Born free As free as the wind blows As free as the grass grows Born free to follow your heart
Live free And beauty surrounds you The world still astounds you Each time you look at a star
Stay free Where no walls divide you You’re free as a roaring tide so there’s no need to hide
Born free And life is worth living But only worth living ‘Cause you’re born free
Stay free Where no walls divide you You’re free as a roaring tide so there’s no need to hide Born free And life is worth living But only worth living ‘Cause you’re born free
Je me lève Et je te bouscule Tu ne te réveilles pas Comme d’habitude Sur toi je remonte le drap J’ai peur que tu aies froid Comme d’habitude Ma main caresse tes cheveux Presque malgré moi Comme d’habitude Mais toi tu me tournes le dos Comme d’habitude
Et puis je m’habille très vite Je sors de la chambre Comme d’habitude Tout seul je bois mon café Je suis en retard Comme d’habitude Sans bruit je quitte la maison Tout est gris dehors Comme d’habitude J’ai froid, je relève mon col Comme d’habitude
Comme d’habitude Toute la journée Je vais jouer à faire semblant Comme d’habitude Je vais sourire Comme d’habitude Je vais même rire Comme d’habitude Enfin je vais vivre Comme d’habitude
Et puis le jour s’en ira Moi je reviendrai Comme d’habitude Toi tu seras sortie Et pas encore rentrée Comme d’habitude Tout seul j’irai me coucher Dans ce grand lit froid Comme d’habitude Mes larmes je les cacherai Comme d’habitude
Mais comme d’habitude Même la nuit Je vais jouer à faire semblant Comme d’habitude Tu rentreras Oui, comme d’habitude Je t’attendrai Comme d’habitude Tu me souriras Oui, comme d’habitude
Comme d’habitude Tu te déshabilleras Comme d’habitude Tu te coucheras Comme d’habitude On s’embrassera Comme d’habitude
Comme d’habitude On fera semblant Oui, comme d’habitude On fera l’amour Oui, comme d’habitude On fera semblant Comme d’habitude Comme d’habitude On fera semblant Oui, comme d’habitude…
And now, the end is near And so I face the final curtain My friend, I’ll say it clear I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain
I’ve lived a life that’s full I travelled each and every highway And more, much more than this I did it my way
Regrets, I’ve had a few But then again, too few to mention I did what I had to do And saw it through without exemption
I planned each charted course Each careful step along the byway And more, much more than this I did it my way
Yes, there were times I’m sure you knew When I bit off More than I could chew
But through it all When there was doubt I ate it up and spit it out I faced it all and I stood tall And did it my way
I’ve loved, I’ve laughed and cried I’ve had my fill, my share of losing And now, as tears subside I find it all so amusing
To think I did all that And may I say, not in a shy way Oh, no, oh, no, not me I did it my way
For what is a man, what has he got? If not himself, then he has naught To say the things he truly feels And not the words of one who kneels The record shows I took the blows And did it my way
Yes, it was my way
A mi manera – Raphael
El final se acerca ya Lo afrontaré serenamente Ya ves que yo he sido así Se lo diré sinceramente Viví la inmensidad Sin conocer jamás fronteras Jugué, sin descansar y a mi manera.
Jamás vive un amor Que para mi fuera, fuera importante Corté solo la flor Y lo mejor de cada instante Viajé y disfruté No sé si más que otro cualquiera Si bien, todo eso fue siempre a mi manera.
Tal vez lloré, o tal vez reí, Y tal vez gané o tal vez perdí Ahora sé que fui feliz Que si lloré también amé Puedo seguir hasta el final, a mi manera.
Quizás también dudé Cuando yo más me divertía Quizás yo desprecié Aquello que yo no comprendía Hoy sé, que firme fui Y que afronté ser como era Y así logré vivir a mi manera.
Porque sabrás que un hombre en fin Conocerás por su vivir No hay porque hablar, ni que decir, Ni que llorar, ni que fingir Puedo seguir hasta el final, a mi manera! Sí, a mi manera.
Ariel, listen to me The human world, it’s a mess Life under the sea Is better than anything they got up there
The seaweed is always greener In somebody else’s lake You dream about going up there But that is a big mistake Just look at the world around you Right here on the ocean floor Such wonderful things surround you What more is you lookin’ for?
Under the sea Under the sea Darling it’s better Down where it’s wetter Take it from me Up on the shore they work all day Out in the sun they slave away While we devotin’ Full time to floatin’ Under the sea
Down here all the fish is happy As off through the waves they roll The fish on the land ain’t happy They sad ‘cause they in their bowl But fish in the bowl is lucky They in for a worser fate One day when the boss get hungry Guess who’s gon’ be on the plate?
Oh, no, under the sea Under the sea Nobody beat us Fry us and eat us In fricassee We what the land folks loves to cook Under the sea we off the hook We got no troubles Life is the bubbles Under the sea (under the sea) Under the sea (under the sea)
Since life is sweet here We got the beat here Naturally (naturally) Even the sturgeon and the ray They get the urge ‘n’ start to play We got the spirit You got to hear it Under the sea
The newt play the flute The carp play the harp The plaice play the bass And they soundin’ sharp The bass play the brass The chub play the tub The fluke is the duke of soul (Yeah) The ray he can play The lings on the strings The trout rockin’ out The blackfish she sings The smelt and the sprat They know where it’s at And oh that blowfish blow
Yeah, under the sea (under the sea) Under the sea (under the sea) When the sardine Begin the beguine It’s music to me (it’s music to me) What do they got? A lot of sand We got a hot crustacean band Each little clam here Know how to jam here Under the sea Each little slug here Cuttin’ a rug here Under the sea Each little snail here Know how to wail here That’s why it’s hotter Under the water Ya we in luck here Down in the muck here Under the sea
Beyond the Sea – Robbie Williams
Somewhere, beyond the sea Somewhere waiting for me… My lover stands on golden sands And watches the ships that go sailing
Somewhere, beyond the sea She’s there watching for me If I could fly like birds on high Then straight to her arms I’ll go sailing
It’s far, beyond the stars It’s near, beyond the moon I know… beyond a doubt My heart will lead me there soon…
We’ll meet, beyond the shore We’ll kiss just like before Happy we will be beyond the sea And never again, I’ll go sailing
I know, beyond a doubt… My heart… will lead me there soon
We’ll meet, I know we’ll meet, beyond the shore We’ll kiss just as before Happy we will be beyond the sea… And never again, I’ll go sailing
No more sailing So long, sailing, sailing No more sailing
Goodbye, farewell, my friend No more sailing So long, sailin’ No more sailing
No more, farewell Auf wiedersehen (to ya and ya and ya)
No more sailing (No more) Oh, no more sailing
No more, no more No more sailing…
No more One more time
No more sailing…
Unforgettable – Sia
Unforgettable That’s what you are Unforgettable Though near or far Like a song of love that clings to me How the thought of you does things to me Never before Has someone been more
Unforgettable In every way, oh And forever more That’s how you’ll stay That’s why, darling, it’s incredible That someone so unforgettable Thinks that I am Unforgettable, too
Unforgettable In every way, oh And forever more That’s how you’ll stay, oh yeah That’s why, darling, it’s incredible That someone so unforgettable Thinks that I am unforgettable too
Turn me loose from your hands Let me fly to distant lands Over green fields, trees and mountains Flowers and forest fountains Home along the lanes of the skyway
For this dark and lonely room Projects a shadow cast in gloom And my eyes are mirrors Of the world outside Thinking of the ways That the wind can turn the tide And these shadows turn From purple into grey
For just a skyline pigeon Dreaming of the open Waiting for the day That he can spread his wings And fly away again
Fly away, skyline pigeon fly Towards the dreams You’ve left so very far behind
Fly away, skyline pigeon fly Towards the dreams You’ve left so very far behind
Let me wake up in the morning To the smell of new mowed hay To laugh and cry, to live and die In the brightness of my day
I wanna hear the pealing bells Of distant churches sing But most of all please free me from This aching metal ring And open out this cage towards the sun
For just this skyline pigeon Dreaming of the open Waiting for the day That he can spread his wings And fly away again
Fly away, skyline pigeon fly Towards the dreams You’ve left so very far behind
Fly away, skyline pigeon fly Towards the dreams You’ve left so very So very far behind
The lunatic is on the grass Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs Got to keep the loonies on the path
The lunatic is in the hall The lunatics are in my hall The paper holds their folded faces to the floor And every day the paper boy brings more
And if the dam breaks open many years too soon And if there is no room upon the hill And if your head explodes with dark forebodings too I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon
The lunatic is in my head The lunatic is in my head You raise the blade, you make the change You rearrange me ‘til I’m sane You lock the door and throw away the key There’s someone in my
head but it’s not me
And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear You shout and no one seems to hear And if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon
All that you touch and all that you see All that you taste, all you feel
And all that you love and all that you hate All you distrust, all you save
And all that you give and all that you deal And all that you buy, beg, borrow or steal
And all you create and all you destroy And all that you do and all that you say
And all that you eat and everyone you meet And all that you slight and everyone you fight
And all that is now and all that is gone And all that’s to come and everything under the sun is in tune But the sun is eclipsed by the moon
Overhead the albatross Hangs motionless upon the air And deep beneath the rolling waves In labyrinths of coral caves The echo of a distant time Comes willowing across the sand And everything is green and submarine
And no one showed us to the land And no one knows the where’s or why’s But something stirs and something tries And starts to climb toward the light
Strangers passing in the street By chance, two separate glances meet And I am you and what I see is me And do I take you by the hand And lead you through the land And help me understand the best I can?
And no one calls us to move on And no one forces down our eyes No one speaks and no one tries No one flies around the sun
Cloudless everyday You fall upon my waking eyes Inviting and inciting me to rise And through the window in the wall Come streaming in on sunlight wings A million bright ambassadors of morning
And no one sings me lullabies And no one makes me close my eyes So I throw the windows wide And call to you across the sky
Palestine is a small region of land that has played a prominent role in the ancient and modern history of the Middle East. The history of Palestine has been marked by frequent political conflict and violent land seizures because of its importance to several major world religions, and because Palestine sits at a valuable geographic crossroads between Africa and Asia. Today, Arab people who call this territory home are known as Palestinians, and the people of Palestine have a strong desire to create a free and independent state in this contested region of the world.
The word Palestine derives from the Greek word, Philistia, which dates to Ancient Greek writers’ descriptions of the region in the 12th century B.C. Since the fall of the Ottoman Empire in World War I to 1918, Palestine typically referred to the geographic region located between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. Arab people who call this territory home have been known as Palestinians since the early 20th century. Much of this land is now considered present-day Israel.
Today, Palestine theoretically includes the West Bank (a territory that sits between modern-day Israel and Jordan) and the Gaza Strip (which borders modern-day Israel and Egypt). However, control over this region is a complex and evolving situation. There is no international consensus concerning the borders, and many areas claimed by Palestinians have been occupied by Israelis for years.
More than 135 United Nations member countries recognize Palestine as an independent state, but Israel and some other countries, including the United States, don’t make this distinction.
Palestine’s Early Roots
Scholars believe the name “Palestine” originally comes from the word “Philistia,” which refers to the Philistines who occupied part of the region in the 12th century B.C.
Throughout history, Palestine has been ruled by numerous groups, including the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Fatimids, Seljuk Turks, Crusaders, Egyptians and Mamelukes.
From about 1517 to 1917, the Ottoman Empire ruled much of the region.
When World War I ended in 1918, the British took control of Palestine. The League of Nations issued a British mandate for Palestine—a document that gave Britain administrative control over the region, and included provisions for establishing a Jewish national homeland in Palestine—which went into effect in 1923.
The Partition of Palestine
In 1947, after more than two decades of British rule, the United Nations proposed a plan to partition Palestine into two sections: an independent Jewish state and an independent Arab state. The city of Jerusalem, which was claimed as a capital by both Jews and Palestinian Arabs, was to be an international territory with a special status.
Jewish leaders accepted the plan, but many Palestinian Arabs—some of whom had been actively fighting British and Jewish interests in the region since the 1920s—vehemently opposed it.
Arab groups argued that they represented the majority of the population in certain regions and should be granted more territory. They began to form volunteer armies throughout Palestine.
Israel Becomes a State
In May 1948, less than a year after the Partition Plan for Palestine was introduced, Britain withdrew from Palestine and Israel declared itself an independent state, implying a willingness to implement the Partition Plan.
