INTRODUCTION

Hi ya! Welcome to iWrite by Festus Ayomikun.

As you may have read atop, the mission I am on with this blog is to bring to you my reader accurate, relevant, and objective information about events happening in the international system.

I do not take a side; I only write to help you make informed opinions and have a good understanding of things and not just follow the bandwagon of general feeling/opinion.

This week, which is our launch week, I will be writing about the recent event on the international stage at this time which is the Israel and Hamas fight.

In this blog post, we will be looking at some interesting background story that will help put what is currently going on into proper perspective for anyone to understand. I promise to do all I can to make this concise but rich enough for a body of knowledge.

So, before we go into the details of what happened on October 11, 2023, let us take a quick glance into the background story.

We will be covering the Creation of Israel as a State or country as you may say, the Israeli Occupation of Gaza Strip (The center of this fight), The rise or creation of Hamas, Hamas as a group and their ideologies and then we look at previous fight before this current one. Without much more ado, let’s get into it.

HOMECOMING

From the late 19th century into the very early 20th century, the region called Palestine which is a land locked between, Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon has been under the rule of the then Ottoman Empire but the empire became less strong during WW1 and after the war ended in 1919, the control of this land and many other land under the control of the empire was ceded to the British Empire through a mandate by the League of Nation (The then version of the current UN).

But before this concession, the Brits had already made an announcement in 1917 called the BALFOUR DECLARATION which was a promise for the establishment of a “National Home for the Jews” i.e. a land they can call their own in the region of Palestine.

So, the official concession of the region to the Brits meant they could fulfil this promise easily. Although the concession of the region through the LoN Mandate was majorly criticized by all Arab Nations and the people living in the region but it appeased more to the Jews as it supported their believe of ownership to Jerusalem as their biblical inheritance.

Fortunately, and unfortunately, the persecution and the Holocaust (mass murdering of the Jews) by Nazi Germany during the WW2 then resulted in the Jews fleeing Eastern Europe and mass migrating into the Palestine Region into a land they believe to be their biblical ancestral home as mentioned earlier.

Although with this migration tension arose in the region nonetheless, no sort of fight really broke out between the fleeing Jews and the Arabian inhabitant of the land not until after WW2.

FORMATION OF ISRAEL

In February of the year 1947, 2 years after the end of the war, Britain in a bid to fulfil their promise made with the “Balfour Declaration of 1917” (remember we mentioned it above) made a proposition to the UN (the new founded organization that replaced the LoN), asking them to investigate the tension in the Palestine region and make moves into resolving the crisis.

The UN however in resolving the crisis made and adopted the resolution to split the Palestine region into independent states – One for the Jews and the other for the Arabs in other words, a “Jewish State” and an “Arab State” with Jerusalem under the control of the UN as it was a land both sides were laying claims to.

Apparently, this resolution by the UN did not go down well with the Palestinians inhabiting the land neither did it appease to the other surrounding Arabian nations.

However, the whole situation escalated in 1948, May 15 when the Jews declared independence and announced the creation of the State or Nation of Israel as you may want to call it. This irked the Palestinians and the other Arabs nations the more and this became the genesis of an all-out fight between Palestine and Israel up until today.

Before, I take you into the creation and rise of Hamas, let me do a quick run-down of how the occupation of the Gaza strip by Israel came about.

After the creation of the Nation of Israel as mentioned above, the Israeli Armies moved quickly into conquering and occupying other territories beyond what was initially awarded to it by the UN resolution a year earlier and because Israel had a whelming support of some big powers especially Britain, there was a re-division of the whole region into 3 parts and no more.

Israeli land for the Jews, The Gaza Strip (The center of the war till date) and the west Bank.

At this time, Gaza Strip being a tiny strip of land between Israel and Egypt and home to about 2million Palestinians was left under the control of the Egyptian government and West Bank situated in between Israel and Jordan and home to about 3million people was given to the Jordanians for control.

THE SIX DAY WAR

Albeit in 1967, Israel decided to follow the principles of the theory of REALISM as stated by Nicolo Machiavelli that states that a Leader must not wait for the enemy to make a move but must always pre-empt and make the first move to achieve its national interest and protect its citizens at all costs (this is an abridged and simple to understand translation).

Israel therefore launched a pre-emptive defensive war against Egypt, Jordan and Syria claiming these Arab Nations were on the verge of launching a joint attack on Israel too.

This Israeli’s attack was such a success that it only lasted 6 days thus termed “The Six Day War” and after the end of these 6 days, Israel was able to win land off the 3 nations.

The Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula were won off Egypt, West Bank and East Jerusalem was won off the Jordanians with the Golan Heights won off Syria. Israelis moved into these lands and Jewish communities was established and the Palestinians in the land had the choice of either fleeing the land or staying back to become second class citizens behind the Jews in the land and be subjected to untold subjugation and military rule by the Israeli’s. This is essentially how Israel’s occupation of Gaza Strip began and made it the hotspots for the years to come as clashes between the Palestinians and Israelis intensified.

Join me again next week and we will be looking at the creation and rise of HAMAS as an organization.