Israel's 60th Anniversary

May 14, 1948, the Jewish National Council proclaimed the State of Israel

by Beth Rowen

Related Links Israel Zionism Palestine

May 14, 2008, marks the 60th anniversary of the creation of the modern State of Israel. As part of the 19th-century Zionist movement, Jews had begun settling in Palestine as early as 1820. This effort to establish a Jewish homeland received British approval in the Balfour Declaration of 1917.

During the 1930s, Jews persecuted by the Hitler regime poured into Palestine. The postwar acknowledgment of the Holocaust—Hitler's genocide of 6 million Jews—increased international interest in and sympathy for the cause of Zionism. However, Arabs in Palestine and surrounding countries bitterly opposed prewar and postwar proposals to partition Palestine into Arab and Jewish sectors. The British mandate to govern Palestine ended after the war, and, in 1947, the UN voted to partition Palestine. When the British officially withdrew on May 14, 1948, the Jewish National Council proclaimed the State of Israel.

Prominent Israeli Politicians

• Ehud Barak
• David Ben-Gurion
• Yizhak Ben-Zvi
• Golda Meir
• Moshe Dayan
• Abba Eban
• Levi Eshkol
• Benjamin Netanyahu
• Ehud Olmert
• Shimon Peres
• Yitzhak Rabin
• Yitzhak Shamir
• Moshe Sharett
• Ariel Sharon
• Chaim Weizmann
• Ezer Weizman

Other Players in Modern Israel's History

• Mahmoud Abbas
• Yasir Arafat
• Menachem Begin
• Anwar Sadat

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