Context of Israel

Israel (; Hebrew: יִשְׂרָאֵל Yīsrāʾēl [jisʁaˈʔel]; Arabic: إِسْرَائِيل ʾIsrāʾīl), officially the State of Israel (מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl [mediˈnat jisʁaˈʔel]; دَوْلَة إِسْرَائِيل Dawlat Isrāʾīl...Read more

Israel (; Hebrew: יִשְׂרָאֵל Yīsrāʾēl [jisʁaˈʔel]; Arabic: إِسْرَائِيل ʾIsrāʾīl), officially the State of Israel (מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl [mediˈnat jisʁaˈʔel]; دَوْلَة إِسْرَائِيل Dawlat Isrāʾīl), is a country in Western Asia. Situated in the Southern Levant, it is bordered by Lebanon to the north, by Syria to the northeast, by Jordan to the east, by the Red Sea to the south, by Egypt to the southwest, by the Mediterranean Sea to the west, and by the Palestinian territories — the West Bank along the east and the Gaza Strip along the southwest. Tel Aviv is the economic and technological center of the country, while its seat of government is in its proclaimed capital of Jerusalem, although Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem is unrecognized internationally.

Israel and the Israeli-occupied territories are located in the Holy Land, a region of great significance to the Abrahamic religions. In ancient history, it was where Canaanite and Israelite civilizations developed, while in the early first millennium BCE the kingdoms of Israel and Judah emerged, before falling to the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian empires, respectively. During the classical era, the region was ruled by the Achaemenid, Macedonian, Ptolemaic and Seleucid empires. In the 2nd century BCE, an independent Hasmonean kingdom emerged, before Rome conquered the area a century later. In the 7th century, the Muslim conquest of the Levant established caliphal rule. The First Crusade of the 11th century brought the founding of Crusader states, the last ending in the 13th century at the hands of the Mamluks, who lost the area to the Ottoman Empire at the onset of the 16th century. In late 19th century, Jews began immigrating to the area as part of the Zionist movement. After World War I, the allied powers assigned the Mandate for Palestine to Britain, which during the war made a declaration of support for the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. Following World War II and the Holocaust, the newly formed United Nations adopted the Partition Plan for Palestine, recommending the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states, and placing Jerusalem under international control.

In the final months of the British Mandate, a civil war broke out between the Palestinian Arabs and the Yishuv, beginning the first stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The British terminated the Mandate on 14 May 1948, and Israel declared independence that day. The following day, five neighboring Arab states attacked, starting the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The armistice agreements that resulted left Israel in control of over one-third more territory than the partition plan had called for, and no independent Arab state created. During both stages of the 1948 Palestine war, over 700,000 Palestinian Arabs were expelled from or fled Israeli territory to the West Bank, Gaza, and the neighboring Arab countries, with fewer than 150,000 Palestinian Arabs remaining within Israel. During and immediately after the war, around 260,000 Jews emigrated or fled from the Arab world to Israel. The 1967 Six-Day War resulted in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, along with the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula and the Syrian Golan Heights. Israel has since effectively annexed both East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, and has established settlements across the Israeli-occupied territories, actions the international community has rejected as illegal under international law. Israel has signed peace treaties with Egypt, returning the Sinai Peninsula, and with Jordan, and more recently normalized relations with several Arab countries, though efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have not succeeded. Israel's practices in its occupation of the Palestinian territories have drawn international condemnation for violating the human rights of the Palestinians.

The country has a parliamentary system, proportional representation, and universal suffrage. The prime minister serves as head of government, and is elected by the Knesset, Israel's unicameral legislature. Israel is a developed country and an OECD member, with a population of over 9 million people as of 2021. It has the world's 28th-largest economy by nominal GDP, and ranks twenty-second in the Human Development Index.

More about Israel

Basic information
  • Currency Israeli new shekel
  • Native name ישראל
  • Calling code +972
  • Internet domain .il
  • Mains voltage 230V/50Hz
  • Democracy index 7.84
Population, Area & Driving side
  • Population 9840000
  • Area 20770
  • Driving side right
History
  • Prehistory

    The Southern Levant experienced human residence, agricultural communities, and civilization among the first in the globe. The oldest evidence of early humans in the territory of modern Israel, dating to 1.5 million years ago, was found in Ubeidiya near the Sea of Galilee.[1] Other notable Paleolithic sites include the caves Tabun, Qesem and Manot. The oldest fossils of anatomically modern humans found outside Africa are the Skhul and Qafzeh hominins, who lived in the area that is now northern Israel 120,000 years ago.[2] Around the 10th millennium BCE, the Natufian culture existed in the area.[3]

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    Prehistory

    The Southern Levant experienced human residence, agricultural communities, and civilization among the first in the globe. The oldest evidence of early humans in the territory of modern Israel, dating to 1.5 million years ago, was found in Ubeidiya near the Sea of Galilee.[1] Other notable Paleolithic sites include the caves Tabun, Qesem and Manot. The oldest fossils of anatomically modern humans found outside Africa are the Skhul and Qafzeh hominins, who lived in the area that is now northern Israel 120,000 years ago.[2] Around the 10th millennium BCE, the Natufian culture existed in the area.[3]

    Ancient history
     
    Canaanite wall of Jerusalem in the City of David

    The Canaanites are archaeologically attested in the Middle Bronze Age (2100–1550 BCE).[4] During the Late Bronze Age (1550–1200 BCE), large parts of Canaan formed vassal states paying tribute to the New Kingdom of Egypt.[5] As a result of the Late Bronze Age collapse, Canaan fell into chaos, and Egyptian control over the region collapsed completely.[6][7] There is evidence that urban centers such as Hazor, Beit She'an, Megiddo, Ekron, Ashdod and Ashkelon were damaged or destroyed.[8]

    A people named Israel appear for the first time in the Merneptah Stele, an ancient Egyptian inscription which dates to about 1200 BCE.[9][10][11][12] Ancestors of the Israelites are thought to have included ancient Semitic-speaking peoples native to this area.[13]: 78–79  According to the modern archaeological account, the Israelites and their culture branched out of the Canaanite peoples and their cultures through the development of a distinct monolatristic—and later monotheistic—religion centered on Yahweh.[14][15][16] They spoke an archaic form of the Hebrew language, known as Biblical Hebrew.[17] Around the same time, the Philistines settled on the southern coastal plain.[18][19]

    Modern archaeology has largely discarded the historicity of the narrative in the Torah concerning the patriarchs, The Exodus and the tales of conquest described in the Book of Joshua, and instead views the narrative as constituting the Israelites' national myth.[20] However, some elements of these traditions do appear to have historical roots.[21][22][23]

     
    Map of Israel and Judah in the 9th century BCE

    There is debate about the earliest existence of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah and their extent and power. While it is unclear if there was ever a United Kingdom of Israel,[24][25] historians and archaeologists agree that the northern Kingdom of Israel existed by ca. 900 BCE[26]: 169–195 [27] and that the Kingdom of Judah existed by ca. 850 BCE.[28][29] The Kingdom of Israel was the more prosperous of the two kingdoms and soon developed into a regional power;[30] during the days of the Omride dynasty, it controlled Samaria, Galilee, the upper Jordan Valley, the Sharon and large parts of the Transjordan.[31] Samaria, the capital, was home to one of the largest Iron Age structures in the Levant.[32][33]

    The Kingdom of Israel was destroyed around 720 BCE, when it was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire.[34] The Kingdom of Judah, with its capital in Jerusalem, later became a client state of first the Neo-Assyrian Empire and then the Neo-Babylonian Empire (587/6 BCE). It is estimated that the region's population was around 400,000 in the Iron Age II.[35] King Nebuchadnezzar II besieged and destroyed Jerusalem and Solomon's Temple,[36][37] and exiled much of the Judean elite to Babylon, beginning the Babylonian captivity.[38] The defeat was also recorded in the Babylonian Chronicles.[39][40]

    Classical antiquity
     
    The 539–538 BC Cyrus cylinder marking the defeat of Babylon, the restoration of cult sanctuaries and repatriation of deported peoples.[41]

    After capturing Babylon in 539 BCE, Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, issued a proclamation allowing the exiled Judean population to return to Judah.[42][43] The returned Jewish population was permitted to self-govern and rebuild the Temple. The construction of the Second Temple was completed circa 520 BCE.[42] The Persians ruled the region as the province of Yehud,[44] which had a population of around 30,000 people in the 5th to 4th centuries BCE.[26]: 308 

    In 332 BCE, Alexander the Great of Macedon conquered the region as part of his campaign against the Persian Empire. After his death, the area was controlled by the Ptolemaic and Seleucid empires as a part of Coele-Syria. During that period, the region underwent a process of Hellenization, which heightened tensions between Greeks, Hellenized Jews, and observant Jews. Several centuries of religious tolerance under Hellenistic rule came to an end when Antiochus IV consecrated the temple, outlawed Jewish customs, and forcibly imposed Hellenistic standards on the Jews. As a result, the Maccabean Revolt erupted in 167 BCE, and eventually led to the establishment of the independent Hasmonean Kingdom of Judea, which exploited the Seleucid Empire's weakening to expand over much of modern Israel and portions of Lebanon and Transjordan.[45][46][47]

    Roman period

    The Roman Republic invaded the region in 63 BCE, first taking control of Syria, and then intervening in the Hasmonean Civil War. The struggle between pro-Roman and pro-Parthian factions in Judea led to the installation of Herod the Great as a dynastic vassal of Rome. In 6 CE, the area was fully annexed as the Roman province of Judaea, a period that heralded tensions with Roman rule, and led to a series of Jewish–Roman wars, resulting in widespread destruction. The First Jewish-Roman War (66–73 CE) resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple and a sizable portion of the population being killed or displaced.[48] Six decades later, the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE) occurred. A streak of initial victories enabled the Jews to establish an independent state for three years, but the Romans were later able to brutally suppress the revolt, which led to disastrous effects on Judea's Jewish population.[48]

     
    The 3rd-century Kfar Bar'am synagogue[49]

    As a result of the Bar Kokhba revolt, Judea's countryside was devastated and depopulated,[48][50][51][52] and Jewish presence in the region significantly dwindled.[53] Jerusalem was rebuilt as a Roman colony under the name of Aelia Capitolina, and the province of Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina.[54][55] Jews were expelled from the districts surrounding Jerusalem,[56][52] and joined communities in the diaspora.[57] Nevertheless, there was a continuous small Jewish presence and Galilee became its religious center.[58][59] Jewish communities also continued to reside in the southern Hebron Hills and on the coastal plain.[52] The Mishnah and part of the Talmud, central Jewish texts, were composed during the 2nd to 4th centuries CE.[60]

    With the transition of Roman rule into that of the Byzantine Empire under Emperor Constantine, Early Christianity displaced Roman Paganism as an external influence.[61] With the conversion of Constantine in the 4th century, the situation for the Jewish majority in Palestine "became more difficult".[57] Many Jews had emigrated to flourishing Diaspora communities,[62] while locally there was both Christian immigration and local conversion. By the middle of the 5th century, there was a Christian majority.[63][64] Towards the end of the 5th century, Samaritan revolts erupted, continuing until the late 6th century and resulting in a large decrease in the Samaritan population.[65] After the Sasanian conquest of Jerusalem and the short-lived Jewish revolt against Heraclius in 614 CE, the Byzantine Empire reconsolidated control of the area in 628.[66]

    Medieval period

    In 634–641 CE, the Rashidun Caliphate conquered the Levant.[67][68][69][70] Over the next six centuries, control of the region transferred between the Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid caliphates, and subsequently the Seljuks and Ayyubid dynasties.[71] The population of the area drastically decreased during the following several centuries, dropping from an estimated 1 million during Roman and Byzantine periods to about 300,000 by the early Ottoman period. Alongside this population decline, there was a steady process of Islamization brought on by non-Muslim emigration, Muslim immigration, and local conversion to Islam.[70][69][72][73] The end of the 11th century brought the Crusades, papally-sanctioned incursions of Christian crusaders intent on wresting Jerusalem and the Holy Land from Muslim control and establishing Crusader States.[74] The Ayyubids pushed back the crusaders before Muslim rule was fully restored by the Mamluk sultans of Egypt in 1291.[75]

    Early modern period
     
    Jews at the Western Wall in the 1870s

    In 1516, the region was conquered by the Ottoman Empire and proceeded to be ruled as a part of Ottoman Syria for the next four centuries. In 1660, a Druze revolt led to the destruction of Safed and Tiberias.[76] In the late 18th century, local Arab Sheikh Zahir al-Umar created a de facto independent Emirate in the Galilee. Ottoman attempts to subdue the Sheikh failed, but after Zahir's death the Ottomans regained control of the area. In 1799 governor Jazzar Pasha successfully repelled an assault on Acre by troops of Napoleon, prompting the French to abandon the Syrian campaign.[77] In 1834, a revolt by Palestinian Arab peasants broke out against Egyptian conscription and taxation policies under Muhammad Ali. Although the revolt was suppressed, Muhammad Ali's army retreated and Ottoman rule was restored with British support in 1840.[78] Shortly after, the Tanzimat reforms were implemented across the Ottoman Empire.

