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Template:Israel-InfoBox

The State of Israel (Hebrew: מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, Medinat Yisra'el; Template:Lang-ar, Dawlat Isrā'īl) is a country in the Western Asian Levant, on the southeastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon on the north, Syria and Jordan on the east, and Egypt on the south-west.

Israel declared its independence in 1948. With a diverse population currently exceeding seven million citizens of primarily Jewish background and religion, it is the world's only Jewish state. Jerusalem is the capital city and seat of government. Israel is the only country in the Middle East considered to be a liberal democracy, having a broad array of political rights and civil liberties present. In addition, Israel is considered the most advanced in the region in terms of economic competition, business regulations, freedom of the press, and overall human development.

Name

The name "Israel" is rooted in the Hebrew Bible, Genesis 32:28, where Jacob is renamed Israel after successfully wrestling with an angel of God. The biblical nation fathered by Jacob was then called "The Children of Israel" or the "Israelites".

The modern country was named State of Israel, and its citizens are referred to as Israelis in English. Other rejected name proposals included Eretz Israel, Zion and Judea. The use of the term Israeli to refer to a citizen of Israel was decided by the Government of Israel in the weeks immediately after independence and announced by Foreign Minister Moshe Shertok.

History

Historical roots

The first historical record of the word "Israel" comes from an Egyptian stele documenting military campaigns in Canaan. Although this stele which referred to a people (the determinative for 'country' was absent) is dated to approximately 1211 BCE, Jewish tradition holds that the Land of Israel has been a Jewish Holy Land and Promised land for four thousand years, since the time of the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob). The land of Israel holds a special place in Jewish religious obligations, encompassing Judaism's most important sites (such as the remains of the First and Second Temples of the Jewish People). Connected with these two versions of the temple are religiously significant rites which stand as the origin for many aspects of modern Judaism. Starting around the eleventh century BCE, the first of a series of Jewish kingdoms and states established intermittent rule over the region that lasted more than a millennium.

Under Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and (briefly) Sassanian rule, Jewish presence in the region dwindled because of mass expulsions.

In particular, the failure of the Bar Kokhba's revolt against the Roman Empire in 132 CE resulted in a large-scale expulsion of Jews. It was during this time that the Romans gave the name Syria Palaestina to the geographic area, in an attempt to erase Jewish ties to the land. Nevertheless, the Jewish presence in Palestine remained constant. The main Jewish population shifted from the Judea region to the Galilee. The Mishnah and Jerusalem Talmud, two of Judaism's most important religious texts, were composed in the region during this period. The land was conquered from the Byzantine Empire in 638 CE during the initial Muslim conquests. The Hebrew niqqud was invented in Tiberias during this time. The area was ruled by the Omayyads, then by the Abbasids, Crusaders, the Kharezmians and Mongols, before becoming part of the empire of the Mamluks (1260-1516) and the Ottoman Empire in 1517.

Zionism and immigration

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Jews living in the Diaspora have sought to emigrate into Israel throughout the centuries. For example, in 1141 Yehuda Halevi issued a call to the Jews to emigrate to Eretz Israel and eventually died in Jerusalem. In 1267, Nahmanides settled in Jerusalem and since then a continual Jewish presence in Jerusalem has been maintained. Yosef Karo immigrated to the large Jewish community in Safed in 1535. Waves of immigration also occurred, for example in the years 1209-1211, the "aliyah of the Rabbis of France and England" to Acre became famous as in 1258 and 1266. In 1260, Yechiel of Paris emigrated to Acre along with his son and a large group of followers. Small waves of immigration occurred during the 18th century out of religious motives, famously Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk and 300 of his followers, Judah he-Hasid and over 1000 disciples, and over five hundred disciples (and their families) of the Vilna Gaon known as Perushim. Waves of rabbinical students immigrated in 1808-1809, settling in Tiberias, Safed and then in Jerusalem. In 1860, the old Jewish community in Jerusalem started building neighborhoods outside the walls of the Old City (the first one being Mishkenot Sha’ananim). In 1878, the first modern agricultural settlement was founded in the form of Petah Tikva.

