The current conflict began in the early 20th century, when Jews fleeing persecution wanted to establish a national homeland in what was then an Arab – and Muslim – majority territory. The Arabs resisted, seeking the establishment of their own state after years of rule by the Ottoman and later British Empire.

An early UN plan to portion some of the land to each group failed, and several bloody wars were fought over the territory. Today’s boundaries largely indicate the outcomes of two of those wars, one waged in 1948 and the other in 1967.

Here are 15 key moments in this long-running conflict:

1.  First Arab-Israeli War (1948-49)

The First Arab Israeli War commenced following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine on 14 May 1948, and the Israeli Declaration of Independence that had occurred that same day.

After 10 months of fighting, armistice agreements left Israel with more territory than was allocated in the 1947 Partition Plan, including West Jerusalem. Jordan took control and subsequently annexed the remainder of the British Mandate territories including much of the West Bank, while Egypt occupied Gaza.

Of a total population of around 1,200,000 people, around 750,000 Palestinian Arabs either fled or were driven out of their territories.

2. Six Day War (1967)

In 1950 Egypt blocked the the Straits of Tiran from Israeli shipping, and in 1956 Israel invaded the Sinai peninsula during the Suez Crisis with the objective of reopening them.

Though Israel was forced to retreat, they were assured that the shipping route would remain open and a United Nations Emergency Force were deployed along the border of the two countries. In 1967 however, Egyptian President Nasser once again blocked the Straits of Tiran to Israel and replaced the UNEF troops with his own forces.

In retaliation Israel launched a pre-emptive airstrike attack on Egypt’s air bases, and Syria and Jordan then joined the war.

Lasting 6 days, the war left Israel in control of East Jerusalem, Gaza, Golan Heights, Sinai and all of the West Bank, with Jewish settlements established in these areas to help consolidate control.

As a result of the Six-Day War, Israelis gained access to important Jewish holy sites, including the Wailing Wall. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

3. Munich Olympics (1972)

At the 1972 Munich Olympics, 8 members of the Palestinian terrorist group ‘Black September’ took the Israeli team hostage. 2 athletes were murdered at the site and a further 9 were taken hostage, with the group’s leader Luttif Afif demanding the release of 234 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel and the founders of the Red Army Faction who were being held by the West Germans.

A failed rescue attempt by the German authorities ensued in which all 9 hostages were killed alongside 5 members of Black September, with the Israeli government launching Operation Wrath of God to hunt down and kill anyone involved in the plot.

4. Camp David Accord (1977)

In May, Menachem Begin’s right-wing Likud party won a surprise election victory in Israel, bringing religious Jewish parties into the mainstream and encouraging settlements and economic liberalisation.

In November, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat visited Jerusalem and began the process that would lead to Israel’s withdrawal from Sinai and Egypt’s recognition of Israel in the Camp David Accords. The Accords also pledged Israel to expand Palestinian autonomy in Gaza and the West Bank.

5. Invasion of Lebanon (1982)

In June, Israel invaded Lebanon in order to expel the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) leadership after an assassination attempt on the Israeli ambassador to London.

In September, the massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila camps in Beirut by Israel’s Christian Phalangist allies led to mass protests and calls for the Defence Minister, Ariel Sharon, to be removed from office.

A hung-parliament in July 1984 led to an uneasy coalition between Likud and Labour, and in June 1985 Israel withdrew from most of Lebanon but continued to occupy a narrow ‘security zone’ along the border.

6. First Palestinian Intifada (1987-1993)

In 1987 Palestinians in Israel began to protest their marginalised position and agitated for national independence. With Israel’s settler population in the West Bank almost doubling in the mid-1980s, a growing Palestinian militancy agitated against the de-facto annexation that seemed to be taking place.

Although around 40% of the Palestinian workforce worked in Israel, they were mostly employed in jobs of unskilled or semi-skilled nature.

In 1988 Yasser Arafat formally declared the establishment of a Palestinian state, despite the fact that the PLO had no control over any territory and was held to be a terrorist organisation by Israel.

The First Intifada became a largely spontaneous series of demonstrations, nonviolent actions like mass boycotts and Palestinians refusing to work in Israel, and attacks (such as with rocks, Molotov cocktails and occasionally firearms) on Israelis.

During the six-year Intifada, the Israeli army killed from 1,162-1,204 Palestinians – 241 being children – and arrested more than 120,000. One journalistic calculation reports that in the Gaza Strip alone from 1988 to 1993, some 60,706 Palestinians suffered injuries from shootings, beatings or tear gas.

7. Oslo Declaration (1993)

Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin took steps toward peace between their two countries, mediated by Bill Clinton.

They planned Palestinian self-government and formally concluded the First Intifada. Violence from Palestinian groups who reject the Declaration continues to this day.

Between May and July 1994, Israel withdrew from most of Gaza and Jericho, allowing Yasser Arafat to move the PLO administration from Tunis and to establish Palestinian National Authority. Jordan and Israel also signed a peace treaty in October.

In 1993 Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin took steps toward peace between their two countries mediated by Bill Clinton.

The Interim Agreement for the transfer of further autonomy and territory to the Palestinian National Authority in September 1995 paved the way for the 1997 Hebron Protocol, 1998 Wye River Memorandum, and the 2003 ‘Road Map for Peace’.

This was despite Likud’s electoral success in May 1996 which saw Benjamin Netanyahu come to power – Netanyahu did pledge to halt further concessions and settlement expansion resumed however.

8. Pullout from Lebanon (2000)

In May, Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon. Two months later however, talks between Prime Minister Barak and Yasser Arafat broke down over the timing and extent of proposed further Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank.

In September, Likud leader Ariel Sharon visited the site in Jerusalem known to Jews as Temple Mount and to Arabs as Al-Haram-al-Sharif. This highly-provocative visit sparked new violence, known as the Second Intifada.

9. Second Palestinian Intifada – 2000-2005

A new wave of violent protests erupted between the Palestinians and Israelis following Sharon’s visit to Temple Mount/Al-Haram-al-Sharif – Sharon then went on to become Prime Minister of Israel in January 2001, and refused to continue peace talks.

Between March and May in 2002, the Israeli army launched Operation Defensive Shield on the West Bank after a significant number of Palestinian suicide bombings – the largest military operation on the West Bank since 1967.

In June 2002 the Israelis started to build a barrier around the West Bank; it frequently deviated from the agreed pre-1967 ceasefire line into the West Bank. The 2003 Road Map – as proposed by the EU, the USA, Russia and the UN – attempted to resolve the conflict and both Palestinians and Israelis supported the plan.

Israeli soldiers in Nablus during Operation Defensive Shield. CC / Israel Defence Force

10. Withdrawal from Gaza (2005)

In September, Israel withdrew all Jewish settlers and military from Gaza, but maintained control over airspace, coastal waters and border crossings. At the start of 2006, Hamas won the Palestinian elections. Rocket attacks from Gaza escalated, and were met with rising Israeli violence in retaliation.

In June, Hamas took Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier, hostage and tensions rose sharply. He was eventually released in October 2011 in exchange for 1,027 prisoners in a deal brokered by Germany and Egypt.

Between July and August, there was an Israeli incursion into Lebanon, which escalated into the Second Lebanon War. In November 2007, the Annapolis Conference established a ‘two-state solution’ for the first time as a basis for future peace talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.

11. Gaza Invasion (2008)

In December Israel launched a month-long full-scale invasion to prevent Hamas staging further attacks. Between 1,166 and 1,417 Palestinians were killed; the Israeli’s lost 13 men.

12. Netanyahu’s fourth government (2015)

In May, Netanyahu formed a new coalition government with the right-wing Bayit Yehudi party. Another right-wing party, Yisrael Beitenu, joined the following year.

In November, Israel suspended contact with European Union officials who had been in talks with Palestinians over the decision to label goods from Jewish settlements as coming from settlements, not from Israel.

In December 2016 Israel broke ties with 12 countries that voted for a Security Council resolution condemning settlement building. This occurred after the US abstained from its vote for the first time, rather than using its veto.

In June 2017 the first new Jewish settlement in the West Bank for 25 years started construction. It followed after a law was passed that retroactively legalised dozens of Jewish settlements that were built on private Palestinian land in the West Bank.

13. US raised the military aid package to Israel (2016)

In September 2016 the US agreed a military aid package worth $38bn over the next 10 years – the largest deal of its kind in US history. The previous pact, which expired in 2018, saw Israel receive $3.1bn each year.

14. US President Donald Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital (2017)

In an unprecedented move, Donald Trump recognised Jerusalem as the capital, causing further upset and divides in the Arab world and drawing condemnation from some Western allies. In 2019, he declared himself ‘history’s most pro-Israel U.S. president’.

15. A ceasefire between Israel and Palestine was brokered (2018)

The UN and Egypt attempted to broker a long-term ceasefire between the two states, following a steep rise in bloodshed on the Gaza border. Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Liberman resigned in protest at the ceasefire, and withdrew the Yisrael Beteinu party from the coalition government.

For two weeks after the ceasefire a number of protests and minor incidents took place, however their intensity gradually decreased.

16. Renewed violence threatens war (2021)

In Spring 2021, the site of Temple Mount/Al-Haram-al-Sharif again became a political battlefield when a number of clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians ensued over Ramadan.

Hamas issued the Israeli police an ultimatum to remove their forces from the site which, when unmet, was followed by rockets fired into southern Israel – over the coming days over 3,000 continued to be sent into the area by Palestinian militants.

