A little more about Israel

As you can probably tell by the third word of my clever title, this is part 2 about Israel.  The first part is just below this one and starts with some geography, mentions Israel’s early history and in relatively quick fashion gets us through a period of Turkish rule over the area that lasted until 1920.  This next period is described as the British Mandate of Palestine and extends from 1920 until 1948.  The British Mandate was originally supposed to be British rule over the area until it could stand on its own.  The Mandate also formally divided Palestine to include a national homeland for the Jewish people (but still under British rule). 

Nearly 40 years before this in 1881, the first wave of migration began as the Jews fled persecution from Eastern Europe.  (I understand this migration technically started within the period of the first post but it is more relevant to this period since it continued throughout this period and continued after Israel had been officially declared a state.)  These waves, each called an Aliyah, continued with some 40,000 in a second wave beginning in 1904 and lasting until 1914.  The Third and Fourth Aliyahs covering the periods 1919 – 1923 and 1924 – 1929 brought an additional 100,000 Jews to Palestine.  Increased persecution of the Jews in the 1930s, primarily due to the rise in Nazism, led to the Fifth Aliyah resulting in the migration of 250,000 Jews.  Over this time, the influx of over 400,000 Jews led the Arabs to a revolt lasting from 1936 to 1939.  In an attempt to appease the Arabs, the British (still ruling, remember?) introduced restrictions on Jewish immigration.  However, because many countries around the world were turning away Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust, a secret illegal immigration movement was begun in violation of the British restrictions.  It was called Aliyah Bet and eventually resulted in the Jewish population of Palestine being 33% of the total population by the end of World War II.

After World War II was over the British found themselves in nearly constant conflict with the Jewish community primarily due to the restrictions that the British had imposed on Jewish immigration.  By 1947, the British government (who appear to have had enough) announced it would withdraw from the Mandate, stating it was unable to arrive at a solution acceptable to both Arabs and Jews.

In May 1947, the newly formed United Nations proposed a plan to replace the British Mandate with an independent Arab State, an independent Jewish state, and the City of Jerusalem.  The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution to implement the plan in late November, 1947.  Although accepted by the Jews, the Arabs rejected it and by December had begun to attack Jewish targets.  The civil war initially had Jews on the defensive but gradually turned the tide of the conflict in their favor, resulting in 250,000 Palestinian-Arabs fleeing the country.

On May 14, 1948, the last of the British forces left Israel through the northern city of Haifa.  The same day in Tel-Aviv, David Ben-Gurion read the Israeli Declaration of Independence in a public ceremony and declaring the establishment of the State of Israel.  President Harry Truman and Soviet leader Josef Stalin immediately recognized the new state.

Hey, so Israel is a state.  Smooth sailing, right?  You’d be wrong if you thought that.  Stay tuned for (what I believe will be) the last part of a “little” about Israel.

 
Tim