History of Palestine (post-WWII)

Palestine has been occupied by the Zionists since 1920. It has suffered ethnic cleansing since 1947 at the hands of the so-called State of Israel. More recently, since October 7th, 2023, Israel has been carrying out a genocide against the Gaza Strip. The Gaza Strip has been under a siege and blockade since 2007 in response to the Palestinian resistance faction called Hamas being elected to power in Gaza. By 2023, approximately 2.25 million Palestinians lived in Gaza, which international human rights groups have described as an open air concentration camp. This is a very accurate description when one understands the conditions Palestinians in Gaza have been living under since 2007. The Gaza Strip has an area of 360 kilometre squared and a population of 2.25 million. My own city of Ottawa (capital of Canada) has an area of 2780 kilometre squared and a population of 1.1 million. Ottawa has an area eight times that Gaza but only half its population. 47% of the population of Gaza, as of October 2023, were 15 and under. 

According to an UNRWA report from 2022, 81.5% of Gaza's population lives under the poverty line and 71% of Gaza's population are refugees who've been displaced by Israel. 47% of Gaza's population were unemployed, including 64% of its youth population, as of 2021 according to UNRWA. Also according to UNRWA, 80% of Gaza's population in 2020 were in need of some form of humanitarian assistance. Between 2000 and 2020, the number of Palestinians in Gaza receiving food assistance from UNRWA increased from 80,000 to 1.1 million; an increase of over 1300%. During that same period, Gaza's population increased by close to 200%. Between 2007 and 2023, Gaza was bombed in several "wars" which the Israeli government callously regarded as "mowing the lawn." In every one of these "wars," Palestinians were killed at a disproportionate rate compared to Israelis. Between 1,166 (according to the IDF) and 1,417 (according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza City) were killed in Gaza during the 2008 Gaza War compared to just 13 Israelis. 170 Palestinians (give or take) were killed in the 2012 Gaza War compared to just six Israelis. Between 2,125 (according to Israel) and 2,310 (according to the Gaza Health Ministry) were killed in Gaza during the 2014 Gaza War compared to 73 Israelis. Between 128 and 256 were killed in Gaza during the 2021 Gaza conflict compared to just 14 Israelis. 

Israel has placed Gaza under a crippling blockade by air, land, and sea since 2007. Palestinians are not allowed to cross from Gaza into Israel. They are not allowed to sail past six miles from the Gaza shore. The only airport built in Gaza was destroyed during the Second Intifada and has not been rebuilt since. Some of the things Israel considered contraband included construction material (such as wood, iron, and cement), plastic containers, fishing rods, notebooks, fabric, ginger, chocolate, dried fruits, and fresh meat. Palestinians are not allowed to import any of these things without Israel's permission. In 2018 and 2019, Palestinians carried out large scale peaceful demonstrations called the Great March of Return. Israeli snipers positioned themselves around the Gaza-Israel border and fired at demonstrators. 223 were killed, including 46 children, and another 9,204 were wounded. Since October 2023, Israel has been carpet bombing Gaza while imposing a complete siege, cutting off food, water, medicine, and electricity. Israeli soldiers have deliberately shot children on a daily basis. Back in February 2025, Donald Trump publicly repeated that there were between 1.5 and 1.8 million Palestinians remaining in Gaza. Between October 2023 and February 2025, approximately 25,000 have managed to flee Gaza. This means the death toll in Gaza, by Trump's own admission, was between 425,000 and 725,000 as of February 2025.

Zionist propagandists have used the excuse of "what about October 7th" to justify all of this. We are currently over 22 months into a live-streamed genocide. Recently, Israel and the United States have set up the fraudulent aid network known as the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). Food is dropped at so-called designated aid stations. Palestinians who arrive to find food are then gunned down by Israeli and American soldiers. They are not aid stations but death traps. Gaza has entered stage five famine where now their body is unable to digest food the same way a typical healthy body would. This will affect their health and body for life. October 7th saw the death of 1,195 on Israel's side (including foreign citizens). Over half of whom were in the IDF. Those who were partying at the Nova Festival were mostly IDF members. Israel also employed the Hannibal Directive and killed many of their people that day. An Israeli tank could be seen on video firing upon a home in Kibbutz Be'eri. Videos circulated of Nova Festival attendees running from gunfire in the distance. While this could be Hamas fighters firing their AK-47s at them, a more realistic case would be that these were Apache helicopters executing the Hannibal Directive. 

Even if all 1,195 were civilians killed by Hamas, it would not change the fact that the response from Israel was and is genocidal. Killing over 400,000 in response to the other side killing 1,195 is so disproportionate, only the mindset of a vengeful sadistic psychopath could ever be used to justify such a response. Hamas made up 30,000-40,000 of Gaza's 2.25 million as of October 2023. Which means even if Israel had successfully eliminated every Hamas target, over 90% of the casualties would still be non-combatants. Over 90% of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or heavily damaged. Nearly every single person in Gaza is homeless and displaced. Every hospital in Gaza has been bombed. Refugee camps have been bombed. Aid workers have been bombed. Israeli government officials and soldiers have openly boasted about deliberately killing civilians. The evidence is so blatant that the real insanity is to not believe there is a genocide happening in Gaza. Deliberately killing non-combatants and bombing hospitals are war crimes. 

The "what about October 7th" argument also falls completely apart when given the entire history of the so-called Israeli-Palestinian "conflict." In 1917, the same year as the Bolshevik revolution, the British Empire issued the Balfour Declaration which established a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine. In 1920, Britain would occupy Palestine, turning it into the British Mandate for Palestine. Jewish settlers would begin entering to steal the land of the Palestinians. The Palestinians launched several revolts in opposition to this obvious land theft, which were crushed by the British. At the same time, Jewish Zionist militias like the Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi (the latter two broke off from the first) were formed to quicken the process of establishing a Jewish ethnostate. These were paramilitary groups but acted more like terrorists. They would later be involved in the 1946 King David Hotel bombing that killed 91 people as a way to bully the British into giving them their own state quicker. Starting in 1947, these groups became more aggressive in their forced expulsion of the Palestinians. This culminated in the Nakba of 1948 in which over 700,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their own homeland. 

The newly created Israel Defense Force (IDF) ethnically cleansed some 530 Palestinian towns and villages. In many cases, they would murder, torture, and rape Palestinians and burned their homes to terrorize everyone in the town or village to leave. These refugees were told that they would be allowed home once the Arab-Israeli War in 1948 ended, but that was a lie. The Palestinians left with their keys still in their hands, ready to return once peace was restored, only to be met with Jewish settlers who stole their homes. Around 15,000 Palestinians were killed in the Nakba of 48 according to official numbers. However, the real number is likely much higher and exactly how many were killed will likely never be known. In the 1950s, Palestinian who sought refuge in Gaza, one of the places in Palestine that were not ethnically cleansed during the Nakba. Some of them attempted to cross over into Israel to return to their homes. Around 5,000 in total were killed by armed settlers during that period. In 1967, during the Six-Day War, Israel seized and occupied both Gaza and the West Bank (along with the Golan Heights in Syria). They carried out another mass expulsion of Palestinians. Between 280,000 and 325,000 Palestinians were expelled from the West Bank and Gaza in 1967. 

While Israel continues to ethnically cleanse and colonize Palestine, groups like those belonging to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) emerged to fight back. Unfortunately, external forces like the Soviet Union, western Marxist-Leninists, and Arab Ba'athists began using the PLO for their own goals. This ended up benefiting Israel more than the Palestinians. A Middle East suffering from tyrants and armed conflict is the exactly what Israel wanted. This changed in 1987, however, when a new group independent of the PLO and their backers emerged. They would call themselves the Islamic Resistance Movement, more commonly known as Hamas. Originally an Islamic mutual aid group within the Palestinian Territories, Hamas is a religious conservative resistance group. The same year Hamas emerged saw the start of the First Intifada. Contrary to what the mainstream media says, the First Intifada was largely non-violent resistance on the part of Palestinians. Between 179 and 200 Israelis were killed compared to 1,603 Palestinians killed by Israel. A ratio of more than eight to one. The First Intifada ended with the Oslo Accords in 1993, a supposed peace agreement but heavily rigged in favour of Israel. Illegal settlement construction not only continued but escalated in both the West Bank and Gaza, eventually leading to the Second Intifada. 

The Second Intifada saw the use of more violence on the Palestinian side. Some 1,010 Israelis were killed while between 2,739 and 3,168 Palestinians were killed. A ratio of around three to one. It resulted in the dismantling of settlements in Gaza. The Israeli government forcibly evacuated all settlers from Gaza. As the genocide in Gaza continued, so have calls from both Israeli settlers and politicians to resettle Gaza once the ethnic cleansing is complete. Illegal settlement expansion continued in the West Bank and East Jerusalem following the end of the Second Intifada. The brutal system that exists in the West Bank can be accurately described as apartheid. The West Bank is divided into three areas. Area A is controlled by the Palestinian Authority (which is really a puppet of Israel) and makes up 18% of the West Bank. Area B is controlled by the Palestinian Authority but shares security control with Israel and makes up 22% of the West Bank. Area C is controlled by Israeli settlers and the IDF, and makes up 60% of the West Bank. 

