Running head: THE GAZA STRIP STARTED WITH THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

Gaza Strip Started With The Ottoman Empire

Christine E. Davis

HIS 210 World History II

McCain

Delaware Technical Community College

April 15, 2019

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Introduction

The Ottoman Empire ruled Gaza from 1516 until 1917, their empire collapsed during

World War I. Under a treaty agreement, most Ottoman territories were divided between

Britain, France, Greece and Russia. The Gaza became part of the British Mandate of

Palestine. Nationalist wanted minority races to live within their own race, the Jews were living

throughout Europe and they felt that the Jews needed a place of their own to live in. Zionism

began by nationalists moving Jews to one area, Israel. The area became the Jewish state of Israel.

The Jews pushed Palestinians out of Israel and ended up on a strip of land that became The Gaza

Strip. Israel did not want them back, and Egypt did not want them intermingling with their

people. Still today this conflict is going on. The small strip has been involved in many harsh

wars, and ruled by different types of government. Today they are ruled by Hamas a terrorist

group. The Gaza strip is poor and most living in refugee camps, that were built in 1948, from the

beginning. The fight is to be a two-state (Israel/Palestine), which is not going to happen neither

will give in, past hatred, or a one-state where it either becomes all Israel or all Palestine. Hamas

is fighting with Israel to take over and become all Palestine. Conflict over ownership of the

region has played out over the last 70 years. The Palestinians are living in a giant prison.
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Nationalism: the belief that your national culture and interests are superior to any other.

The Gaza Strip is located in the Middle East, it is a 140 square mile stretch of land

located along the Mediterranean coast between Egypt and Israel, a total of 141 Square miles

(slightly more than twice the size of Washington, DC), today it occupies over 2 million

Palestinian Arab. It is separated by Israel from Jerusalem, which holds deep religious and

cultural significance for both Arabs and Jews, with both Israel and Palestinians claiming

Jerusalem as a capital city. Israel and the Palestinian Authority have both asserted the right to

control the area (Marks, 2018). Israel’s claim to the land along the Mediterranean stems from

Hebrew tradition dating back to God’s promise of the land of Canaan to Abraham (Reference,

2019).

How it all began

The Ottoman Empire changed laws related to land titles in 1858, and land ownership fell

to absentee interests who sold large sections to Zionist groups that sought to re-establish a Jewish

homeland in the former land of Israel (Reference, 2019). Alfred Dreyfus a Jewish army officer

charged with spying for Germany. In 1894, he went through court for these charges, which

were dropped, but it began a bitter debate about the Jews being trustworthy in Germany. The

trial started the evolution of Zionism. “Zionism seeks to establish a home for the Jewish

people in Palestine” (Bentley, 2016). Zionism is the nationalist movement of the Jewish people

that supports the re-establishment of a Jewish homeland in the territory defined as the historic

Land of Israel (roughly corresponding to Canaan, the Holy Land, or the region of Palestine). On

May 14, 1948, Israel was recognized to be a Jewish state, for the first time in over 2,000

years, it arose a response to exclusive nationalism in Europe. Zionism provoked a resentful

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nationalism among Palestinians displaced by Jewish settlers (Reference, 2019). The

establishment of protectorates under British rule following World War I intensified hostilities

and resulted in several full-scale wars once Israel proclaimed its independence in 1948, with

each side committing acts of aggression and atrocities (Reference, 2019). Conflicts arose when

Zionists began displacing previous Palestinian tenants. The Palestinians were pushed out and

ended up at the Gaza strip, over 700,000 Palestinians left the new, Jewish Israel. They all were

stuck on the Gaza strip because Egypt and Israel wouldn’t let them pass. The next day, May

15, 1948, the Arab-Israel war began between Israel and Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Egypt & Lebanon.

At the end of this conflict, known as the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Egypt was given control

of the Gaza Strip (Marks, 2018).

In 1967 Israel took over the Gaza strip from Egypt during the Six-Day War. In six

days, Israel brought more than one million Palestinians under its direct control in the West

Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. The 1967 war turned Israel into the country with the

largest Palestinian population (Tahhan, 2018). According to Tahhan (2018), the shock of loss

and defeat precipitated a revolutionary atmosphere among Palestinians, which spurred the

emergence of armed resistance movements, vowing to take back Palestine by force throughout

the 1970s and 1980s. The rest of the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza

Strip, housing some 5.1 million Palestinians, remain under Israeli military control under the

pretext of security. Their lives have been dictated by hundreds of military checkpoints, a colour-

coded permit system, and a Separation Wall that has divided families. The violations are

unlawful killings, abusive detention, blockade of the Gaza Strip and restrictions on Palestinian

movement, the development of settlements, and discriminatory policies that disadvantage

Palestinians (Tahhan, 2018).

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From 1993 to 1995 they tried to negotiate for Israel to leave the strip called the Oslo

Peace Accord, that didn’t happen until 2005 by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Israel in late

2005 unilaterally withdrew all of its settlers and soldiers and dismantled its military facilities

in the Gaza Strip, but continues to control maritime, airspace, and other access.

Dismantlement of Israeli settlements was completed in September 2005; Gaza has

had no Jewish population since then, Muslim 98.0 - 99.0% (predominantly Sunni)

(CIA, 2019). In early 2006, the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, won the Palestinian

Legislative Council election, but attempts to form a unity government between Fatah and

Hamas failed, and violent clashes between Fatah and Hamas supporters ensued, culminating

in Hamas’ violent seizure of all military and governmental institutions in the Gaza Strip

(CIA, 2019). In response, the United States, Israel and much of the rest of the world, who all

regard Hamas as a terrorist group, cut off direct aid to Gaza just as Israel tightened its

security grip on the enclave (Malone, 2017).

