-ance and -ence are both suffixes that are in the past participle. So they are used on words refering to the past.

Not true! "ed" and "en" are past participle endings The suffixes "ance" and "ence" turn words into nouns that refer to the act of or state of being or the quality of being for a person, place, or thing. For example:

brilliance= state of being brilliant or quality of light, amount of shining

assurance= the act of assuring someone

ANSWER

Whether a noun ends in -ance or -ence is determined by its Latin root. Words derived from Latin verbs having -are in the infinitive take -ance, otherwise -ence.

There is a distinct spiritual flavour to the verses of Gitanjali. Going through them, anyone is capable of getting transported into -what in poetic idiom is often referred to as- a 'poetic heaven'. As Yeats too had expressed, in his introduction to the Gitanjali, the verses depict a poetic world which can only be dreamt of by most of us. There is an other-worldly feel to it. These words can only be uttered by a person who has transcended the physical world to explore what lies beyond it. But isn't that what every poet wishes to achieve? Gitanjali is labeled as 'religious' poetry by critics; but to Tagore these verses were just poetry and it is these classic poetic qualities of Gitanjali that is dealt with presently.

Even a lay reader with no feel for poetry will be able to recognise how these verses though framed in the simplest of vocabulary, manage to articulate thoughts and feelings of the highest order. To comprehend them may not be possible for all. Such is the talent of Tagore and such his inspiration. In Gitanjali, I see a poet's gratitude finding expression. Every single utterance of the poet is soaked in this gratitude felt towards that Supreme Being without whose will, a poet would never have been born. The very fact that God has appointed him to accomplish a poet's task is elevating. And when the recesses of a poet's mind, impregnated with divine feelings, reach the state of maturity, it is but a moment's labour for a poem to be born through the channel of language.

To a true poet, every poem comes as a blessing granted after numerous prayers have been offered at the altar of the Supreme Being. Gitanjali is an embodiment of these several prayers that the poet has offered at the feet of the divine giver of inspiration. While praying, we do not always plead for something, sometimes we praise our God and sometimes we just share our sorrows and joys as if talking to a friend. At other times we simply meditate in order to compose our minds. Prayers are means to achieve inner harmony. The quality of poetry depends upon the intensity of this prayer. Tagore's Gitanjali is evidently a prayer, a poet's prayer, and manifests in itself that harmony which the poet has experienced.

A proper prayer is that which involves direct communion with the Supreme Being. It is an extremely personal experience. Therefore the poetic inspiration experienced by a poet is also a thoroughly personal experience, which one can consider as the benefit of prayer. In Ramayana we do see how Ravana through constant utterance of prayers wins the favour of Lord Shiva. We can consider a poet too to be like that, who constantly prays for inspiration and when the Muses are convinced of his sincerity the wish is granted. Since we are considering Gitanjali to be the poet's prayer, we must understand that it is something which the poet has undergone singularly. The tapasya (spiritual endeavour) of the poet can not be therefore understood by all. One must have experienced the same to be able to interpret exactly as to what the poet is saying. Yet an attempt is being made here to interpret the Gitanjali from the point of view of the poet's various poetic experiences and the poetic qualities that the song exhibits.

The very opening line of Gitanjali reflects the inner harmony that the poet has experienced. The words are an outburst endeavouring to articulate the intense pleasure that the poetic experience has conferred upon him:

"Thou hast made me endless such is thy pleasure"

'Thy' here becomes poetic inspiration itself and 'thou', the one who inspires. Anyone is bound to be ecstatic if his prayers are answered. We see the poet here starting at the peak of inspiration. In the life of every genuine poet such a moment does occur when he experiences endlessness.

One may wonder how endlessness can be experienced in a brief moment as it is seemingly contradictory. This can be explained by drawing a parallel. Coleridge in his Kubla Khan talks of 'A sunny pleasure domes with caves of ice'. Here the opposites merge and all seemingly contradictory elements are resolved. When a poet touches this point he experiences eternity for in a state of eternity only a single entity exists. It is only when the poet attempts to articulate this oneness that he has experienced by means of language that the problem arises. Because language and words belong to the mortal world; their realm is the world of corporeal experience. There is no specialized vocabulary that can articulate abstract, extra-sensory experiences such as what a poet experiences when he is inspired. At the level of experience, everything is in a state of unity. But the moment a poet descends to the ordinary mode of existence and tries to express in finite language his infinite experiences, the contradictions emerge.

In prayer, it is essential to keep in mind that we are insignificant as against the Supreme Being. It is important therefore to develop a humble attitude. A humble being who is completely aware of the all-encompassing spirit of the divine being would always express a state of wonder, awe and admiration at this. There can be no room for the poet's vanity to exist when he is subject to the 'grandeur of divine inspiration'. A true poet who experiences intense divine inspiration would sublimate to an egoless state and he will humbly follow the instructions of his Muses:

"My poet's vanity dies in shame before thy sight. O master poet, I have sat down at thy feet. Only let me make my life simple and straight, like a flute of reed for thee to fill with music."

The poet here confesses how his own vanity or pride dies in shame when he realises that there is a poet more powerful than himself now before his sight. There is no way in which he can surpass the 'master' poet, and it is only within his capacity to surrender at his feet and endeavour to emulate him. The expression 'master poet' also needs some explanation here. The Supreme Being who bestows poetic inspiration upon man is a poet himself, his creation being the universe. We have earlier reflected upon eternity and oneness of experience. The same idea continues here. The master poet, who is the creator of the universe, is one single entity. The music that emerges from the master poet is responsible for the creation of this universe. The poet is only an instrument, like a flute, and it is the divine giver of inspiration who fills it with music. The poet knows that it is only as an instrument that he must ideally come before his master's presence:

"I know that thou takest pleasure in my singing. I know that only as a singer I come before thy presence."

Also note these lines:

"I know not how thou singest, my master! I ever listen in silent amazement.

The light of thy music illumines the world. The life breath of thy music runs from sky to sky. The holy stream of thy music breaks through all stony obstacles and rushes on.

My heart longs to join in thy song, but vainly struggles for a voice. I would speak, but speech breaks not into song, and I cry out baffled. Ah, thou hast made me captive in the endless meshes of thy music."

The poet's constant reference to music and singing must be commented upon. What possible connection could there be between poetry and music? Apart from both being forms of art, the aspect of metre, rhyme and coherence of thought in poetry relates it to the rhythm found in music. Metre, rhyme and coherence of thought in poetry bring in order and discipline and to achieve this is no mean task; the poet will have to struggle. A poet will have to constantly endeavour for this and the task in hand cannot be finished so easily. Music suggests euphony as against cacophony which can be related to the assonance in poetry as against the dissonance of the world. Musicalisation of the poet's thoughts would result in harmony in his poetry, which is an essential attribute. Tagore's reference to the master poet's music and his own music also relate to 'musica mundana', the harmony of the elements of the spheres and of the seasons, and 'musica humana', the harmony between body and soul in singing, respectively. As mentioned earlier the divine giver of inspiration is a creative being as well responsible for the creation of the universe and the harmony found in it. The poet on the other hand is also creative and creates art and gains inspiration from the master forever emulating him. A poet experiences meditative immersion in music always in the consciousness due to the fateful participation of the celestial sphere; his sensitivity is integral. In the universe a mortal being always sees contradictory elements. The life-giving breath of the master poet is boundless and capable of inspiring all but only the ones gifted with the faculty for it can benefit from the inspiration. When the poet reflects upon how the master poet went about creating the universe from all the dissonant elements that were present he is awe-inspired, his own task of composing poetry from life seems insignificant and all that he can do is but to listen in silent amazement. And when a poet transcends his mortal being and merges with the divine, even if it is only for a brief moment, the apparent discordance dissolves, there is clarity of vision and he is able to see the 'uni'verse as opposed to the 'multi'verse.

Philip Sidney in his 'Apology for Poetry' echoes something similar when he says, "The world of nature is brazen but the poet always delivers the golden." Due to the profound inspirational heights a poet is able to universalize and make one what is otherwise harsh and separate.

"All that is harsh and dissonant in my life melts into one sweet harmony- and my adoration spreads wings like a glad bird on its flight across."

As mentioned earlier, at the peak of inspiration every poet experiences oneness. The poet when inspired is able to compose harmony out of dissonance and make soft what to a layman appears harsh. Only an artist is gifted with the faculty by which he can make dead stones come alive, and convert them into an idol for worship. We all do see stones lying on paths trodden upon day after day, but how many of us do recognize that these stones can become objects of worship when carved? That is exactly what a poet does. Even Shakespeare echoes this idea when he says "through indirections find directions out." The raw material for poetry is the world and its life which is physical and short-lived but the poet composes life into poetry, casting it in the mould of inspirational experience and takes it to metaphysical heights and makes it everlasting. That is why when the poet is inspired all the harsh and dissonant elements in life melt into one sweet harmony and flow out as poetry. This also explains why all great poets harp on the significance of coherence, wholeness of meaning and comprehensiveness of imagination in poetry.

In the line quoted above, the imagery of a bird in its flight suggests the idea of 'poetic flight'. At the level of inspirational experience a poet is glad and filled with adoration or respect for his Muses. His faculty of imagination is like the wings of a bird that helps him to soar above the ordinary plane of existence and see those aspects of life which others cannot. Keats expresses something similar in his 'Ode to a Nightingale' when he says that he would fly on the "viewless wings of poesy". The authenticity of the poetic experience is established here as other poets have also felt the same way.

But the lack of inspiration or inability to write poetry, also referred to as poetic lull can be an extremely painful experience for the poet, which Tagore expresses in his prayer:

"Away from the sight of thy face my heart knows no rest or respite, and my work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil."

The poet's poetic endeavour constantly needs the inspiration of the master poet and away from him the poet would never be able to accomplish his task. The poet's work is no mean task, as already mentioned. Therefore in a situation where there is nothing to inspire a poet has to struggle. In one of the lines previously quoted the poet expresses how when his speech breaks not into song, he cries out baffled. The poet has to communicate his feelings to the rest of the world in a meaningful fashion and this becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil if no inspiration enlightens him. But the poet is ready to wait sincerely for the moment of inspiration to arrive:

"In the night of weariness let me give myself up to sleep without struggle, resting my trust upon thee.

Let me not force my flagging spirit into a poor preparation for thy worship.

It is thou who drawest the veil of night upon the tired eyes of the day to renew its sight in a fresher gladness of awakening."

A sudden understanding seems to dawn upon the poet that his master only wants him to rest for sometime and get back to his task at a later time. The night of weariness can refer to the moments of poetic lull, in which case the poet must sleep or rest, reposing faith in his master that he would awaken the next day with fresh inspiration that would provide him gladness. A poet can never force poetry out of him. Infact it is believed that it is not the poet who writes poetry but poetry that writes the poet. Tagore here echoes something of the same when he says that his own flagging or waning spirit should not make vain attempts. The poet's poetry is the prayer that he offers for worship to his master and a devoted poet can never afford to compromise in his quality of offering. There are other verses in Gitanjali too which echo this idea. Infact if we read the different lines of Gitanjali closely it is possible to relate to similar ideas; only the metaphor varies but the poet's various experiences that find expression would be more or less similar. Take a note of this:

"On many an idle day have I grieved over lost time. But it is never lost, my lord. Thou hast taken every moment of my life in thine own hands.

Hidden in the heart of things thou art nourishing seeds into sprouts, buds into blossoms, and ripening flowers into fruitfulness.

I was tired and in my idle bed and imagined all work had ceased. In the morning I woke up and found my garden full with wonders of flowers."