In retaliation dozens of Israeli air strikes on Gaza followed, destroying tower blocks and militant tunnel systems, with many civilians and Hamas officials killed. In towns with mixed Jewish and Arab populations mass unrest broke out in the streets causing hundreds of arrests, with Lod near Tel Aviv declaring a state of emergency.

With the easing of tensions unlikely, the UN fears a ‘full scale war’ between the two sides may loom on the horizon as the decades-old crisis continues.

While the assassination of the Iranian general represents an escalation of American aggression towards Iran, it was not an isolated event. The U.S. and Iran have been locked into a shadow war for decades.

Iranian protesters burn the U.S., Saudi Arabian and Israeli flags in Tehran on 4 November 2015 (Credit: Mohamad Sadegh Heydary / Commons).

So what are the reasons for this enduring animosity between the U.S. and Iran?

Pinpointing the start of the problems

When the U.S. and other world powers agreed in 2015 to lift sanctions on Iran in exchange for restrictions being placed upon its nuclear activity, it seemed as though Tehran was being brought in from the cold.

In reality, it was unlikely that the nuclear deal alone was ever going to be anything more than a Band-Aid; the two countries have had no diplomatic relations since 1980 and the roots of the tensions stretch even further back in time.

As with all conflicts, cold or otherwise, it is difficult to determine exactly when the problems between the U.S. and Iran began. But a good starting point are the years after World War Two.

It was during this time that Iran became increasingly important to U.S. foreign policy; not only did the Middle Eastern country share a border with the Soviet Union – America’s new Cold War enemy – but it was also the most powerful player in an oil-rich region.

It was these two factors that contributed to the first major stumbling block in American-Iranian relations: the U.S. and UK-orchestrated coup against Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh.

The coup against Mosaddegh

Relations between the U.S. and Iran were relatively smooth in the first few years after World War Two. In 1941, the UK and Soviet Union had forced the abdication of the Iranian monarch, Reza Shah Pahlavi (who they considered to be friendly towards the Axis powers), and replaced him with his eldest son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Pahlavi junior, who remained Shah of Iran until 1979, pursued a pro-American foreign policy and maintained more or less consistently good relations with the U.S. for the duration of his reign. But in 1951, Mosaddegh became prime minister and almost immediately set about implementing socialist and nationalist reforms.

Iran’s last Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, is pictured with U.S. President Harry S. Truman (left) in 1949 (Credit: Public domain).

It was Mosaddegh’s nationalisation of the Iranian oil industry, however, that got the U.S. – and the CIA specifically – really concerned.

Established by Britain in the early 20th century, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company was the British Empire’s biggest company, with Britain reaping the majority of the profits.

When Mosaddegh began nationalisation of the company in 1952 (a move approved by the Iranian parliament), Britain responded with an embargo on Iranian oil that caused Iran’s economy to deteriorate – a tactic that foreshadowed the sanctions that would be used against Iran in the years to come.

Harry S. Truman, the then U.S. president, urged ally Britain to moderate its response but for Mosaddegh it was arguably already too late; behind the scenes the CIA was already carrying out activities against the Iranian prime minister, believing him to be a destabilising force in a country that could be vulnerable to a Communist takeover – as well as, of course, an obstacle to western control of oil in the Middle East.

In August 1953, the agency worked with Britain to successfully remove Mosaddegh via a military coup, leaving the pro-U.S. Shah strengthened in his place.

This coup, which marked the U.S.’s first covert action to overthrow a foreign government during peacetime, would prove a cruel twist of irony in the history of American-Iranian relations.

U.S. politicians today may rail against Iran’s social and political conservatism and the central role of religion and Islam in its politics, but Mossadegh, who their country worked to overthrow, was a proponent of secular democracy.

But this is just one of many such ironies that litter the two countries’ shared history.

Another huge one often overlooked is the fact that the U.S. helped Iran to establish its nuclear programme in the late 1950s, providing the Middle Eastern country with its first nuclear reactor and, later, with weapons-grade enriched uranium.

The 1979 revolution and the hostage crisis

It has since been argued that the U.S.’s role in the overthrow of Mossadegh was what led to the 1979 revolution in Iran being so anti-American in nature, and to the persistence of anti-American sentiment in Iran.

Today, the idea of “western meddling” in Iran is often used cynically by the country’s leaders to deflect attention from domestic problems and establish a common enemy around which Iranians can rally against. But it’s not an easy idea to counter given historical precedents.

The defining event of anti-American feeling in Iran is undoubtedly the hostage crisis that began on 4 November 1979 and saw a group of Iranian students occupy the U.S. embassy in Tehran and hold 52 American diplomats and citizens hostage for 444 days.

