Zionism

With the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe in the 1880s, European Jews began to migrate to their so-called "promised land", Palestine.

In 1897 the World Zionist Organization was founded to solve Europe's "Jewish problem" through Zionism -- the return of the Jews to the area once known as Israel, but which had not existed as such for nearly 2000 years and which, in any case, was not an uninhabited country. As a result of the Zionist movement, Jewish immigration to Palestine increased dramatically.

This immigration, as well as Jewish purchases of Palestinian land and Jewish claims to be returning to "their land", were viewed with alarm by some Palestinian leaders who naturally became vigorously opposed to Zionism.