Last week, Fagerlia high school organized both an International Day and Operation Day’s work. This year’s project concerns helping Palestinian youth who deal with mental health issues, practise democratic and non-violent ways of changing society, and promote gender equality. We listened to a very wise lecture held by Hilde Henriksen Waage, a professor specialized in Middle East studies. It was a pleasure to be given such important information and down below, I will tell you a bit about how the Israeli-Palestine conflict started. After the informal lesson, I met a refugee whose experienced living Palestine. He told me he used to work for 18 hours a day. To me, it is difficult to understand because my school day only stretches for 8 hours.
Right after world war 2, many countries wanted to give the Jewish people a homeland. Britain was in charge of a piece of land called Palestine. Since there was already many Jews living in that country, it seemed like a good place to stay. In 1947, the United Nations created a plan to give Israel 55% of the land and Palestine 45%. On May 14th in 1948, Israel was created. Palestine and the other Arab countries felt the plan was unfair. The day after, Israel was attacked by the surrounding Arab countries to take back the Palestinian land. Israel won and took control of the Palestinian area. Israel considered themselves, as powerful although Palestine felt defeated. Both Israelis and Palestinians also have historical religious claims to the area. Peace talks have provided temporary peace at times. Then groups like Hamas and Plo have used terrorism to try to fight for an independent Palestine. Now, Palestine want the land that was supposed to be theirs, back. Israel responds with military force and peace falls apart. The cycle has continued for decades.
There is no simple answer to this conflict, but I think it’s significant to inform everyone about the ongoing struggle between the countries. From that we can learn and maybe prevent such incidents from happening in the future.
Sources:
Kristina 
Remember that Palestine never became a country…otherwise a good summary of a complicated conflict:)
LikeLike