Earlier in the year, a series of popular strikes and protests had resulted in the pro-American Shah being forced into exile – initially in Egypt. Monarchical rule in Iran was subsequently replaced with an Islamic republic headed by a supreme religious and political leader.

The hostage crisis came just weeks after the exiled Shah had been allowed into the U.S. for cancer treatment. Then U.S. President Jimmy Carter had actually been opposed to the move, but eventually bowed to intense pressure from American officials.

Carter’s decision, coupled with America’s earlier interference in Iran, led to growing anger amongst Iranian revolutionaries – some of whom believed that the U.S. was orchestrating yet another coup to overthrow the post-revolution government – and culminated in the embassy takeover.

The ensuing hostage crisis went on to become the longest in history and proved catastrophic for U.S.-Iranian relations.

In April 1980, with the hostage crisis showing no signs of ending, Carter severed all diplomatic ties with Iran – and these have remained severed ever since.

From America’s perspective, the occupation of its embassy and the taking of hostages on embassy grounds represented an undermining of the principles governing international relations and diplomacy that was unforgivable.

Meanwhile, in yet another irony, the hostage crisis resulted in the resignation of the moderate Iranian interim prime minister Mehdi Bazargan and his cabinet – the very government that some revolutionaries had feared would be ousted by the U.S. in another coup.

Bazargan had been appointed by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, but was frustrated by his government’s lack of power. The hostage-taking, which Khomenei supported, proved the last straw for the prime minister.

Economic repercussions and sanctions

Before the 1979 revolution, the U.S. had been Iran’s biggest trading partner along with West Germany. But that all changed with the diplomatic fallout that followed the hostage crisis.

Late in 1979, the Carter administration suspended oil imports from the U.S.’s new enemy, while billions of dollars in Iranian assets were frozen.

Following resolution of the hostage crisis in 1981, at least a portion of these frozen assets were released (though exactly how much is dependent on which side you talk to) and trade resumed between the two counties – but only at a fraction of pre-revolution levels.

Things hadn’t quite reached rock bottom for the two countries’ economic ties just yet, however.

From 1983, U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s administration imposed a series of economic restrictions on Iran in response to – among other things – alleged Iranian-sponsored terrorism.

But America continued to buy billions of dollars’ worth of Iranian oil every year (albeit through subsidiaries) and trade between the two countries even began to increase following the end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988.

This all came to an abrupt end in the mid-1990s, however, when U.S. President Bill Clinton imposed broad and crippling sanctions against Iran.

Restrictions were eased a bit in 2000, in a modest nod to the reformist government of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, but concerns over Iran’s development of nuclear energy subsequently led to new sanctions targeting individuals and entities believed to be involved.

Proponents of sanctions argue that they forced Iran to the negotiating table over both the hostage crisis and the dispute over nuclear energy. But the economic measures have undoubtedly also exacerbated the poor relations between the countries.

The impact of sanctions on Iran’s economy has fomented anti-American feeling amongst some Iranians and only served to bolster the efforts of Iranian politicians and religious leaders in painting the U.S. as the common enemy.

Today, the walls of the compound that formerly housed the American embassy in Tehran are covered with anti-U.S. graffiti (Credit: Laura Mackenzie).

Through the years, chants of “Death to America” and the burning of the Stars and Stripes flag have been common features of many protests, demonstrations and public events in Iran. And still occur today.

American sanctions have also limited both the economic and cultural influence of the U.S. on Iran, something that is quite extraordinary to see in today’s ever globalising world.

Driving through the country, you won’t come across the familiar golden arches of McDonald’s nor be able to stop off for a coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts or Starbucks – all American companies that have a significant presence in other parts of the Middle East.

Going forward

Since the early 2000s, U.S.-Iranian relations have come to be dominated by American allegations that Iran is developing nuclear weapons.

With Iran consistently denying the allegations, the dispute had entered something of a stalemate until 2015 when the issue looked to have finally been resolved – at least temporarily – by the landmark nuclear deal.

U.S.-Iranian relations seems to have come full circle following the election of Trump (Credit: Gage Skidmore / CC).

But relations between the two countries appear to have come full circle following the election of Trump and his withdrawal from the agreement.

U.S. economic sanctions on Iran were reinstated and the value of the Iranian rial plummeted to historic lows. With its economy deeply damaged, the Iranian regime showed no sign of caving and instead responded with its own campaign to force the lifting of sanctions.

Relations between the two countries have been teetering on the edge of calamity since Trump’s so-called “maximum pressure” campaign, with both sides ramping up their aggressive rhetoric.

Featured image: Qasem Soleimani receiving the Zolfaghar Order from Ali Khamenei in March 2019 (Credit:  Khamenei.ir / CC)

I have explored Stonehenge and Bronze Age settlements in the North Sea. I have veered from 2nd Century BC China to NASA veterans of the Apollo Missions.

History, it strikes me, is everything that has ever happened to anyone who has ever lived on this planet, and the stuff humans have got up to off it too. History is Henry VIII, Catherine the Great and Abraham Lincoln, but it is also happening now.

History is politics and politics is history

The Brexit process, the midterm elections in the US, and, yes, Donald Trump, are truly historic. Not only will they be poured over by historians of the future, but they are all rooted in deep historic traditions.

Brexit sees Britain wrestle with the ancient question of the exact nature of its relationship with its European neighbours, so near and yet so far.

Donald Trump’s election to the US Presidency in 2016 caused a political earthquake and represented a rejection of established order.

Trump appeals to history all the time. He talks about past greatness and promises to restore it. He defines himself as a nationalist, while his enemies brand him a fascist. Historians must weigh in and help the rest of us interpret what is going on.

The past explains the present

As it turns out, the anonymous critics are wrong on what the audience seem to want too. The podcasts about contemporary politics always have a historic element – like understanding what the 18th century Founding Fathers envisaged when they framed the constitution. They also always have people tuning in.

People want to know why hung parliaments, Trump, Brexit, the German far-right, Gaza riots and IS demolitions happen. They all have roots deep into the past, yet their historical dimension is too often ignored in the normal news cycle.

Trump and historical parallel

It has been an extraordinary privilege interviewing historians about Trump over the past two years, asking them to rise above the tweets and give us a considered view on what it all means.

From Sarah Churchwell explaining the genesis of the term ‘American Dream,’ to Ruth Ben-Ghiat on parallels with Mussolini and Joshua Matz on the development of impeachment in the US constitution, I have had some of the world’s best scholars sharing their insights and their fears.

They all agree that Trump is not literally a fascist. Fascism in Italy was a phenomenon particular to the time and society in which it was born.

However, there are fascinating similarities between the rhetoric, methods and even body language of Trump and Mussolini.

His certainty that he alone can fix society, he can protect it from the evils that stalk its margins, he can return it to a state of past glory, these are all tropes of dictators throughout history.

Likewise, his demonisation of the opposition, of the judiciary and the media. He identifies ethnic groups as threats and insists that he is, above all, a protector. He uses new technology to reach beyond traditional platforms for disseminating information and embraces conspiracy to undermine and obscure reality. He and his allies do what they can to suppress voting.

One of the most memorable recent podcasts was Calder Walton on Soviet attempts to influence American elections during the Cold War, by pushing misinformation, undermining trust and reinforcing division.

It was a terrifying conversation, yet a great example of why history is for all of us, right now. All this stuff has happened before, we would be wise to pay heed to it.

On both occasions the President was often hostile to the press audience, while accusing CNN of being ‘fake news’ and making derogatory remarks about both Acosta and his employer. Only on the second time, Trump set a new precedent – he called Jim Acosta an ‘enemy of the people’ and had his White House press access revoked.

I’ve just been denied entrance to the WH. Secret Service just informed me I cannot enter the WH grounds for my 8pm hit

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) November 8, 2018

These two press conferences are important markers in the Trump Presidency. In the first, Trump essentially opened his attack on the established media by accusing them of ‘fake news’. The second illustrates the White House’s propensity to act on it, after nearly two years of ingraining it into the media lexicon. It has chilling effects for press freedom, and not just in the US.

A very Trump-ian trend

Donald Trump has a paradoxical yet fascinating relationship with the term ‘fake news’, beyond the barrage of accusatory tweets have almost become normalised. The recent trend history of the term illustrates its remarkable rise into common usage, which is seldom explained in any detail. But that rise is almost completely wedded to Donald Trump.

The graph above shows global Google searches for ‘fake news’. These clearly rose after Trump’s election victory, and have remained at a higher average level, including several peaks, since.

It is almost as if one could not exist without the other. If Donald Trump was not in office, then the phrase would not have become so commonly used; he regularly tweets about it to tens of millions of people. Meanwhile, it is often argued that Trump would not have won the 2016 presidential election without it. But how has this phrase evolved in recent years?

Fake news and the 2016 Presidential election

The background to the growth lie in the growth of a ‘fake news environment’ before the 2016 Presidential election. The detailed causes of this, and the motivations of actors within it, could easily fill a book. But for brevity, there were two main actors:

Rogue entrepreneurs – these worked out how to profit from viral traffic. They had a free publishing system in WordPress, a low cost distribution point with Facebook and poorly regulated access to display advertising (largely via Google) so they could profit.

State sponsored actors – it is proven that the Russian ‘Internet Research Agency’ did act favourably towards the Trump campaign (given he was far more sympathetic to Russia than Clinton) through misinformation and Facebook advertising. Some 126 million Americans may have been exposed to it.

