Most of this comes from cassette tapes of lectures by Marv Rosenthal, probably from the 1980's.
In the late 1800’s, Jews slowly began to return to what is commonly called “Palestine,” which was a sickly land owned by Syrians and Egyptians.
The land was under the control of the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) from 1517 to 1917--the end of World War 1, when the Empire was defeated and the control went to Great Britain. There was not a Palestinian State or even a country of Jordan until after WW1.
But prior to this, the land was greatly wrecked by the removal of trees which resulted in the loss of the topsoil. Taxes were determined by the number of trees on the land, and so they were cut down. Soldiers would cut down trees when they marched through the land, and when the locomotive was introduced, trees were cut down for fuel. The land was mostly barren and malaria infested swamp.
There were always a handful of Jews and Arabs living there together from the first century until the 1800s, and it was said you could go for 50 miles and not see a living soul and come across a sickly village—this was claimed by Mark Twain when he traveled there.
In the late 1800’s, Jews began to return and buy the land from the Syrian and Egyptian landlords, and they drained the swamps and make the land livable.
It wasn’t until the rise in anti-Semitism, that a Hungarian born Jewish man named Theodor Herzl pursued a homeland for the Jews in Palestine. Herzl reached the conclusion that anti-Jewish sentiment would make Jewish assimilation impossible, and that the only solution for Jews was the establishment of a Jewish state.
In 1896, Herzl published the pamphlet “Der Judenstaat,” in which he elaborated his visions of a Jewish homeland. His ideas attracted international attention, and rapidly established him as a major figure in the Jewish world.
In 1897, Herzl convened the First Zionist Congress in the Stadtcasino Basel, Switzerland, and was elected president of the Zionist Organization. He began a series of diplomatic initiatives to build support for a Jewish state, appealing unsuccessfully to German emperor Wilhelm II and Ottoman sultan Abdul Hamid II.
At the Sixth Zionist Congress in 1903, Herzl presented the Uganda Scheme, endorsed by Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain on behalf of the British government. The proposal, which sought to create a temporary refuge for the Jews in British East Africa following the Kishinev pogrom, was met with strong opposition and ultimately rejected.
In 1897, Herzl wrote in his diary that “today, I have founded the modern State of Israel, and it will become a reality in 5 or 50 years.” In 1947, the United Nations would partition Palestine and form a Jewish State.
There would be more Zion Congresses calling for a homeland for the Jew. They discussed different places for a homeland for the Jews, such as South America and places in Africa, but in the end they said the only place they could have a homeland was in the land of Israel, because that was where their roots are.
During WW1, the Jews in Israel fought with the Allies. At the end of the war, Great Britain captured that area called Palestine from the Ottoman Empire. In 1917, Great Britain came out with a document called the “Balfour Declaration,” named after Lord Balfour of Great Britain. Balfour said, “his Majesty's government looks with favor for the establishment of a homeland in Palestine for the Jew.”
That declaration came about because of a chemist named Chaim Weizmann, a British citzen, who developed a process used for explosives that greatly benefitted the British during the first world war. The British were indebted to him and asked what they could do for him, and he said not for him but for his people, a homeland.
In 1922, the League of Nations gave to Great Britain the Mandate: we want you to establish a homeland in Palestine for the Jews. But it did not come about due to government changes, and some Jews didn't want it, thinking it would create another wave of anti-Semitism.
In 1938, many Jews sought to flee Germny and Europe, as Hitler had already begun his purge of the Jews. They tried to go to places like America, Canada, and Australia, but they were not allowed due to immigration quotas being met. So many Jews were trapped. One place they tried to get into was Israel. So more and more Jews begin to go to Israel (in the 1930s).
Britain was still in control of Palestine since 1917, and the surrounding Arab nations went to Great Britain and said that they did not like these Jews coming back there. Under pressure from the Arab nations and with another war looming in 1938, and the British wanting the Arab nations' support as in WW1, they passed what was called “the White Papers.” The White Papers restricted the number of Jews coming into Palestine to 15,000 a year. Jews were fleeing for their lives and couldn't get into Western nations due to immigration quotas already met. So, they tried to get into Israel any way they could.
Menachim Begin, a former Prime Minister of Israel, tried to help Jews get into Israel, and he was called a terrorist because he had to resist the British and the restriction of the White Papers.
Some 6 million Jews would perish under Hitler and the Nazis.
Following the second world war, Jews did not have homes to return to, so they sought to go to Israel, but the White Papers were still in effect. They tried to get there by ships, but the British Navy would stop them and send them back from where they came or send them to the island of Cyprus. There was a shipped called the “Exodus” filled with Jews that refused to go back, went on a hunger strike, and threatened to blow themselves up if the British boarded her. (The movie “The Exodus” is on Youtube to watch for free—a main character performed by Paul Newman whose paternal grandparents were Jewish.) The British had more than a hundred thousand troops stationed in Israel trying to keep an uneasy peace between the Arab and the Jew.
So, the matter was turned over to the United Nations which was established after WW2 in 1947 to be voted on. The U.S. President was Harry Truman, and he was advised against voting in favor of the Jewish State because it would likely fail, and it would look bad for the U.S., but he called the ambassador of America to the United Nations and said you will throw support behind the State of Israel to the United Nations.
Because of the U.S. Support, other nations got on board, and the vote passed to partition Palestine to form a Jewish State (1947). The land was far smaller than that was originally promised by the British, but the Jews said they would take it. The surrounding Arab nations said that if Israel declares themselves a nation, they would drive them into the Mediterranean Sea within a week.
On May 14th, 1948, Ben Gurion, who would be first Prime Minister, declared Israel a nation among the nations of the world from Tel Aviv. The surrounding Arab nations said to the Palestinian Arabs living in Israel--who were allowed to live in Israel and be citizens--we are going to drive the Jews into the Mediterranean Sea in one week, so you get out of the way, and after we destroy them, you can go back and have both your property and your Jewish neighbor's property. The Jews did not drive them out or threaten them, and there is evidence they pleaded with them to stay. But many left of their own volition and stayed in what is known as the West Bank, a strip of land on the west side of the Jordan River, which was allocated as part of a Palestinian State. They thought they would wait for the Arab nations to drive out the Jews, so they could go back in get both theirs and their Jewish Neighbors' land.
But it did not happen that way, because when the cease fire was reached, Israel had survived and had even captured some of the Arab territory. Now those Arabs who chose to leave and wait for Israel to be defeated were used by the Arab nations to show how horrible the “Imperialistic” and “Zionist” Jews were. The Arab nations could easily absorb these Arabs who fled but did not in order to seek to show the world how horrible the Zionists were. They are kept in refugee camps to blame it on “the Occupation” of the land by the Jews. Yet they left of their own volition because the Arab nations said they were going to destroy the Jews and they could have their property. It didn't turn out that way.
