page_title: Zionism
section_title: Balfour Declaration and the Palestine Mandate
hierarchical_section_title: Zionism / History / Balfour Declaration and the Palestine Mandate
caption_attribution_description: English: Palestine as claimed by the World Zionist Organization in 1919 at the Paris Peace Conference العربية: فلسطين كما ادعت المنظمة الصهيونية العالمية عام 1919 في مؤتمر باريس للسلام.
context_page_description: Zionism is both an ideology and nationalist movement among the Jewish people that espouses the re-establishment of and support for a Jewish state in the territory defined as the historic Land of Israel. Modern Zionism emerged in the late 19th century in Central and Eastern Europe as a national revival movement, both in reaction to newer waves of antisemitism and as a response to Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment. Soon after this, most leaders of the movement associated the main goal with creating the desired state in Palestine, then an area controlled by the Ottoman Empire.
  Until 1948, the primary goals of Zionism were the re-establishment of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel, in gathering of the exiles, and liberation of Jews from the antisemitic discrimination and persecution that they experienced during their diaspora. Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Zionism continues primarily to advocate on behalf of Israel and to address threats to its continued existence and security.
context_section_description: Lobbying by Russian Jewish immigrant Chaim Weizmann together with fear that American Jews would encourage the US to support Germany in the war against communist Russia, culminated in the British government's Balfour Declaration of 1917. 
  It endorsed the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, as follows:
  His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
  In 1922, the League of Nations adopted the declaration, and granted to Britain the Palestine Mandate:
  The Mandate will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home ... and the development of self-governing institutions, and also safeguard the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion.
  Weizmann's role in obtaining the Balfour Declaration led to his election as the Zionist movement's leader. He remained in that role until 1948, and then was elected as the first President of Israel after the nation gained independence.
  A number of high-level representatives of the international Jewish women's community participated in the First World Congress of Jewish Women, which was held in Vienna, Austria, in May 1923. One of the main resolutions was: "It appears ... to be the duty of all Jews to co-operate in the social-economic reconstruction of Palestine and to assist in the settlement of Jews in that country."
  Jewish migration to Palestine and widespread Jewish land purchases from feudal landlords contributed to landlessness among Palestinian Arabs, fueling unrest. Riots erupted in Palestine in 1920, 1921 and 1929, in which both Jews and Arabs were killed. Britain was responsible for the Palestinian mandate and, after the Balfour Declaration, it supported Jewish immigration in principle. But, in response to the violent events noted above, the Peel Commission published a report proposing new provisions and restrictions in Palestine.
  In 1927, Ukrainian Jew Yitzhak Lamdan wrote an epic poem titled Masada to reflect the plight of the Jews, calling for a "last stand". In 1941, Theodore Newman Kaufman published Germany Must Perish! which argued that only the dismemberment of Germany would lead to world peace.  Anti-German articles, such as the Daily Express calling for an "Anti-Nazi boycott", in response to German antisemitism were published during Adolf Hitler's rise, as well. This has given birth to the conspiracy theory that Jews started the holocaust, although the Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels was largely responsible for ignoring the patriotic Jew, and for instead promoting anti-German materials as "evidence" that the Jews needed to be eradicated.
caption: Palestine as claimed by the World Zionist Organization in 1919 at the Paris Peace Conference
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