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The Zionist movement (the movement to establish a Jewish State in Palestine) was officially launched in 1897 by a Hungarian Jew, Theodor Herzl. The objectives of the movement, as set out by the First Congress held in Basle, Switzerland, were clear enough:
Throughout the Jewish agitation for a State in Palestine, the Zionists’ plans were opposed by the Palestinians in particular and the Arab world in general. The ultimate objectives of the Zionists were clear. In order to achieve their objectives, they would have to effect an extraordinary piece of population engineering. Jews would have to be gathered in from around the world and, as far as possible, the existing Arab population must be driven out. According to the best available estimates (the first Census under the British Mandate), the population of Palestine in 1922 stood at 752,000, of which only 83,790 (12%) were Jews. The injustice of the Zionists’ intention became apparent to the British who were administering the Mandate in Palestine but British attempts to limit immigration prompted a campaign of terrorism against the British authorities in Palestine which eventually persuaded the British Government that their position was untenable.
This is not the place to recount in detail the methods used by the Zionists, in effect, to invade and occupy Palestine. It is a story which, in the West at least, is seldom if ever told but, for the record, it is a story of ruthless determination in which deceit, terrorism, murder and ethnic cleansing played pivotal roles; in which hundreds of thousands of people were driven from their homes and their land to remain in refugee camps for decades; in which the rights of the indigenous Arabs were treated with the contempt. Even when Israel was preparing to declare itself a State, Arabs greatly outnumbered Jews in Palestine. Even within the proposed Jewish State, half the population was Arab. A speedier way to improve the ratio of Jews to Arabs and to acquire more land for further expansion of the Jewish population was obvious. The Arab Palestinians had to be encouraged to leave. A policy of ethnic cleansing was adopted.