The first big wave of modern immigration to Israel, or Aliyah (עלייה) started in 1881 as Jews fled growing persecution, or followed the Socialist Zionist ideas of Moses Hess and others of "redemption of the soil." Jews bought land from individual Arab landholders. After Jews established agricultural settlements, tensions erupted between the Jews and Arabs.

Theodor Herzl (1860–1904), an Austro-Hungarian Jew, founded the Zionist movement. In 1896, he published Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), in which he called for the establishment of a national Jewish state. The following year he helped convene the first World Zionist Congress.

The establishment of Zionism led to the Second Aliyah (1904–1914) with the influx of around forty thousand Jews. In 1917, the British Foreign Secretary Arthur J. Balfour issued the Balfour Declaration that "view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." In 1920, Palestine became a League of Nations mandate administered by Britain.

Jewish immigration resumed in third (1919–1923) and fourth (1924–1929) waves after World War I. In a massacre in 1929, 133 Jews, including 67 in Hebron were killed and 116 Arabs were killed in the riots.

The rise of Nazism in 1933 led to a fifth wave of Aliyah. The subsequent Holocaust in Europe led to additional immigration from other parts of Europe. The Jewish population in the region increased from 83,790 (11%) in 1922 to 608,230 (33%) in 1945.

In 1939, the British introduced a White Paper of 1939, which limited Jewish immigration over the course of the war to 75,000 and restricted purchase of land by Jews, perhaps in response to the 1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. The White Paper was seen as a betrayal by the Jewish community and Zionists, who perceived it as being in conflict with the Balfour Declaration. The Arabs were not entirely satisfied either, as they wanted Jewish immigration halted completely. However, the White Paper guided British policy until the end of the term of their Mandate. As a result, many Jews fleeing to Palestine to avoid Nazi persecution and the Holocaust were intercepted and returned to Europe. Two specific examples of this policy involved the ships Struma and Exodus (carrying Holocaust survivors in 1947).

Attempts by Jews to circumvent the blockade and flee Europe became known as Aliya Beth.

Jewish underground groups

As tensions grew between the Jewish and Arab populations and Arab attacks on Jews increased, and with little apparent support from the British mandate authorities, the Jewish community began to rely on itself for defense.

Many Arabs, opposed to the Balfour Declaration, the mandate, and the Jewish National Home, instigated riots and pogroms against Jews in Jerusalem, Hebron, Jaffa, and Haifa. As a result of the 1921 Arab attacks, the Haganah was formed to protect Jewish settlements. The Haganah was mostly defensive in nature, which among other things caused several members to split off and form the militant group Irgun (initially known as Hagana Bet) in 1931. The Irgun adhered to a much more active approach, which included attacks and initiation of armed actions against the British, such as attacking British military headquarters, the King David Hotel, which killed 91 people. Haganah, on the other hand, often preferred restraint. A further split occurred when Avraham Stern left the Irgun to form Lehi, (also known as the Stern Gang) which was much more extreme in its methods. Unlike the Irgun, they refused any co-operation with the British during World War II and even attempted to work with the Germans to secure European Jewry's escape to Palestine.

These groups had an enormous impact on events and procedures in the period preceding the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, such as Aliya Beth (the clandestine immigration from Europe), the forming of the Israel Defense Forces, and the withdrawal of the British, as well as to a great degree forming the foundation of the political parties which exist in Israel today. After the war, then Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion set about establishing order by dismantling the Palmach and underground organizations like the Irgun and Lehi.

Establishment of the State of Israel

In 1947, following increasing levels of Arab-Jewish violence and general war-weariness, the British government decided to withdraw from the Palestine Mandate. Jewish nationalism and messianism led to Zionism, a movement to re-create a Jewish nation in the Land of Israel. Jewish immigration grew steadily after the late nineteenth century and took on added meaning, and gained added external support, in the wake of the Holocaust. The UN General Assembly approved the 1947 UN Partition Plan dividing the territory into two states, with the Jewish area consisting of roughly 55% of the land, and the Arab area consisting of roughly 45%. Jerusalem was to be designated as an international region administered by the UN to avoid conflict over its status.

