The British Mandate and its collapse

Britain governed Palestine under a League of Nations mandate after the First World War. It had made competing wartime commitments — including the Balfour Declaration (1917), which supported "a national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine while stating that the rights of existing non-Jewish communities should not be prejudiced.

• Jewish immigration rose sharply in the 1930s as Jews fled Nazi persecution, deepening Arab fears of dispossession.
• The Arab Revolt (1936–39) was suppressed; Britain's 1939 White Paper then restricted Jewish immigration — enraging Zionists.
• After the Holocaust, pressure to admit Jewish survivors was overwhelming, while Britain kept limits in place.
• Jewish armed groups attacked British targets (the King David Hotel bombing, 1946). Exhausted and unable to reconcile the two sides, Britain handed the problem to the United Nations in 1947.

Why did Britain give up the Mandate?

1947–49: partition, independence and war

In November 1947 the UN General Assembly voted for a plan to partition Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state, with Jerusalem under international administration.

• Zionist leaders accepted partition; Arab leaders rejected it, arguing that the majority Arab population had not consented to giving up land, and that the plan awarded a disproportionate share to the Jewish minority.
• Civil war broke out. On 14 May 1948 Israel declared independence; neighbouring Arab states invaded.
• Israel won the war of 1948–49: better organisation, unified command, motivation and arms, against divided Arab armies with conflicting aims.
• The armistice lines left Israel holding more territory than the UN plan allotted; Egypt held Gaza and Jordan the West Bank.

The refugee question: around 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled during the 1948 war — remembered by Palestinians as the Nakba ("catastrophe"). UNRWA was created in 1949 to care for them, and the refugee issue has been central ever since.

Why did Israel win in 1948–49?

1956, 1967 and 1973

• Suez, 1956: after Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal, Israel invaded Sinai in a plan coordinated with Britain and France. US and Soviet pressure forced a withdrawal — a military success but a political defeat for the European powers.
• The Six-Day War, June 1967: amid Egyptian mobilisation and the closure of the Straits of Tiran, Israel struck first, destroying the Egyptian air force on the ground. In six days Israel took the Sinai, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. UN Resolution 242 called for withdrawal from territories occupied, and for every state's right to live in peace within secure borders.
• The Yom Kippur War, October 1973: Egypt and Syria attacked on the Jewish holy day and made early gains before Israel recovered. Arab oil producers cut output and raised prices, causing a global oil shock — a demonstration of new Arab leverage.

Why 1967 matters most: the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and the Golan created the territorial questions — settlements, borders, Jerusalem — that dominate the conflict to this day.

War, refugee issue, or peace process?

Tap an item, then tap where it belongs.

The Palestinian cause

Palestinian refugees and their descendants lived in camps in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, many stateless and dependent on UNRWA.

• The PLO was founded in 1964; after 1967 the guerrilla group Fatah came to dominate it, and Yasser Arafat became its leader.
• The PLO gave Palestinians a political voice, but its use of hijackings and attacks on civilians — including the killing of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972 — brought international condemnation.
• Relations with Arab host states were often violent: the PLO was expelled from Jordan after 1970 ("Black September") and from Lebanon after the Israeli invasion of 1982.
• The First Intifada (from 1987) — a mass uprising of stone-throwing, strikes and boycotts in the occupied territories — shifted world attention back to Palestinians living under occupation.

When was the state of Israel declared?

Camp David, Oslo — and deadlock

• Camp David, 1978 — US President Carter brought together Egypt's Sadat and Israel's Begin. The Egypt–Israel peace treaty of 1979 returned Sinai to Egypt and made Egypt the first Arab state to recognise Israel. Sadat was assassinated in 1981.
• The Oslo Accords, 1993 — secret Norwegian-hosted talks produced mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO and a Declaration of Principles, signed by Rabin and Arafat. The Palestinian Authority was created to govern parts of Gaza and the West Bank.
• Why it stalled: Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli extremist in 1995; settlement building continued; attacks on Israeli civilians continued; the hardest questions — Jerusalem, borders, settlements and the refugees' right of return — were left to "final status" talks that failed. The Second Intifada began in 2000.

Match the agreement to its outcome

Tap an agreement on the left, then its outcome on the right.

The core obstacles

Cambridge asks why the conflict has proved so intractable. The obstacles are concrete:

• Land: two national movements claim the same territory.
• Jerusalem: sacred to Jews, Muslims and Christians, and claimed as a capital by both sides.
• Settlements in the occupied territories change the facts on the ground.
• Refugees: the demand for a right of return versus Israel's insistence on a Jewish majority state.
• Security and violence: attacks and reprisals destroy trust and strengthen hardliners on both sides.
• Outside powers: superpower and regional involvement has often hardened positions rather than settled them.

Resolution 242

Writing about a contested conflict

Examiners want accuracy and balance, not advocacy.

• Use precise, dated evidence: 1947 partition plan, 1948–49 war, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1979, 1987, 1993.
• Present both perspectives where the syllabus asks for them — e.g. why Zionists accepted partition and why Arab leaders rejected it.
• Distinguish causes, events and consequences, and be careful with contested terms — explain what a term means to each side rather than assuming it.

When was the Six-Day War?

The consequences of 1967

The First Intifada

The big ideas to know

That is the Israelis and Palestinians depth study. Press Finish to see your score.