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Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel
(May 14, 1948)

Issued by Israel's Provisional Council of State at Tel Aviv
Reprinted in Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict
Edited by Charles D. Smith
Published in 2001

"This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign state."

The declaration of Israel's statehood on May 14, 1948, served as the culmination of many decades of work on the part of Zionists, those who wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine, around the world. Before and during World War I (1914–18; war in which Great Britain, France, the United States, and their allies defeated Germany, Austria-Hungary, and their allies), Zionists promoted Jewish settlement in Palestine and coordinated several fund-raising drives in Britain and the United...