Immediately following the adoption of the Partition Plan by the UN General Assembly on November 29, 1947, David Ben-Gurion tentatively accepted the partition, while the Arab League rejected it. The Arab Higher Committee immediately ordered a violent three-day strike on Jewish civilians, attacking buildings, shops, and neighborhoods, and prompting insurgency organized by underground Jewish militias like the Lehi and Irgun. These attacks soon turned into widespread fighting between Arabs and Jews, this civil war being the first "phase" of the 1948 War of Independence.

The State of Israel was proclaimed on May 14 1948, one day before the expiry of the Palestine Mandate. Israel was admitted as a member of the United Nations on May 11, 1949.

1948 War of Independence and migration

Following the State of Israel's establishment, the armies of Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon declared war on Israel and began the second phase of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. From the north, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq were all but stopped relatively close to the borders. Jordanian forces, invading from the east, captured East Jerusalem and laid siege on the city's west. However, forces of the Haganah successfully stopped most invading forces, and Irgun forces halted Egyptian encroachment from the south. At the beginning of June, the UN declared a one-month ceasefire during which the Israel Defense Forces were officially formed. After numerous months of war, a ceasefire was declared in 1949 and temporary borders, known as the Green Line, were instituted. Israel had gained an additional 23.5% of the Mandate territory west of the Jordan River. Jordan, for its part, held the large mountainous areas of Judea and Samaria, which became known as the West Bank. Egypt took control of a small strip of land along the coast, which became known as the Gaza Strip.

Large numbers of the Arab population fled the newly-created Jewish State during the Palestinian exodus, which is referred to by many Palestinian groups and individuals as the Nakba (Arabic: النكبة ), meaning "disaster" or "cataclysm". Estimates of the final Palestinian refugee count range from 400,000 to 900,000 with the official United Nations count at 711,000. The unresolved conflict between Israel and the Arab world that persists to this day has resulted in a lasting displacement of Palestinian refugees.

In addition, the entire Jewish population of the West Bank and Gaza Strip also fled to Israel. Within a year of 1948 war, immigration of Jewish refugees from Arab lands doubled Israel's population. Over the following years approximately 850,000 Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews fled or were expelled from surrounding Arab countries. Of these, about 600,000 settled in Israel; the remainder went to Europe and the Americas (see Jewish exodus from Arab lands).

1950s and 1960s

Between 1954 and 1955, under Moshe Sharett as prime minister, the Lavon Affair – a failed attempt to bomb targets in Egypt – caused political disgrace in Israel. Compounding this, in 1956, Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal, much to the chagrin of the United Kingdom and France. Following this and a series of Fedayeen attacks, Israel created a secret military alliance with those two European powers and declared war on Egypt. After the Suez Crisis, the three collaborators faced international condemnation, and Israel was forced to withdraw its forces from the Sinai Peninsula.

In 1955, Ben-Gurion once again became prime minister and served as such until his final resignation in 1963. After Ben-Gurion's resignation, Levi Eshkol was appointed to the post.

In 1961, the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, who had been largely responsible for the Final Solution, the planned extermination of the Jews of Europe, was captured in Buenos Aires, Argentina, by Mossad agents and brought to trial in Israel. Eichmann became the only person ever sentenced to death by the Israeli courts.

On the political field, tensions once again arose between Israel and her neighbors in May 1967. Syria, Jordan, and Egypt had been hinting at war and Egypt expelled UN Peacekeeping Forces from the Gaza Strip. When Egypt violated prior treaties and closed the strategic Straits of Tiran to Israeli vessels, and began massing large amounts of tanks and aircraft on Israel's borders, Israel deemed it a casus belli for pre-emptively attacking Egypt on June 5. In the ensuing Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors, Israel defeated the armies of three large Arab states and won a decisive victory over their air forces. Territorially, Israel conquered the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula, and Golan Heights. The Green Line of 1949 became the administrative boundary between Israel and the Occupied Territories (more recently called the Disputed Territories). The Sinai was later returned to Egypt following the signing of a peace treaty.

