OUPblog > History > Middle East > Israel declares statehood
Israel declares statehood  This Day in World History  May 14,
1948  Israel declares statehood  Late in the afternoon of May
14, 1948, a group of Jewish settlers fulfilled a long-cherished
dream and declared, as of midnight that night, the existence of
the state of Israel. The announcement created the first Jewish
state in nearly two millennia — and outraged the Palestinian
people and their Arab allies.  Theodor Herzl  The push to create
a Jewish state began in the late 1800s, when Theodore Herzl
formed the Zionist movement. In 1897, at a Zionist conference,
Herzl and his followers formally adopted the goal.  The
Zionists’ dream received a boost in 1917, when Foreign Minister
Arthur Balfour of Great Britain endorsed the idea of a Jewish
state in Palestine. The Balfour Declaration also held that any
Jewish state would not “prejudice the civil and religious rights
of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.” Five years
later, the idea of a Jewish