The Holocaust, or the mass killing of the Jews during World War II, is the most known genocide of all time. When the Holocaust ended, there were thousands of displaced Jews that had nowhere to call home. Even though the prosecution of Jews in Europe by the Nazis had ended, there was still an issue of identity that the Jews carried with them. It was important to them that they return to their homeland, Israel. Unfortunately for the Jews, the road back to Israel was a long and difficult one, and they would have to fight for years (and still are fighting) to gain the right to live in their homeland. According to Patt and Berkowitz’s We Are Here: New Approaches to Jewish Displaced Persons in Postwar Germany, the State of Israel was created to become home to a large group of displaced Jewish people. The state wanted active participation of Jewish displaced persons and Holocaust survivors. “The elected bodies officially representing the Jewish DPs in Germany endorsed the conscription of young DPs enthusiastically, calling upon all able-bodied men and women between the ages of seventeen and thirty-five to fulfill their ‘national duty’”.
Palestine opposed the creation of the State of Israel because a massive influx of Jews threatened their position in the country. Palestine was held via a colonial mandate by the British who did not want to create a bad relationship with the Arabs. Therefore, they also opposed the unlimited immigration of Jews into Palestine and the creation of an Israeli state. When Truman took office in 1946, he proposed that the British mandate be split into an Israeli and an Arab state. This shift in people was overseen by the United Nations. The United Nations later recommended that the land be split into Arab and Israeli districts, and not states. They also wanted to limit the amount of Jews entering Palestine so as to limit the amount of conflict that could arise.
The moment the partitioning of Palestine was set to take place, violence began to occur between the Haganah and the Arabs. In this situation, displaced persons were called to defend a homeland they never really knew and never had seen before. The Zionist youth were called to defend their homeland. It was more the idea of returning home after 2,000 years that fueled their desire to defend it from the Arabs.
It was interesting to learn how Jews in Palestine were trying to make it a Jewish state even before WWII. Even more so to learn that many Jews in Europe did not wish to leave. The dynamic this created between Israeli and European Jews was certainly tense for a while.
The call to the homeland, as you called it, was, I believe, especially important in the story of Zionism. The Zionists needed to instill a sense of national duty to get people to come over. Often, I felt like ideological and moral reasons were employed to cover up what was truly a politically fueled purpose. Israel needed manpower, and Zionism provided the answer.