During the war, Israeli aircraft attacked the USS Liberty, killing thirty-four American servicemen. American and Israeli investigations into the incident concluded that the attack was a tragic accident involving confusion over the identity of the Liberty.

In 1969, Golda Meir, Israel's first (and, to date, only) female prime minister was elected.

1970s

Between 1968 and 1972, a period known as the War of Attrition, numerous scuffles erupted along the border between Israel and Syria and Egypt. Furthermore, in the early 1970s, Palestinian groups embarked on an unprecedented wave of attacks against Israel and Jewish targets in other countries. The climax of this wave occurred at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, when, in the Munich massacre, Palestinian militants held hostage and killed members of the Israeli delegation. Israel responded with Operation Wrath of God, in which agents of Mossad assassinated most of those who were involved in the massacre.

Finally, on October 6 1973, the day in 1973 of the Jewish Yom Kippur fast, the Egyptian and Syrian armies launched a surprise attack against Israel. Despite early successes against an unprepared Israeli army, Egypt and Syria were eventually repelled by the Israeli forces. A number of years of relative calm ensued, which fostered the environment in which Israel and Egypt could make peace.

In 1974, Yitzhak Rabin, with Meir's resignation, became Israel's fifth prime minister. A major turning point in Israeli political history came in the 1977 Knesset elections, when the Alignment, which together with its predecessor Mapai had been the ruling party since 1948, was beaten by Menachem Begin's Likud, an event that became known in Israel as the "revolution".

Then, in November of that year, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, making a historic visit to the Jewish State, spoke before the Knesset: the first recognition of Israel by its Arab neighbors. Military reserves officers formed the Peace Now movement to encourage this effort. Following the visit, the two nations conducted negotiations which led to the signing of the Camp David Accords. In March 1979, Begin and Sadat signed the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty in Washington, DC. As laid out in the treaty, Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula and evacuated the settlements established there during the 1970s. It was also agreed to lend autonomy to Palestinians across the Green Line.

1980s

On July 7 1981, the Israeli Air Force bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osiraq in an attempt to foil Iraqi efforts at producing an atomic bomb. This operation was known as Operation Opera.

In 1982, Israel launched an attack against Lebanon, which had been embroiled in the Lebanese Civil War since 1975. The reason Israel gave for the attack was to defend Israel's northernmost settlements from terrorist attacks, which had been occurring frequently. After establishing a forty-kilometer barrier zone, the IDF continued northward and even captured the capital, Beirut. Israeli forces expelled Palestinian Liberation Organization forces from the country, forcing the organization to relocate to Tunis. Unable to deal with the stress of the ongoing war, Prime Minister Begin resigned from his post in 1983 and was replaced by Yitzhak Shamir. Though Israel withdrew from most of Lebanon in 1986, a buffer zone was maintained until May 2000 when Israel unilaterally withdrew from Lebanon.

Through the rest of the 1980s, the government shifted from the right, led by Yitzhak Shamir, to the left under Shimon Peres. Peres was prime minister from 1984, but handed the position over to Shamir in 1986 under an agreement reached following the creation of the unity coalition in the aftermath of the 1984 elections. The First Intifadah then broke out in 1987 and was accompanied by waves of violence in the Occupied Territories. Following the outbreak, Shamir once again was elected prime minister, in the 1988 elections.

