Zionism

Zionism[a] is an ethno-cultural nationalist movement that emerged in late 19th-century Europe to establish and support a Jewish homeland through the colonization of Palestine, a region corresponding to the Land of Israel in Judaism and central to Jewish history. Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible.

Zionism initially emerged in Central and Eastern Europe as a secular nationalist movement in the late 19th century, in reaction to newer waves of antisemitism and in response to the Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment. The arrival of Zionist settlers to Palestine during this period is widely seen as the start of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The Zionist claim to Palestine was based on the notion that the Jews' historical right to the land outweighed that of the Arabs.

In 1917, the Balfour Declaration established Britain's support for the movement. In 1922, the Mandate for Palestine, governed by Britain, explicitly privileged Jewish settlers over the local Palestinian population. In 1948, the State of Israel declared its independence and the first Arab-Israeli war broke out. During the war, Israel expanded its territory to control over 78% of Mandatory Palestine. As a result of the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight, an estimated 160,000 of 870,000 Palestinians in the territory remained, forming a Palestinian minority in Israel.