Encyclopedia of Islam

Israel

  

381  J

---

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

.