Those living in Palestine today are separated into eight tiers. 

The first tier is that of Israel's Jewish citizens, totalling around 7.2 million. They not only have full rights as citizens but they are the most privileged citizens in the world. They can commit any crime against Palestinians, including premeditated murder, and face no charges. Back in July 2024, several Israelis were detained for using anal rape as a method of torturing a Palestinian prisoner. In response, Israeli mobs rioted and stormed the detention facility. No consequences were meted out to either the rapists or the mobs that rioted to defend the rapists. 

The second tier are Palestinians and Arabs who live in Israel with Israeli citizenship, totalling around 2.5 million. These are called "Arab-Israelis" and are treated as second class citizens similar to Black people in the United States before and during the Civil Rights movement. While they possess full voting rights, they are forbidden from owning property in various areas in Israel. Jews do not face the same restrictions. Their safety is conditioned on them remaining silent on what Israel is doing in the West Bank and Gaza. If they speak out, there's a likely chance they will face police violence. "Arab-Israeli" schools and municipalities also receive far less funding than Jewish ones. 

The third tier are Palestinians and Arabs living in Israel without Israeli citizenship, totalling around 85,000. These are primarily of Bedouin origin and they are denied access to Israel's electrical grid, water supply, waste disposal services, public transportation system, and road/construction service. Israel does not allow construction of new homes in these communities but have destroyed thousands of existing homes in said communities. Israel does not recognize the existence or rights of these people. 

The fourth tier are Palestinians living in East Jerusalem, totalling around 360,000. They are given permanent residency permits, but those permits can be revoked at any time. 85% of Palestinian homes are officially considered illegal in Israeli law and can thus be demolished at any time. Palestinian schools, clinics, hospitals, parks and roads in East Jerusalem are also severely underfunded compared to Jewish ones. 

The fifth tier are Palestinians living in Area A of the West Bank, totalling around 1.6 million. They have no rights and no freedom of movement. They are not allowed to leave the West Bank without a permit and even then, if they leave for more than three years, they can loose what little right they have, namely to return to their home in the West Bank. They are often subjected to violent crackdown or even imprisoned if they protest. The Palestinian Authority enforces these laws on behalf of Israel.

The sixth tier are Palestinians living in Area B of the West Bank, totalling around 1.3 million. They are subjected to the same restrictions on their rights and freedom of movement as in Area A. In addition, Palestinians living here are forced to go through a series of checkpoints whenever passing into Area A or C. It is not uncommon for them to have to wait for hours at Israeli checkpoints just to get to work or school if their workplace or school was located in a place that required them to pass into Area A or C. Israel has also been expanding their control into Area B with the intent of starting land seizures and settlement growth there. 

The seventh tier are Palestinians living in Area C of the West Bank, totalling 100,000. Much of Area C has already been ethnically cleanse of Palestinians and repopulated with Jewish settlers. Those that remain are over 100 times more likely to have their home destroyed than to build a new home. Most of them have no access to clean water, medicine, emergency services, or basic healthcare. Many Palestinian children here are forced to walk long distances to reach the nearest school. A third of Area C are used as firing zones for Israeli soldiers and settlers. 

In the West Bank, the presence of soldiers and settlers makes life very dangerous as Palestinians are routinely harassed and assaulted by Israelis. They can also be indefinitely detained. Even children can be tried as adults in military court. Israeli settlers are armed and are allowed to shoot at Palestinians if they so please. Then there is the West Bank barrier, an apartheid wall that separates both the State of Israel and East Jerusalem from the West Bank. It is currently 438 kilometres long. Israel intends to expand construction of the apartheid wall to separate the different areas of the West Bank from one another. 

The eighth tier are Palestinians living in Gaza, totalling 2.25 million prior to the genocide. There is not much that needs to be said as the truth of what's happening in Gaza is live-streamed for the world to see. 

It is important to note that Palestinians living the West Bank, Gaza, or the diaspora are not allowed to enter Israel under any circumstances. Jewish settlers can move in whenever they please, but Palestinians whose families have lived there for centuries can't even step foot on their homeland.