[orangedays]

Originally Posted by mavdog

the "basic information" is NOT "accurate and usable" imo.

the violence in the area began in the mid 1930's, caused by two forces in the region: the british, who began to stop the immigration of mostly european jews fleeing the persecution in their homeland using force in attempts to stop the jews from settling/entering the region, and second by the muslim nationalists who (correctly I must say) foresaw their own plans for a pan-arabic country threatened by the establishment of a jewish state.

I have already advised - in every post - that you should read the article with care and a grain of salt with regards to the political undertones so I don't see why you're taking a hard stance on the article itself. Don't lose the forest for the trees. I have done some editing to remove the biased portions for your benefit, leaving the relevant pieces of 'basic information' I alluded to.

Background

The land of Palestine was inhabited by Palestinian Arabs. In 1850 these consisted of approximately 400,000 Muslims, 75,000 Christians, and 25,000 Jews. For centuries these groups had lived in harmony: 80 percent Muslim, 15 percent Christian, 5 percent Jewish.

True.

But then in the late 1800s a group in Europe decided to colonize this land. Known as "Zionists," this group consisted of an extremist minority of the world Jewish population. They wanted to create a Jewish homeland, and at first considered locations in Africa and South America, before finally settling on Palestine for their colony.

At first this immigration created no problems. However, as more and more Zionists immigrated to Palestine...the indigenous population became increasingly alarmed. Eventually, there was fighting between the two groups, with escalating waves of violence.

True.

Finally, in 1947 the United Nations decided to intervene...The UN decided to give away 55 percent of Palestine to a Jewish state — despite the fact that this group represented only about 30 percent of the total population, and owned under 7 percent of the land.

True.

1948 War

By the end of the 1948 war the Jewish state — having now declared itself "Israel" — had conquered 78 percent of Palestine — far more than that proposed even by the very generous UN partition plan. And three-quarters of a million Palestinians had been made refugees. Over 400 towns and villages had been destroyed...

True.

1967 War

Following the Six Day War...Israel occupied the additional 22 percent of Palestine... — the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. It also occupied parts of Egypt (which since were returned) and Syria (which remain under occupation).

True.

If you want to talk about 'violence' in any context, then dude is technically correct - it started with over-immigration and racial/ethnic tension prior to any sort of Western intervention - but not in the 1930s. I feel that the "Great Uprising" was more of a buffer (where we saw the first Western ingresses) that followed the initial development of immigration-related animosities (dude's point) and preceding the blowup in the 1940s (my point) related to the demarcation of Arab lands by the U.N. in 1947 and the subsequent formation of the Israeli state at the expense of indigenous Arab claims. It's a matter of semantics, but we are talking about neither the origin-origin of the violence, nor what factors were responsible for the build-up. What you and dude are talking about are the underlying currents which preceded the current conflict, which is valid - but I am arguing that the 1947 U.N. treaty (and the conflicts resultant) was the definitive turning point which served as the root of the conflict we see today. If you look at the historical distribution of violence, you cannot deny that there was a steep increase in intensity post-1947 vs. pre-1947 - greater than anything which preceded it, including the Great Uprising and/or post-WWI immigration.

I probably should have done the edits ahead of time but my laziness got the best of me. True, the synopsis doesn't talk about the 1930s conflicts but I feel that is attributable to the fact that, again, it is a synopsis (which I mentioned when I posted it). If you would like to provide additional background on the Great Uprising and its merits I would certainly be amenable to reading it.