milk, honey and all that stuff

right: main news which i've told pretty much everyone - i'm going to palestine for ten days on the 14th feb (though I haven't paid yet, so it might still fall through)
I'm finding out about the situation there, 'cause i never really knew much about it before, and i'm putting the basics up here 'cause it'll help me remember and modify it, and if anyone else is interested it may be interesting. though of course the info i put up may be total rubbish(just to make it fun). and will be changed and updated. I could just do this in a word file but.. whatever.

SO we have, a section of the middle east is split into israel and palestine. Palestine is a section known as "the holy land", it was the land of milk and honey (which, I THINK is what moses was looking for in the desert, when he parted the red sea and ate bread that fell from the sky (sounds more like halucenogenic mushrooms to me)? NB I need to read the bible) ANyway, in palestine is Bethlehem, Nazereth, Jerusalem and places important for both Jews and Christians. Early in the 1900s, britain had some control over it and by some authority - probably the very british one that goes "we have a flag therefore we're in control you un-british unsophisticated people".
in 1917 the british said that the jews could go and live in palestine. these jews are now "the israelis" (as far as I can gather) and the people who were ther before 1917 - mostly muslim - "the palestinians"
As we all know, during the second world war, stuff happened. then, I think, more jews went to palestine. they have some kind of official right to it.
in 1947 the United Nations said that "palestine" as it was then (see picture?) was to be divided equally between the jews (israelis) and the arabs (palestinians). the israelis were OK with this, but the palestinians weren't and attacked the israeli half of the country in 1948. after the war, izrael got a bit more land, and egypt got the gaza strip (on the south-east-ish coast area).
the official borders set up by the UN were called the "green line"
the palestinians continued to suicide bomb the israelis, therefore the israelis set up checkpoints on the roads, where their guards check everyone who goes through, but they often stop ambulances and deliveries etc. people have died because they couldn't get to a hospital soon enough. and some suicide bombers still got through.
now israel is building a wall around the palestinian sections. they say they're building it on the official green line, but actually it's often inside that, giving the palestinians less land, and sometimes it cuts people off from their land so they can't farm any more.
recently (in the last week or so I think) there's been an election in palestine and the organisation that carried out most of the bombings - Hamas - (which I THINK is like the IRA, though it may be totally wrong or intactful of me to say that for some reason, I don't know at all) has just got into power. whether that is good or bad is yet to be seen, but they are refusing to follow on the peace process that the previous government started. I think.

that's it for now, updates corrections and details to be added.