Part I: History of the Palestinian/Israeli ConflictJews and Arabs had mutual tolerance until Theodor Herzl started the modern Zionist movement ("History 10 Handout" page 1-5). Zionism is the belief that Jews should have a homeland of their own, and in 1917 the British decided to support Zionism with the Balfour Declaration (Mattar et al. 380-382). After the Balfour Declaration the Jewish people began massive immigration to Palestine and the Arabs living in Palestine strongly opposed this Jewish immigration. Much of the reason the British decided to support the Jews was that all Jewish people had to suffer the years of terror brought by the Holocaust. They needed a place to go and their old Holy Land seemed like the perfect place at the time ("History 10 Handout" page 1-5). The British withdrew from Palestine because they were receiving complaints from both Jews and Arabs. The United Nations developed a plan for the partition of Palestine in 1947, which passed the United Nations by a two-thirds vote (Brooks, “British Mandate for Palestine: Arab-Israeli Wars” Web). However, the Arabs refused to accept the compromise, and on May 14, 1948, Israel declared itself a state with the approval of the United States and the Soviets. On May 15, 1948, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan invaded Israel because of its status ("History 10 Handout" pages 1-5). This began Israel's War of Independence, which overall was a victory for Israel. The soldiers fighting for the invading countries had no experience in battle and fell into the hands of Israel, instead of a clear victory they established an armistice ("History 10 Handout" page 1-5). Israel's War of Independence produced over 50,000 Arab refugees and forced most of them to live in rural agricultural villages... half way... ack). Therefore, Palestinians must establish a democratic political system in which Hamas is no longer in power. They also need to form a legitimate fighting force run by a government so that terrorist attacks will stop because the government will be in control. The attacks will stop when a democratic government is in place because a real government would not tolerate this behavior. However, these steps are not that difficult and can be undertaken immediately if desired. Overall, the conflict in Israel will never be resolved if the two sides fail to cooperate with each other and see the other side. While Israel may have the power in this relationship, Palestine can still take its own measures to resolve the conflict. Both sides are to blame for the problems they have had and neither side is bigger than the other, peace can be achieved if they want it.