What role did the ottoman empire play in the origins of the Arab-israeli conflict?

Answer 1

The Ottoman Empire cannot in all fairness be blamed for any role in the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It was master of Palestine during the many centuries that the area was a place where the Arab majority and the small Jewish minority lived peacefully together.

The single dominant party to play a role in the origins of the Israeli-Arab conflic was Great Britain. After the British 'Balfour Declaration' of 1917 stating that a 'home' should be established for Jews in Palestine, the Ottoman Empire only commented that there would be legislation by which "all justifiable wishes of the Jews in Palestine would be able to find their fulfilment".

The Jewish claim on a Jewish State in Palestine mostly emerged ten to fifteen years after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in 1922, namely during the period when Palestine was a British protectorate. The reason: the British had made the promise, and now they were in a position to make good on their promise. The Arabs with some justification saw this as a breach by the British of earlier agreements made with them. Also, it was the Zionist Jews who decided that the 'home' promised in the Balfour Declaration should be read as 'State', and Great Britain in the end decided to go along with that.

Great Britain never put in a serious effort to convince the Arab world to accept the Jewish State in any size or form. When the State of Israel came into being in 1948, the Arab nations were therefore still completely hostile to the idea. And there are the origins of the Israeli-Arab conflict that endures to this day