Almost immediately, neighboring Arab armies moved in to prevent the establishment of the Israeli state. The 1948 Arab-Israeli War that ensued involved Israel and five Arab nations—Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Lebanon. By the war’s end in July 1949, Israel controlled more than two-thirds of the former British Mandate, while Jordan took control of the West Bank and Egypt took control of the Gaza Strip.
The 1948 conflict opened a new chapter in the struggle between Jews and Palestinian Arabs, which now became a regional contest involving nation-states and a tangle of diplomatic, political and economic interests.
The PLO Is Born
In 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was formed for the purpose of establishing a Palestinian Arab state on the land previously administered under the British Mandate, and which the PLO considered to be occupied illegitimately by the State of Israel.
Although the PLO was originally dedicated to the destruction of the State of Israel as a means of attaining its goal of Palestinian statehood, in the 1993 Oslo Accords, the PLO accepted Israel’s right to exist in exchange for formal recognition of the PLO by Israel—a high water mark in Israeli-Palestinian relations.
In 1969, the well-known Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat became the Chairman of the PLO and held that title until he died in 2004.
The Six-Day War
The Six-Day War was triggered during a volatile period of diplomatic friction and skirmishes between Israel and its neighbors. In April 1967, the clashes worsened after Israel and Syria fought a ferocious air and artillery engagement in which six Syrian fighter jets were destroyed.
In the wake of the April air battle, the Soviet Union provided Egypt with intelligence that Israel was moving troops to its northern border with Syria in preparation for a full-scale invasion. The information was inaccurate, but it nevertheless stirred Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser to advance forces into the Sinai Peninsula, where they expelled a United Nations peacekeeping force that had been guarding the border with Israel for over a decade.
Israel Defense Forces then launched a preemptive aerial attack against Egypt on June 5, 1967. Both nations claimed that they were acting in self-defense in the ensuing conflict, which ended on June 10 and also drew in Jordan and Syria, who sided with Egypt. The Six-Day War, as it came to be called, resulted in major land gains for Israel.
By the end of the war, Israel had taken control of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the Sinai Peninsula (a desert region situated between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea) and the Golan Heights (a rocky plateau located between Syria and modern-day Israel).
The outcome of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War would lead to continued tension and armed conflict between Israel and its neighbors over the coming decades.
The First Intifada and the Oslo Accords
In 1987, the First Intifada broke broke out, a boiling over of Palestinian anger over ongoing Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. Palestinian militia groups revolted, and hundreds of people were killed.
A subsequent peace process, known as the Oslo Peace Accords, was initiated during the early 1990s in a multilateral attempt to end the ongoing violence.
The first Oslo Accord (Oslo I) created a timetable for a Middle East peace process and a plan for an interim Palestinian government in parts of Gaza and the West Bank. The agreement was signed in 1993 and witnessed by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
Arafat returned to Gaza in 1994 after being exiled for 27 years. He headed up the newly-formed Palestinian Authority.
In 1995, Oslo II laid the groundwork for a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from parts of the West Bank and other areas. It also set a schedule for Palestinian Legislative Council elections.
Unfortunately, the Oslo Accords failed in their ultimate goal of bringing Israel and the Palestinians to agree over a full-fledged peace plan.
The Second Intifada: Violence Continues
In September 2000, the Second Palestinian Intifada began. One of the triggers for the violence was when Ariel Sharon, a right-wing, Jewish Israeli who would later become Israel’s prime minister, visited the Muslim holy site at the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Many Palestinians felt this was an offensive move, and they protested.
Riots, suicide bombings and other attacks subsequently broke out, putting an end to the once-promising peace process.
This period of violence between Palestinians and Israelis lasted nearly five years. Yasser Arafat died in November 2004, and by August of 2005, the Israeli army withdrew from Gaza.
Hamas
In 2006, Hamas, a Sunni Islamist militant group, won the Palestinian legislative elections.
That same year, fighting between Hamas and Fatah, the political group that controlled the PLO, ensued. In 2007, Hamas defeated Fatah in a battle for Gaza.
Many countries consider Hamas to be a terrorist organization. The group has carried out suicide bombings and repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel.
Hamas and Israel fought each other in several bloody wars, including Operation Cast Lead in December 2008, Operation Pillar of Defense in November 2012 and Operation Protective Edge in July 2014.
In April 2014, Hamas and Fatah agreed to a deal that would form a unified national Palestinian government.
Current State of Palestine
Palestinians are still fighting for an official state that’s formally recognized by all countries.
Although Palestinians occupy key areas of land, including the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, some Israelis, with their government’s blessing, continue to settle in areas that are generally agreed to be under Palestinian control. Many international rights groups consider such settlements illegal, the borders aren’t clearly defined, and persistent conflict continues to be the norm. A substantial proportion of Israelis also oppose the settlements and would prefer to find peaceful ways to resolve their land disputes with the Palestinians.
In May 2017, leaders of Hamas presented a document that proposed the formation of a Palestinian state using the 1967 defined borders, with Jerusalem as its capital. However, the group refused to recognize Israel as a state, and the Israeli government promptly rejected the plan.
In May 2018, tensions erupted when the U.S. Embassy relocated from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Perceiving this as signal of American support for Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Palestinians responded with protests at the Gaza-Israel border, which were met with Israeli force resulting in the deaths of dozens of protesters.
While so much of Palestine’s history has involved bloodshed, displacement, and instability, many world leaders continue to work toward a resolution that will result in peace throughout the region.
The term Palestine has been associated variously and sometimes controversially with this small region, which some have asserted also includes Jordan. Both the geographic area designated by the name and the political status of it have changed over the course of some three millennia. The region (or at least a part of it) is also known as the Holy Land and is held sacred among Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Since the 20th century it has been the object of conflicting claims of Jewish and Arab national movements, and the conflict has led to prolonged violence and, in several instances, open warfare.
The word Palestine derives from Philistia, the name given by Greek writers to the land of the Philistines, who in the 12th century BCE occupied a small pocket of land on the southern coast, between modern Tel Aviv–Yafo and Gaza. The name was revived by the Romans in the 2nd century CE in “Syria Palaestina,” designating the southern portion of the province of Syria, and made its way thence into Arabic, where it has been used to describe the region at least since the early Islamic era. After Roman times the name had no official status until after World War I and the end of rule by the Ottoman Empire, when it was adopted for one of the regions mandated to Great Britain; in addition to an area roughly comprising present-day Israel and the West Bank, the mandate included the territory east of the Jordan River now constituting the Hashimite Kingdom of Jordan, which Britain placed under an administration separate from that of Palestine immediately after receiving the mandate for the territory.
The name Palestine has long been in popular use as a general term to denote a traditional region, but this usage does not imply precise boundaries. The perception of what constitutes Palestine’s eastern boundary has been especially fluid, although the boundary frequently has been perceived as lying east of the Jordan River, extending at times to the edge of the Arabian Desert. In contemporary understanding, however, Palestine is generally defined as a region bounded on the east by the Jordan River, on the north by the border between modern Israel and Lebanon, on the west by the Mediterranean Sea (including the coast of Gaza), and on the south by the Negev, with its southernmost extension reaching the Gulf of Aqaba.
The strategic importance of the area is immense: through it pass the main roads from Egypt to Syria and from the Mediterranean to the hills beyond the Jordan River.
Settlement depends closely on water, which is almost never abundant. Precipitation, which arrives in the cool half of the year, decreases in amount in general from north to south and from the coast inland. Perennial rivers are few, and the shortage of water is aggravated by the porous nature of the limestone rocks over much of the country.
Land
Coastal lowlands of varying widths front the Mediterranean. The most northerly is the Plain of ʿAkko (Acre), which extends with a breadth of 5 to 9 miles (8 to 14 km) for about 20 miles (32 km) from the Lebanon border in the north to the Carmel promontory, in Israel, in the south, where it narrows to a mere 600 feet (180 metres). Farther southward the lowland opens out rapidly into the Plain of Sharon, about 8 miles (13 km) wide and extending south to the latitude of Tel Aviv–Yafo. Once covered with marshes, the Sharon plain was reclaimed in the post-Exilic and Hellenistic period and is now a settled area. Fields and fruit groves are laid out between scattered sandstone ridges, on which villages have grown up. South of the spur of low hills that approaches the coast at about Yafo (Jaffa), the plain widens into a fertile region known in biblical times as Philistia, a district of orange groves, irrigated orchards, and fields of grain.
Farther northward the Plain of Esdraelon (ʿEmeq Yizreʿel), formed by subsidence along lines of faults, separates the hills of southern Galilee from the mountains of Samaria. The plain, 16 miles (26 km) wide at most, narrows to the northwest, where the Qishon River breaks through to the Plain of ʿAkko, and to the southeast, where the Ḥarod River—which rises at the Spring of Ḥarod—has carved the plain into the side of the Jordan Valley. Covered with rich basaltic soils washed down from the Galilean hills, Esdraelon is important both for its fertility and for the great highway it opens from the Mediterranean to the lands across the Jordan. The maritime plain connects with Esdraelon by the pass of Megiddo and several lesser routes between the mountain spurs of Carmel and Gilboaʿ.
The hill country of Galilee is better-watered and more thickly wooded than that of Samaria or Judaea. North of the Bet Netofa Valley (Plain of Asochis) is Upper Galilee, with elevations of 4,000 feet (1,200 metres), a scrub-covered limestone plateau that is thinly populated. To the south, Lower Galilee—with its highest peak, Mount Tabor (1,929 feet [588 metres])—is a land of east-west ridges enclosing sheltered vales like that of Nazareth, with rich basaltic soils.
Samaria, the region of the ancient kingdom of Israel, is a hilly district extending from the Plain of Esdraelon to the latitude of Ramallah. Its mountains—Carmel, Gilboaʿ, Aybāl (Ebal), and Al-Ṭūr (Gerizim)—are lower than those of Upper Galilee, while its basins, notably those of the ʿArrābah Plain and Nāblus, are wider and more gently contoured than their equivalents in Judaea. Samaria is easily approached from the coast across the Plain of Sharon and from the Jordan by the Fāriʿah valley. The city of Jerusalem has expanded rapidly along the mountain ridges.
From Ramallah in the north to Beersheba in the south, the high plateau of Judaea is a rocky wilderness of limestone, with rare patches of cultivation, as found around Al-Bīrah and Hebron. It is separated from the coastal plain by a longitudinal fosse and a belt of low hills of soft chalky limestone, about 5 to 8 miles (8 to 13 km) wide, known as Ha-Shefela. The Judaean plateau falls abruptly to the Jordan Valley, which is approached with difficulty along the wadis Qelt and Muqalliq.
The Jordan Valley is a deep rift valley that varies in width from 1.5 to 14 miles (2.5 to 22 km). In its northern section the bed of the drained Lake Ḥula and of Lake Tiberias (the Sea of Galilee) are blocked by natural dams of basalt. Descending to about 1,310 feet (400 metres) below sea level—the lowest land depth on the Earth’s surface—the valley is exceedingly dry and hot, and cultivation is restricted to irrigated areas or rare oases, as at Jericho or at ʿEn Gedi by the shore of the Dead Sea.
The Negev, a desertlike region, is triangular in shape with the apex at the south. It extends from Beersheba in the north, where 8 inches (200 mm) or more of precipitation falls annually and grain is grown, to the port city of Elat on the Red Sea, in the extremely arid south. It is bounded by the Sinai Peninsula on the west and the northern extension of the Great Rift Valley on the east.
People
The social geography of modern Palestine, especially the area west of the Jordan River, has been greatly affected by the dramatic political changes and wars that have brought this small region to the attention of the world. In the early 21st century, Israeli Jewsconstituted roughly half of the population west of the Jordan, while Palestinian Arabs—Muslim, Christian, and Druze—and other smaller minorities accounted for the rest. The Jewish population is increasingly composed of persons born in Israel itself, although millions of immigrants have arrived since the founding of the State of Israel in 1948. The Arab population is descended from Arabs who lived in the area during the mandate period and, in most cases, for centuries before that time. The majority of both Jews and Arabs are now urbanized.
According to Jewish nationalists (Zionists), Judaism constitutes a basis for both religious and national (ethnic) identity. Palestinian nationalists usually emphasize that their shared identity as Arabs transcends the religious diversity of their community. Both Muslim Arabs, constituting about 18 percent of the Israeli population, and Christian Arabs, about 2 percent, identify themselves in the first instance as Arabs.
The Arab majority resident in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and the still larger number of Arab Palestinians living outside the area (many in nearby countries such as Lebanon) have strongly opposed Israeli control and feared an eventual annexation of the West Bank and Gaza by Israel. Many ideological Jewish Israeli settlers support such an annexation and think those lands properly belong to Israel. In 2005 Arab concerns were partially assuaged when Israel completed its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and handed over control of the territory to the Palestinians, but the Israeli settlement population in the West Bank nearly doubled between 2005 and 2019.
