Israel and the Middle East
On November 29, 1947, the UN decided that a “Jewish state” should be established in Palestine alongside an “Arab state”. However, its opponents deny this state, Israel, the right to exist.
This is done, among other things, with the argument that the Canaanites living in biblical times were actually Palestinians. Apart from the fact that it is questionable to refer to a 5000-year-old prehistory, this claim is not true. What is proven, however, is that there were several Jewish kingdoms on the territory of modern-day Israel. Even after their destruction and the occupation of Palestine by other powers such as the Romans and then the Turks, Jews lived in the territory of modern-day Israel at all times and still formed the majority of the population in numerous places such as Jerusalem in the 19th century. This prompted the Zionist movement, founded in Basel in 1897, to campaign for the establishment of an independent secular Jewish state on the territory of Palestine. The background to this was the rampant anti-Semitism in numerous European countries and the persecution of Jews (pogroms) in Tsarist Russia in the 19th century. On November 29, 1947, the United Nations agreed to the establishment of an independent Jewish state. On May 14, 1948, this state, Israel, was proclaimed in Tel Aviv. It is still the only democracy in the Middle East today.
