Israel - Wikipedia

Israel,¹ officially the State of Israel,² is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. It shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. It occupies the Palestinian territories of the West Bank in the east and the Gaza Strip in the south-west, as well as the Syrian Golan Heights in the northeast. Israel also has a small coastline on the Red Sea at its southernmost point, and part of the Dead Sea lies along its eastern border. Its proclaimed capital is Jerusalem,³ while Tel Aviv is its largest urban area and economic centre.

Israel is located in a region known as the Land of Israel, synonymous with Canaan, the Holy Land, the Palestine region, and Judea. In antiquity it was home to the Canaanite civilisation, followed by the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Situated at a continental crossroad, the region experienced demographic changes under the rule of empires from the Romans to the Ottomans. European antisemitism in the late 19th century galvanised Zionism, which sought to establish a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine and gained British support with the Balfour Declaration. After World War I, Britain occupied the region and established Mandatory Palestine in 1920. Increased Jewish immigration in the lead-up to the Holocaust and British foreign policy in the Middle East led to intercommunal conflict between Jews and Arabs,⁴ ⁵ which escalated into a civil war in 1947 after the United Nations (UN) proposed partitioning the land between them.

After the end of the British Mandate for Palestine, Israel declared independence on 14 May 1948. Neighbouring Arab states invaded the area the next day, beginning the First Arab–Israeli War. An armistice in 1949 left Israel in control of more territory than the UN partition plan had called for;⁶ and no new independent Arab state was created as the rest of the former Mandate territory was held by Egypt and Jordan, respectively the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.⁶ ⁷ ⁸ The majority of Palestinian Arabs either fled or were expelled in what is known as the Nakba, with those remaining becoming the new state’s main minority.⁹ ¹⁰ ¹¹ Over the following decades, Israel’s population increased greatly as the country received an influx of Jews who emigrated, fled or were expelled from the Arab world.¹² ¹³

Following the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Egyptian Sinai Peninsula and Syrian Golan Heights. After the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israel signed peace treaties with Egypt —returning the Sinai in 1982— and Jordan. In 1993, Israel signed the Oslo Accords, which established mutual recognition and limited Palestinian self-governance in parts of the West Bank and Gaza. In the 2020s, it normalised relations with several more Arab countries via the Abraham Accords. However, efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict after the interim Oslo Accords have not succeeded, and the country has engaged in several wars and clashes with Palestinian militant groups. Israel established and continues to expand settlements across the illegally occupied territories, contrary to international law, and has effectively annexed East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights in moves largely unrecognised internationally. Israel’s practices in its occupation of the Palestinian territories have drawn sustained international criticism —along with accusations that it has committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide against the Palestinian people —from experts, human rights organisations and UN officials.

The country’s Basic Laws establish a parliament elected by proportional representation, the Knesset, which determines the makeup of the government headed by the prime minister and elects the figurehead president.¹⁴ Israel has one of the largest economies in the Middle East,¹⁵ one of the highest standards of living in Asia, the world’s 26th-largest economy by nominal GDP and 16th by nominal GDP per capita.¹⁶ ¹⁷ One of the most technologically advanced and developed countries globally, Israel spends proportionally more on research and development than any other country in the world.¹⁸ ¹⁹ It is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons. Israeli culture comprises Jewish and Jewish diaspora elements alongside Arab influences.

Etymology

The names Land of Israel and Children of Israel have historically been used to refer to the biblical Kingdom of Israel and the entire Jewish people respectively. The name Israel (Hebrew: Yīsrāʾēl; Septuagint Ancient Greek: Ἰσραήλ, Israēl, ” El (God) persists/rules”) refers to the patriarch Jacob who, according to the Hebrew Bible, was given the name after he successfully wrestled with the Angel of the Lord.²⁰ The earliest known archaeological artefact to mention the word Israel as a collective is the Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt (dated to the late-13th century BCE).²¹ ²² ²³ ²⁴ ²⁵

Under the British Mandate (1920–1948), the entire region was known as Palestine.²⁶ Upon establishment in 1948, the country formally adopted the name State of Israel (Hebrew: מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, Medīnat Yisrā’el [mediˈnatjisʁaˈʔel]; Arabic: دَوْلَة إِسْرَائِيل, Dawlat Isrāʼīl, [dawlatʔisraːˈʔiːl]) after other proposed names including Land of Israel (Eretz Israel), Ever (from ancestor Eber), Zion, and Judea, were considered but rejected.²⁷ The name Israel was suggested by David Ben-Gurion and passed by a vote of 6–3.²⁸ In the early weeks after establishment, the government chose the term Israeli to denote a citizen of the state.²⁹

History

Prehistory

The Ubeidiya prehistoric site in Israel indicates the presence of archaic humans around 1.5 million years ago.³⁰ The second-oldest evidence of anatomically modern humans found outside Africa is a 200,000-year-old fossil from Misliya Cave.³¹ The Natufian culture (c. 10,000 BCE) introduced sedentism and may have been linked to Proto-Afroasiatic language.³² ³³ The beginning of agriculture in the region during the Neolithic Revolution is evidenced by sites such as Nahal Oren.³⁴

Tel Megiddo, the ruins of a Canaanite and later Israelite city

Early references to ” Canaan ” and “Canaanites” appear in ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian texts (c. 2000 BCE); these populations were structured as politically independent city-states.³⁵ ³⁶ During the Late Bronze Age (1550–1200 BCE), large parts of Canaan formed vassal states of the New Kingdom of Egypt.³⁷ As a result of the Late Bronze Age collapse, Canaan fell into chaos, and Egyptian control over the region collapsed.³⁸ ³⁹ Ancestors of the Israelites are thought to have included ancient Semitic-speaking peoples native to this area.⁴⁰^: 78–79 Modern archaeological accounts suggest that the Israelites and their culture branched out of the Canaanite peoples through the development of a distinct monolatristic —and later monotheistic —religion centered on Yahweh.⁴¹ ⁴² They spoke an archaic form of Hebrew, known as Biblical Hebrew.⁴³ Around the same time, the Philistines settled on the southern coastal plain.⁴⁴ ⁴⁵

Most modern scholars agree that the Exodus narrative in the Torah and Old Testament did not take place as depicted; however, some elements of these traditions do have historical roots.⁴⁶ ⁴⁷ 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 a United Kingdom of Israel,⁴⁸ ⁴⁹ historians and archaeologists agree that the northern Kingdom of Israel existed by ca. 900 BCE ⁵⁰^{: 169–195} and the Kingdom of Judah by ca. 850 BCE.⁵¹ ⁵² The Kingdom of Israel was the more prosperous of the two and soon developed into a regional power, with a capital at Samaria;⁵³ ⁵⁴ ⁵⁵ during the Omride dynasty, it controlled Samaria, Galilee, the upper Jordan Valley, the plain of Sharon and large parts of Transjordan.⁵⁴

The Kingdom of Israel was conquered around 720 BCE by the Neo-Assyrian Empire.⁵⁶ The Kingdom of Judah, under Davidic rule with its capital in Jerusalem, later became a client state of first the Neo-Assyrian Empire and then the Neo-Babylonian Empire. It is estimated that the region’s population was around 400,000 in the Iron Age II.⁵⁷ In 587/6 BCE, following a revolt in Judah, King Nebuchadnezzar II besieged and destroyed Jerusalem and Solomon’s Temple,⁵⁸ ⁵⁹ dissolved the kingdom and exiled much of the Judean elite to Babylon.⁶⁰

Classical antiquity

After capturing Babylon in 539 BCE, Cyrus the Great, founder of the Achaemenid Empire, issued a proclamation allowing the exiled Judean population to return.⁶¹ ⁶² The construction of the Second Temple was completed c. 520 BCE.⁶¹ The Achaemenids ruled the region as the province of Yehud Medinata.⁶³ In 332 BCE, Alexander the Great conquered the region as part of his campaign against the Achaemenid Empire. After his death, the area was controlled by the Ptolemaic and Seleucid empires as a part of Coele-Syria. Over the ensuing centuries, the Hellenisation of the region led to cultural tensions that came to a head during the reign of Antiochus IV, giving rise to the Maccabean Revolt of 167 BCE. The civil unrest weakened Seleucid rule, and in the late 2nd century the semi-autonomous Hasmonean Kingdom of Judea arose, eventually attaining full independence and expanding into neighboring regions.⁶⁴ ⁶⁵ ⁶⁶

View of the Masada fortress overlooking the Dead Sea, which is the location of a 1st-century Roman siege

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 annexed as the Roman province of Judaea; tensions with Roman rule 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.⁶⁷

A second uprising known as the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE) initially allowed the Jews to form an independent state, but the Romans brutally crushed the rebellion, devastating and depopulating Judea’s countryside.⁶⁷ ⁶⁸ ⁶⁹ ⁷⁰ ⁷¹ Jerusalem was rebuilt as a Roman colony (Aelia Capitolina), and the province of Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina.⁷² ⁷³ Jews were expelled from the districts surrounding Jerusalem.⁷⁰ ⁷⁴ Nevertheless, there was a continuous small Jewish presence, and Galilee became its religious center.⁷⁵ ⁷⁶

3rd-century Kfar Bar’am synagogue in the Galilee 102

Early Christianity displaced Roman paganism in the 4th century CE, with Constantine embracing and promoting the Christian religion and Theodosius I making it the state religion. A series of laws were passed that discriminated against Jews and Judaism, and Jews were persecuted by both the church and the authorities.⁷⁷ Many Jews had emigrated to flourishing diaspora communities,⁷⁸ while locally there was both Christian immigration and local conversion. By the middle of the 5th century, there was a Christian majority.⁷⁹ ⁸⁰ 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.⁸¹ 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 628.⁸²

In 634–641 CE, the Rashidun Caliphate conquered the Levant.⁷⁸ ⁸³ ⁸⁴ Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab (r. 634–644) lifted the Christian ban on Jews entering Jerusalem and permitted them to worship there.⁸⁵ Over the next six centuries, control of the region transferred between the Umayyad, Abbasid, and Fatimid caliphates, and subsequently the Seljuk and Ayyubid dynasties.⁸⁶ The population 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, and there was steady Arabisation and Islamisation.⁸⁷ ⁵⁷ ⁸³ ⁸⁴ ⁸⁸ 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.⁸⁹ The Ayyubids pushed back the crusaders before Muslim rule was fully restored by the Mamluk sultans of Egypt in 1291.⁹⁰

Jews at the Western Wall in the 1870s

In 1516, the Ottoman Empire conquered the region and ruled it as part of Ottoman Syria.⁹¹ ⁸⁷ Two violent incidents took place against Jews, the 1517 Safed attacks and the 1517 Hebron attacks, after the Turkish Ottomans ousted the Mamluks during the Ottoman–Mamluk War.⁹² ⁹³ Under the Ottoman Empire, the Levant was fairly cosmopolitan, with religious freedoms for Christians, Muslims, and Jews. In 1561 the Ottoman sultan invited Sephardi Jews escaping the Spanish Inquisition to settle in and rebuild the city of Tiberias.⁹⁴ ⁹⁵

Under the Ottoman Empire’s millet system, Christians and Jews were considered dhimmi (“protected”) under Ottoman law in exchange for loyalty to the state and payment of the jizya tax.⁹⁶ ⁹⁷ Non-Muslim Ottoman subjects faced geographic and lifestyle restrictions, though these were not always enforced.⁹⁸ ⁹⁹ ¹⁰⁰ The millet system organised non-Muslims into autonomous communities on the basis of religion.¹⁰¹

The First Zionist Congress (1897) in Basel, Switzerland

The concept of the “return” remained a symbol within religious Jewish belief which emphasised that their return should be determined by Divine Providence rather than human action.¹⁰² Leading Zionist historian Shlomo Avineri describes this connection: “Jews did not relate to the vision of the Return in a more active way than most Christians viewed the Second Coming.” The religious Judaic notion of being a nation was distinct from the modern European notion of nationalism.¹⁰³ The Jewish population of Palestine from the Ottoman rule to the beginning of the Zionist movement, known as the Old Yishuv, comprised a minority and fluctuated in size. 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 1,500 Jews to Jerusalem.¹⁰⁴ A 1660 Druze revolt against the Ottomans destroyed Safed and Tiberias.⁹¹ In the second half of the 18th century, Eastern European Jews who were opponents of Hasidism, known as the Perushim, settled in Palestine.¹⁰⁵ ¹⁰⁶

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. After Zahir’s death the Ottomans regained control of the area. In 1799, governor Jazzar Pasha repelled an assault on Acre by Napoleon ‘s troops, prompting the French to abandon the Syrian campaign.¹⁰⁷ In 1834, a revolt by Palestinian Arab peasants against Egyptian conscription and taxation policies under Muhammad Ali was suppressed; Muhammad Ali’s army retreated and Ottoman rule was restored with British support in 1840.¹⁰⁸ The Tanzimat reforms were implemented across the Ottoman Empire.

