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On May 14, 1948, in Tel Aviv, Jewish Agency Chairman David Ben-Gurion proclaims the State of Israel, establishing the first Jewish state in 2,000 years. Ben-Gurion became Israel's first premier.

In the distance, the rumble of guns could be heard from fighting that broke out between Jews and Arabs immediately following the British army withdrawal earlier that day. Egypt launched an air assault against Israel that evening. Despite a blackout in Tel Aviv-and the expected Arab invasion-Jews joyously celebrated the birth of their new nation, especially after word was received that the United States had recognized the Jewish state. At midnight, the State of Israel officially came into being upon termination of the British mandate in Palestine.

Modern Israel has its origins in the Zionism movement, established in the late 19th century by Jews in the Russian Empire who called for the establishment of a territorial Jewish state after enduring persecution. In 1896, Jewish-Austrian journalist Theodor Herzl published an influential political pamphlet called The Jewish State, which argued that the establishment of a Jewish state was the only way of protecting Jews from anti-Semitism. Herzl became the leader of Zionism, convening the first Zionist Congress in Switzerland in 1897. Ottoman-controlled Palestine, the original home of the Jews, was chosen as the most desirable location for a Jewish state, and Herzl unsuccessfully petitioned the Ottoman government for a charter.

After the failed Russian Revolution of 1905, growing numbers of Eastern European and Russian Jews began to immigrate to Palestine, joining the few thousand Jews who had arrived earlier. The Jewish settlers insisted on the use of Hebrew as their spoken language. With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire during World War I, Britain took over Palestine. In 1917, Britain issued the " Balfour Declaration," which declared its intent to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Although protested by the Arab states, the Balfour Declaration was included in the British mandate over Palestine, which was authorized by the League of Nations in 1922. Because of Arab opposition to the establishment of any Jewish state in Palestine, British rule continued throughout the 1920s and '30s.

Beginning in 1929, Arabs and Jews openly fought in Palestine, and Britain attempted to limit Jewish immigration as a means of appeasing the Arabs. As a result of the Holocaust in Europe, many Jews illegally entered Palestine during World War II. Jewish groups employed terrorism against British forces in Palestine, which they thought had betrayed the Zionist cause. At the end of World War II, in 1945, the United States took up the Zionist cause. Britain, unable to find a practical solution, referred the problem to the United Nations, which in November 1947 voted to partition Palestine.

The Jews were to possess more than half of Palestine, although they made up less than half of Palestine's population. The Palestinian Arabs, aided by volunteers from other countries, fought the Zionist forces, but by May 14, 1948, the Jews had secured full control of their U.N.-allocated share of Palestine and also some Arab territory. On May 14, Britain withdrew with the expiration of its mandate, and the State of Israel was proclaimed. The next day, forces from Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq invaded.

The Israelis, though less well equipped, managed to fight off the Arabs and then seize key territory, such as Galilee, the Palestinian coast, and a strip of territory connecting the coastal region to the western section of Jerusalem. In 1949, U.N.-brokered cease-fires left the State of Israel in permanent control of this conquered territory. The departure of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs from Israel during the war left the country with a substantial Jewish majority.

During the third Arab-Israeli conflict-the Six-Day War of 1967-Israel again greatly increased its borders, capturing from Jordan, Egypt, and Syria the Old City of Jerusalem, the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and the Golan Heights. In 1979, Israel and Egypt signed a historic peace agreement in which Israel returned the Sinai in exchange for Egyptian recognition and peace. Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) signed a major peace accord in 1993, which envisioned the gradual implementation of Palestinian self-government in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Israeli-Palestinian peace process moved slowly, however, and throughout the 21st major fighting between Israelis and Palestinians has resumed in Israel and the occupied territories.

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On May 14, 1948, in Tel Aviv, Jewish Agency Chairman David Ben-Gurion proclaims the State of Israel, establishing the first Jewish state in 2,000 years.

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Pro-Palestinian protesters hold a banner reading 'Free Palestine' during a rally in Geneva [Fabrice Coffrini/AFP]

A slogan calling for freedom from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea has drawn scrutiny after pro-Palestinian demonstrators across the Western world were met with attempts to curtail its use.

From Beirut to London, from Tunis to Rome, calls for a ceasefire ending Israel's relentless bombing of Gaza were interspersed with the slogan: "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free."

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To the crowds waving Palestinian flags, the chant reverberating across the globe expresses the desire for freedom from oppression across the historical land of Palestine. But for Israel and its backers, who label the phrase as pro-Hamas, it is a veiled call to violence that bears an anti-Semitic charge.

