The Contribution of Women to Peace and Reconciliation

in 691, the Crusades and the temporary rule of the area by the Cru -
saders, the area has been the subject and object of war and conquest.
Only the period of Ottoman rule of the region from 1516 to 1917 seems
to have been more or less peaceful.
At the end of the nineteenth century, when Jewish immigration began,
there were only about half a million people in the area, 90% of whom
were Muslims, so that only a few tens of thousands of Jews and Christians
lived in Palestine.
After the British victory in the First World War over the Ottoman Empire,
the area was divided between Britain and France, under a system of
“mandates”, which included the promise of independence over the medium
term. At that time, France occupied Lebanon and Syria, and Britain
got all of Palestine – including modern Jordan – and Iraq; the mandate
was issued in 1922. In 1917 however, Britain had, in the Balfour Declaration,
pronounced itself in favour of founding a national homeland for
the Jewish people – albeit with the express statement that this could
not be carried out in a way injurious to the rights of the non-Jewish communities
in Palestine; moreover, similar promises had been made to the
Arabs as well. When the mandate was issued, Britain determined that
the area west of the Jordan River be provided for settlement by the Jew -
ish people, and that east of the Jordan would become an Arab emirate.
The promise made to the Arabs of independence was thus broken, so
that the battle for Palestine began anew, for the Arab side was in no
way prepared to tolerate Jewish immigration and the creation of a Jew -
ish state. Thus did the conflict begin; its origins go much further back
into history than 1948, when the Israeli state was proclaimed against
the wishes of the British and the Arabs.
Jewish immigration into Palestine in large numbers began at the end of
the nineteenth century, and involved the purchase of land. The pogroms
against Jews in Eastern Europe, and the idea of Zionism motivated many
Jews to emigrate to Palestine. Starting in 1919, there were violent upris -
ings by the Arab population against Jewish immigration, leading, after
the rebellion of 1936 to 1939, to a complete ban on Jewish immigration.
This again led to militant attacks by Jewish underground organizations
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