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.¹⁰⁹ The 1882 May Laws increased economic discrimination against Jews, and restricted where they could live.¹¹⁰ ¹¹¹ In response, political Zionism took form, a movement that sought to establish a Jewish state in Palestine, thus offering a solution to the Jewish question of the European states.¹¹² Antisemitism, pogroms and official policies in tsarist Russia led to the emigration of three million Jews in the years between 1882 and 1914, only 1% of whom went to Palestine. Those who went to Palestine were driven primarily by ideas of self-determination and Jewish identity, rather than as a response to pogroms or economic insecurity.¹⁰²

The Second Aliyah (1904–1914) began after the Kishinev pogrom; some 40,000 Jews settled in Palestine, although nearly half left eventually. Both the first and second waves of migrants were mainly Orthodox Jews.¹¹³ The Second Aliyah included Zionist socialist groups who established the kibbutz movement based on the idea of establishing a separate Jewish economy based exclusively on Jewish labour.¹¹⁴ ¹¹⁵ Those of the Second Aliyah who became leaders of the Yishuv in the coming decades believed that the Jewish settler economy should not depend on Arab labour. This would be a dominant source of antagonism with the Arab population, with the new Yishuv’s nationalist ideology overpowering its socialist one.¹¹⁶ Though the immigrants of the Second Aliyah largely sought to create communal Jewish agricultural settlements, Tel Aviv was established as the first planned Jewish town in 1909. Jewish armed militias emerged during this period, the first being Bar-Giora in 1907. Two years later, the larger Hashomer organisation was founded as its replacement.

Chaim Weizmann ‘s efforts to garner British support for the Zionist movement eventually secured the Balfour Declaration of 1917,¹¹⁷ stating Britain’s support for the creation of a Jewish ” national home ” in Palestine.¹¹⁸ ¹¹⁹ Weizmann’s interpretation of the declaration was that negotiations on the future of the country were to happen directly between Britain and the Jews, excluding Arabs. Jewish-Arab relations in Palestine deteriorated dramatically in the following years.¹²⁰

In 1918, the Jewish Legion, primarily Zionist volunteers, assisted in the British conquest of Palestine.¹²¹ In 1920, the territory was divided between Britain and France under the mandate system, and the British-administered area (including modern Israel) was named Mandatory Palestine.⁹⁰ ¹²² ¹²³ 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 as an outgrowth of Hashomer, from which the Irgun and Lehi paramilitaries later split.¹²⁴ 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.¹²⁵ The population of the area was predominantly Arab and Muslim, with Jews accounting for about 11% ¹²⁶ and Arab Christians about 9.5% of the population.¹²⁷

“Jews and Arabs in Grim Struggle for Holy Land”, article from 1938

The Third (1919–1923) and Fourth Aliyahs (1924–1929) 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 suppressed by British security forces and Zionist militias. Several hundred British security personnel and Jews were killed; 5,032 Arabs were killed, 14,760 wounded, and 12,622 detained.¹²⁸ ¹²⁹ ¹³⁰ An estimated ten percent of the adult male Palestinian Arab population was killed, wounded, imprisoned, or exiled.¹³¹

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 organised to bring Jews to Palestine. By the end of World War II, 31% of the population of Palestine was Jewish.¹³² The UK found itself facing a Jewish insurgency over immigration restrictions and continued conflict with the Arab community over limit levels. The Haganah joined Irgun and Lehi in an armed struggle against British rule.¹³³ The Haganah attempted to bring tens of thousands of Jewish refugees and Holocaust survivors to Palestine by ship. Most of the ships were intercepted by the Royal Navy and the refugees placed in detention camps in Atlit and Cyprus.¹³⁴ ¹³⁵

UN Map, “Palestine plan of partition with economic union”

On 22 July 1946, Irgun bombed the British administrative headquarters for Palestine, killing 91.¹³⁶ ¹³⁷ ¹³⁸ ¹³⁹ The attack was a response to Operation Agatha (a series of raids, including one on the Jewish Agency, by the British) and was the deadliest directed at the British during the Mandate era.¹³⁸ ¹³⁹ The Jewish insurgency continued throughout 1946 and 1947 despite concerted efforts by the British military and Palestine Police Force to suppress it. British efforts to mediate 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 UN General Assembly resolved that a Special Committee be created “to prepare… a report on the question of Palestine”.¹⁴⁰ The Report of the Committee ¹⁴¹ 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”.¹⁴² 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. After the executions were carried out, the Irgun killed the two British soldiers, hanged their bodies from trees, and left a booby trap at the scene which injured a British soldier. The incident caused widespread outrage in the UK.¹⁴³ In September 1947, the British cabinet decided to evacuate Palestine as the Mandate was no longer tenable.¹⁴⁴

On 29 November 1947, the General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 (II).¹⁴⁵ The plan attached to the resolution was essentially that proposed in the report of 3 September. The Jewish Agency, the recognised representative of the Jewish community, accepted the plan, which assigned 55–56% of Mandatory Palestine to the Jews. At the time, the Jews were about a third of the population and owned around 6–7% of the land. Arabs constituted the majority and owned about 20% of the land, with the remainder held by the Mandate authorities or foreign landowners.¹⁴⁶ ¹⁴⁷ ¹⁴⁸ The Arab League and Arab Higher Committee of Palestine rejected it on the basis that the partition plan privileged European interests over those of the Palestinians,¹⁴⁹ and indicated that they would reject any other plan of partition.¹⁵⁰ ¹⁵¹ On 1 December 1947, the Arab Higher Committee proclaimed a three-day strike, and riots broke out in Jerusalem.¹⁵² The situation spiraled into a civil war. 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.¹⁵³ ¹⁵⁴

David Ben-Gurion declaring the establishment of Israel on 14 May 1948

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”.¹⁵⁵ The following day, the armies of four Arab countries—Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, and Iraq—entered what had been Mandatory Palestine, launching the 1948 Arab–Israeli War;¹⁵⁶ contingents from Yemen, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan joined the war.¹⁵⁷ ¹⁵⁸ The purpose of the invasion was to prevent the establishment of the Jewish state.¹⁴⁷ ¹⁵⁹ ¹⁶⁰ The Arab League stated the invasion was to restore order and prevent further bloodshed.¹⁶¹

After a year of fighting, a ceasefire was declared and temporary borders, known as the Green Line, were established.¹⁶² Jordan annexed what became known as the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip. Over 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled by Zionist militias and the Israeli military —what would become known in Arabic as the nakba (‘catastrophe’).¹⁶³ The events also led to the destruction of most of Palestine’s Arab culture, identity, and national aspirations. Some 156,000 Arabs remained and became Arab citizens of Israel.¹⁶⁴

Raising of the Ink Flag on 10 March 1949, marking the end of the 1948 war

By United Nations General Assembly Resolution 273, Israel was admitted as a member of the UN on 11 May 1949.¹⁶⁵ In the early years of the state, the Labour Zionist movement led by Prime Minister Ben-Gurion dominated Israeli politics.¹⁶⁶ ¹⁶⁷ 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 ”).¹⁶⁸ The latter engaged in clandestine operations in countries, particularly in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, where the lives of Jews were in danger and exit was difficult. Mossad LeAliyah Bet was disbanded in 1953.¹⁶⁹ The immigration was in accordance with the One Million Plan. Some immigrants held Zionist beliefs or came for the promise of a better life, while others moved to escape persecution or were expelled from their homes.¹⁷⁰ ¹⁷¹

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 had risen to two million.¹⁷² Between 1948 and 1970, approximately 1,150,000 Jewish refugees relocated to Israel.¹⁷³ Some immigrants arrived as refugees and were housed in temporary camps known as ma’abarot; by 1952, over 200,000 people were living in these tent cities.¹⁷⁴ Jews of European background were often treated more favourably than Jews from Middle Eastern and North African countries—housing units reserved for the latter were often re-designated for the former, so Jews newly arrived from Arab lands generally ended up staying longer in transit camps.¹⁷⁵ ¹⁷⁶ During this period, food, clothes and furniture were 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.¹⁷⁷

Arab–Israeli conflict

During the 1950s, Israel was frequently attacked by Palestinian fedayeen, nearly always against civilians,¹⁷⁸ mainly from the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip,¹⁷⁹ leading to several Israeli reprisal operations. In 1956, the UK and France aimed at regaining control of the Suez Canal, which Egypt had nationalised. The continued blockade of the Suez Canal and Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, together with increasing fedayeen attacks against Israel’s southern population and recent Arab threatening statements, prompted Israel to attack Egypt.¹⁸⁰ ¹⁸¹ ¹⁸² Israel joined a secret alliance with the UK and France and overran the Sinai Peninsula in the Suez Crisis but was pressured to withdraw by the UN in return for guarantees of Israeli shipping rights.¹⁸³ ¹⁸⁴ ¹⁸⁵ The war resulted in significant reduction of Israeli border infiltration.¹⁸⁶

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.¹⁸⁷ Eichmann remains the only person executed in Israel by conviction in an Israeli civilian court.¹⁸⁸ In 1963, Israel was engaged in a diplomatic standoff with the United States in relation to the Israeli nuclear programme.¹⁸⁹ ¹⁹⁰

Since 1964 Arab countries, concerned over Israeli plans to divert waters of the Jordan River into the coastal plain,¹⁹¹ 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 recognise Israel and called for its destruction.¹⁹² ¹⁹³ ¹⁹⁴ By 1966 Israeli-Arab relations had deteriorated to the point of battles taking place between Israeli and Arab forces.¹⁹⁵

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.¹⁹⁶ ¹⁹⁷ ¹⁹⁸ Other Arab states mobilised their forces.¹⁹⁹ Israel reiterated that these actions were a casus belli and launched a pre-emptive strike (Operation Focus) against Egypt in June. Jordan, Syria and Iraq attacked Israel. In the 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.²⁰⁰ Jerusalem’s boundaries were enlarged, incorporating East Jerusalem. The 1949 Green Line became the administrative boundary between Israel and the occupied territories.²⁰¹

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, globally, and in Israel. Most important among the Palestinian and Arab groups was the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), established in 1964, which initially committed itself to “armed struggle as the only way to liberate the homeland”.²⁰² In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Palestinian groups launched attacks ²⁰³ ²⁰⁴ against Israeli and Jewish targets around the world,²⁰⁵ including a massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. The Israeli government responded with an assassination campaign against the organisers of the massacre, a bombing and a raid on the PLO headquarters in Lebanon.