    Emergence of Zionism

    Since the existence of the earliest Jewish diaspora, many Jews have aspired to return to "Zion" and the "Land of Israel",[79] though the amount of effort that should be spent towards such an aim was a matter of dispute.[80] During the 16th century, Jewish communities struck roots in the Four Holy Cities—Jerusalem, Tiberias, Hebron, and Safed—and in 1697, Rabbi Yehuda Hachasid led a group of 1,500 Jews to Jerusalem.[81] In the second half of the 18th century, Eastern European opponents of Hasidism, known as the Perushim, settled in Palestine.[82][83]

     
    The First Zionist Congress (1897) in Basel, Switzerland

    The first wave of modern Jewish migration to Ottoman-ruled Palestine, known as the First Aliyah, began in 1881, as Jews fled pogroms in Eastern Europe.[84] Although the Zionist movement already existed in practice, Austro-Hungarian journalist Theodor Herzl is credited with founding political Zionism,[85] a movement that sought to establish a Jewish state in the Land of Israel, thus offering a solution to the so-called Jewish question of the European states, in conformity with the goals and achievements of other national projects of the time.[86] In 1896, Herzl published Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), offering his vision of a future Jewish state; the following year he presided over the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland.[87] The Second Aliyah (1904–14) began after the Kishinev pogrom; some 40,000 Jews settled in Palestine, although nearly half of them left eventually. Both the first and second waves of migrants were mainly Orthodox Jews,[88] although the Second Aliyah included socialist groups who established the kibbutz movement.[89] Though the immigrants of the Second Aliyah largely sought to create communal agricultural settlements, the period also saw the establishment of Tel Aviv in 1909. This period also saw the emergence of Jewish armed militias, the first being Bar-Giora, a guard founded in 1907. Two years later, larger Hashomer organization was founded as its replacement.

    British Mandate

    In 1917, during World War I, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour sent the Balfour Declaration to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, that stated that Britain intended for the creation of a Jewish "national home" in Palestine.[90][91]

    In 1918, the Jewish Legion, a group primarily of Zionist volunteers, assisted in the British conquest of Palestine.[92] In 1920, after the Allies conquered the Levant during World War I, the territory was divided between Britain and France under the mandate system, and the British-administered area which included modern day Israel was named Mandatory Palestine.[93][94][95] Arab opposition to British rule and Jewish immigration led to the 1920 Palestine riots and the formation of a Jewish militia known as the Haganah (meaning "The Defense" in Hebrew) as an outgrowth of Hashomer, from which the Irgun and Lehi paramilitaries later split off.[96] In 1922, the League of Nations granted Britain the Mandate for Palestine under terms which included the Balfour Declaration with its promise to the Jews, and with similar provisions regarding the Arab Palestinians.[97] The population of the area at this time was predominantly Arab and Muslim, with Jews accounting for about 11%,[98] and Arab Christians about 9.5% of the population.[99]

    The Third (1919–23) and Fourth Aliyahs (1924–29) brought an additional 100,000 Jews to Palestine. The rise of Nazism and the increasing persecution of Jews in 1930s Europe led to the Fifth Aliyah, with an influx of a quarter of a million Jews. This was a major cause of the Arab revolt of 1936–39, which was launched as a reaction to continued Jewish immigration and land purchases. Several hundred Jews and British security personnel were killed, while the British Mandate authorities alongside the Zionist militias of the Haganah and Irgun killed 5,032 Arabs and wounded 14,760,[100][101] resulting in over ten percent of the adult male Palestinian Arab population killed, wounded, imprisoned or exiled.[102] The British introduced restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine with the White Paper of 1939. With countries around the world turning away Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust, a clandestine movement known as Aliyah Bet was organized to bring Jews to Palestine. By the end of World War II, the Jewish population of Palestine had increased to 31% of the total population.[103]

    After World War II, the UK found itself facing a Jewish guerrilla campaign over Jewish immigration restrictions, as well as continued conflict with the Arab community over limit levels. The Haganah joined Irgun and Lehi in an armed struggle against British rule.[104] At the same time, hundreds of thousands of Jewish Holocaust survivors and refugees sought a new life far from their destroyed communities in Europe. The Haganah attempted to bring these refugees to Palestine in a programme called Aliyah Bet in which tens of thousands of Jewish refugees attempted to enter Palestine by ship. Most of the ships were intercepted by the Royal Navy and the refugees rounded up and placed in detention camps in Atlit and Cyprus by the British.[105][106]

     
    UN Map, "Palestine plan of partition with economic union"

    On 22 July 1946, Irgun bombed the British administrative headquarters for Palestine, which was housed in the southern wing[107] of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.[108][109][110] A total of 91 people of various nationalities were killed and 46 were injured.[111] The hotel was the site of the Secretariat of the Government of Palestine and the Headquarters of the British Armed Forces in Mandatory Palestine and Transjordan.[111][112] The attack initially had the approval of the Haganah. It was conceived as a response to Operation Agatha (a series of widespread raids, including one on the Jewish Agency, conducted by the British authorities) and was the deadliest directed at the British during the Mandate era.[111][112] The Jewish insurgency continued throughout the rest of 1946 and 1947 despite concerted efforts by the British military and Palestine Police Force to suppress it. British efforts to mediate a negotiated solution with Jewish and Arab representatives also failed as the Jews were unwilling to accept any solution that did not involve a Jewish state and suggested a partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, while the Arabs were adamant that a Jewish state in any part of Palestine was unacceptable and that the only solution was a unified Palestine under Arab rule. In February 1947, the British referred the Palestine issue to the newly formed United Nations. On 15 May 1947, the General Assembly of the United Nations resolved that the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine be created "to prepare for consideration at the next regular session of the Assembly a report on the question of Palestine."[113] In the Report of the Committee dated 3 September 1947 to the General Assembly,[114] the majority of the Committee in Chapter VI proposed a plan to replace the British Mandate with "an independent Arab State, an independent Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem [...] the last to be under an International Trusteeship System."[115] Meanwhile, the Jewish insurgency continued and peaked in July 1947, with a series of widespread guerrilla raids culminating in the Sergeants affair, in which the Irgun took two British sergeants hostage as attempted leverage against the planned execution of three Irgun operatives. Irgun killed the officers after the executions were carried out.

    In September 1947, the British cabinet decided that the Mandate was no longer tenable, and to evacuate Palestine. According to Colonial Secretary Arthur Creech Jones, four major factors led to the decision to evacuate Palestine: the inflexibility of Jewish and Arab negotiators who were unwilling to compromise on their core positions over the question of a Jewish state in Palestine, the economic pressure that stationing a large garrison in Palestine to deal with the Jewish insurgency and the possibility of a wider Jewish rebellion and the possibility of an Arab rebellion put on a British economy already strained by World War II, the "deadly blow to British patience and pride" caused by the hangings of the sergeants, and the mounting criticism the government faced in failing to find a new policy for Palestine in place of the White Paper of 1939.[116]

    On 29 November 1947, the General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 (II) recommending the adoption and implementation of the Plan of Partition with Economic Union.[117] The plan attached to the resolution was essentially that proposed by the majority of the Committee in the report of 3 September. The Jewish Agency, which was the recognized representative of the Jewish community, accepted the plan, which assigned to Jews – a third of the population owning less than 7% of the land – 55–56% of Mandatory Palestine.[118][119][120][121] The Arab League and Arab Higher Committee of Palestine rejected it,[122] and indicated that they would reject any other plan of partition.[123][124] On 1 December 1947, the Arab Higher Committee proclaimed a three-day strike, and riots broke out in Jerusalem.[125] The situation spiraled into a civil war; just two weeks after the UN vote, Colonial Secretary Arthur Creech Jones announced that the British Mandate would end on 15 May 1948, at which point the British would evacuate. As Arab militias and gangs attacked Jewish areas, they were faced mainly by the Haganah, as well as the smaller Irgun and Lehi. In April 1948, the Haganah moved onto the offensive.[126][127] During this period 250,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled, due to a number of factors.[128]

    Early years of the State of Israel
     
    David Ben-Gurion proclaiming the Israeli Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948
     
    Raising of the Ink Flag on 10 March 1949, marking the end of the 1948 war

    On 14 May 1948, the day before the expiration of the British Mandate, David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, declared "the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel."[129][130] The only reference in the text of the Declaration to the borders of the new state is the use of the term Eretz-Israel ("Land of Israel").[131] The following day, the armies of four Arab countries—Egypt, Syria, Transjordan and Iraq—entered into parts of what had been British Mandatory Palestine, launching the 1948 Arab–Israeli War;[132][133][134] contingents from Yemen, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Sudan joined the war.[135][136] The apparent purpose of the invasion was to prevent the establishment of the Jewish state at inception, and some Arab leaders talked about "driving the Jews into the sea".[137][121][138] According to Benny Morris, Jews were worried that the invading Arab armies held the intent to slaughter them.[139] The Arab league stated the invasion was to restore law and order and to prevent further bloodshed.[140]

    After a year of fighting, a ceasefire was declared and temporary borders, known as the Green Line, were established.[141] Jordan annexed what became known as the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip. The UN estimated that more than 700,000 Palestinians were expelled by or fled from advancing Israeli forces during the conflict—what would become known in Arabic as the Nakba ("catastrophe").[142] Some 156,000 remained and became Arab citizens of Israel.[143]

    Israel was admitted as a member of the UN by majority vote on 11 May 1949.[144] An Israeli-Jordanian attempt at negotiating a peace agreement broke down after the British government, fearful of the Egyptian reaction to such a treaty, expressed their opposition to the Jordanian government.[145] In the early years of the state, the Labor Zionist movement led by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion dominated Israeli politics.[146][147]

    Immigration to Israel during the late 1940s and early 1950s was aided by the Israeli Immigration Department and the non-government sponsored Mossad LeAliyah Bet (lit. "Institute for Immigration B") which organized illegal and clandestine immigration.[148] Both groups facilitated regular immigration logistics like arranging transportation, but the latter also engaged in clandestine operations in countries, particularly in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, where the lives of Jews were believed to be in danger and exit from those places was difficult. Mossad LeAliyah Bet was disbanded in 1953.[149] The immigration was in accordance with the One Million Plan. The immigrants came for differing reasons: some held Zionist beliefs or came for the promise of a better life in Israel, while others moved to escape persecution or were expelled.[150][151]

