Defending itself, the Yishuv, as the Jewish state-within-astate was called, set up its first nationwide military organization, the Haganah (meaning defense). The most extreme nationalist leaders, led by Vladimir Jabotinsky, demanded the setting-up of a Jewish legion within the British Army (three such battalions had served in the British Army during World War I and were disbanded after the war).
Thus began the cycle in which Zionist-Arab relations have moved incessantly ever since: (1) The Zionists increase their efforts at immigration and settlement; (2) the Arabs react violently to what they consider a mortal threat to their national existence; (3) to contain the threat and gain political and military assistance, the Zionists look for an ally, an ally that can only be a foreign power whose interests are being adversely affected by the rising Arab nationalism; (4) the pact between Zionism and the foreign power whets Arab hatred and bitterness, sharpening their attack upon the Jewish national home; (5) this increases for the Zionists the need for even bigger allies. It is a complete cycle, a truly vicious circle, this not-somerry-go-round where each rider sits on his horse as it goes up and down, imagining that it is he who decides his course, tragically condemned-by the inner logic of his earlier acts and the ideology nourished by them-to follow a pre destined course.
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A half-hearted attempt to break out of the cycle was made immediately after World War I. If it had no great historical significance, it is titillating because it shows what could have been.
The undisputed leader of Zionism at the time was Dr. Chaim Weizmann. While most of the Zionist leaders at the beginning of the war were drawn toward Germany, partly because they detested czarist Russia, Weizmann