The United Kingdom's Labour Party on Monday suspended Member of Parliament Andy McDonald for using the phrase "between the river and the sea" in a speech at a pro-Palestinian rally.

Earlier this month, Home Secretary Suella Braverman described pro-Palestinian demonstrations as "hate marches" and warned that the slogan should be interpreted as an indication of a violent desire for the elimination of Israel.

The Football Association in the UK has banned players from using the slogan on their private social media accounts.

Austrian police took a similar stance, banning a pro-Palestine protest on the basis of the chant and claiming that the slogan, originally formulated by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), had been adopted by the armed group Hamas. German authorities declared the slogan forbidden and indictable and called on schools in the capital, Berlin, to ban the use of keffiyehs, the Palestinian scarf.

Here is what you should know about the controversy:

What are the origins of the slogan?

Upon its creation by diaspora Palestinians in 1964 under the leadership of Yasser Arafat, the PLO called for the establishment of a single state that extend from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea to encompass its historic territories.

The debate over partition predates the formation of the state of Israel in 1948. A plan put forward a year earlier by the United Nations to divide the territory into a Jewish state - occupying 62 percent of the former British mandate - and a separate Palestinian state was rejected by Arab leaders at the time.

More than 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes in what became known as the Nakba, or "catastrophe".

The PLO leadership later accepted the prospect of a two-state solution, but the failure of the Oslo peace process in 1993 and of United States attempts to broker a final deal at Camp David in 2000 leading up to a second Intifada, the mass Palestinian uprising, have since resulted in a hardening of attitudes.

What does it mean?

To Palestinian and Israeli observers alike, different interpretations over the meaning of the slogan hang on the term "free".

Nimer Sultany, a lecturer in law at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, said the adjective expresses "the need for equality for all inhabitants of historic Palestine".

"Those who support apartheid and Jewish supremacy will find the egalitarian chant objectionable," Sultany, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, told Al Jazeera.

Freedom here refers to the fact that Palestinians have been denied the realisation of their right to self-determination since Britain granted the Jews the right to establish a national homeland in Palestine through the Balfour Declaration of 1917.

"This continues to be the crux of the problem: the ongoing denial of Palestinians to live in equality, freedom and dignity like everyone else," Sultany said.

Tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched through a rainy London on Saturday accompanied by several Jewish groups, which according to the SOAS lecturer was a sign that the slogan could not be interpreted to be anti-Semitic.

"It's important to remember this chant is in English and it doesn't rhyme in Arabic, it is used in demonstrations in Western countries," he said. "The controversy has been fabricated to prevent solidarity in the West with the Palestinians."

Pro-Israel observers, however, argue the slogan has a chilling effect. "To Jewish Israelis what this phrase says is that between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, there will be one entity, it will be called Palestine - there will be no Jewish state - and the status of Jews in whatever entity arises will be very unclear," Yehudah Mirsky, a Jerusalem-based rabbi and professor of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University.

"It sounds much more like a threat than a promise of liberation. It doesn't betoken a future in which Jews can have full lives and be themselves," he said, adding that the slogan made it more difficult for left-wing Israelis to advocate for dialogue.

Mirsky argued that those who chant the slogan are "supporters of Hamas", while Sultany claimed that pro-Palestinian protesters should not be equated to supporters of the armed group, who were the exception at the thousands-strong protests.

The controversy on Monday reached as far as the British parliament, when the Labour Party removed McDonald from office for saying: "We will not rest until we have justice. Until all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea, can live in peaceful liberty."

The party claimed the British MP had uttered "deeply offensive" comments relating to the Israel-Gaza war. McDonald rebuffed the accusations, saying his words were intended as "a heartfelt plea for an end to the killings" in the region, according to local media reports.

Sultany saw the dynamic at play as "an attempt by Zionists and pro-Israeli propagandists to collapse the distinction between the existence of Israel as a state and the ideological apparatus of Jewish supremacy". Through this distorted lens, "a call for egalitarianism and for the dismantlement of the system of apartheid becomes an existential threat".

Israel's use of 'from the river to the sea'

Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, which describes itself as conservative and nationalist, has been a staunch promoter of the concept of "Eretz Israel", or the Bible-given right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel.

According to the Jewish Virtual Library, the party's original party manifesto in 1977 stated that "between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty". It also argued that the establishment of a Palestinian state "jeopardises the security of the Jewish population" and "endangers the existence of the state of Israel".

