The Iron Wall

Question 1

What did Epstein believe to be the main question of the concept of the creation of the state of Israel?

Answer 1

The Israelis relations with the Arabs

Question 2

What does Zion mean?

Answer 2

Jerusalem

Question 3

What is the nature of modern Zionism

Answer 3

It was a secular movement with a political orientation towards Palestine

Question 4

Who is the father of political Zionism and the visionary of the Jewish state?

Answer 4

Theodor Herzl (1860-1904)

Question 5

What did the Basel program state?

Answer 5

The aim of Zionism is to create for the Jewish people a home in Palestine secured by public law

Question 6

How did Herzl see the Arabs in Palestine?

Answer 6

As primitive and backwards. They should enjoy full civil rights in the Jewish state, but did not consider them a society with collective political rights over the land.

Question 7

How did Herz present his project?

Answer 7

As a Jewish colony for the ottomans, Britain’s or Germany

Question 8

Who was the chief architect of the alliance between the Zionist movement and Great Britain?

Answer 8

Chaim Weizmann

Question 9

Who was the founder of revisionist Zionism and the spiritual father of the Israeli right?

Answer 9

Ze’ev Jabotinsky

Question 10

On what notion did all the fathers of Zionism agree?

Answer 10

The importance of a link with a great power, more specifically with Great Britain

Question 11

What was the Iron wall?

Answer 11

Jabotinsky’s policy regarding the Arab question: to erect an iron wall of Jewish military force

Question 12

Who was the builder of Yishuvs military power and the founder of the state of Israel?

Answer 12

David Ben-Gurion (1886-1973)

Question 13

Which idea did Ben-Gurion have about the Arabs?

Answer 13

There was no possibility of an Arab-Israeli alliance, and that war was necessary to solve the conflict

Question 14

What did the Peel partition plan propose?

Answer 14

A separation of Palestine into two states;

1. A small Jewish state of 5000 square kilometers
2. A large Arab state, and an enclave from Jerusalem to Jaffa under British mandate

Question 15

How did Ben-Gurion see the Peel Partition plan?

Answer 15

as a beginning to the end of the British mandate in Palestine and the birth of a Jewish state as a realistic political program. He did however not see the borders as permanent

Question 16

What was the Biltmore program?

Answer 16

A concept of a Jewish state over the whole of Palestine

Question 17

Which role did the Holocaust play in the creation of a Jewish state?

Answer 17

It became a source of strength for Zionism

Question 18

What did the UN 1947 Resolution lay out?

Answer 18

A timetable for the creation of a Jewish and Arab state linked by economic union and an international regime for Jerusalem

Question 19

What did the UN partition plan provide in addition to international legitimacy for the creation of Arab and Jewish states?

Answer 19

The foundation for savage war between the two communities in Palestine

Question 20

What are the two phases of what the Jewish call the War of Independence and the Arabs call al-Nakba?

Answer 20

1. lasted from the 1947 UN resolution until May 1948 when the state of Israel was proclaimed
2. From May 1948 until the termination of hostilities in January 1949

Question 21

Who was the key figure on the Israeli side throughout the first Arab-Israeli war?

Answer 21

David Ben-Gurion

Question 22

Who coined the term Zionism?

Answer 22

Birnbaum

Question 23

What were the Dreyfus affairs?

Answer 23

A French jew is accused of being a spy and sentenced to jail. When he is proved innocent, he still has to serve his time. It confirmed that antisemetism still exist

Question 24

What is the reason for Jews’s survival even though they have been persecuted and spread across the globe?

Answer 24

A common religion

Question 25

What are Yishuv Jews?

Answer 25

The Jews that had settled on Palestinian soil before the creation of Israel

Question 26

Who were the Haganah?

Answer 26

A Jewish paramilitary that was created in response to Arab nationalism. They acted as an Iron Wall and would not engage.

Question 27

What was a similar policy of Ben-Gurion and Jabotinsky towards the Arabs?

Answer 27

They had to be removed

Question 28

Who were the Irgun?

Answer 28

A Jewish paramilitary. They had a different approach than the Haganah in taking over land and were also smaller

Question 29

Who were the Stern Gang?

Answer 29

A Jewish paramilitary that commits an outrageous attack: the killing of Count Bernadotte

Question 30

What was the result of the murder of Count Bernadotte?

Answer 30

Haganah demilitarizes the Stern Gang and Irgun and includes the in their ranks. This creates a more united paramilitary

Question 31

Who populates the IDF?

Answer 31

Mostly religious Jews that are not flexible in solving the Arab-Israeli conflict