We can connect these lines to the ones quoted earlier. When the poet experiences a lull and is unable to carry forward his task any further; he faces a block. The poet knows that he is a mortal being and his life on earth is brief and the task in hand enormous. He values time and cannot afford to let go even a single moment waste. A poet experiences boundless joy in accomplishing his task but being idle is disheartening and he grieves over time lost when he was making futile attempts to compose poetry. But the poet realises that the moments were not really lost and his master had taken it up from him in order to let him prepare himself. This idea holds relevance because every time a poet experiences spells of lull it only means that his thoughts are undergoing a transformation or renewal of some sort and once they are fully prepared the poet regains his capacity to express them. It is the master that nourishes 'seeds' of thought in the poet's mind and when the poet is able to fructify them into lovely poems he offers them to his master in all obeisance. The poet's poetry is nothing but prayers dedicated to the master poet:

"From the words of the poet men take what meaning pleases them; yet their last meanings point to thee."

Tagore had always maintained that his religion was a poet's religion. Most critics interpret Gitanjali from a solely religious point of view. This maybe because he belonged to an Indian Hindu community generally considered to be pious and devotional. Tagore's poetry cannot be confined to a particular creed or faith; it belongs to the universe. A poet's religion knows no boundaries, it is all-inclusive. The religiousness of a poet arises not from the religion he belongs to but out of a respect for life which in him is an instinct. Can anyone ever point out exactly where from faith emerges? It is as impossible as to predict when exactly the heart began to beat or the universe was set in motion. When Wordsworth referred to poetry as the "spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions recollected in tranquility" he fore grounded the word 'spontaneous' only in order to stress on the instinctive nature of poetry writing. The urge to write poetry is a call of the conscience, an intuitive pursuit which not everyone is capable of committing oneself to.

In the essay called 'The Poet's Religion' Tagore says: (excerpts from pg. 3-26)

"Through creation man expresses his truth; through that expression he gains back his truth in its fullness. But the poet in man knows that reality is a creation, and human reality has to be called forth from its obscure depth by man's faith which is creative. The great world ... has its call for us. The call has ever roused the creator in man, and urged him to reveal the truth, to reveal the Infinite in himself."

There is mystery in it, like the mystery about life and its depths can never be fathomed using language as a measure:

"At the immortal touch of thy hands my little heart loses its limits in joy and gives birth to an utterance ineffable."

Here the giving birth to an 'utterance ineffable' by the poet is akin to Wordsworth's 'spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions'. When poetic inspiration touches the poet, his sensibility is stirred; the humble poet is elevated to unprecedented heights of imagination in his moments of tranquility and the poetry which overflows or is born out of him then is filled with emotions or joy; guided by his inspiration, he utters what would otherwise be ineffable or inexpressible.

This takes us to another level of understanding of the poet's creed which requires him to utter what under ordinary circumstances is inexpressible. Every religion has its prescribed rites and rituals. A poet's religion also requires him to follow certain methods. "When thou commandest me to sing…" says Tagore which we can relate to the commandments in the Bible that every believer will have to abide by. A poet- if he is a strong believer in his poetic creed- will have to obey the commandments of his Muse, the supreme being that inspires. It is a poet's duty to articulate the truth without being misled into fallacies. That is why poets are believed to be the conduits through which God reaches common man. In his essay, 'Silent poet, untaught poet', Tagore makes an important statement with regard to the poet's rites that must be performed faultlessly:

"A powerful imagination does not by itself make a poet. It must be a trained and refined imagination of a high order. There should be the intellect and the taste to employ the imagination to good purpose." He even goes on to say later, "The imagination too, like everything else, requires training. An imagination without proper training revels in the extravagant, the impossible, the preternatural." He goes on to compare such an imagination with a mirror of curved surface that shows its image disproportionately and then accuses people with ill-trained imagination, "People of such imagination cobble together ill-sorted objects and produce a monster. They are incapable of seeing incorporeal dimensions in a corporeal object…"

Therefore a poet has to develop a religious discipline in order to reach that state of perfection. Praying for inspiration, offering one's songs to the 'divine giver of inspiration' and constantly training oneself for the complex art of poetry writing are the rites that a poet must faultlessly perform. It is not an easy path to pursue:

"It is the most distant course that comes closest to thyself, and that training is most intricate which leads to the utter simplicity of a tune."

CONCLUSION:

There is only a very thin line that separates poetry from spirituality or religion. Infact poetic experience is akin to spiritual/religious experience when the poet is genuine in his pursuit. In spirituality great thoughts realised by enlightened beings gradually transformed themselves into religious doctrines and the spiritualist came to be regarded as God incarnate. A true spiritualist never abandons the world but moves along with the world understanding the problems of humanity, redressing them. The poet who experiences true inspiration is also an enlightened soul. He does not shut his doors to the outside world but refines the world through his imaginative capacity and offers the world an antidote for its maladies through his works. A spiritualist conveys himself to the rest of the world by means of sermons and teachings whereas a poet leaves his thought behind in the form of his art. The poet's soul is connected to the divine force, whereas his physical self is linked with the people in the rest of the world and for him complete bondage/surrender to the Divine force means complete freedom where he becomes a tool in the hands of the divine forces. For both the spiritualist and the poet Deliverance lies not in renunciation of the world but in such bondage:

"I feel the embrace of freedom in a thousand bonds of delight."

The medium of language has its own impact. In poetry, the spiritual aspects are subtly woven; the poet never preaches overtly. These lines of Tagore directly appeal to his master conveying what a struggle it is for a poet to be able to express satisfactorily in language what he has experienced at the spiritual level. A poet can never completely transfer his experiences into words and the relationship that he shares with the divine forces remains a mystery forever:

"I put my tales of you into lasting songs. The secret gushes out of my heart. They come and ask me, 'Tell me their meanings.' I know not how to answer them. I say, 'Ah, who knows what they mean!' They smile and go away in utter scorn and you sit there smiling."

