This is not probably correct. This is just a attempt to understand and make a solution to the problem. A bit like discussion initiator. 10k BC: Agriculture in the area of Palestina starts. Palestina in that time included parts of Israel, Jordania, Libanon and Syyria. 1.7k BC: Abraham (Jewish ancestor) arrived to Palestina. 1.6k BC: Famine drove the Jews to Egypt 1.2k BC: Egypt becomes hostile for Jewish people, Mooses leads people from Egypt to "promised country" (Israel) 1.0k BC: David as king of Israel, Jerusalem as capital, neighbours forced as vassals. Jews rule. 721 BC: Sargon II (king of Assyria) conquered Israel and Jewish tribes get mixed with neighbouring countries. The area of Israel is habitated by "Samaritans". *** Definition of what are Jews change *** 721-586 BC: Judea (part of Israel) conquered by Egypt and then later by Babylonia 586 BC: Jerusalem is destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar II (king of Neo-Babylonia) and moved most of the citizens of Jerusalem to Babylonia. In the inprisoment, the religion was unified and written to old testament (Tanak), and especially to Toora (1st part of Tanak). 539 BC: Kyyros (King of Persia) conquered Babylon and promised Jewish to go back to their country. 539-332 BC: Continuous fighting in the area, especially Jewish against Samaritans. 332BC: Hellenistic era stars with arrival of Alexander the Great. 300BC: Seulos I (King) establishes the Kingdom of Syria (containing also Israel). 167 BC: Revolt of the Maccabees. Revolt because Jewish didn't want to sacrifice to Greek Gods. Revolt was vanquished and Judaism was forbidden. 140BC: Rome influence started to dominate, Hasmonean Kingdom of Israel was established, i.e. an autonomous Jewish area. 63BC: Pompeius (Roman leader) made Judean a roman vassal state. 63BC-70AD: Jewish revolts continue under Roman rule. 70AD: Titus (Roman Emperor) destroyes the Temple of Jerusalem. 132-135AD: Bar Kokhba revolt, the last Jewish-Roman war. Jews lost and were forbidden to enter Jerusalem (under deadpenalty). 400AD: Eudoxia (Roman Empress) allowed Jews to enter Jerusalem. 603AD: Last war between Byzantine Empire and Persia. Jews return to Jerusalem with Persians. 614AD: Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem destroyed. 629AD: Jews were expelled from Jerusalem, again. 632AD: Prophet Muhammad dies, arabic armies start to invade Middle-East. 638AD: Arabs invade the Jerusalem (no converting to Islam was done, almost opposite... it was forbidden at first to convert to Islam). 600-1033: Al-Aqsa Mosque was build-destroyed-rebuild several times on the place of Temple of Jerusalem once stood. 1095: Pope Urbanus II decided to make crusades to Jerusalem. Troops of pope fought against easter christians and arabs. 1099-1187: Holy-Troops of pope invade Jerusalem and kill the muslims, jews and christians that defended the Jerusalem. 1187: Saladin (Sultan of Egypt), invades Jerusalem. 1291: Mamluks (slave soldiers) from Turkey push crusaders away from Palestine. 1516: Selim I the Grim (Sultan of the Ottoman Empire), took power in Palestine. 1516-1800: Ottomans tolereated Jews better than Christians of west&east. Thus Jews started to move back to Palestine (early zionism movement). 1880: Palestine population 590k, 96% Arabs, 4% Jewish. 1897: Zionism was officially born in conference held in Basel/Germany. Idea was to solve the antisemitism problem and move Jewish to Israel who would slowly would become majority. Other location options: Uganda, Siinai desert, and Argentina. Jews start move in. 1914: The first world war starts. Turkey and thus Palestine fights with Germany against Entente powers (Russia, France, Britan, etc). 1916: Secret Sykes-Picot contract, England and France divide Palestine. 1917: Balfourd declaration, UK promises to support creation of "Israel", as thank you for the assistance of Jews in the war. 1922: UN confirms the Sykes-Picot contract. 1920: Jews start to move to Palestine due to increasing persecutions. 