Zionism, Arab Nationalism, and the Roots of the Conflict

Modern political Zionism emerged in the late nineteenth century as a Jewish nationalist movement calling for the establishment of a national home in Palestine. Its foundational text was Theodor Herzl's pamphlet The Jewish State, published in 1896, which laid the ideological groundwork for the movement. The following year, the First Zionist Congress convened in Basel and founded the World Zionist Organization. Zionism arose in substantial part as a response to persistent persecution and antisemitism in Europe, including the pogroms carried out in the Russian Empire, which convinced growing numbers of European Jews that only a sovereign homeland could guarantee their safety.