In 1917 the British Government gave its sanction to the establishmentof a Jewish National Home in Palestine. In 1948 the independentState of Israel came into existence as an outgrowth of that sanction.At the end of this thirty-one year period the Jews constituted aboutone-third of the population of Palestine, but their tremendous zeal,backed by a large financial outlay by the Jews of the Diaspora, madethem more than a match for the remainder of the population. During thethree decades of the Jewish National Home in Palestine, they had builta prosperous community in the midst of a conservative society.