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Good point, Arya - from the end of the 19th century to today, I'll argue that the conflict over the Israeli land mass ends up being based in economic opportunities, as well, which for all intents and purposes is a resource.
The first wave of Jewish 'zionists' (before the name was coined) started about that time. At this time, the area was less than 1/4 Jewish, and the existing (Arab) peoples controlled the agriculture etc through a quasi-feudal system of rich owning the land, and poor working it.
The Jewish settlers began taking the agriculture jobs from the poor inhabitants, and that truly began the issues in the area, IIRC - the racial/religious aspect to it comes into play purely as consequence (obviously it's a point of contention, but not the root of the problem).
The interesting part is how it mirrors (partly) the plight of settlers in the US in the mid-1800's - Irish, Polish, etc - but obviously has reached entirely new proportions.
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