Both types of actor capitalised on the extreme polarisation of the campaign; the candidates were almost Ying and Yang opposites, while Trump played a populist card and was a master of gaining attention. He was also prepared to side with conspiracy theories.

The Trump Clinton Presidential race was the most polarised in recent history. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

A formula for the fake news environment before 2016 might be:

Increasingly polarized politics + untruthful candidate + low public trust x low cost website + low cost distribution + inability to regulate = advertising revenue and/or political gain.

There was fake news being spread which favoured both Republican and Democrat sides, but its overall tone, volume and how much it was seen overwhelmingly favoured Trump. These headlines illustrate the point:

• Pope Francis shocks world, backs Trump for President (960,000 shares)
• Hillary sold weapons to ISIS (789,000 shares)
• FBI Agent Suspected in Hillary Email Leaks Found Dead (701,000 shares)

But while fake news was seen as a menace, the media weren’t yet taking it very seriously. BuzzFeed was alone in the lengths it went to report its pervasive spread.

On 3 November 2016, it published an investigation exposing a network of over 100 pro-Trump news sites in the small Macedonian town of Veles, run mostly by teenagers who were making large sums of money through Google Adsense

In the week’s before the election, and having been repulsed by Trump’s campaign, the American media came out in such force for Hillary Clinton that Trump was the least endorsed candidate in campaign history. Clinton gained 242 endorsements, and Trump just 20. But these seemed to count for little as he swept to the American Presidency by 304 electoral college votes to 227.

The media reaction

Trump’s shock victory left editors scratching their heads. Realising their endorsements had counted for so little, they began to point the finger squarely at Facebook and the fake news on the newsfeeds within.

Max Read flatly declared in New York Magazine: ‘Donald Trump won because of Facebook.’

In the week after Trump’s 2016 victory, Google searches for the term ‘fake news’ shot up five times compared to the last week of October, and more than three times above the week of the election. It was driven by a sudden press interest in the role of fake news being a factor in Trump’s victory.

Donald Trump’s inversion

Trump showed little public interest in the immediate trend after the election, and he only tweeted about ‘fake news’ once in 2016. However, his first press conference as President elect on 11 January 2017 was a watershed.

In the days before that press conference, CNN reported that ‘Intel chiefs presented Trump with claims of Russian efforts to compromise him,’ but they stopped short of publishing the 35 page compilation of the memos.

BuzzFeed then decided to publish the entire dossier, “so that Americans can make up their own minds about allegations about the president-elect that have circulated at the highest levels of the US government.” This action, which was heavily criticised by the other news outlets, sent Twitter into the howls of a comedy meltdown, but it had an adverse effect.

It allowed the Trump administration to invert the term ‘fake news’ away from genuinely fake stories that seemed to support him, and back towards the established media. In the ensuing press conference, Donald Trump refused to take a question from CNN’s Jim Acosta, growling, “Your organisation is terrible… you are fake news.”

Donald Trump’s first press conference as President-elect covered in a report by ABC News. His attack on Jim Acosta is at 3 minutes 33 seconds.

Towards peak ‘fake news’

Searches for ‘fake news’ in the week 8 – 14 January 2017 reached double the previous monthly average. From then on, Trump essentially used the term to call out news organisations that were criticising his policies or attempting to investigate some of the more unsavoury elements in his ascent to the Presidency.

In July 2017, several CNN journalists resigned over a story into Russian collusion that was published, but didn’t meet editorial guidelines. Trump was quick to react on Twitter, calling out CNN and retweeting a CNN logo that replaced the C with an F, thus becoming Fake News Network:

The original thread is on Twitter.

Clearly, this was another opportunity for Trump to go on the offensive, and the attention around the resignations was so great, that the number of Google searches for ‘fake news’ notably jumped.

He tweeted about the American media being ‘fake news’ a hundred times in 2017, and he claimed he ‘came up’ with the term in October. It was used so regularly that the Collins Dictionary named it their ‘Word of the Year‘, stating its usage had risen 365% since 2016.

Key points in the search trend for ‘fake news’. There was clearly little interest until Trump was elected President.

In January 2018, Trump even announced “The Fake News Awards, those going to the most corrupt & biased of the Mainstream Media”. After the ‘awards’ were published on the Republican website blog (which actually went offline on that evening), searches for ‘fake news’ reached their peak.

The Fake News Awards, those going to the most corrupt & biased of the Mainstream Media, will be presented to the losers on Wednesday, January 17th, rather than this coming Monday. The interest in, and importance of, these awards is far greater than anyone could have anticipated!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2018

All the while, more evidence of Russian meddling in the 2016 US election was coming to light, alongside data mishandling and misinformation scandals that led to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg having to appear before US Congress. The real fake news was being deflected.