1990s

During the Gulf War, Iraq hit Israel with thirty-nine Scud missiles, although Israel was not a member of the anti-Iraq coalition and was not involved in the fighting. The missiles did not kill Israeli citizens directly, but there were some deaths from incorrect use of the gas masks provided against chemical attack, one Israeli died from a heart attack following a hit, and one Israeli died from a Patriot missile hit. During the war, Israel also provided gas masks for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. The PLO, however, supported Saddam Hussein. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza marched and famously stood on their rooftops while Scud missiles were falling and cheered Saddam Hussein calling for him to bomb Israel with chemical weapons. Ultimately, Palestinians also used the gas masks against Israeli use of tear gas in the coming years.

The early 1990s were marked by the beginning of a massive immigration of Soviet Jews, who, according to the Law of Return, were entitled to become Israeli citizens upon arrival. About 380,000 arrived in 1990-91 alone. Although initially favouring the right, the new immigrants became the target of an aggressive election campaign by Labor, which blamed their employment and housing problems on the ruling Likud. As a result, in the 1992 elections the immigrants voted en masse for Labor, allowing the left to emerge victorious.

Following the elections, Yitzhak Rabin became prime minister, forming a coalition with Meretz and Shas. During the election campaign his Labor party promised Israelis a significant improvement in personal security and achievement of a comprehensive peace with the Arabs "within six to nine months" after the elections. By the end of 1993 the government abandoned the framework of Madrid and signed the Oslo Accords with the PLO. In 1994, Jordan became the second of Israel's neighbours to make peace with it.

The initial wide public support for the Oslo Accords began to wane as Israel was struck by an unprecedented wave of attacks supported by the militant Hamas group, which opposed the accords. Public support slipped even further. On November 4, 1995, a Jewish nationalist militant named Yigal Amir assassinated Rabin.

Public dismay with the assassination created a backlash against Oslo opponents and significantly boosted the chances of Shimon Peres, Rabin's successor and Oslo architect, to win the upcoming 1996 elections. However, a new wave of suicide bombings combined with Arafat's statements extolling the Muslim nationalist militant Yahya Ayyash, made the public mood swing once again and in May 1996 Peres narrowly lost to his challenger from Likud, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Although seen as a hard-liner opposing the Oslo Accords, Netanyahu withdrew from Hebron and signed the Wye River Memorandum giving wider control to the Palestinian National Authority. During Netanyahu's tenure, Israel experienced a lull in attacks against Israel's civilian population by Palestinian groups, but his government fell in 1999. Ehud Barak of One Israel (an alliance of Labor, Meimad and Gesher) beat Netanyahu by a wide margin in the 1999 elections and succeeded him as prime minister.

2000s

Barak initiated unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000. This process was intended to frustrate Hezbollah attacks on Israel by forcing them to cross Israel's border. Barak and Yassir Arafat once again conducted negotiations with President Clinton at the July 2000 Camp David summit. However, the talks failed. Barak offered to form a Palestinian State initially on 73% of the West Bank and 100% of the Gaza Strip. In ten to twenty-five years, the West Bank area would expand to 90% (94% excluding greater Jerusalem). Arafat rejected this deal.

The thrust of the Gaza departure and of the security barrier, Gilady said in a rare interview two months ago, was the opposite of that which impelled the 1993 Oslo Accords. The Oslo architects believed a peace treaty would bring security. That notion exploded with the outbreak of the intifada in September 2000. Under the Sharon strategy, Gilady told the Jerusalem Post, security would lead to peace, not the other way around.

After the collapse of the talks, Palestinians began a second uprising, known as the Al-Aqsa Intifadah, just after the leader of the opposition Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The failure of the talks and the outbreak of a new war caused many Israelis on both the right and the left to turn away from Barak, and also discredited the peace movement.

Ariel Sharon became the new prime minister in March 2001 in a special election for Prime Minister, and was subsequently re-elected, along with his Likud party in the 2003 elections. Sharon initiated a plan to unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip. This disengagement was executed between August and September 2005.

Israel also is building the Israeli West Bank Barrier with the stated purpose of defending the country from attacks by armed Palestinian groups. Because the barrier, which is planned to measure 681 kilometers, meanders past the Green Line, effectively annexes 9.5% of the West Bank, and creates hardships for Palestinians living near it, it has been met with criticism from the international community and numerous protest demonstrations by the Israeli far-left. It has, however, significantly reduced the number of terrorist attacks against Israel.

