How was the State of Israel born?

Le Monde

To understand the current conflict between Israel and Hamas, we also need to understand the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, after the Second World War. How did the Jewish state come to be, and why is it located in Palestine?

Transcript

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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