The Holy Land is the cradle of three world religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. All three are based on the Old Testament. The Jews settled the region around 2000 years BC, as we now reckon our time. Jewish kingdoms rose and fell before the majority of Jews were driven out of Palestine in the year 135 by the Romans. Ever since, the return to Jerusalem has been a dream of Jews now scattered throughout the world.

In 937, Jerusalem was captured by Muslim troops and for 400 years from 1517 Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire. After the fall of the empire, it became a British mandated territory. A movement arose, however, towards the creation of a "Jewish state" in Palestine. As opposed to the religious motivation of a yearning for Jerusalem, the political form of Zionism was aimed at creating a national Jewish state to protect the Jews from the persecution they suffered again and again in Europe.

The plan to establish a Jewish state in Palestine was supported by Great Britain, but rejected by the Arabs. As ever more European Jews fled to Palestine in the face of the systematic genocide of Nazi Germany, the Palestinian Arabs felt under threat. This led to serious conflicts both with Jewish settlers and the British colonial powers.
In November 1947, the United Nations divided Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab Palestinian state, and decided upon the internationalization of Jerusalem. After the state of Israel was proclaimed on the May 14, 1948, the first Arab-Israeli war began.

Forty years passed before Israelis and Palestinians each learned to recognize the right of the others to live in Palestine. Since then, the Israelis have begun to withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories. However, the future status of Jerusalem is still unclear.