10. Palestine
Palestine has become the territorial conflict that dominates the headlines around the world and it has been a source of strife for thousands of years. However, the modern day conflict began after World War II. Millions of Jews had been displaced after the war and needed somewhere to go. Many of them flocked to Palestine and the city of Jerusalem, which was mostly Arab controlled with some Jewish citizenship. Both groups believe that they have a right to live there, with particular importance placed on Jerusalem.
The British Mandate of Palestine was an attempt to maintain peace and order in the region but failed in 1947. The UN took over and presented the UN Partition Plan which would form two separate states with Jerusalem remaining as an international UN controlled city. The plan failed when the Jews agreed but the Arabs did not. Therefore, in 1948, Israel declared its independence.
This led to the Arab-Israeli War which occurred when the armies of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq attacked the new state. Years of fighting ended with Jordan taking the West Bank and East Jerusalem and Egypt getting the Gaza Strip. In 1956, another war broke out when Israel invaded the Sinai Peninsula with the help of France and Britain. In 1967, a six-day war occurred in which Israel captured the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, The West Bank and East Jerusalem. In 1973, The Yom Kippur war broke out and continued to deteriorate relations in the area.
In 1988, the Palestine Liberation Organization declared the State of Palestine with control over the Palestine territories. Palestine has brought referendums for statehood to the UN council but they faced strong opposition from the U.S., Israel and Australia. However, attitudes toward Palestine are gradually changing with 136 of 193 member countries of the UN recognizing the Palestinian state. In 2012, the UN upgraded Palestine’s status to “non-member observer state” which was considered by some to be a de facto recognition of Palestine. In December of 2015, a resolution in the UN passed which demanded Palestinian sovereignty over the natural resources in Palestinian territory that were currently under Israeli occupation.