The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Unlike other Arab citizens of Israel, Druzes are conscripted into the Israeli military (like Jews), something that has alienated them from other Arabs in Israel (a very small minority of whom—mostly Bedouins—volunteer for military service).

the vast majority of its Jewish citizens were of European origin—over time, due largely to immigration, Israel’s population has significantly grown and diversified. It is now more than ten times larger than it was in 1948, and more than half of the country’s Jewish population is of at least partial Middle Eastern or North African origin.

its relationship with Iran has severely deteriorated. They were once allies, but after the Iranian revolution in 1979 that overthrew the Pahlavi monarchy and established an Islamic Republic, the Iranian regime made hostility to Israel and support for the Palestinians a core tenet of its radical ideology and a central pillar of its foreign policy (t

Arab nationalist ideology, including pan-Arabism, which views the creation of Israel as another attempt by Western powers to colonize Arab land and weaken and divide the Arab world. Israel’s very existence, therefore, was seen as an affront to Arab dignity and a major impediment to Arab unity and power.

focuses on a much smaller geographic area than pre-1948 Palestine, consisting of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip—areas that Israel captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war (the “Six-Day War”).

Amos Oz once put it, “The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a tragedy; it is a clash between right and right. And therefore it’s not black and white. Sometimes, recently it is indeed a clash between wrong and wrong.”