Israel's ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, has been among the promoters of international recognition of the Jewish historic claim to lands from the river to the sea.

The expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem by successive Israeli governments is seen as an attempt by Israel to control the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, denying Palestinians' aspiration for an independent state.

Mirsky, of Brandeis University, said that while Israeli public figures were using the biblical concept to claim political authority over all disputed territories, the issue was "hotly debated" within modern Israel.

Rather than focus on what sows division, Mirsky said "efforts should instead be directed towards finding solutions".

"Let's sit down and can we come up with ideas that practically will make life better for Jews and Arabs?" he said, including a new slogan that bridges the current divide.

"As outlandish as this sounds, I do think that at the end of this war, there will be a new opportunity to talk about creating a better future."

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'From the river to the sea': What does the Palestinian slogan really mean?

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Critics have called its use anti-Semitic amid Israel's war on Gaza. But the slogan has more complex roots.

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Correction: This story initially misspelled the names of Lauren Burgess and Jenna Bonarigo. They've since been updated. We regret the error.
This week, dozens of protesters unfurled banners that read "Aid to Israel = Bombing Palestinians" in the Hart Senate Office Building at the Capitol while chanting "cease-fire now." Police soon arrested them.

Not far away at the White House, a group of 18 elder Jewish protestors wearing t-shirts that read "not in our name" chained themselves to the fence.

Across the country in Los Angeles, a group of protesters blocked a downtown freeway while wielding a banner calling for a "permanent cease-fire."

These were only some of the most recent of hundreds of pro-Palestinian and anti-war protests across the United States since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

This current wave of protests on behalf of Palestinians represents some of the largest on this issue in the United States, where, historically, most Palestinian solidarity activism has existed among some minority communities, university campuses and the political fringe. According to experts who spoke to the PBS NewsHour, this swell of protest is the result of a number of factors, including growing pro-Palestinian sentiment among younger people, the mounting civilian toll in Gaza from Israel's military response, and more people being drawn into activism through issues like reproductive rights, Black Lives Matter and concerns about democracy.
WATCH: Israel meets renewed resistance from Hamas amid pressure to reduce civilian casualties
The protests, and their messages, have also been criticized by pro-Israel organizations and politicians, some of whom claim the protests are antisemitic. Some in the U.S. have seen the protests as threatening and argue they will contribute to rising anti-Jewish hatred, including on university campuses. Last week, during a Congressional committee hearing, the presidents of three ivy league universities were ensnarled in controversy when they gave "legalistic" answers to a question about whether "calling for the genocide of Jews" violated their policies. One has so far resigned, university donors have threatened to withhold funding and the Republican-led House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning their testimony.

In the first few days after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and ensuing Israeli military retaliation in Gaza, most protests opposed Hamas and supported Israel, according to the Crowd Counting Consortium, a public service project that tracks nonviolent protest using news reports, social media posts and, as the name suggests, crowd estimates, among other sources. These rallies and vigils were held in tribute of the more than 1,200 people killed in the Hamas attack and the more than 200 taken hostage - the worst attack on Israel's civilians in its history.

As the war intensified, that emphasis shifted, according to the CCC, with fewer demonstrations focused on Israel and a growing number in support of Palestinians.

According to the latest CCC update on Nov. 28, there have been more than 1,869 Palestinian solidarity protests in the U.S. since Oct. 7, involving - by its count - hundreds of thousands of people. "While nearly all of the early actions were demonstrations, rallies, marches, or protests on public sidewalks and streets, we've also seen a significant increase since mid-October of acts of civil disobedience and other deliberately disruptive actions," Jay Ulfelder, a research director at Harvard's Nonviolent Action Lab, wrote on the CCC blog Counting Crowds.

Demands for a cease-fire in the fighting over Gaza have become a rallying cry at the protests, as have as accusations of genocide against the Palestinian people and anger at the U.S. and President Joe Biden for their support of Israel, according to CCC's tracking.

Protests can be important to understanding shifts in public opinion, or how willing members of the public are to mobilize for a cause. In this case, these U.S. protests come as Congress deliberates over $14 billion in funding to Israel, including for military uses, in addition to the $3.8 billion in U.S. aid t he country already receives annually.

