00:00 Why is the state of Israel located here in Palestine?
00:03 First, Zionism.
00:05 From 1880 onwards, certain European Jews demanded their own state.
00:10 Why? Mainly because over the centuries,
00:13 Jews had regularly been the victims of persecution in Europe.
00:17 This led to the birth of Zionism,
00:19 a political movement whose aim was to create
00:21 a state that would belong to the Jews, where they would be safe.
00:25 But why in Palestine?
00:27 Palestine is historically an important region for believers
00:30 of all three monotheistic religions.
00:33 In Judaism, the idea of returning to the biblical land of Israel,
00:37 where the religion was born, is very present.
00:39 So Zionists began to lay political claim to this land.
00:43 What gave weight to this demand was the support of the UK.
00:47 For several centuries, Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire.
00:51 It was inhabited predominantly by Muslim Arabs,
00:54 who coexisted with Christian and Jewish minorities.
00:58 But...
00:59 After World War I, the Ottoman Empire collapsed
01:02 and Britain regained control of the region.
01:05 And for a whole host of political reasons,
01:08 Britain supported Jewish immigration to Palestine.
01:11 Meanwhile, in Europe, Jews were facing increasing persecution.
01:15 Between 1929 and 1939, 180,000 Jews settled in Palestine.
01:21 In response, from the 1930s onward,
01:24 Arab revolts took place against the British administration
01:27 and Jewish immigration.
01:29 And these revolts were violently repressed.
01:32 And then, 6 million Jews were exterminated by the Nazis in Europe.
01:36 This pushed even more Jews to flee to Palestine.
01:40 At this time, tensions were running high between the new arrivals
01:43 and those who had long been present on the land.
01:46 The British decided to withdraw from this delicate situation.
01:50 Then, the UN proposed a two-state solution to partition the area.
01:55 The Jews who were in the minority
01:57 were allocated a larger territory than the Arabs.
02:00 The Arab authorities refused this division.
02:03 With no agreement reached,
02:04 the State of Israel decided to unilaterally proclaim its existence.
02:09 Immediately, neighboring Arab countries declared war.
02:12 This marked the beginning of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
02:16 marked by wars, clashes, and Israeli colonization of Palestinian territories.
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