1933-47 JEWISH FLIGHT FROM PERSECUTION

April 15, 1936 The Arab Revolt breaks out. Over the next three years, more than 1,000 Arabs and 400 Jews die in killings, bombings, and armed attacks, and in the efforts of British forces to stop the revolt.

July 7, 1937 The British-organized Peel Commission issues report recommending partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states as solution to the ongoing conflict.

Nazism, strikes and boycotts1937 The rise of Nazism in Europe reinvigorated Zionism, and the British raised Jewish immigration quotas for Palestine from about 5,000 in 1932 to about 62,000 in three years. Fearing the Jews would seize control, Arabs launched a series of strikes and boycotts. A British commission concluded that Palestine should be partitioned into Jewish, Arab and British states, something the Zionists accepted reluctantly. But the Arabs, enraged that they might be removed forcibly from the proposed Jewish state, rejected the idea.
For 12 years between 1933 and 1945, in what would later be referred to as the Holocaust, Germany's Adolf Hitler persecuted Jews and other minorities. The Nazis systematically killed an estimated 6 million Jews.

May 17, 1939 In White Paper, Great Britain abandons support for Jewish state in Palestine, establishes ceiling for Jewish immigration to Palestine of 75,000 over next five years.

Sept. 1, 1939 World War II begins.

War, Holocaust and partition1939-47 Jewish refugees from the Holocaust flooded into Palestine during World War II, their plight stirring support for a Jewish state. The Arabs formed the Arab League as a counterweight to Zionism, and in 1947 the United Nations voted to divide Palestine into Arab and Jewish states, the latter occupying 55 percent of the land west of the Jordan River. Jerusalem was designated as an international enclave.

Feb. 1, 1944 The Irgun, a Jewish underground armed group under the command of future Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, announces the resumption of operations against British forces in Palestine.

July 22, 1944 The Irgun bombs the King David Hotel, the British military and administrative headquarters in Jerusalem. Ninety are killed.

Nov. 29, 1947 The United Nations General Assembly votes in favor of the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab territories.

Nov. 30, 1947 Skirmishing breaks out in Palestine between Jewish and local Arab armed groups.
1947-48 Partition

In November 1947 the United Nations ordered the partition of Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state, and the end of the British Mandate by May 15, 1948. The Arab powers of the Middle East rejected the partition plan, and hours after Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion declared Israel a state on May 14, the forces of Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Transjordan and Lebanon invaded the new country.

Bitter fighting ensued, but by July 1949 Israel had repulsed the invasion, established borders similar to Palestine under the mandate, joined the United Nations, and been recognized by more than 50 governments around the world.