I wish I had a fascinating new tidbit about my life to interest you all... but I don't. I have applied to 15-25 jobs so far. I still have interest in grad school but without the assistance of tuition reimbursement by a company, my interest has waned significantly. Grad school [would] be so expensive. I have a passion for education and I feel I would love graduate school. However, for the sake of prudence, for now, I would prefer to have a company help out financially.
It is embarrassing to myself as a citizen of the world how little I know of the history of the Israel/Palestine geography and history. Yes, like many of you, I have taken comparative politics and European History courses, yet I find myself humiliatingly ignorant on the current quagmire. I have been busy reading about the history and it is quite fascinating. I would suggest stopping by the library and not going online. I am amazed at how many anti-Jewish or anti-Palestine websites there are out there! I think I have the history correct though although please forgive my oversights. I am trying to cram a ton of history in a short post:
Let's start thousands of years ago. There was this chunk of land that was currently occupied by 12 different tribe groups. King Moses (Yes, that Moses), came from the Southwest in Egypt and led his army to destroy these tribes and start a new land called Judea. After Moses, there was King Saul and then King David. This is about 1000 B.C. by the way. Several centuries later, and after the death of King Solomon, Judea has a civil war and one country becomes Israel and one country becomes Judea. About 2100 years ago, Judea had a revolution and became Syria. Both Israel and Syria/Judea were overtaken by numerous armies (Greeks, Hellenics, Syrians, Romans, etc). The Persians were very protective of the Jews and the Romans... were not! About 100 years after Jesus's Crucifixion, the Romans took complete control of Israel and Israelis became subjects of the Emperor. The Romans were mixed toward their thoughts on the people during this time. Some emperors like Nero took great pleasure in torturing and killing Jews, and early Christians, while other emperors worked diligently to rebuild the great Jewish temples. In about 133 A.D., the Romans separated Israel into many different states, or districts, or territories (whatever you would like to call them.) It was at this time that Palestine was birthed. At the time of its birth, Palestine was a community of young Christians. The area remained peaceful until the 7th century when the sh*t hit the fan. First the area fell to the Persians, then it was recaptured, but in 640, the Arabs invaded and took control of the territories of Canaan, Palestine, and Israel. At the time, Jews, Arabs, and Persians were incredible friends and allies over their greater common enemies. The territories remained under Arab control until the Christian crusade in the early 11th century tried their best to destroy the Jew, and Muslim "savages". During the next 1000 years, there were several more wars but the Turks remained mostly in control of the area until 1916 when the Sykes Picot agreement happened and Britain and France decided to dip their toes into this area. Basically, the middle east was divided into four different areas - those that the British or French owned and those that the British and French had "influence" over. The area of Israel was under "British influence". This was different than countries like Iraq, who were British owned. Although I skimmed past what this meant in terms of tariffs, and rules, I don't really know much difference between owned and influenced by. The English were sensitive to the Jews and in about 1922, the League of Nations (the predecessor to the United Nations) under the Balfour declaration strongly encouraged Jews worldwide to move back to Palestine. At the time, Palestine was predominately Arab - except Jerusalem of course. For the most part there was peace. With the rise of Nazism, about half a million Jews returned to the area... and cultural problems were escalating. By the end of WWII, Jews were 33% of the population of Palestine. Remember Palestine was still controlled by the British. At the end of the war, England said they were too broke, had too few soldiers, and basically not enough interest to control the middle east anymore so with the help of the newly formed United Nations, England left and the UN under the Partition Plan divided the area into two countries - one Arab and one Jewish. The Jews very quickly accepted this plan but the Arabs did not. To paraphrase my friend Adam, this was like they took a pair of pants, split it into two, and said be happy. But the Jews got the area that had the fabric that covered your crotch. I think that is an interesting comparison. The Jews called their new land, Israel. Needless to say the rest of the Arab countries did not think this was fair and a year later Morocco, Sudan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq declared war on Israel in 1948. This is called the Arab-Israel war of 1948. The fighting ended in basically a draw with Jordan annexing the areas known as the West Bank and East Jerusalem and Egypt took control of the Gaza strip. Ten years later, Israel joined forces with England and France to recapture the Suez Canal - which Egypt controlled. However, the USSR and the United States became very upset with Israel and Israel retreated. The wars just continued and continued. In 1967, Israel declared war on Egypt, Syria, and Jordan after escalating conflict. The war lasted only six days with Israel capturing the land of Sinai, the Gaza strip, Golan Heights, and the West Bank. Shortly after the Six Day War, a movement started in Palestine to recapture the homeland and called itself the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). This group was responsible for some of the most heinous crimes against civilians in the 20th century, most famously, the abduction and murders of the Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics. Israel responded by killing as many PLO members as possible.
Phew! What an amazing history. I will leave my opinion out on the current quagmire over there and save it for a different day. Please don't just skim over this post though. I tried to leave my opinion out on the history of Israel/Palestine and I apologize if I skipped over facts that you deem critical. I do think though that now I will have a better educated opinion in the future.