Though larger than past Palestinian solidarity protests, they still do not necessarily reflect the views of most Americans on Israel. According to a PBS NewsHour/Marist poll conducted Nov. 6 to Nov. 9, most Americans, about six in 10, said they sympathize with Israel, compared to three in 10 who are sympathetic toward Palestinians. At the same time, 38 percent of U.S. adults said Israel's military response to Hamas has been "too much" - a 12 percentage point jump since October.

That was particularly true of Gen Z and millennial voters in the poll, 48 percent of whom said the military response was too much.

"I think the big story here is that there's been a rupture between liberals and progressives," New York Times columnist David Brooks told the PBS NewsHour's Amna Nawaz on Nov. 17.

"It's not only on the Middle East. On a bunch of other issues, you're seeing this beginning - this rupture between progressives, who tend to be younger, and liberals, who tend to be older," he added.
WATCH: Gaza civilians caught in crossfire face new threat with spread of deadly diseases
Gen Z and millennials are more Democratic than older generations, said Stephanie Calvano, director for data science and technology for the Marist Poll, but young people have increasingly shared this sentiment in recent weeks. At the same time, there is more willingness to protest against Israel's bombardment of Gaza than there has been in the past, said Corey Robin, a political scientist at Brooklyn College.

"I would say that, until recently, pro-Palestine protests have definitely been confined to college campuses and Arab and Muslim communities. Most leftists I know, unless they were Jewish or Arab, tended to shy away from the issue, feeling like it was either too complicated or too controversial to take a public stand on. All that has changed," Robin said.

The Palestinian solidarity protests have not been supported publicly by the vast majority of politicians, including from the Democratic Party, the CCC noted - writing that elected officials had only appeared at about 1 percent of Palestinian protests. By contrast, the March for Israel on Nov. 17 drew politicians from both parties, including top Congressional Democrats such as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, both of New York, along with Republicans like House Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana and Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa. The CCC said that about one in four pro-Israel demonstrations were attended by an elected official. The protests are unlikely to influence politicians in the short-term, Robin said. But there may be longer term legacies.

"The thing that's interesting about these younger voters, this constituency on the left, is they do not seem to be evanescent, that just sort of emerges for one thing and goes away and doesn't come back. They seem to be progressively getting stronger and more organized and more institutional in figuring out how to leverage power," Robin said.

How protests over this war compare to those in the past

While protests over the Israel-Hamas war have grown, they are still dwarfed by 2020's Black Lives Matter protests, the 2017 Women's March, and the last major anti-war protest in the U.S. against the invasion of Iraq, which on a single day in 2003 turned out several hundred thousand protesters in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco alone. Those protests, however, built up over months and years of mobilization.

"Not remotely comparable," said David S. Meyer, a professor of sociology and political science at the University of California, Irvine. He noted that anti-war protests are usually largest in the countries that are participants. "People were trying to restrain their own governments."

If the Palestinian solidarity demonstrations have seemed "relatively modest" so far, University of Notre Dame professor David Cortright said that it also took time for the Iraq War "protests to emerge on a large scale in the U.S."

Cortright, a peace activist and author of "A Peaceful Superpower: Lessons from the World's Largest Antiwar Movement," said that the resistance to the Iraq War built up as the nation recovered from the shock of the 9/11 attacks and as President George W. Bush's administration made its case for war.

"The [early] protests were not huge," Cortright said, "but a huge trigger was that people realized that Bush was actually going to do this."

Cortright said the reaction time is sped up in the case of Israel, Hamas and Gaza. He added that conditions in which today's protests exist are different than they were during the Vietnam War. Hamas is a stronger presence in the current conflict's politics than the Vietcong were in Vietnam, for instance. With social media, more people are seeing dramatic images of the violence caused by Israel's strikes. "I expect the protests to grow as the images continue," Cortright said.

At the same time, social media can be a hurdle to broadening these types of social movements. Images or statements that come out of protests and travel across platforms can push the message beyond its original context, statements that might have been on the fringe of a protest become emblematic of the demonstration.

"At every protest you have someone making an extreme statement," Cortright said. "What's different is, social media can elevate these statements."

Palestinian solidarity protests are not new in the United States, but they have been relatively small. Meyer said this is in contrast to other countries in Europe, where "Palestinian independence activists have been more successful at making in-roads."

During an outbreak of violence between Israel and Hamas in May 2021, Ufelder said that a wave of pro-Palestinian protests in the U.S. began to expand to include the support of Indigenous activists, labor groups and organizations such as Black Lives Matter. This round of protests have drawn an even wider coalition.

