the ground that it would not satisfy the aspirations of the Arab people, adding that they had never recognized the status of the Jewish Agency and had no desire for the establishment of an Arab Agency on the same basis."
So, they rejected the offer because the Jews already had one, basically. The comparison of these two factions acting like squabbling children comes to mind again...

Shortly before the Mandate terminated, the Arab Higher Committee instigated attacks against "Jewish targets." While the Jews were initially on the defense, they were able to push back and break the coalition, which led to the first wave of Palestinian refugees. The night before the Mandate terminated, the Jewish Agency declared the establishment of the State of Israel, which at the time (and to a certain degree, now) didn't have particularly clear borders. The next day, they were attacked by a coalition of four Islamic states, to last for about a year before a ceasefire was declared and temporary borders were drawn. Since then, there have been regular covert attacks and overt raids into and from Israel, as well as ten more full-scale conflicts.These have only served to maintain hostility levels, though, as very few of the conflicts actually led to anything changing, and most of the time conquered lands were returned. A productive series of events, wouldn't you say?

So, after all of this, I do feel like I have a certain level of knowledge about the conflict surrounding Israel. While I don't have a particular feeling about who is in the right or wrong on the matter, the one thing that I do find strongly disappointing is the way that Israel is treating the Palestinian issue, especially given some ideas mentioned about possible common lineage in the link about "clear borders." Overall, I just think it's a shame that neither side is willing to relent on their dislike (or full-on hate, as the case may be) of the other, and that due to their history they are so scared of what the other side is planning to do to them. There needs to be a day when people realize if they stop caring about where someone is from, you can come to like them, or at least come to hate them for a more legitimate reason than before.

I suppose a moral can be taken from this: Take your personal meetings on a case by case basis, and you may find that denominations are less effective ways to judge a person than personal interactions. Saves a lot of time and effort that would have been spent on scheming and counter-scheming.