Summary - During WWI, the Ottoman Empire which had sided with the Central Powers ruled over vast lands in the Middle East. The Treaty of Versailles gave Great Britain and France control over the region which proceeded to carve out nations that make up Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. Eventually the Balfour Deceleration would help establish the Jewish state of Israel in Palestine.
Today, there are many events happenning in the Middle East. One major occuring event is the conflict between the Israli and Palestinian people. This problem originates all the way back to before WWI. What began to occur during this time was zionist movment (Jewish nationalism). This form of Jewish nationalism, that continued into the 1920s and 1930s, encouraged the Jews to migrate to Palestine which would in turn make a Jewish-majority state there. Palestinian Arabs then began to demand a state of their own to be established, which was Palestine. Palestine, however, was ruled by the United Kingdom under the Palestine Mandate. The Brish however were being attacked by Zionist independence fighters and in 1948, they left after a 28 year period of rule. Israel then declared its independence but was then attacked by neighboring Arab states. After the victory of Israel, Over 700,000 Arab Palestinians fled the region. Israel continued to take over lands, such as East Jerusalem, the West Bank of the Jordan River, and the Gaza strip. This broke Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which says that the settlement and annexation of territory aquired in military conflict is forbidden. In 1987, a small up-rising against Israeli rule grew into a large conflict in Gaza, Jerusalem. An attampt to avoid tension in Gaza was the construction of the West Bank Wall, which has since been able to stop Palestinian militants from launching attacks against southern Israel. The best diplomatic way to end tension is a new distribution of territories between Israel and Palestine. The conditions would be that Israel would still maintain Jerusalem (their inherited right) and that the distribution would make Israel not spread out and in the middle. The entire territory will be split right down the middle with more security barriers to prevent any further attacks. If this is done, then the attacks would die down. The two peoples will not become bestfrieds (they have only hated eachother for the last century) but they can still avoid war and killing.