Ufleder said this cause has started to pull in a wider swath of people from across the political spectrum - more centrist supporters along with the more liberal people and groups who have already shown support for Palestine, he said.

A similar shift was seen in 2020, when the protests over George Floyd's murder broadened the group mobilizing around police brutality against Black people, Ufleder said.

Lauren Burgess and Jenna Bonarigo caravaned from Youngstown, Ohio, to participate in the Free Palestine march in Washington, D.C., in early November. They held homemade placards that called for a cease-fire and compared Israel's actions in Gaza to the subjugation of Native Americans. "Colonizers are the real terrorists, this is native land," it reads.

Burgas, a college student, said she got involved in the issue while she was dating a Palestinian man.

She said she began doing her own research, and while the relationship didn't last, her interest in activism remained. She attended her first protest last year after the killing of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.

"In the past, there wasn't really an influx or like a huge crowd gathering for Palestinian protest and I think that we see this turning point in our generation," Burgas said.

Bonarigu began protesting for women's issues during college, and has since participated in demonstrations for Black Lives Matter, Native American issues and now Palestinian solidarity, all of which are connected in her view by power dynamics of who is in charge.

"It's the imperialists. It's all the people that are running the country for millions of people that think humanely and morally," Bonarigu said.

Some Palestinian solidarity protests have featured speakers who celebrated the violence perpetrated by Hamas, used violent imagery or, in some cases, made antisemitic statements. At a Times Square rally in the days immediately after the attack, one protester was photographed flaunting a swastika on his phone in front of pro-Israel counterprotesters. Another was a speaker who mocked the deaths of people who were attending a dance festival in the desert when Hamas attacked.

But generalizing that all of the protests are anti-Israeli or anti-Jewish is "a cheap shot," Cortright said. "One can demonstrate against a violent attack against civilians by Israel while also condemning Hamas. Movements will have trouble getting broader support if they're not able to articulate, 'We are patriotic Americans, we agree to counter terrorism, but war is the wrong way to do it.'"

Cortright, who began his career in activism against the Vietnam War while he was still an active duty member of the military, said protests of that era also dealt with images and controversy, including the carrying of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, whose armed wing was the Vietcong.

"But it wasn't enough to discredit the overall movement. It was a tiny faction in the overall movement," Cortright said.

Deeper political effects

Some Democratic state and local leaders have criticized the pro-Palestinian protests. In San Francisco, District Attorney Brooke Jenkins referred to one as a "pro-Hamas rally" in a post on X, after vandals wrote "Death 2 Israel" in graffiti on a downtown building. She later deleted her post after outcry from the local Arab American and Muslim community. In New York City, Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams condemned the protest held in Times Square as antisemitic.

Robin said Democratic politicians have attempted to "create a unity" around support for Israel but "the opposition and discontent is just that much greater" than in the past.

"Mainstream politicians in the Democratic party are kind of nervous and they don't have the certainty they once possessed [about Israel]. It's a lot more mixed," Robin said. "There's no doubt that there's a rising constituency who are electorally active on the left and are in key battleground states."

According to the PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, while 79 percent of Democrats approve of the job Biden is doing as president in general, that number drops to 60 percent when asked about his role in the war between Israel and Hamas. Recent polls have raised the possibility that Biden's stance on Israel could cost him voters important to his 2020 victory, in particular Arab American voters in Michigan and young people.

His support of Israel as it lays siege to Gaza is costing him support among Arab Americans, an important part of his victory in Michigan - a swing state that had previously been won in 2016 by Donald Trump.

The discontent has not been limited to Democratic politicians - disagreements within left-wing organizations have also been played out in public. A member of the Democratic Socialists of America for 40 years, and a former member of the radical Students for a Democratic Society, announced he was leaving the organization in protest of what he described as its "politically and morally bankrupt response" to the Hamas attack in Israel. Others have defended the organization's response and vowed to continue solidarity with Palestinians.

"I think Israel has always created conflict on the American left. I think people who are very tuned in to what's going on now are very divided," Meyer said.

"I think support for the Palestinians has grown, maybe faster than I anticipated," Meyer added.

Meyer said the views of Americans may also be influenced by antipathy to Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, some members of his government and the likelihood that they'll control Gaza after the dust settles.

"Netanyahu has announced that Israel may have to run Gaza for the foreseeable future, and rightwing members of his government have announced plans that sure sound like ethnic cleansing," Meyer said. "Many Americans who want to support Israel don't want to support all this government does."

