News of the Holocaust spread all over the world, and resulted in global sympathy for Jews. Very high levels of sympathy arose in the U.S.A where many Jews lived.
The other most important short-term cause of the setting up of Israel is the U.S.A’ s support for the Jews. America’s large Jewish population wanted to help Zionists and Jews in Palestine as well as other American citizens. Jews were opposed the White Paper which restricted the amount of Jews allowed to migrate to Palestine. Jews wanted to make the White Paper invalid so they asked America to help them, President Truman, the President of America put pressure on Britain to immediately allow 100,000 Jews to settle in Palestine, Britain refused.
The U.S influenced the U.N’ s vote to create a Jewish state (the Biltmore Program). They campaigned for developing countries to take part in this vote. These countries required large American companies to survive, America used this to their advantage, they knew these nations would do what they wanted. These countries voted for a Jewish state. America encouraged Jews to settle in Palestine easily, being a large strong powerful country.
America played a large role in Israel’s creation it was one of the most powerful, trusted and influential country on Earth. The U.S support for Jews also gave Jews and Israel a good reputation, due to America’s support for Israel and Jews, they immediately became more trusted and accepted by other countries and people.
The Holocaust was the main reason why country’s and people sympathised for Jews, this sympathy caused America to support Jews, America helped the creation of Israel massively even by giving Israel weapons
Both of these causes are linked. The Holocaust massively caused America to support the Jews.
2b. In this answer I will attempt to argue why the Balfour Declaration and Zionism were long-term causes of the setting up of the state of Israel in 1948.
A long-term cause is something that affects an event a long time before that event occurred.
It eventually helps cause the event.
In biblical times Jews lived in Palestine, they believed it was their Promised Land given to them by god. In AD70 Romans conquered Palestine, the Jews were forced to migrate and so they escaped to Asia, Africa and Europe. In 1518 the Turkish Empire expanded to conquer Palestine. In the 1880’s Jews were persecuted and murdered in a series of organised racist Pogroms in Russia. This started the idea of Zionism where Jews wanted to settle in Palestine.
During World War II the Arabs helped Britain to fight the Turks in return for independence. Britain promised the Jews that they would aid them in to create a homeland for them in Palestine, the Jews were given the Balfour Declaration a letter for proof. Zionism and the Balfour Declaration helped pave the way for the conflicts and disruptions in Palestine within the 20th and 21st century.
After World War II 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. A quarter of a million Jews who were freed from concentration camps built by Nazi’s were stateless. Many Jews escaped anti-semitism, and the Holocaust by migrating to Palestine before the Holocaust, and after the Holocaust when many Jews were released from concentration camps. Zionists aided Jews in this mass migration flood to Palestine using money and by other means. The Palestinians were unhappy as a lot of Jews were settling in Palestine, often buying the best lands, Palestinians organised the general strike, the general strike was a 6 month strike of Palestinian jobs which occured in 1936, during this strike buses nor trains ran, shops, offices, factories and schools stayed shut, at this time peasants also formed armed groups to fight the British army.
A Jewish demonstration near the Dome of the Rock, and a speech by an extreme Zionist caused a new outbreak of violence between Jews and Arabs. Britain who ruled Palestine as a mandate set up a Jewish army to control the Arabs, they equipped them with weapon’s and training.
Palestinians didn’t want too many Jews immigrating into and taking over their country so they killed some Jews, as a result the White Paper was set up in 1939, it restricted the amount of Jews migrating to Palestine. This pleased and calmed the Palestinians, but displeased the Jews, Jews now attacked the British as a retaliation. During WWII (1939 to 1945) Jews fought the Germans, helping Britain and the Allies, however some Jews carried on fighting Britain. A lot of Jews were still brought into Palestine against the White Paper.
A civil war formed in Palestine between the Jews and Arabs as UNSCOP’s (U.N Special Committee On Palestine) partition plan was to take place on may 1948, came nearer, since Britain abandoned Palestine as it’s mandate (Britain could not handle the conflict between Jews and Arabs). UNSCOP had drawn up a plan to split Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state. Palestinians were not content with UNSCOP’s partition plan as the proposed Jewish state was larger than the Arab state and it had the most fertile land, the Palestinians were left with mostly desert. The Jewish state also consisted of the most land even though the Jewish population was only 1/3rd of Palestine and Jews currently owned only 1/10th of Palestine.
Zionism, the idea of a Jewish homeland, was the main cause of the setting up of Israel. It was thought up of and strengthened because of anti-Semitism around the world and the belief that Palestine was given to Jews by god was also a force that powered Israel’s creation. Zionists that helped encourage and fund Jews to travel to Palestine also powered the creation of Israel massively. Zionism caused all actions to produce Israel (e.g Balfour Declaration, Jewish army and terrorist groups, Zionist funds) without the Zionist theory there would have been no force and actions to create Israel and so Israel would not exist.
The Balfour Declaration was also a major cause of the setting up of Israel as the Balfour Declaration actually gave Jews the permission to settle in Palestine and make it their homeland , as the number of Jews allowed to migrate to Palestine was not mentioned in the Declaration many Jews settled in Palestine. The Balfour Declaration caused Palestine to accept a large Jewish population, who eventually had the power to drive Arabs out of Palestine. Without the Balfour Declaration not as many Jews would have made up Palestine’s population and so Arabs would have either had the power to drive out the Jewish migrants or lived peacefully with the fewer Jews.
3.In this answer I will explain why I think terrorism is the most important consequence of the setting up of Israel in 1948.