On 6 October 1973, the Egyptian and Syrian armies launched a surprise attack against Israeli forces in the Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights, opening the Yom Kippur War. The war ended on 25 October with Israel repelling Egyptian and Syrian forces but suffering great losses.²⁰⁶ 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.²⁰⁷ In July 1976, an airliner was hijacked in flight from Israel to France by Palestinian guerrillas; Israeli commandos rescued 102 of 106 Israeli hostages.

Peace process

The 1977 Knesset elections marked a major turning point in Israeli political history as Menachem Begin ‘s Likud party took control from the Labour Party.²⁰⁸ 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.²⁰⁹ Sadat and Begin signed the Camp David Accords (1978) and the Egypt–Israel peace treaty (1979).²¹⁰ In return, Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula and agreed to enter negotiations over autonomy for Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.²¹⁰

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 PLO bases. Begin’s government meanwhile provided incentives for Israelis to settle in the occupied West Bank, increasing friction with the Palestinians there.²¹¹

The 1980 Jerusalem Law 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.²¹² In 1981 Israel effectively annexed the Golan Heights. 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.²¹³ ²¹⁴ 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.²¹⁵

On 7 June 1981, during the Iran–Iraq War, the Israeli air force destroyed Iraq’s sole nuclear reactor, then under construction, in order to impede the Iraqi nuclear weapons programme.²¹⁶ Following a series of PLO attacks in 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon to destroy the PLO bases.²¹⁷ In the first six days, Israel destroyed the military forces of the PLO in Lebanon and decisively defeated the Syrians. An Israeli government inquiry (the Kahan Commission) held Begin and several Israeli generals indirectly responsible for the Sabra and Shatila massacre and held defence minister Ariel Sharon as bearing “personal responsibility”.²¹⁸ Sharon was forced to resign.²¹⁹ 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 continued to occupy 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,²²⁰ broke out in 1987, with waves of uncoordinated demonstrations and violence in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. Over the following six years, the intifada became more organised and included economic and cultural measures aimed at disrupting the Israeli occupation. Over 1,000 people were killed.²²¹ During the 1991 Gulf War, the PLO supported Saddam Hussein and Iraqi missile attacks against Israel. Despite public outrage, Israel heeded American calls to refrain from hitting back.²²² ²²³

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.²²⁴ ²²⁵ The following year, Shimon Peres on behalf of Israel and Yasser Arafat for the PLO signed the Oslo Accords, which gave the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) the right to govern parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.²²⁶ The PLO also recognised Israel’s right to exist and pledged an end to terrorism.²²⁷ In 1994, the Israel–Jordan peace treaty was signed, making Jordan the second Arab country to normalise relations with Israel.²²⁸ Arab public support for the Accords was damaged by the continuation of Israeli settlements ²²⁹ and checkpoints, and the deterioration of economic conditions.²³⁰ Israeli public support for the Accords waned after Palestinian suicide attacks.²³¹ In November 1995, Rabin was assassinated by Yigal Amir, a far-right Jew who opposed the Accords.²³²

During Benjamin Netanyahu ‘s premiership at the end of the 1990s, Israel agreed to withdraw from Hebron,²³³ though this was never ratified or implemented,²³⁴ and he signed the Wye River Memorandum. The agreement dealt with further redeployments in the West Bank and security issues. The memorandum was criticised by major international human rights organisations for its “encouragement” of human rights abuses.²³⁵ ²³⁶ Ehud Barak, elected prime minister in 1999, withdrew forces from southern Lebanon and conducted negotiations with PNA Chairman Yasser Arafat and U.S. President Bill Clinton at the 2000 Camp David Summit. Barak offered a plan for the establishment of a Palestinian state, including the entirety of the Gaza Strip and over 90% of the West Bank with Jerusalem as a shared capital.²³⁷ Each side blamed the other for the failure of the talks.

21st century

In late 2000, after a controversial visit by Sharon to the Temple Mount, the Second Intifada began. The popular uprising faced disproportionate repression from the Israeli state.²³⁸ Palestinian suicide bombings eventually developed into a recurrent feature of the intifada.²³⁹ Some commentators contend that the intifada was pre-planned by Arafat after the collapse of peace talks.²⁴⁰ ²⁴¹ ²⁴² ²⁴³ Sharon became prime minister in a 2001 election; he carried out his plan to unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip and spearheaded the construction of the West Bank barrier,²⁴⁴ ending the intifada.²⁴⁵ Between 2000 and 2008, 1,063 Israelis, 5,517 Palestinians and 64 foreign citizens were killed.²⁴⁶

In July 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, including an Israeli invasion of Lebanon.²⁴⁷ ²⁴⁸ The war wound down in August 2006 after the passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701; Israeli forces mostly withdrew from Lebanon by October 2006 but continued to occupy the Lebanese portion of Ghajar village.²⁴⁹ ²⁵⁰

In 2007 the Israeli Air Force destroyed a nuclear reactor in Syria. In 2008, a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel collapsed, resulting in the three-week Gaza War.²⁵¹ ²⁵² In what Israel described as a response to over a hundred Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israeli cities,²⁵³ Israel began an operation in the Gaza Strip in 2012, lasting eight days.²⁵⁴ Israel started another operation in Gaza following an escalation of rocket attacks by Hamas in July 2014.²⁵⁵ In May 2021 another round of fighting took place in Gaza and Israel, lasting eleven days.²⁵⁶

U.S. President Joe Biden with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog in Tel Aviv on 18 October 2023

By the 2010s, 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. On 7 October 2023, Palestinian militant groups from Gaza, led by Hamas, launched a series of coordinated attacks on Israel, leading to the start of the Gaza war.²⁵⁷ On that day, approximately 1,300 Israelis, predominantly civilians, were killed in communities near the Gaza Strip border and during a music festival. Over 200 hostages were kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip.²⁵⁸ ²⁵⁹ ²⁶⁰

After clearing militants from its territory, Israel launched one of the most destructive bombing campaigns in modern history ²⁶¹ ²⁶² and invaded Gaza on 27 October with the stated objectives of destroying Hamas and freeing hostages.²⁶³ ²⁶⁴ The fifth war of the Gaza–Israel conflict since 2008, it has been the deadliest for Palestinians in the entire Israeli–Palestinian conflict ²⁶⁵ and the most significant military engagement in the region since the Yom Kippur War in 1973.²⁶⁶

In April 2024, Israel initiated a wave of airstrikes to Iran, after Iranian strikes targeted Israel. In October 2024, Israel invaded Lebanon ²⁶⁷ and exchanged missile barrages with Iran three weeks later, in response of Iranian strikes earlier in that month.²⁶⁸ After nearly a year of the Israel–Hezbollah conflict from October 2023 due to Hezbollah shooting rockets at Israel to support Hamas in Gaza, Israel assassinated Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah in September 2024.²⁶⁹ A November 2024 ceasefire agreement instructed Israel to withdraw from Lebanon, which Israel mostly did by February 2025, but against the agreement Israeli forces stayed in five military outposts on highlands in Southern Lebanon.²⁷⁰ ²⁷¹

In June 2025, Israel launched a renewed series of missile strikes on Iran, which escalated into a armed conflict.²⁷²

A United Nations Special Committee, multiple governments, and various experts and human rights organisations have concluded that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people due to the harm and loss of life inflicted on civilians during the Gaza War.²⁷³ ²⁷⁴ ²⁷⁵

Geography

Levantine Sea
(Mediterranean)

Lebanon

Syria

Jordan

Egypt

Satellite images of Israel and neighbouring territories during the day and night

Israel is located in the Levant area of the Fertile Crescent. At the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea, it is bounded by Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan and the West Bank to the east, and Egypt and the Gaza Strip to the south-west. It lies between latitudes 29° and 34° N, and longitudes 34° and 36° E.

The sovereign territory of Israel (according to the demarcation lines of the 1949 Armistice Agreements and excluding all territories captured by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War) is approximately 20,770 square kilometers (8,019 sq mi), of which two percent is water.²⁷⁶ However Israel is so narrow (100 km at its widest, compared to 400 km from north to south) that the exclusive economic zone in the Mediterranean is double the land area of the country.²⁷⁷ The total area under Israeli law, including East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, is 22,072 square kilometers (8,522 sq mi),²⁷⁸ and the total area under Israeli control, including the military-controlled and partially Palestinian-governed territory of the West Bank, is 27,799 square kilometers (10,733 sq mi).²⁷⁹

Despite its small size, Israel is home to a variety of geographic features, from the Negev desert in the south to the inland fertile Jezreel Valley, with mountain ranges of the Galilee, Carmel and towards the Golan in the north. The Israeli coastal plain on the shores of the Mediterranean is home to most of the population.²⁸⁰ East of the central highlands lies the Jordan Rift Valley, a small part of the 6,500-kilometer (4,039 mi) Great Rift Valley. The Jordan River runs along the Jordan Rift Valley, from Mount Hermon through the Hulah Valley and the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea, the lowest point on the surface of the Earth.²⁸¹ Further south is the Arabah, ending with the Gulf of Eilat, part of the Red Sea. Makhtesh, or “erosion cirques” are unique to the Negev and the Sinai Peninsula, the largest being the Makhtesh Ramon at 38 km in length.²⁸² Israel has the largest number of plant species per square meter of the countries in the Mediterranean Basin ²⁸³ and contains four terrestrial ecoregions: Eastern Mediterranean conifer–sclerophyllous–broadleaf forests, Southern Anatolian montane conifer and deciduous forests, Arabian Desert, and Mesopotamian shrub desert.²⁸⁴ Forests accounted for 8.5% of the area in 2016, up from 2% in 1948, as the result of a large-scale forest planting programme by the Jewish National Fund.²⁸⁵ ²⁸⁶

The Jordan Rift Valley is the result of tectonic movements within the Dead Sea Transform (DST) fault system. The DST forms the transform boundary between the African Plate to the west and the Arabian Plate to the east. The Golan Heights and all of Jordan are part of the Arabian Plate, while the Galilee, West Bank, Coastal Plain, and Negev along with the Sinai Peninsula are on the African Plate. This tectonic disposition leads to a relatively high seismic activity. The entire Jordan Valley segment is thought to have ruptured repeatedly, for instance during the last two major earthquakes along this structure in 749 and 1033. The deficit in slip that has built up since 1033 is sufficient to cause an earthquake of M _w  ~7.4.²⁸⁷

The most catastrophic known earthquakes occurred in 31 BCE, 363, 749, and 1033 CE, that is every ca. 400 years on average.²⁸⁸ Destructive earthquakes strike about every 80 years, leading to serious loss of life.²⁸⁹ While stringent construction regulations are in place and recently built structures are earthquake resistant, as of 2007 many public buildings as well as 50,000 residential buildings did not meet the new standards and were “expected to collapse” if exposed to a strong earthquake.²⁸⁹

Climate

The projections of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report show clearly the impacts of climate change on Israel even at 2 degrees of warming.

Temperatures vary widely, especially during the winter. Coastal areas, such as those of Tel Aviv and Haifa, have a typical Mediterranean climate with cool, rainy winters and long, hot summers. The area of Beersheba and the northern Negev have a semi-arid climate with hot summers, cool winters, and fewer rainy days. The southern Negev and the Arabah areas have a desert climate with very hot, dry summers, and mild winters with few days of rain. The highest temperature of 54 °C (129 °F) was recorded in 1942 in the Tirat Zvi kibbutz.²⁹⁰ ²⁹¹ Mountainous regions can be windy and cold, and areas at elevation of 750 metres (2,460 ft) or more (same elevation as Jerusalem) usually receive at least one snowfall each year.²⁹² From May to September, rain is rare.²⁹³ ²⁹⁴

There are four different phytogeographic regions, due to its location between the temperate and tropical zones. For this reason, the flora and fauna are extremely diverse. There are 2,867 known species of plants in Israel. Of these, at least 253 species are introduced and non-native.²⁹⁵ There are 380 Israeli nature reserves.²⁹⁶

With scarce water resources, Israel has developed various water-saving technologies, including drip irrigation.²⁹⁷ ²⁹⁸ The considerable sunlight available for solar energy makes Israel the leading nation in solar energy use per capita—practically every house uses solar panels for water heating.²⁹⁹ The Ministry of Environmental Protection has reported that climate change “will have a decisive impact on all areas of life”, particularly for vulnerable populations.³⁰⁰

The Knesset chamber, home to the Israeli parliament

Israel has a parliamentary system, proportional representation and universal suffrage. A member of parliament supported by a parliamentary majority becomes the prime minister —usually this is the chair of the largest party. The prime minister is the head of government and of cabinet.³⁰¹ ³⁰² The president is head of state, with largely ceremonial duties.³⁰¹

Israel is governed by a 120-member parliament, known as the Knesset. Membership of the Knesset is based on proportional representation of political parties,³⁰³ ³⁰⁴ with a 3.25% electoral threshold, which in practice has resulted in coalition governments. Residents of Israeli settlements in the West Bank are eligible to vote,³⁰⁵ and after the 2015 election, 10 of the 120 members of the Knesset (8%) were settlers.³⁰⁶ Parliamentary elections are scheduled every four years, but unstable coalitions or a no-confidence vote can dissolve a government earlier.¹⁴ The first Arab-led party was established in 1988,³⁰⁷ and as of 2022, Arab-led parties hold about 10% of seats.³⁰⁸ A party cannot run for election to the Knesset if its objectives or actions include the “negation of the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people”.

The Basic Laws of Israel function as an uncodified constitution. These define Israel as a Jewish and democratic state and the nation-state of exclusively the Jewish people.³⁰⁹ In 2003, the Knesset began to draft an official constitution based on these laws.²⁷⁶ ³¹⁰

Israel has no official religion,³¹¹ ³¹² ³¹³ but the definition of the state as “Jewish and democratic” creates a strong connection with Judaism. On 19 July 2018, the Knesset passed a Basic Law that characterizes Israel as principally a ” Nation State of the Jewish People ” and Hebrew as its official language. The bill ascribes an undefined “special status” to the Arabic language.³¹⁴ The same bill gives Jews a unique right to national self-determination and views the developing of Jewish settlement in the country as “a national interest”, empowering the government to “take steps to encourage, advance and implement this interest”.³¹⁵

Administrative divisions

The State of Israel is divided into six main administrative districts, known as mehozot (Hebrew: מחוזות; sg.: mahoz)— Center, Haifa, Jerusalem, North, South, and Tel Aviv, as well as the Judea and Samaria Area in the West Bank. All of the Judea and Samaria Area and parts of the Jerusalem and Northern districts are not recognised internationally as part of Israel. Districts are divided into 15 sub-districts known as nafot (Hebrew: נפות; sg.: nafa), which are partitioned into 50 natural regions.³¹⁶

District	Capital	Largest city	Population, 2021 ³⁴³
District	Capital	Largest city	Jews	Arabs	Total	note
Jerusalem	Jerusalem		66%	32%	1,209,700	^a
North	Nof HaGalil	Nazareth	42%	54%	1,513,600
Haifa	Haifa		67%	25%	1,092,700
Center	Ramla	Rishon LeZion	87%	8%	2,304,300
Tel Aviv	Tel Aviv		92%	2%	1,481,400
South	Beersheba	Ashdod	71%	22%	1,386,000
Judea and Samaria Area	Ariel	Modi'in Illit	98%	0%	465,400	^b

^a Including 361,700 Arabs and 233,900 Jews in East Jerusalem, as of 2020.³¹⁷

^b Israeli citizens only.

The 1950 Law of Return grants Jews the unrestricted right to immigrate to Israel and obtain Israeli citizenship. Individuals born within the country receive birthright citizenship if at least one parent is a citizen.³¹⁸ Israeli law defines Jewish nationality as distinct from Israeli nationality, and the Supreme Court of Israel has ruled that an Israeli nationality does not exist.³¹⁹ ³²⁰ A Jewish national is defined as any person practicing Judaism and their descendants.³¹⁹

Israeli-occupied territories

Overview of administration and sovereignty in Israel, the Palestinian territories and the Golan Heights
Area		Administered by	Recognition of governing authority	Sovereignty claimed by	Recognition of claim
Gaza Strip		Palestinian National Authority (de jure) Controlled by Hamas (de facto)	Witnesses to the Oslo II Accord	Palestine	147 UN member states
West Bank	Palestinian enclaves (Areas A and B)	Palestinian National Authority and Israeli military
	Area C	Israeli enclave law (Israeli settlements) and Israeli military (Palestinians under Israeli occupation)
	East Jerusalem	Israeli administration	Honduras, Guatemala, Nauru, and the United States		China, Russia
West Jerusalem			Russia, Czech Republic, Honduras, Guatemala, Nauru, and the United States	United Nations as an international city along with East Jerusalem	Various UN member states and the European Union; joint sovereignty also widely supported
Golan Heights			United States	Syria	All UN member states except the United States
Israel (Green Line border)			165 UN member states	Israel	165 UN member states

Map of Israel showing the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights

In 1967, as a result of the Six-Day War, Israel captured and occupied the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights. Israel also captured the Sinai Peninsula but returned it to Egypt as part of the 1979 Egypt–Israel peace treaty.²¹⁰ Between 1982 and 2000, Israel occupied part of southern Lebanon, in what was known as the Security Belt. Since capture of these territories, Israeli settlements and military installations have been built within each of them, except Lebanon.

The Golan Heights and East Jerusalem have been fully incorporated under Israeli law but not under international law. Israel has applied civilian law to both areas and granted their inhabitants permanent residency status and the ability to apply for citizenship. The UN Security Council has declared the annexation of the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem to be “null and void” and continues to view the territories as occupied.³²¹ ³²² The status of East Jerusalem in any future peace settlement has at times been a difficult issue in negotiations between Israeli governments and representatives of the Palestinians.

Israeli West Bank barrier is a separation barrier built by Israel along the Green Line and inside parts of the West Bank.

The West Bank excluding East Jerusalem is known as the Judea and Samaria Area. The almost 400,000 Israeli settlers residing in the area are considered part of Israel’s population, have Knesset representation, are subject to a large part of Israel’s civil and criminal laws, and their output is considered part of Israel’s economy.³²³ ³²⁴ The land is not considered part of Israel under Israeli law, as Israel has consciously refrained from annexing the territory, without ever relinquishing its legal claim to the land or defining a border.³²³ Israeli political opposition to annexation primarily stems from the perceived “demographic threat” of incorporating the West Bank’s Palestinian population into Israel.³²³ Outside of the Israeli settlements, the West Bank remains under direct Israeli military rule, and Palestinians in the area cannot become Israeli citizens.

The international community maintains that Israel does not have sovereignty in the West Bank and considers Israel’s control of the area to be the longest military occupation in modern history.³²⁵ The West Bank was occupied and annexed by Jordan in 1950, following the 1949 Armistice Agreements. Only Britain recognised this annexation, and Jordan has since ceded its claim to the territory to the PLO. The population is mainly Palestinians, including refugees of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.³²⁶ From their occupation in 1967 until 1993, the Palestinians living in these territories were under Israeli military administration. Since the Israel–PLO letters of recognition, most of the Palestinian population and cities have been under the internal jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority, and only partial Israeli military control, although Israel has redeployed its troops and reinstated full military administration during periods of unrest. Israel’s claim of universal suffrage has been questioned due to its blurred territorial boundaries, its simultaneous extension of voting rights to Israeli settlers in the occupied territories and denial of voting rights to their Palestinian neighbours, as well as the alleged ethnocratic nature of the state.³²⁷ ³²⁸

The Gaza Strip is considered to be a “foreign territory” under Israeli law. Israel and Egypt operate a land, air, and sea blockade of the Gaza Strip. The Gaza Strip was occupied by Israel after 1967. In 2005, as part of a unilateral disengagement plan, Israel removed its settlers and forces from the territory but continues to maintain control of its airspace and waters. The international community, including numerous international humanitarian organisations and UN bodies, consider Gaza to remain occupied.³²⁹ ³³⁰ ³³¹ ³³² ³³³ Following the 2007 Battle of Gaza, when Hamas assumed power in the Gaza Strip,³³⁴ Israel tightened control of the Gaza crossings along its border, as well as by sea and air, and prevented persons from entering and exiting except for isolated cases it deemed humanitarian.³³⁴ Gaza has a border with Egypt, and an agreement between Israel, the EU, and the PA governs how border crossings take place.³³⁵ The application of democracy to its Palestinian citizens and the selective application of Israeli democracy in the Israeli-controlled Palestinian territories have been criticised.³³⁶ ³³⁷

International opinion

The International Court of Justice said, in its 2004 advisory opinion on the legality of the construction of the West Bank barrier, that the lands captured by Israel in the Six-Day War, including East Jerusalem, are occupied territory and found that the construction of the wall within the occupied Palestinian territory violates international law.³³⁸ Most negotiations relating to the territories have been on the basis of UN Security Council Resolution 242, which emphasises “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war”, and calls on Israel to withdraw from occupied territories in return for normalisation of relations with Arab states (” Land for peace ”).³³⁹ ³⁴⁰ ³⁴¹ Israel has been criticised for engaging in systematic and widespread violations of human rights in the occupied territories, including occupation ³⁴² and war crimes against civilians.³⁴³ ³⁴⁴ ³⁴⁵ ³⁴⁶ The allegations include violations of international humanitarian law ³⁴⁷ by the UN Human Rights Council.³⁴⁸ The U.S. State Department has called reports of abuses of significant human rights of Palestinians “credible” both within Israel ³⁴⁹ and the occupied territories.³⁵⁰ Amnesty International and other NGOs have documented mass arbitrary arrests, torture, unlawful killings, systemic abuses and impunity ³⁵¹ ³⁵² ³⁵³ ³⁵⁴ in tandem with a denial of the right to Palestinian self-determination.³⁵⁵ ³⁵⁶ ³⁵⁷ ³⁵⁸ ³⁵⁹ Prime Minister Netanyahu has defended the country’s security forces for protecting the innocent from terrorists ³⁶⁰ and expressed contempt for what he describes as a lack of concern about the human rights violations committed by “criminal killers”.³⁶¹

The international community widely regards Israeli settlements in the occupied territories illegal under international law.³⁶² United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 (passed 2016) states that Israel’s settlement activity constitutes a “flagrant violation” of international law and demands that Israel stop such activity and fulfill its obligations as an occupying power under the Fourth Geneva Convention.³⁶³ A United Nations special rapporteur concluded that the settlement programme was a war crime under the Rome Statute,³⁶⁴ and Amnesty International found that the settlement programme constitutes an illegal transfer of civilians into occupied territory and “pillage”, which is prohibited by the Hague Conventions and Geneva Conventions as well as being a war crime under the Rome Statute.³⁶⁵

In a 2024 advisory opinion, the International Court of Justice stated that occupation of the Palestinian territories violated international law; Israel should end its occupation as quickly as possible and pay reparations. In addition, the court found that Israel was in breach of article 3 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which requires states to prevent, prohibit and eradicate all practices of racial segregation and apartheid.³⁶⁶ ³⁶⁷ ³⁶⁸

Treatment of Palestinians within the occupied territories and to a lesser extent in Israel itself have drawn widespread accusations that it is guilty of apartheid, a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute and the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.³⁶⁹ ³⁷⁰ The Washington Post’ s 2021 survey of scholars and academic experts on the Middle East found an increase from 59% to 65% of these scholars describing Israel as a “one-state reality akin to apartheid”.³⁷¹ ³⁷² The claim that Israel’s policies for Palestinians within Israel or within Israeli-occupied territories amount to apartheid has been affirmed by Israeli human rights organisation B’tselem,³⁷³ ³⁷⁴ University Network for Human Rights,³⁷⁵ and international human rights organisations such as Amnesty International ³⁷⁶ and Human Rights Watch.³⁷⁰ ³⁷⁷ Israeli human rights organisation Yesh Din has also accused Israel of apartheid.³⁷⁷ Amnesty’s claim was criticised by politicians and representatives from Israel and its closest allies such as, the US,³⁷⁸ the UK,³⁷⁹ the European Commission,³⁸⁰ Australia,³⁸¹ Netherlands ³⁸² and Germany,³⁸³ while said accusations were welcomed by Palestinians ³⁸⁴ and the Arab League.³⁸⁵ In 2022, Michael Lynk, a Canadian law professor appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council said that the situation met the legal definition of apartheid, and concluded: “Israel has imposed upon Palestine an apartheid reality in a post-apartheid world”.³⁸⁶ ³⁸⁷ Subsequent reports from his successor, Francesca Albanese and from Permanent United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Israel Palestine conflict chair Navi Pillay echoed the opinion.³⁸⁸ ³⁸⁹

In February 2024, the ICJ held public hearings in regards to the legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory including East Jerusalem. During the hearings, 24 states and three international organisations said that Israeli practices amount to a breach of the prohibition of apartheid and/or amount to prohibited acts of racial discrimination.³⁹⁰ The International Court of Justice in its 2024 advisory opinion found that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories constitutes systemic discrimination and is in breach of Article 3 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which prohibits racial segregation and apartheid. The opinion is silent as to whether the discrimination amounts to apartheid; individual judges were split on the question.³⁹¹ ³⁹² ³⁹³ ³⁹⁴ ³⁹⁵ ³⁹⁶

Foreign relations

State of Israel Countries that recognise Israel Countries that have withdrawn their recognition of Israel Countries that have suspended/cut bilateral ties with Israel, but maintain recognition Countries that have never recognised Israel

Israel maintains diplomatic relations with 165 UN member states, the Holy See, Kosovo, the Cook Islands and Niue. It has 107 diplomatic missions;³⁹⁷ countries with which it has no diplomatic relations include most Muslim countries.³⁹⁸ Six out of 22 nations in the Arab League have normalised relations with Israel. Israel remains formally in a state of war with Syria, dating back uninterrupted to 1948. It has been in a similarly formal state of war with Lebanon since the end of the Lebanese Civil War in 2000, with the Israel–Lebanon border remaining unagreed by treaty.

Despite the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, Israel is still widely considered an enemy country among Egyptians.³⁹⁹ Iran withdrew its recognition of Israel during the Islamic Revolution.⁴⁰⁰ Israeli citizens may not visit Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen without permission from the Ministry of the Interior.⁴⁰¹ As a result of the 2008–09 Gaza War, Mauritania, Qatar, Bolivia, and Venezuela suspended political and economic ties with Israel,⁴⁰² though Bolivia renewed ties in 2019.⁴⁰³

Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat at the signing ceremony of the Oslo Accords with then US President Bill Clinton

The United States and the Soviet Union were the first two countries to recognise the State of Israel, having declared recognition roughly simultaneously.⁴⁰⁴ Diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union were broken in 1967 following the Six-Day War and renewed in 1991.⁴⁰⁵ The United States regards Israel as its “most reliable partner in the Middle East”,⁴⁰⁶ based on “common democratic values, religious affinities, and security interests”.⁴⁰⁷ The US has provided $68 bi ll i o n [inmi l i t a ry a ss i s t an ce] (h ttp s : // e n . w iki p e d ia . or g / w iki / I sr a e l$ 32 billion in grants to Israel since 1967, under the Foreign Assistance Act (period beginning 1962),⁴⁰⁸ more than any other country for that period until 2003.⁴⁰⁸ ⁴⁰⁹ ⁴¹⁰ Most surveyed Americans have held consistently favourable views of Israel.⁴¹¹ ⁴¹² The United Kingdom is seen as having a “natural” relationship with Israel because of the Mandate for Palestine.⁴¹³ By 2007, Germany had paid 25 billion euros in reparations to Israel and individual Israeli Holocaust survivors.⁴¹⁴ Israel is included in the European Union’s European Neighbourhood Policy.⁴¹⁵

Although Turkey and Israel did not establish full diplomatic relations until 1991,⁴¹⁶ Turkey has cooperated with the Jewish state since its recognition of Israel in 1949. Turkey’s ties to other Muslim-majority nations in the region have at times resulted in pressure from Arab and Muslim states to temper its relationship with Israel.⁴¹⁷ Relations took a downturn after the 2008–09 Gaza War and Israel’s raid of the Gaza flotilla.⁴¹⁸ Relations between Greece and Israel have improved since 1995 after decline of Israeli–Turkish relations.⁴¹⁹ The two countries have a defence cooperation agreement and in 2010, the Israeli Air Force hosted Greece’s Hellenic Air Force in a joint exercise. The joint Cyprus-Israel oil and gas explorations centered on the Leviathan gas field are an important factor for Greece, given its strong links with Cyprus.⁴²⁰ Cooperation in the world’s longest submarine power cable, the EuroAsia Interconnector, has strengthened Cyprus–Israel relations.⁴²¹

Azerbaijan is one of the few majority Muslim countries to develop strategic and economic relations with Israel.⁴²² Kazakhstan also has an economic and strategic partnership with Israel.⁴²³ India established full diplomatic ties with Israel in 1992 and has fostered a strong military, technological and cultural partnership with the country since then.⁴²⁴ India is the largest customer of the Israeli military equipment, and Israel is the second-largest military partner of India after Russia.⁴²⁵ Ethiopia is Israel’s main ally in Africa due to common political, religious and security interests.⁴²⁶

Foreign aid

Israel has a history of providing emergency foreign aid and humanitarian response to disasters across the world.⁴²⁷ In 1955 Israel began its foreign aid programme in Burma and then shifted to Africa.⁴²⁸ Israel’s humanitarian efforts officially began in 1957 with the establishment of Mashav, the Israel’s Agency for International Development Cooperation.⁴²⁹ In this early period, whilst Israel’s aid represented only a small percentage of total aid to Africa, its programme was effective in creating goodwill; however, following the 1967 war relations soured.⁴³⁰ Israel’s foreign aid programme subsequently shifted its focus to Latin America.⁴²⁸

Since the late 1970s Israel’s foreign aid has gradually decreased, although in recent years Israel has tried to reestablish aid to Africa.⁴³¹ There are additional Israeli humanitarian and emergency response groups that work with the government, including IsraAid, a joint programme run by Israeli organisations and North American Jewish groups,⁴³² ZAKA,⁴³³ The Fast Israeli Rescue and Search Team,⁴³⁴ Israeli Flying Aid,⁴³⁵ Save a Child’s Heart ⁴³⁶ and Latet.⁴³⁷ Between 1985 and 2015, Israel sent 24 delegations of their search and rescue unit the Home Front Command to 22 countries.⁴³⁸ Currently Israeli foreign aid ranks low among OECD nations, spending less than 0.1% of its GNI on development assistance.⁴³⁹ The country ranked 38th in the 2018 World Giving Index.⁴⁴⁰

Military

F-35 fighter jets of the Israeli Air Force

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces and is headed by its Chief of the General Staff, the Ramatkal, subordinate to the Cabinet. The IDF consists of the army, air force and navy. It was founded during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War by consolidating paramilitary organisations—chiefly the Haganah.⁴⁴¹ The IDF also draws upon the resources of the Military Intelligence Directorate (Aman).⁴⁴² The IDF have been involved in several major wars and border conflicts, making it one of the most battle-trained armed forces in the world.⁴⁴³

Most Israelis are conscripted at age 18. Men serve two years and eight months, and women serve two years.⁴⁴⁴ Following mandatory service, Israeli men join the reserve forces and usually do up to several weeks of reserve duty every year until their forties. Most women are exempt from reserve duty. Arab citizens of Israel (except the Druze) and those engaged in full-time religious studies are exempt, although the exemption of yeshiva students has been a source of contention.⁴⁴⁵ ⁴⁴⁶ An alternative for those who receive exemptions on various grounds is Sherut Leumi, or national service, which involves a programme of service in social welfare frameworks.⁴⁴⁷ A small minority of Israeli Arabs also volunteer in the army.⁴⁴⁸ As a result of its conscription programme, the IDF maintains approximately 176,500 active troops and 465,000 reservists, giving Israel one of the world’s highest percentage of citizens with military training.⁴⁴⁹

Iron Dome is the world’s first operational anti- artillery rocket defence system.

