In 1948, the British did leave, and the Jews in Palestine declared the independence of the new State of Israel. It contains sites sacred to Judaism, Samaritanism, Christianity, Islam, Druze and the Bahá'í Faith. The standard Zionist position is that they showed up in Palestine in the late 19th century to reclaim their ancestral homeland. They were met with increasingly violent opposition from the Palestinian Arabs, presumably stemming from the Arabs’ inherent anti-Semitism. The neighboring Arab nations of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq invaded Israel to aid the Palestinian Arabs who were fighting to create their own nation. Jews bought land and started building up the Jewish community there. Palestine, area of the eastern Mediterranean region, comprising parts of modern Israel and the Palestinian territories of the Gaza Strip (along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea) and the West Bank (the area west of the Jordan River ). The region has come under the sway of various empires and, as a result, has … The Israeli–Palestinian conflict has its roots in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with the birth of major nationalist movements among the Jews and among the Arabs, both geared towards attaining sovereignty for their people in the Middle East. The Land of Israel, also known as the Holy Land or Palestine, is the birthplace of the Jewish people, the place where the final form of the Hebrew Bible is thought to have been compiled, and the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity.