What marked the beginning of the Arab-Israeli conflict?

Answer 1

The Arab-Israeli Conflict has its origins in the confrontation between immigrant Zionist Jews in the Mandate of Palestine and their interaction with the indigenous Arabs in the 1920s and 1930s. Before that point, the Immigration into the land had been a small trickle and Arabs were not terribly concerned. However, the Jewish immigration in the 1920s was quite large and disruptive. By the mid 1930s, both sides had developed militias which they used both to attack British colonial institutions and each other. Jews also flooded back to the Holy Land following World War II, since they felt that they would always be persecuted in countries where they were the minority. In 1947, as UN Resolution 181 was being debated, a full-scale war erupted between the Jewish militias and the Arab militias. When Israel declared its independence in 1948, the Arab States joined in the War which caused it to be internationally recognized and called the Arab-Israeli War of 1948-9. The on and off conflict that has remained unresolved for over half a century now.

Therefore, if we use the terms Israeli and Arab retroactively to those people who would eventually identify or would be identified as Israelis or Arabs, the conflict started during the 1920s. If we require that these terms be strictly applied, then the conflict started in 1948 when Israel declared its independence.