The military relies heavily on high-tech weapons systems designed and manufactured in Israel as well as some foreign imports. The Arrow missile is one of the world’s few operational anti-ballistic missile systems.⁴⁵⁰ The Python air-to-air missile series is often considered one of the most crucial weapons in its military history.⁴⁵¹ Israel’s Spike missile is one of the most widely exported anti-tank guided missiles in the world.⁴⁵² Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile air defence system gained worldwide acclaim after intercepting hundreds of rockets fired by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip.⁴⁵³ ⁴⁵⁴ Since the Yom Kippur War, Israel has developed a network of reconnaissance satellites.⁴⁵⁵ The Ofeq programme has made Israel one of seven countries capable of launching such satellites.⁴⁵⁶

Israel is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons ⁴⁵⁷ and per a 1993 report, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction.⁴⁵⁸ Israel has not signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons ⁴⁵⁹ and maintains a policy of deliberate ambiguity towards its nuclear capabilities.⁴⁶⁰ The Israeli Navy’s Dolphin submarines are believed to be armed with nuclear missiles offering second-strike capability.⁴⁶¹ Since the Gulf War in 1991, all homes in Israel are required to have a reinforced security room, Merkhav Mugan, impermeable to chemical and biological substances.⁴⁶²

Since Israel’s establishment, military expenditure constituted a significant portion of the country’s gross domestic product, with peak of 30.3% of GDP in 1975.⁴⁶³ In 2021, Israel ranked 15th in the world by total military expenditure, with $24.3 bi ll i o n, an d 6 t hb y d e f e n ces p e n d in g a s a p erce n t a g eo f G D P, w i t h 5.2$ 3.8 billion per year, or around 20% of Israel’s defence budget, from 2018 to 2028.⁴⁶⁴ Israel ranked 9th globally for arms exports in 2022.⁴⁶⁵ The majority of Israel’s arms exports are unreported for security reasons.⁴⁶⁶ Israel is consistently rated low in the Global Peace Index, ranking 134th out of 163 nations in 2022.⁴⁶⁷

Legal system

Supreme Court of Israel, Givat Ram, Jerusalem

Israel has a three-tier court system. At the lowest level are magistrate courts, situated in most cities across the country. Above them are district courts, serving as both appellate courts and courts of first instance; they are situated in five of Israel’s six districts. The third and highest tier is the Supreme Court, located in Jerusalem; it serves a dual role as the highest court of appeals and the High Court of Justice. In the latter role, the Supreme Court rules as a court of first instance, allowing both citizens and non-citizens to petition against the decisions of state authorities.⁴⁶⁸

The legal system combines three legal traditions: English common law, civil law, and Jewish law.²⁷⁶ It is based on the principle of stare decisis (precedent) and is an adversarial system. Court cases are decided by professional judges.⁴⁶⁹ Marriage and divorce are under the jurisdiction of the religious courts: Jewish, Muslim, Druze, and Christian. The election of judges is carried out by a selection committee chaired by the justice minister (currently Yariv Levin).⁴⁷⁰ Israel’s Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty seeks to defend human rights and liberties in Israel. The United Nations Human Rights Council and Israeli human rights organisation Adalah have highlighted that this law does not in fact contain a general provision for equality and non-discrimination.⁴²² ⁴⁷¹ As a result of ” Enclave law ”, large portions of Israeli civil law are applied to Israeli settlements and Israeli residents in the occupied territories.⁴⁷²

Economy

The Diamond Exchange District in Ramat Gan

Tel Aviv Stock Exchange

Israel is considered the most advanced country in West Asia and the Middle East in economic and industrial development.⁴⁷³ ⁴⁷⁴ As of October 2023, the IMF estimated its GDP at 521.7 billion dollars and GDP per capita at 53.2 thousand (ranking 13th worldwide).⁴⁷⁵ It is the third richest country in Asia by nominal per capita income ⁴⁷⁶ and has the highest average wealth per adult in the Middle East.⁴⁷⁷ The Economist ranked Israel as the fourth most successful economy among the developed countries for 2022.⁴⁷⁸ It has the most billionaires in the Middle East and the 18th most in the world.⁴⁷⁹ In recent years, Israel had one of the highest growth rates in the developed world.⁴⁸⁰ In 2010, it joined the OECD.⁴⁸¹ ⁴⁸² The country is ranked 35th on the World Bank ‘s Ease of Doing Business index.⁴⁸³ Economic data covers the economic territory of Israel, including the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and Israeli settlements in the West Bank.⁴⁸⁴

Despite limited natural resources, intensive development of the agricultural and industrial sectors over the past decades has made Israel largely self-sufficient in food production, apart from grains and beef. Imports, totaling $96.5 bi ll i o nin 2020, in c l u d er a w ma t er ia l s, mi l i t a rye q u i p m e n t, in v es t m e n t g oo d s, ro ug h d iam o n d s, f u e l s, g r ain, an d co n s u m er g oo d s . [^{3} 02] L e a d in g e x p or t s in c l u d e ma c hin ery, e q u i p m e n t, so f tw a re, [c u t d iam o n d s] (h ttp s : // e n . w iki p e d ia . or g / w iki / D iam o n d_{i} n d u s t r y_{i} n_{I} sr a e l " D iam o n d in d u s t ry in I sr a e l "), a g r i c u lt u r a lp ro d u c t s, c h e mi c a l s, t e x t i l es, an d a pp a re l; in 2020, e x p or t sre a c h e d$ 114 billion.²⁷⁶ The Bank of Israel holds $201 bi ll i o n o ff ore i g n - e x c han g ereser v es, t h e 17 t hhi g h es t in t h e w or l d . [^{3} 02] S in ce t h e 1970 s, I sr a e l ha srece i v e d [mi l i t a ry ai d] (h ttp s : // e n . w iki p e d ia . or g / w iki / I sr a e l$ 69 billion.⁴⁸⁵

Israel has the second-largest number of startup companies after the United States ⁴⁸⁶ and the third-largest number of NASDAQ-listed companies.⁴⁸⁷ It is the world leader for number of start-ups per capita ⁴⁸⁸ and has been dubbed the ” Start-Up Nation “.⁴⁸⁹ ⁴⁹⁰ ⁴⁹¹ ⁴⁹² Intel ⁴⁹³ and Microsoft ⁴⁹⁴ built their first overseas research and development facilities in Israel, and other high-tech multinational corporations have opened research and development centres in the country.

The days which are allocated to working times are Sunday through Thursday (for a five-day workweek), or Friday (for a six-day workweek). In observance of Shabbat, in places where Friday is a work day and the majority of population is Jewish, Friday is a “short day”. Several proposals have been raised to adjust the work week with the majority of the world.⁴⁹⁵

Matam high-tech park in Haifa

Israel’s development of cutting-edge technologies in software, communications and the life sciences have evoked comparisons with Silicon Valley.⁴⁹⁶ ⁴⁹⁷ Israel is first in the world in expenditure on research and development as a percentage of GDP.⁴⁹⁸ It is ranked 15th in the Global Innovation Index in 2024,⁴⁹⁹ and 5th in the 2019 Bloomberg Innovation Index.⁵⁰⁰ Israel has 140 scientists, technicians, and engineers per 10,000 employees, the highest number in the world ⁵⁰¹ ⁵⁰² and has produced six Nobel Prize-winning scientists, mostly in chemistry, since 2004 ⁵⁰³ and has been frequently ranked as one of the countries with the highest ratios of scientific papers per capita.⁵⁰⁴ ⁵⁰⁵ ⁵⁰⁶ Israeli universities are ranked among the top 50 world universities in computer science (Technion and Tel Aviv University), mathematics (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and chemistry (Weizmann Institute of Science).⁵⁰⁷

In 2012, Israel was ranked ninth in the world by the Futron’s Space Competitiveness Index.⁵⁰⁸ The Israel Space Agency coordinates all space research programmes with scientific and commercial goals, and have designed and built at least 13 commercial, research and spy satellites.⁵⁰⁹ Some satellites are ranked among the world’s most advanced space systems.⁵¹⁰ Shavit is a space launch vehicle produced by Israel to launch small satellites into low Earth orbit.⁵¹¹ It was first launched in 1988, making Israel the eighth nation to have a space launch capability. In 2003, Ilan Ramon became Israel’s first astronaut, serving on the fatal mission of Space Shuttle Columbia.⁵¹²

The ongoing water shortage has spurred innovation in water conservation techniques, and a substantial agricultural modernisation, drip irrigation, was invented in Israel. Israel is also at the technological forefront of desalination and water recycling. The Sorek desalination plant is the largest seawater reverse osmosis desalination facility in the world.⁵¹³ By 2014, desalination programmes provided roughly 35% of the drinking water, and it is expected to supply 70% by 2050.⁵¹⁴ As of 2015, over 50 percent of the water for households, agriculture and industry is artificially produced.⁵¹⁵ In 2011, Israel’s water technology industry was worth around $2 billion per year with annual exports of products and services in the tens of millions of dollars. As a result of innovations in reverse osmosis technology, Israel is set to become a net exporter of water.⁵¹⁶

The world’s largest solar parabolic dish at the Ben-Gurion National Solar Energy Center

Israel has embraced solar energy; its engineers are on the cutting edge of solar energy technology,⁵¹⁷ and its solar companies work on projects around the world.⁵¹⁸ ⁵¹⁹ Over 90% of homes use solar energy for hot water, the highest per capita.²⁹⁹ ⁵²⁰ According to government figures, the country saves 8% of its electricity consumption per year because of its solar energy use in heating.⁵²¹ The high annual incident solar irradiance at its geographic latitude creates ideal conditions for what is an internationally renowned solar research and development industry in the Negev.⁵¹⁷ ⁵¹⁸ ⁵¹⁹ Israel had a modern electric car infrastructure involving a countrywide network of charging stations;⁵²² ⁵²³ ⁵²⁴ however, its electric car company Better Place shut down in 2013.⁵²⁵

Energy

Israel began producing natural gas from its own offshore gas fields in 2004. In 2009 Tamar gas field was discovered near the coast, and Leviathan gas field was discovered in 2010.⁵²⁶ The natural gas reserves in these two fields could make Israel energy-secure for more than 50 years. Commercial production of natural gas from the Tamar field began in 2013, with over 7.5 billion cubic meters (bcm) produced annually.⁵²⁷ Israel had 199 billion bcm of proven reserves of natural gas as of 2016.⁵²⁸ The Leviathan gas field started production in 2019.⁵²⁹

Ketura Sun is Israel’s first commercial solar field. Built in 2011 by the Arava Power Company, the field will produce about 9 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year,⁵³⁰ sparing the production of some 125,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide over 20 years.⁵³¹

Transport

Ben Gurion International Airport

Israel has 19,224 kilometres (11,945 mi) of paved roads ⁵³² and 3 million motor vehicles.⁵³³ The number of motor vehicles per 1,000 persons is 365, relatively low among developed countries.⁵³³ The country aims to have 30% of vehicles on its roads powered by electricity by 2030.⁵³⁴

Israel has 5,715 buses on scheduled routes,⁵³⁵ operated by several carriers, the largest and oldest of which is Egged, serving most of the country.⁵³⁶ Railways stretch across 1,277 kilometres (793 mi) and are operated by government-owned Israel Railways. Following major investments beginning in the early to mid-1990s, the number of train passengers per year has grown from 2.5 million in 1990, to 53 million in 2015; railways transport 7.5 million tons of cargo per year.

Israel is served by three international airports: Ben Gurion Airport, the country’s main hub for international air travel; Ramon Airport; and Haifa Airport. Ben Gurion handled over 21.1 million passengers in 2023.⁵³⁷ There are three main ports: the Port of Haifa, the oldest and largest; Ashdod Port; and the Port of Eilat on the Red Sea.

Tourism

Ein Bokek resort on the shore of the Dead Sea

Tourism, especially religious tourism, is an important industry, with beaches, archaeological, other historical and biblical sites, and unique geography also drawing tourists. In 2017, a record 3.6 million tourists visited Israel, yielding a 25 percent growth since 2016 and contributed NIS 20 billion to the economy.⁵³⁸ ⁵³⁹

Real estate

Housing prices are listed in the top third of all countries,⁵⁴⁰ with an average of 150 salaries required to buy an apartment.⁵⁴¹ As of 2022, there are about 2.7 million properties in Israel, with an annual increase of over 50,000.⁵⁴² However, demand for housing exceeds supply, with a shortage of about 200,000 apartments as of 2021.⁵⁴³ As a result, by 2021 housing prices rose by 5.6%.⁵⁴⁴ In 2021, Israelis took a record of NIS 116.1 billion in mortgages, an increase of 50% from 2020.⁵⁴⁵

Demographics

Immigration to Israel in the years 1948–2015. The two peaks were in 1949 and 1990.

