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The modern conflict between Jews and Arabs, the precursor to the Arab-Israeli conflict, began in 1881. At that time, about 565,000 Arabs and 24,000 Jews lived in Palestine; about 90% of the Arabs were Muslim while most of the rest were Christian. 1 A few Zionist Jews from outside the Holy Land decided they wanted to emigrate to Palestine, then a part of the Ottoman Empire. Zionism, one form of Jewish nationalism, called for the return of Jews to the Holy Land and the re-establishment of a Jewish homeland; the last independent Jewish state had been destroyed in 63 BCE. 2 The Zionists fled European anti-Semitism and rejected two other, more popular options for 19 th century Jews: assimilation in Western Europe based on the progressive values of the Enlightenment and emigration to the United States.

By the Holy Land, I mean roughly the area that is today called Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. During World War I (1914-1918), the Ottoman Empire was defeated and collapsed. Britain then occupied the Holy Land and held it as a mandate from the League of Nations, a pre-cursor to the United Nations; the land was known as (Mandatory) Palestine. The British also took control of the land east of the Jordan River that is today the country of Jordan.