If you ask ten different people when did the israeli and palestinian conflict start, you're probably going to get twelve different answers. It’s a mess. Honestly, the timeline depends entirely on who you’re talking to and where they decide the "beginning" of history actually sits. Some folks will point you toward the Bible or ancient Roman expulsions. Others will look at the 1948 war.
But if we're being real, the modern friction—the stuff that actually leads to the headlines we see today—didn't just appear out of thin air. It grew. It simmered. It was a slow-motion collision of two different national dreams hitting the same tiny patch of land at the exact same time.
The Late 1800s: When the Map Started to Shift
Most historians, like Benny Morris or Rashid Khalidi, tend to agree that the late 19th century is the actual "starting gun." Before this, the land was part of the Ottoman Empire. People lived there, obviously. There were Arab Muslims, Christians, and a small, long-standing community of Jews. It wasn't exactly a paradise, but it wasn't the focal point of a global geopolitical nightmare yet either.
Things changed because of two big movements in Europe. First, you had Zionism. Theodore Herzl published Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State) in 1896. He argued that because of rampant European antisemitism, Jewish people needed their own sovereign home. At the same time, Arab nationalism was waking up. People in the Levant were getting tired of Ottoman rule and started dreaming of their own independent Arab identity.
By the time the first major waves of Jewish immigrants (the Aliyahs) started arriving in the 1880s and 1890s, the local Arab population began to feel uneasy. They weren't just seeing new neighbors; they were seeing a movement that explicitly aimed to turn the land into something else. It was a clash of "mine" versus "ours."
The British Messed Things Up (A Lot)
World War I changed everything. The Ottomans lost. The British walked in. In 1917, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration. This was a short, 67-word letter that basically said the UK supported a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine.
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The problem? They had also made vague promises to Arab leaders that they’d get independence if they helped fight the Turks.
You can see the issue. You’ve got one piece of land and two different groups who both think they have a written promise from the world's superpower. The British Mandate period (1920–1948) was basically thirty years of riots, strikes, and increasingly violent skirmishes. The 1929 Hebron massacre and the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt are huge markers here. This wasn't just "religious tension." It was a fight over land ownership, labor, and political survival.
1948: The Point of No Return
If the late 1800s was the spark, 1948 was the explosion. After WWII and the horrors of the Holocaust, international pressure to establish a Jewish state became unstoppable. The UN proposed a partition plan in 1947. The Jewish leadership said yes. The Arab leadership said no, arguing it was their land and the UN had no right to give it away.
Violence spiked. Then, in May 1948, Israel declared independence. The next day, neighboring Arab states invaded.
For Israelis, this is the War of Independence. For Palestinians, this is the Nakba, or "The Catastrophe." Over 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes. They ended up in refugee camps in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Jordan. They thought they’d go back in a few weeks. They're still waiting. Meanwhile, Israel established itself as a state, but without defined borders and with a lot of very angry neighbors.
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The 1967 Six-Day War and Occupation
We can't talk about when did the israeli and palestinian conflict start without mentioning 1967. This is the year the conflict took its current shape. In just six days, Israel defeated Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. They captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights.
This is where the "Occupation" begins.
Suddenly, Israel was in charge of millions of Palestinians. This led to the settlement movement—Israeli civilians moving into these captured territories. To Israelis, this was a return to ancestral biblical lands. To Palestinians and most of the international community, it was a violation of international law and a direct theft of the space meant for a future Palestinian state.
Why It’s So Hard to Fix
It’s tempting to look for a "bad guy" and a "good guy," but that’s a trap. It’s a tragedy of two rights. You have a people (Jews) who faced centuries of persecution and finally returned to their ancestral home to seek safety. You have another people (Palestinians) who had been living there for generations and were suddenly displaced by a movement they didn't ask for.
The 1990s gave us a glimmer of hope with the Oslo Accords. Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin shook hands on the White House lawn. There was a plan! A path to two states! But it fell apart. Assassinations, suicide bombings, and continued settlement expansion killed the momentum.
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Common Misconceptions
People often think this is an "ancient religious war." It’s not. While religion plays a role, especially regarding holy sites in Jerusalem, the core is intensely modern. It’s about maps, water rights, building permits, and who gets to carry which passport. If you look at the 1800s, Jews and Muslims in the region generally got along better than Jews and Christians did in Europe at the time. The "ancient hatred" narrative is a bit of a lazy shortcut.
Another myth? That there was a "Palestine" country that was simply erased. There was a region called Palestine, and a Palestinian people with a distinct culture, but it was under Ottoman or British rule. However, that doesn't mean the people living there didn't have rights to the land. Lack of a formal "passport" in 1910 doesn't mean you don't own your olive grove.
Actionable Next Steps for Understanding
If you really want to grasp this, you have to look at the primary sources. Don't just read tweets.
- Read the Balfour Declaration and the UN Partition Plan (Resolution 181). See exactly what was promised and what was proposed.
- Look at maps from 1947, 1949, 1967, and today. Visualizing the shrinking and expanding borders tells the story better than any essay can.
- Follow journalists on both sides. Check out Haaretz for a critical Israeli perspective and Al Jazeera or +972 Magazine for Palestinian and left-wing Israeli views.
- Study the "Right of Return" vs. "Security Needs." These are the two biggest pillars holding up the conflict today. Understanding why a Palestinian refugee wants to go to Haifa and why an Israeli is terrified of that happening is key.
The conflict didn't start on a single Tuesday. It was a slow accumulation of broken promises, genuine fears, and conflicting dreams. Knowing the history won't solve it, but it's the only way to stop shouting into the void.