Israel has the largest Jewish population in the world and is the only country where Jews are the majority,⁵⁴⁶ and the only country in which Jews make up more than 2% of the total national population.⁵⁴⁷ April 2025, the population was an estimated 10,094,000.⁵⁴⁸ In 2022, the government recorded 73.6% of the population as Jews, 21.1% as Arabs, and 5.3% as “Others” (non-Arab Christians and people who have no religion listed).⁵⁴⁹ Over the last decade, large numbers of migrant workers from Romania, Thailand, China, Africa, and South America have settled in Israel. Exact figures are unknown, as many of them are living in the country illegally,⁵⁵⁰ but estimates run from 166,000 to 203,000.⁵⁵¹ By June 2012, approximately 60,000 African migrants had entered Israel.⁵⁵²

About 93% of Israelis live in urban areas.⁵⁵³ 90% of Palestinian Israelis reside in 139 densely populated towns and villages concentrated in the Galilee, Triangle and Negev regions, with the remaining 10% in mixed cities and neighbourhoods.⁵⁵⁴ The OECD in 2016 estimated the average life expectancy at 82.5 years, the 6th-highest in the world.⁵⁵⁵ Israeli Arab life expectancy lags by 3 to 4 years ⁵⁵⁶ ⁵⁵⁷ and is higher than in most Arab and Muslim countries.⁵⁵⁸ ⁵⁵⁹ The country has the highest fertility rate in the OECD and the only one which is above the replacement figure of 2.1.⁵⁶⁰ Retention of Israel’s population since 1948 is about even or greater, when compared to other countries with mass immigration.⁵⁶¹ Jewish emigration from Israel (called yerida), primarily to the United States and Canada, is described by demographers as modest,⁵⁶² but is often cited by Israeli government ministries as a major threat to Israel’s future.⁵⁶³ ⁵⁶⁴

Approximately 80% of Israeli Jews are born in Israel, 14% are immigrants from Europe and the Americas, and 6% are immigrants from Asia and Africa.⁵⁶⁵ Jews from Europe and the former Soviet Union and their descendants born in Israel, including Ashkenazi Jews, constitute approximately 44% of Jewish Israelis. Jews from Arab and Muslim countries and their descendants, including both Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews,⁵⁶⁶ form most of the rest of the Jewish population.⁵⁶⁷ Jewish intermarriage rates run at over 35% and recent studies suggest that the percentage of Israelis descended from both Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews increases by 0.5 percent yearly, with over 25% of schoolchildren now originating from both.⁵⁶⁸ Around 4% of Israelis (300,000), ethnically defined as “others”, are Russian descendants of Jewish origin or family who are not Jewish according to rabbinical law, but were eligible for citizenship under the Law of Return.⁵⁶⁹ ⁵⁷⁰ ⁵⁷¹

Israeli settlers beyond the Green Line number over 600,000 (≈10% of the Jewish Israeli population).⁵⁷² In 2016, 399,300 Israelis lived in West Bank settlements,⁵⁷³ including those that predated the establishment of the State of Israel and which were re-established after the Six-Day War. Additionally there were more than 200,000 Jews living in East Jerusalem ³¹⁷ and 22,000 in the Golan Heights.⁵⁷³ Approximately 7,800 Israelis lived in settlements in the Gaza Strip, known as Gush Katif, until they were evacuated by the government as part of its 2005 disengagement plan.⁵⁷⁴

Israeli Arabs (including the Arab population of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights) comprise 21.1% of the population or 1,995,000 people.⁵⁷⁵ In a 2017 poll, 40% of Arab citizens of Israel identified as “Arab in Israel” or “Arab citizen of Israel”, 15% identified as “Palestinian”, 8.9% as “Palestinian in Israel” or “Palestinian citizen of Israel”, and 8.7% as “Arab”; a poll found that 60% of Israeli Arabs have a positive view of the state.⁵⁷⁶ ⁵⁷⁷

View over the Tel Aviv Metropolitan Area

Israel has four major metropolitan areas: Gush Dan (Tel Aviv metropolitan area; population 3,854,000), Jerusalem (population 1,253,900), Haifa (924,400), and Beersheba (377,100).⁵⁷⁸ The largest municipality, in population and area, is Jerusalem with 981,711 residents in an area of 125 square kilometres (48 sq mi).⁵⁷⁹ Statistics on Jerusalem include the population and area of East Jerusalem, the status of which is in international dispute.⁵⁸⁰ Tel Aviv and Haifa rank as Israel’s next most populous cities, with populations of 474,530 and 290,306, respectively.⁵⁷⁹ The (mainly Haredi) city of Bnei Brak is the most densely populated city in Israel and one of the 10 most densely populated cities in the world.⁵⁸¹

Israel has 16 cities with populations over 100,000. As of 2018 there are 77 localities granted “municipalities” (or “city”) status by the Ministry of the Interior,⁵⁸² four of which are in the West Bank.⁵⁸³

v t e Largest cities in Israel Israel Central Bureau of Statistics ⁶⁰⁶
Rank	Name	District	Pop.	Rank	Name	District	Pop.
1	Jerusalem	Jerusalem	981,711 ^a	11	Ramat Gan	Tel Aviv	172,486
2	Tel Aviv	Tel Aviv	474,530	12	Beit Shemesh	Jerusalem	154,694
3	Haifa	Haifa	290,306	13	Ashkelon	Southern	153,138
4	Rishon LeZion	Central	260,453	14	Rehovot	Central	150,748
5	Petah Tikva	Central	255,387	15	Bat Yam	Tel Aviv	128,465
6	Netanya	Central	233,104	16	Herzliya	Tel Aviv	106,741
7	Ashdod	Southern	226,827	17	Hadera	Haifa	103,041
8	Bnei Brak	Tel Aviv	218,357	18	Kfar Saba	Central	101,556
9	Beersheba	Southern	214,162	19	Modi'in-Maccabim-Re'ut	Central	99,171
10	Holon	Tel Aviv	197,957	20	Lod	Central	85,351

⁵⁸⁴

Language

Road sign in Hebrew, Arabic, and English

The official language is Hebrew. Hebrew is the primary language of the state and is spoken daily by the majority of the population. Prior to 1948, opposition to Yiddish, the historical language of the Ashkenazi Jews, was common among supporters of the Zionist movement, including the Yishuv, who sought to promote Hebrew’s revival as a unifying national language.⁵⁸⁵ These sentiments were reflected in the early policies of the Israeli government, which largely banned Yiddish theatre and publications.⁵⁸⁶ Until 2018, Arabic was also an official language;⁵⁸⁷ in 2018 it was downgraded to having a “special status in the state”.⁵⁸⁸ ⁵⁸⁹ Arabic is spoken by the Arab minority, with Arabic and Hebrew taught in Arab schools.⁵⁹⁰ Arabic is studied in most Jewish schools and is often used on signage and in transport announcements.⁵⁹¹

Due to mass immigration from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia (some 130,000 Ethiopian Jews live in Israel),⁵⁹² ⁵⁹³ Russian and Amharic are widely spoken.⁵⁹⁴ Over one million Russian-speaking immigrants arrived in Israel between 1990 and 2004.⁵⁹⁵ French is spoken by around 700,000 Israelis,⁵⁹⁶ mostly originating from France and North Africa (see Maghrebi Jews). English was an official language during the Mandate period;⁵⁹⁷ it lost this status after the establishment of Israel, but retains a role comparable to that of an official language.⁵⁹⁸ ⁵⁹⁹ Many Israelis communicate reasonably well in English, as many television programmes are broadcast in English with subtitles and the language is taught in elementary school. Israeli universities offer courses in English.⁶⁰⁰

Religion

The Dome of the Rock and the Western Wall, Jerusalem

The estimated religious affiliation as of 2022 was 73.5% Jewish, 18.1% Muslim, 1.9% Christian, 1.6% Druze, and 4.9% other.⁶⁰¹ The religious affiliation of Israeli Jews varies widely: a 2016 survey by Pew Research indicates that 49% self-identify as Hiloni (secular), 29% as Masorti (traditional), 13% as Dati (religious) and 9% as Haredi (ultra-Orthodox).⁶⁰² Haredi Jews are expected to represent over 20% of the Jewish population by 2028.⁶⁰³ Muslims constitute the largest religious minority, making up about 18.1% of the population. About 1.9% of the population is Christian, and 1.6% is Druze.⁶⁰¹ The Christian population comprises primarily Arab Christians and Aramean Christians but also includes post-Soviet immigrants, foreign labourers, Armenian Christians, and followers of Messianic Judaism, considered by most Christians and Jews to be a form of Christianity.⁶⁰⁴ Members of many other religious groups, including Buddhists and Hindus, maintain a presence in Israel, albeit in small numbers.⁶⁰⁵ Out of over one million immigrants from the former Soviet Union, about 300,000 are considered not Jewish by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel.⁶⁰⁶

Israel comprises a major part of the Holy Land, a region of significant importance to all Abrahamic religions. Jerusalem is of special importance to Jews, Muslims, and Christians, as it is the home of sites that are pivotal to their religious beliefs, such as the Old City that incorporates the Western Wall and the Temple Mount (Al-Aqsa Mosque compound) and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.⁶⁰⁷ Other locations of religious importance are Nazareth (site of the Annunciation of Mary), Tiberias and Safed (two of the Four Holy Cities in Judaism), the White Mosque in Ramla (shrine of the prophet Saleh), and the Church of Saint George and Mosque of Al-Khadr, Lod (tomb of Saint George or Al Khidr). A number of other religious landmarks are located in the West Bank, including Joseph’s Tomb, the birthplace of Jesus, Rachel’s Tomb, and the Cave of the Patriarchs. The administrative center of the Baháʼí Faith and the Shrine of the Báb are located at the Baháʼí World Centre in Haifa; the leader of the faith is buried in Acre.⁶⁰⁸ ⁶⁰⁹ ⁶¹⁰ The Mahmood Mosque is affiliated with the reformist Ahmadiyya movement. Kababir, Haifa’s mixed neighbourhood of Jews and Ahmadi Arabs, is one of a few of its kind in the country.⁶¹¹ ⁶¹²

Education

Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center at Bar-Ilan University

In 2015, Israel ranked third among OECD members for the percentage of 25–64-year-olds that have attained tertiary education with 49% compared with the OECD average of 35%.⁶¹³ In 2012, the country ranked third in the number of academic degrees per capita (20 percent of the population).⁶¹⁴

Israel has a school life expectancy of 16 years and a literacy rate of 97.8%.²⁷⁶ The State Education Law (1953) established five types of schools: state secular, state religious, ultra orthodox, communal settlement schools, and Arab schools. The public secular is the largest school group and is attended by the majority of Jewish and non-Arab pupils. Most Arabs send their children to schools where Arabic is the language of instruction.⁵⁹⁰ Education is compulsory for children between the ages of three and eighteen.⁶¹⁵ Schooling is divided into three tiers—primary school (grades 1–6), middle school (grades 7–9), and high school (grades 10–12)—culminating with Bagrut matriculation exams. Proficiency in core subjects such as mathematics, the Hebrew language, Hebrew and general literature, the English language, history, Biblical scripture and civics is necessary to receive a Bagrut certificate.⁶¹⁶

The Jewish population maintains a relatively high level of educational attainment where just under half of all Israeli Jews (46%) hold post-secondary degrees.⁶¹⁷ ⁶¹⁸ Israeli Jews 25 and older have an average 11.6 years of schooling, making them one of the most highly educated of all major religious groups in the world.⁶¹⁹ ⁶²⁰ In Arab, Christian and Druze schools, the exam on Biblical studies is replaced by an exam on Muslim, Christian or Druze heritage, respectively.⁶²¹ In 2020, 68.7% of 12th graders earned a matriculation certificate.⁶²²

Mount Scopus Campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Israel has a tradition of higher education where its university education has been largely responsible in spurring modern economic development.⁶²³ Israel has nine public universities subsidised by the state and 49 private colleges.⁶¹⁶ ⁶²⁴ ⁶²⁵ The Hebrew University of Jerusalem houses the National Library of Israel, the world’s largest repository of Judaica and Hebraica.⁶²⁶ The Technion and the Hebrew University consistently ranked among world’s 100 top universities by ARWU ranking.⁵⁰⁷ Other major universities include the Weizmann Institute of Science, Tel Aviv University, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Bar-Ilan University, the University of Haifa, and the Open University of Israel.

