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Description
Disclaimer: The following is purely an artistic work of alternate history and does not advocate policy in any way. Comments will be freely deleted as is deemed necessary. Die mad.
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As decolonization was underway, the British found themselves bound up by a statement issued 30 years prior. In 1917, while the First World War had been at its height, Lord Balfour had stated that the British government was officially in favor of a Jewish state in what had by then, in the nearly 1900 years since the destruction of the Second Temple, become Palestine and which had only a minority Jewish population. Zionism had become vogue among Jewish intellectuals in Europe by the end of WWII (with notable exceptions including Albert Einstein and Anne Frank) but had little traction in places like North America, and yet as the world looked at the rapid collapse of the British Empire, the newly-organized United Nations chose to support the Balfour Declaration's intent. And in 1951, an official partition of the Mandate of Palestine was put in place that created the State of Israel (מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל‎) and the State of Palestine (دولة فلسطين).

And war broke out immediately. Regardless of any partition plan, Israel was attacked by a coalition of Arab nations, and with French and British assistance Israel managed to beat back the invasions and seize massive portions of the proposed Palestinian territory. In the chaos Palestine organized its own national government, and immediately began to protest the seizure of territory which the UN had set apart for them. Their territory was now split into two main portions: the "West Bank" (so named for being on the western bank of the Jordan River) and the "Gaza Strip", a small territory bordering Egypt. While Israel pulled itself together and was recognized by the world's governments, Palestine all at once was faced with the question of its own statehood. Not only had it lost large areas of claimed land, its own legitimacy as a state was being called into question.

Even its neighbors only saw "solidarity" with Palestine when it suited them. Egypt and Jordan proposed that they divide Palestine between themselves, with Egypt taking Gaza and Jordan taking the West Bank, but the Palestinians fiercely protested this and issued their own Declaration of Sovereignty in 1953. Palestine was recognized as an independent state by most of the Arab world, but its international legitimacy was continually brought into question. While nations like California, Japan, South Africa, and Brazil with no stake in the conflict felt no qualms recognizing both nations as sovereign states, Europe and the Middle East polarized between the two. In the world's view, Europe had created Israel and now it was their problem to deal with, one that quickly grew out of hand as Israel not only won its war of independence but also won the Week-Long War in 1965, seizing massive tracts of land from Syria and Egypt along with occupying Palestine itself.

This occupation quickly became a brutal and internationally condemned act, eventually forced to end just a year later in 1966 by force of the United Nations (though occupations of Sinai and the Golan Heights would end later). Palestine continually struggled to try and bolster its existence as the Israeli and Palestinian governments clashed on and off. Making matters worse, Palestine's government split in half as the Gaza Strip was overtaken by a rival faction to the main Palestinian Liberation Party, a radical Islamist and fundamentalist organization known as Hamas, in 1971. After decades of appeal and turmoil, in 1983 Israel and Palestine along with a number of Arab League and European nations met to finalize the Fort Ross Accords. In them, most Arab nations finally recognized Israel as a legitimate state, and Israel in turn recognized Palestine as a legitimate nation. Many hoped that this would finally achieve peace.

Peace would not be forthcoming, as the disputes over their shared border flared up into violence once again as Israel and Palestine went to war in 1996. The subsequent war saw Israel fully occupy Jerusalem once again, along with cutting large portions out of the West Bank territory and further pushing into Palestinian territory. The war ended with the Good Friday Ceasefire of 1998, and the border created by the agreement remains the de facto international border to this day. Since the ceasefire, no further conflicts have taken place but relations remain at best icy and at worst outright hostile.