The trouble with fake news and its effects

The recent history (etymology) of the phrase ‘fake news’ is really one of inversion and deflection, through which its meaning has become warped.

It was used as a moniker to group misinformation that apparently caused Trump’s 2016 election victory. Then, because some outlets went too far in their attempts to undermine the new President, the term was inverted by him to attack them.

His Presidency has seen major news outlets denied entry to White House Press briefings, and he has called for network news licenses to be “challenged and, if appropriate, revoked” because they have become “so partisan, distorted and fake.” Jim Acosta’s White House ban is, unfortunately, one of a growing list of press attacks and obstructions.

While this has the effect of further muddying the divides between fact and fiction for the American public, it has further and perhaps more chilling consequences.

Network news has become so partisan, distorted and fake that licenses must be challenged and, if appropriate, revoked. Not fair to public!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 12, 2017

In December 2017, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported, Record number of journalists behind bars as Turkey, China, Egypt pay scant price for repression, laying some of the blame with President Trump, stating that his:

“insistence on labelling critical media “fake news” serves to reinforce the framework of accusations and legal charges that allow such leaders to preside over the jailing of journalists.”

No matter of people’s opinions of the ‘mainstream media’, the throttling of a free press leads us into a warped version of reality. As the new slogan of The Washington Post says, ‘Democracy dies in darkness.’

The mess of information

The term ‘fake news’ is really a name for the giant mess of information in the age of social media.

Everywhere, there is a waning of trust in authority and what people hold to be true. The press blames social networks and fake news websites for duping the public, the public may share the content of fake news websites, but also blame the media for breaking their trust, while the man in the most world’s highest office uses social media to berate the established media for being fake.

Donald Trump might well have existed without fake news, but its current imprint on the public’s consciousness couldn’t have happened without him.

This article is an edited transcript of The Rise of the Far Right in Europe in the 1930s with Frank McDonough, available on History Hit TV.

With the election of Donald Trump and the rise of the so-called “alt right” in the United States, people have talked about similarities between modern-day politics and the rise of Hitler, Mussolini and Franco in 1930s Europe. But to what extent can we compare the two?

The differences

Adolf Hitler didn’t come to power by winning a majority of votes from the German people. He rose to the position of chancellor in January 1933 by appointment of President Paul von Hindenburg. He held an election later but and even in that election he didn’t win outright power.

He gained about 43 per cent of the vote, which was pretty high – 17 million people voted for him. But he still didn’t have an outright majority in order to put the Enabling Act through parliament; he needed the support of the other existing democratic parties. 

Hitler (left) shakes hands with German President von Hindenburg in March 1933. Credit: Bundesarchiv-Bild-183-S38324-CC-BY-SA-3.0

Now, Trump, meanwhile, came to power democratically. He won the US presidential election by winning the Electoral College, which makes him no different from any other American president. It just happens that in voting for Trump, the American public were also voting for Trump’s policies, which seem much more to the right than those of any other American president.

Indeed, although Trump is unusual, a populist, and unorthodox, there is no one who’s really articulating or espousing an alternative to democracy and capitalism in a way that existed in the 1930s.

Communism, fascism and national socialism were all philosophies that critiqued and rejected the democratic way of doing things.

Even China is trying to reform itself so that it joins the capitalist system. Putin is also towards the right, but he still wants to join the capitalist system. So capitalism has won. The only alternative in the world to capitalism is a kind of radical Islam – and that’s not really a philosophy that’s appealing on a widespread basis.

If you look at what proponents of that philosophy are trying to achieve then it’s the kind of societies that could be said to be a step backwards in time, and the methods they use to bring their vision about are very brutal.

So it’s not as if radical Islam can become a kind of worldwide movement to rank with, say, communism in the 20th century. Most people would probably say that it’s a manageable danger for major powers like America. 

Isolationism and military power

Probably the real danger of Trump is the possibility of him becoming very isolationist and taking America inward again. 

Now there have been some comparisons made between the moves Trump has made and the way that America distanced itself from world affairs at the end of World War One. Remember, America was in favour of the League of Nations, it wanted to be part of that system, but the US Senate refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles and it never ended up joining. 

We know that Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was US president between 1933 and 1945, wasn’t really fundamentally isolationist. But, in reality, America didn’t have a large army in the 1930s. Even when World War Two started in 1939, Roosevelt had to build up the army before it was capable of putting large amounts of equipment in the field.

Roosevelt signs the declaration of war against Germany on 11 December 1941.

So really, in the 1930s, there was a much greater flux of military balance in the world.

Today, however, America is the most dominant military power that’s ever existed since the height of the Roman Empire. No one can doubt that America’s military power is awesome.

Hitler, meanwhile, took Germany out of the League of Nations and the World Disarmament Conference shortly after coming to power. So immediately there was a bit of a crisis in the world system. I suppose you could say there was a power vacuum in the world. And there is some similarity there with America today and Trump’s more isolationist tendencies.

But, as has already been discussed, America is a vast military power; it’s much more powerful than Germany ever was under Hitler. Nazi Germany was never the most dominant military power in the world, except for maybe a slight period in the summer of 1941. But really, for most of the 1930s Germany was trying to rebuild its armaments.

An American Gestapo?

Before coming to power Trump talked about creating an internal security service. Some people say that he meant a Gestapo, something that he denied when questioned about it.  But he did say that the US needed an internal security service to focus on”the bad guys” – everything’s “the bad guys.” And the bad guys that he’s talking about, as we know, are the people that he sees as Islamic-inspired terrorists. He’s talked about Muslims. 

Of course, Muslims have got nothing to do with all of this terrorism, but he wants to make them a kind of scapegoat. Now, there’s a danger there that they could become a scapegoat in the way that the Jews became the scapegoat in Nazi Germany.

He even talked about drawing up a list of Muslims. What’s next, a special passport for them? Remember, the Jews ended up with a special passport, didn’t they? So those issues do present dangers within America. 

He also talked about Guantanamo Bay not necessarily being a bad thing to deal with “the bad guys.” So he likely does have a view that the gloves are off and he’s going to look out for internal security. But I don’t think Trump’s got some kind of huge plan that is going to affect the rest of the world as Hitler did.

Hitler’s plan, remember, was to take over the world militarily. Well, America is already in charge of the world militarily so it doesn’t have to take it over. It is the dominance.

This article is an edited transcript of The Rise of the Far Right in Europe in the 1930s with Frank McDonough, available on History Hit TV.

Historians don’t like comparisons. Name me a great comparative historian – if you can. There aren’t that many out there, because, really, historians don’t like to compare one thing with another. We leave that to people who work in the modern day. You know, political scientists and economists, they do comparisons and usually they get it completely wrong. 

So historians tend to look at the past as it existed then. They think the conditions that existed then are not necessarily something that we take away and say “Right, let’s compare this to the present” about. Other people do that, you know. Commentators do it, other people do it, they’ll say, “Oh, you’re a fascist”, or, “You’re a national socialist”. “You’re a Nazi” is the one, isn’t it? 

The problem with calling people Nazis

Well, saying that someone’s a Nazi in the modern day is a bit disingenuous to what Adolf Hitler actually did and disingenuous to his victims. That regime committed genocide on a huge scale. One of the policies that Hitler had early on was to sterilise handicapped people. And the Nazi regime killed handicapped people too.

It then went on to victimise the Jews and gassed them with carbon monoxide and Cyclone B in death camps. And other groups were also killed, including gypsies and gay people. 

So the Nazi regime is the most brutal, horrible, vicious regime that’s ever existed. And I think that we need to be careful before we call somebody like Nigel Farage (former UKIP leader) a Nazi.

Nigel Farage is not a Nazi, right? Whatever he is, he’s not a Nazi. And Donald Trump is not a Nazi either, right? He may be right-wing and we may categorise both men as populists, but we’re going to go down the wrong alleyway if we start to brand these people fascists. That is too simplistic.

Frank McDonough says it’s too simplistic to brand modern-day populist politicians like Donald Trump “Nazis”. Credit: Gage Skidmore / Commons

You know, the world is more complicated than we just repeat the past all the time – we don’t. Even if Hitler came back now, he would be completely different. In fact, there was a German novel imagining that he has come back and he’s a rather farcical figure. It’s a different situation that we face now.

We have to look at political figures and political news in the here and now.

It’s great to have historians to comment on what the dangers are from the past, but, really, we need to look at what’s going on today and analyse it for itself and for now. We need to get away from these labels completely, that this X or Y is a fascist.

There’s a difference between these authoritarian right-wing people and fascists and there are gradations of all these people around the world. 

The populist right on the march

There’s no question that the populist right is on the march, there’s no doubt about that. And we should be worried about the populist right being on the march, because, really, liberal democracy has anchored the world; that sort of appreciation of the individual and the sanctity of the individual. We should be worried that that is under pressure.

You know, people are talking about “post-truth”. The truth is that people aren’t listening to experts anymore, because, really, on Twitter an expert can go on and make statements and someone else will tell you, “Oh, that’s a load of baloney”. 

Everyone today doesn’t feel the respect that people felt for experts or for doctors in the past. In my day, you  went to a doctor’s surgery almost in awe of the doctor. Now you find that people question the doctor’s ability: “Oh, that doctor’s useless”. People are always telling you what they think about doctors.

We also question whether economists know anything. Politicians too.

We have as high an opinion of politicians as plant life.

We don’t really look up to politicians, do we? Unless they’re on “Strictly Come Dancing”, and then we can laugh at them.