Watch: The Israel-Palestine History You Should Know – it Explains but Doesn’t Justify the Hamas Attack
Karan Thapar
Real journalism holds power accountable
Since 2015, The Wire has done just that.
But we can continue only with your support.
For almost three weeks, the world has been watching the Israel-Hamas war, and many people have formed strong opinions on either side of the conflict. But do we really know and understand the history of the relationship and struggle between Israel and Palestine?
The actual story – the one you need to know but don’t – goes a lot further back than October 7, 2023. Not just to the founding of Israel in 1948. Not just to the Balfour Declaration of 1917, and how Britain knowingly made an existing problem worse. But to Theodore Herzl and the Zionist movement of the 19th century. This story doesn’t excuse – leave aside justify – October 7, but it does explain it.
Yet this is a history unknown to us in India. It’s been deliberately forgotten by many in Israel. It’s been politically ignored by the US and the West.
In simple language but with all the relevant details and facts, Professor Avi Shlaim, Emeritus Professor of International Relations at Oxford, and author of seminal books like Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, Refutations and The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World, relates this history.
The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.