1929: Palestines kill hundreds of Jews and British hundreds of Palestines. 1936: Arabs not happy and make a "general strike". Extreme Jews start to make armed attacks against British and Arabs. 1937: UK 3-area plan: Jew areas, Arab areas, and common "holy" areas. 1940: 500k Jews in Palestine, 1/3 of the population. Jewish Stern-gang and Arab gangs make armed attacks. 1945: End of second world war revealed the holocaust. Zionism got support globally, especially from US. 1947: UN plan for Palestine division: 55% to Jews, 45% to Arabs. Jews in the area=600k and arabs more than million. Nobody liked the plan so it was never executed. 1947: Cold war started, US supports Jews and Russia supports Arabs. 1948: Arab-Israel War, 700k Palestines were driven out. *** THESE REFUGEES ARE MAIN REASON FOR THE PROBLEMS STILL *** 1956: Crisis in Suez-canal. UK and France support Israel to attack Egypt. 1964: Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) established by Gaza, Egypt, Jordania and Kuwait. The goal of the organisation was to remove the state of Israel and get rid of Jews. 1967: Six-day-war: Egypt closes Tiranin channel and Israel attacks. Israel took parts of Jerusalem, West Bank, Golan hills, and Siinai. 500k Palestinians as refugees... UN requests Israel to give the areas back, but not succeed. Some Jews think they should be part of Israel. Jews start to move to the new areas and neigbour countries start to prepare for war. *** THESE REFUGEES ARE MAIN REASON FOR THE PROBLEMS STILL *** 1967-1973: Palestines make terror attacks and Israel responds. PLO first works from Jordania, then from Libanon. 1973: Jom Kippur War. Egypt and Syyria decide to attack Israel and destroy it. They get close but fail. 1973: PLO is only legal presentative of Palestinians. 1974: UN statement: Palestines have sovereignity and right to return to the home areas and have national independence. 1977: Anwar Sadat, president of Egypt regonizes Israel, although four years ago attacked to destroy Israel. 1979: Camp David peace treatment (Jimmy Carter president in US) signed by Egypt and Israel. Siinai was returned to Egypt. 1981: Anwar Sadat was murdered by Islamists from Egypt army. 1982: Israel attacked to Libanon in order to destroy the PLO partisans there. Palestine refugee camps were left without protection and 800-2000 palestines were killed by Libanese right-wing christians. Ariel Sharon was minister of defence at that time and he had to resign. 1982-1987: Fights in the Palestine areas in Israel. 1987-1993: First palestinian Intifada. Palestines are unhappy and start to riot. Israel response with weapons. 1988 PLO recognizes that there can be two states in Palestine, one for Arabs and one for Jews. 1993: PLO and Israel recognize each others. (Arafat, Rabin and Clinton) Peace negotiations start although exterme Palestines still do armed attacks. 1994: Deal about Gaza and Jeriko, Palestines get self-government. Unsolved issues were planned to resolved within 5 years: * Will there be a Palestine state * Who gets the Jerusalem * What will happen to Jewish colonies * What will happen to millions of refugees from wars of 1948 and 1967 1995: Plan to widen the sovereignity of Palestine, 7% west-bank was given to Palestines. Armed attacks continue, by Hamas. Extreme Jews did not like this and killed the prime minister Jitzhak Rabin. PLO condemns the armed attacks and removes the destroying of Israel from PLO primary book which was written in 1964. 1996: Benjamin Netanjahu as prime minister in Israel and gives more land to Palestines but builds more Jewish colonies. 2000: Ehud Barak (Israel prime minister) states: Jerusalem could be divided to be city for Jews and Muslims. Sharons visited al-Aqsan mosqey and that was interpreted as hostile => second intifada started. 2002: George W. Bush says that Palestine state has to be established. Hamas makes a terrorist attacks a hotel in Netanja and Israel response hard attacking also e.g. Jenin's refugee camp killing tens to hundreds and forbidding investigation groups to enter. 