Conflict over Palestine: Zionism & the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, 1945-1947

The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry was charged in 1946 with finding solutions for the Jewish Holocaust survivors still lingering in displaced persons' camps across Europe, and with proposing ways to end the continuous friction among Jews and Arabs in Palestine. The paper addresses the impact that Zionism had on both the Jewish Holocaust survivors in the displaced people's camps, and the Zionist leaders who preached its validity to the Committee. The paper makes a distinction between the idea of Zionism and the practice of Zionism, and argues that the idea of Zionism was needed by the Holocaust survivors as it gave them hope, but that the practice of establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine endangered the possibility for a safe and prosperous life for the Jewish people, because the Jewish state would be established in a hostile environment. It argues that the need for cooperation between Jews and Arabs, rather than competition, is still valid today