There's reason to be optimistic though. In 2003 Israel and Palestine cooperated to dislodge Hamas from the Gaza Strip after it fired a number of rockets into Israeli territory, striking as far as Ashkilon and Netikvat. Israel allows Palestinian citizens to travel between Gaza and the West Bank via Israeli checkpoints, and though Palestine continues to claim large areas of Israeli-controlled territory it has been able to maintain several border checkpoints with Israel. Both nations are members of the UN, both desperately want to avoid further bloodshed, and both desperately want to try and secure their existences, but as time goes on it becomes increasingly clear that Palestine has suffered and is suffering far more than Israel claims to. As of 2021, moods around the world are often shifting towards a more favorable outlook on Palestine's position though both remain almost equally disliked by most people, at least as far as informal surveys and studies indicate.

Both Israel and Palestine are multiparty democracies, though one party tends to dominate in each. For Israel it is the mostly conservative Likud, for Palestine it is the right-wing Palestinian Liberation Party. Both claim Israel as their capital, but in different ways: Israel claims all of Jerusalem, while Palestine claims East Jerusalem and recognizes West Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Neither nation really hosts their governments in the city though, the de facto capitals of Israel and Palestine are Tel Aviv and Ramallah, respectively. Jerusalem itself is one of the poorest and least-developed major cities in the Middle East, often considered a "no man's land" from its contested status where various local gangs and organizations compete to try and influence the city, which is holy to three different faiths all at once. Israel is a ways more developed than Palestine but not to the full level of a European nation, for instance, while Palestine manages to remain a fairly developed state for its own terms yet is still majorly underdeveloped by international standards.

The issue is that Israel can't just get up and leave anymore. Whether or not Zionism has any support, people live in Israel now and it is indeed a majority Jewish nation, but many nations have been willing to denounce it as a "colonialist regime" when sympathizing with Palestine, but on the inverse people have described Palestine as a "rogue Islamist state" when sympathizing with Israel. There's no one opinion and the UN is loathe to touch the issue, even pushing forward with intervening in the Sea of Marmara and Constantinople before doing anything about Israel. People on both sides do genuinely want to find lasting peace, but Israel wants Palestine to put its weapons down and Palestine wants Israel to just go away. Perhaps the most famous of the post-colonial conflicts originating from the decline and end of the European colonial empires, the conflict remains ongoing.

Description
Disclaimer: The following is purely an artistic work of alternate history and does not advocate policy in any way. Comments will be freely deleted as is deemed necessary. Die mad.
---
As decolonization was underway, the British found themselves bound up by a statement issued 30 years prior. In 1917, while the First World War had been at its height, Lord Balfour had stated that the British government was officially in favor of a Jewish state in what had by then, in the nearly 1900 years since the destruction of the Second Temple, become Palestine and which had only a minority Jewish population. Zionism had become vogue among Jewish intellectuals in Europe by the end of WWII (with notable exceptions including Albert Einstein and Anne Frank) but had little traction in places like North America, and yet as the world looked at the rapid collapse of the British Empire, the newly-organized United Nations chose to support the Balfour Declaration's intent. And in 1951, an official partition of the Mandate of Palestine was put in place that created the State of Israel (מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל‎) and the State of Palestine (دولة فلسطين).

And war broke out immediately. Regardless of any partition plan, Israel was attacked by a coalition of Arab nations, and with French and British assistance Israel managed to beat back the invasions and seize massive portions of the proposed Palestinian territory. In the chaos Palestine organized its own national government, and immediately began to protest the seizure of territory which the UN had set apart for them. Their territory was now split into two main portions: the "West Bank" (so named for being on the western bank of the Jordan River) and the "Gaza Strip", a small territory bordering Egypt. While Israel pulled itself together and was recognized by the world's governments, Palestine all at once was faced with the question of its own statehood. Not only had it lost large areas of claimed land, its own legitimacy as a state was being called into question.

Even its neighbors only saw "solidarity" with Palestine when it suited them. Egypt and Jordan proposed that they divide Palestine between themselves, with Egypt taking Gaza and Jordan taking the West Bank, but the Palestinians fiercely protested this and issued their own Declaration of Sovereignty in 1953. Palestine was recognized as an independent state by most of the Arab world, but its international legitimacy was continually brought into question. While nations like California, Japan, South Africa, and Brazil with no stake in the conflict felt no qualms recognizing both nations as sovereign states, Europe and the Middle East polarized between the two. In the world's view, Europe had created Israel and now it was their problem to deal with, one that quickly grew out of hand as Israel not only won its war of independence but also won the Week-Long War in 1965, seizing massive tracts of land from Syria and Egypt along with occupying Palestine itself.

This occupation quickly became a brutal and internationally condemned act, eventually forced to end just a year later in 1966 by force of the United Nations (though occupations of Sinai and the Golan Heights would end later). Palestine continually struggled to try and bolster its existence as the Israeli and Palestinian governments clashed on and off. Making matters worse, Palestine's government split in half as the Gaza Strip was overtaken by a rival faction to the main Palestinian Liberation Party, a radical Islamist and fundamentalist organization known as Hamas, in 1971. After decades of appeal and turmoil, in 1983 Israel and Palestine along with a number of Arab League and European nations met to finalize the Fort Ross Accords. In them, most Arab nations finally recognized Israel as a legitimate state, and Israel in turn recognized Palestine as a legitimate nation. Many hoped that this would finally achieve peace.

Peace would not be forthcoming, as the disputes over their shared border flared up into violence once again as Israel and Palestine went to war in 1996. The subsequent war saw Israel fully occupy Jerusalem once again, along with cutting large portions out of the West Bank territory and further pushing into Palestinian territory. The war ended with the Good Friday Ceasefire of 1998, and the border created by the agreement remains the de facto international border to this day. Since the ceasefire, no further conflicts have taken place but relations remain at best icy and at worst outright hostile.

There's reason to be optimistic though. In 2003 Israel and Palestine cooperated to dislodge Hamas from the Gaza Strip after it fired a number of rockets into Israeli territory, striking as far as Ashkilon and Netikvat. Israel allows Palestinian citizens to travel between Gaza and the West Bank via Israeli checkpoints, and though Palestine continues to claim large areas of Israeli-controlled territory it has been able to maintain several border checkpoints with Israel. Both nations are members of the UN, both desperately want to avoid further bloodshed, and both desperately want to try and secure their existences, but as time goes on it becomes increasingly clear that Palestine has suffered and is suffering far more than Israel claims to. As of 2021, moods around the world are often shifting towards a more favorable outlook on Palestine's position though both remain almost equally disliked by most people, at least as far as informal surveys and studies indicate.

Both Israel and Palestine are multiparty democracies, though one party tends to dominate in each. For Israel it is the mostly conservative Likud, for Palestine it is the right-wing Palestinian Liberation Party. Both claim Israel as their capital, but in different ways: Israel claims all of Jerusalem, while Palestine claims East Jerusalem and recognizes West Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Neither nation really hosts their governments in the city though, the de facto capitals of Israel and Palestine are Tel Aviv and Ramallah, respectively. Jerusalem itself is one of the poorest and least-developed major cities in the Middle East, often considered a "no man's land" from its contested status where various local gangs and organizations compete to try and influence the city, which is holy to three different faiths all at once. Israel is a ways more developed than Palestine but not to the full level of a European nation, for instance, while Palestine manages to remain a fairly developed state for its own terms yet is still majorly underdeveloped by international standards.

The issue is that Israel can't just get up and leave anymore. Whether or not Zionism has any support, people live in Israel now and it is indeed a majority Jewish nation, but many nations have been willing to denounce it as a "colonialist regime" when sympathizing with Palestine, but on the inverse people have described Palestine as a "rogue Islamist state" when sympathizing with Israel. There's no one opinion and the UN is loathe to touch the issue, even pushing forward with intervening in the Sea of Marmara and Constantinople before doing anything about Israel. People on both sides do genuinely want to find lasting peace, but Israel wants Palestine to put its weapons down and Palestine wants Israel to just go away. Perhaps the most famous of the post-colonial conflicts originating from the decline and end of the European colonial empires, the conflict remains ongoing.