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The New Israeli Nation between 1947-1967 Essay

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How was the new Israeli nation able to be born, to survive, and to prosper during the period of 1947-1967 despite being surrounded by hostile states? Introduction One of the biggest mysteries of the 20th century was the sudden creation of the Jewish state. It had been the dream of almost every Jew to have their own nation in which they would be free from persecution but its very creation appeared to be beyond human possibility. Almost 6 million Jews been viciously massacred under the “Final Solution” Plan of Nazi Germany and the remaining were dispossessed refugees. The small communities in Palestine faced fierce Arab resentment and British had disallowed any further immigration. Even when the state was finally declared in May 1948, …show more content…

After the brutal anti Jewish pogroms in Russia in the 1880’s, Jews realized that remaining in Europe would no longer be an option. As a consequence, they decided to create their own nation-state. On of the first Zionist movements (Zionist; meaning advocates of returning to Palestine) was Hoveve Zion (Lovers of Zion). The movement originated in Russia in the 1880s. It established several Zionist towns in Palestine. Eventually, in 1893 the World Zionist Organization was founded by a correspondent of a Viennese newspaper, Theodor Herzl. He published a pamphlet; known as “The Jewish State” in which he argued that “since Jews were a nationality without land, they must attain land in order to construct a nation state.”(Mitchell, 2001) At the congress in Basel, Switzerland in 1897, the World Zionist Movement was established whose goal was to create a homeland for the Jewish people. Jews throughout the world donated 357 million in US dollars in its first year of existence. After unsuccessful attempts of negotiations with the Uganda and Argentine governments, they decided that the Jewish homeland would exist in Palestine. An old religious Jewish community known as the Old Yishuv had survived in Palestine throughout the rule of the Ottoman Empire and had virtually no conflict with their Arab neighbors (although there were laws which forbade Jews from building synagogues higher than mosques). In his book, A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Mark Tessler, a

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