Operation Case Lead (2008-2009) and Operation Pillar of Defense (2012) were in

response to rocket fire over the Gaza-Israel border, while the kidnapping and murdering of

three Israeli teenagers by two Hamas members sparked a seven-week conflict known as

Operation Protective Edge in 2014 (Marks, 2018). Since April 2017, the Palestinian Authority

has reduced payments for electricity supplied to Gaza and cut salaries for its employees

there, exacerbating poor economic conditions. Since 2014, Egypt’s crackdown on the Gaza

Strip’s extensive tunnel-based smuggling network has exacerbated fuel, construction

material, and consumer goods shortages in the territory. Donor sup port for reconstruction

following the 51-day conflict in 2014 between Israel and HAMAS and other Gaza -based

militant groups has fallen short of post -conflict needs (CIA,2019).

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March 30, 2018 to May 15, 2018, Palestinians in Gaza took part in a planned protest called the

“Great March of Return,” organized to raise awareness for refugees’ rights and coinciding with the

relocation of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. The motto of the Israeli left has been “land for

peace”–territorial compromise with Palestinian nationalism while upholding the ultimate

Zionist goal of a Jewish majority within an independent state.

In July of 2018, Kushner (White House Senior Advisor), stated “I think the only path

for the people of Gaza is to encourage the leadership to aim for a true cease-fire that gives

Israel and Egypt the confidence to start allowing more commerce and good to flow to Gaza.

Many countries would be willing to invest in Gaza if there was a true prospect for a different

path.” The interview was part of the U.S. efforts to communicate directly with Palestinians in

the West Bank and Gaza in hopes of putting political pressure on the Palestinian Authority

and Hamas (Gearan, 2018). According to News Week, (2019), President Donald Trump’s

advisor on Israel-Palestinian negotiations said the U.S. would offer “an outstretched hand” to

Gaza—but only when the Hamas leadership “renounces violence and ceases to threaten its

neighbors.”

As I am writing this, this morning of April 13, 2019 at 3:25 am, Israel attacked Gaza during a

peaceful rally, killing a Palestinian teenager and injuring at least 90 protesters including children,

health workers and journalists. Israeli forces turned the West Bank into cantons and continued to

impose the illegal closure on the Gaza Strip for the 13th consecutive year (PCHR, 2019). Reports

on Israeli human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territories for the week of April 4-

10 2019, Israeli forces continued systematic crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories. In the

Gaza Strip, the Israeli forces continued to use lethal force against the participants in the peaceful

protests organized along the Gaza Strip borders, which witnessed the peaceful protests for the
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53rd week along the eastern and northern border area of the Gaza Strip. In the Gaza Strip, Israeli

forces wounded 115 civilians, including 28 children, 5 women and 3 journalists. The injury of 2

of those wounded was reported serious (PCHR, 2019). The Gaza Strip is a site for protests,

bombings, land assault, and acts of violence. Under Hamas control, Gaza has suffered

from rising unemployment, elevated poverty rates, and a sharp contraction of the

private sector, which had relied primarily on export markets (CIA, 2019).
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References

Bentley, H., Ziegler, H., & Streets-Salter, H. (2016). Traditions & Encounters A Brief Global

History. Fourth Edition. Volume 2: 1500 To The Present.

Central Intelligence Agency (US). (2019, April 3). Middle East: Gaza Strip. The World Fact

Book Archive. Central Intelligence Agency (US).Gov. Retrieved from

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/gz.html

Croucher, S. (2019, April 9). Help Gaza when Hamas renounces violence. News Week.

Retrieved from https://www.newsweek.com/trump-israel-advisor-says-us-will-help-

gaza-when-hamas-renounces-violence-876804

Gearan, A. (2018, July 7). Trump administration focuses on Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip,

with Mideast peace plan stalled. The Washington Post. Retrieved from

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-administration-focuses-on-hamas-

controlled-gaza-strip-with-peace-plan-stalled/2018/07/06/3412e926-7a13-11e8-aeee-

4d04c8ac6158_story.html?utm_term=.b5fd648cec0e

International Middle East Media Center. (2019, April 13). Palestinian Center for Human

Rights, Weekly Report: Israel forces injure 115 Palestinian civilians, abduct 54.

International Middle East Media Center News. Retrieved from

https://imemc.org/article/pchr-weekly-report-israeli-forces-injure-115-palestinian-

civilians-abduct-54/

Malone, M. (2017, July 10). Looking for hope in Gaza. A War-torn people finds a way to

persevere. AmericanMagazine.org. 217(1), 18–25. Retrieved from

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http://search.ebscohost.com.libproxy.dtcc.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=124

089695&site=ehost-live

Marks, J. (2018, May 30). Gaza: The history that fuels the conflict. History. Retrieved from

https://www.history.com/news/gaza-conflict-history-israel-palestine

Reference. (2019). What are the causes of the conflict between Israel and Palestine?

Reference.com. Retrieved from https://www.reference.com/history/causes-conflict-

between-israel-palestine-db4b9b139abdb6f5

Tahhan, Z. (2018, June 4). The Naksa: How Israel occupied the whole of Palestine in 1967.

Aljazeera. Retrieved from https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/06/50-years-

israeli-occupation-longest-modern-history-170604111317533.html