    An influx of Holocaust survivors and Jews from Arab and Muslim countries to Israel during the first three years increased the number of Jews from 700,000 to 1,400,000. By 1958, the population of Israel rose to two million.[152] Between 1948 and 1970, approximately 1,150,000 Jewish refugees relocated to Israel.[153] Some new immigrants arrived as refugees with no possessions and were housed in temporary camps known as ma'abarot; by 1952, over 200,000 people were living in these tent cities.[154] Jews of European background were often treated more favorably than Jews from Middle Eastern and North African countries—housing units reserved for the latter were often re-designated for the former, with the result that Jews newly arrived from Arab lands generally ended up staying in transit camps for longer.[155][156] During this period, food, clothes and furniture had to be rationed in what became known as the austerity period. The need to solve the crisis led Ben-Gurion to sign a reparations agreement with West Germany that triggered mass protests by Jews angered at the idea that Israel could accept monetary compensation for the Holocaust.[157]

    Ongoing regional conflict

    During the 1950s, Israel was frequently attacked by Palestinian fedayeen, nearly always against civilians,[158] mainly from the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip,[159] leading to several Israeli reprisal operations. In 1956, the United Kingdom and France aimed at regaining control of the Suez Canal, which the Egyptians had nationalized. The continued blockade of the Suez Canal and Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, together with the growing amount of Fedayeen attacks against Israel's southern population, and recent Arab grave and threatening statements, prompted Israel to attack Egypt.[160][161][162] Israel joined a secret alliance with the United Kingdom and France and overran the Sinai Peninsula but was pressured to withdraw by the UN in return for guarantees of Israeli shipping rights in the Red Sea via the Straits of Tiran and the Canal.[163][164][165] The war, known as the Suez Crisis, resulted in significant reduction of Israeli border infiltration.[166]

    U.S. newsreel on the trial of Adolf Eichmann

    In the early 1960s, Israel captured Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Argentina and brought him to Israel for trial.[167] The trial had a major impact on public awareness of the Holocaust.[168] Eichmann remains the only person executed in Israel by conviction in an Israeli civilian court.[169] During the spring and summer of 1963 Israel was engaged in a diplomatic standoff with the United States due to the Israeli nuclear programme.[170][171]

    Since 1964, Arab countries, concerned over Israeli plans to divert waters of the Jordan River into the coastal plain,[172] had been trying to divert the headwaters to deprive Israel of water resources, provoking tensions between Israel on the one hand, and Syria and Lebanon on the other. Arab nationalists led by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser refused to recognize Israel and called for its destruction.[173][174][175] By 1966, Israeli-Arab relations had deteriorated to the point of actual battles taking place between Israeli and Arab forces.[176]

     
    Territory held by Israel:
      before the Six-Day War
      after the war
    The Sinai Peninsula was returned to Egypt in 1982.

    In May 1967, Egypt massed its army near the border with Israel, expelled UN peacekeepers, stationed in the Sinai Peninsula since 1957, and blocked Israel's access to the Red Sea.[177][178][179] Other Arab states mobilized their forces.[180] Israel reiterated that these actions were a casus belli and, on 5 June, launched a pre-emptive strike against Egypt. Jordan, Syria and Iraq responded and attacked Israel. In a Six-Day War, Israel captured and occupied the West Bank from Jordan, the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria.[181] Jerusalem's boundaries were enlarged, incorporating East Jerusalem, and the 1949 Green Line became the administrative boundary between Israel and the occupied territories.[citation needed]

    Following the 1967 war and the "Three Nos" resolution of the Arab League, Israel faced attacks from the Egyptians in the Sinai Peninsula during the 1967–1970 War of Attrition, and from Palestinian groups targeting Israelis in the occupied territories, in Israel proper, and around the world. Most important among the various Palestinian and Arab groups was the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), established in 1964, which initially committed itself to "armed struggle as the only way to liberate the homeland".[182] In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Palestinian groups launched a wave of attacks[183][184] against Israeli and Jewish targets around the world,[185] including a massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. The Israeli government responded with an assassination campaign against the organizers of the massacre, a bombing and a raid on the PLO headquarters in Lebanon.

    On 6 October 1973, as Jews were observing Yom Kippur, the Egyptian and Syrian armies launched a surprise attack against Israeli forces in the Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights, that opened the Yom Kippur War. The war ended on 25 October with Israel successfully repelling Egyptian and Syrian forces but having suffered over 2,500 soldiers killed in a war which collectively took 10–35,000 lives in about 20 days.[186] An internal inquiry exonerated the government of responsibility for failures before and during the war, but public anger forced Prime Minister Golda Meir to resign.[187][better source needed] In July 1976, an airliner was hijacked during its flight from Israel to France by Palestinian guerrillas and landed at Entebbe International Airport, Uganda. Israeli commandos carried out an operation in which 102 out of 106 Israeli hostages were successfully rescued.

    Peace process era

    The 1977 Knesset elections marked a major turning point in Israeli political history as Menachem Begin's Likud party took control from the Labor Party.[fn 1] Later that year, Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat made a trip to Israel and spoke before the Knesset in what was the first recognition of Israel by an Arab head of state.[189] In the two years that followed, Sadat and Begin signed the Camp David Accords (1978) and the Egypt–Israel peace treaty (1979).[190] In return, Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula and agreed to enter negotiations over an autonomy for Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.[190]

    On 11 March 1978, a PLO guerilla raid from Lebanon led to the Coastal Road massacre. Israel responded by launching an invasion of southern Lebanon to destroy the PLO bases south of the Litani River. Most PLO fighters withdrew, but Israel was able to secure southern Lebanon until a UN force and the Lebanese army could take over. The PLO soon resumed its policy of attacks against Israel. In the next few years, the PLO infiltrated the south and kept up a sporadic shelling across the border. Israel carried out numerous retaliatory attacks by air and on the ground.

     
    Israel's 1980 law declared that "Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel".[191][better source needed]

    Meanwhile, Begin's government provided incentives for Israelis to settle in the occupied West Bank, increasing friction with the Palestinians in that area.[192] The Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel, passed in 1980, was believed by some to reaffirm Israel's 1967 annexation of Jerusalem by government decree, and reignited international controversy over the status of the city. No Israeli legislation has defined the territory of Israel and no act specifically included East Jerusalem therein.[193] In 1981 Israel effectively annexed the Golan Heights, although annexation was not recognized internationally.[194] The international community largely rejected these moves, with the UN Security Council declaring both the Jerusalem Law and the Golan Heights Law null and void.[195][196] Israel's population diversity expanded in the 1980s and 1990s. Several waves of Ethiopian Jews immigrated to Israel since the 1980s, while between 1990 and 1994, immigration from the post-Soviet states increased Israel's population by twelve percent.[197]

    On 7 June 1981, during the Iran–Iraq War, the Israeli air force destroyed Iraq's sole nuclear reactor under construction just outside Baghdad, in order to impede Iraq's nuclear weapons programme. Following a series of PLO attacks in 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon that year to destroy the bases from which the PLO launched attacks and missiles into northern Israel.[198] In the first six days of fighting, the Israelis destroyed the military forces of the PLO in Lebanon and decisively defeated the Syrians. An Israeli government inquiry—the Kahan Commission—would later hold Begin and several Israeli generals as indirectly responsible for the Sabra and Shatila massacre and hold Defense minister Ariel Sharon as bearing "personal responsibility" for the massacre.[199] Sharon was forced to resign as Defense Minister.[200] In 1985, Israel responded to a Palestinian terrorist attack in Cyprus by bombing the PLO headquarters in Tunisia. Israel withdrew from most of Lebanon in 1986, but maintained a borderland buffer zone in southern Lebanon until 2000, from where Israeli forces engaged in conflict with Hezbollah. The First Intifada, a Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule,[201] broke out in 1987, with waves of uncoordinated demonstrations and violence occurring in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. Over the following six years, the Intifada became more organized and included economic and cultural measures aimed at disrupting the Israeli occupation. More than a thousand people were killed in the violence.[202] During the 1991 Gulf War, the PLO supported Saddam Hussein and Iraqi Scud missile attacks against Israel. Despite public outrage, Israel heeded American calls to refrain from hitting back and did not participate in that war.[203][204]

    Oslo Accords and rapprochment with the PLO
     
    Shimon Peres (left) with Yitzhak Rabin (center) and King Hussein of Jordan (right), prior to signing the Israel–Jordan peace treaty in 1994

    In 1992, Yitzhak Rabin became prime minister following an election in which his party called for compromise with Israel's neighbours.[205][206] The following year, Shimon Peres on behalf of Israel, and Mahmoud Abbas for the PLO, signed the Oslo Accords, which gave the Palestinian National Authority the right to govern parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.[207] The PLO also recognized Israel's right to exist and pledged an end to terrorism.[208][better source needed] In 1994, the Israel–Jordan peace treaty was signed, making Jordan the second Arab country to normalize relations with Israel.[209] Arab public support for the Accords was damaged by the continuation of Israeli settlements[210] and checkpoints, and the deterioration of economic conditions.[211] Israeli public support for the Accords waned as Israel was struck by Palestinian suicide attacks.[212] In November 1995, Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated as he left a peace rally by Yigal Amir, a far-right Jew who opposed the Accords.[213]

    Under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu at the end of the 1990s, Israel withdrew from Hebron,[214] and signed the Wye River Memorandum, giving greater control to the Palestinian National Authority.[215] Ehud Barak, elected Prime Minister in 1999, began the new millennium by withdrawing forces from Southern Lebanon and conducting negotiations with Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat and U.S. President Bill Clinton at the 2000 Camp David Summit. During the summit, Barak offered a plan for the establishment of a Palestinian state. The proposed state included the entirety of the Gaza Strip and over 90% of the West Bank with Jerusalem as a shared capital.[216] Each side blamed the other for the failure of the talks.

    21st-century to present
    This article needs to be updated. The reason given is: the events of the last two decades outside of conflict is barely covered. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (March 2023)
     
    The site of the 2001 Tel Aviv Dolphinarium discotheque massacre, in which 21 Israelis were killed

    In late 2000, after a controversial visit by Likud leader Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount, the Second Intifada began. It would continue for the next four and a half years. Suicide bombings were a recurrant feature of the Intifada, causing Israeli civilian life to become a battlefield.[217] Some commentators contend that the Intifada was pre-planned by Arafat due to the collapse of peace talks.[218][219][220][221] Sharon became prime minister in a 2001 special election. During his tenure, Sharon carried out his plan to unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip and also spearheaded the construction of the Israeli West Bank barrier,[222] ending the Intifada.[223][224] Between 2000 and 2008, 1,063 Israelis, 5,517 Palestinians and 64 foreign citizens had been killed.[225]

    In 2006, a Hezbollah artillery assault on Israel's northern border communities and a cross-border abduction of two Israeli soldiers precipitated the month-long Second Lebanon War.[226][227] In 2007, the Israeli Air Force destroyed a nuclear reactor in Syria. In 2008, Israel entered another conflict as a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel collapsed. The 2008–2009 Gaza War lasted three weeks and ended after Israel announced a unilateral ceasefire.[228][229] Hamas announced its own ceasefire, with its own conditions of complete withdrawal and opening of border crossings. Despite neither the rocket launchings nor Israeli retaliatory strikes having completely stopped, the fragile ceasefire remained in order.[230] In what Israel described as a response to more than a hundred Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israeli cities,[231] Israel began an operation in the Gaza Strip in 2012, lasting eight days.[232] Israel started another operation in Gaza following an escalation of rocket attacks by Hamas in July 2014.[233] In May 2021, another round of fighting took place in Gaza and Israel, lasting eleven days.[234]

    By the 2010s, the increasing regional cooperation between Israel and Arab League countries have been established, culminating in the signing of the Abraham Accords. The Israeli security situation shifted from the traditional Arab–Israeli conflict towards the Iran–Israel proxy conflict and direct confrontation with Iran during the Syrian civil war.

    ^ Tchernov, Eitan (1988). "The Age of 'Ubeidiya Formation (Jordan Valley, Israel) and the Earliest Hominids in the Levant". Paléorient. 14 (2): 63–65. doi:10.3406/paleo.1988.4455. ^ Rincon, Paul (14 October 2015). "Fossil teeth place humans in Asia '20,000 years early'". BBC News. Retrieved 4 January 2017. ^ Bar-Yosef, Ofer (7 December 1998). "The Natufian Culture in the Levant, Threshold to the Origins of Agriculture" (PDF). Evolutionary Anthropology. 6 (5): 159–177. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1520-6505(1998)6:5<159::AID-EVAN4>3.0.CO;2-7. S2CID 35814375. Retrieved 4 January 2017. ^ Jonathan M Golden,Ancient Canaan and Israel: An Introduction, OUP, 2009 pp. 3–4. ^ Braunstein, Susan L. (2011). "The Meaning of Egyptian-Style Objects in the Late Bronze Cemeteries of Tell el-Farʿah (South)". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. 364 (364): 1–36. doi:10.5615/bullamerschoorie.364.0001. JSTOR 10.5615/bullamerschoorie.364.0001. S2CID 164054005. ^ Dever, William G. Beyond the Texts, Society of Biblical Literature Press, 2017, pp. 89–93 ^ S. Richard, "Archaeological sources for the history of Palestine: The Early Bronze Age: The rise and collapse of urbanism", The Biblical Archaeologist (1987) ^ Knapp, A. Bernard; Manning, Sturt W. (1 January 2016). "Crisis in Context: The End of the Late Bronze Age in the Eastern Mediterranean". American Journal of Archaeology. 120 (1): 130. doi:10.3764/aja.120.1.0099. ISSN 0002-9114. S2CID 191385013. ^ K.L. Noll, Canaan and Israel in Antiquity: A Textbook on History and Religion, A&C Black, 2012, rev.ed. pp. 137ff. ^ Thomas L. Thompson, Early History of the Israelite People: From the Written & Archaeological Sources, Brill, 2000 pp. 275–276: 'They are rather a very specific group among the population of Palestine which bears a name that occurs here for the first time that at a much later stage in Palestine's history bears a substantially different signification.' ^ The personal name "Israel" appears much earlier, in material from Ebla. Hasel, Michael G. (1 January 1994). "Israel in the Merneptah Stela". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. 296 (296): 45–61. doi:10.2307/1357179. JSTOR 1357179. S2CID 164052192.; Bertman, Stephen (14 July 2005). Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. OUP. ISBN 978-0-19-518364-1. and Meindert Dijkstra (2010). "Origins of Israel between history and ideology". In Becking, Bob; Grabbe, Lester (eds.). Between Evidence and Ideology Essays on the History of Ancient Israel read at the Joint Meeting of the Society for Old Testament Study and the Oud Testamentisch Werkgezelschap Lincoln, July 2009. Brill. p. 47. ISBN 978-90-04-18737-5. As a West Semitic personal name it existed long before it became a tribal or a geographical name. This is not without significance, though is it rarely mentioned. We learn of a maryanu named ysr"il (*Yi¡sr—a"ilu) from Ugarit living in the same period, but the name was already used a thousand years before in Ebla. The word Israel originated as a West Semitic personal name. One of the many names that developed into the name of the ancestor of a clan, of a tribe and finally of a people and a nation. ^ Lemche, Niels Peter (1998). The Israelites in History and Tradition. Westminster John Knox Press. p. 35. ISBN 978-0-664-22727-2. ^ Miller, James Maxwell; Hayes, John Haralson (1986). A History of Ancient Israel and Judah. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 978-0-664-21262-9. ^ Mark Smith in "The Early History of God: Yahweh and Other Deities of Ancient Israel" states "Despite the long regnant model that the Canaanites and Israelites were people of fundamentally different culture, archaeological data now casts doubt on this view. The material culture of the region exhibits numerous common points between Israelites and Canaanites in the Iron I period (c. 1200–1000 BCE). The record would suggest that the Israelite culture largely overlapped with and derived from Canaanite culture... In short, Israelite culture was largely Canaanite in nature. Given the information available, one cannot maintain a radical cultural separation between Canaanites and Israelites for the Iron I period." (pp. 6–7). Smith, Mark (2002) "The Early History of God: Yahweh and Other Deities of Ancient Israel" (Eerdman's) ^ Rendsberg, Gary (2008). "Israel without the Bible". In Frederick E. Greenspahn. The Hebrew Bible: New Insights and Scholarship. NYU Press, pp. 3–5 ^ Gnuse, Robert Karl (1997). No Other Gods: Emergent Monotheism in Israel. England: Sheffield Academic Press Ltd. pp. 28, 31. ISBN 1-85075-657-0. ^ Steiner, Richard C. (1997), "Ancient Hebrew", in Hetzron, Robert (ed.), The Semitic Languages, Routledge, pp. 145–173, ISBN 978-0-415-05767-7 ^ Killebrew 2005, p. 230. ^ Shahin 2005, p. 6. ^ Dever, William (2001). What Did the Biblical Writers Know, and When Did They Know It?. Eerdmans. pp. 98–99. ISBN 978-3-927120-37-2. After a century of exhaustive investigation, all respectable archaeologists have given up hope of recovering any context that would make Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob credible "historical figures" [...] archaeological investigation of Moses and the Exodus has similarly been discarded as a fruitless pursuit. ^ Faust 2015, p.476: "While there is a consensus among scholars that the Exodus did not take place in the manner described in the Bible, surprisingly most scholars agree that the narrative has a historical core, and that some of the highland settlers came, one way or another, from Egypt..". ^ Redmount 2001, p. 61: "A few authorities have concluded that the core events of the Exodus saga are entirely literary fabrications. But most biblical scholars still subscribe to some variation of the Documentary Hypothesis, and support the basic historicity of the biblical narrative." ^ Dever, William (2001). What Did the Biblical Writers Know, and When Did They Know It?. Eerdmans. pp. 98–99. ISBN 3-927120-37-5. After a century of exhaustive investigation, all respectable archaeologists have given up hope of recovering any context that would make Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob credible "historical figures" [...] archaeological investigation of Moses and the Exodus has similarly been discarded as a fruitless pursuit. ^ Lipschits, Oded (2014). "The History of Israel in the Biblical Period". In Berlin, Adele; Brettler, Marc Zvi (eds.). The Jewish Study Bible (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-997846-5. ^ Kuhrt, Amiele (1995). The Ancient Near East. Routledge. p. 438. ISBN 978-0-415-16762-8. ^ a b Finkelstein, Israel; Silberman, Neil Asher (2001). The Bible unearthed : archaeology's new vision of ancient Israel and the origin of its stories (1st Touchstone ed.). New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-684-86912-4. ^ Wright, Jacob L. (July 2014). "David, King of Judah (Not Israel)". The Bible and Interpretation. Archived from the original on 1 March 2021. Retrieved 15 May 2021. ^ Finkelstein, Israel, (2020). "Saul and Highlands of Benjamin Update: The Role of Jerusalem", in Joachim J. Krause, Omer Sergi, and Kristin Weingart (eds.), Saul, Benjamin, and the Emergence of Monarchy in Israel: Biblical and Archaeological Perspectives, SBL Press, Atlanta, GA, p. 48, footnote 57: "...They became territorial kingdoms later, Israel in the first half of the ninth century BCE and Judah in its second half..." ^ The Pitcher Is Broken: Memorial Essays for Gosta W. Ahlstrom, Steven W. Holloway, Lowell K. Handy, Continuum, 1 May 1995 Quote: "For Israel, the description of the battle of Qarqar in the Kurkh Monolith of Shalmaneser III (mid-ninth century) and for Judah, a Tiglath-pileser III text mentioning (Jeho-) Ahaz of Judah (IIR67 = K. 3751), dated 734–733, are the earliest published to date." ^ Finkelstein & Silberman 2002, pp. 146–7:Put simply, while Judah was still economically marginal and backward, Israel was booming. ... In the next chapter we will see how the northern kingdom suddenly appeared on the ancient Near Eastern stage as a major regional power ^ Israel., Finkelstein. The forgotten kingdom : the archaeology and history of Northern Israel. p. 74. ISBN 978-1-58983-910-6. OCLC 949151323. ^ Finkelstein, Israel (2013). The Forgotten Kingdom: the archaeology and history of Northern Israel. pp. 65–66, 73, 78, 87–94. ISBN 978-1-58983-911-3. OCLC 880456140. ^ Finkelstein, Israel (1 November 2011). "Observations on the Layout of Iron Age Samaria". Tel Aviv. 38 (2): 194–207. doi:10.1179/033443511x13099584885303. ISSN 0334-4355. S2CID 128814117. ^ Cite error: The named reference Broshi 2001 174 was invoked but never defined (see the help page). ^ Broshi, M., & Finkelstein, I. (1992). "The Population of Palestine in Iron Age II". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 287(1), 47–60. ^ Finkelstein & Silberman 2002, p. 307: "Intensive excavations throughout Jerusalem have shown that the city was indeed systematically destroyed by the Babylonians. The conflagration seems to have been general. When activity on the ridge of the City of David resumed in the Persian period, the-new suburbs on the western hill that had flourished since at least the time of Hezekiah were not reoccupied." ^ Lipschits, Oded (1999). "The History of the Benjamin Region under Babylonian Rule". Tel Aviv. 26 (2): 155–190. doi:10.1179/tav.1999.1999.2.155. ISSN 0334-4355. ^ Wheeler, P. (2017). "Review of the book Song of Exile: The Enduring Mystery of Psalm 137, by David W. Stowe". The Catholic Biblical Quarterly. 79 (4): 696–697. doi:10.1353/cbq.2017.0092. S2CID 171830838. ^ "British Museum – Cuneiform tablet with part of the Babylonian Chronicle (605–594 BCE)". Archived from the original on 30 October 2014. Retrieved 30 October 2014. ^ "ABC 5 (Jerusalem Chronicle) – Livius". www.livius.org. Archived from the original on 5 May 2019. Retrieved 26 March 2020. ^ Becking, Bob (2006). ""We All Returned as One!": Critical Notes on the Myth of the Mass Return". In Lipschitz, Oded; Oeming, Manfred (eds.). Judah and the Judeans in the Persian period. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. p. 8. ISBN 978-1575061047. ^ a b "Second Temple Period (538 BCE to 70 CE) Persian Rule". Biu.ac.il. Retrieved 15 March 2014. ^ Harper's Bible Dictionary, ed. by Achtemeier, etc., Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1985, p. 103 ^ Grabbe, Lester L. (2004). A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period: Yehud – A History of the Persian Province of Judah v. 1. T & T Clark. p. 355. ISBN 978-0-567-08998-4. ^ Helyer, Larry R.; McDonald, Lee Martin (2013). "The Hasmoneans and the Hasmonean Era". In Green, Joel B.; McDonald, Lee Martin (eds.). The World of the New Testament: Cultural, Social, and Historical Contexts. Baker Academic. pp. 45–47. ISBN 978-0-8010-9861-1. OCLC 961153992. The ensuing power struggle left Hyrcanus with a free hand in Judea, and he quickly reasserted Jewish sovereignty... Hyrcanus then engaged in a series of military campaigns aimed at territorial expansion. He first conquered areas in the Transjordan. He then turned his attention to Samaria, which had long separated Judea from the northern Jewish settlements in Lower Galilee. In the south, Adora and Marisa were conquered; (Aristobulus') primary accomplishment was annexing and Judaizing the region of Iturea, located between the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon mountains ^ Ben-Sasson, H.H. (1976). A History of the Jewish People. Harvard University Press. p. 226. ISBN 0-674-39731-2. The expansion of Hasmonean Judea took place gradually. Under Jonathan, Judea annexed southern Samaria and began to expand in the direction of the coast plain... The main ethnic changes were the work of John Hyrcanus... it was in his days and those of his son Aristobulus that the annexation of Idumea, Samaria and Galilee and the consolidation of Jewish settlement in Trans-Jordan was completed. Alexander Jannai, continuing the work of his predecessors, expanded Judean rule to the entire coastal plain, from the Carmel to the Egyptian border... and to additional areas in Trans-Jordan, including some of the Greek cities there. ^ Ben-Eliyahu, Eyal (30 April 2019). Identity and Territory: Jewish Perceptions of Space in Antiquity. p. 13. ISBN 978-0-520-29360-1. OCLC 1103519319. From the beginning of the Second Temple period until the Muslim conquest—the land was part of imperial space. This was true from the early Persian period, as well as the time of Ptolemy and the Seleucids. The only exception was the Hasmonean Kingdom, with its sovereign Jewish rule—first over Judah and later, in Alexander Jannaeus's prime, extending to the coast, the north, and the eastern banks of the Jordan. ^ a b c Schwartz, Seth (2014). The ancient Jews from Alexander to Muhammad. Cambridge. pp. 85–86. ISBN 978-1-107-04127-1. OCLC 863044259. The year 70 ce marked transformations in demography, politics, Jewish civic status, Palestinian and more general Jewish economic and social structures, Jewish religious life beyond the sacrificial cult, and even Roman politics and the topography of the city of Rome itself. [...] The Revolt's failure had, to begin with, a demographic impact on the Jews of Palestine; many died in battle and as a result of siege conditions, not only in Jerusalem. [...] As indicated above, the figures for captives are conceivably more reliable. If 97,000 is roughly correct as a total for the war, it would mean that a huge percentage of the population was removed from the country, or at the very least displaced from their homes. Nevertheless, only sixty years later, there was a large enough population in the Judaean countryside to stage a massively disruptive second rebellion; this one appears to have ended, in 135, with devastation and depopulation of the district. ^ Judaism in late antiquity, Jacob Neusner, Bertold Spuler, Hady R Idris, Brill, 2001, p. 155 ^ Werner Eck, "Sklaven und Freigelassene von Römern in Iudaea und den angrenzenden Provinzen," Novum Testamentum 55 (2013): 1–21 ^ Raviv, Dvir; Ben David, Chaim (2021). "Cassius Dio's figures for the demographic consequences of the Bar Kokhba War: Exaggeration or reliable account?". Journal of Roman Archaeology. 34 (2): 585–607. doi:10.1017/S1047759421000271. ISSN 1047-7594. S2CID 245512193. Scholars have long doubted the historical accuracy of Cassius Dio's account of the consequences of the Bar Kokhba War (Roman History 69.14). According to this text, considered the most reliable literary source for the Second Jewish Revolt, the war encompassed all of Judea: the Romans destroyed 985 villages and 50 fortresses, and killed 580,000 rebels. This article reassesses Cassius Dio's figures by drawing on new evidence from excavations and surveys in Judea, Transjordan, and the Galilee. Three research methods are combined: an ethno-archaeological comparison with the settlement picture in the Ottoman Period, comparison with similar settlement studies in the Galilee, and an evaluation of settled sites from the Middle Roman Period (70–136CE). The study demonstrates the potential contribution of the archaeological record to this issue and supports the view of Cassius Dio's demographic data as a reliable account, which he based on contemporaneous documentation. ^ a b c Mor, Menahem (18 April 2016). The Second Jewish Revolt. BRILL. pp. 483–484. doi:10.1163/9789004314634. ISBN 978-90-04-31463-4. Land confiscation in Judaea was part of the suppression of the revolt policy of the Romans and punishment for the rebels. But the very claim that the sikarikon laws were annulled for settlement purposes seems to indicate that Jews continued to reside in Judaea even after the Second Revolt. There is no doubt that this area suffered the severest damage from the suppression of the revolt. Settlements in Judaea, such as Herodion and Bethar, had already been destroyed during the course of the revolt, and Jews were expelled from the districts of Gophna, Herodion, and Aqraba. However, it should not be claimed that the region of Judaea was completely destroyed. Jews continued to live in areas such as Lod (Lydda), south of the Hebron Mountain, and the coastal regions. In other areas of the Land of Israel that did not have any direct connection with the Second Revolt, no settlement changes can be identified as resulting from it. ^ Oppenheimer, A'haron and Oppenheimer, Nili. Between Rome and Babylon: Studies in Jewish Leadership and Society. Mohr Siebeck, 2005, p. 2. ^ H.H. Ben-Sasson, A History of the Jewish People, Harvard University Press, 1976, ISBN 0-674-39731-2, page 334: "In an effort to wipe out all memory of the bond between the Jews and the land, Hadrian changed the name of the province from Judaea to Syria-Palestina, a name that became common in non-Jewish literature." ^ Ariel Lewin. The archaeology of Ancient Judea and Palestine. Getty Publications, 2005 p. 33. "It seems clear that by choosing a seemingly neutral name – one juxtaposing that of a neighboring province with the revived name of an ancient geographical entity (Palestine), already known from the writings of Herodotus – Hadrian was intending to suppress any connection between the Jewish people and that land." ISBN 0-89236-800-4 ^ Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History. 4:6.3-4 ^ a b Edward Kessler (2010). An Introduction to Jewish-Christian Relations. Cambridge University Press. p. 72. ISBN 978-0-521-70562-2. Jews probably remained in the majority in Palestine until some time after the conversion of Constantine in the fourth century. [...] In Babylonia, there had been for many centuries a Jewish community which would have been further strengthened by those fleeing the aftermath of the Roman revolts. ^ Cohn-Sherbok, Dan (1996). Atlas of Jewish History. Routledge. p. 58. ISBN 978-0-415-08800-8. ^ Lehmann, Clayton Miles (18 January 2007). "Palestine". Encyclopedia of the Roman Provinces. University of South Dakota. Archived from the original on 7 April 2013. Retrieved 9 February 2013. ^ Moscovitz, Leib (2017). "Palestinian Talmud/Yerushalmi". Oxford Bibliographies Online. doi:10.1093/OBO/9780199840731-0151. ISBN 978-0-19-984073-1. Retrieved 11 January 2023. ^ The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World by Catherine Nixey 2018 ^ Ehrlich, Michael (2022). The Islamization of the Holy Land, 634–1800. Leeds, UK: Arc Humanities Press. pp. 3–4. ISBN 978-1-64189-222-3. OCLC 1302180905. The Jewish community strove to recover from the catastrophic results of the Bar Kokhva revolt (132–135 CE). Although some of these attempts were relatively successful, the Jews never fully recovered. During the Late Roman and Byzantine periods, many Jews emigrated to thriving centres in the diaspora, especially Iraq, whereas some converted to Christianity and others continued to live in the Holy Land, especially in Galilee and the coastal plain. During the Byzantine period, the three provinces of Palestine included more than thirty cities, namely, settlements with a bishop see. After the Muslim conquest in the 630s, most of these cities declined and eventually disappeared. As a result, in many cases the local ecclesiastical administration weakened, while in others it simply ceased to exist. Consequently, many local Christians converted to Islam. Thus, almost twelve centuries later, when the army led by Napoleon Bonaparte arrived in the Holy Land, most of the local population was Muslim. ^ David Goodblatt (2006). "The Political and Social History of the Jewish Community in the Land of Israel, c. 235–638". In Steven Katz (ed.). The Cambridge History of Judaism. Vol. IV. pp. 404–430. ISBN 978-0-521-77248-8. Few would disagree that, in the century and a half before our period begins, the Jewish population of Judah () suffered a serious blow from which it never recovered. The destruction of the Jewish metropolis of Jerusalem and its environs and the eventual refounding of the city... had lasting repercussions. [...] However, in other parts of Palestine the Jewish population remained strong [...] What does seem clear is a different kind of change. Immigration of Christians and the conversion of pagans, Samaritans and Jews eventually produced a Christian majority ^ Bar, Doron (2003). "The Christianisation of Rural Palestine during Late Antiquity". The Journal of Ecclesiastical History. 54 (3): 401–421. doi:10.1017/s0022046903007309. ISSN 0022-0469. The dominant view of the history of Palestine during the Byzantine period links the early phases of the consecration of the land during the fourth century and the substantial external financial investment that accompanied the building of churches on holy sites on the one hand with the Christianisation of the population on the other. Churches were erected primarily at the holy sites, 12 while at the same time Palestine's position and unique status as the Christian 'Holy Land' became more firmly rooted. All this, coupled with immigration and conversion, allegedly meant that the Christianisation of Palestine took place much more rapidly than that of other areas of the Roman empire, brought in its wake the annihilation of the pagan cults and meant that by the middle of the fifth century there was a clear Christian majority. ^ Kohen, Elli (2007). History of the Byzantine Jews: A Microcosmos in the Thousand Year Empire. University Press of America. pp. 26–31. ISBN 978-0-7618-3623-0. ^ "Roman Palestine". www.britannica.com. Encyclopedia Britannica. ^ Ehrlich, Michael (2022). The Islamization of the Holy Land, 634–1800. Leeds, UK: Arc Humanities Press. pp. 3–4. ISBN 978-1-64189-222-3. OCLC 1302180905. The Jewish community strove to recover from the catastrophic results of the Bar Kokhva revolt (132–135 CE). Although some of these attempts were relatively successful, the Jews never fully recovered. During the Late Roman and Byzantine periods, many Jews emigrated to thriving centres in the diaspora, especially Iraq, whereas some converted to Christianity and others continued to live in the Holy Land, especially in Galilee and the coastal plain. During the Byzantine period, the three provinces of Palestine included more than thirty cities, namely, settlements with a bishop see. After the Muslim conquest in the 630s, most of these cities declined and eventually disappeared. As a result, in many cases the local ecclesiastical administration weakened, while in others it simply ceased to exist. Consequently, many local Christians converted to Islam. Thus, almost twelve centuries later, when the army led by Napoleon Bonaparte arrived in the Holy Land, most of the local population was Muslim. ^ Ellenblum, Ronnie (2010). Frankish Rural Settlement in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-511-58534-0. OCLC 958547332. From the data given above it can be concluded that the Muslim population of Central Samaria, during the early Muslim period, was not an autochthonous population which had converted to Christianity. They arrived there either by way of migration or as a result of a process of sedentarization of the nomads who had filled the vacuum created by the departing Samaritans at the end of the Byzantine period [...] To sum up: in the only rural region in Palestine in which, according to all the written and archeological sources, the process of Islamization was completed already in the twelfth century, there occurred events consistent with the model propounded by Levtzion and Vryonis: the region was abandoned by its original sedentary population and the subsequent vacuum was apparently filled by nomads who, at a later stage, gradually became sedentarized ^ a b לוי-רובין, מילכה; Levy-Rubin, Milka (2006). "The Influence of the Muslim Conquest on the Settlement Pattern of Palestine during the Early Muslim Period / הכיבוש כמעצב מפת היישוב של ארץ-ישראל בתקופה המוסלמית הקדומה". Cathedra: For the History of Eretz Israel and Its Yishuv / קתדרה: לתולדות ארץ ישראל ויישובה (121): 53–78. ISSN 0334-4657. JSTOR 23407269. ^ a b Ellenblum, Ronnie (2010). Frankish Rural Settlement in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-511-58534-0. OCLC 958547332. From the data given above it can be concluded that the Muslim population of Central Samaria, during the early Muslim period, was not an autochthonous population which had converted to Christianity. They arrived there either by way of migration or as a result of a process of sedentarization of the nomads who had filled the vacuum created by the departing Samaritans at the end of the Byzantine period [...] To sum up: in the only rural region in Palestine in which, according to all the written and archeological sources, the process of Islamization was completed already in the twelfth century, there occurred events consistent with the model propounded by Levtzion and Vryonis: the region was abandoned by its original sedentary population and the subsequent vacuum was apparently filled by nomads who, at a later stage, gradually became sedentarized ^ Gil, Moshe (1997). A History of Palestine, 634–1099. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-59984-9. ^ Broshi, Magen (1979). "The Population of Western Palestine in the Roman-Byzantine Period". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. 236 (236): 1–10. doi:10.2307/1356664. ISSN 0003-097X. JSTOR 1356664. S2CID 24341643. ^ Broshi, M., & Finkelstein, I. (1992). "The Population of Palestine in Iron Age II". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 287(1), 47–60. ^ "crusades". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.) ^ Kramer, Gudrun (2008). A History of Palestine: From the Ottoman Conquest to the Founding of the State of Israel. Princeton University Press. p. 376. ISBN 978-0-691-11897-0. ^ Joel Rappel, History of Eretz Israel from Prehistory up to 1882 (1980), vol. 2, p. 531. "In 1662 Sabbathai Sevi arrived to Jerusalem. It was the time when the Jewish settlements of Galilee were destroyed by the Druze: Tiberias was completely desolate and only a few of former Safed residents had returned...." ^ "Palestine – Ottoman rule". www.britannica.com. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 27 November 2018. ^ Macalister and Masterman, 1906, p. 40 ^ Rosenzweig 1997, p. 1 "Zionism, the urge of the Jewish people to return to Palestine, is almost as ancient as the Jewish diaspora itself. Some Talmudic statements ... Almost a millennium later, the poet and philosopher Yehuda Halevi ... In the 19th century ..." ^ "An invention called 'the Jewish people'". Haaretz. Archived from the original on 18 April 2010. Retrieved 9 March 2010. ^ Eisen, Yosef (2004). Miraculous journey: a complete history of the Jewish people from creation to the present. Targum Press. p. 700. ISBN 978-1-56871-323-6. ^ Morgenstern, Arie (2006). Hastening redemption: Messianism and the resettlement of the land of Israel. Oxford University Press. p. 304. ISBN 978-0-19-530578-4. ^ Barnai, Jacob (1992). The Jews in Palestine in the Eighteenth Century: Under the Patronage of the Istanbul committee of Officials for Palestine. University Alabama Press. p. 320. ISBN 978-0-8173-0572-7. ^ Halpern, Ben (1998). Zionism and the creation of a new society. Reinharz, Jehuda. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 53–54. ISBN 0-585-18273-6. OCLC 44960036. ^ Kornberg 1993 "How did Theodor Herzl, an assimilated German nationalist in the 1880s, suddenly in the 1890s become the founder of Zionism?" ^ Herzl 1946, p. 11 ^ "Chapter One". The Jewish Agency for Israel1. 21 July 2005. Retrieved 21 September 2015. ^ Stein 2003, p. 88. "As with the First Aliyah, most Second Aliyah migrants were non-Zionist orthodox Jews ..." ^ Romano 2003, p. 30 ^ Macintyre, Donald (26 May 2005). "The birth of modern Israel: A scrap of paper that changed history". The Independent. Retrieved 20 March 2012. ^ Yapp, M.E. (1987). The Making of the Modern Near East 1792–1923. Harlow, England: Longman. p. 290. ISBN 978-0-582-49380-3. ^ Schechtman, Joseph B. (2007). "Jewish Legion". Encyclopaedia Judaica. Vol. 11. Detroit: Macmillan Reference. p. 304. Retrieved 6 August 2014. ^ Kramer, Gudrun (2008). A History of Palestine: From the Ottoman Conquest to the Founding of the State of Israel. Princeton University Press. p. 376. ISBN 978-0-691-11897-0. ^ "The Covenant of the League of Nations". Article 22. Retrieved 18 October 2012. ^ "Mandate for Palestine," Encyclopaedia Judaica, Vol. 11, p. 862, Keter Publishing House, Jerusalem, 1972 ^ Scharfstein 1996, p. 269. "During the First and Second Aliyot, there were many Arab attacks against Jewish settlements ... In 1920, Hashomer was disbanded and Haganah ("The Defense") was established." ^ "League of Nations: The Mandate for Palestine, July 24, 1922". Modern History Sourcebook. 24 July 1922. Retrieved 27 August 2007. ^ Shaw, J. V. W. (1991) [1946]. "Chapter VI: Population". A Survey of Palestine. Vol. I: Prepared in December 1945 and January 1946 for the information of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry (Reprint ed.). Washington, DC: Institute for Palestine Studies. p. 148. ISBN 978-0-88728-213-3. OCLC 22345421. ^ "Report to the League of Nations on Palestine and Transjordan, 1937". British Government. 1937. Archived from the original on 23 September 2013. Retrieved 14 July 2013. ^ Walter Laqueur (2009). A History of Zionism: From the French Revolution to the Establishment of the State of Israel. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-307-53085-1. Retrieved 15 October 2015. ^ Hughes, M (2009). "The banality of brutality: British armed forces and the repression of the Arab Revolt in Palestine, 1936–39" (PDF). English Historical Review. CXXIV (507): 314–354. doi:10.1093/ehr/cep002. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 February 2016. ^ Khalidi, Walid (1987). From Haven to Conquest: Readings in Zionism and the Palestine Problem Until 1948. Institute for Palestine Studies. ISBN 978-0-88728-155-6 ^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, Village Statistics, 1945. ^ Fraser 2004, p. 27 ^ Motti Golani (2013). Palestine Between Politics and Terror, 1945–1947. UPNE. p. 130. ISBN 978-1-61168-388-2. ^ Cohen, Michael J (2014). Britain's Moment in Palestine:Retrospect and Perspectives, 1917–1948 (First ed.). Abingdon and New York: Routledge. p. 474. ISBN 978-0-415-72985-7. ^ The Terrorism Ahead: Confronting Transnational Violence in the Twenty-First | By Paul J. Smith | M.E. Sharpe, 2007 | p. 27 ^ Encyclopedia of Terrorism, Harvey W. Kushner, Sage, 2003 p. 181 ^ Encyclopædia Britannica article on the Irgun Zvai Leumi ^ The British Empire in the Middle East, 1945–1951: Arab Nationalism, the United States, and Postwar Imperialism. William Roger Louis, Oxford University Press, 1986, p. 430 ^ a b c Clarke, Thurston. By Blood and Fire, G.P. Puttnam's Sons, New York, 1981 ^ a b Bethell, Nicholas (1979). The Palestine Triangle. Andre Deutsch. ^ "A/RES/106 (S-1)". General Assembly resolution. United Nations. 15 May 1947. Archived from the original on 6 August 2012. Retrieved 12 August 2012. ^ "A/364". Special Committee on Palestine. United Nations. 3 September 1947. Archived from the original on 10 June 2012. Retrieved 12 August 2012. ^ "Background Paper No. 47 (ST/DPI/SER.A/47)". United Nations. 20 April 1949. Archived from the original on 3 January 2011. Retrieved 31 July 2007. ^ Hoffman, Bruce: Anonymous Soldiers (2015) ^ "Resolution 181 (II). Future government of Palestine". United Nations. 29 November 1947. Archived from the original on 10 October 2017. Retrieved 21 March 2017. ^ Nathan Thrall, The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine, Henry Holt and Company 2017 ISBN 978-1-627-79710-8 pp. 41,227 n.9. ^ ‘As to territorial boundaries, under the plan the Jewish State was allotted approximately 57 percent of the total area of Palestine even though the Jewish population comprised only 33 percent of the country . In addition, according to British records relied upon by the ad hoc committee, the Jewish population possessed registered ownership of only 5.6 percent of Palestine, and was eclipsed by the Arabs in land ownership in every one of Palestine’s 16 sub-districts- Moreover, the quality of the land granted to the proposed Jewish state was highly skewed in its favour. UNSCOP reported that under its majority plan “[t]he Jews will have the more economically developed part of the country embracing practically the whole of the citrus-producing area”—Palestine’s staple export crop—even though approximately half of the citrus-bearing land was owned by the Arabs. In addition, according to updated British records submitted to the ad hoc committee’s two sub-committees, “of the irrigated, cultivable areas” of the country, 84 per cent would be in the Jewish State and 16 per cent would be in the Arab State”.’ Ardi Imseis, ‘The United Nations Plan of Partition for Palestine Revisited: On the Origins of Palestine’s International Legal Subalternality,’ Stanford Journal of International Law vol.57 no 1 Winter 2021 pp1-54 Pp.13–14. ^ Morris 2008, p. 75: "The night of 29–30 November passed in the Yishuv's settlements in noisy public rejoicing. Most had sat glued to their radio sets broadcasting live from Flushing Meadow. A collective cry of joy went up when the two-thirds mark was achieved: a state had been sanctioned by the international community." ^ a b Morris 2008, p. 396: "The immediate trigger of the 1948 War was the November 1947 UN partition resolution. The Zionist movement, except for its fringes, accepted the proposal." ^ 'Although the Zionists had coveted the whole of Palestine, the Jewish Agency leadership pragmatically, if grudgingly, accepted Resolution 181(II). Although they were of the view that the Jewish national home promised in the Mandate was equivalent to a Jewish state, they well understood that such a claim could not be maintained under prevailing international law..Based on its own terms, it is impossible to escape the conclusion that the partition plan privileged European interests over those of Palestine’s indigenous people and, as such, was an embodiment of the Eurocentricity of the international system that was allegedly a thing of the past. For this reason, the Arabs took a more principled position in line with prevailing international law, rejecting partition outright . .This rejection has disingenuously been presented in some of the literature as indicative of political intransigence,69 and even hostility towards the Jews as Jews'Imseis pp.14–15. ^ Morris 2008, p. 66: at 1946 "The League demanded independence for Palestine as a "unitary" state, with an Arab majority and minority rights for the Jews.", p. 67: at 1947 "The League's Political Committee met in Sofar, Lebanon, on 16–19 September, and urged the Palestine Arabs to fight partition, which it called "aggression," "without mercy." The League promised them, in line with Bludan, assistance "in manpower, money and equipment" should the United Nations endorse partition.", p. 72: at December 1947 "The League vowed, in very general language, "to try to stymie the partition plan and prevent the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine."" ^ Bregman 2002, pp. 40–41. ^ Gelber, Yoav (2006). Palestine 1948. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press. p. 17. ISBN 978-1-902210-67-4. ^ Morris 2008, p. 77–78. ^ Tal, David (2003). War in Palestine, 1948: Israeli and Arab Strategy and Diplomacy. Routledge. p. 471. ISBN 978-0-7146-5275-7. ^ Morris 2008. ^ "Declaration of Establishment of State of Israel". Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 14 May 1948. Archived from the original on 17 March 2017. Retrieved 21 March 2017. ^ Clifford, Clark, "Counsel to the President: A Memoir", 1991, p. 20. ^ Jacobs, Frank (7 August 2012). "The Elephant in the Map Room". Borderlines. The New York Times. Retrieved 3 September 2012. ^ 'The entry into (the) war of the Arab countries poses a complex legal problem. The crossing of the borders can constitute an act of aggression or a threat against peace, justifying a condemnation and an intervention by the United Nations, but if the armies penetrate only the Arab part of the partition plan, they can be considered as called on (to do so) by the population and at this stage their intervention would not in itself be a threat against the peace. That would only start were the Jewish part attacked. Now, the Arab armies do directly threaten Jewish territory at certain points while in others the Jews have already largely taken up positions in Arab territory. ('L'entrée en guerre des pays arabes pose un problem juridique complexe. Le franchissement des frontières peut constituer un acte d'aggression ou une menace contre la paix, justifiant une condannation et une intervention des Nations unies, mais si les armées pénètrent seulement dans la partie arabe du plan de partage, elles peuvent être considérées comme appelées par la population et à ce stade leur intervention ne serait pas par elle-même une menace contre la paix. Elle ne commencerait qu'avec l'attaque de la partie juive. Or, en certains points, les armées arabes menacent directement le territoire juif et dans d'autres les Juifs se sont déjà largement installés en territoire arabe.' Henry Laurens, La Question de Palestine, Fayard Paris 2007 vol.3 p.104 ^ Karsh, Efraim (2002). The Arab–Israeli conflict: The Palestine War 1948. Osprey Publishing. p. 50. ISBN 978-1-84176-372-9. ^ Ben-Sasson 1985, p. 1058 ^ Morris 2008, p. 205. ^ Rabinovich, Itamar; Reinharz, Jehuda (2007). Israel in the Middle East: Documents and Readings on Society, Politics, and Foreign Relations, Pre-1948 to the Present. Brandeis. p. 74. ISBN 978-0-87451-962-4. ^ David Tal (2004). War in Palestine, 1948: Israeli and Arab Strategy and Diplomacy. Routledge. p. 469. ISBN 978-1-135-77513-1. some of the Arab armies invaded Palestine in order to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state, Transjordan... ^ Morris 2008, p. 187: "A week before the armies marched, Azzam told Kirkbride: "It does not matter how many [ Jews] there are. We will sweep them into the sea." ... Ahmed Shukeiry, one of Haj Amin al-Husseini's aides (and, later, the founding chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization), simply described the aim as "the elimination of the Jewish state." ... al-Quwwatli told his people: "Our army has entered ... we shall win and we shall eradicate Zionism"" ^ Morris 2008, p. 198: "the Jews felt that the Arabs aimed to reenact the Holocaust and that they faced certain personal and collective slaughter should they lose" ^ "PDF copy of Cablegram from the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States to the Secretary-General of the United Nations: S/745: 15 May 1948". Un.org. 9 September 2002. Archived from the original on 7 January 2014. Retrieved 13 October 2013. ^ Karsh, Efraim (2002). The Arab–Israeli conflict: The Palestine War 1948. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84176-372-9. ^ Morris, Benny (2004). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge University Press. p. 602. ISBN 978-0-521-00967-6. ^ "עיצוב יחסי יהודים - ערבים בעשור הראשון". lib.cet.ac.il. ^ "Two Hundred and Seventh Plenary Meeting". The United Nations. 11 May 1949. Archived from the original on 12 September 2007. Retrieved 13 July 2007. ^ William Roger Louis (1984). The British Empire in the Middle East, 1945–1951: Arab Nationalism, the United States, and Postwar Imperialism. Clarendon Press. p. 579. ISBN 978-0-19-822960-5. "The transcript makes it clear that British policy acted as a brake on Jordan. "King Abdullah was personally anxious to come to agreement with Israel", Kirkbride stated, "and in fact it was our restraining influence which had so far prevented him from doing so". Knox Helm confirmed that the Israelis hoped to have a settlement with Jordan, and that they now genuinely wished to live peacefully within their frontiers, if only for economic reasons". ^ Lustick 1988, pp. 37–39 ^ "Israel (Labor Zionism)". Country Studies. Retrieved 12 February 2010. ^ Anita Shapira (1992). Land and Power. Stanford University Press. pp. 416, 419. ^ Segev, Tom. 1949: The First Israelis. "The First Million". Trans. Arlen N. Weinstein. New York: The Free Press, 1986. Print. pp. 105–107 ^ Shulewitz, Malka Hillel (2001). The Forgotten Millions: The Modern Jewish Exodus from Arab Lands. Continuum. ISBN 978-0-8264-4764-7. ^ Laskier, Michael "Egyptian Jewry under the Nasser Regime, 1956–70" pp. 573–619 from Middle Eastern Studies, Volume 31, Issue # 3, July 1995 p. 579. ^ "Population, by Religion". Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. 2016. Retrieved 4 September 2016. ^ Bard, Mitchell (2003). The Founding of the State of Israel. Greenhaven Press. p. 15. ^ Hakohen, Devorah (2003). Immigrants in Turmoil: Mass Immigration to Israel and Its Repercussions in the 1950s and After. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 978-0-8156-2969-6.; for ma'abarot population, see p. 269. ^ Clive Jones, Emma Murphy, Israel: Challenges to Identity, Democracy, and the State, Routledge 2002 p. 37: "Housing units earmarked for the Oriental Jews were often reallocated to European Jewish immigrants; Consigning Oriental Jews to the privations of ma'aborot (transit camps) for longer periods." ^ Segev 2007, pp. 155–157 ^ Shindler 2002, pp. 49–50 ^ Kameel B. Nasr (1996). Arab and Israeli Terrorism: The Causes and Effects of Political Violence, 1936–1993. McFarland. pp. 40–. ISBN 978-0-7864-3105-2. Fedayeen to attack...almost always against civilians ^ Gilbert 2005, p. 58 ^ Isaac Alteras (1993). Eisenhower and Israel: U.S.-Israeli Relations, 1953–1960. University Press of Florida. pp. 192–. ISBN 978-0-8130-1205-6. the removal of the Egyptian blockade of the Straits of Tiran at the entrance of the Gulf of Aqaba. The blockade closed Israel's sea lane to East Africa and the Far East, hindering the development of Israel's southern port of Eilat and its hinterland, the Nege. Another important objective of the Israeli war plan was the elimination of the terrorist bases in the Gaza Strip, from which daily fedayeen incursions into Israel made life unbearable for its southern population. And last but not least, the concentration of the Egyptian forces in the Sinai Peninsula, armed with the newly acquired weapons from the Soviet bloc, prepared for an attack on Israel. Here, Ben-Gurion believed, was a time bomb that had to be defused before it was too late. Reaching the Suez Canal did not figure at all in Israel's war objectives. ^ Dominic Joseph Caraccilo (2011). Beyond Guns and Steel: A War Termination Strategy. ABC-CLIO. pp. 113–. ISBN 978-0-313-39149-1. The escalation continued with the Egyptian blockade of the Straits of Tiran, and Nasser's nationalization of the Suez Canal in July 1956. On October 14, Nasser made clear his intent:"I am not solely fighting against Israel itself. My task is to deliver the Arab world from destruction through Israel's intrigue, which has its roots abroad. Our hatred is very strong. There is no sense in talking about peace with Israel. There is not even the smallest place for negotiations." Less than two weeks later, on October 25, Egypt signed a tripartite agreement with Syria and Jordan placing Nasser in command of all three armies. The continued blockade of the Suez Canal and Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli shipping, combined with the increased fedayeen attacks and the bellicosity of recent Arab statements, prompted Israel, with the backing of Britain and France, to attack Egypt on October 29, 1956. ^ Alan Dowty (2005). Israel/Palestine. Polity. pp. 102–. ISBN 978-0-7456-3202-5. Gamal Abdel Nasser, who declared in one speech that "Egypt has decided to dispatch her heroes, the disciples of Pharaoh and the sons of Islam and they will cleanse the land of Palestine....There will be no peace on Israel's border because we demand vengeance, and vengeance is Israel's death."...The level of violence against Israelis, soldiers and civilians alike, seemed to be rising inexorably. ^ "Suez Crisis: Key players". 21 July 2006. Retrieved 19 July 2018. ^ Schoenherr, Steven (15 December 2005). "The Suez Crisis". Retrieved 31 May 2013. ^ Gorst, Anthony; Johnman, Lewis (1997). The Suez Crisis. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-11449-3. ^ Benny Morris (25 May 2011). Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–1998. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. pp. 300, 301. ISBN 978-0-307-78805-4. [p. 300] In exchange (for Israeli withdrawal) the United states had indirectly promised to guarantee Israel's right of passage through the straits (to the Red sea) and its right to self defense if the Egyptian closed them....(p 301) The 1956 war resulted in a significant reduction of...Israeli border tension. Egypt refrained from reactivating the Fedaeen, and...Egypt and Jordan made great effort to curb infiltration ^ Bascomb 2009, p. 219–229. ^ Cole 2003, p. 27. "... the Eichmann trial, which did so much to raise public awareness of the Holocaust ..." ^ Shlomo Shpiro (2006). "No place to hide: Intelligence and civil liberties in Israel". Cambridge Review of International Affairs. 19 (44): 629–648. doi:10.1080/09557570601003361. S2CID 144734253. ^ Cohen, Avner (3 May 2019). "How a Standoff with the U.S. Almost Blew up Israel's Nuclear Program". Haaretz. ^ "The Battle of the Letters, 1963: John F. Kennedy, David Ben-Gurion, Levi Eshkol, and the U.S. Inspections of Dimona | National Security Archive". 29 April 2019. ^ "The Politics of Miscalculation in the Middle East", by Richard B. Parker (1993 Indiana University Press) p. 38 ^ Gilbert 2005, p. 1 ^ Maoz, Moshe (1995). Syria and Israel: From War to Peacemaking. Oxford University Press. p. 70. ISBN 978-0-19-828018-7. ^ "On This Day 5 Jun". BBC. 5 June 1967. Retrieved 26 December 2011. ^ Segev 2007, p. 178 ^ Gat, Moshe (2003). Britain and the Conflict in the Middle East, 1964–1967: The Coming of the Six-Day War. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 202. ISBN 978-0-275-97514-2. ^ John Quigley, The Six-Day War and Israeli Self-Defense: Questioning the Legal Basis for Preventive War, Cambridge University Press, 2013, p. 32. ^ Samir A. Mutawi (2002). Jordan in the 1967 War. Cambridge University Press. p. 93. ISBN 978-0-521-52858-0. Although Eshkol denounced the Egyptians, his response to this development was a model of moderation. 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Negotiating Arab-Israeli peace: American leadership in the Middle East. United States Institute of Peace Press. p. 44. ISBN 978-1-60127-030-6. ^ Cleveland, William L. (1999). A history of the modern Middle East. Westview Press. p. 494. ISBN 978-0-8133-3489-9. ^ "Israel marks Rabin assassination". BBC News. 12 November 2005. ^ Bregman 2002, p. 257. ^ "The Wye River Memorandum". U.S. Department of State. 23 October 1998. Retrieved 30 March 2010. ^ Gelvin 2005, p. 240 ^ Sela-Shayovitz, R. (2007). Suicide bombers in Israel: Their motivations, characteristics, and prior activity in terrorist organizations. International Journal of Conflict and Violence (IJCV), 1(2), 163. "The period of the second Intifada significantly differs from other historical periods in Israeli history, because it has been characterized by intensive and numerous suicide attacks that have made civilian life into a battlefront." ^ Gross, Tom (16 January 2014). "The big myth: that he caused the Second Intifada". The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 22 April 2016. ^ Hong, Nicole (23 February 2015). "Jury Finds Palestinian Authority, PLO Liable for Terrorist Attacks in Israel a Decade Ago". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 22 April 2016. ^ Ain, Stewart (20 December 2000). "PA: Intifada Was Planned". The Jewish Week. Archived from the original on 13 October 2007. ^ Samuels, David (1 September 2005). "In a Ruined Country". The Atlantic. Retrieved 27 March 2013. ^ "West Bank barrier route disputed, Israeli missile kills 2". USA Today. 29 July 2004. Archived from the original on 20 October 2012. Retrieved 1 October 2012. ^ Harel, Amos; Issacharoff, Avi (1 October 2010). "Years of rage". Haaretz. Retrieved 12 August 2012. ^ King, Laura (28 September 2004). "Losing Faith in the Intifada". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 12 August 2012.; Diehl, Jackson (27 September 2004). "From Jenin To Fallujah?". The Washington Post. Retrieved 12 August 2012.; Amidror, Yaakov. "Winning Counterinsurgency War: The Israeli Experience" (PDF). Strategic Perspectives. Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Retrieved 12 August 2012.; Frisch, Hillel (12 January 2009). "The Need for a Decisive Israeli Victory Over Hamas". Perspectives Papers on Current Affairs. Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. Archived from the original on 14 June 2012. Retrieved 12 August 2012.; Buchris, Ofek (9 March 2006). "The "Defensive Shield" Operation as a Turning Point in Israel's National Security Strategy". Strategy Research Project. United States Army War College. Retrieved 12 August 2012.; Krauthammer, Charles (18 June 2004). "Israel's Intifada Victory". The Washington Post. Retrieved 12 August 2012.; Plocker, Sever (22 June 2008). "2nd Intifada forgotten". Ynetnews. Retrieved 12 August 2012.; Ya'alon, Moshe (January 2007). "Lessons from the Palestinian 'War' against Israel" (PDF). Policy Focus. Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 August 2012. Retrieved 12 August 2012.; Hendel, Yoaz (20 September 2010). "Letting the IDF win". Ynetnews. Retrieved 12 August 2012.; Zvi Shtauber; Yiftah Shapir (2006). The Middle East strategic balance, 2004–2005. Sussex Academic Press. p. 7. ISBN 978-1-84519-108-5. Retrieved 12 February 2012. ^ "Fatalities before Operation "Cast Lead"". B'Tselem. Retrieved 14 January 2017. ^ "Security Council Calls for End to Hostilities between Hizbollah, Israel, Unanimously Adopting Resolution 1701 (2006)". United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701. 11 August 2006.
    Escalation of hostilities in Lebanon and in Israel since Hizbollah's attack on Israel on 12 July 2006
    ^ Harel, Amos (13 July 2006). "Hezbollah kills 8 soldiers, kidnaps two in offensive on northern border". Haaretz. Retrieved 20 March 2012. ^ Koutsoukis, Jason (5 January 2009). "Battleground Gaza: Israeli ground forces invade the strip". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 5 January 2009. ^ Ravid, Barak (18 January 2009). "IDF begins Gaza troop withdrawal, hours after ending 3-week offensive". Haaretz. Retrieved 20 March 2012. ^ Azoulay, Yuval (1 January 2009). "Two IDF soldiers, civilian lightly hurt as Gaza mortars hit Negev". Haaretz. Retrieved 20 March 2012. ^ Lappin, Yaakov; Lazaroff, Tovah (12 November 2012). "Gaza groups pound Israel with over 100 rockets". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 27 March 2013. ^ Stephanie Nebehay (20 November 2012). "UN rights boss, Red Cross urge Israel, Hamas to spare civilians". Reuters. Retrieved 20 November 2012.; al-Mughrabi, Nidal (24 November 2012). "Hamas leader defiant as Israel eases Gaza curbs". Reuters. Retrieved 8 February 2013.; "Israeli air strike kills top Hamas commander Jabari". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 14 November 2012. ^ "Israel and Hamas Trade Attacks as Tension Rises". The New York Times. 8 July 2014. ^ "Israel and Hamas agree Gaza truce, Biden pledges assistance". Reuters. 21 May 2021.


