The sionist movement and the partition of Palestine

Abstract

The territory and the ethnic homogeneity were the two basic factors that conducted the Zionists on their political project of Israel's State foundation and on the partition of Palestine. The Zionist Movement aimed at the control of the whole historic region of Palestine thus the construction of a State for the Jewish people required the cleansing of other ethnies from this space. Both leftist and rightist Zionists coincided on their ambitions to gain the whole territory of Palestine, however the pragmatism of the social-zionism headed by Ben Gurion and the UN partition plan induced the movement to the acceptance of resolution 181. This acceptance of the partition did not mean that the Zionist movement renounced to the foundational aspirations, and the 1947-1948 war permitted the advance to the original territorial objectives and the expulsion of the population.