The Abyss of History: Israel, Palestine, and the Echoes of a Hundred-Year War

To write about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to wade into a river of tears, a torrent of competing histories and irreconcilable traumas. For over a century, two peoples with profound, ancient ties to the same sliver of land have been locked in a struggle that has drawn in empires, defined global politics, and inflicted immeasurable suffering. Today, as the world watches the devastation in Gaza—a crisis that has led to accusations of genocide at the highest international courts—understanding how we arrived at this precipice is not merely an academic exercise. It is a moral imperative.

This article seeks to trace the contours of this hundred-year war, not to declare a victor in a contest of victimhood, but to examine the parallel narratives of Zionism and Palestinian nationalism. It is an attempt, within a liberal framework that values human rights, self-determination, and historical empathy, to understand the path that led from the rolling hills of Mandate Palestine to the shattered landscapes of modern-day Gaza.

The Genesis: Two Peoples, One Land

The modern conflict began not with religion, but with the collision of two nascent nationalist movements at the turn of the 20th century. For centuries, Palestine was a diverse but predominantly Arab province of the Ottoman Empire, home to a majority Muslim population, with Christian and Jewish minorities living in relative peace.

The Jewish narrative begins with an ancient, unbroken connection to the land—Eretz Yisrael, the biblical Land of Israel. This connection was sustained for millennia through prayer, ritual, and a small, continuous Jewish presence. Yet, it was the wave of brutal pogroms in late 19th-century Eastern Europe that transformed this religious aspiration into a modern political movement: Zionism. For Theodor Herzl and his followers, the only rational answer to endemic antisemitism was the establishment of a Jewish national home, a sanctuary where Jews could finally determine their own destiny. This was not a colonial whim, but a desperate, existential necessity for a people fleeing persecution.

The Palestinian narrative begins with an identity equally rooted in that same land. For generations, they were the inhabitants—farmers, merchants, and city-dwellers of Jaffa, Haifa, and Jerusalem. The rise of Zionism was perceived not as the return of a native people, but as the arrival of a European settler movement with the backing of a colonial power, Great Britain. The 1917 Balfour Declaration, in which the British government pledged to support "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people," was seen as a profound betrayal, a promise made by a foreign power over a land it did not own, ignoring the rights and aspirations of the existing majority.

The British Mandate: A Legacy of Violence (1920-1948)

Under the British Mandate, the conflict crystallized. Jewish immigration, or Aliyah, accelerated, with Jewish organizations purchasing land and building the institutions of a state-in-waiting—the Kibbutzim, the Haganah militia, the political parties. To the Zionists, this was a heroic act of nation-building. To the Palestinian Arabs, it was a demographic and economic displacement, a slow-motion dispossession.

The period was marked by escalating violence. The Arab Revolt of 1936-1939 was a watershed moment, a widespread nationalist uprising against both British rule and Jewish immigration. Its brutal suppression by the British, with the support of Zionist militias, shattered the Palestinian political leadership and society. On the Jewish side, militant groups like the Irgun and Lehi engaged in attacks against both British and Arab targets. By the time the British, exhausted by World War II, handed the "Palestine problem" to the newly formed United Nations, the two communities were already locked in a low-level civil war.

1948: The War of Independence and the Nakba

The 1947 UN Partition Plan proposed a division of the land into two states, one Arab and one Jewish, with Jerusalem under international control. The Jewish leadership, though unhappy with the borders, accepted the plan as a pragmatic step toward sovereignty. The Arab states and the Palestinian leadership rejected it outright, viewing it as the legitimization of the theft of their homeland.

What followed was the defining cataclysm for both peoples. For Israelis, the 1948 war is the War of Independence, a heroic David-and-Goliath struggle for survival against five invading Arab armies. The victory, achieved against all odds, cemented the existence of the State of Israel, a miraculous rebirth after 2,000 years of exile and the horror of the Holocaust.

For Palestinians, 1948 is the Nakba, or "Catastrophe." Amid the fighting, over 750,000 Palestinians—more than half the Arab population—fled or were expelled from their homes in what became Israel. Hundreds of villages were depopulated and destroyed. This was not a by product of war, in the Palestinian view, but its central objective: the ethnic cleansing of the land to create a Jewish-majority state. The refugees and their descendants, now numbering in the millions, were denied the right to return, creating a permanent, stateless diaspora.

1967 to Oslo: Occupation and the Promise of Peace

The Six-Day War of 1967 redrew the map and the conflict. In a stunning military victory, Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Golan Heights. For many Israelis, this was a defensive miracle that secured the nation and reunified Jerusalem. For Palestinians, it marked the beginning of an open-ended military occupation that continues to this day. A new reality of settlements, checkpoints, and military law began to take shape in the occupied territories.

