In Europe at the end of the 19th century, the wave of anti-Semitism was rising, and many places were rejecting Jewish , and anti-Semitism violence often broke out in parts of Russia and Eastern Europe. For example, in 1891, Tsarist Russian issued a decree to prohibit Jews from living in Moscow . In just one year, more than 30,000 Jews were expelled.
Europeans' serious discrimination and boycott have forced many Jews to start thinking about their own destiny. Against this historical background, the modern Zionist movement began to rise. At that time, a group of Jews led by Theodore Herzl proposed to find a place to build a home that belongs to the Jewish nation so that the Jews could live peacefully and safely there.
They consider many parts of the world, covering the Asian and African continents and even Latin America. In the end, the Palestinian region located in the eastern and western regions became their ideal home.
1895, in the novel "The New Jewish Quarter", Herzl proposed a modern solution to the Jewish problem, and he envisioned a sovereign Jewish state composed of Palestinian immigrants. Although most Jews at that time found it unrealistic, they still gave Herzl great support. Because Palestine is of great significance to them, Jews.
The Palestinian region is the ancestral land of the Jews. As early as more than 3,000 years ago, the Jews came here to settle down and established a very splendid Israeli civilization. Especially in the era of Solomon , the Jewish Kingdom of Israel almost dominated the entire Middle East. However, the prosperity will lead to decline. After Solomon's death, the Jews began to go downhill. By the 1st century AD, the Jews were expelled from the Romans and then left their hometowns and began to wander around the world.
Jews have been wandering in this world for almost two thousand years. Now I am very pleased to hear that someone wants to establish a country on his former ancestral land. Because of cultural and historical reasons, Jews have a natural yearning for the Palestinian region. Even if this idea is unrealistic, they are willing to try it. What's more, in terms of the situation at that time, the founding of the Palestinian region itself was very feasible.
In fact, Jews had already begun to migrate to the Palestinian region long before Herzl came up with this idea. Many older Jews hope to spend their old age in their ancestral land, especially the holy city of Jerusalem.
In the 1860s, a group of Jews led by Moses Hess launched the "Return to the Holy Mountain" movement. They believe that the future of the Jewish nation can only be guaranteed when the Jews reunite in the lands of the former Kingdom of Israel. Because there is their holy land, the holy mountain, , Zion , which holds the spiritual foundation that belongs to the Jewish nation. So they need to go to the Palestinian region and return to the Holy Mountain.
At that time, the Palestinian region was being ruled by Ottoman Empire . However, at this time, the Ottoman Empire was in constant domestic and foreign troubles, the entire country was on the verge of collapse, and its territory was shrinking. Therefore, in order to reduce losses, those powerful landlords and tyrants were anxious to take away their land under their names. Taking advantage of this opportunity, Jews began to acquire land in the Palestinian region by purchasing. Although the local government refused this, it would even stop it and expel the Jews. But under the powerful money offensive of the Jews, they finally chose to compromise and allow the Jews to establish settlements in Palestine.
So in the 1970s and 1980s, the Jewish nation, which had been storms for two thousand years, began to return to Palestine one after another. This time, the Jewish return in the Palestine region undoubtedly gave Zionists like Herzl a hope.
Of course, in terms of the historical background at that time, this hope is actually not great. Because the Palestinian region is not an uninhabited uninhabited area, it is occupied by Arab after the Jews left.After two thousand years of development, the Arabs have long become the national subject here, and their number is much larger than that of the Jews.
Data shows that as of 1918, the total number of Jews in various Jewish communities in the Palestinian region was about 85,000, while the number of Arabs in the local area was close to 800,000, accounting for more than 90% of the total Palestinian population, and they also own 97% of the local land.
Under such a huge population gap, even if Jews use various means to immigrate to the Palestinian region frantically, it will be difficult to change the situation of "the enemy is large and the enemy is small and the others" in a short period of time.
It is worth mentioning that many Zionists at that time were not actually worried that Arabs would hinder their resumption movement. Because in their opinion, Jews have economic and technological advantages, the arrival of Jews is not to weaken the status of Arabs. On the contrary, it will save the economic difficulties faced by Arabs and lift them out of poverty and disease.
However, many Arabs do not think so. Taking up land is like dividing a cake. The Palestine is so big. If the Jews occupy a little more, then the Arabs will occupy a little less. As the "indigenous people" who have settled here for thousands of years, the Arabs naturally do not want the Jews to occupy the nest.
At the same time, the Jewish idea of "restoring the country" is also a great threat to the local rulers. After all, settled down is different from founding a country. One is bowing his head and obediently becoming a younger brother, while the other is holding his head up and turning over as his master. The former increases the population and expands its power; the latter disperses its territory and loses its power. No matter how this account is calculated, it cannot restore the Jews.
In this way, the Jewish restoration movement had two levels of obstacles, and hope was slim. But the Jews were lucky that they had the support of the British.
1917, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Belfort sent a telegram to the Federation of Zionists in the United Kingdom. The telegram mentioned: His Majesty the King's government favors the establishment of a national home for the Jews in Palestine and will do its best to promote the achievement of this goal. This sentence from Belfort means that the Zionist movement has received support from Britain.
Britain was the number one power in the world at that time, and the person in charge of the international order . The most important thing is that with the end of World War , the United Kingdom successfully obtained part of the Ottoman Empire's jurisdiction in Middle East territory through the League of Nations, and the Palestinian region became the British trusteeship. In short, the UK is the administrator of the Palestinian region, and all the matters here are decided by the British. As a result, the hope of Jewish restoration in the Palestinian region has increased greatly. After the end of the First World War, the Jewish immigration activities that had been stagnant for many years were once again launched. The UK reopened its old land registry at that time, allowing people to buy land again. Although the vast majority of Palestinian Arabs at that time opposed Zionists' settlement, with the British authorities giving the green light, Jewish immigration and settlement were almost without any obstacles, and even smoother than before the war.
