"Arabs like to say that there are two conflicting narratives of the conflict. The facts are far simpler.

It starts in the end of the 19th century. At the time millions of Jews were fleeing Russia and flooding Europe with refugees because of Czar Alexander III "Russia for Russians" program which sanctioned pogroms in order to evict the Jews from the country. This was only the latest in a long history of expulsions of Jews. The Jews, at the time were just beginning to be emancipated in a handful of countries, and both the Jews themselves and the affected countries had an interest in solving the Jewish Problem. What everyone recognized at the time was that the Jewish People started out in the "Holyland", from which they were expelled in the first century CE.

A group of influential Jews organized a movement with the intention of solving the Jewish Problem by restoring the Jewish Homeland. That movement was called the Zionist Movement. However the Holyland was at the time a province of the Ottoman Empire, and the Ottomans had no intention of allowing a Jewish autonomous entity to be established in their land.

Then came World War I. The Ottomans joined the war on the losing side and the British saw the opportunity to conquer the Ottomans and insert themselves as the influential power in the area. Lord Balfour, British foreign secretary and ex-Prime Minister was intrigued by the idea of creating a Jewish Home in Palestine and expressed in a letter to the British Zionist Organization that the British government would support the establishment of such an entity if Britain gained control of Palestine. In 1922 (5 years later) the League of Nations divided the former provinces of the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East into "Mandates" and instructed the British to execute the creation of a "Jewish National Home in Palestine". It also instructed the British to do so in a way that did not infringe upon the rights of the Arab population of Palestine. How that was to be achieved was unclear, and as it turned out, not possible.

From an objective point of view the League of Nations and the British created an untenable situation, with Jews, on the one hand, having been given the internationally sanctioned green light to rebuild their home and thereby resolve the humanitarian disaster that defined the Jewish People in the diaspora, and with Arabs, on the other hand, looking forward to independence (whether as part of a greater Arab union or as individual States), with no interest whatsoever in the Jewish Problem or Jewish History or commitments made by other countries to people who don't even live there.

25 years and another World War later the problem had snowballed to the point where the British were unable and unwilling to continue to deal with it. A new international organization, the United Nations had been formed, and as its first project it took upon itself the task of resolving the Palestine problem. It sent a team called UNSCOP to present a solution to the UN members and UNSCOP returned with a carefully balanced plan to allow a small predominantly Jewish State to be formed, with the remainder of the country to become a predominantly Arab State, with the exception of Jerusalem which would be administered by the UN with access to both Jews and Arabs equally. This plan was voted on and ratified by the UN members on November 29, 1947. It was a compromise that the Jews were willing to accept. The Arabs however saw no reason they should have to compromise, and instead initiated a civil war.

The Jews proceeded to put the Partition plan into effect despite the Arab rejection of the recommendation and the war that was being waged against them. Five months later the British withdrew and Israel was proclaimed. The combined forces of five neighboring countries invaded Palestine with the intention of conquering all of Palestine and establishing an Arab State in the entirety of what was the British Mandate for Palestine. Reportedly around 700,000 Arabs who were in the war zone created by the invading Arab armies fled. Israeli forces succeeded not only in defending the territory allocated to it in the Partition Plan but to push the invaders deep into the territories that would have been part of the Arab State had the Arabs accepted resolution 181.

The UN negotiated a cease-fire and subsequently armistice treaties between Israel and the invading countries, and admitted Israel as a full member. The Armistice agreements put the area to the East of the Armistice demarkation line, including East Jerusalem (known as the West Bank) into Jordanian control, and the Gaza Strip into Egyptian control. From 1948 through 1974 the "Palestinians" were not considered a party in the conflict. The conflict was between Israel and the neighboring Arab countries who did not recognize Israel's proclamation of independence, and continued to proclaim their own intention to conquer Palestine and establish an Arab State in the entirety of Palestine.

In 1967 the Arab States mobilized their forces and advanced towards their border with Israel, threatening to push Israel into the sea. Israel reacted with a preemptive strike that resulted not only in defending Israel's territory but in the withdrawal of the Syrians from the Golan Heights, Egypt from the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula, and Jordan from the West Bank. The UN passed resolution 242 which called for the return of these territories to the countries that had withdrawn from them. Israel was willing to do so in exchange for Peace treaties and modifications to ensure Israel's defensibility. The members of the Arab League met in Khartoum to discuss their response and declared that no Arab nation would recognize, negotiate with, or make peace with Israel. As a result Israel had no alternative but to administer the territories, as their former occupiers were unwilling to reoccupy them.

Seven years later the Arab League marched Yasser Arafat into the UN General Assembly and the UN proclaimed the "inalienable right of the Palestinian People to self-determination" and that the PLO is the Palestinians' sole legitimate representative. At that point the conflict ceased to be between Israel and the neighboring Arab countries, and the "Palestinians" became once again a party in the conflict.
The UN supported the idea of a Palestinian State to be established in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The PLO, who they considered the Palestinians' representative, rejected the idea and insisted upon the dismantling of Israel and its replacement with a Palestinian State in the enitre area of Palestine, and the return of all Palestinian refugees, resulting in a single predominantly Arab country.
The Israeli public saw no prospect of a resolution and a group of Israelis began to insist upon being allowed to begin settle within the occupied territories. After a heated internal conflict the Israeli government relented and allowed settlements to be established.

In 1978 Egypt's president Anwar Sadat and Israel's Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed the Camp David Accords returning the Sinai to Egypt and committing Israel to an Interim arrangement with the Palestinians granting them autonomy in the Occupied Territories. In 1993 Yasser Arafat signed the Declaration of Principles (Oslo Accords) accepting the principle of a two-State solution and interim Autonomy arrangement.

In 1995 the PLO took control of the Palestinian Autonomy which governs 97% of the Palestinian population of the Occupied Territories and 40% of the West Bank. In 2005 Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon withdrew all Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and expelled all Israeli settlers, rendering the Gaza Strip entirely independent. The Hamas offshoot of the Moslem Brotherhood, an Islamic Jihadist organization, took control of the Gaza Strip and proclaimed itself not bound by any agreement signed between Israel and the PLO, and proclaimed its commitment to the destruction of Israel. Hamas proceeded to attempt to smuggle arms into the West Bank and to develop and manufacture rockets with which to attack Israel. Israel reacted by cutting off the routes by which arms and materials for their manufacture could be brought into the Gaza Strip. On at least three occasions Hamas initiated hostilities against Israel firing thousands of rockets indiscriminately into Israeli cities.

Meanwhile at least two attempts were made to negotiate a Final Status agreement between Israel and the PLO. Both attempts failed to reach a settlement acceptable to both parties.

This is the whole story in a nutshell. Every word is objective fact. Undoubtedly there will be a long stream of objections about omissions and recriminations meant to invoke sympathy for one side and to vilify the other. But moving forward will require focusing on the facts and not continuing to justify resistance to reconciliation."

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