Cortright said protests often struggle to appeal to and gain support among the broader public. But on this war, protests coupled with broader shifts in public sentiment seem to be making a difference.

"The administration has been moving slowly and cautiously for political reasons, but they are edging in the direction of favoring a cessation of hostilities, even if they don't use the word cease-fire," he said.

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Tens of thousands have joined pro-Palestinian protests across the United States. Experts say they are growing

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According to experts who spoke to the PBS NewsHour, this swell of protest is the result of a number of factors, including growing pro-Palestinian sentiment among younger people, the mounting civilian toll in Gaza from Israel's military response, and more people being drawn into activism through issues like reproductive rights, Black Lives Matter and concerns about democracy.

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After World War I, the League of Nations (controlled by the leading colonial powers of the time, Britain and France) carved up the territories of the defeated Ottoman Empire. The territory now made up of Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jordan was granted to Great Britain as a Mandate (a quasi-colonial form of administration). In 1922, Britain established the emirate of Transjordan (east of the Jordan River), still part of its mandate but administratively distinct from Palestine.

When Britain assumed control of Palestine, over 90 percent of its population was Arab. A small indigenous Jewish population had lived there for generations, and a newer, politicized community linked to the Zionist movement had begun to immigrate to Palestine in the 1880s.

During World War I, Britain had made promises to Arab leaders for an independent Arab state that would include Palestine (the Husayn-McMahon correspondence), and to the Zionists for the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine (the Balfour Declaration). These commitments conflicted with each other as well as with Britain's intent to retain control over Palestine.

European Jewish immigration increased dramatically after Hitler's rise to power in 1933, with consequences for land purchases and settlements. Palestinian resistance to British control and Zionist settlement culminated with the Arab revolt of 1936-1939, which was suppressed by the British army with the help of Zionist militias and the complicity of the Arab regimes.

Following World War II, Britain relinquished its mandate over Palestine and the United Nations decided that the only means of resolving the escalating conflict between Jews and Arabs was to partition the land into two states. British evacuation and the UN partition precipitated the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948-1949 and the proclamation of the state of Israel on May 15, 1948.

As a result of the war, historic Palestine was divided into three parts: The new Jewish state occupied 77 percent of the territory of Palestine; Jordan occupied and annexed the "west bank" of the Jordan River and East Jerusalem; and Egypt took "temporary" control of the area surrounding Gaza City. The Palestinian Arab state provided for in the partition plan was never established.

Zionism

Zionism is a modern political movement based on the proposition that Jews all over the world constitute one nationality, and that a Jewish state should serve as the expression of Jewish national self-determination. Zionism gained adherents among Jews and support from Western public opinion as a consequence of the murderous anti-Semitic pogroms of Eastern Europe and the Nazi Holocaust. Not all Jews are Zionists, although today Zionism in one form or another is embraced by a large majority of Jews. Jewish religious attachment to Jerusalem and parts of Palestine (traditionally referred to as Eretz Israel, or the Land of Israel) prompted the Zionist movement to choose Palestine as the site for their state-building project.

The Land

The ongoing dispute in the Middle East between Jews and Arabs is not a religious conflict. The dispute between Israel and the Palestinians is essentially over land. For the Palestinians, this is their historic homeland, where they have lived for centuries. The Zionists base their claim to Palestine on the Biblical promise to Abraham and his descendants (Genesis 17:8), and on the desperate need for a Jewish homeland as a haven from European anti-Semitism.

Palestine is a small territory - approximately 10,000 square miles, about the size of Maryland. The competing claims are not reconcilable if one or the other party exercises complete sovereignty over the total territory. Partition of the land has therefore been one proposal for resolving the issue. Although few Palestinians accept the justice of the Zionist claim in principle, many now accept the existence of Israel. But they insist that an independent Palestinian state be created alongside. Likewise, many Israelis feel that Israel must relinquish control over the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967 - the West Bank and Gaza.

The June 1967 War

In June 1967 Israel decisively and quickly defeated the Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian armies. By the end of the war, Israel had captured the remainder of historic Palestine, as well as the Sinai Peninsula from the Egyptians and the Golan Heights from the Syrians. The newly captured parts of Palestine had come to be referred to as the West Bank and the Gaza Strip after 1948, and since 1967 have commonly been referred to as the Occupied Territories.

Politically, the war established Israel as the regional military power. The Arab defeat discredited the Arab regimes, especially radical Arab nationalism represented by Egypt's President Nasser and the Baath Parties of Syria and Iraq.

