The conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis dates back to the time of Abraham. God told Abraham to take his son up on a mountain and sacrifice him. Abraham did so and right before he sacrificed his son an angel came and told him not to and that God was just testing Abraham’s faith. Then God promised Abraham and his son many descendants, land, and a kingship. Now this is where the conflict begins, Jews descended from Abraham’s son Isaac and Muslims (Palestinians) descended from Abraham’s son Ishmael and Jews and Muslims disagree on which son was supposed to be sacrificed. So they both think that God gave them the Holy Land and they do not want to share it.

            That started their forever long bickering. The Jews lived in the Holy Land for a long time until they tried overthrowing the Romans in 66 AD, where they were crushed by the Romans, and the Romans moved them out of the Holy Land and spread them all throughout their empire. Since the Jews were out of the Holy Land, the Muslims decided to move in. The Muslims then lived there for hundreds of years. Then almost 2000 years after the Muslims moved in the Jews started a movement called Zionism, where Jews move back to the Holy Land. The Jews just expected the Muslims to give back the land and move out, but the Jews had been gone for almost 2000 years so the land, in my opinion, rightfully belongs to the Muslims.

            After WWII (on May 14, 1948) the Jews decided to make Israel a country again, and who was going to refuse? They had just been hunted down and murdered in mass numbers by the Nazis, everyone felt bad for them. So now Israel is a new country, but the Muslims did not like this. Mainly, no one in the Middle East liked this. Immediately a couple of the countries in the Middle East declared war on Israel. Egypt and Israel always fought because of the Sinai Peninsula, which both countries wanted control of. There has been peace between the two countries but because of the recent revolution in Egypt, we do not know how long this peace will last. Also the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, wants to kill every Jew on the face of the planet. The conflict between the two races has lasted thousands of years and will most likely last thousands of years more.