Prior to World War I, the Zionists were pushing to get a foothold in the Middle East to establish a new nation of Israel. Only one area would actually do the trick. It needed to be the traditional place where land was deeded to Abraham by God for his descendants. Antisemitism was actually working to the Jews advantage because it garnered them some political sympathy and even their detractors thought it might be good to round them all up into one place in the world.
Following the first great war, a partition was established called Transjordan along the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Although this was provided for to be an eventual Israeli state, nothing happened beyond the geographical designation for the next thirty years. Many Jews migrated to the area in hopes that Israel would eventually rise and occupy its native land.
As World War II began to establish its legs as a world wide conflagration, Adolf Hitler became the bane of the Jewish people. To establish his firm grip on the German people and government, he needed a scapegoat for all of the evils befalling Germany following the first war. The Weimar Republic had failed dismally as inflation grew out of control.
Anger burned in the souls of the German populace. They looked for someone to lead them and someone to blame for their plight. In Hitler, they found a leader. From his warped world view, they received someone to blame. He laid the troubles confronting Germany squarely on the shoulders of the Jewish people. Ultimately, he convinced his followers that the real solution to Germany's problems was to destroy the Jews that had created them.
As Germany's Jewish population was hoarded onto trains, into death camps, and into gas chambers, six million of them met their death. As the rest of the world looked on in horror, scenes from the mass destruction of Jews flashed before them. Stacks of human remains were filmed. Lampshades made from human skin were adorning the quarters of high ranking German officers and officials. Mass graves filled with the remains of men, women, and children were uncovered. Documents revealing human torture and experimentation were found.
The Holocaust stands as the most obvious and misguided effort at genocide in the history of the world. Its scale is unprecedented in any society. This massive destruction of human beings brought enormous sympathy to Jews throughout the world. Even those who were antisemitic saw that Hitler had carried this beyond the realm of any human expectation.
This sympathy ultimately led to the establishment of Israel as a nation in May of 1948. Since that time, the Arabs who never wanted a Zionist state in the region have fomented violence and unrest. Additionally, any nation who chooses to befriend Israel risks the ire of the entire Arab community. This has been directed at the United States, Great Britain, and numerous other western nations.