On the other hand, the Palestinian national movement, which had been relatively quiescent in the post-1948 period, emerged as a major political factor after 1967 in the form of the political and guerrilla groups that make up the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

The Occupied Territories

Prior to 1948, neither the West Bank nor the Gaza Strip had constituted a separate geographical unit. Their distinctness developed as a result of the partition of Palestine that led to the creation of a Jewish state. Since the 1967 war Israel has continued to occupy the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Israel withdrew from the Sinai during 1979-1982, as required by its peace treaty with Egypt, but annexed the Golan Heights in 1981. In violation of international law, Israel has confiscated over 52 percent of the West Bank and 30 percent of the Gaza Strip for military use or settlement by Jewish civilians.

Jerusalem

According to the UN partition plan, Jerusalem and its immediate environs were to become an international zone, independent of both the proposed Jewish state and the Palestinian Arab state.

In the 1948-1949 war, Israel took control of the western part of Jerusalem, while Jordan held the eastern part, including the old walled city containing important Jewish, Muslim and Christian religious sites. The 1949 armistice line cut the city in two. In June 1967 Israel captured East Jerusalem and immediately annexed it. Israel reaffirmed its annexation of East Jerusalem in 1981.

Israel regards Jerusalem as its capital and rejects any negotiations over its political future. Arabs consider East Jerusalem part of Palestinian occupied territory and regard its future as an essential component of any negotiated settlement.

Palestinians

The term today refers to the Arabs, both Christian and Muslim, who have lived in Palestine for centuries. The creation of Israel entailed the destruction of Palestinian Arab society, dispersing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to lives of exile. Today about 40 percent of all Palestinians, around 2 million, remain within historic Palestine under Israeli control: approximately 645,000 in Israel, 938,000 in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), and 525,000 in the Gaza Strip.

The largest Palestinian diaspora community, approximately 1.3 million, is in Jordan. Lebanon, Syria and Kuwait also have large Palestinian populations. Jordan is the only Arab state to have granted the Palestinians citizenship. Palestinians living in the Arab states generally do not have political parity with the citizens of those states or enjoy national recognition.

Many thousands still live in refugee camps and slums, under Israeli, Jordanian or Syrian control, or in Lebanon; others have become economically successful. Palestinians now have the highest per capita rate of university graduates in the Arab world. Their diaspora experience has contributed to a high level of politicization among Palestinians, from the camps to the universities. Despite this high level of politicization, Israel refuses to undertake negotiations with legitimate Palestinian representatives, insisting instead on negotiating with Jordan and other Arab states.

Palestine Liberation Organization

The PLO was established in 1964 by the Arab League in an effort to control Palestinians and their political ambitions. The Arab defeat in the 1967 war enabled the Palestinians to take over the PLO and gain some independence from the Arab regimes.

The PLO is an umbrella organization that includes different political and guerrilla organizations with varying ideological orientations. Yasser Arafat heads Fatah, the largest group, and has been PLO chairman since 1968. The other major PLO groups are the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) and, in the occupied territories, the Palestine Communist Party (PCP). Despite continuing rifts between the groups, the overwhelming majority of Palestinians regard the PLO as their sole legitimate representative.

Resolution 242

After the conclusion of the 1967 war, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 242, which calls for Israeli withdrawal from the territories seized in the war and the right of all states in the area to peaceful existence within secure and recognized boundaries. (There is a difference in the grammatical construction of the French and English texts of Resolution 242, both of which are official according to the United Nations. The French version calls on Israel to withdraw "from the territories" occupied in the 1967 war, whereas the English version says "from territories," which Israel (backed by the US) interprets to mean some but not all territories. Hardline Israelis consider Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai to satisfy the stipulation of withdrawal "from territories.")

The Palestinian problem with Resolution 242 is that there is no declaration of the Palestinian right to self-determination or of their right to return. The only reference to the Palestinians is the call for "a just settlement of the refugee problem." Because it calls for the recognition of "every state in the area," this would entail unilateral Palestinian recognition of Israel without a reciprocal recognition of Palestinian national rights.

Today the leadership of the PLO is clearly prepared to recognize Israel's right to exist. As the political weight of Palestinians on the "inside" has grown, especially since the 1987-1988 uprising, Palestinian unity around this key point has correspondingly increased. But the PLO leadership continues to insist that it will recognize Israel only if Israel recognizes the Palestinian right to self-determination, including an independent Palestinian state in the Occupied Territories.

