The Conflict, Documented

The argument around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict produces more heat than reference. This section holds the documented explainers a reader needs before the heat means anything: the aid figures the campaigns cited, the history of the two-state idea, the dated timeline of the conflict itself, and the facts behind the term blockade. Each piece separates what is established from what each side claims, and each dates its sources.

How these explainers are built

Each article works from primary or near-primary records: the text of memoranda and resolutions, congressional research, court decisions, UN documentation and the reporting of the time. Where the sides disagree, the article presents the disagreement rather than resolving it, and attributes each position to the party that holds it. Where a figure has a date, the date is printed beside it, because a number from 2010 and the same question in 2026 are different answers.

Why a reference section at all

The campaigners profiled elsewhere on this site argued in metres of poster space; the organisations argued in schoolrooms. Both assumed a reader who could check the claims. This section is the journal's answer to that assumption: short, sourced pieces that make the checking possible without a library card.

The four references in this section

US Military Aid to Israel, in Figures lays out what the ten-year memorandum actually commits, how the annual sum is structured and how the debate around it evolved. The Two-State Idea: a Short History follows the framework from the 1947 partition plan through Oslo and the Clinton parameters to its present contested standing. Key Dates of the Conflict is the timeline, each entry dated and written to be checked. The Gaza Blockade in Facts documents what the restrictions cover and how each side argues them.

What documented means here

The word is used narrowly. A documented claim is one that can be traced to a public record: a resolution's text, a signed memorandum, a court decision, an audited report or contemporaneous press coverage. Estimates carry their source's name, and positions are attributed to the party that states them. Where the record itself is disputed, the dispute is stated.

How to use the section

Start with the question the argument needs rather than the argument itself: the aid figure before the aid debate, the timeline before the blame, the blockade's mechanics before its verdict. The explainers are meant to be cited, not agreed with. A reader who finds a figure here quoted without its date, or a claim presented as record that belongs to one side, is reading it against this section's own rule and should say so through the contact page.

Where the human work sits

Facts without people produce cynicism; people without facts produce slogans. Each explainer here was written to be read alongside the profiles, not instead of them. The organisations working across the divide are profiled in the peacebuilding section, and the campaigns that carried the argument onto American transit walls are documented in the civic campaigns section.