One Date. Two Memories: Why Israelis and Palestinians Remember the Same History So Differently

May 14, 1948. David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, declares Israeli independence as the British Mandate comes to an end.

For Israelis, it marked the birth of a new country and the fullfilment of a long-held dream of Jewish self-determination. For Palestinians, the events surrounding this date became known as the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” a period of mass displacement and the loss of homes and communities.

How can the same moment represent independence to one people and catastrophe to another? To understand why, we have to go back to the history that brought both peoples to this point.

Zionism is a Jewish nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century. At its core, Zionism argued that Jewish people were not only a religious group but also a people with a right to national self-determination — the ability to establish and govern their own state or homeland.

For many early Zionists, this homeland should be in Palestine, which they viewed as the historical homeland of the Jewish people. The connection was not only religious: Jewish history, including the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah and the Jewish communities that had continued to live in the region, was deeply tied to the land.

But Zionism was also shaped by the reality of Jewish life in Europe. Antisemitism was widespread, and Jews faced discrimination, violent pogroms and, in some places, restrictions on where they could live and work. Some Zionists, therefore, argued that Jews could not rely on other countries to protect them and needed a homeland of their own.

As the movement grew, Jewish immigration to Palestine increased. They purchased land, established agricultural settlements, and developed cities and political organizations.

Zionism: The movement for a Jewish homeland

While Zionism was developing in Europe, Palestine was already home to a large Arab population, made up mainly of Muslims and Christians, alongside a smaller Jewish population.

For much of the 19th and early 20th centuries, Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire. People in the region did not initially all identify with a single Palestinian national identity in the modern sense. They could identify with their local communities, their religion, Arab culture, or the wider Arab world.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, however, Arab nationalism and Palestinian nationalism increasingly developed.

By the 1930s and 1940s, Palestinian opposition to Zionism had become increasingly organised. The Arab Revolt of 1936–1939, for example, was a major uprising against British rule and Jewish immigration. Britain suppressed the revolt, but the underlying conflict remained.

The Palestinian Arab background

By the end of the Second World War, Britain had become increasingly unable to resolve the conflict between the Jewish and Arab populations in Palestine. In 1947, Britain handed the issue to the newly created United Nations.

The UN proposed dividing the territory into two states: a Jewish state and an Arab state. Jerusalem and its surrounding area would have a special international status because of its importance to Jews, Muslims and Christians. This proposal became known as the UN Partition Plan, or Resolution 181.

The plan was accepted by the Jewish leadership, although not everyone in the Jewish community supported it. For Zionist leaders, the plan offered an internationally recognised path towards establishing a Jewish state.

Palestinian Arab leaders and neighbouring Arab governments rejected the proposal. They argued that the division was unfair, particularly because Palestinian Arabs were still the majority population living in the territory, and they opposed giving the proposed Jewish state such a large share of the land.

The partition plan never came into effect as originally proposed. Instead, the conflict escalated into the war of 1948, which would fundamentally reshape the territory.

1947: The UN Partition Plan

Another major turning point came in June 1967, when Israel fought Egypt, Jordan and Syria in what became known as the Six-Day War. Israel won the war and captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza, the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights.

Millions of Palestinians came under Israeli military control, and the territories became central to Palestinian demands for an independent state.

The war therefore produced another sharply different memory. For many Israelis, it was a victory that strengthened security; for Palestinians, it marked the beginning of an occupation that remains at the centre of the conflict.

1967: The Six-Day War

Despite decades of conflict, there have been repeated attempts to reach a peaceful agreement.

One of the most important was the Oslo Accords, signed in 1993 between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), led by Yasser Arafat. The agreements marked a historic moment because Israel and the PLO formally recognised each other and agreed to a process of limited Palestinian self-government and further negotiations.

However, Oslo was not a final peace treaty. Some of the most difficult questions were deliberately left for later negotiations, including the borders of a future Palestinian state, the status of Jerusalem, Israeli settlements, Palestinian refugees and security.

The peace process was also damaged by continued violence and opposition from extremists on both sides. In 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who had signed the Oslo Accords, was assassinated by an Israeli Jewish extremist who opposed the peace process. Palestinian militant groups also carried out attacks against Israeli civilians.

Oslo showed that cooperation was possible, but it did not resolve the fundamental disagreements over territory, security, refugees, Jerusalem and Palestinian statehood.

Attempts at peace: Could the two sides find common ground?

On October 7, 2023, Hamas-led militants launched a large-scale attack on southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 hostages. Israel responded by declaring war on Hamas and launching a military campaign in Gaza.

Hamas is a Palestinian Islamist political and armed group founded in 1987 that controls the Gaza Strip and has fought Israel through armed attacks.

October 7, 2023: A new chapter in the conflict

Following the October 7 attack, Israel launched a large-scale military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, aiming to destroy the group and bring the hostages home. The fighting caused widespread destruction and a severe humanitarian crisis, with more than 73,000 Palestinians killed and more than 174,000 injured in Gaza since October 7, 2023, according to Gaza health authorities. As of August 15, 2026, the reported figures were 73,391 deaths and 174,280 injuries.

At the same time, Israeli civilians continued to face the threat of attacks, while Hamas and other armed groups continued fighting Israeli forces and holding hostages. The war has also intensified wider regional tensions and made the possibility of a lasting peace even more difficult.

For civilians on both sides, the consequences have been profound. Families have lost loved ones, homes and communities, while millions have been affected by displacement and uncertainty about what comes next.

The war that followed

The conflict is experienced differently because Israelis and Palestinians have lived through very different histories.

For many Israelis, the story is shaped by centuries of antisemitism, the Holocaust, the creation of Israel and fears of attacks, making security and survival central concerns.

For many Palestinians, it is shaped by the Nakba, displacement, occupation and the lack of an independent state, making freedom, land and self-determination key issues.

When we learn about conflict, politics or other controversial issues, it is easy to encounter only one version of the story. News sources, social media and even the people around us can present events from very different perspectives. Looking at multiple perspectives helps us distinguish between facts, interpretations and opinions. It does not mean treating every claim as equally true, or avoiding conclusions when evidence clearly supports one. Instead, it means asking why different people understand the same event differently and checking information before forming our own views.

This is especially important when learning about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Its history is deeply connected to the identities, memories and experiences of both Israelis and Palestinians, so understanding only one perspective can leave out a significant part of the story. Looking at both helps us better understand why the conflict remains so difficult to resolve and why it continues to affect people today.

Why the story depends on who tells it

Author: Lena Kuna
Editor & Publisher: Lucía Lobato

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