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Stay safe
  •  
    Stay safe

    Emergency phone numbers:

    Police (mish-ta-RA) — 100 Ambulance Service ("Magen David Adom"-MADA, literally "Red Star of David") — 101 Fire department (me-kha-BEY ESH) — 102

    Particularly when there is no fighting on the Lebanese or Gaza Strip borders, travel to Israel is quite safe, and crime rates are well below those found in most other Western countries. Having said this, buses and bus stops have been targeted by Palestinian terrorists since the early 1990s, though this became unusual after construction of the West Bank security barrier was initiated in 2005. Some Palestinians have deliberately driven cars or other vehicles into crowds waiting for the Jerusalem Light Rail, for example. However, statistically, the chances of being involved in a traffic accident are much higher than the chances of being involved in an attack.

    It is still a good idea to stay informed of developments before and during your stay. Caution should be used particularly in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and areas surrounding the Gaza Strip (particularly the cities of Sderot and Ashkelon, which have been targeted by rockets from the Strip). If you see anyone acting suspiciously, or find an unattended parcel, notify the police. Also, never leave a bag unattended in a public area, as it may be suspected as a bomb.

    Police in Israel wear light blue or very dark navy clothing with flat caps, while Israeli Border Police (similar in function to Gendarmerie) wear dark grey uniforms with green berets or police ball caps. It is not unusual to see plenty of soldiers (and sometimes civilians) carrying firearms (military rifles and handguns) in public. Most of these soldiers are simply on leave from their base. Soldiers have no authority over civilians, except in specially designated zones near borders or military bases, where they are allowed to detain you until the arrival of a police officer.

    In terms of typical crime, Israel is a very safe country with one of the lowest crime rates in the world. You can walk around the cities and towns at night without fear, as mugging and drunken violence are rare. Single women should still take care late at night, but the risks here are far lower than practically anywhere in Europe and America.

    It is very common (even required by law) to see private armed security guards at every public doorway (for malls, stores, restaurants, etc.). The guards ask to look in your bags and may use a metal-detector on your body. When entering underground parking lots, the trunk of your car will be inspected. Do not be alarmed: this is just national policy. If you carry a huge backpack, you can often get away with showing a passport, and the guards will be just as relieved as you.

    ...Read more
     
    Stay safe

    Emergency phone numbers:

    Police (mish-ta-RA) — 100 Ambulance Service ("Magen David Adom"-MADA, literally "Red Star of David") — 101 Fire department (me-kha-BEY ESH) — 102

    Particularly when there is no fighting on the Lebanese or Gaza Strip borders, travel to Israel is quite safe, and crime rates are well below those found in most other Western countries. Having said this, buses and bus stops have been targeted by Palestinian terrorists since the early 1990s, though this became unusual after construction of the West Bank security barrier was initiated in 2005. Some Palestinians have deliberately driven cars or other vehicles into crowds waiting for the Jerusalem Light Rail, for example. However, statistically, the chances of being involved in a traffic accident are much higher than the chances of being involved in an attack.

    It is still a good idea to stay informed of developments before and during your stay. Caution should be used particularly in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and areas surrounding the Gaza Strip (particularly the cities of Sderot and Ashkelon, which have been targeted by rockets from the Strip). If you see anyone acting suspiciously, or find an unattended parcel, notify the police. Also, never leave a bag unattended in a public area, as it may be suspected as a bomb.

    Police in Israel wear light blue or very dark navy clothing with flat caps, while Israeli Border Police (similar in function to Gendarmerie) wear dark grey uniforms with green berets or police ball caps. It is not unusual to see plenty of soldiers (and sometimes civilians) carrying firearms (military rifles and handguns) in public. Most of these soldiers are simply on leave from their base. Soldiers have no authority over civilians, except in specially designated zones near borders or military bases, where they are allowed to detain you until the arrival of a police officer.

    In terms of typical crime, Israel is a very safe country with one of the lowest crime rates in the world. You can walk around the cities and towns at night without fear, as mugging and drunken violence are rare. Single women should still take care late at night, but the risks here are far lower than practically anywhere in Europe and America.

    It is very common (even required by law) to see private armed security guards at every public doorway (for malls, stores, restaurants, etc.). The guards ask to look in your bags and may use a metal-detector on your body. When entering underground parking lots, the trunk of your car will be inspected. Do not be alarmed: this is just national policy. If you carry a huge backpack, you can often get away with showing a passport, and the guards will be just as relieved as you.

    Israel's relations with its neighbors should always be something that a traveler should be familiar with, as evidenced by the Israeli–Lebanese conflict of 2006. Despite the current ceasefire there remains a low danger that the conflict will again erupt. Israel has stable relations with both Egypt and Jordan, with which Israel signed peace treaties in 1979 and 1994 respectively. The frontier between the Israeli-ruled part of the Golan Heights and Syria has also generally been quiet since 1974, but there have been attempts by Hezbollah to place missile batteries in the Syrian-controlled part of the Golan Heights, and some stray rockets from the Syrian civil war have hit the Israeli-controlled part of the Golan Heights.

    Fighting and hostilities resumed in mid-2014 between Israel and Hamas Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip, affirming that all travel to the Gaza Strip area should be avoided, and in the past several noted foreigners (even volunteers) have been kidnapped by armed militants during escalations. Israel does not allow travel to the Strip; the only way in is via Egypt. And even then, Egypt keeps the border shut most of the time. You might have better luck if you're a journalist, though.

    Because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Muslim-Jewish disputes over the status of the Temple Mount/Haram el-Sharif, violent clashes can sometimes break out in and around that holy place, and that these often include stones being thrown at Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall below. Check on current conditions before going to that part of the Old City of Jerusalem.

    Hiking trails in southern Israel (and in the Golan) are adjacent to military fire practice areas. If you are not certain where you are going, do not hike in this region. These firing areas are marked on the official hiking maps.

    On a similar note, especially near border areas, hiking or leaving the roadways, be aware of standing and/or fallen fences with a sign (yellow with a red triangle on it). These areas are considered off limits due to the possibility of land mines being present. It could take another 100 years to clear out all those areas. Also refer to War zone safety article for more information.

    If it's raining or there's a possibility of rain in the area, do not hike in or near rivers or in the desert. Flash floods are common and dangerous. They are very sudden. If you're hiking in a river bed or in a low area and it starts raining, immediately seek higher ground. Stay away from river banks next to fast moving waters as they tend to collapse unexpectedly.

    Rocket attacks

    A rising-and-falling siren alarm is activated after detecting that rockets have been fired towards Israel. Israel's "Iron Dome" launches missiles to intercept incoming rockets, but only when they are headed toward populated areas. Also, it is not 100% effective, and even when it registers a "hit" it creates shrapnel which eventually reaches the ground. As a general rule, the closer you are to the Gaza Strip the less time you have following the siren. If you are in a town bordering Gaza, for example, you only have fifteen seconds before the rocket lands.

    You can also download an app onto your phone that will send you an alert: Tzofar-Red Alert and Red Alert:Israel are both great choices.

    When an alarm sounds, you must take cover in a shelter. About half of all buildings in Israel have one, and there are public shelters available in many common areas within Israeli cities. If you are in public, look for where other people go. If you are in a building, be sure to note where your nearest shelter is.

    If there is no nearby shelter, head for a building, and place yourself as far as you can from windows, or other fragile objects near the windows. If no building is nearby, lie down on your belly and put your hands on your head.

    Make sure to check the calendar for memorial days, when a commemoration siren is heard on 10:00 for 2 minutes during Holocaust Remembrance Day, and on Yom-Hazikaron on 20:00 for one minute and on 11:00 for two more minutes. Commemoration sirens don't rise and fall. In general, behave the way others around you do.

    The most powerful rockets launched from the Strip are capable of hitting nearly anywhere in the country, but most of the rockets impact within a radius between Ashkelon in the west, Jerusalem in the east, Beersheba in the south, and Tel Aviv in the north. If you are within this area, be alert. Even if you are outside of this radius be vigilant, as rockets from Gaza have hit Haifa, the Negev desert, and even the West Bank in the past.

    Gay and lesbian
     
     
    Tel Aviv Gay Pride Parade 2014

    Unlike many parts of the Middle East, homosexuality is legal in Israel. In fact, some gay rights advances happened in Israel earlier than in Western countries such as the US. Attitudes towards homosexuality will vary depending on where you go, but in general, Israel is considered safe for gays and lesbians, as violence is rare and open disapproval is mostly confined to certain parts of Jerusalem and/or religious neighborhoods.

    All 3 major cities (Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa) have an annual "Pride" parade, and the annual Love Parade in Tel Aviv gets cheering spectators too. Though Jerusalem has an annual pride parade, it is not very common to see openly gay people in Jerusalem, and you should avoid openly showing your sexual orientation in most public places in Jerusalem or other visibly religious places. In general just try to avoid public displays of homosexual affection or conversation in a direct or suggestive manner in Jerusalem. While anything serious is unlikely to happen to you, it will draw stares and identify you as a "tourist" at the very least.

    On the other hand, Tel Aviv is very liberal and gay friendly. It is common to see same-sex couples show affection in public areas. Tel Aviv was declared as the world's best gay travel destination for 2012 in a survey carried out by American Airlines and GayCities.com for good reason: there are many gay friendly places around the city, considered a stronghold of the gay community in Israel. Tel Aviv's nights are full of hundreds of passionate, energetic pubs, bars and dance clubs that are open till dawn. The city is active in all areas of entertainment, and is highly recommended for tourists looking for exciting nightlife in general, and exciting gay nightlife in particular. There is a reason for the old adage "Jerusalem prays, Haifa works and Tel Aviv dances" after all.

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16 things to do in Israel

Phrasebook

Forbidden
אסור
You're welcome
בבקשה
Beer
בירה
Men
גברים
Wifi
וויי - פיי
Exit
יְצִיאָה
Entrance
כְּנִיסָה
Push
לִדחוֹף
Open
לִפְתוֹחַ
Drink
לִשְׁתוֹת
What's your name?
מה שמך?
Food
מזון

Where can you sleep near Israel ?

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