The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has lasted longer, created more headlines, and sparked more debate than any other conflict in history. Despite, or possibly because of, the conflict's high level of international attention, it is still largely misunderstood. While Israelis and Palestinians, as well as their supporters, trade charges, many outside onlookers are baffled by the conflict's intricacy and the intensity with which it elicits emotion.

THE CONFLICT BETWEEN ISRAEL AND PALESTINE HAS BEEN GOING ON SINCE THE END OF THE 19TH CENTURY. Resolution 181, also known as the Partition Plan, was enacted by the United Nations in 1947, with the goal of dividing the British Mandate of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states. The State of Israel was established on May 14, 1948, igniting the first Arab-Israeli War. The war concluded with Israel's victory in 1949, although 750,000 Palestinians were displaced, and the land was divided into three parts: Israel, the West Bank (across the Jordan River), and the Gaza Strip.

Tensions in the region grew in the years after, particularly between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. Following the 1956 Suez Crisis and Israel's invasion of the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, Jordan, and Syria signed mutual defense treaties in the event of an Israeli army mobilization. Following a series of maneuvers by Egyptian President Abdel Gamal Nasser, Israel launched a preemptive strike on Egyptian and Syrian air forces in June 1967, kicking off the Six-Day War. Following the war, Israel took control of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip, as well as Jordan's West Bank and East Jerusalem. Syria's Golan Heights, as well as the Golan Heights. Six years later, in what is known as the Yom Kippur War or the October War, Egypt and Syria launched a surprise two-front attack on Israel to reclaim territory they had lost; the conflict did not result in significant gains for Egypt, Israel, or Syria, but Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat declared the war a victory for Egypt because it allowed Egypt and Syria to negotiate over previously ceded territory. Representatives from Egypt and Israel signed the Camp David Accords, a peace accord that ended the thirty-year struggle between Egypt and Israel, in 1979, after a series of cease-fires and peace negotiations.

Despite the fact that the Camp David Accords improved Israel's relations with its neighbors, the issue of Palestinian self-determination and self-governance remained unsolved. In what is known as the first intifada, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians residing in the West Bank and Gaza Strip rose up against the Israeli government in 1987. The Oslo I Accords, signed in 1993, mediated the conflict by establishing a framework for Palestinian self-governance in the West Bank and Gaza, as well as mutual recognition between the Palestinian Authority and Israel's government. In 1995, the Oslo II Accords expanded on the first agreement, adding provisions that mandated the complete withdrawal of Israel from 6 cities and 450 towns in the West Bank.

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