Timeline of Zionism - After The Balfour Declaration

After The Balfour Declaration

1917 November 23

Bolsheviks release the full text of the previously secret Sykes-Picot Agreement in Izvestia and Pravda; it is subsequently printed in the Manchester Guardian on November 26.

1917 December

The British Army gains control of Palestine with military occupation, as the Ottoman Empire collapses in World War I.

1918–1920

Massive pogroms accompanied the Russian Revolution of 1917 (the Russian Civil War), resulting in the death of an estimated 70,000 to 250,000 civilian Jews throughout the former Russian Empire; the number of Jewish orphans exceeded 300,000.

1919–1923

The Third Aliyah was triggered by the October Revolution in Russia, the ensuing pogroms there and in Poland and Hungary, the British conquest of Palestine and the Balfour Declaration. Approximately 40,000 Jews arrived in Palestine during this time.

1920

The San Remo conference of the Allied Supreme Council in Italy resulted in an agreement that a Mandate for Palestine to Great Britain would be reviewed and then issued by the League of Nations. The mandate would contain similar content to the Balfour Declaration, which indicates that Palestine will be a homeland for Jews, and that the existing non-Jews would not have their rights infringed. In anticipation of this forthcoming mandate, the British military occupation shifts to a civil rule.

1920

Histadrut, Haganah, Vaad Leumi are founded.

1921

Chaim Weizmann becomes new President of the WZO at the 12th Zionist Congress (the first since World War I).

1921

Britain grants autonomy to Transjordan under Crown Prince Abdullah.

1922 July

The offer of a Mandate for Palestine to Great Britain from the San Remo conference is confirmed by the League of Nations.

1923 September

Mandate for Palestine to Great Britain comes into effect.

1923

Britain cedes the Golan Heights to the French Mandate of Syria.

1923

Jabotinsky establishes the revisionist party Hatzohar and its youth movement, Betar.

1924

Palestine Jewish Colonization Association established by Edmond James de Rothschild

1924–1928

The Fourth Aliyah was a direct result of the economic crisis and anti-Jewish policies in Poland, along with the introduction of stiff immigration quotas by the United States. The Fourth Aliyah brought 82,000 Jews to British-occupied Palestine, of whom 23,000 left.

1932–1939

The Fifth Aliyah was primarily a result of the Nazi accession to power in Germany (1933) and later throughout Europe. Persecution and the Jews' worsening situation caused immigration from Germany to increase and from Eastern Europe to continue. Nearly 250,000 Jews arrived in British-occupied Palestine during the Fifth Aliyah (20,000 of them left later). From this time on, the practice of "numbering" the waves of immigration was discontinued.

1933

Assassination of Haim Arlosoroff, a left-wing Zionist leader, thought to have been killed by right-wing Zionists

1933–1948

Aliyah Bet: Jewish refugees flee Germany because of persecution under the Nazi government with many turned away as illegal because of the British-imposed immigration limit.

1937

The British propose a partition between Jewish and Arab areas. It is rejected by both parties.

1936–1939

Great Uprising by Arabs against British rule and Jewish immigration.

1939

The British government issues the White Paper of 1939, which sets a limit of 75,000 on Jewish immigration to Palestine for the next five years and increases Zionist opposition to British rule.

1942 May

The Biltmore Conference makes a fundamental departure from traditional Zionist policy and demands "that Palestine be established as a Jewish Commonwealth" (state), rather than a "homeland." This sets the ultimate aim of the movement.

1947 November 29

The United Nations approves partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. It is accepted by the Jews, but rejected by the Arab leaders (See ).

1947 November 30

The 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine starts between Jewish forces, centered around the Haganah and Palestinians supported by the Arab Liberation Army.

1948 May 14

Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel