ABOUT THE ISSUE

THE EVOLUTION OF THE CONFLICT: A TIMELINE
(through 2020)

This timeline was our first project, with the goal being teenage self-education. This timeline is an environment in which you can pick and choose their educational experience. With an interactive UI, you can pick and choose what events to learn about by simply clicking to hear more. Carefully selected pictures help tell the story, especially for events of violence.

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Please note that our work on the timeline stopped in 2020.  One of TPME's upcoming projects is to update the timeline through 2025.  Stay tuned!

For those completely new, below is a summary of the conflict's history.

The conflict between Israel and Palestine is based on rightful claim to the land between Egypt and the Red Sea in the South, Jordan in the East, the Mediterranean Sea in the West, and Lebanon and Syria in the North.

Thousands of years ago, in the 9th century BCE, Jews inhabited the land now referred to as Israel and Palestine. Jews' culture, religion and ethnicity revolved around this area of land. However, due to expulsions of the Jewish population by various empires, Jews spread all over the world into a diaspora. In this stateless condition, Jews were vulnerable to persecution, which Jews faced relentlessly around the world. In the late 19th century, Zionism - a Jewish movement that sought to create a Jewish state where a Jewish society once thrived - emerged among Jews in response to rising antisemitism. However, during the time most Jews were in diaspora, Arabs began to populate the region. When Jews began to immigrate to Palestine in the end of the 19th century, striving for self-determination, the region was mostly inhabited by Arab Muslims (with a Jewish and Christian minority), who predictably opposed the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. Tension between the Arab population and the Jewish population led to the beginnings of the conflict raging on today.

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After World War I, this land (previously owned by the now collapsed Ottoman Empire), was administered under the British mandate system. In 1947, due to rising tensions between Jews and Arabs inhabitants and Britain's decision to withdraw from the land, the UN proposed a plan to Jewish and Arab leaders in the region. The plan was to partition the land into a Jewish state and an Arab state, with Jerusalem (a sacred location to both) administered by the UN. The following year, after Jewish leaders accepted the plan and Arab leaders rejected it, Israel declared its independence in the borders of the Jewish state according to UN Partition Plan. Surrounding Arab countries immediately waged war on Israel that Israel won, gaining more territory than the plan granted. Jordan gained control of the West Bank and Jerusalem, and Egypt gained control of the Gaza Strip, areas that the UN plan designated to the Palestinians. Israel gained and protected its independence in this war, and so it is generally viewed by Israelis with pride. Palestinians, on the other hand, refer to this event as the Nakba ("catastrophe" in Arabic), because, during the war, 700,000 Palestinians fled or were forcefully expelled from their homes by Israeli forces. 

In another war in 1967 between Israel and Arab countries, known as the Six Day War, Israel gained control of the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank and Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. ​In 1973, war broke out between Israel and Egypt as well as between Israel and Syria. Years after the end of the war, Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt and Egypt recognized Israel, the first Arab country to do so. In 1974, the UN recognized an organization called the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) as the representative of the Palestinian people. In 1988, the PLO declared a state of Palestine in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with Jerusalem as the capital.

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Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza began living under Israeli military occupation in 1967. This occupation, including several Israeli policies such as settlement expansion and land confiscation, led to resentment and anger accumulating among Palestinians. In 1987, Palestinians in the West Bank launched the first intifada, a violent uprising against the occupation that resulted in over 1200 deaths, a majority Palestinian. In 1993, Israel and the PLO signed the Oslo Accords, a pair of interim peace agreements. Israel accepted the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people, and the PLO renounced terrorism and recognized Israel's right to exist. The Palestinian Authority was established as well, which would govern parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Despite this promising agreement, further negotiations and peace deals did not succeed, as both sides failed to fulfill many of the duties assigned to them in the Oslo Accords. 2000 marked the beginning of the second intifada, which was even more violent and deadly than the first one.​

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Ever since, peace has become increasingly less likely, even as negotiations continued. In the Gaza Strip, following Israel's disengagement in 2005, Hamas - a brutal terrorist organization - came to power and has been firing rockets into Israel and terrorizing Israelis ever since. Hamas' tactics have become normalized to the point where it is out of the societal norm NOT to have a missile shelter in a typical Israeli home. Hamas' actions have also prompted multiple wars in the Gaza Strip that have resulted in thousands of innocent Palestinians being killed. In addition, Israel has enforced a strict blockade on Gaza since Hamas took power, creating severe economic challenges in Gaza and contributing to a growing humanitarian crisis. Meanwhile, in the West Bank, the Israeli occupation has become indefinite, as Israel moves closer and closer to annexing the West Bank. Israeli policies deprive Palestinians of their human and civil rights, collectively punishing Palestinians for the crimes of terrorists - all while extreme Israeli settlers attack Palestinians with near impunity from the Israeli government. This situation helps to radicalize Palestinians, contributing to terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians.

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On October 7th, 2023, Hamas launched a brutal terrorist attack on Israeli civilians, massacring 1,200 Israelis in the largest killing of Jews since the Holocaust. Additionally, Hamas abducted over 250 innocent Israelis, 60 of whom are still alive in Gaza (35 are confirmed dead). Over the past year, Israel's war against Hamas in response to the terror attack has completely devastated Gaza. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry estimates that Israel has killed 43,000 Palestinians, including thousands of women and children, since October 7th, and Israel says that it has killed around 17,000 Hamas terrorists. It should be noted that, at the moment, none of these numbers can be confirmed. Tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, a Lebanese terrorist organization, have escalated into a recent Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Tensions between Israel and Iran are escalating as well. Currently, it seems like peace has never been so far off.