history of israel
Updated 20 Mar 2023
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Created byShaniya smith
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In the late 1800s, a Jewish political
movement called Zionism arose in
Europe. Zionism was a movement
devoted to rebuilding a Jewish state in the
ancient homeland of Palestine.Zionists
wanted to reunite the Jewish Diaspora to
make them safe from anti-Semitism. AntiSemitism is prejudice against Jews. Jewish
people had faced persecution many times
since the days of the Old Babylonian
Empire. If they could gather in a single
nation, proponents argued, they could
defend themselves more easily.
During World War I, Great BritainDuring World War I, Great Britain
issued the Balfour Declaration. The
Balfour Declaration was a statement
issued by the British government in 1917
supporting the idea of a homeland for
the Jews in Palestine. At the time,
Palestine was still controlled by the
Ottoman Empire.Britain hoped to win
Jewish support during the war by
supporting the Zionist cause.
The war ended in victory for Britain
and its allies. The League of Nations, a
forerunner to the United Nations,
awarded Britain and other European
countries control of former Ottoman
territories throughout Southwest Asia.
These territories were known as
mandates.In 1919, Jewish people began
to immigrate to Palestine in large
numbers. Tensions soon built between
these immigrants and the Muslim Arabs
and Turks who already lived there. British
political power held the region together
in spite of the unrest.In 1933, the Nazi Party, an extremist
political group, took power in Germany.
The Nazis held strongly anti-Semitic
beliefs, and soon began persecuting
Germany’s large Jewish population. At
the same time, Germany began
rebuilding its military after its defeat in
World War I. As Germany began to
threaten its neighbors and seize territory
in the mid- to late-1930s, many European
Jews fled to the Palestinian Mandate. This
increase in immigration led to rising
tensions in Palestine.In 1939, Germany invaded Poland,
and World War II began. Nazi
persecution of Jews during the war
turned into the Holocaust. The Holocaust is the
killing of six million European Jews during World WarII by Nazi Germany. The Nazis
sent Jewish people to work in camps where they often died of
illness and starvation and harsh conditions. Later they used mass shootings and poison
gas to kill Jewish people in huge
numbers.After Germany’s eventual
defeat in 1945, many of the Nazi leaders
faced trial for war crimes. Some were
executed. Others were imprisoned. Many
escaped justice altogether.
The events of the Holocaust
strengthened the Zionist cause.In 1947,
the United Nations called for an end to
the British mandate over Palestine. It
approved a plan to create a Jewish state
and a Palestinian Arab state. Jews
accepted the plan, but Arabs in the
region rejected it. The United States and
other countries recognized Israel as a
legitimate state after its official creation
in 1948. Despite the support of the United
Nations, controversy about Israel
persisted. Many Arabs felt that Muslims
should control Palestine.a group of countries called the Arab
League attacked Israel. The Arab League
included Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi
Arabia, Syria, Transjordan (now Jordan),
and Yemen. This war caused Arabs to
flee from Israel to the regions of
Palestine called the Gaza Strip and the
West Bank. At the same time, Jewish
people fled Arab countries and relocated
to Israel, swelling its population.The war
ended with an armistice in 1949. An
armistice is an agreement to end fighting
in a war. Under this agreement, the Gaza
Strip became Egyptian territory. East
Jerusalem and the West Bank fell under
the control of Jordan.
Peace did not last long.Israel,
allied with Great Britain and France, tried
to take control of the Suez Canal. This
important artificial waterway, built in the
mid-1800s, connects the Mediterranean
Sea to the Red Sea. Britain and France
had controlled the canal until Egypt
gained its independence in 1952.Their attempt to regain control of the canal is
known as the Suez Crisis. This war only
lasted nine days. Although Israel and its
allies soon gained a military advantage
over Egypt, pressure from the United
States and United Nations forced them
to withdraw. The United Nations
declared that control of the Suez Canal
rightfully belonged to Egypt.a new conflict erupted. Egypt,
Jordan, and Syria attacked Israel in what
is known as the Six-Day War. The Israeli
military was highly effective in this
conflict. Israel took control of East
Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, and the West
Bank. It also took control of the Sinai
Peninsula from Egypt and a region called
the Golan Heights from Syria.Egypt and Syria attacked
Israel again, hoping to regain there
territories. Their invasion began on the
Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur. Egypt was
not able to reclaim the Sinai Peninsula,
and Syria failed to retake the Golan
Heights. Israel remained the dominant
military power in the region.the United States began
negotiaing have peace between
Israel and its neighbors. The Egyptian
President Anwar Sadat and the Israeli
Prime Minister Menachem Begin met in
secret with U.S. President Jimmy Carter.
After 12 days of negotiations, they
reached an agreement called the Camp
David Accords.Egypt and Israel
signed a formal peace treaty based on
the Accords. As part of the treaty, Israel
returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egyptian
control in 1982.Israel also
signed a peace treaty with Jordan. even
tho they had these treaties, tensions between
Israel and its neighbors still went on. In
particular, the status of Palestinian Arabs
living in Israeli-controlled territory
continues to be a source of conflict.
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