Israeli Violations of United Nations Charter Zionism is an international political movement that supports a homeland for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel.[1] Formally organized in the late 19th century, the movement was successful in establishing the State of Israel in 1948, as the world's first and only modern Jewish State. Before 1917 some Zionist leaders took seriously proposals for Jewish homelands in places other than Palestine. The effort to achieve independence in Palestine would bring Jews into conflict with the native Palestinian Arab population. When the Balfour Declaration was issued in 1917, Edwin Montagu, the only Jew in the British Cabinet, "was passionately opposed to the declaration on the grounds that (a) it was a capitulation to anti-Semitic bigotry, with its suggestion that Palestine was the natural destination of the Jews, and that (b) it would be a grave cause of alarm to the Muslim world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism