Reddit reviews Land, Labor and the Origins of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, 1882-1914, Updated Edition

I don't think I said it was tribes fighting for land:
> this is not fundamentally a religious conflict but rather a competition for land and resources between modern nations.

I would also argue that the colonialism was there from day one. Read Gershon Shafir's [Land, Labor and the Origins of the Isræli-Palestinian Conflict, 1882-1914] (http://www.amazon.com/Labor-Origins-Isr%C3%A6li-Palestinian-Conflict-1882-1914/dp/0520204018).

It's a crazy complicated history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Some of the earliest Jewish settlements were to escape Russian pogroms in the late 1800s. During this time the area we refer to as Israel or Palestine now was under control of the Ottoman Empire, which were relatively religiously tolerant provided citizens paid their taxes to include the Jizyah. Fast forward about 30-40 years, the Ottoman Empire (one of the Central Powers during WW1) is dissolved into many of the modern day states of the middle east by the British and French (Sykes-Picot Agreement). One of the easiest ways to see this is the hard angular lines of country's borders in the middle east. Anyway, when the the British and French divided the territories of the Ottoman Empire, the British ended up with Palestine. The British ran a provisional government of sorts during this time and ultimately the Jewish settlers of the area had far more experience with Western European notions of bureaucracy than the Arab Palestinians (far more accustomed the the rule of authoritarian's like the Ottoman Sultan). Anyway this continues for roughly the next 50 years with Jewish settlement continuing in several waves referred to as Aliyahs (Return in Hebrew if I remember correctly). Post WW2 the UN grants Israel statehood. This is a crazy crazy simplification of a highly complex issue but if your interested in reading about it, I would look into these 3 books.

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Land, Labor and the Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Land & Power: The Zionist Resort to Force

The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Crisis Revisited