The October 1973 War

After coming to power in late 1970, President Anwar al-Sadat of Egypt indicated to the US that he was willing to negotiate with Israel to resolve the conflict in exchange for Egyptian territory lost in 1967. When these overtures were ignored by Washington and Tel Aviv, Egypt and Syria launched a coordinated attack in October 1973 against Israeli forces occupying the Sinai and the Golan Heights. The crisis prompted American political intervention, along with sharply increased military aid to Israel. US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy brought about limited disengagement agreements in the Sinai and Golan. But by late 1975 these efforts had exhausted their potential, and no comprehensive settlement was in sight.

Due to stalled efforts to convene a Geneva conference to which all parties to the dispute would be invited, Sadat decided in late 1977 that Egypt should break the status quo by dealing separately with Israel under US auspices. His visit to Jerusalem on November 19, 1977 began what came to be known as the "Camp David process."

Camp David

In September 1978 President Jimmy Carter invited Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to the Camp David presidential retreat. They worked out two agreements: a framework for peace between Egypt and Israel; and a general framework for resolution of the Middle East crisis, i.e., the Palestinian question.

This latter agreement proposed to grant autonomy to the Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, to install a local administration for a five-year interim period, and to decide the ultimate status of the territories after that period.

Only the Egyptian-Israeli part of the Camp David agreement was ever implemented. The Palestinians and other Arab states rejected the autonomy concept as contrary to self-determination and Israel immediately sabotaged negotiations by continuing to confiscate Palestinian lands and build new settlements.

As a result of Camp David, Egypt became estranged from the other Arab nations, and only recently has Cairo begun to reintegrate. Egypt's separate peace enabled Israel to invade Lebanon in 1982 without fear of Egyptian intervention.

The Uprising and Future Prospects

With their 1987-1988 uprising, Palestinians in the Occupied Territories have transformed the situation in which political directives come from the Palestinian leadership in exile. A new leadership has emerged, aligned with the PLO but comprising a new generation from inside. The ability of the Palestinians to sustain a state of insurrection has challenged the stalemate of Israeli occupation. Palestinians are determined to continue their efforts until they achieve a political breakthrough.

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After World War I, the League of Nations (controlled by the leading colonial powers of the time, Britain and France) carved up the territories of the defeated Ottoman Empire. The territory now made up of Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jordan was granted to Great Britain as a Mandate (a quasi-colonial form of administration).

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The movement is about liberating the civilians of Palestine

Pro immediate ceasefire of the occupation war by Israel of Palestine.

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Assumption of the movement

Supporting Hamas.

Pro anti-semitic.

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What is happening to the civilians in Israel and Palestine right now.

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What is happening to the civilians in Israel and Palestine right now.

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The IDF is reagulary bombing the gaza strip and west bank.

The Palestine civilians barely have source good health care, food, and water, and electricity.

The IDF won't let civilians leave neither from the gaza strip or west bank.

Israel civilians is getting attacked by Hamas.

Their is both deaths in both regions however Palestine has the most catastrophic deaths stasticaly.

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Jews from Eastern Europe and Russia try to move in to Palestine,

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Jews from Eastern Europe and Russia try to move in to Palestine,

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How did the creation of Israel began to be ?

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How did the creation of Israel began to be ?

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Jews were facing hardships in Eastern Europe and Russia so they plotted to move to Palestine. Also, they wanted to speak their original language called hebrew.

So the Zionism movement began..

During world war one Britain occupied Palestine. The British had plan of their own to make place for the Jews in Palestine.

Which made the native people of Palestine angry so the British came up with the plan to divide the land. One half for the Palestines and the other half for the Jews known as Israel.

However, after May 14, 1948 Israel was declared a country by the British permission. The jews wanted more land from Palestine .

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Brief explanation of the Palestine  vs Israel conflict

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Brief explanation of the Palestine  vs Israel conflict

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Israel was declared nation at May 14, 1948.

The creation of Israel and Zionist has caused a major issue with the status of Jerusalem and Palestine disopra. Which the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) attempts for peace.

The 1987-1988 uprising in the Occupied Territories is on of the historical events the shows the prime example of the Palestine vs Israel complex conflict.

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Zionism; A movement that is pro occupation of palestine land for jewish currently called Israel.

Zionist; A person that support the Zionism movement.

IDF; It stand the Israel Defense Force which is the military group in Israel.

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An image of Palestine losing their land to Israel and the final present day of what is left of Palestine is the west bank and the gaza strip.