ShmoopTube

00:01

No when you think about conflict in the middle east

00:04

what's the first country that usually comes to mind we

00:07

were thinking of israel let's take a gander in israel's

00:10

history and see if we can figure out why stuff

00:12

is so uh difficult Over there early jews were in

00:15

the middle east long before either christianity or islam or

00:18

a twinkle in humanities i over time other groups came

00:21

along and pushed many of the jews out of the

00:23

jewish homeland which was called israel The syrians that chaldeans

00:28

the romans they were all responsible for setting off a

00:31

diaspora iii the scattering of jews to all corners of

00:34

the globe as the jews were leaving the arab and

00:37

muslim peoples who would become known as palestinians took up

00:40

residence in israel Yeah another problem for the jewish diaspora

00:44

was anti semitism Europeans hating on jews has been a

00:47

problem roughly forever However things came to a head in

00:51

france in the eighteen nineties when a jewish officer in

00:54

the french army named dreyfus was accused tried and convicted

00:57

of spying for germany Dude was innocent of course and

01:00

so the put upon jews started to feel like maybe

01:02

They ought to take their ball and go home to

01:04

a country of their own Well this flavor of jewish

01:07

nationalism was called zionism and the sinus had the perfect

01:10

piece of real estate mind for their independent country which

01:13

was to be free of bigot in frenchman israel But

01:16

before all the jews in europe and elsewhere could pack

01:18

up their possessions and head back to the middle east

01:20

there was a little war world war one Maybe you've

01:23

heard of it You have shot of that conflict was

01:25

that the ottoman empire lost most of the middle east

01:27

to the british and the british in nineteen seventeen came

01:31

out in support of a jewish homeland in british controlled

01:33

palestine so long as the jews played nice and respected

01:36

the palestinians who were already there Q A population explosion

01:39

Now jews with u hauls were suddenly everywhere much to

01:42

the consternation of the palestinians and their populations in neighboring

01:45

countries And then there was another war in europe Except

01:48

this time a belligerent nazi germany actually went directly after

01:51

the jews all in the wake of a conflict in

01:53

which six million jews lost their lives to a bunch

01:55

Of genocidal maniacs the nations of the world started to

01:58

feel like well maybe the whole independent jewish state things

02:00

Good idea not to mention that there were lots of

02:03

homeless jews wandering around europe trying to figure out what

02:05

to do now that hitler wasn't trying to kill them

02:07

anymore So the united nations took over for britain and

02:11

open up palestine tow any jew who was looking for

02:13

a new home With so many jews headed back to

02:15

the desert the u n decided to divide palestine into

02:18

a jewish and an arab state Well the capital jerusalem

02:21

was put under international control Nineteen forty eight israel declared

02:24

its independence which sparked an air of invasion It would

02:27

have been a dogpile except israel one and all the

02:30

arab countries involved in the fight had to agree to

02:32

a ceasefire but they'd never agree that israel had a

02:35

right to exist Another war broke out in nineteen sixty

02:38

seven this time between israel and egypt and israel one

02:42

again but it just didn't win It got a lot

02:45

of brand new territory including the sinai peninsula the west

02:47

bank gaza strip the golan heights and east jerusalem score

02:50

Another war broke out This time his role is up

02:52

against egypt and syria Israel one again egyptians tired of

02:56

getting their bloods kicked sat down with the israelis at

02:59

camp david and worked out a deal where they got

03:01

the sinai peninsula back in return for recognizing israel's right

03:05

to exist In the meantime the palestinians waited for palestine

03:09

to actually become theirs and waited and waited there still

03:13

waiting And every so often the israelis and the palestinians

03:15

get into it because there really isn't enough land to

03:17

go around and no one can agree on who should 00:03:19.488 --> [endTime] get what so yeah that's Israel In a nutshell

Full Transcript