Both Zionists and Palestinian Arab nationalists have at various times since the 19th century claimed rightful possession of the area west of the Jordan River. The rivalry between the two groups and their claims have been major causes of the numerous Arab-Israeli conflicts and the continuing crises in the region. Some members of each group still make such sweeping and mutually exclusive claims to complete control of the area, whereas others are more willing to seek a peaceful compromise solution.
Palestine in the ancient world was part of the region known as Canaan where the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah were located. The term `Palestine’ was originally a designation of an area of land in southern Canaan which the people known as the Philistines occupied a very small part of.
The Canaanites, Canaanite-Phoenicians, and the Israelites, among others, established themselves in the area much earlier. The Philistines are thought to have come to the area toward the end of the Bronze Age c. 1276 BCE and established themselves on the southern coastal plain of the Mediterranean Sea in an area afterwards known as Philistia.
The whole of the region was referred to as `Canaan’ in Mesopotamian texts and trade records found at Ebla and Mari as early as the 18th century BCE while the term `Palestine’ does not appear in any written records until the 5th century BCE in the Histories of Herodotus. After Herodotus, the term `Palestine’ came to be used for the entire region which was formerly known as Canaan.
The region is part of the so-called fertile crescent and human habitation there can be traced back to before 10, 000 BCE. The lands were originally inhabited by nomadic hunter-gatherers who most likely immigrated from Mesopotamia but became sedentary agriculturalists by the Early Bronze Age (c.3300-c.2000 BCE). In the Middle Bronze Age (c. 2000-c.1550 BCE)) trade with other nations expanded and Canaan prospered and in the Late Bronze Age (c.1550-c. 1200 BCE) this affluence continued as the region was incorporated into the Egyptian Empire (c.1570-c.1069 BCE).
As Egypt‘s influence and power waned, that of the Assyrians grew and there were Assyrian incursions into other lands as early as 1295 BCE. The entire Near East suffered during the so-called Bronze Age Collapse of c. 1250-c. 1150 BCE and Canaan was no exception. According to the biblical Book of Joshua, the Israelite general Joshua invaded the land and divided the region among his people. At approximately the same time, however, the Sea Peoples (whose identity remains unknown) arrived in the region and could have been responsible for the evident destruction of towns and cities, as they were in other nations.
The Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, and the armies of Alexander the Great all conquered the region in succession and, finally, so too, the armies of Rome. By the time Rome appeared in the land it was long known as Judea, a term taken from the ancient Kingdom of Judah which had been destroyed by the Babylonians. It was also referred to, however, as Palestine and, after the Bar-Kochba Revolt of 132-136 CE, the Roman emperorHadrian renamed the region Syria-Palaestina to punish the Jewish people for their insurrection (by naming it after their two traditional enemies, the Syrians and the Philistines). The designations Philistia, Roman Judea, and Palestine were all in use afterwards.
When the Western Roman Empire fell, Palestine was taken by the Eastern or Byzantine Empire and held until c. 634 CE when it was taken by invading Muslim armies from Arabia.
Name
The name `Palestine’ is thought to derive from either the word plesheth (meaning `root palash’, an edible concoction carried by migratory tribes which came to symbolize nomadic peoples) or as a Greek designation for the nomadic Philistines. The author Tom Robbins has suggested the term `Palestine’ originates from the ancient androgynous god Pales who was worshipped in the region of Canaan. If this is so then `Palestine’ means `Land of Pales’.
It has been established that there was an androgynous deity named Pales (referred to in texts as both a god and a goddess) who was recognized by the Romans as the patron deity of shepherds and sheep and whose festivals were celebrated on 21 April and 7 July in Rome in the area of the Palatine Hill (Adkins & Adkins, 269). There is, however, no documentation from ancient times linking this deity to the name of the region of Palestine and, most likely, the name derives from the Greek for `the Land of the Philistines’.
Following Herodotus’ use of the term in his work in the 5th century BCE, other writers adopted it in their own and `Palestine’ gradually replaced `Canaan’ as the name of the region.
Early History
The region of Palestine is among the earliest sites of human habitation in the world. Archaeological evidence suggests a hunter-gatherer community living a nomadic existence in the region pre-10,000 BCE. In the Early Bronze Age, permanent settlements were founded and agricultural communities developed. Trade was initiated with other regions in the Near East and, because of its location between the cities of Mesopotamia and those of Arabia and Egypt, Palestine became an important trading hub and attracted the attention of Sargon the Great (r. 2334-2279 BCE) who absorbed the region into his Akkadian Empire c. 2300 BCE.
The affluence of the Akkadian Empire at this time encouraged the growth of urban centers throughout the region and Palestine flourished until Akkad fell to the invading armies of the Gutians, Elamites, and Amorites in c. 2083 BCE. After this, the cities were abandoned and the people returned to a rural, agrarian lifestyle, possibly due to overpopulation, though the reasons are unclear.
Middle Bronze Age
In the Middle Bronze Age (c. 2000-c.1550 BCE), the people again embraced urbanization and trade flourished. International commerce had first been established between the port city of Byblos and Egypt in c. 4000 BCE and, by 2000 BCE, Egypt was the region’s most influential partner in trade. Egypt’s influence is evident in the pattern of burial rituals in the region which closely mirror Egypt’s in terms of the type of grave goods included in the tombs.
This partnership continued to benefit both Egypt and the Palestine region until the arrival of the Semitic peoples known as the Hyksos in c. 1725 BCE. The Hyksos, known in ancient Egyptian inscriptions only as “foreign kings”, were able to use Palestine to gain a foothold in the Delta region of Lower Egypt toward the end of Egypt’s Middle Kingdom (2040-1782 BCE) and establish themselves as a political entity at Avaris.
In time, they became powerful enough to initiate trade, muster armies, and take control of the Delta and a large part of Lower Egypt until they were driven out by Ahmose I of Thebes in 1570 BCE. Ahmose I’s campaign pursued the Hyksos north through Palestine into Syria, leaving ruined cities and scattered communities in his wake.
Late Bronze Age
Following the expulsion of the Hyksos, the cities of Palestine were rebuilt and Ahmose I absorbed the region into the newly formed Egyptian Empire (also referred to as the New Kingdom, c. 1570-c.1069 BCE). Ahmose I wanted to make sure that no other foreign power would infiltrate Egypt’s border and so created a buffer-zone around Egypt’s borders which was enlarged by later pharaohs to form their empire.
Some of the most famous Egyptian pharaohs ruled during the New Kingdom and patronized Palestine in trade and through building projects. Hatshepsut (r. 1479-1458 BCE), Thutmose III (r. 1458-1425 BCE), Amenhotep III (r. 1386-1353 BCE), and Ramesses the Great (r. 1279-1213 BCE), among many others, encouraged trade in the region and improved its infrastructure.
During the reign of Thutmose III, a people known as the Habiru disturbed the peace through raids on communities. The identity of these people (like the Hyksos and Sea Peoples) is unknown but they appear to have been native to the region and the term `Habiru’ used to designate those who refused to conform any longer to the rules of society. They are described as outlaws rather than invaders and past attempts by modern-day scholars to link the Habiru with the Hebrews have been discredited.
During the reign of Ramesses the Great, the Sea Peoples make their first appearance in Egypt’s history. Ramesses defeated them in a sea battle off his coast in c. 1278 BCE and again encountered them in 1274 BCE as allies of the Hittites at the Battle of Kadesh. Who they were and where they came from is still debated in the present day but they returned to wage war on Egypt during the reign of Merenptah (r. 1213-1203 BCE) and later during the reign of Ramesses III (r. 1186-1155 BCE). At the same time they were harassing Egypt, the Sea Peoples were also wreaking havoc on the Hittite Empire and throughout the Levant. Their activities, along with Assyrian incursions beginning c. 1300 BCE, threw the region of the Near East into chaos.
It is about this same time, c. 1250-1200 BCE, that the conquest of Canaan by the Israelite general Joshua is thought to have occurred as related in the biblical Book of Joshua and, to a lesser extent, in the Book of Numbers. While there is certainly evidence of a great upheaval in the land at this time, the archaeological evidence does not fit with the biblical narrative and it is possible the land was overrun by the Sea Peoples.
The first mention of Israel comes from the stele of Merenptah who claims that “Israel is devastated” in the description of his victory over the Libyans (who were allies of the Sea Peoples). The stele seems to be referring to `Israel’ as a people, not as a kingdom or city-state, and it is possible that the Israelites joined with the Sea Peoples and Libyans in a push against Egypt, though this is speculative.
At some point after the alleged invasion by general Joshua, however, the Israelites are firmly established in Palestine and, by c. 1080 BCE, the Kingdom of Israel is founded in the north. Israel would flourish as a united kingdom until after the death of King Solomon (c. 965-931 BCE) when it split in two as the Kingdom of Israel with its capital at Samaria in the north and the Kingdom of Judah with the capital at Jerusalem in the south. Throughout the reigns of the early Israelite kings, and later, the Philistines are repeatedly referenced in the Bible as their sworn enemies.
The Philistines & Foreign Conquerors
The Philistines (thought to be from Crete and, most likely, from the Aegean area) landed on the southern Mediterranean coast of Canaan in circa 1276 BCE after being repulsed in their invasion of Egypt (along with the Sea Peoples) by Rameses III. By 1185 BCE they had established themselves firmly in settlements along the coast known as Philistia. Other, older, settlements were already thriving in the area upon their arrival and the Philistines went quickly to work to subdue them.
According to biblical narratives, the Philistines were organized and efficient enough to cause the early Israelite tribes and cities a great deal of trouble. They posed a significant threat to the Israelite King Saul (r. c. 1080-1010 BCE), were defeated by his successor, King David (r. c. 1035-970 BCE), and were still enemies of Israel under King Solomon but, in spite of Israelite victories over them, they continued to thrive along the coast and harass their neighbors.
In 722 BCE, the region was overrun by the Assyrians and the Kingdom of Israel was destroyed. At this same time, the Philistines were subdued completely and lost their autonomy. The Neo-Assyrian Empire claimed Palestine and their king Sennacherib (r.705-681 BCE) launched a campaign in the region in 703 BCE. Although he failed to take Jerusalem, he succeeded in making Judah a vassal state.
The Assyrians held the region until the fall of their empire in 612 BCE to a coalition led by Babylonians and Medes and, shortly after, the Babylonians invaded Palestine in 598 BCE and sacked Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple of Solomon, and took the leading citizens among the Israelites back to Babylon (a period in Jewish history known as the Babylonian Captivity). They returned between 589-582 BCE and destroyed the rest of Judah, scattering the Philistines at the same time.
Babylon fell to Cyrus the Great (d. 530 BCE) who absorbed the region into the Achaemenid Empire and allowed the Jews to return from Babylon to their homeland. The Persian Empire fell to Alexander the Great (356-323 BCE) and, after him, the Seleucids controlled the region until c. 168 BCE when the Maccabees revolted against foreign rule and the imposition of foreign religion and established the Hasmonean Dynasty, the last independent Judean kingdom. Rome involved itself in the region’s affairs in 63 BCE and, after Augustus became emperor, Palestine became a province known as Roman Judea in c. 31 BCE.
The Jewish-Roman Wars
The Romans installed a king of their choice, Herod the Great, to rule the region and imposed the same tax levies on Judea as they did other provinces in the empire. The people resented Roman rule and occupation, however, and Judea proved an especially problematic region for Rome.
The years 66-73 CE saw the First Jewish-Roman war which resulted in Titus destroying Jerusalem, including the Second Temple (leaving only the Western Wall) and leading to the martyrdom of the defenders of Masada. Although the people of the land were free, within reason, to adhere to their own cultures and religious beliefs, they were still under Roman rule and wanted their independence.
In 115-117 CE, the conflict known as the Kitos War broke out (so-named from a corruption of the name of the Roman general, Lucius Quietus, who commanded the Roman legions). This conflict also ended in a Roman victory and a relative peace was restored. In 132 CE, however, the Bar-Kochba Revolt (132-136 CE) broke out and proved the most costly to both sides (although the Judeans suffered the worse casualties with over 500,000 combatants killed, not counting many others). The Emperor Hadrian was so enraged by Jewish resistance that he re-named the province Syria Palaestina (after the two traditional enemies of the Jews, the Syrians and the Philistines) and banished all Jews from the region, building his city Aelia Capitolina on the ruins of Jerusalem. The Bar-Kochba Revolt was the last of the Jewish-Roman Wars and, afterwards, Rome held the region without further serious incident.
Conclusion
The emperor Diocletian (r.284-305 CE) divided the Roman Empire in two, the Western Empire which controlled Europe and the Eastern Empire (later known as the Byzantine Empire) which administrated affairs in the Near East and, of course, held Syria-Palaestina. When the emperor Constantine the Great (r.306-337 CE) legitimized Christianity and made it the state religion, Syria-Palaestina became a Christian province and an important center for the new faith.
The Western Roman Empire fell in 476 CE but the Byzantine Empire continued on relatively unchallenged until the 7th century CE and the rise of Islam in the region. In 634 CE, the Muslim armies from Arabia took Syria-Palaestina and renamed it Jund Filastin (“Military District of Palestine”). The Muslims felt they had as much of a religious stake in the region as the Christians or as the Jews before them and churches were turned into mosques in the same way that earlier temples had given way to churches.
Palestine came to be referred to by European Christians as the Holy Land and the First Crusade was launched to win it back from Muslim occupation in 1096 CE. This effort was followed by many more, supported by the Byzantine Empire, through 1272 CE at enormous cost of life and property but with nothing finally gained. The Byzantine Empire fell in 1453 CE, greatly reducing Christian influence in the region, and Palestine was held by the Ottoman Turks. The region continued to be contested throughout the next few centuries until the British involved themselves in 1915 CE during World War I at which time the western powers first devised plans to partition the Middle East for their own purposes and benefit.
Palestine continued to be a war-torn and much-contested region up through World War II when, afterwards, the United Nations declared the area the State of Israel and established it as a homeland for the Jewish people. This mandate by the United Nations, and the resulting country of Israel, remains controversial and the region continues to be as troubled in the present day as it was in ancient times.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict dates back to the end of the nineteenth century. In 1947, the United Nations adopted Resolution 181, known as the Partition Plan, which sought to divide the British Mandate of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states. On May 14, 1948, the State of Israel was created, sparking the first Arab-Israeli War. The war ended in 1949 with Israel’s victory, but 750,000 Palestinians were displaced and the territory was divided into 3 parts: the State of Israel, the West Bank (of the Jordan River), and the Gaza Strip.
Over the following years, tensions rose in the region, particularly between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. Following the 1956 Suez Crisis and Israel’s invasion of the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, Jordan, and Syria signed mutual defense pacts in anticipation of a possible mobilization of Israel troops. In June 1967, following a series of maneuvers by Egyptian President Abdel Gamal Nasser, Israel preemptively attacked Egyptian and Syrian air forces, starting the Six-Day War. After the war, Israel gained territorial control over the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt; the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan; and the Golan Heights from Syria. Six years later, in what is referred to as the Yom Kippur War or the October War, Egypt and Syria launched a surprise two-front attack on Israel to regain their lost territory; the conflict did not result in significant gains for Egypt, Israel, or Syria, but Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat declared the war a victory for Egypt as it allowed Egypt and Syria to negotiate over previously ceded territory. Finally, in 1979, following a series of cease-fires and peace negotiations, representatives from Egypt and Israel signed the Camp David Accords, a peace treaty that ended the thirty-year conflict between Egypt and Israel.
Even though the Camp David Accords improved relations between Israel and its neighbors, the question of Palestinian self-determination and self-governance remained unresolved. In 1987, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip rose up against the Israeli government in what is known as the first intifada. The 1993 Oslo I Accords mediated the conflict, setting up a framework for the Palestinians to govern themselves in the West Bank and Gaza, and enabled mutual recognition between the newly established Palestinian Authority and Israel’s government. In 1995, the Oslo II Accords expanded on the first agreement, adding provisions that mandated the complete withdrawal of Israel from 6 cities and 450 towns in the West Bank.
In 2000, sparked in part by Palestinian grievances over Israel’s control over the West Bank, a stagnating peace process, and former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s visit to the al-Aqsa mosque—the third holiest site in Islam—in September 2000, Palestinians launched the second intifada, which would last until 2005. In response, the Israeli government approved construction of a barrier wall around the West Bank in 2002, despite opposition from the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.
In 2013, the United States attempted to revive the peace process between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. However, peace talks were disrupted when Fatah—the Palestinian Authority’s ruling party—formed a unity government with its rival faction Hamas in 2014. Hamas, a spin-off of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood founded in 1987 following the first intifada, is one of two major Palestinian political parties and was designated a foreign terrorist organization by the United States in 1997.
In the summer of 2014, clashes in the Palestinian territories precipitated a military confrontation between the Israeli military and Hamas in which Hamas fired nearly three thousand rockets at Israel, and Israel retaliated with a major offensive in Gaza. The skirmish ended in late August 2014 with a cease-fire deal brokered by Egypt, but only after 73 Israelis and 2,251 Palestinians were killed. After a wave of violence between Israelis and Palestinians in 2015, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced that Palestinians would no longer be bound by the territorial divisions created by the Oslo Accords. In March and May of 2018, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip conducted weekly demonstrations at the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel. The final protest coincided with the seventieth anniversary of the Nakba, the Palestinian exodus that accompanied Israeli independence. While most of the protesters were peaceful, some stormed the perimeter fence and threw rocks and other objects. According to the United Nations, 183 demonstrators were killed and more than 6,000 were wounded by live ammunition.
Also in May of 2018, fighting broke out between Hamas and the Israeli military in what became the worst period of violence since 2014. Before reaching a cease-fire, militants in Gaza fired over one hundred rockets into Israel; Israel responded with strikes on more than fifty targets in Gaza during the twenty-four-hour flare-up.
The Donald J. Trump administration set achieving an Israeli-Palestinian deal as a foreign policy priority. In 2018, the Trump administration canceled funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency, which provides aid to Palestinian refugees, and relocated the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a reversal of a longstanding U.S. policy. The decision to move the U.S. embassy was met with applause from the Israeli leadership but was condemned by Palestinian leaders and others in the Middle East and Europe. Israel considers the “complete and united Jerusalem” its capital, while Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state. In January 2020, the Trump administration released its long-awaited “Peace to Prosperity” plan, which was rejected by Palestinians due to its support for future Israeli annexation of settlements in the West Bank and control over an “undivided” Jerusalem.
In August and September 2020, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and then Bahrain agreed to normalize relations with Israel, making them only the third and fourth countries in the region—following Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994—to do so. The agreements, named the Abraham Accords, came more than eighteen months after the United States hosted Israel and several Arab states for ministerial talks in Warsaw, Poland, about the future of peace in the Middle East. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas rejected the accords; Hamas also rejected the agreements.
Concerns
There is concern that a third intifada could break out and that renewed tensions will escalate into large-scale violence. The United States has an interest in protecting the security of its long-term ally Israel, and achieving a lasting deal between Israel and the Palestinian territories, which would improve regional security.
Recent Developments
In October 2020, an Israeli court ruled that several Palestinian families living in Sheikh Jarrah—a neighborhood in East Jerusalem—were to be evicted by May 2021 with their land handed over to Jewish families. In February 2021, several Palestinian families from Sheikh Jarrah filed an appeal to the court ruling and prompted protests around the appeal hearings, the ongoing legal battle around property ownership, and demanding an end to the forcible displacement of Palestinians from their homes in Jerusalem.
In late April 2021, Palestinians began demonstrating in the streets of Jerusalem to protest the pending evictions and residents of Sheikh Jarrah—along with other activists—began to host nightly sit-ins. In early May, after a court ruled in favor of the evictions, the protests expanded with Israeli police deploying force against demonstrators. On May 7, following weeks of daily demonstrations and rising tensions between protesters, Israeli settlers, and police during the month of Ramadan, violence broke out at the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, with Israeli police using stun grenades, rubber bullets, and water cannons in a clash with protestors that left hundreds of Palestinians wounded.
After the clashes in Jerusalem’s Old City, tensions increased throughout East Jerusalem, compounded by the celebration of Jerusalem Day. On May 10, after several consecutive days of violence throughout Jerusalem and the use of lethal and nonlethal force by Israeli police, Hamas, the militant group which governs Gaza, and other Palestinian militant groups launched hundreds of rockets into Israeli territory. Israel responded with air strikes and later artillery bombardments against targets in Gaza, including launching several air strikes that killed more than twenty Palestinians. While claiming to target Hamas, other militants, and their infrastructure—including tunnels and rocket launchers—Israel expanded its aerial campaign and struck targets including residential buildings, media headquarters, and refugee and healthcare facilities.
On May 21, Israel and Hamas agreed to a cease-fire, brokered by Egypt, with both sides claiming victory and no reported violations. More than two hundred and fifty Palestinians were killed and nearly two thousand others wounded, and at least thirteen Israelis were killed over the eleven days of fighting. Authorities in Gaza estimate that tens of millions of dollars of damage was done, and the United Nations estimates that more than 72,000 Palestinians were displaced by the fighting.
Israel and the Palestinians: a history of conflict in 8 key episodes
As violence between Israelis and Palestinians escalates, the prospect of lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians seems as remote now as ever. Writing in 2018, 70 years after the founding of the modern state of Israel, Matthew Hughes charted eight key moments in the history of the hostilities
1 Early Jewish settlement
19th century
Palestine did not formally exist as a country before the First World War, when the British fixed Palestine’s borders after their conquest of what would become Iraq, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. For hundreds of years before the British took control, Palestine had been divided into provinces of the Ottoman empire, and had very few Jewish inhabitants.
Indeed, at the start of the 19th century the Jewish population of the territory soon to be defined as Palestine was small – only about 3%. The majority of the region’s inhabitants were Arabs, mostly Sunni Muslim, who had occupied the region since the seventh-century Arab conquest; there was also a sizeable Christian minority. Together, these formed the population that would be considered – despite the lack of a formally recognised country – as Palestinians.
The Jewish people of Palestine in 1800 were not farmers or settlers but instead lived in towns and worked as merchants or religious teachers. As the 19th century progressed, European Jews – influenced by the rise of nationalism in Europe – began to look to Palestine as the place for a possible Jewish homeland. A wave of Jewish people came to the country in an Aliyah (‘ascent’) starting in the 1880s, making their homes on land bought from Palestinians.
This brought a new type of Jew to Palestine, there to settle the land; these adopted tough new names such as Oz (‘strength’). More settlers followed as Jewish people fled anti-Semitic pogroms in Europe, a situation exacerbated by the rise of rightwing sentiment that presaged Nazi rule of Germany from 1933.
Settlement was core to Zionism – a Jewish nationalist movement – because it demanded land for a Jewish state. Zionists based their national claim to Palestine on ancient Jewish settlement of the area before the Romans expelled Jews from the region in the second century AD following two major Jewish revolts against their rule. Zionism and Jewish settlement were seen as a return to an ancient Jewish Palestine. “A land without a people for a people without a land” ran a pithy Zionist slogan – yet this was not accurate: the land was already occupied by predominantly Muslim communities.
2 The seeds of conflict
1896–1917
In 1896, an Austro-Hungarian Jewish intellectual, Theodor Herzl, published Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), a pamphlet outlining the intellectual basis for the idea of a Jewish country.
There was initially much discussion among Zionists about whether such a place was to be in Palestine or elsewhere. Early schemes proposed such disparate locations as Canada, parts of South America, and Britishrun East Africa around what is now Uganda and Kenya. European Zionist Jews were looking for a place to make real the Jewish state, and the debate fell between two major camps. The first was willing to accept a Jewish state anywhere, while the other was determined to forge a state in historic Palestine.
In 1905, at the Seventh Zionist Congress in Basel, the dispute was settled in favour of a Jewish state in Palestine rather than some part of the world with no religious or historical connection for Jewish people. Many Palestinians resisted this move to settle in the territory, and expressed their own national identity through channels such as Falastin, a newspaper founded in Jaffa in 1911 and named for their homeland. Other responses were more direct, with Palestinians aggressively targeting landowners who sold land to Jewish settlers.
Jewish immigration and settlement set the two communities on the road to war. It would be a struggle in which the Zionists, armed with modern European nationalist ideas, organisation and technologies, had the edge.
3 Riots and revolt
1917–20
In 1917, during the First World War, British-led troops conquered southern Palestine and took Jerusalem. In the same year, the British foreign secretary, AJ Balfour, issued the so-called Balfour Declaration. Sent as a letter to the Jewish (and Zionist) Lord Rothschild on 2 November, and published a week later in The Times, it was a deliberately ambiguous statement of British intent towards Palestine. It did not promise the Jewish people a state in the country; instead, it vaguely expressed the sentiment that “His Majesty’s Government view with favour” the establishment of a Jewish “national home” in Palestine, while also recognising that the region had an existing, non-Jewish, population.