Infact when spiritual truths are written down they become literature automatically. Take the Bible for instance; today its popularity in the world is more as a literary account of the Christian civilization and its beliefs than as a holy or religious text. Literature, especially poetry, is therefore a viable medium for communicating truths that people realise through heavenly inspiration at various points of time in their life. A poet too is a spiritualist who undergoes a grand transformation in his lifetime due to the various inspirational experiences and becomes sublime. A poet is like the legendary white swan which is believed to take only the milky portion from the milk leaving behind the water in it; he offers to the world pure truth which is soiled by the world otherwise.

Through Tagore's Gitanjali we can get a glimpse of the poet's true nature and his spiritual feelings. Embodied in this work is his very soul; it will continue to give out sparks of truth to the world. This pious poet's prayer will continue to kindle in generations of poets the desire to lead a life of humility and self oblivion and accomplish their task of telling this world what it would not realise otherwise with utmost sincerity. Tagore's own reflection upon his poetry, I suppose, would be the best way to conclude this essay that is all about the poet's prayers leading to divine inspiration and complete surrender to the 'master' poet:

"When I look back and consider the long, uninterrupted period of my work as a poet, one thing appears clear to me that it was a matter over which I had hardly any authority. Whenever I wrote a poem, I thought it was I who was responsible for it, but I know well today that this was far from the truth. For in none of those small individual poems was the real purport of my whole poetical work wholly significant. What the real purport is I had no knowledge of previously. Thus, without being aware, of the Ultimate, I have continued adding one poem to another. Whatever limited idea I may have ascribed to each of them, today, with the cumulative aid of all my poems I have come to realise, surpassing each of their individual meanings, one supreme and unbroken idea had flowed steadily through them all, so that years afterwards I wrote:

What is this game ever-new

You play with me in your jesting mood?

Whatever I may want to say

You do not allow me to express.

Residing in the innermost me

You snatch words from my lips

With my words you utter your own speech,

Mixing your own melody.

What I wish to say I seem to forget;

I only say what you want me to say.

In the stream of songs

I lose sight of the shores."

Answer 1

In the context of the question, it would be unfair to lay the blame of Palestinian division on the United Nations. At least from a Western civilization viewpoint The history of Palestine and the state of Israel is a long and complex story that has many perspectives. However, on May 14th of 1948 when Israel was established as the modern Jewish, or as some would call it Zionist state, there was no official "Palestine" and no Arabs that had declared a sovereign state of Palestine and therefore, technically speaking there were no Palestinians. That being said if you Google the phrase; "Plight of the Palestinians" there are more than half a million results which clearly gives meaning to the term Palestine and Palestinians.

Jewish Presence

The history of a Jewish presence in Israel dates back at least 3.400 years to the early days when Judaism was first formed as a religion. Throughout their history both the Jews and Palestinian Arabs have been dispersed and then have returned to the land of Israel or Palestine. The origin of Judaism is sketchy at best but seems to go as far back as the beginning of civilization itself. This answer being a distinctly Western Civilization point of view, the history of Islam is even sketchier and while many accounts date the origin of the Muslim religion as forming in the 7th century the history of Islam is more complex and many Arabs and Middle Easterners believe the very same prophets and figures of Judaism are prophets and figures of Islam. From Adam to Noah to Abraham to Jesus and Muhammad the Qur'an declares them all prophets of Islam. There are, of course, the Christians who have become as much a part of Palestine's history as both Muslims and Jews but in the beginning there were either Jews who were monotheistic or Arabs either being Islamic, (monotheistic), or more pantheistic. The divisions began long before 1948.

It is in between the area of 1400 and 1100 BC that most scholars place the Israelites Canaan Egypt. Around 1050 BC the Jews formed their own independent kingdom but around 950 BC that kingdom was split into the Kingdom of Judah and the Kingdom of Israel. While the historical accuracy of this remains controversial, it is less historical accuracy that matters in understanding the current divisions and more important to understand both the Judaic and Islamic or Arab perspectives. Indeed, it was the efforts to form a Hebrew Monarchy that in many ways began much of the divisions, not only between Arabs and Jews but between Jews themselves. Prior to the establishment of Hebrew Monarchies the covenant with God was just that. God, or Yahweh was the law and the Jews were subject to that law and that law alone. In the Book of Samuel the Prophet Samuel warns the Jews that would be a price to pay for disobeying God and instead obeying the laws of man. The fist Monarch of Israel was Saul, who not interested in Samuel's warnings, broke with that Prophet and began the descent into arbitrary despotism. There are today divisions of rabbinical view on the status of Saul as some see him as a hero to the Jewish people and others as the one guilty of breaking with the covenant with God.

In 720 BC, the Assyrians conquered and then exiled the Israelites and this became known as the time of the lost tribe of Israel. For those Arabs of this region it was a time that saw Babylons power give way to the strength of the Neo Assyrian Empire which many historians consider to be history's first real empire. The Neo Assyrian Empire had grown strong enough to become a major threat to the 25th dynasty of Egypt and given the long history of Egypt and surrounding Arabs and Jews, the modern day notions of an uncivilized Middle East tends to forget that civilization itself began in this region. Egypt, with her many gods and idols, was in many ways the predominant culture of civilization. But the time of Neo Assyrians brought a new dimension to culture and law and it was during this time that Aramaic was made the official language of the region and even the ancient Babylonians, long regarded as the epitome of wickedness had been the civilization that brought us the highly regarded, then and today, Code of Hammurabi, a set of common law records that gives profound meaning to common laws since time immemorial.

In 586 BC the Jews were again exiled only this time to Babylon when Nebuchadnezzar conquered the Kingdom of Judah. Then in 538 BC Babylon was conquered by Cyrus the Great who proclaimed the Judeans free and approximately 50,000 Judeans returned to Israel. Cyrus the Great had been the founder of the Great Persian Empire that essentially ruled the Middle East until Alexander the Great, in a blink of an eye, turned the world into a prototype of what it is today. The Greek influence on the world essentially began with Alexander the Greats conquests bringing to much of the world the cultures of Greece which has been in many ways the foundations of Western Civilization and even profoundly influenced the Islamic Golden Age. But this Great Greek Empire took from the Palestinians, Jewish or Arab, a relative time of peace under Persian rule and brought the internal wars of the Greeks and power struggles between Ptolemy, who inherited Egypt, and Seleucus, the Middle East. Israel found itself, after two centuries of relative peace under Persian rule, conquered by a Greek Empire that lasted as long as Alexander and watched as the ambitious generals of the West fought for control over real estate. Yet through this time Jews clung to their faith and accepted this seeming chaos as punishment for breaking the covenant of God.

