European diplomatic support led to the 1947 U.N partition which created the state of Israel, despite the fact that almost every Asian and African state voted in opposition. The state was created on over half of the Palestine mandate, when the Jewish immigrants made up less than half of the population. The indigenous population was about as happy with this U.N. decision as any other indigenous people in the world anywhere would have been. That is, they were not pleased. Even Ben Gurion compared the creation of the state of Israel to the creation of the U.S. He recognized the many parallels. Just as the "Indians" opposed the European immigrants, many Palestinian Arabs (and even Palestinian Jews) opposed the creation of a Zionist state in land that they had inhabited for thousands of years. Prior to this insertion of Zionism by European powers, there was little conflict among Arabs and Jews. The present conflict began with the first waves of European immigrants in the 1880's. A good and balanced history textbook on the History of the modern Middle East is "A History of the Modern Middle East" by William Cleveland.