The decades that followed saw the rise of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and two major Palestinian uprisings, or Intifadas. The First Intifada (1987-1993), largely a civil resistance movement, shifted global perceptions and paved the way for a historic breakthrough.

The Oslo Accords of the 1990s were a moment of staggering hope. Secret negotiations led to mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO and the creation of the Palestinian Authority, a limited self-governing body in parts of the West Bank and Gaza. The famous handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn symbolized the promise of a two-state solution: a secure Israel alongside an independent Palestine. But the hope was short-lived. Rabin's assassination by a right-wing Israeli extremist in 1995 was a devastating blow. The failure of the 2000 Camp David summit, continued settlement expansion, and the violence of the Second Intifada shattered the peace process, leaving a legacy of deep distrust.

The Gaza Conundrum: From Disengagement to Devastation

In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew its settlers and soldiers from the Gaza Strip. Israelis saw this as a painful sacrifice for peace, a chance for Palestinians to build their own society. Palestinians viewed it as a strategic redeployment, arguing that Israel retained ultimate control over Gaza's borders, airspace, and coastline, effectively turning it into an open-air prison.

The situation deteriorated dramatically after Hamas, an Islamist militant group designated as a terrorist organization by many Western countries, won Palestinian legislative elections in 2006 and violently seized control of Gaza in 2007. Israel, along with Egypt, imposed a strict blockade on the territory, citing the need to prevent Hamas from importing weapons. This blockade, now in its 17th year, has crippled Gaza's economy and created a humanitarian crisis.

Multiple rounds of conflict have erupted, each more devastating than the last. Hamas and other militant groups have fired thousands of rockets into Israeli cities, terrorizing civilian populations. Israel has responded with overwhelming military force, launching major operations in 2008, 2012, and 2014 that resulted in widespread destruction and thousands of Palestinian casualties, the majority of them civilians.

October 7th and the Current Crisis

The horrific attacks of October 7th, 2023, represented the deadliest day in Israel's history. Hamas militants breached the border, slaughtering 1,200 people—mostly civilians—and taking over 240 hostages in an act of staggering brutality. The pogrom-like violence, broadcast by the perpetrators, shattered Israel's sense of security and plunged the nation into a state of profound trauma and rage.

Israel's response has been an unprecedented military campaign in Gaza with the stated aim of destroying Hamas. The scale of the devastation has been catastrophic. Tens of thousands of Palestinians, a large percentage of whom are women and children, have been killed. Entire neighbourhoods have been levelled, and the majority of the population has been displaced. The blockade has been tightened, leading to the collapse of the healthcare system and widespread starvation.

It is this reality that has led to the charge of genocide against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Proponents of this charge point to the staggering civilian death toll, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and statements by some Israeli officials that they argue show genocidal intent. Israel and its supporters vehemently reject this accusation, arguing that its actions are a legitimate, if tragic, war of self-defense against a genocidal terrorist organization that embeds itself within civilian populations. They maintain that they are taking steps to minimize civilian harm and that the blame for the suffering lies with Hamas.

A Statistical Glimpse of the Human Cost

Precise, universally agreed-upon casualty figures are impossible to obtain, but reputable sources provide a grim estimate of the direct human losses from the conflict. A detailed statistical breakdown is presented in the accompanying infographic. The data underscores the disproportionate impact on Palestinian lives while affirming the significant and continuous loss experienced by Israelis over the century-long conflict.

Conclusion: Beyond the Abyss

Today, the chasm between Israelis and Palestinians seems wider and deeper than ever. The language of peace and reconciliation feels like a relic from a distant past. For many Israelis, the trauma of October 7th has extinguished any belief in a Palestinian partner for peace, reinforcing the conviction that they live in a hostile region where only strength can guarantee survival. For many Palestinians, the current war in Gaza is the horrifying culmination of 75 years of dispossession and occupation, a final, brutal proof that the world will stand by and watch their destruction.

A liberal framework demands that we hold multiple truths at once: that Israel's quest for security is legitimate, but that security cannot be built on the permanent subjugation of another people. That the Palestinian demand for self-determination and an end to occupation is just, but that this demand cannot be realized through the terrorizing of civilians. It requires acknowledging the profound Jewish fear of annihilation, forged in the Holocaust and rekindled on October 7th, while also acknowledging the profound Palestinian experience of erasure and dispossession.

The path out of the abyss is not clear. The two-state solution, long the bedrock of international diplomacy, now seems like a fantasy. But any alternative must be grounded in the unwavering principles of equality, mutual recognition, and human rights for all people between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. To look away from the history, from the pain of either side, is to guarantee that the cycle of violence will continue, consuming yet another generation in its relentless, unforgiving logic.