Most of the early Zionists were secularists, and did not really believe that God gave Israel to the Jews. Most orthodox Jews, until after the War, were against Zionism, because they thought it was impious to establish a secular state, rather than waiting for the Messiah.
I am sure that most accounts of these matters are subject to dispute. What is not subject to dispute is that Jews populated Israel in good faith, according to norms of international law extent at the time, and that Israel was sponsored by the United Nations as an independent country, in pursuit of the final administration of the League of Nations mandate that had prevailed during the interwar period. The Arabs were the rejectionists, and sought to annihilate Israel upon its inception. They lost, and, in the course of the war, a number of Arabs occupying disputed territory fled. It is likely that the Arab League urged them to leave while it took care of the Jews, but also that the Irgun took advantage and drove some people out, as well. The upshot is that, with the Arab powers continue to declare hostility, and the Arabs of Palestine rejecting partition and claiming the whole territory, Israel would not repatriate the Arabs, but annexed their land as the proceeds of war. The Arab powers refused to relocate the refugees, and thus festered the Palestinian issue. As the Arab powers proved to be too weak to take care of the problem, the Palestinian Arabs began to resort to terrorism, going so far as to deliberately target school children to maximize terror....... |
