Zionism is the national movement for the self-determination of the Jewish people and the creation, support and protection of a Jewish national state in their ancestral homeland which corresponds to the region of Israel/Palestine. Judaism is an ancient religion that originated in a region that includes parts of what is now Israel and the Palestinian territories, and is the earliest of the three major monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Around the 6th century BC (before Christ) the idea of believing in one god came about and Judaism became one of the earliest clearly monotheistic traditions.. In ancient times, the land which is now modern day Israel was called the Kingdom of Judea, meaning the kingdom of the Jews.
Now, in modern times, many people believe the Jews only came to the land in 1948, after World War II, but historically and biblically, this is incorrect. People across the world know the story of Passover (1313 BC). According to the Biblical story of Exodus, Israelites were enslaved in Egypt, and then they left Egypt and traveled to Canaan. During these times in Egypt, we had to build bricks, worked as forced laborers, and were faced with genocide when Jews were commanded to throw their first born sons into the Nile river. The story of Passover is when the Jews were led to freedom by Moses and returned back to Judea. To celebrate this, we feel the pain and celebrate the freedom of the Jews. But it doesn’t end there.
Around 70 AD, the Roman empire was conquering place after place. Judea, which is in the east of the Middle East and right by the Mediterranean Sea, was perfect for trade and to continue to build their empire. After the Jewish-Roman war, the Romans heavily suppressed Judea, they destroyed the second temple which was one of the holiest temples in Judaism, and sold many Jews in slavery as well as banning them from Jerusalem. While some Jews stayed, many of them were scared for their life, an fled in order to be who they were, as well as to celebrate their religion. This led to the Jews landing in Europe. But once again the oppression against the Jews did not end.
Once we were in Europe, a tragedy occurred, known as the Bubonic plague/Black death, over 100 million people passed away. Although the Plague did not start in Europe, the Jews were heavily blamed for it with the reasoning of the Jews trying to wipe out other religions including Christianity. Even though that claim was falsely spread, Jews were still placed into ghettos, hiding away from being the people they truly were.
Now, World War II, Hitlers ideology of only the Aryan race should exist caused a mass genocide. Over 10 million people were murdered and out of those 10 million people, 6 million of them were Jews. We all know the history of World War II. The Holocaust strengthened support for Zionism .The word Zion means Jerusalem in Hebrew. Many people have the conception that Zionism means to colonize and to murder, which isn’t true. As we have defined previously, Zionism is the belief that the Jews have a right to live in their ancestral homeland, which is Israel.
During this time, that piece of land was called the British Mandate of Palestine. While a Palestinian Arab identity and society existed, Palestine was not officially a country. It was a British Mandated State, meaning that Britain controlled the trade, the government and economy and the people. Now before this, it was controlled by the Ottomans, they took over, Jews moved to Europe allowing for other ethnic groups to live in the land. But still the Ottomans controlled the people living in modern day Israel, and the people were Palestinian Arabs. After World War I, the Ottoman empire failed and the league of nations granted the right for the British to control that piece of land.
After 6 million Jews were murdered, and after the countless oppressions they faced, on November 29th of 1947, the partition plan was created. This plan proposed separate Jewish and Arab states, with roughly 55% of the land allocated to a Jewish state and 45% to an Arab state, allowing for a Jewish state in Zion (Jerusalem). May 14th 1948, the State of Israel was officially declared, but on May 15th of 1948, the Arab League declared war on Israel. The Arab League consisted of Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Jordan or back then it was called Transjordan, and Yemen. But miraculously the Israelis won, with support from other countries in Europe including Czechoslovakia. This war was called the Arab-Israeli war which ended around February 1949, the Israelis coming out on the victorious end. After the war, Israel controlled about 78% of the land, while the West Bank was controlled by Jordan and the Gaza Strip was controlled by Egypt.
As for recent conflicts in the Middle East, the war began when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct 7, 2023.This piece of land has such a long and complicated history, many people get confused about what the facts are. Many ethnic groups roamed through the land and settled there, but saying the Jews only came to the Land in 1948 is very much false as Jewish presence in the region predates 1948 by thousands of years.