The declaration helped Britain’s war effort in various ways, boosting support in the United States (which had a significant Jewish population) and providing for British control of Palestine. The Jewish settlers depended on Britain for their survival and, until the Second World War, worked with the British authorities to maintain security in Palestine. Jewish settlement was met with local resistance: in 1920, for instance, rioting broke out as Palestinians opposed British-facilitated Jewish immigration. More violence was to erupt throughout the next two decades.
Jewish-European settlers in this period recorded the mood of colonialism. “We must not forget that we are dealing here with a semi-savage people, which has extremely primitive concepts,” one wrote at the time. “And this is his nature: if he senses in you power, he will submit and will hide his hatred for you. And if he senses weakness, he will dominate you.” Amid such colonial views, the British veered between support for Jewish settlers and for the Palestinians. Their goals were diverging and becoming seemingly irreconcilable.
4 Full-scale conflict
1929–47
As violence erupted between the two communities, Jews and Palestinians divided, and people had to take sides. Early Jewish inhabitants in Palestine, and Mizrahi (‘oriental’ or ‘eastern’) Jews who came to Palestine from Arab countries and who spoke Arabic, were now confronted by politically mobilised European Jews arriving to settle the land and build a Jewish state. Many of these long-time Jewish occupants of Palestine and the Middle East cut their ties to their Arab neighbours.
An outbreak of extreme violence in 1929 dashed any faint hopes of Jews and Palestinians combining, and revisionist rightwing Zionist organisations grew. Palestinians and Jews prepared for a full-scale conflict. Militant Muslim preachers such as Shaykh ‘Izz al-Din al-Qassam mobilised Palestinians, priming them for jihad. The Jewish population prepared much more thoroughly, building a proto-state alongside nascent political and economic structures, having already established a defence organisation, Haganah.
The Jewish community pushed into new land with numerous settlements, and set up a Jewish presence across Palestine. By this point, the Palestinians were in conflict with both the Jews and the British authorities in Palestine, reaching a crescendo in a mass revolt in 1936. The British army crushed the revolt by 1939, but resistance and preparation for further attacks by both communities remained the pattern for the rest of the 1930s and throughout the Second World War.
By the time of the Second World War, the British had shifted their policy from support for Zionism to blocking Jewish immigration to Palestine. They did this, again, to bolster support for their war effort, this time from Arab allies. In the face of Jewish people escaping the unfolding Holocaust in Europe, this caused growing resentment and conflict with Zionists who were trying to save European Jews by helping them get to Palestine.
After the war ended in 1945, the Jewish population of Palestine had become sufficiently powerful and mobilised to fight Britain, and good Jewish preparation won the day. Jewish terror attacks against British targets helped to force Britain to reconsider its geopolitical priorities. In one of the most infamous attacks, in 1946 the wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem that housed a British headquarters was blown up, killing almost 100 people. In 1947, Britain decided to leave Palestine. Meanwhile, survivors of the Holocaust who emigrated to Palestine further boosted the territory’s Jewish population.
In the November of the same year, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution that proposed the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. Under the plan, Jerusalem would be an internationalised city. The suggestion was accepted, albeit reluctantly, by Jewish representatives in the region, because it offered some international acceptance of their aims of establishing a state. Palestinian and Arab groups rejected it, however, arguing that it ignored the rights of most of the population of Palestine to decide their own destiny.
5 The birth of modern Israel
1948–49
The First Arab-Israeli War of 1948–49 followed on from the violence between Jews and Palestinians as neighbouring Arab states – for their own political motives as well as to help their Palestinian Arab brethren – intervened in the hostilities. In May 1948, as British troops left Palestine, Zionist leader (soon to become the first Israeli prime minister) David Ben-Gurion declared the formation of the state of Israel, at which point Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan, Lebanon and Syria attacked Israel in support of the Palestinians.
Israel was born from war, both the legacy of the Holocaust and more immediate conflict when the Arab armies attacked in May 1948. Fighting against the new Israeli army continued until early 1949. Local Palestinian militia units supported the war effort, but were poorly organised and had little military power. In general, though the Arab forces looked impressive on paper, the military quality of their fighting power and the political unity of their command across different national forces were poor and, as a result, they lost.
Israel’s success allowed it to expand its territory to include all of British-run Palestine, with the exception of the hilly West Bank next to Jordan, east Jerusalem (including the Old City), and the territory known as the Gaza Strip, running along the Mediterranean Sea just northeast of the Sinai Peninsula. The result of this expansion was that Israel controlled more than 75% of what had formerly been British-run Palestine – or, in other words, the Palestinians now held less than 25% of Palestine.
What happened next has informed a great deal of how we now understand the Arab-Israeli conflict. For the Palestinians this was the nakba (catastrophe) that turned hundreds of thousands of them into refugees; for Israel, it was triumph in a war of independence in the face of a full-scale assault against its Jewish people.
Both communities saw the events in very different ways. From an Israeli perspective, the Arabs were hell-bent on destroying Israel in 1948, and the war they provoked ended up making thousands of Palestinian people refugees. From a Palestinian viewpoint, the Israelis were acting on a plan to expel them and thus ethnically cleanse the country.
Israel did expel Palestinians, but others simply left as their society collapsed under the pressure of war; even so, more than 100,000 Palestinians remained inside Israel after 1949. Massacre was followed by counter-massacre: Jewish forces killed around 100 Palestinian villagers at Deir Yassin, just west of Jerusalem, in April 1948; shortly afterwards, Arab fighters killed some 80 Jewish medical staff near Jerusalem.
These massacres reveal how both sides emphasise different historical events, and in different ways. Indeed, histories of this period quickly reveal how divisive this time remains, with accounts often skewed significantly toward one side or another.
The conclusion of the First Arab-Israeli War left two significant political problems, both of which remain largely unresolved today. First, more than 700,000 Palestinians now lived in refugee camps in the Egyptian-run Gaza Strip, throughout neighbouring Arab nations, and in the Jordanian-controlled West Bank. Stateless, without passports and dispossessed, theirs was a squalid existence, and no one addressed their lack of political rights.
Meanwhile, Israel built a functioning Jewish state, drawing in more Mizrahi Jews who had lived for centuries in Arab countries but who were no longer welcome there. But though the Zionists had realised their ambition of a Jewish state, no Arab states recognised it, meaning that Israel was flanked by hostile neighbours. The consequences of the failure to settle the political needs of both communities were to feed directly into the wars that were to come.
6 Further Arab-Israeli wars
1956–73
Depending on your viewpoint, the causes of the Arab-Israeli wars that followed Israel’s formation lie either with an aggressive expansionist Israeli state that preferred war to diplomacy, or with an intransigent Arab front that refused to talk to Israel, wanting instead to eliminate the Jewish state. The Palestinian people were caught in the middle.
Israel escalated border tensions in the early 1950s. This led in 1956 to what became known as the Suez Crisis – an invasion by Israeli, British and French forces of Egypt under its dynamic new pan-Arab leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser. Israelis considered that Nasser started the war by launching attacks into Israel and blockading the port of Eilat, but the war’s origins are contested. Israel won the conflict militarily but there was no political resolution, and another war followed little more than a decade later.
The conflagration of June 1967 had major consequences. Across six days of fighting, Israeli forces destroyed the armies of Egypt, Jordan and Syria, and occupied vast new tracts of land in the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip, West Bank and Golan Heights. Israeli paratroopers also took east Jerusalem, which included the Old City, home to holy sites such as the Jewish Western Wall and the area known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif and to Jews as the Temple Mount.
This was a stunning military success for Israel, but the 1967 war also led to political change. A messianic, less secular, settler-based Zionism grew in the recently conquered West Bank, Gaza Strip and Golan. These settlers formed Gush Emunim (‘Bloc of the Faithful’) in 1974 as an orthodox activist organisation to reflect the new mood in Zionism, while Israel’s Jews divided into the more secular versus the more religious.
Meanwhile, humiliated, the Arabs refused to accept their defeat. The result was yet another conflict: the Yom Kippur War in 1973, named for the Jewish holy day of atonement, on which Egyptian and Syrian forces attacked. Though this war proved more successful for the Arabs in its initial phases, the Israelis successfully counter-attacked. The conflict led Israel and Egypt to sign a peace treaty in 1979. Despite a historic visit to Israel by the Egyptian leader, Anwar Sadat, the issues underpinning the conflict had still not been fundamentally resolved. The Palestinians remained without a state, and their war went on.
Indeed, after the peace with Egypt, Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 to attack Palestinian fighters based there. They remained in southern Lebanon, finally pulling out in 2000 when faced with a new foe in the shape of Lebanese Muslim Shia militia forces such as Hezbollah.
7 Stalemate and resolution
1987–96
The lack of any wider political progress had provoked simmering anger among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza territory occupied by Israel in 1967. In 1987, this finally erupted into a full-scale uprising in Gaza – the intifada – which soon spread to the West Bank. Mass riots saw people, including children, throwing stones at Israeli troops and tanks. Soldiers responded with physical violence, some aimed at the children, and with lethal force. The resulting images, beamed around the world, were terrible PR for the Israelis.
Israel’s military power was not so effective against unarmed demonstrators as it was against conventional armies. The asymmetric battle between hi-tech weapons and stone-throwers revealed that the side that seemingly holds more power does not always get what it wants. This helped to push the two sides to talk, and Yasser Arafat for the Palestinians and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin eventually forged a deal – of sorts.
In 1993, the two sides signed a deal that was marked, historically, by Arafat shaking hands with Rabin on the lawn of the White House in Washington DC in front of the US president. It was a significant moment for Rabin who, for many years, had seen Arafat as an implacable terrorist foe.
The window of peace opened briefly, and then closed. One view of why talks failed is that the Israelis were unwilling to trade land for peace; another is that the Palestinians, preferring war to peace, were unwilling to accept any realistic deal offered to them. Whichever perspective is correct, the inchoate negotiations shuddered to a halt in 1995 when a religious Israeli extremist, angry at Rabin’s peace moves, shot him dead in Tel Aviv.
Chaos followed. Extremists on both sides, opposed to any peace deal that would involve some degree of compromise, took charge. Palestinian suicide bombers blew up Israelis on buses and in marketplaces. In 1996, a rightwing government led by Benjamin Netanyahu came to power in Israel, aiming to block the political changes made by Rabin.
Critics argue that Netanyahu, who is in power again today, has worked assiduously to smash any political dialogue that would lead to Israel giving up land for a lasting political settlement, preferring instead stagnant talks and the offer of patchy autonomous areas of control to the Palestinians. Netanyahu’s supporters see his policies as the natural result of Palestinian unwillingness to forge a compromise deal and accept Israel’s right to exist.
8 The continuing conundrum
1996–present
The lack of political dialogue has led to further conflict. Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians after 1996, and the launch of a second intifada in 2000, led to Israel retaliating with the construction of a huge ‘separation’ wall to stop suicide bombers and blockade the West Bank, while simultaneously building new settlements on land taken in 1967.
A withdrawal of Israeli settlements from Gaza in 2005 came shortly before a split within the Palestinians between the Islamist Hamas movement based in Gaza and, on the West Bank, Palestine Liberation Organization-led secular political groups centred around the nationalist party Fatah. The internal divisions within the Palestinian camp that caused this split made it hard to present a unified front in any negotiations with Israel. This made a peace deal problematic because there were now two Palestinian camps – one of which, Hamas, had Israel’s destruction explicitly written into its charter.
Many Israelis were convinced that the Palestinians were not serious about peace. Israeli invasions of Lebanon provoked another conflict with Lebanon’s Hezbollah (backed by Iran), which attacked Israel in 2006. In 2014, Israel launched large-scale attacks into Gaza in response to rocket fire from Hamas militants; more recently, Israeli soldiers have shot protesters from Gaza who have moved against Israel’s border fence.
The conflict rumbles on. Despite ongoing efforts to find a resolution, it still takes a determined optimist to see much future for a two-state solution in which the Israeli and Palestinian states coexist alongside each other. Similarly, a binational solution resulting in a single Israeli-Palestinian state as a home for all communities also seems unlikely.
Here we stand Like an Adam and an Eve Waterfalls The Garden of Eden Two fools in love So beautiful and strong The birds in the trees Are smiling upon them From the age of the dinosaurs Cars have run on gasoline Where, where have they gone? Now, it’s nothing but flowers
There was a factory Now there are mountains and rivers You got it, you got it
We caught a rattlesnake Now we got something for dinner We got it, we got it
There was a shopping mall Now it’s all covered with flowers You’ve got it, you’ve got it
If this is paradise I wish I had a lawnmower You’ve got it, you’ve got it
Years ago I was an angry young man And I’d pretend That I was a billboard Standing tall By the side of the road I fell in love With a beautiful highway This used to be real estate Now it’s only fields and trees Where, where is the town Now, it’s nothing but flowers The highways and cars Were sacrificed for agriculture I thought that we’d start over But I guess I was wrong
Once there were parking lots Now it’s a peaceful oasis You’ve got it, you’ve got it
This was a Pizza Hut Now it’s all covered with daisies You got it, you got it
I miss the honky tonks, Dairy Queens, and 7-Elevens You got it, you got it
And as things fell apart Nobody paid much attention You got it, you got it
I dream of cherry pies, Candy bars, and chocolate chip cookies You got it, you got it
We used to microwave Now we just eat nuts and berries You got it, you got it
This was a discount store, Now it’s turned into a cornfield You’ve got it, you’ve got it
Don’t leave me stranded here I can’t get used to this lifestyle
Lord Aah, hoo! Stop it! See that cat? Yeah, I do mean you See that cat? Yeah, I do mean you She got a TV eye on me She got a TV eye She got a TV eye on me Oh
See that cat Down on her back? See that cat Down on her back? She got a TV eye on me She got a TV eye She got a TV eye on me Oh
See that cat? Yeah, I love her so See that cat? Yeah, I love her so She got a TV eye on me She got a TV eye She got a TV eye on me Oh, yeah
Right on Right on Right on Right on
Yeah, c’mon! See that cat? Look here, I love her so You see that cat? Yeah, I love her so She got a TV eye on me She got a TV eye She got a TV eye on me Oh
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised – Gil Scott-Heron (1971)
You will not be able to stay home, brother You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out You will not be able to lose yourself on skag And skip out for beer during commercials, because The revolution will not be televised
The revolution will not be televised The revolution will not be brought to you By Xerox in four parts without commercial interruptions The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon blowing a bugle And leading a charge by John Mitchell, General Abrams, and Spiro Agnew To eat hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary The revolution will not be televised
The revolution will not be brought to you by the Schaefer Award Theatre And will not star Natalie Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal The revolution will not get rid of the nubs The revolution will not make you look five pounds thinner, because The revolution will not be televised, brother
There will be no pictures of you and Willie Mae Pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run Or trying to slide that color TV into a stolen ambulance NBC will not be able predict the winner At 8:32 on report from twenty-nine districts The revolution will not be televised
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers on the instant replay There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers on the instant replay There will be no pictures of Whitney Young Being run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process There will be no slow motion or still lifes of Roy Wilkins Strolling through Watts in a red, black, and green liberation jumpsuit That he has been saving for just the proper occasion
Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville Junction Will no longer be so damn relevant And women will not care if Dick finally got down with Jane On Search for Tomorrow Because black people will be in the street looking for a brighter day The revolution will not be televised
There will be no highlights on the eleven o’clock news And no pictures of hairy armed women liberationists And Jackie Onassis blowing her nose The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb or Francis Scott Keys Nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom Jones, Johnny Cash Engelbert Humperdinck, or The Rare Earth The revolution will not be televised
The revolution will not be right back After a message about a white tornado White lightning, or white people You will not have to worry about a dove in your bedroom The tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl The revolution will not go better with Coke The revolution will not fight germs that may cause bad breath The revolution will put you in the driver’s seat
The revolution will not be televised Will not be televised Will not be televised Will not be televised The revolution will be no re-run, brothers The revolution will be live
Found a Job – Talking Heads (1978)
«Damn that television what a bad picture»! «Don’t get upset, it’s not a major disaster». «There’s nothing on tonight», he said, «I don’t know what’s the matter»! «Nothing’s ever on», she said, «so I don’t know why you bother.»
We’ve heard this little scene, we’ve heard it many times. People fighting over little things and wasting precious time. They might be better off I think the way it seems to me. Making up their own shows, which might be better than T.V.
Judy’s in the bedroom, inventing situations. Bob is on the street today, scouting up locations. They’ve enlisted all their family. They’ve enlisted all their friends. It helped saved their relationship, And made it work again
Their show gets real high ratings, they think they have a hit. There might even be a spin off, but they’re not sure ‘bout that. If they ever watch T.V. again, it’d be too soon for them. Bob never yells about the picture now, he’s having too much fun.
Judy’s in the bedroom, inventing situations. Bob is on the street today, scouting up locations. They’ve enlisted all their family. They’ve enlisted all their friends. It helped saved their relationship, And made it work again
So think about this little scene; apply it to your life. If your work isn’t what you love, then something isn’t right. Just look at Bob and Judy; they’re happy as can be, Inventing situations, putting them on T.V.
Judy’s in the bedroom, inventing situations. Bob is on the street today, he’s having a vacation. They’ve enlisted all their family. They’ve enlisted all their friends. It helped saved their relationship, And made it work again
TV is King – The Tubes (1979)
I wish I was the man with the mechanical heart I’d conquer all my enemies alone I’d tear the guys apart Then scatter the pieces
I wish I was the man in the soundproof booth I wish I had a chance to stump the band Or maybe tell truth And maybe I could win a color television
I really love my–television I love to sit by–television Can’t live without my–television
TV is king You’re my everything
I wish I had the girl with the bouncy hair We’d ride off in a brand new car Or fly a plane somewhere Like probably Jamaica
I brush my teeth, shampoo my hair, and shave my face Apply the necessary aerosol In the appropriate place And we’ll spend the night together watching television
I can’t turn off my–television Don’t really know why–television I understand my–television
You got your works in a drawer and your color’s on track You have to break away but you always come back You make a hundred changes but you’re always the same You make me so excited and you make me so lame You’re just a tube full of gas and a box full of tin But you show me your charms and I want to jump in Oh if only your chassis was covered with skin ‘Cause TV you’re my everything
I really love my–television I love to sit by–television Can’t live without my–television I can’t turn off my–television Don’t really know why–television I understand my–television I really love my–television
TV is king You’re my everything TV is king
Sleeping With the Television On – Billy Joel (1980)
I’ve been watching you waltz all night Diane Nobody’s found a way behind your defenses They never notice the zap gun in your hand Until you’re pointing it and stunning their senses
All night long, all night long You’ll shoot ‘em down because you’re waiting for somebody good to come on All night long, all night long But you’re sleeping with the television on
You say you’re looking for someone solid here You can’t be bothered with those ‘just for the night’ boys Tonight unless you take some kind of chances dear Tomorrow morning you’ll wake up with a white noise
All night long, all night long You’re only standing there ‘cause somebody once did somebody wrong All night long, all night long But you’ll be sleeping with the television on
You’re eyes are saying talk to me, talk to me But your attitude is «don’t waste my time» Your eyes are saying talk to me, talk to me But you won’t hear a word ‘cause it just might be the same old line
This isn’t really easy for me to say Diane I know you don’t need anybody’s protection I really wish I was less of a thinking man And more a fool who’s not afraid of rejection
All night long, all night long I’ll just be standing here ‘cause I know I don’t have the guts to come on All night long, all night long And I’ll be sleeping with the television on
You’re eyes are saying talk to me, talk to me But my attitude is «boy, don’t waste my time» Your eyes are saying talk to me, talk to me But I won’t say a word ‘cause it just might be somebody else’s same old line
All night long, all night long We’re only standing here ‘cause somebody might do somebody wrong All night long, all night long And we’ll be sleeping with the television on Sleeping with the television on Sleeping with the television on
Turn it on again – Genesis (1980)
All I need is a TV show, that and the radio Down on my luck again, down on my luck again I can show you, I can show you some of the people in my life I can show you, I can show you some of the people in my life It’s driving me mad just another way of passing the day I, I get so lonely when she’s not there I, I, I, I
You’re just another face that I know from the TV show I have known you for so very long, I feel you like a friend Can’t you do anything for me, can I touch you for a while Can I meet you another day and we will fly away
I can show you, I can show you some of the people in my life I can show you, I can show you some of the people in my life It’s driving me mad, it’s just another way of passing the day I, I get so lonely when she’s not there I, I, I, I
Turn it on, turn it on, turn it on again Turn it on, turn it on, turn it on again (I can see another face) Turn it on, turn it on, turn it on again (I can see another face) Turn it on, turn it on, turn it on again (I can see another face) Turn it on, turn it on, turn it on again (I can see another face) Turn it on, turn it on, turn it on again (I can see another face) Turn it on, turn it on, turn it on again (I can see another face)
Television Set – Depeche Mode (1981)
You can see them running through me baby You can see the lights in their eyes You can see the masses raising me And I’m preaching them more lies I’m just a mass-form communication I sell what everyone buys You know my appearance is changing Changing for modern times
I’m just a television set I’m just a television set I’m just a television set
Well you can have me in bed if you want me Just plug me into your wall And I’ll give you sex if you want it Or I’ll give you nothing at all You can have me, babe, for good times You can have me, babe, for bad Keep me running all of your life and I’ll return your instant demand
I’m just a television set I’m just a television set I’m just a television set
Did you see them running through me baby Did you see the lights in their eyes Did you see the masses raising me Am I preaching them more lies? I’m just a mass form communication I sell what everyone buys You know my appearance is changing Changing for modern times
I’m just a television set I’m just a television set I’m just a television set
The Sun Always Shines On TV – A-Ha (1985)
Touch me How can it be Believe me The sun always shines on T.V
Hold me Close to your heart Touch me And give all your love to me To me…
I Reached inside myself And found nothing there To ease the pressure off My ever worried mind
All my powers waste away I fear the crazed and lonely looks The mirror’s sending me These Days
Touch me How can it be Believe me The sun always shines on T.V
Hold me Close to your heart Touch me And give all your love to me
Please don’t ask me to defend The shamefull lowlands Of the way I’m drifting Gloomily through time (Touch me)
I reached inside myself today (Give all your love) Thinking there’s got to be some way To keep my troubles distant
Hold me Close to your heart Touch me And give all your love to me
Television Man – Talking Heads (1985)
I’m looking and I’m dreaming for the first time I’m inside and I’m outside at the same time And everything is real Do I like the way I feel?
When the world crashes in into my living room Television man made me what I am People like to put the television down But we are just good friends (I’m a) television man
I knew a girl, she was a macho man But it’s alright, I wasn’t fooled for long This is the place for me I’m the king, and you’re the queen
When the world crashes in into my living room Television man made me what I am People like to put the television down But we are just good friends (I’m a) television man
Take a walk in the beautiful garden Everyone would like to say hello It doesn’t matter what you say Come and take us away
The world crashes in, into my living room The world crashes in, into my living room The world crashes in, into my living room The world crashes in, into my living room
And we are still good friends…(Television man) I’m watching everything…(Television man) Television man…(Television man) I’m watching everything…(Television man) Television man…and I’m gonna say We are still good friends…and I’m trying to be Watchin’ everything…and I gotta say We are still good friends…You know the way it is Television man…I’ve got what you need We are still good friends…I know the way you are Television man…I know what you’re tryin’ to be Watchin’ everything…and I gotta say That’s how the story ends.
