Oct. 12, 2026 Editor, The News-Gazette: A recent letter from Russ Orrison explains the Palestine-Israel conflict as due to Hamas violence against Israel. The roots of this conflict in fact begin with the expulsion of the Palestinians from Palestine in 1948.
After WWI, Britain occupied Palestine, and promoted Zionist immigration there, over the opposition of the Palestinians. In 1914 the British estimated that at most 9% of Palestine’s population was Jewish. By 1947 this fraction had increased to 31%.
In 1948 Zionist militias launched an ethnic cleansing campaign against the Palestinians, seizing 77% of Palestine, destroying 400600 Palestinian towns, and driving out at least 726,000 Palestinians. According to a November 1948 Israeli census, 120,000 Palestinians were left in the new state of “Israel.” The unconquered West Bank and Gaza fell under Jordanian and Egyptian control. Some of the Palestinian exiles immigrated to other states, but many resettled in refugee camps in the West Bank or Gaza, or became stateless people living in camps scattered around West Asia.
In 1967 Israel attacked Egypt, Jordan and Syria, capturing the West Bank, Gaza, Golan Heights and the Sinai. Israel later returned the Sinai to Egypt as part of the Camp David Accords, but has been slowly annexing the West Bank with Jewish settlements and land confiscations; this did not end with the Oslo Accords. The Israelis initially tried to establish settlements in Gaza as well, but later evacuated them, instead placing a siege there. After the Oct. 7 attack, this siege changed into the current genocidal assault.
Some of the outstanding issues between Israelis and Palestinians include Palestinian human rights, the status of non-Jews in a “Jewish state,” whether there should be one or two states, the fate of the illegal settlements, the prosecution of war criminals, a right of return for Palestinian exiles, and the return of their property. EDWARD QUBAIN Rockbridge County
