Palestine

Palestine (or the Occupied Territories of Palestine as it is also known) is a country in the Middle-East. The history of this country has been turbulent for centuries, however it has undergone the most change and turmoil over a large part of the past 100 years, particularly since the end of the second world war, when the Zionist movement really gained force. Before this point Palestine was under the control of the United Kingdom due to a League of Nations mandate received in 1922 (although it only legally came into effect in 1923). This mandate meant that the United Kingdom was to administer Palestine (and parts of Jordan) after the First World War. 

The decisions were made by the Allied Supreme Council, and at its early stages there was representation by Zionist influences, with some seeking provisions for a Jewish National Home. Even before the United Kingdom had received the United Nations mandate, the British foreign secretary Arthur James Balfour wrote a letter to leading member of the Jewish community Baron Rothschild declaring: 

His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

After the Second World War, Britain became less keen to hold on to an increasingly tough area for a few reasons: 

• Attacks by Irgun and Lehi harmed British morale and military installations, while also sparking public desire for involvement to end. 
• The cost of maintaining involvement of roughly 100,000 soldiers was too great for the UK, which was struggling to deal with post-war depression. This further added to public resentment for involvement. 
• US Congress was delaying a loan necessary to prevent British bankruptcy. The delays were in response to the British refusal to fulfill a promise given to Truman that 100,000 Holocaust survivors would be allowed to migrate to Palestine. 

Due to these reasons and others, in 1947 Great Britain announced their desire to relinquish control of the Palestine Mandate, allowing responsibility over Palestine to pass to the United Nations. The United Nations tried to create a partition plan, assigning land to Arabs and Jews, however this was met with resistance from Arab leaders due to the large parts of land assigned to Jews which had previously been Palestinian, civil war began to erupt. In 1948, the State of Israel was formed, and civil war fully took hold.

After the terrible antisemitism of the Second World War, the 

Due to the polarised opinion on these issues, there are very differing schools of thought on the matter of who is in the right. Many bloggers and activists create websites and write books to further their movements. Examples of each side are shown below.

Pro-Israel:
http://cifwatch.com/tag/six-day-war/

Pro-Palestine:
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/about_us/4maps.html

useful:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~sarhaus/MapsAndTimelines/Fall2007/Sulaka/Palestine.html