However, in between 174 and 135 BC there was the Maccabean revolt against Antiochus IV Epiphanes who attempted to do away with Judeaism in favor of Hellenism. It was the belief of Antiochus that slaughtering thousands of Jews for practicing Judaism would discourage them from worshiping God but, as it has been all along, he greatly misjudged the Jews. For the Jews this great Maccabean revolt is known as the Hosmonean period or the Period of Independence. It was the great and rebellious Matthias who had brought a sense of rebellion to the Jews and along with his five sons Matthias formed his brand of a guerrilla army and forged what is known as the Maccabean revolt. It was, however, with the violent death and betrayal of his last surviving son Simon that this period of Israeli independence came to an end.

In 64 BC the Roman known as Pompey conquered Judea, but in 66 AD the Jews revolted and to distinguish themselves from Rome named their newly formed independent state Israel. This Great Revolt marked the first of three revolts against the Romans and this first began over Greeks sacrificing birds in front of a Synagogue. This offense to the Jewish people was dismissed by the Romans as a non issue but as non issues go, it became an issue of great Importance to that famous fiddler known as Nero. It was Nero who was Emperor of Rome at this time and it was he who sent the legions of Rome along with future Emperor Titus in 70 AD to quell the Jewish revolt and Titus and his legions systematically destroyed Israel beginning with the great Temple of Jerusalem.

In 135 AD it was the third Jewish revolt where they again named their state Israel. Prior to the Romans conquering the Jews it was, as noted, the Mesopotamians of that day that were at war and conquering Jews. They were all peoples from the middle east. The European relationship with Jews first began with Alexander and then Pompey and by 130 AD it was Hadrian who was dealing with them. Before Hadrian the attitude of Rome was one of a paternalistic view and few of the Emperors had many dealings with the Jews directly. But Hadrian was a different matter and in his accounts, we come to better understand how and why Europeans came to view Jews as they have.

Hadrian, unlike most of his predecessors, showed a keen interest in the Jewish faith and saw great opportunity to combine the monotheistic faith of the Jews with his own Hellenistic views. He spent much time with the learned rabbis and recognized how fiercely loyal these "chosen people" were to their one God. Hadrian tried to convince the Judeans to join with him in alliance to create his own personal brand of a Hellenistic religion. The negotiations ultimately failed because Hadrian, as had many before him, misjudged the Judeans and their commitment to God. He misunderstood the whole notion of the covenant with God that factored so greatly into the Jewish faith. Hadrian never understood how they came to believe they were the chosen people of their God and it fascinated him how this gave the Jews an air of superiority. It is important to to understand how early on Europeans viewed the Jews as a people that looked down their noses at others and tended to behave as they were separate from others. Whether this attitude among Jews is true or not is irrelevant and misses the point entirely. The point is that Europeans began viewing the Jews in this manner as far back as Hadrian and probably before that. The Book of Genesis makes great pains to make clear that all of humanity is descended from Adam and Eve and as such all people whether Egyptian, Arab, Jew or Christian and the many pagan peoples of the world are all brothers and sisters from the same lineage.

For the Mesopotamians, that seemed to always surround the Jews, there was a commonality in Ishmael who both the Muslim and Jewish religions accept as an ancestor of the Northern Arabs. Ishmael is believed to be Abraham's eldest son and Abraham is considered to be the patriarch of both Muslims and Jews. Thus, both Arabs and Jews are descended from the same family. A complex family feud that began thousands of years ago is part of the problem today between the so-called Palestinians and the Jews. The problems and mistrusts between certain Europeans and the Jews tends to be more subtle and not so easily discerned. The problems and tensions between Christians, Muslims and Jews is even harder to understand and greatly adds to all of the confusion. It is easy to oversimplify it all and reduce it to racism or bigotry, sadly shake our heads and chalk it up to ignorance but it doesn't really help us understand the problem any better. Between Arabs and Jews, and even Christians, besides family politics, there is the issue of real estate, always real estate, and indeed, in the beginning for the Greeks and Romans it was all about real estate as well. Israel was, and still is today property, which means somebody at any given time owns it.

When Hadrian finally left Israel the Judeans with their rebellious nature rebelled again and it was, for Hadrian, a sense of betrayal. Hadrian had offered peace and reconciliation but instead the Jews, in his mind, defiantly rejected his offer and chose war. Hadrian's resolve was fierce and an all ready beaten down and tired Jewish people finally saw their defeat, again, being barred from their capital Jerusalem, which the Romans had renamed Aelia Capitolina. The Jews, well acquainted with dispersal, began their world wide dispersal during this time. Thousands were sold into slavery, again, and the once all important Temple of Jerusalem diminished out of necessity and a more rabbinic approach to their faith began. There were Jews that remained in the middle east and there were Jews that were exiled or sent to Europe, and North Africa. This dispersion is known as the Jewish Diaspora.

Throughout this time the Jewish people never lost faith in God nor that they were the chosen people and in the Middle East Jews continued to revolt in 351, 438 and 614 AD never giving up on the idea of a nation state. While the Jews spent much of this time being defeated by conquering nations so did the ancestors of the very same people who now claim to be Palestinians. The descendants of Ishmael have been defeated by ancient Egyptians, Hittites and Philistines, they were defeated by Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians and then by the Romans, Muslim Arabs, Mamluks, Ottoman's, the British and finally the Zionists. That they have existed in the lands of Israel or Palestine is not a matter of question.