Money for Nothing – Dire Straits (1985)
Now look at them yo-yos, that’s the way you do it You play the guitar on the MTV That ain’t workin’, that’s the way you do it Money for nothin’ and your chicks for free Now that ain’t workin’, that’s the way you do it Lemme tell ya, them guys ain’t dumb Maybe get a blister on your little finger Maybe get a blister on your thumb We got to install microwave ovens, custom kitchen deliveries We got to move these refrigerators, we got to move these color TVs See the little faggot with the earring and the make up Yeah, buddy, that’s his own hair That little faggot got his own jet airplane That little faggot, he’s a millionaire We got to install microwave ovens, custom kitchen deliveries We got to move these refrigerators, we gotta move these color TVs We got to install microwave ovens, custom kitchen deliveries We got to move these refrigerators, we got to move these color TVs Looky here, look out I shoulda learned to play the guitar I shoulda learned to play them drums Look at that mama, she got it stickin’ in the camera man We could have some And he’s up there, what’s that? Hawaiian noises? Bangin’ on the bongos like a chimpanzee That ain’t workin’, that’s the way you do it Get your money for nothin’, get your chicks for free We got to install microwave ovens, custom kitchen deliveries We got to move these refrigerators, we gotta move these color TVs Listen here Now that ain’t workin’ that’s the way you do it You play the guitar on the MTV That ain’t workin’, that’s the way you do it Money for nothin’ and your chicks for free Money for nothin’, chicks for free Get your money for nothin’ and your chicks for free Ooh, money for nothin’, chicks for free Money for nothin’, chicks for free (money, money, money) Money for nothin’, chicks for free Get your money for nothin’, get your chicks for free Get your money for nothin’ and the chicks for free Get your money for nothin’ and the chicks for free
Look at that, look at that Get your money for nothin’ (I want my, I want my) Chicks for free (I want my MTV) Money for nothin’, chicks for free (I want my, I want my, I want my MTV) Get your money for nothin’ (I want my, I want my) And the chicks for free (I want my MTV) Get your money for nothin’ (I want my, I want my) And the chicks for free (I want my MTV) Easy, easy money for nothin’ (I want my, I want my) Easy, easy chicks for free (I want my MTV) Easy, easy money for nothin’ (I want my, I want my) Chicks for free (I want my MTV) That ain’t workin’
Money for nothing, chicks for free Money for nothing, chicks for free
Love for Sale – Talking Heads (1986)
One, two One, two, three
Huh
I was born in a house with the television always on Guess I grew up too fast And I forgot my name We’re in cities at night and we got time on our hands So leave the driving to us And it’s the real thing
And you’re rolling In the blender With me And I can love you Like a color TV
And now love is here C’mon and try it I got love for sale Got love for sale And now love is here C’mon and try it Got love for sale Got love for sale
Huh, huh
You can put your lipstick all over my designer jeans I’ll be a video for you If you turn my dial You can cash my check If you go down to the bank (down at the bank) You get two for one For a limited time (a limited time)
Push my button The toast pops up Love and money Gettin’ all mixed up, whoa And now love is here C’mon and try it I got love for sale Got love for sale
And now love is here C’mon and try it Love for sale I got love for sale
Now love is here C’mon and try it I got love for sale Got love for sale Now, now love is here C’mon and try it Got love for sale Oh, got love for sale
Now love is here C’mon and try it I got love for sale I got love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love
T.V. Talkin’ Song – Bob Dylan (1990)
One time in London I’d gone out for a walk, Past a place called Hyde park where people talk ‘Bout all kinds of different gods, they have their point of view To anyone passing by, that’s who they’re talking to.
There was someone on a platform talking to the folks About the T.V. god and all the pain that it invokes. «It’s too bright a light», he said, «For anybody’s eyes, If you’ve never seen one it’s a blessing in disguise.»
I moved in closer, got up on my toes, Two men in front of me were coming to blows The man was saying something ‘bout children when they’re young Being sacrificed to it while lullabies are being sung.
«The news of the day is on all the time, All the latest gossip, all the latest rhyme, Your mind is your temple, keep it beautiful and free, Don’t let an egg get laid in it by something you can’t see.»
«Pray for peace!». he said, you could feel it in the crowd. My thoughts began to wander. His voice was ringing loud, «It will destroy your family, your happy home is gone No one can protect you fro it once you turn it on.»
«It will led you into some strange pursuits, Lead you to the land of forbidden fruits. It will scramble up your head and drag your brain about, Sometimes you gotta do like Elvis did and shoot the damn thing out.»
«It’s all been designed», he said, «To make you lose your mind, And when you go back to find it, there’s nothing there to find.» «Everytime you look at it, your situation’s worse, If you feel it grabbing out for you, send for the nurse.»
The crowd began to riot and they grabbed hold of the man, There was pushing, there was shoving and everybody ran. The T.V. crew was there to film it, they jumped right over me, Later on that evening, I watched it on T.V..
Watching TV – Roger Waters (1992)
We were watching T.V. Watching T.V. We were Watching T.V. Watching T.V.
In Tiananmen Square Lost my baby there My yellow rose In her bloodstained clothes
She was a short order pastry chef In a Dim Sum dive on the Yangtze tideway She had shiny hair She was the daughter of an engineer
Won’t you shed a tear For my yellow rose My yellow rose In her bloodstained clothes
She had perfect breasts She had high hopes She had almond eyes She had yellow thighs
She was a student of philosophy Won’t you grieve with me For my yellow rose Shed a tear
For her bloodstained clothes She had shiny hair She had perfect breasts She had high hopes
She had almond eyes She had yellow thighs She was the daughter of an engineer So get out your pistols
Get out your stones Get out your knives Cut them to the bone They are the lackeys of the grocer’s machine
They built the dark satanic mills That manufacture hell on earth They bought the front row seats on Calvary They are irrelevant to me
But I grieve for my sister People of China Do not forget do not forget The children who died for you
Long live the Republic Did we do anything after this I’ve a feeling we did We were watching T.V.
Watching T.V. We were watching T.V. Watching T.V. She wore a white bandanna that said
Freedom now She thought the Great Wall of China Would come tumbling down She was a student
Her father was an engineer Won’t you shed a tear For my yellow rose My yellow rose
In her bloodstained clothes Her grandpa fought old Chiang Kai-shek That no-good low-down dirty rat Who used to order his troops
To fire on the women and children Imagine that imagine that And in the spring of ’48 Mao Tse-tung got quite irate
And he kicked that old dictator Chiang Out of the state of China Chiang Kai-shek came down in Formosa And they armed the island of Quemoy
And the shells were flying across the China Sea And they turned Formosa into a shoe factory Called Taiwan And she is different from Cro-Magnon man
She’s different from Anne Boleyn She is different from the Rosenbergs And from the unknown Jew She is different from the unknown Nicaraguan
Half superstar half victim She’s a victor star conceptually new And she is different from the Dodo And from the Kankanbono
She is different from the Aztec And from the Cherokee She’s everybody’s sister She’s symbolic of our failure
She’s the one in fifty million Who can help us to be free Because she died on T.V. And I grieve for my sister
57 Channels (And Nothin’ On) – Bruce Springsteen (1992)
I bought a bourgeois house in the Hollywood hills With a truckload of hundred thousand dollar bills Man came by to hook up my cable TV We settled in for the night my baby and me We switched ‘round and ‘round ‘til half-past dawn There was fifty-seven channels and nothin’ on Well now home entertainment was my baby’s wish So I hopped into town for a satellite dish I tied it to the top of my Japanese car I came home and I pointed it out into the stars A message came back from the great beyond There’s fifty-seven channels and nothin’ on Well we might’a made some friends with some billionaires We might’a got all nice and friendly if we’d made it upstairs All I got was a note that said «bye-bye John Our love is fifty-seven channels and nothin’ on» So I bought a .44 magnum it was solid steel cast And in the blessed name of Elvis well I just let it blast ‘Til my TV lay in pieces there at my feet And they busted me for disturbing the almighty peace Judge said «What you got in your defense son?» «Fifty-seven channels and nothin’ on» I can see by your eyes friend you’re just about gone Fifty-seven channels and nothin’ on
Television the Drug of the Nation – The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy (1992)
… One Nation under God has turned into One Nation under the influence of one drug
… Television, the drug of the Nation Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation
… T.V., it satellite links our United States of unconciousness Apathetic therapeutic and extremely addictive the methadone metronome pumping out a 150 channels 24 hours a day you can flip through all of them and still there’s nothing worth watching
… T.V. is the reason why less than ten percent of our Nation reads books daily Why most people think Central America means Kansas Socialism means unamerican and Apartheid is a new headache remedy
… absorbed in it’s world it’s so hard to find us It shapes our minds the most maybe the mother of our Nation should remind us that we’re sitting to close to. . .
… Television, the drug of the Nation Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation
… T.V. is the stomping ground for political candidates Where bears in the woods are chased by Grecian Formula’d bald eagles
… T.V. is mechanized politic’s remote control over the masses co-sponsered by environmentally safe gases watch for the PBS special
… It’s the perpetuation of the two party system where image takes precedence over wisdom Where sound bite politics are served to the fastfood culture
… Where straight teeth in your mouth are more important than the words that come out of it Race baiting is the way to get selected Willie Horton or Will he not get elected on . . .
… Television, the drug of the Nation Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation
… T.V. is it the reflector or the director? Does it imitate us or do we imitate it Because a child watches 1500 murders before he’s twelve years old and we wonder how we’ve created a Jason generation that learns to laugh rather than abhor the horror
… T.V. is the place where armchair generals and quarterbacks can experience first hand the excitement of video warfare as the theme song is sung in the background
… Sugar sweet sitcoms that leave us with a bad actor taste while pop stars metamorphosize into soda pop stars You saw the video You heard the soundtrack Well now go buy the soft drink Well, the only cola that I support would be a union C.O.L.A. (Cost of Living Allowance) On Television.
… Television, the drug of the Nation Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation
… Back again, «New and Improved», we return to our irregularly programmed schedule hidden cleverly between heavy breasted beer and car commericals
… CNN ESPN ABC TNT but mostly B.S. Where oxymoronic language like «virtually spotless» «fresh frozen» «light yet filling» and «military intelligence» have become standard
… T.V. is the place where phrases are redefined like «recession» to «necessary downturn» «crude oil» on a beach to «mousse» «Civilian death» to «collateral damages» and being killed by your own Army is now called «friendly fire»
… T.V. is the place where the pursuit of happiness has become the pursuit of trivia Where toothpaste and cars have become sex objects Where imagination is sucked out of children by a cathode ray nipple T.V. is the only wet nurse that would create a cripple
… Television, the drug of the Nation Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation On Television . . .
I Want To Be On TV – Green Day (1995)
Wanna be a pretty boy Wanna go on Solid Gold Wanna date a millionaire Wanna make people stare! I wanna be on TV! Want people to know me I wanna be on TV! Studio 54 Gonna be an omnivore Wanna make people dance Gonna take off my pants! I wanna be on TV! Want people to know me I wanna be on TV! On a magazine Gonna have some free cocaine Wanna wear my Calvin Kleins Then the world will be all mine! I wanna be on TV! Want people to know me! I wanna be on TV!
Idiot Box – Incubus (1997)
Hey Oh yeah
You keep your riches and I’ll sew my stitches You can’t make me think like you, mundane I’ve got a message for all those who think that They can etch these words inside my brain Inside my brain! No way!
T.V., what do I need? Tell me who to believe! What’s the use of autonomy When a button does it all? When a little button does it all Does it all
So listen up, glisten up closely all Who’ve seen the fuckin’ eye ache too It’s time to step away from cable train And when we finally see the subtle light This quirk in evolution will begin To let us live and recreate Recreate! Oh yeah!
T.V., what do I need? Tell me who to believe! What’s the use of autonomy When a button does it all?
T.V., what should I see? Tell me who should I be? Let’s do our mom a favor and drop A new god off a wall Uhhhh ahhh ohhhh Uhhhh ahhh ohhhh
Let me see past the fatuous knocks I’ve gotta rid myself of this idiot box! Let you see past the feathers and flocks And help me plant a bomb in this idiot box!
From the depths of the sea To the tops of the trees To the seat of a lazy boy… Staring at a silver screen!
T.V., what do I need? Tell me who to believe! What’s the use of autonomy When a button does it all?
T.V., what should I see? Tell me who should I be? Let’s do our mom a favor and drop A new god off a wall Wall!
