A Timeline from 1840–1967

Summary

To understand better how we as the world, got to this place in Israel/Palestine, I offer a timeline of some dates and events of importance that led up to the establishment of the present State of Israel and the expansion of Israel's borders. These dates lead from the beginnings of what would become the Zionist Movement to the 1967 Six Day War when Israel expanded its boundaries following an invasion of Egypt, Syria and Jordan by Israel.

1840: Lord Palmerston, the British foreign secretary, according to an article written by Daniel Pipes in the New York Post on July 15, 2003, ‘ “strongly” recommended that the Ottoman government (then ruling Palestine) “hold out every just encouragement to the Jews of Europe to return to Palestine”’

1881–1882: Following years of Jews being accepted in the wider European and worldwide community, and then being forced into Jewish ghettos (a section of a city to which Jews (or any specific group) are restricted) – back and forth from acceptance to rejection and/or persecution – the assassination of Russian Tsar (emperor) Alexander II opened the door for newer and even harsher persecutions and restrictions to be imposed upon Jews. ‘In 1891, over ten thousand Jews were expelled from Moscow, and there were massive expulsions from other regions between 1893 and 1895. There were also pogroms (attacks)…culminating in the pogrom at Kishinev (1905) where fifty Jews died and five hundred were injured’ (Armstrong 2001: 147).