At that time, the land in Palestine was not cheap. Many landlords gave up the land under their names to make the Jews suffer high prices. Moreover, most of the land is still sparsely populated and is not suitable for living and production. However, the high price did not scare away the Jews. After all, Jews are famous for doing business, and they lack anything but money.
Even if the local settlers have no money, there are a large number of local tyrants, including the Jewish National Fund, the Palestinian Colonial Association, and the World Zionist Organization, who are actively raising funds around the world. As long as Palestine has a place to sell, they can pay for it.
Furthermore, doing business is the old job of the Jews, and the Arabs can't count them. Since Palestine opened its doors to Jewish settlers, local trade has gradually fallen into their hands.They devalue land and property by controlling the local trade economy, while manipulating the financial crisis so that landlords under pressure to sell land at devastating prices. So many times when landlords sell land, it seems that they are selling at high prices, but in fact they have already lost a lot.
So soon the Jews bought a large amount of land, more Jewish settlements were established, and the living space of the local Arabs was further compressed. Because during the Ottoman Empire, although many land in the Palestinian region belonged to landlords and tyrants, the actual farming and use was handed over to local Arab farmers, and there was an employment relationship between them. With such a relationship, many Arab farmers have no land under their names, but they can work and live.
After the Jews bought the land, they required that only Jewish farmers could cultivate Jewish land, and Arab farmers lost the right to use the land. At the request of the Jews, they could only leave with a little severance fee . Of course, many people would choose to refuse at this time, but the result was that they would often be expelled by force by the British. There is no way, with the promise of " Belfort Declaration " there, the British obviously stand on the side of the Jews.
Of course, not all British leaders agree to cooperate with Zionist organization , especially for British officials in the Palestine trusteeship. The Jewish strength caused considerable trouble to their management work. Many times, it is the Jews who clearly make Arabs homeless, but the one who ends up under pressure is themselves, the law enforcer.
Under such circumstances, the opposition among the British about Jews is getting louder and louder, and some people are even calling for the revocation of the Belfort Declaration. However, the arm cannot twist the thighs. The Jews have too much influence in the UK, and there are even Jews in the cabinet.
For example, Home Secretary Herbert Samuel is a fanatical Zionist who has always encouraged Jews to immigrate to Palestine, and later he was even stationed in Palestine as High Commissioner. With such an imperial envoy who landed from London, the Palestinian British could only obey obediently even if they couldn't stand the Jews.
Under the influence of Samuel et al., the British trustee government further strengthened its cooperation with Zionist groups such as the Jewish Congress and rejected similar contacts with Arab groups such as the Palestinian Arab Congress. They even refused to recognize the Arab parliament and abolished the pro-Arab administrative officials.
In short, the British are treating differently. The Jews give all kinds of green lights, hoping to let the Jews take charge of their own affairs; while the Arabs are restricted and don’t give any power.
The partiality of the British made the Jews unrestrained. The pitiful they were in Europe, now they are as arrogant as they are in Palestine. As more Jews immigrated to Palestine, more Arabs were forced to leave their homes. And Palestinian leaders and intellectuals complained about such unfair treatment. Could it be that Britain could better find a country for them in a vast uninhabited area of her great empire?
However, the British were indifferent to the Arab protests, and the Jewish migration continued. This led to the gradual disappointment of the Arabs with the British, and the situation in Palestine also turned.
Starting from 1920, violence and riots began to occur in Palestine. In some areas where Arabs and Jews live in mixed Arabs and Jews, radical Arabs and Jews often clash. Among them, in the town of Jaffa on May 1, 1921, there was a very serious bloodshed. In just one day, 27 people died and more than 100 were injured. The riots then spread further, and many towns and villages in the coastal areas were affected. In the end, the conflict came to an end under the suppression of the British army. At this time, 47 Jews and 48 Arabs were beaten to death.
The occurrence of the Jaffa riots sounded a wake-up call to the British authorities. They began to reexamine their management in the Palestinian region and their attitudes towards local Jews and Arabs. After all, for the British, as rulers, the first thing they need is to ensure the stability of the local situation, rather than intensifying conflicts and causing conflicts. Especially behind the Palestinian Arabs, the entire Arab world stood, which had a great impact on Britain's interests in the Middle East. The British could not ignore it. Therefore, in 1922, the then Minister of Colonial Affairs, Churchill published the Churchill White Paper on behalf of the British government. In " White Paper ", the British affirmed the majority status of the Arabs in the Palestinian region and imposed certain restrictions on the migration of Jews, which was regarded as a pacification of the Arabs. But at the same time, the British policy of the Jews in establishing national homes established in the Belfort Declaration was still adhered to by the British. Therefore, the Jews are still immigrating to Palestine and are buying local land and property, compressing the living space of the Arabs.
It is obvious that the conflict between Jews and Arabs has not been fundamentally resolved, and similar conflicts will naturally occur. In August 1929, Arabs and Jews fought in Jerusalem because of the ownership of Western Wall . The conflict has resulted in more than 800 casualties, and thousands more have been arrested by British trustees. The final result of the British authorities' incident was still as mixed as before, and the problem was not solved from the root.
In this way, in the process of continuous immigration of Jews to Palestine, the conflict between Jews and Arabs became increasingly serious, from the initial property dispute to the deep blood feud later, it became increasingly irreconcilable. With the establishment of the Jewish state in the Palestine region as they wished in 1948, the increasingly entangled conflict between the two sides completely broke out, which became one of the main reasons for the continuous conflict in the Middle East for more than half a century.
