Zionism, The Birth of Israel, and the Palestinian Predicament
The Zionist movement
 The British mandate period
 Birth of the Israeli state and the Palestinian
catastrophe (al-Nakba)
Later
 Post-WWII conflicts
 Peace Process
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The emergence of political Zionism:
 Jews before emancipation
 Emancipation’s mixed record and the Haskalah
Movement and integration attempts
 Jewish Political Movements
▪ Zionism, Socialism, Folkism, Territorialism
 Zionism & Development of Nationalist Ideology
 Adoption of a nationalist ideology
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Leo Pinsker’s Autoemancipation (1882)
Eliezer ben-Yehuda’s re-creation of Hebrew in 1880s
Theodor Herzl’s The Jewish State (1896)
First Zionist Congress in Basel (1897)…Palestine
Division of labor: Western European Ideologues &
Eastern European migrants
 Imagining Palestine as an empty land
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The Balfour declaration (1917)
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1917-20: British military rule
1920-48: Mandate
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1920 Appointment of Sir Herbert Samuel as Civilian High commissioner
 Conflicting “White Papers” Samuel’s 1922 White Paper and Balfour
Declaration
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Divided Arab leadership, strongest component under Mufti Amin al-Husayni.
 Husayni-Nashashibi rivalry
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Incoming Jews formed the Jewish Agency to run the Yishuv—a parallel
government
▪ Histadrut:
▪ most powerful institutions in Yishuv
▪ mainstay of the Labour Zionist movement
▪ Aside from being a trade union, its state-building role made it the
owner of a number of businesses and factories and, and was argest
employer in the country
▪ Also controlled Jewish Defense Force -- Haganah
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David Ben-Gurion was a kibbutznik who became General Secretariat in the of
the Histadrut.
 Kibbutzim (collective community based on traditional agriculture).
 Transformed Histadrut into an institution to help realize the goals of Zionism
 Immigration was key to Ben-Gurion & used Histadrut to facilitate this
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Jabotinski’s Revisionist Zionism: “Historical” Israel (Judea and Sumeria)
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Settlement efforts: Jewish National Fund
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1936 & 1937-9 Arab rebellions
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External effects on Jewish emigration (Hitler & Nazism)
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US post-WWII support for a Jewish state
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The Jewish insurgency: Haganah guerilla fighting & Irgun terror
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Haganah defeat of Arab military resistance
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British withdraw, Ben Gurion declares new state on May 14, 1948
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Arab-Israeli war of 1948: Israel holds territory and creation of Armistice Line
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Haganah expulsion of Palestinians and
Palestinian flight
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The Nakba (‘Catastrophe’)
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The refugee situation
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Arab Israelis
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Palestinians in the West Bank & Gaza—
creeping colonization
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Palestinians in Lebanon, Jordan & Syria
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Nationality Law versus Right of Return