What group of people has a dispute with israel over who should occupy that country?

Answer 1

Essentially this is the Palestinians, although many radical Arabs across the rest of the Middle East oppose Israel as well. The land of modern Palestine was marked out by the British Government in 1917, when British statesman Sir Arthur Balfour declared that this should become a homeland for Jews- up until that time, Jewish people had no homeland, and had suffered great persecution and prejudice in many nations, especially in Russia and Central Europe. Britain controlled that region of the Middle East at the time, and created Palestine as recompense for this prejudice- Balfour was hailed as a hero amongst the Jews, and many still hold him to be so. But it was envisaged that Jews and Arabs would live in Palestine peacefully side by side, a proposal that Palestinian Arabs had no problem with. Some Jews did indeed co-habit the new country peaceably with their Arab neighbours, and got on well with them, though others shunned the idea of having to share with Arabs. Following the last World War, the New State of Israel was created by the UN within the boundaries of Palestine. This was intended as a nation specifically for Jews, in compensation for all that they suffered in Hitler's Holocaust. The New State of Israel took up about half of the area of Palestine, and cut what was left of it into two, the main part being known as the West bank (because it lies on the West Bank of the River Jordan) and the other part, on Israel's South-Western tip, known as Gaza. It was intended that the new Israel would be a home for Jews, whilst the rump palestine would be home to Palestinian Arabs. Jerusalem was to be divided between the two. Some Palestinian Arabs, although unhappy with this proposal, grudgingly attempted to make it work. Others were furious, and saw the whole process as just being a piratical land-grab. In 1948, very soon after it's creation, Israel (under Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion) launched an all-out assault on what was left of Palestine. The Israeli Government were not satisfied with the size of their new country- they wanted ALL of the old Palestine to be exclusively a Jewish nation, and for the Palestinian Arabs to either move to other Arab countries, or accept status as a subject people. The United Nations condemned Israel's action, but did not take action to expel Israel from Palestine, fearing that such a move would cause them to be labelled as continuing anti-Jewish discrimination. Also the US (which has a huge Jewish population, and many powerful Jewish interest groups) refused to move against Israel. It has continued in this position ever since. During the 1967 Six Day War, Israel captured the Arab part of Jerusalem, and has held it to this day. Jerusalem is a holy city to Arabs as well as to Jews and Christians, and the Arab world is very angry that Israel controls it completely. This remains the basic situation to this day- the main dispute with Israel comes from the Palestinians, who are split into two factions. One faction is the more moderate Fatah wing, which used to oppose Israel's existence, but since Yasser Arafat's detente with the late Israeli PM Yitzak Rabin, has accepted the idea of Israel's existence provided it withdraws from occupied Palestinian territory. The other faction is the militant Hamas movement, which does not recognise Israel's right to exist and militantly opposes anything Israeli. There is also the paramilitary Hezbollah group, an organisation made up of Arab Muslims from several different states which seeks the destruction of Israel. They tend to operate from outside of the occupied territories, often from Lebanon. The Arab states all oppose Israel's occupation of Palestinian land, and it's control of Jerusalem, but to different degrees. Egypt is the most moderately inclined towards Israel, and signed a peace accord with it at Camp David in 1978- Jordan tolerates the Jewish state, but is uneasy about it's behaviour. Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the smaller Gulf States are more hostile towards Israel, especially Syria, and they are all thought to supply arms, equipment and militia fighters to Hezbollah and Hamas. Iran is also deeply anti-Israeli, and is widely believed to be arming and equipping the Islamic militant groups who launch terrorist attacks on Israel.