2003: "Road map" for peace by US, UN, EU, and Russia. Goal would be to * Get Israel from the occupied areas * Create an independent Palestinian state To do this, Palestinians should stop terror attacks and Israels should assist the creation of Palestinian state. Mahmud Abbas chosen as PLO president. Israel started to retrieve troops from Gaza and Fatah declared "cease-fire", but Hamas and Jihad swore to continue terrorist agaist. Sharon starts to build the wall to west-bank in order to protect against the terror attacks. 2004: Ariel Sharon (Israeli prime minister), stated that they will demolish all the 21 colonies from Gaza and 4 from west-bank. Palestine leaders were taken openly into "kill-list". Jasser Arafat dies in France. 2005: Mahmud Abbas new Palestinian president. Voting procent was 70% even Hamas and Jihad told to boycot the elections. Israel retrieved from Gaza. 2006: Hamas wins the elections in Palestine. EU, US, and Israel cut funds and support from Palestine. Ariel Sharon in coma, Ehud Olmert in charge in Israel. A granate in Gaza fires up the conflict. Hizabollah stirres up the soup in Libanon side. 2007: Hamas takes over Gaza, Fatah troops escape to West-Bank. Israel starts a egonomic blockage to Gaza (population 1500k). Salam Fayyad was declared from Fatah to be prime minister, Hamas did not agree. 2008: Half of people of Gaza unemployed, dependent of external help. Rockets were fired from Gaza to Israel continuously. Israel starts attack to Gaza. So, who are the bad guys and how can we solve the situation? Analysis ======== When Israel was given to Jews in 1948, there was 32% of Jews there, who had come there without war, and for my opinion they had right also to the land. The UN proposed partition did not look very fair to Arabs. I think the idea of dividing the state to Jews and Arabs was not very good idea in the first place. 1948 war was not very nice from Israel: 700k Palestinians were driven out of their homes. But in the following years also about same amount of Jews were driven from the surrounding states to Israel so both lost homes. Jews started this process however by declaring their independence. Also pushing 500k Palestinians out of Jerusalem, West Bank, Golan hills, Gaza, and Siinai in 1967 was not cool. The Palestinians should be let to return to West Bank and Jerusalem. Israel has already given back Gaza and part of the West Bank, this shows good progress from them as they wanted to follow the "road map". Palestines have not managed or shown much effort to stop terrorist attacks, in my opinion Israel has the right to respond... although not with the magnitude they do now. Two steps solution ================== 1) Israel declares that they will give land and build houses equivalent to the amount of buildings they destroyed in 1948 and 1967 to the Palestine refugees. Jerusalem, and other main holy areas, are made neutral zones, no arms and both Arabs and Jews can enter there. These will be done during 5 next years. 2) After Israel declaration, Palestines stop missile attacks and assist capturing any further attack attempts. This is condition for the first step to be executed. APPENDIXES: =========== WHO WERE LIVING IN THE AREA OF ISRAEL/PALESTINE: 10kBC -- "Aborginals" -- 1.7kBC -- Aboriginals + Jews (ref Bible) -- 1.6kBC -- Aboriginals (Jews in Egypt) -- 1.2kBC -- Jews back (brought by Mooses, ref Bible) -- 721BC -- Samaritans, Jews mixed with others -- **** Definition of what are Jews change **** 586BC -- Babylonians, people from Jerusalem to Babylonia -- 539BC -- Samirants+Jews, returned from Babylonia -- 332BC -- Samirants+Jews+Greeks 140BC -- Samirants+Jews+Romans 632 -- Samirants+Jews+Arabs 1099 -- Arabs+Jews+Europeans 1187 -- Arabs+Jews+"Egyptians" 1516 -- Arabs+Jews+Ottomans 1920 -- Arabs+More Jews (started from 4% in 1880) 1940 -- 500k Jews in Palestine, 1/3 of the population Analysis: Jews were always, as now, minority in the area of Palestine.