Creation of Israel Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Creation of Israel - Essay Example made to Israel’s birth. The shared and self imposed responsibility of these nations had serious political, emotional and cultural implications on a world population still fresh from the horrific effects in the aftermath of WWII. Arab countries maintain that this is stolen Palestinian land and has opposed the objective from its inception, as they do today and probably always will. However, this paper focuses on the western countries, their historical and their continual involvement in the process of Jewish Statehood. For many centuries, those of Jewish heritage have felt a desire to return to what they consider their rightful native soil. â€Å"This was first articulated during the Babylonian exile and became a universal Jewish theme after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 A.D† (Wolffsohn, 1993, p. 5). In the last quarter of the 19th century Jews in Europe were generally treated as second-class citizens particularly in Eastern European countries. They were increasingly being subjected to persistent oppressions such as the series of state organized persecution of Jews in Russia during 1881. These actions caused many Jewish populations to begin plans for their escape back to their ancestral holy lands (Taylor & Francis Group, 1983, p. 468). In the 1880s, European Jews immigrated to Palestine to escape the pogrom, the massacre of Jews in Russia and Poland. In 1896, Theodore Herzl began the Zionist movement incorporating support from Jewish idealists in order to create a homela nd for Jews. He felt that Jews always had been and always would be victimized and could effectively make a collective stand against oppression only by creating their own nation. He stated, â€Å"We shall create in Palestine an outpost against Asia. We shall be the vanguard of the civilized world against barbarism† (Abrahams,