known as Zionism, which aspired to establish a
homeland for diaspora Jews in Palestine. It was
based partly on the nationalist movements that
were sweeping Europe during the 19th century,
and it was partly a reaction against increasing
anti
-s
emitism
there. Although modern Zionism
was mainly secular, it was also mindful of the bib-
lical view that Canaan (an ancient name for Israel)
had been promised to the Jews as descendants of
Abraham (Gen. 17).
During World War I, Palestine was the main
scene of the Arab Revolt, an armed insurgency
of Arab forces, supported by the British, against
Ottoman troops. Arabs hoped to be able to gov-
ern themselves after the war. Instead, with the
defeat of Germany and the breakup of the Otto-
man Empire in 1918, the British took control of
Palestine as a mandate territory, in accordance
with the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916
and approval of the League of Nations. In 1917,
the British Foreign Office issued the Balfour
Declaration, which stated it “viewed with favour
the establishment in Palestine of a national
home for the Jewish people” and affirmed “that
nothing shall be done which may prejudice the
civil and religious rights of existing non-Jew-
ish communities in Palestine.” Until they gave
up their mandate in 1948, the British tried
unsuccessfully to mediate between these two
competing and increasingly hostile nationalist
movements, one Jewish, one Arab Palestinian.
Jewish immigration from Europe increased in
the 1930s, as many fled from Nazi Germany.
A key figure for the Palestinian cause was Hajj
a
min
al
-h
Usayni
(d. 1974), the
mUFti
of Jerusa-
lem who organized strikes and attacks against
British troops and Jewish settlers, culminating
in the Arab Revolt of 1936–39. He was unable,
however, to unify the different factions involved
on the Palestinian side of the struggle. On
the side of the Zionists, David Ben Gurion (d.
1973), who had immigrated to Palestine from
Poland in 1906, emerged as a prominent and
effective political leader.
The end of the British mandate precipitated
an all-out Arab-Israeli war in 1948, the first of
several such major regional conflicts. When the
United Nations approved a resolution for creat-
ing two states (General Assembly Resolution
181) in 1947, one for Jews and one for Arabs,
Jewish leaders declared their support for it,
while Palestinian Arabs, backed by other Arab
states, rejected it. When the last British troops
left in 1948, Israel declared its independence and
was recognized by the Soviet Union, the United
States, and other countries. Arab armies consist-
ing of troops from the a
rab
l
eagUe
states of
Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and i
raq
were defeated in
the ensuing war. Approximately 800,000 Pales-
tinians fled or were driven from their homes and
forced to live in refugee camps in Syria, Jordan,
Lebanon, and Egypt. Their abandoned property
was seized by the victorious Israelis. Israeli Jews
remember this as their war of independence, but
Arabs call it “the catastrophe” (al-nakba). Once
Israel became independent, Jewish immigration
from abroad increased, including survivors of the
Nazi death camps in Europe. Middle Eastern Jews
also immigrated to Israel after experiencing anti-
Jewish discrimination and violence in several
newly independent Arab countries during the
1950s. Israel, for its part, encouraged this immi-
gration, which helped ensure that Jews became
the majority population.
Israel has had several more wars with Palestin-
ians and Arab neighbors since that time. The sec-
ond Arab-Israeli war, known as the Six-Day War,
occurred in 1967. It resulted in the shattering
defeat of Arab armies and occupation of the West
Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza, and Egypt’s Sinai Pen-
insula. More Palestinian refugees were created,
and the secular p
alestine
l
iberation
o
rganiza
-
tion
(PLO) led by y
asir
a
raFat
(d. 2004) became
internationally recognized as the embodiment of
the Palestinian nationalist cause. Another major
war was the Yom Kippur/October War of 1973,
which led in 1978 to a peace agreement with
Egypt and return of the Sinai to that country. The
K 382
Israel
United States became Israel’s greatest ally dur-
ing this time, providing it with large amounts of
foreign aid and weaponry as well as diplomatic
backing in the UN and elsewhere.
In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon to eliminate
Palestinian guerrilla bases and then occupied
southern Lebanon until it withdrew its forces
in 2000. Another form of conflict occurred in
1987, when Palestinian civilians living in the
West Bank and Gaza protested against the Israeli
occupation. This “uprising,” known as the First
Intifada, ended in 1993 with the signing of the
o
slo
a
ccords
by Yitzhak Rabin (d. 1995), the
Israeli prime minister, and Yasir Arafat, chair-
man of the PLO. Both men received the Nobel
Peace Prize for this agreement. A second upris-
ing, known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada, erupted in
2000 as a consequence of defects in the Oslo
Accords, expansion of Israeli settlements on the
West Bank, and deteriorating relations between
Palestinians and Israelis. It ended with an uneasy
truce in 2006.
Although religion was not the primary cause
for these conflicts, religious politics and radical-
ism increased with the failure to find a lasting
solution for the basic issue of Palestinian state-
hood. During the First Intifada, the radical Islamic
movement h
amas
emerged in Gaza to challenge
both the Israelis and the PLO leadership. It sought
to liberate Palestine and establish an Islamic
government, asserting that the land was a perma-
nent Islamic bequest (waqf) that could never be
transferred to non-Muslims. Since 1987, Hamas
has achieved widespread support among the Pal-
estinians and won the 2006 Palestinian legislative
elections. Israel’s 1982 invasion and occupation of
southern Lebanon gave rise to h
izbUllah
, a Shii
militant organization with close ties to Iran. It
engaged in an intense but short border war with
Israel in the summer of 2006. Israel, for its part,
witnessed the rise of radical Zionist groups and
parties that wanted to expand Israeli settlements
in the West Bank and Gaza and opposed making
any territorial concessions as part of any Israeli-
Palestinian peace agreement. In 1995, a member
of one of these groups assassinated Israeli prime
minister Yitzhak Rabin at a Tel Aviv peace rally
because of the latter’s signing of the Oslo Accords.
The U.S.-led “war on terror” and its occupation
of Iraq have further complicated efforts to peace-
fully resolve the Israeli-Palestinian crisis and
increased religious radicalism and terror strikes
in the region. Christian Zionists in the United
States have also become engaged in the politics of
war and peace in the Middle East and have shown
strong support for Israel and right-wing Israeli
Zionist parties.
See also a
rab
-i
sraeli
conFlicts
; c
hristianity
and
i
slam
;
colonialism
; c
rUsades
; J
Udaism
and
i
slam
;
terrorism
.
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: