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Zionism and the State of Israel
The persecution of Jews experienced in Europe fueled a desire to return to the land God had promised them.
By the late 1800s, many Jews supported Zionism, a movement to establish a national Jewish state in Palestine. This was begun by Theodore Herzl, a Viennese journalist and playwright in 1897.
Some Zionists began to emigrate to Palestine.
Arabs who lived there objected to the Jews coming to what they saw as their homeland and fighting broke out several times.
After WWII, many Western countries began to support Jewish struggles for a homeland in Palestine.
Britain, which controlled the region, submitted the issue to the United Nations.
In 1947 the United Nations (UN) voted to divide Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish state with Jerusalem under international control.
Arabs felt betrayed by the Western countries, whom they had supported during the war.
Palestinian Arabs felt particularly betrayed by the British who, in 1915, had promised them independence in Palestine.
On May 14, 1948, Jews proclaimed the independent State of Israel.
The next day, Israel’s neighbouring Arab nations invaded. When the war ended Israel controlled its part and about half of the land the UN had planned for the new Arab state.
The rest was annexed by Arab neighbours.
Almost a million Palestinian Arabs left the country or were expelled by the Israelis.
Most became refugees living in the Arab-controlled part of Palestine.
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