The origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict spans recorded history, and most people are unaware of it from an objective, historical, Jewish point of view. What follows is a three part historical analysis of many under reported facts of the conflict which is not just between so-called Palestinians and Jews but is between Arab and Jew.
The Arab-Israeli Conflict in a Nutshell:
Part I:
The Jews settled in Israel before the Romans. The Civilizations that existed there is gone. The Jews lived there under their own rule until the Greeks and then the Romans came. The Jews lived there under Greek and later Roman rule. Most of the Jewish people were thrown out of their land around 70 C.E. (C.E. =Common Era, B.C.E. =Before the Common Era; we live in the common era, now) by the Romans (barbarians by most people's standards [remember the gladiators] the Nazis would later set ferocious dogs on helpless people for sport too). Over 1,000,000 Jews continued to live in Israel.
Then, Islam was founded by Mohamed in 635 C.E. Mohamed and his group of Arabs spread across the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia by force, by war, murder, rape, pillaging, etcetera, forcing people to convert to Islam or die. The Islamic Kingdom included the Middle East (they took over Israel and allowed the Jews (as people of the book) to remain only as inferior, non-citizens without the rights of Muslims, but with more rights than Hindus, Zoroastrians (whom the Muslims slaughtered), and other polytheistic people. The Christians were in the midst of the Dark Ages in Europe. The Crusades came later during the Middle Ages (Medieval Times).
By the 16th century (1500's) the Muslims had become complacent & were conquered by the Ottoman Turks. The Ottoman Turks eventually converted to Islam. Jews still lived in Israel with an inferior status. Because Muslims (Koran) law forbad Muslims from dealing directly with Infidels (non-Muslims) and because the Jews (as people of "The Book") were more acceptable and more known to and trusted by Muslim rulers, Jews were employed as ministers, tradesmen, and bankers (not that they had a choice if they wanted to survive [Islam considered banking and other such trades to be unholy & not to be done by Muslims). They made good intermediaries because their religious laws do not forbid such occupations. The Christians until the 1600's had similar taboos against financial professions and so also employed Jews in these capacities for Jews who lived in Europe.
In the 19th century (1800's), the Ottoman Empire was defeated and the group of Muslims living in the former Kingdom of Israel took on slowly over time the name of the old Philistines (Palestine) from ancient days. Much of the Ottoman Turkish Empire had been conquered and absorbed by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, including the land of Israel with both Jews and Arabs living there. Starting in 1885 in Europe, a Jew named Theodore Hertzl revived the Jewish dream of a Jewish return to Zion. Jews in Europe and in Israel (Zion) began buying large parcels of what was then desert in what the Austro-Hungarian Empire and their King was calling Palestine. They bought up most of the land from the Sinai Desert to the Sea of Galilee and from Transjordan (at the Jordan River) to the Mediterranean Sea.