Homeland for the Jewish people in the context of "Israel"

Mandatory Palestine was a British administrative territory that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the region of Palestine, and after 1922, under the terms of the League of Nations' Mandate for Palestine. The British took the territory deeming it presently unfit for self-governance.

After an Arab uprising against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War in 1916, British Empire forces drove Ottoman forces out of the Levant. For the British, the United Kingdom had agreed in the McMahon–Hussein Correspondence that it would honour Arab independence in case of a revolt but, in the end, the United Kingdom and France divided what had been Ottoman Syria under the Sykes–Picot Agreement—an act of betrayal in the eyes of the Arabs. Another issue that later arose was the Balfour Declaration of 1917, in which Britain promised its support for the establishment of a Jewish "national home" in Palestine. Mandatory Palestine was then established in 1920, and the British obtained a Mandate for Palestine from the League of Nations in 1922. Mandatory Palestine was designated as a Class A Mandate, based on its social, political, and economic development. This classification was reserved for post-war mandates with the highest capacity for self-governance. All Class A mandates other than Mandatory Palestine had gained independence by 1946.

The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is an ongoing military and political conflict about land and self-determination within the territory of the former Mandatory Palestine. Key aspects of the conflict include the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the status of Jerusalem, Israeli settlements, borders, security, water rights, the permit regime in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian freedom of movement, and the Palestinian right of return.

The conflict has its origins in the rise of Zionism in the late 19th century in Europe, a movement which aimed to establish a Jewish state through the colonization of Palestine, synchronously with the first arrival of Jewish settlers to Ottoman Palestine in 1882. The Zionist movement garnered the support of an imperial power in the 1917 Balfour Declaration issued by Britain, which promised to support the creation of a "Jewish homeland" in Palestine. Following British occupation of the formerly Ottoman region during World War I, Mandatory Palestine was established as a British mandate. Increasing Jewish immigration led to tensions between Jews and Arabs, which grew into intercommunal conflict. In 1936, an Arab revolt erupted, demanding independence and an end to British support for Zionism, which was suppressed by the British. Eventually, tensions led to the United Nations adopting a partition plan in 1947, triggering a civil war.

Since 1948, conflict has existed between Israel and the surrounding Arab countries, rooted in Israel's presence in an area also claimed by Palestinian Arabs. The simultaneous rise of Zionism and Arab nationalism beginning late in the 19th century marked the beginning of the conflict, despite the long-term coexistence of Arab and Jewish peoples in lands that formed part of the Ottoman Empire. Zionists viewed the land as the Jewish ancestral homeland, while Arabs saw it as Arab Palestinian land and an essential part of the Islamic world.

By 1920, sectarian conflict had begun with the partition of Ottoman Syria in accord with the 1916 Sykes–Picot treaty between Britain and France that became the basis for the Mandate for Palestine and the 1917 promulgation of the Balfour Declaration that expressed British support for a Jewish homeland. The conflict escalated from an internal struggle with the 1948 establishment of Israel, in accordance with the United Nations General Assembly's adoption of the Partition Plan for Palestine. The day after the expiration of Mandatory Palestine and the Israeli Declaration of Independence, the Arab League launched the 1948 Arab–Israeli War that ended with formal partition along the Green Line. More wars followed in 1967 and 1973.

Christian Zionism is a political and religious ideology that, in a Christian context, espouses the return of the Jewish people to the Holy Land. Likewise, it holds that the founding of Israel in 1948 was in accordance with biblical prophecies transmitted through the Old Testament: that the re-establishment of Jewish sovereignty in the Levant—the eschatological "Gathering of Israel"—is a prerequisite for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. The term began to be used in the mid-20th century, in place of Christian restorationism, as proponents of the ideology rallied behind Zionists in support of a Jewish national homeland.

An expectation of Jewish restoration among Christians is rooted in 17th-century English Puritan thought. Christian pro-Zionist ideals emerged in that context. Contemporary Israeli historian Anita Shapira suggests that England's Zionist Evangelical Protestants "passed this notion on to Jewish circles" around the 1840s.