When Israel was born on 15 may 1948, its surrounding Arab countries, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Transjordan and Syria attacked it. They wanted to help Palestinians liberate Palestine. Israel took over even more Palestinian land in this war, defeating the Arab states. This defeat paved the way for the creation of many terrorist, guerrilla groups.
Palestinians in Israel were either forced to migrate or left of their own accord, the total number that migrated summed up to almost a million. The Deir Yassin (whole village populace massacred) massacre which was broadcast all over Palestine, planted great fear into the Palestinians and played a large part in causing the flood of Palestinian migrants into nearby Arab countries. In 1948 Jews were migrating to Israel in masses increasing Israel’s population to1.5 million by 1951. The Law of Return was passed in 1951 which allowed any Jew to settle in Israel and become an Israeli citizen. Palestinian homes and property’s had been taken by Jewish migrants. Palestinians were now stateless and homeless, many Palestinians decided to form terrorist organisations with the aim of getting back Palestine.
The Fedayeen was one such terrorist group which consisted of many young Palestinian refugees, they attacked Israeli farms, power stations, frontier posts, mine roads and pipelines; these attacks took place between 1949 and 1955, around 250 Jews were wounded or killed in each of these years. The Israeli army made reprisal raids on the camps where the Fedayeen came from. Unlike the Fedayeen guerrilla attacks these raids were military operations carried out by well trained soldiers often equipped with aircraft, tanks and heavy guns Each year of battle drew even more deaths, injuries and disruptions then the year before.
In 1956 the Fedayeen in Egypt and Jordan continued their guerrilla attacks on Israel, but now these attacks were much more violent and daring. Egypt closed off the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli ships, Israel’s only access to the Red Sea.
In the 4th quarter of 1956, Israel attacked Egypt to reopen the Gulf of Sinai and to destroy Fedayeen bases situated in Egypt, Israel’s attack was followed by Britain and France also attacking Egypt a day later. Israel managed to take over Sinai and reopen the Gulf of Aqaba, the U.S.A’s and global disagreement forced Britain and France to leave Egypt.
Palestinians hoped to destroy Israel and return to settle in Palestine, they wanted this to occur by Arab states uniting. Egypt’s president worked towards Arab states unity, he wanted to be the leader of the UAR (United Arab Republic) which he thought would include all Arab countries (it included only Egypt and Syria in 1958) he also wanted to help Palestinians retrieve Palestine. However, the UAR collapsed when Syria left it in 1961. The Palestinians were disappointed by the lack of Arab unity, they decided to return to Palestine by other means. 100’s of young Palestinians created secret resistance groups; these groups spread propaganda, introduced new members to join their groups, raised money, and attacked Israeli borders. In 1964, these groups formed into 1 organisation, founded by Yasser Arafat, the P.L.O or Palestinian Liberation Organisation. It continued to use propaganda as it’s main weapon, some of its members saw attacking Israel with weapons as a more effective way to liberate Palestine. The P.L.O asked the U.N for help but it refused. The Palestinians now considered terrorism as a primary power against Israel. Fatah started to attack Israel in 1965. Fatah killed civilians, blew up railways and bombed places also in Tel Aviv, Israel’s capital. Fatah was much more powerful and effective than the Fedayeen. Syria supported Fatah; they provided them with weapons, bases and training as well as shelling Israel using big guns situated on the Golan Heights.
The USSR was Syria’s ally. On 12th May 1967, the USSR spread news to Syria and Egypt that Israel was going to invade Syria in a week’s time. In 1967 Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, Sudan, Algeria and Saudi Arabia invaded Israel with the hope of dominating it and allowing the Palestinian refugees to return to Palestine this war was called the “6 day war” as it lasted only 6 days and resulted in the Arab states failure. This failure to liberate Palestine caused Palestinians to lose faith in the Arab countries; instead they turned to terrorist groups to help them return to Palestine.
New guerrilla groups began to form; the most effective of these was the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine).
One of the PFLP’s most known hijack took place in 1970 when they forced 3 airliners to land in Jordan and then blew, they then blew them up. Hundreds of news cameramen had recorded and broadcast the event as the aircraft were being blown up.
“When we hijack a plane it has more effect than if we killed a hundred Israeli’s in battle. For decades world public opinion has been neither for nor against the Palestinians. It simply ignored us. At least the world is talking about us now.” A member of the PFLP describing the aim of the hijacks, Taken from Conflict in Palestine, by Josh Brooman
In 1972 the PFLP kidnapped and killed all 11 Israeli athletes taking part in the Olympic games in Munich. These and other terrorist activities brought Palestinian attention to the rest of the world.
After the Yom Kippur war in October 1973, between Israel, and Egypt and Syria; Sadat, leader of Egypt, and Menachim Begin, prime minister of Israel agreed to allow some rights of self government to Palestinians in the West Bank within the next 5 years, and that Israel would gradually move out of Sinai. Sadat was killed on the 6th October 1981 by Egyptian soldiers.
Terrorist groups such as the PFLP continued their acts of terrorism, and new groups such as Hamas, and Hezbollah continue to use terrorism to regain Palestine right up to the present day. Suicide bombers were used most recently by these groups against Israel. Israel has continued fighting terrorism by attacking terrorist organisation bases of Hezbollah in Lebanon in 1996. Hamas leaders have been murdered by Israeli agents.
Israel has been affected greatly by terrorism for many decades and will probably continue to be attacked by terrorists.
If Israel was not created in 1948 and supported by Britain and the U.S, Palestine might still exist and therefore there would be no terrorist groups.
