The Arab-Israeli conflict came about from the notion of Political Zionism.
that Jews constitute a nation (or a people) and that they deserve the right to return to what they consider to .
be their ancestral home, land of Israel (or Palestine). Political Zionism, the belief that Jews should .
establish a state for themselves in Palestine, was a revolutionary idea for the 19th Century. .
During World War I, Jews supported countries that constituted the Central Powers because they .
detested the tyranny of czarist Russia. Both the Allies and Central Powers needed Jewish support, but .
Germany could not espouse Zionism due to its ties with the Ottoman Empire, which still controlled .
Palestine. British Prime Minister Lloyd George & Foreign Secretary Lord Balfour, favored Zionism and .
supported their cause in a letter that became known as the Balfour Declaration, ensuring that the British .
government would control Palestine after the war with a commitment to build the Jewish national home .
there, promising only to work for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine and not harm the civil and .
religious rights of Palestine's "existing non-Jewish communities". .
After the Great War, Britain's Forces jointly occupied the area known as Palestine with Faysal's .
(Iraq) Arab army. The British set up a provisional military government in Jerusalem that soon became a .
struggle between Jewish settlers and the Arab inhabitants. In April 1920, the Palestinian Arabs revolted, .
killing Jews and damaging property, opening the Arab nationalist revolution in Palestine. .
The League of Nations awarded the Palestine mandate in 1922, charging Britain with carrying out the .
Balfour Declaration, encouraging Jewish migration to Palestine and help create the Jewish "national home". .
But the Arabs suspected the British mandate would hold them in colonial bondage until the Jews achieved a .
majority in Palestine. .
Winston Churchill issued a white paper denying that the British government meant to give .