After Ariel Sharon suffered a severe hemorrhagic stroke, the powers of the office were passed to Ehud Olmert, who was designated the "Acting" Prime Minister. On April 14, 2006, Olmert was elected Prime Minister after his party, Kadima, Hebrew for "Forward", won the most seats in the 2006 elections.

On June 28, 2006, Hamas militants dug a tunnel under the border from the Gaza Strip and attacked an IDF post, capturing an Israeli soldier and killing two others. In response, Israel began Operation Summer Rains, which consisted of heavy bombardment of Hamas targets as well as bridges, roads, and the only power station in Gaza. Israel has also deployed troops into the territory. Israel’s critics have accused it of disproportionate use of force and collective punishment of innocent civilians and not giving diplomacy a chance. Israel argues that they have no other option to get their soldier back and put an end to the rocket attacks into Israel, although the soldiers were not recovered.

The 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict refers to the military conflict in Lebanon and northern Israel, primarily between Hezbollah and Israel, which started on 12 July 2006. The conflict began with a cross-border Hezbollah raid and shelling, which resulted in the capture of two and killing of eight Israeli soldiers. Israel held the Lebanese government responsible for the attack, as it was carried out from Lebanese territory, and initiated an air and naval blockade, airstrikes across much of the country, and ground incursions into southern Lebanon. Hezbollah continuously launched rocket attacks into northern Israel and engaged the Israeli Army on the ground with hit-and-run guerrilla attacks. A ceasefire came into effect at 05:00 UTC, 14 August 2006, although violations of the ceasefire have occurred from both sides. The conflict killed over one thousand Lebanese civilians, 440 Hezbollah militants, and 119 Israeli soldiers, as well as forty-four Israeli civilians, and caused massive damage to the civilian infrastructure and cities of Lebanon and damaged thousands of buildings across northern Israel, many of which were completely destroyed.

Geography and climate

Israel is bordered by Lebanon in the north, Syria and Jordan in the east, and Egypt in the south-west. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean in the west and the Gulf of Eilat (also known as the Gulf of Aqaba) in the south.

During the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel captured the West Bank from the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the Golan Heights from Syria, Gaza Strip (which was under Egyptian occupation), and Sinai from Egypt. It withdrew all troops and settlers from Sinai by 1982 and from the Gaza Strip by September 12 2005. The future status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip remains to be determined. Israel annexed the Golan Heights.

The sovereign territory of Israel, excluding all territories captured by Israel in 1967, is 20,770 km² (8,019 mi²) in area (1% is water). The total area under Israeli law, including East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, is 22,145 km² or 8,550 mi²; with a little less than one per cent being water. The total area under Israeli control, including the military-controlled and Palestinian-governed territory of the West Bank, is 28,023 km² (10,820 mi²) (~1% water).

The climate of the coastal areas can be very different from that of the mountainous areas, particularly during the winter months. The northern mountains can get cold, wet and often snowy and even Jerusalem experiences snow every couple of years. The coastal regions, where Tel Aviv and Haifa are located, have a typical Mediterranean climate with cool, rainy winters and hot, dry summers.

Metropolitan areas

As of 2006, The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics defines three metropolitan areas: Tel Aviv (population 3,040,400), Haifa (population 996,000) and Beersheba (population 531,600). The capital, Jerusalem, has a population of 719,900. The Jerusalem Institute of Israel Studies defines the metropolitan area Jerusalem (population 2,300,000, including 700,000 Jews and 1,600,000 Arabs).

Government

1. http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/facts%20about%20israel/land/
2. "Country Report — Israel (2006)", Freedom House, 2006, accessed October 17, 2006.
3. {{PDFlink|[http://www1.cbs.gov.il/shnaton57/st02_07x.pdf |2=130 KiB