The difference between these two peoples who have lived amongst each other for thousands of years is great and varied but in the context of this question a major defining difference lies in the ambition for sovereignty. Since 1050 BC the Jews and their ambitions of sovereignty have been clear but the first real clear sign of any such movement amongst the Arab people of that region only becomes noticeable, at least in terms of a Western perspective, in the mid 19th century with the Arab revolt of 1834 in Palestine. It should be noted that this perspective is in regards to those Arabs who lived in the regions of Palestine and not to be confused with the many Arabs associated with Islam and the Muslim religion. Not that many of the Northern Arabs of Palestine should necessarily be distinguished from Islam or the Muslim religion. It should be somewhat clear at this point that this cursory look at the history of Israel and Islam is not intended to make clear the problems that exist today, but rather, better illustrate how complex and confusing it can be.

Origins of Islam

The origins of Islam, being as controversial in their historical accuracies as the origins of Judaism, began, for many, in the 7th century AD, with Muhammad 's Divine Revelations which were memorized and written down into what is now known as the Qur'an. After the death of Muhammad the Islam religion was ruled by the Caliphs who were known as the Rashidun, or the "rightly guided" of the Islamic portion known as the Sunni Islamic faith. The Rashidun was followed by a series of Caliphates that moved their Capitol from Damascus to Baghdad and the Islamic Empire forged by the Rashidun and kept alive by the Caliphates is considered to be one of the ten largest Empires known to humanity. Soon after the birth of this Empire the Great Golden Age of Islam was born and much art, music, science, and philosophy was contributed to the world by these Muslims. It was in the 8th century that we begin to see the Christians become noticeably involved in the affairs of the Middle East with the Crusades. Beginning with the Reconquista of Spain with her battle with the Moors, Pope Urban II, being inspired by this and feeling the pressures of a nervous Eastern Roman Emperor declared the first Crusade and soon after Jerusalem was under the control of Christendom.

This Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem lasted almost two hundred years from 1099 to 1291 AD when it was finally defeated by the Mamluks. Before the defeat of Christian Jerusalem the European rule was distant and the Christians, Jews and Muslims of the vast regions of the Middle East that came under European control had little to no dealings with Europeans. It was the great Muslim leader Saladin who, along with an increasingly united Muslim world, recaptured Jerusalem in 1187 AD and this began what is sometimes called the Kingdom of Acre. Muslims united at first by Ayyubid and later by the Mamluk dynasties in Egypt reduced the once powerful Kingdom of Jerusalem of Christianity to nothing more than a pawn in the great chess board of struggle for land and power in the Middle East.

It was the Mamluks who united both Syria and Egypt and that unity reigned until the rise of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire was vast and many Muslim nations fell to her reign but beginning with Mehmed II and continuing with his grandson Selim the Muslim Caliphate tradition was carried on within the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire slowly eroded as the rise of European power began its own rebirth of Empirical ambitions and by the 19th century were Europe and now America went, so went the world. Before this, however, there was Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab who sought to purify Islam after so much dilution from so much dissolution of the Muslim religion due to all this struggle over power and land. This new brand of purity is known as Wahhabism which tends to be a more conservative view of Islamic teachings and rejects the "religious innovations" as a corruption of the Muslim faith. As we have already noted the sharp divisions seen within Judaism here we note the divisions amongst Muslims. As rabbinical teachings vary and argue so do the caliphate teachings and an already divided Middle East becomes even more so. Wahhab made an alliance with the House of Saud at this time and eventually defeated the Rashidis to gain control of central Arabia where many revolts against the Ottoman Empire ensued and culminated in the creation of Saudi Arabia.

Modern Era

To further add to the divisions and confusion there is the matter of oil. While oil or petroleum was nothing new to the world of the 19th century, indeed as far back as 4,000 years there is historical evidence of humans using oil as some form of power or construction. Oil was used in the asphalt of Babylon, Ancient Persian tablets mention the use of oils for medicinal and lighting use and the earliest known oil wells were drilled in China in 437 BC. But the 19th century brought with it a new understanding of oil and that greatly influenced the industrial revolution that brought Americans and Europeans to power enabling them to easily conquer the bewildered and unprepared Arabs of the Middle East. While oil had not yet been "discovered" in the Middle East at this time, it soon would be and with that discovery and new understanding of the value the Middle East held to the world began. Yet before this would take place there was, as mentioned earlier, the Great Arab Revolt.

The Arab revolt of 1834 was largely due to Egypt conscripting soldiers. For clans such as the Neblus, Hebron and Jerusalem-Jaffa regions of Palestine. They did not call themselves nor did they view themselves as Palestinian nationals. They were varied and disparate tribes or clans mostly warring with each other but found a common enemy in Egypt at that time and revolted. Many Western historians consider this event to be the first real age where Arabs began their slow and painful march towards sovereignty. Even so, the revolt was crushed by the Egyptian army and the two most feared leaders of the insurrection hanged and many clans forced to relocate to nearby villages. By 1840 Palestine had gone from Egyptian rule back to Turkish rule and worked towards reforming policies of conscription. Throughout the 1840 and 1850's international powers began to join the seemingly never ending struggle to bring peace and harmony to that region. As foreign powers struggled with each other over control of Palestine, presumably in order to take up "the plight of the Palestinians", these clanish Arabs slowly but surely began developing a national identity.

Zionism

As stated before, one of the many reasons there is so much conflict in the middle east is because of real estate. Real estate that by 1906 revealed itself to be rich with oil. That the modern day Palestinian movement was profoundly influenced by the Zionism and the modern state of Israel is undeniable, but to reduce it to that event alone also misses the point entirely. That the Jews have shown a far greater proclivity towards a nation state and national identity than the Arabs of that region seems to be, at least from a Western civilization point of view, a truism. That Arabs waited so long to officially declare any such sovereignty is a salient point. It does not, however discount the fact that these Arabs have lived in this area for as long as the Jews have. It does not discount the fact that these two peoples, no matter how different their cultures and religions may be are of the same blood, That these descendants of Abraham can not seem to reconcile their differences has as much to do with stubborn pride as it does with third party interference. The modern Palestinian movement, even if not readily acknowledged by western historians, surely began in the mid 1930's if not sooner than that.

