Overview

The history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict traces back to the late 19th century when Zionists sought to establish a homeland for the Jewish people in Ottoman-controlled Palestine. The Balfour Declaration of 1917, issued by the British government, endorsed the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, which led to an influx of Jewish immigrants to the region. Following World War II and the Holocaust, international pressure mounted for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, leading to the creation of Israel in 1948. The establishment of Israel, and the war that followed and preceded it, led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who became refugees, sparking a decades-long conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people. The Palestinians seek to establish their own independent state in at least a part of historic Palestine. Israeli defense of its own borders, control over the West Bank, the Egyptian-Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, and Palestinian internal politics currently make this goal out of reach.