The ideological foundation had been laid, and the Jews, having already begun to move towards Palestine in small numbers since 1882, started to emigrate in increasing numbers as international conditions became more favorable and their own possibilities expanded.

19th-century Palestine was inhabited by Muslims, Christians, and Jews. In the Russian Empire, the waves of pogroms from 1881-1884, as well as the anti-Semitic laws of May 1882 introduced by Tsar Alexander III of Russia, deeply affected the Jewish communities. More than 2 million Jews left Russia between 1880 and 1920. The overwhelming majority of them migrated to the USA, but some decided to form an Aliyah in the Ottoman-controlled Palestine.

The first Jewish wave of migration, the first "Aliyah," began in 1882 and ended in 1904. With the second Aliyah (1904-1914), around 30,000-40,000 Jews settled in Palestine. The settlers of the first Aliyah relied almost exclusively on the "historical right" for their return. The settlers of the second Aliyah were now carriers of the Zionist ideology. The purchasing and possession of land were not only continued for subsistence reasons but also aimed at laying the foundations of the Israeli state.

After the end of World War I, in April 1920, the Supreme Allied Council in San Remo decided on the partitioning of areas in the Middle East under a "Mandate" regime between Britain and France. The former received the Mandate for Palestine, Transjordan, and Iraq, while the latter for Syria and Lebanon. Already on November 2, 1917, with the Balfour Declaration, Britain had committed itself to the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, and on May 14, 1948, based on UN Resolution 181, David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel.