Partition of PalestineCreation of Modern Israel

Zionist Movement

• European Jews meet in Vienna to discuss the creation of a Jewish homeland in biblical Israel ( Zion)

• Leaders Theodore Herzl and Chain Weitzman cite past and present violence against Jews ( 1880’s)

• Some Zionists move to Ottoman-controlled Palestine and purchase land from the Turks– they create Kibbutzim( communal farms)

Zionist settlements in Palestine(1900)

Ottoman Empire ( 1300-1919)

• Turks enter Anatolia from Central Asia• Slowly take land from

eastern Roman Empire• In 1453,they capture

Constantinople- rename Istanbul• Greatest Sultan ( ruler)

will be Suleiman the Magnificent…extents rule into S.E. Europe

• Turks will rival the greatest rulers in Europe• They control much

territory,but do not force others to convert to Islam• Over time,they grow

weak,broken apart after losing WW I

Ottoman Empire

Anatolian Peninsula

WW I and Palestine

• British send T.E. Lawrence into the Turkish controlled Middle East to stir-up Arab tribes against the Ottomans• British encourage Lawrence to promise autonomy

freedom) if they successfully overthrow Turks• Lawrence and his Arab companions disrupt Turkish

control, even capturing Jerusalem, and Damascus• British also sign the Balfour Declaration ( 1917),saying

they “ look with favor upon a Jewish homeland in Palestine”… same land has now been promised to several groups !!!• The seeds of discord have been sown

British Mandate in Palestine(1919-1947)

• British and French betray Arabs and occupy the Middle East…. Britain gains mandate over the Holy Land • Brits allow massive Zionist immigration• Arabs rebel in 1936 against large presence of Jews in

Palestine … British use harsh force to repress revolt• The British do make a concession to the Palestinians ,no

further Jewish emigration allowed– very bad timing for the Nazis were beginning their campaign of terror• this is the status quo until end of WWII in 1945

The Holocaust

• The Nazis systematically round-up any undesirables in Germany, and any other territories they occupy. Millions of Jews,Gypsies,homosexuals,catholics, and communists die either through forced labor, or pure extermination

• The Final Solution• The deliberate attempt to rid

Europe of all the Jews• German companies actually

compete for the contracts to devise methods for quick, mass exterminations… gas chamber is one choice…many shot

• The priority to kill the Jews will mean that an estimated six million will die – four million in the last year alone ( 1944-45)… horrendous experiments carried out as well ( Dr Mengele)

Partition

• Hitler's Final Solution leaves many of Europe's Jews either dead or displaced• New urgency for a Jewish homeland• Zionists use terror/violence to force the hand of the

British• Right-wing Irgun blow-up the King David Hotel in

Jeruslaem… killing 93 British officers ( 1946)

• British then decide to turn over the future of Palestine to the United Nations ( 1947)

Victims of the Holocaust

Destruction of the British headquarters at the King David Hotel

A Land Divided

• United Nations votes in favor of dividing the land ( partition) England relinquishes its mandate in 1948• Nascent Jewish state is attacked by numerous Arab

armies ( including Palestinians)• Israel survives this assault, as well as Arab coalition that

attack again in 1956• Israel does a pre-emptive attack in June,1967---and

defeat their neighbors, and this time retain captured land ( West Bank of the Jordan river, Golan heights from Syria, and the Sinai peninsula and Gaza from Egypt) • Millions of Palestinians become refugees

Shifting map of Israel/Palestine