MIDDLE EAST EXPLAINED — PART 1 OF 5
The Land: Where Is Israel and Palestine and Why Do Two Peoples Claim the Same Place?
Sources: United Nations confirmed · Britannica confirmed · Library of Congress confirmed · National Geographic confirmed · BBC confirmed · CFR confirmed
THE SHORT ANSWER
Israel and Palestine are not two separate countries on a map. They are two names for the same small piece of land — about the size of New Jersey — on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. Two different peoples claim it as their homeland. That claim is at the heart of one of the longest and most painful conflicts in modern history.
Here is the plain language explanation of where this land is, who lives there, and why both sides believe it belongs to them.
WHERE IT IS
Find the Mediterranean Sea on a map — the large body of water between Europe and Africa. Follow the eastern shore south. You will find a small strip of land bordered by Lebanon to the north, Syria to the northeast, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the southwest, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west.
That piece of land is roughly 290 miles long and between 9 and 71 miles wide depending on where you measure. It is smaller than the state of New Jersey. It has no oil. It has almost no natural resources. And it has been one of the most fought-over pieces of territory on Earth for thousands of years.
Today that land contains the modern state of Israel, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank. Understanding the difference between those three things is essential to understanding everything else.
Israel is a recognized country — a member of the United Nations with a government, a military, a currency, and internationally recognized borders. It was established in 1948. Approximately 9.7 million people live there including approximately 7 million Jewish Israelis and approximately 2 million Arab citizens of Israel.
The Gaza Strip is a small territory — about the size of Philadelphia — on the southwestern corner of the land along the Mediterranean coast. Approximately 2.3 million Palestinians live there. It is one of the most densely populated places on Earth. Gaza is not a country. It has no seat at the United Nations. It has been under blockade by Israel and Egypt since 2007.
The West Bank is a larger landlocked territory to the east of Israel along the Jordan River. Approximately 3 million Palestinians live there along with approximately 700,000 Israeli settlers who have built communities in the territory. The West Bank is also not a country. It has been under Israeli military control since 1967.
Together Gaza and the West Bank are referred to as the Palestinian territories. Palestinians who live there do not have citizenship in Israel. They do not have citizenship in their own recognized state. That situation — millions of people living for decades without citizenship in any fully recognized country — is at the center of the conflict.
WHO LIVES THERE AND HOW LONG HAVE THEY BEEN THERE
Both Jewish people and Arab Palestinians have deep historical roots in this land going back thousands of years.
Jewish people trace their connection to this land to the Bible and to the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah that existed there roughly 3,000 years ago. After the Roman Empire destroyed Jerusalem in 70 CE most Jewish people were dispersed across the world — a period called the diaspora. Jewish communities maintained a continuous presence in the land throughout that period though as a minority population. For nearly 2,000 years Jewish people around the world prayed toward Jerusalem and kept alive a cultural and religious connection to the land they called their homeland.
Arab people have lived in this land continuously for more than 1,400 years since the Arab and Islamic expansion of the 7th century CE. By the late 1800s the population was predominantly Arab — both Muslim and Christian — with a Jewish minority. These Arab communities had lived there for generations. Many families had farmed the same land for centuries. They called the land Palestine and considered it their home.
Beginning in the late 1800s a movement called Zionism emerged among Jewish people in Europe. Zionism was a response to centuries of persecution and discrimination against Jewish people across Europe — persecution that culminated in the Holocaust in which six million Jewish people were murdered by Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945. Zionism called for the establishment of a Jewish state in the ancestral Jewish homeland. Jewish immigration to Palestine increased significantly in the early 1900s — first under Ottoman rule and then under British rule after World War One.
By 1947 the population of Palestine was approximately 1.2 million Arab Palestinians and 600,000 Jewish people. Both communities considered the land their home. Both had real and deep historical connections to it. And both increasingly understood that the other community's presence threatened their own vision for the future of the land.
That is the root of the conflict. Not a simple story of good versus evil. Two peoples. One land. Two genuine claims. And a 20th century that made a resolution increasingly urgent and increasingly impossible simultaneously.
WHY BOTH CLAIMS ARE REAL
This is the part that most news coverage gets wrong by omission. Both sides in this conflict have real and legitimate historical connections to this land. Acknowledging that does not mean both sides are right about everything or that there is no difference between their actions. It means the conflict cannot be understood if you start from the assumption that one side has no legitimate claim at all.
Jewish people's connection to this land is confirmed by thousands of years of religious practice, cultural memory, historical record, and the lived experience of persecution that made a homeland feel not just desirable but necessary for survival.
Arab Palestinians' connection to this land is confirmed by centuries of continuous habitation, cultural identity, family roots, and the lived experience of displacement that began in 1948 and continues today.
Both of those things are true simultaneously. That simultaneous truth is what makes this conflict so difficult and so painful. And it is why any honest explanation has to start here — with the land, with the people, and with the reality that both communities have something real at stake.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR EVERYTHING THAT COMES NEXT
Gaza. The West Bank. Hamas. Hezbollah. The wars. The blockade. The settlements. The nuclear negotiations with Iran. All of it connects back to this fundamental unresolved question — who has the right to live in this land and on what terms.
That question has not been answered in 75 years of modern conflict. It will not be answered in this article. What this article gives you is the confirmed foundation to understand what you are reading about when you see these places and these names in the news.
Next in the series: How Israel Was Created — 1948, the war, and what happened to the Palestinians who were there.
Sources: United Nations confirmed Israel membership and Palestinian territory status · Britannica confirmed historical Jewish presence and diaspora · Library of Congress confirmed Ottoman and British mandate history · National Geographic confirmed geographic dimensions · BBC confirmed current population figures for Israel, Gaza, and West Bank · CFR confirmed settler population in West Bank · Holocaust Museum confirmed six million Jewish people killed in Holocaust
Now you know. Middle East Explained Series at readida.com