My Country – Randy Newman (1999)
Let’s go back to yesterday When a phone call cost a dime In New Orleans, just a nickel Turn back the hands of time Turn back the hands of time
Picture a room with a window A sofa and some chairs A television turned on for the night
Picture a woman Two children seated A man lying there Their faces softly glowing in the light
This is my country These are my people This is the world I understand This is my country These are my people And I know ‘em like the back of my own hand
If we had something to say we’d bounce it off the screen We were watching and we couldn’t look away We all know what we look like, you know what I mean We wouldn’t have had it any other way We got comedy, tragedy Ev’rything from A to be Watching other people living Seeing other people play Having other people’s voices fill our minds Thank you, Jesus
Feelings might go unexpressed I think that’s prob’ly for the best Dig too deep, who knows what you will find
This is my country, those were my people Theirs was the world I understand
Picture a room, no window A door that leads outside A man lying on a blanket on the floor Picture his three grown boys behind him Bouncing words off of a screen Of a television big as all outdoors
Now your children are your children Even when they’re grown When they speak to you You got to listen to what they have to say But they all live alone now They have TVs of their own But they keep on coming over anyway And much as I love them I’m always kind of glad when they go away
This is my country These are my people This is the world I understand This is my country These are my people And I know ‘em like the back of my own hand I know ‘em like the back of my own hand
The Barry Williams Show – Peter Gabriel (2002)
Let’s go
One man at the window One girl at the bar Saw that look of recognition When they know just who you are I seen you on the tv I seen you on that show You make the people crazy And then you let them go
Before the show we calm them We sympathize, we care And the hostile folk we keep apart ‘Til the red light says on air’ Did you see our leather lovers All tied up to the chair Did you catch those child molesters No one else goes there
What a show, the Barry Williams show What a show, Dysfunctional excess Is all it took for my success The greater pain that they endure The more you know the show will scored It’s showtime
Got the reputation of a surgeon Cos they cannot feel the cut It looks so very simple But it really is an art They call our studio the hospital’ Making money from the sick We let people be themselves There is no other trick
My lover stole my girlfriend’ I keep beating up my ex’ I want to kill my neighbor’ My daughter’s selling sex’ My s/m lover hurt me’ My girl became a man’ I love my daughter’s rapist My life’s gone down the pan’
What a show, the Barry Williams show The Barry Williams show Dysfunctional excess Is all it took for my success And when the punches start to fly The ratings always read so high It’s showtime
That girl has got no scruples’ Not a wrinkle on her face You would not believe the plot she conceived So they’d let her take my place Well, no man is an island No man is a sea But this display of emotion Is all but drowning me
What a show, oh what a show On my show, the Barry Williams show It’s my show What a show Dysfunctional excess Is all it took for my success
The best tv you’ve ever seen Where people say the things that they really mean I hear my name, I hear them roar For the one more time I take the floor Just one more Barry Williams show We’re gonna take you where you want to go It’s showtime
Come on down Come on down
Throw Away Your Television – Red Hot Chili Peppers (2002)
Throw away your television Time to make this clean decision Master waits for it’s collision now
It’s a repeat Of a story told It’s a repeat And it’s getting old
Throw away your television Make a break big intermission Recreate your super vision now
It’s a repeat Of a story told It’s a repeat And it’s getting old
Renegades with fancy gauges Slay the plague for it’s contagious Pull the plug and take the stages Throw away your television now Oi, oi, oi
Throw away your television Take the noose off your ambition Reinvent your intuition now
It’s a repeat Of a story told It’s a repeat And it’s getting old
Renegades with fancy gauges Slay the plague for it’s contagious Pull the plug and take the stages Throw away your television now Oi, oi, oi
Throw away your television Salivate to repetition Levitate this ill condition now
It’s a repeat It’s a repeat It’s a repeat It’s a repeat It’s a repeat
TV Makes The Superstar – Modern Talking (2003)
You take your chance To be the one And anything is possible If you’re strong, oh yeah Sometimes you up Sometimes you down But you feel it in your heart You can’t go wrong You was so nervous Just every single day Hear the voice from Heaven You find your way, oh
TV makes it TV even breaks it TV makes the Superstar Wherever you are, oh yeah TV makes it TV even breaks it TV makes the Superstar Sometimes it’s so hard
TV makes a star Makes a superstar You’ll see your crazy life TV takes you higher I takes you low When your heart survive TV makes a star Makes a superstar And makes your dreams come true TV makes a lover And makes you cry Do it just for you
Don’t be so sad You’re not the one There’s another chance for you Keep holding on, oh yeah Just take your time And you will see You can win it If you want Just like me You need some fictionally For every single day I keep my fingers cross You find your way, oh yeah
TV makes it TV even breaks it TV makes the Superstar Wherever you are, oh yeah TV makes it TV even breaks it TV makes the Superstar Sometimes it’s so hard
TV makes a star Makes a superstar You’ll see your crazy life TV takes you higher I takes you low When your heart survive TV makes the star Makes the superstar And makes your dreams come true TV makes a lover And makes you cry Do it just for you
TV makes it TV even breaks it TV makes it TV even breaks it TV makes the Superstar Wherever you are, oh yeah TV makes it TV even breaks it TV makes the Superstar Sometimes it’s so hard
TV makes a star Makes a superstar You’ll see your crazy life TV takes you higher And takes you low When your heart survive TV makes a star Makes a superstar And it makes your dreams come true TV makes a lover It makes you cry Do it just for you
TV makes it TV even breaks it
Good People – Jack Johnson (2005)
Well you win, it’s your show now So what’s it gonna be ‘Cause people will tune in How many train wrecks do we need to see Before we lose touch of We thought this was low It’s bad getting worse so
Where did all the good people go, I’ve been changing channels I don’t see them On the TV shows Where did all the good people go, We got heaps and heaps of what we sow
They got this and that With a rattle of tat Testing, one two Man what you gonna do Bad news, misused Got too much to lose Gimme some truth Now whose side are we on Whatever you say, turn on the boob tube I’m in the mood to obey So lead me astray, and by the way now
Where did all the good people go, I’ve been changing channels I don’t see them On the TV shows Where did all the good people go, We got heaps and heaps of what we sow
Sitting around feeling far away So far away but I can feel the debris Can you feel it You interrupt me from a friendly conversation To tell me how great it’s all gonna be You might notice some hesitation It’s important to you it’s not important to me But way down by the edge or your reason Well it’s beginning to show And all I really want to know is
Where did all the good people go, I’ve been changing channels I don’t see them on the T.V. shows Where did all the good people go, We got heaps and heaps of what we sow
They got this and that With a rattle of tat Test down, one two Man what you gonna do Bad news, missed use Gimme some truth You got too much to lose Now whose side are we on But anyway, okay, whatever you say, Wrong or resolute, I’m in the mood to obey Station through station Desensitizing the nation
Where did all the people go?
Going, going, gone
Television Rules the Nation – Daft Punk (2005)
Television rules the nation Television rules the nation Television rules the nation Television rules the nation
Television rules the nation Television rules the nation Television rules the nation Television rules the nation
Television rules the nation Television rules the nation
Television rules the nation Television rules the nation Television rules the nation Television rules the nation
Television rules the nation Television rules the nation Television rules the nation Television rules the nation
Television rules the nation Television rules the nation Television rules the nation
Moron TV – Primus (2011)
Bang-da-Bang-Bang-Bang Bang
She feeds her face with cheddar balls As my brain cells start to pop She licks her fingers, stares away Her IQ slowly drops I pry my eyes as best I can From that big electric stain She feeds her face with cheddar balls And crams more nonsense in her brain
Bang-da-Bang-Bang-Bang Bang
Just when I thought I’d seen it all They pull a cretin from the shelves And flash that filth under their nails To make us feel better about ourselves As they ooze across the screen Like a pustule gutter troll We fill our coffers full of gold And praise the skill of Asshole
Bang-da-Bang-Bang-Bang Bang
Moron TV There’s got to be more on TV There’s got to be more on TV Than just Moron TV
Moron TV There’s got to be more on TV There’s got to be more on TV Than just Moron TV
Moron TV There’s got to be more on TV There’s got to be more on TV Than just Moron TV
Well that one’s fit for a sex tape Well that one’s fit for a dad Well that one had more babies Than anyone’s ever had That one married a rock star That made all little girls squeal And that one want to be president ‘Cause she’s got more eye appeal
Bang-da-Bang-Bang-Bang Bang
Moron TV There’s got to be more on TV There’s got to be more on TV Than just Moron TV
Moron TV There’s got to be more on TV There’s got to be more on TV Than just Bang-da-Bang-Bang-Bang Bang Bang-da-Bang-Bang-Bang Bang Bang-da-Bang-Bang-Bang Bang
Half of Me – Rihanna (2012)
You saw me on the television, setting fire to all the buildings Yeah I guess you saw me stealing, but you’ve no idea what I’ve been needin’ Talk about when we were children, not the kind of kid that you believe in You saw me on the television, saw me on the television But that’s just the half of it, yeah you saw the half of it This is the life I live, and that’s just the half of it
Saw me on the television, hanging out my dirty linen You’re entitled to your own opinion Sit and shake your head at my decision I guess the kind of songs that I’ve been singing Make it seem as if I’m always winning But you saw me on a television Yeah you saw me on a television
But that’s just the half of it You saw the half of it This is the life I live And that’s just the half of it
Oh you know me I’m the life of the party Beautiful people surround me Everybody falling in love Oh you know me, everybody knows that I’m crazy Sticks and stones they never break me And I’m the type that don’t give a fuck
And that’s just the half of it You saw the half of it Yeah this is the life I live And that’s just the half of it
Yeah you saw the half of it And this is the life I live You saw the half of it Only the half of it Eh, oh, no
You saw me on the television Saw me on the television
Television Screens – Fontaines D.C. (2019)
Saw the ice face fail For the first time in years And the water levels rise ‘Round the television screens All your tough man looks For which you had reserved For a room full of mirrors
On the television screen On the television screen On the television screen On the television screen
They fell as a child On the beatdown grass No cutting, no bruising Not a mark to be seen And so some become lost As their passions will see Illustrated well By the television screen Shall we tangle our thinking? Shall we give it a name? Let it sit at the table Bring it in from the rain I could lay you right down On these lively living streets And still you’d not know How the city heart beats
On the television screen On the television screen On the television screen On the television screen
You’re a cluster of nothing You are a beauty for the sake How dare you go about living As a relic from a dream As the sky shutters down On the antiquated scene On the room full of mirrors
On the television screen On the television screen On the television screen On the television screen On the television screen
TV – Billie Eilish (2022)
I don’t wanna talk right now I just wanna watch TV I’ll stay in the pool and drown So I don’t have to watch you leave I put on Survivor just to watch somebody suffer Maybe I should get some sleep Sinking in the sofa while they all betray each other What’s the point of anything?
All of my friends are missing again That’s what happens when you fall in love You don’t have the time, you leave them all behind You tell yourself it’s fine, you’re just in love
Don’t know where you are right now Did you see me on TV? I’ll try not to starve myself Just because you’re mad at me And I’ll be in denial for at least a little while What about the plans we made? The internet’s gone wild watching movie stars on trial While they’re overturning Roe v. Wade
Now all of my friends are missing again ‘Cause that’s what happens when you fall in love You don’t have the time, you leave them all behind And you tell yourself it’s fine, you’re just in love
And I don’t get along with anyone Maybe I’m the problem Maybe I’m the problem
Maybe I, maybe I, maybe I’m the problem Maybe I, maybe I, maybe I’m the problem Maybe I, maybe I, maybe I’m the problem Maybe I, maybe I, maybe I’m the problem Maybe I, maybe I, maybe I’m the problem Maybe I, maybe I, maybe I’m the problem Baby, I, baby, I, baby, I’m the problem Baby, I, baby, I, baby, I’m the problem Baby, I, baby, I, baby, I’m the problem Baby, I, baby, I, baby, I’m the problem Baby, I, baby, I, baby, I’m the problem
Did you think that your feet had been bound By what gravity brings to the ground? Did you feel you were tricked By the future you picked? Well, come on down
All these rules don’t apply When you’re high in the sky So come on down Come on down
We’re coming down to the ground There’s no better place to go We’ve got snow up on the mountains We’ve got rivers down below
We’re coming down to the ground To hear the birds sing in the trees And the land will be looked after We send the seeds out in the breeze
Did you think you’d escaped from routine By changing the script and the scene? Despite all you made of it You’re always afraid of the change
You’ve got a lot on your chest Well, you can come as my guest So come on down Come on down
We’re coming down to the ground There’s no better place to go We’ve got snow up on the mountains We’ve got rivers down below
We’re coming down to the ground We’ll hear the birds sing in the trees And the land will be looked after We send the seeds out in the breeze
Like the fish in the ocean We felt at home in the sea We learned to live off the good land We learned to climb up a tree
Then we got up on two legs But we wanted to fly Oh, when we messed up our homeland And set sail for the sky
We’re coming down to the ground There’s no better place to go We’ve got snow upon the mountains We got rivers down below
We’re coming down to the ground We’ll hear the birds sing in the trees And the land will be looked after We send the seeds out in the breeze
We’re coming down Comin’ down to earth Like babies at birth Comin’ down to earth Redefine your priorities These are extraordinary qualities
We’re coming down to the ground There’s no better place to go We’ve got snow upon the mountains We’ve got rivers down below
We’re coming down to the ground We’ll hear the birds sing in the trees And the land will be looked after We send the seeds out in the breeze
We’re coming down to the ground There’s no better place to go We’ve got snow upon the mountains We’ve got rivers down below
We’re coming down to the ground We’ll hear the birds sing in the trees And the land will be looked after We send the seeds out in the breeze
Redefine your priorities These are extraordinary qualities To find on earth
Comin’ down, comin’ down Comin’ down, comin’ down Comin’ down, comin’ down Comin’ down, comin’ down
Idiomas RalFer 