ABSTRACT
The late nineteenth century saw the inception of nationally motivated Jewish immigration and settlement in Palestine, and the establishment of the World Zionist Organization (WZO), aiming at the formation of a Jewish, territorially identified, national entity in Palestine – the ancient Land of Israel.1 From a very modest beginning in the late Ottoman period, the Zionist project of nation building advanced rapidly in the three, post-World War I, decades of British rule. The British government – ruling Palestine by a League of Nations Mandate that called for the formation of a Jewish National Home in Palestine while maintaining the rights of the country’s non-Jewish inhabitants – enabled a fast-growing Jewish population of immigrating settlers to evolve into a largely autonomous ethno-national community, voluntarily self-ruled by the governing bodies of the WZO and by its elected institutions.
