Palestine

Palestine is a strongly contested, to put it lightly, strip of land between the Arab nations of the Middle East and the Mediterranean sea. To others, it is called Israel, and if one wishes to hear the story of this strip from the perspective of a pro-Israeli, they would do best to read the article on Israel.

Occupying an increasingly small portion of this strip of land is the Palestinian National Authority and, by extension, the unrecognised State of Palestine, the homeland of the Arab Palestinian Semites. Since the foundation of the State of Israel in 1948, there has been a violent conflict between the Jewish Israelis and the Arab Palestinians over rights to the land, the Palestinians having lived there for more than a thousand years, and the Jews having lived there two thousand years ago.

Since the Palestinians, and the rest of the Arab world, rejected the foundation of Israel and went to war over it, then lost, Israel has occupied much of the land allocated to the Palestinians by their British occupiers. More recently, Israeli settlers have founded several settlements further into the Palestinian lands of the West Bank, an act declared illegal by the United Nations.

History
First occupied by the Israelites in 1020 BC, who lived there for a good while, until being dispersed by the Romans in around 135, who renamed the region Syria Palaestina. The region then become officially Christian under Emperor Constantine, and became a province of the Byzantine Empire, which brutally put down the Jewish Revolt.

As Byzantium fell and Palestine came under Persian occupation, it was made a Jewish autonomy.

However, Mohammed and his somewhat overly loyal followers soon came around and took the place over. Gradually, Arabs became the majority of the population in Palestine. In 634.

This Arab land of Palestine lasted until 1918, switching hands between various Muslim dynasties, and the the Crusaders and the Ottomans, but remaining Arab throughout this period. Then, in 1918, Ottoman Palestine fell to the British, and it became part of the Mandate for Palestine, along with Jordan.

In 1936, the Arabs, much like the Jews had centuries before, revolted, this time against the British. Put down by the vastly superior British, who considered the whole thing rather quaint, Palestine remained British until 1948, but not before Rommel and the Italians blew some shit up and scared the Jews.

After the war, as compensation for the Holocaust, many, many Jews were allowed to settle in Palestine. After tensions arose, mostly in the form of a bloody civil war killing hundreds from all sides, the UN came up the the ingenius idea of separating the land half-and-half for both the communities.

The pro-Jewish forces defeated the Arab Liberation Army and some 300,000 to 350,000 Palestinians caught up in the fighting were forced to flee or were driven from their homes. Appropriately, this was labelled the Palestinian Exodus.

The Palestinians, having fought for their land against countless empires for the entirety of their living in Palestine, were most displeased at the foundation of the State of Israel, precursed by forced resettlement. Upon its foundation, the Arab nations, including Palestine, declared war on the State of Israel. However, Israel, with the backing of both the superpowers, defeated them in the first Israeli-Arab War, and the Palestinians were pushed further back, with further land taken and yet more Palestinians forced from their homes.

After a truce was agreed on by both sides, the Israelis used the lull to reinforce their army and seize numerous territories.

The new and improved Israel was born from there.

Relations with Israel
Needless to say, they aren't great. Palestine is divided into two regions: the West Bank, controlled by the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, and the Gaza Strip, controlled by the democratically elected Islamist movement, Hamas.

The Gaza Strip has been subjected to a draconian blockade by Israel, which forbids even the most basic of supplies from entering the territory and makes it nigh impossible for anyone to leave. Hamas, in response to this blockade which was put in place upon their election, launched rockets into Israel, killing Israelis in extremely small numbers. Israel responded to this by subjecting to Gaza to one highest concentration of bombing on an area since the Second World War, using white phosphorous to underline the utter contempt they hold for the people of Gaza. They have blamed the extremely disproportionately high number of Palestinian civilian casualties, mostly women and children, on Hamas using human shields - but there have been several reports of Israeli bombs falling on individual Palestinian homes, untouched by Hamas fighters.

In the West Bank, a wall has been constructed around the territory, including around Palestinian areas of border towns, to create several ghettos and the prevent all but the wealthy from getting out. Additionally, Jewish settlers taken yet more Palestinian land for themselves, and have forced Palestinians from their homes by uprooting their crops and threatening them with armed vigilante groups.

The United States has prevented most UN resolutions critical of these undeniably inhumane actions from being passed. Israel has comfortably developed nuclear weapons and a booming economy while the Arab people of the Palestinian territories live in extreme squalour and fear of Israeli military action.