For the Americans of the United States, many are able to draw a parallel between the European discoveries of the New World and its conquest by Europe and ultimately the formation of the United States of America, every step of the way dispersing, conquering and massacring the native people who had lived there long before Europe knew there was a New World. The brutal and inexcusable show of disregard that Europeans and later Americans showed for those natives rightful sovereignty is well known and adequately documented. Today there are many Americans that look upon that moment in their own history and feel great shame. It is understandable how one can draw the parallel between that historical event and the one in the middle east but it would not be an accurate parallel. The native peoples of the New World were there before the Europeans arrived. This is not the case with Israel.

Jews did not just arrive in Palestine in 1948 and set up camp, that is just not the case. Far more complex than such useless oversimplifications which reduce the struggle down to callous Jews and a uncaring United Nations only distracts from the issue at hand. Of course, if the parallel were valid then everyone could point their finger at the Jews and tell them they are wrong. Yet this, in may ways is what led to the 1948 establishment of modern day Israel. For far too long had too many people pointed their fingers and told the Jews they were wrong. And for being wrong they were persecuted and treated with disrespect and dishonored and ultimately savagely murdered to the point of genocide. It was this problem that so many Jews had faced since the Jewish Diaspora, indeed long before this, that gave birth to Zionism. If it were to be true that the modern struggle for the Palestinian state is predicated on the existence of the modern state of Israel and it is Zionism that it is the problem, is to willfully disregard and discount the Jewish right to exist as a state of Israel in the region of Palestine. They are not at all like the Empirical invaders of Europe, they are native to this land. Every bit as much as those Arabs who have a natural right to exist on that land. This is an understandable conflict that should be easily resolved through conciliation. Conciliation has not been the order of the day.

It is most likely true that the the Arabs who lived in the Palestinian region during the mid to late 19th century had no idea of the newly formed ideal of Zionism. Yet even so, it was very likely the time of political organization of these Arabs to move towards an official state of Palestine began in this time. It was certainly true that the national identity of Arabs in general became increasingly noticeable by western civilization during the late 19th century. Certainly Greater Syria had made tremendous efforts in this area during this time. When the Ottoman empire finally crumbled and after World War I had come to an end there was the the Palestine Mandate, or British Mandate depending on your point of view, that declared Palestine under British rule which began in 1920 and ended with the creation of the modern state of Israel in 1948. This Mandate was a crucial development in the movement of Arabs to build a Palestinian state. It was perhaps, if you will, the straw that broke the camels back for those Arabs.

While the Palestinian Arabs were dealing with British rule, the Zionist movement continued its goal of creating a nation state of Israel in the land of Palestine. The year generally noted for the formal creation of Zionism is in 1897 but Jews were already migrating back to Palestine before this. The general uneasiness created by much of Europe made a dispersed people only feel more alienated and the natural inclination to just go home predates the Zionist movement. By the time of the Nazi holocaust and the final solution, whether a Jew was a Zionist or not the idea of a strong and capable nation state of Israel made available to the Jews across the world seemed like a real good idea. But before this creation of a modern state of Israel, while the Jews were either migrating to Palestine or America or remaining in Europe during the time leading up to and through World War II, the Palestinian Arabs were not just sitting idly by picking their teeth with straw. Indeed, starting in October of 1936 and lasting until 1939, the Palestinian Arabs revolted against the British demanding independence, an end to Jewish immigration and the end of sale of real estate to Jews. The revolt ultimately failed but handily serves as evidence of a national Palestinian movement by the Arabs of that region.

United Nations (specific discussion)

The official effort by the United Nations to place part of Palestine under Jewish control in the guise of the state of Israel was not just a blunder headed effort where Palestinian Arabs were told to leave. The notions of a finders keepers, losers weepers mentality being the diplomacy of that era is systematically false. In 1947 the British government made a formal request of the general assembly to the United Nations that a special committee be formed to investigate the future of Palestine. Thus, the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, (U.N.S.C.O.P.), was formed. Consisting of representatives from eleven different countries, U.N.S.C.O.P. went to Palestine and began interviewing and gathering information on Zionism from members of that organization in Palestine and in the United States. The Arab Higher Committee, however, boycotted that investigation on the grounds they were no longer subject to any such committee or outside rule and that based on the U.N. charter alone the Palestinian Arabs self evident natural right to sovereignty should be immediately accepted. The ad-hoc deliberations of the U.N. committee wielded mixed results but ultimately favored a Zionist solution but never at any time endorsed a one state solution.

While there were 33 votes in favor of a two state solution of a Jewish state an Arab State and a portion controlled by the U.N., there were 13 votes against it and 10 that abstained. The Palestinian Arabs and neighboring Arab states rejected this solution calling for a one state solution of Palestinian Arab Nationals and the removal of all Jewish migrants and immigrants. Even so, on May 14th of 1948 the nation state of Israel was officially founded and recognized as a sovereign state by the United Nations. On that very same day the armies of seven Arab states invaded Israel and as soon as that nation was founded they were thrust into war. In truth, for the Palestinian Arabs it was merely but the second stage of a war that began in 1947 then known as the Civil War in Mandatory Palestine. The joy and celebration that rang through the streets for Jews of Palestine was eerily echoed by the bitterness and discontent of the Palestinian Arabs and starting in December of 1947, murders and violence erupted and cascaded cataclysmically into a crescendo of bloodshed and the horrifying screams that come with such discordance only amplified the chaos and confusion. Even before the invasion of 1948, known to the Israelis as the Day of Independence or the Day of Liberation but was known to the Palestinians as the Catastrophe, the Palestinians had grown much more militaristic.

Answer 2

The Arab Higher Committee had been collaborating with Nazi Germany during the second World War and their gamble on an Axis victory over the Allies bellied up and they were forced to deal with the Allies on the issue of Palestinian statehood. During that World War the Palestinian Arabs had spent a great amount of time delivering anti-Semitic rhetoric and sloganeering. The push towards aligning with the Nazi's was sold by the opportunity to kill Jews. Israel was rightfully concerned about this general attitude of the Arabs that surrounded them and just coming out of the Nazi Holocaust their concerns of an Arab persecution and final solution were understandably justified. So, as one war over real estate had ended then another war of world shaking importance began and once again over real estate.

Between 1946 and 1947. Abdullah I of Jordan had assured the the general assembly of the United Nations that he had no intentions of interfering with that organizations efforts to a partitioned Palestine state coexisting with a Jewish state. It is probably worth repeating, in direct response to the question that the plan proposed by the United Nations was a partitioning of Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state. It was very decidedly the Arab nations that rejected this proposal and what ultimately led to the "plight of the Palestinians." It was Abdullah's duplicitous behavior that greatly affected the outcome of this ill advised war. While the King of Jordan had been cozy with the western alliance he had ambitions for annexing West Bank as Jordan's territory. Of all the Arab armies Jordan's was by far the strongest. Yet, in a remarkable move of diplomacy, Abdullah promised not to attack the Jewish state. This comfortable relationship Abdullah had with the West and leaders of the newly formed Israeli state did not bode well with neighboring Arab states who had continued to pressure him into joining their all Arab military intervention. Abdullah convinced the Arab League to appoint him "Supreme Commander of the Arab Forces" and cleverly manipulated the war to achieve his own political ends.

The promises made between Jordan and Israel were honored as Abdullah limited the legions defense of Arab areas of Jerusalem and Israel did not interfere with Jordan's annexing of the West Bank. While this military strategy greatly benefited Abdullah it could be argued and indeed has been argued that Israel stood to gain by keeping the Palestinians from declaring sovereignty. At this time there was no official Palestinian military or anything near the organizational structure of an effective army. The Arab League consisted of Egypt, Jordon, Syria, Lebanon and the unfortunate Palestinians. This fateful decision to reject a two state solution made winning this war against Israel paramount to the undermanned, unorganized and ultimately ineffective army of Palestinians. As military strategy goes, this decision to go to war with Israel was unthinkable and the ultimate outcome decided before it began. The war led to a truce declared on June 11th of 1948 and ended on July 8th when after failed negotiations the Egyptians re-sparked the war by attacking Israels position in Negba and Israel responded by a three pronged attack on all fronts. July 18th of that year brought a second truce that failed to yield any results and on the 15th of October it was this time Israel who rekindled the war and began a series of large scale military campaigns to drive the Arabs out of Israels land.

The Israelis were very effective in establishing military victories that ultimately led to Egypt signing a treaty with Israel in February of 1949, Lebanon in March, Jordan in April and Syria in July. Israel wound up with more land than was originally proposed by the United Nations proposal and the Palestinians, encouraged to leave Israel during the war found themselves out of house and home with no land to call their own. This is the reality of what happened and it was due to the stubborn natures of both parties directly involved in the struggle for real estate and it was due to multiple meddlers in the form of the United Nations, the British armed forces, the Americans money and weapons and on the Arab side the meddling of neighboring Arab nations who stood to gain and risked very little by going to war with Israel. It was the Palestinians who had everything to lose and nothing to gain by this war. The obvious betrayals to the Palestinians by the other Arab states only punctuates the skepticism that if the Arab Forces had been victorious that they would have backed a Palestinian state.

Was it fair that the United Nations divided Palestine? It is hardly fair to blame the United Nations for the divisions of Palestine. The simple truth is that blame is irrelevant and nothing will be gained by either Israel or the Palestinians as long as both parties are blaming each other for the consequences of war. A two state solution is the only solution as both parties have a natural right to exist on that land. Indeed, both Jews and Palestinians have as much right to that land as any bird, bee or beetle. The radical idea that the Arab world can somehow make Israel go away and eradicate Jews from the Holy Land is pure fantasy. The science fiction dreams of children who willfully ignore the obvious obstacles preventing such a reality. It will only be through reconciliation that both the Palestinians and the Israelis will begin to come to terms with each other and forge an alliance that can only strengthen the security of Palestine. This is something that must happen between these two parties and no amount of mediation by third party agents will amount to a hill of beans if these two parties cant find a way to get along. It would perhaps be easier for them if everybody else would just mind their own business and stay out of this family squabble but that it isn't going to happen.

This is, and as it has been, the complexities of the current situation of the Middle East. Fairness has nothing at all to do with it and perhaps is even a wedge driven in between these peoples as everyone has their own definitions of fair and as long as both parties cant even agree on whats fair then the notion of an agreement of what is in both their best interests spirals downward into entropic efforts of childlike diplomacy. For whatever reasons the tribe of Abraham split up and there in lies the division that must be put back together. Only when Palestinians accept Israelis as their brothers and Israelis respond in kind will there ever be any chance for peace. It should be noted that this effort is being made and continues to be made to this day. This is not, nor has it ever been, the plight of the Palestinians but rather the plight of the ancestors of Abraham, both Jewish and Arab. When the day finally comes that reveals brothers of different cultures and religions united, if not as separate but equal then as one, the fairness and justice will reign once again. Until that day, the best we can do is show both parties our compassion and understanding that learning to love our brothers is not as easy as rattling rhetoric such as this answer. Indeed, this answer did not just write itself and coming to understand the complexities of the Palestinian and Jewish conflict can not be done by reading simple answers or brief histories. What is fair and what is just the way it is are most often times two different things and anyone, whether it be Palestinian, Jew, Muslim, Arab, Egyptian, European or American, not to mention the rest of the world, who cares to enter the fray of this highly complex issue should be willing to spend countless hours studying the history of the land and the religions and religious texts that sprang from it.