Culture

Cultural diversity stems from its diverse population: Jews from various diaspora communities brought their cultural and religious traditions with them.⁶²⁷ Arab influences are present in many cultural spheres,⁶²⁸ being found in architecture,⁶²⁹ music,⁶³⁰ and cuisine.⁶³¹ Israel is the only country where life revolves around the Hebrew calendar. Holidays are determined by the Jewish holidays. The official day of rest is Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath.⁶³²

Literature

Shmuel Yosef Agnon, laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature

Israeli literature is primarily poetry and prose written in Hebrew, as part of the renaissance of Hebrew as a spoken language since the mid-19th century, although a small body of literature is published in other languages. By law, two copies of all works published in Israel must be deposited in the National Library of Israel.⁶³³ In 2016, 89 percent of the 7,300 books transferred to the library were in Hebrew.⁶³⁴

In 1966, Shmuel Yosef Agnon shared the Nobel Prize in Literature with German Jewish author Nelly Sachs.⁶³⁵ Leading poets include Yehuda Amichai, Nathan Alterman, Leah Goldberg, and Rachel Bluwstein.⁶³⁶ Internationally famous contemporary novelists include Amos Oz, Etgar Keret and David Grossman.⁶³⁷ ⁶³⁸

Israel Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Zubin Mehta

Israeli music includes Mizrahi and Sephardic music, Hasidic melodies, Greek music, jazz, and pop rock.⁶³⁹ ⁶⁴⁰ The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra ⁶⁴¹ ⁶⁴² has been in operation for over seventy years and performs more than two hundred concerts each year.⁶⁴³ Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman and Ofra Haza are among the internationally acclaimed musicians born in Israel. The country has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest nearly every year since 1973, winning it four times and hosting three times.⁶⁴⁴ Eilat has hosted its own international music festival, the Red Sea Jazz Festival, every summer since 1987.⁶⁴⁵ The nation’s canonical folk songs are known as “Songs of the Land of Israel”.⁶⁴⁶

Ten Israeli films have been final nominees for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards. Palestinian Israeli filmmakers have made films dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflict and status of Palestinians within Israel, such as Mohammed Bakri ‘s 2002 film Jenin, Jenin and The Syrian Bride.

Continuing the strong theatrical traditions of the Yiddish theatre in Eastern Europe, Israel maintains a vibrant theatre scene. Founded in 1918, Habima Theatre in Tel Aviv is Israel’s oldest repertory theater company and national theater.⁶⁴⁷ Other theatres include Ohel, the Cameri and Gesher.⁶⁴⁸ ⁶⁴⁹

Arts

Israeli Jewish art has been particularly influenced by the Kabbalah, the Talmud and the Zohar. Another art movement that held a prominent role in the 20th century was the School of Paris. In the late 19th and early 20th century, the Yishuv’s art was dominated by art trends emanating Bezalel. Beginning in the 1920s, the local art scene was heavily influenced by modern French art, first introduced by Isaac Frenkel Frenel.⁶⁵⁰ ⁶⁵¹ Jewish masters of the school of Paris, such as Soutine, Kikoine, Frenkel, Chagall heavily influenced the subsequent development of Israeli art.⁶⁵² ⁶⁵³ Israeli sculpture took inspiration from modern European sculpture as well Mesopotamian, Assyrian and local art.⁶⁵⁴ ⁶⁵⁵ Avraham Melnikov ‘s roaring lion, David Polus’ Alexander Zaid and Ze’ev Ben Zvi ‘s cubist sculpture exemplify some of the different streams in sculpture.⁶⁵⁴ ⁶⁵⁶ ⁶⁵⁷

Common themes in art are the mystical cities of Safed and Jerusalem, the bohemian café culture of Tel Aviv, agricultural landscapes, biblical stories and war. Today Israeli art has delved into optical art, AI art, digital art and the use of salt in sculpture.⁶⁵³

Architecture

Bauhaus Museum Tel Aviv

Due to the immigration of Jewish architects, architecture has come to reflect different styles. In the early 20th century Jewish architects sought to combine Occidental and Oriental architecture producing buildings that showcase a myriad of infused styles.⁶⁵⁸ The eclectic style gave way to the modernist Bauhaus style with the influx of German Jewish architects (among them Erich Mendelsohn) fleeing Nazi persecution.⁶⁵⁹ ⁶⁶⁰ The White City of Tel Aviv is a UNESCO heritage site.⁶⁶¹ Following independence, multiple government projects were commissioned, a grand part built in a brutalist style with heavy emphasis on the use of concrete and acclimatisation to the desert climate.⁶⁶² ⁶⁶³

Several novel ideas such as the Garden City were implemented in Israeli cities; the Geddes plan of Tel Aviv became renowned internationally for its revolutionary design and adaptation to the local climate.⁶⁶⁴ The design of kibbutzim also came to reflect ideology, such as the planning of the circular kibbutz Nahalal by Richard Kauffmann.⁶⁶⁵

Media

Media is diverse, reflecting the spectrum of audiences. Notable newspapers include the leftwing Haaretz,⁶⁶⁶ centrist Yedioth Ahronoth,⁶⁶⁷ and center-right Israel Hayom.⁶⁶⁸ There are several major TV channels which cater to different audiences, from Russian-language Channel 9 ⁶⁶⁹ to Arabic-language Kan 33.⁶⁷⁰ The 2024 Freedom House report found Israeli media is “vibrant and free to criticise government policy”.⁶⁷¹ In the 2024 Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders, Israel was placed 101st of 180 countries, second in the Middle East and North Africa.⁶⁷² ⁶⁷³ Reporters Without Borders noted that the Israel Defence Forces had killed more than 100 journalists in Gaza. Since the Gaza war, Israel had been “been trying to suppress the reporting coming out of the besieged enclave while disinformation infiltrates its own media ecosystem”.⁶⁷³ In May 2024, Israel shut down the local offices of Al Jazeera.⁶⁷⁴ In 2024, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Israel was the second leading country in the world in jailing journalists,⁶⁷⁵ while being responsible for the majority of journalists killed in the world.⁶⁷⁶

Museums

Shrine of the Book, repository of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Jerusalem

The Israel Museum in Jerusalem is one of Israel’s most important cultural institutions ⁶⁷⁷ and houses the Dead Sea Scrolls,⁶⁷⁸ along with an extensive collection of Judaica and European art.⁶⁷⁷ The Yad Vashem is the world central archive of Holocaust-related information.⁶⁷⁹ ANU - Museum of the Jewish People is an interactive museum devoted to the history of Jewish communities around the world.⁶⁸⁰

Israel has the highest number of museums per capita.⁶⁸¹ Several museums are devoted to Islamic culture, including the Rockefeller Museum and the L. A. Mayer Institute for Islamic Art, both in Jerusalem. The Rockefeller specialises in archaeological remains from Middle East history. It is also the home of the first hominid fossil skull found in West Asia, called Galilee Man.⁶⁸²

Cuisine

A meal including falafel, hummus French fries and Israeli salad

Israeli cuisine includes local dishes as well as Jewish cuisine brought to the country by immigrants. Particularly since the late 1970s, a fusion cuisine has developed.⁶⁸³ The cuisine has adapted elements of the Mizrahi, Sephardi, and Ashkenazi styles of cooking. It incorporates many foods traditionally eaten in the Levantine, Arab, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisines, such as falafel, hummus, shakshouka, couscous, and za’atar. Schnitzel, pizza, hamburgers, French fries, rice and salad are common.

Roughly half of the Jewish population attests to keeping kosher at home.⁶⁸⁴ ⁶⁸⁵ Kosher restaurants make up around a quarter of the total as of 2015.⁶⁸³ Pork—often called “white meat” in Israel ⁶⁸⁶ —is produced and consumed despite attempts to ban it; it is forbidden by both Judaism and Islam but is permitted by Christianity and mostly produced in traditionally Christian areas of northern Israel.⁶⁸⁷ ⁶⁸⁸ Other non-kosher foods produced and eaten in Israel include rabbits, ostriches, and non-kosher fish.⁶⁸⁶

Sports

Maccabi Haifa F.C. fans at Sammy Ofer Stadium in the city of Haifa

The most popular spectator sports in Israel are association football and basketball.⁶⁸⁹ The Israeli Premier League is the country’s premier football league, and the Israeli Basketball Premier League is the premier basketball league.⁶⁹⁰ Maccabi Haifa, Maccabi Tel Aviv, Hapoel Tel Aviv and Beitar Jerusalem are the largest football clubs. Maccabi Tel Aviv, Maccabi Haifa and Hapoel Tel Aviv have competed in the UEFA Champions League and Hapoel Tel Aviv reached the UEFA Cup quarter-finals. Israel hosted and won the 1964 AFC Asian Cup; in 1970 the Israel national football team qualified for the FIFA World Cup, the only time it participated. The 1974 Asian Games, held in Tehran, were the last Asian Games in which Israel participated, plagued by Arab countries that refused to compete with Israel. Israel was excluded from the 1978 Asian Games and since then has not competed in Asian sport events.⁶⁹¹ In 1994, UEFA agreed to admit Israel, and its football teams now compete in Europe. Maccabi Tel Aviv B.C. has won the European championship in basketball six times.⁶⁹²

Israel has won 20 Olympic medals since its first win in 1992, including a gold medal in windsurfing at the 2004 Summer Olympics,⁶⁹³ and seven medals at the 2024 Paris Olympics alone.⁶⁹⁴ Israel has won over 100 gold medals in the Paralympic Games and is ranked 20th in the all-time medal count. The 1968 Summer Paralympics were hosted by Israel.⁶⁹⁵ The Maccabiah Games, an Olympic-style event for Jewish and Israeli athletes, was inaugurated in the 1930s, and has been held every four years since. Krav Maga, a martial art developed by Jewish ghetto defenders, is used by the Israeli security forces and police.⁶⁹⁶

Chess is a leading sport. There are many Israeli grandmasters and Israeli chess players have won a number of youth world championships.⁶⁹⁷ Israel stages an annual international championship and hosted the World Team Chess Championship in 2005.

References

Notes

Citations

Sources

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External links

Official website of the Israel Prime Minister’s Office
Official website of the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics
The Israel Collection at the National Library of Israel
Israel at BBC News Online
Israel at the OECD
Israel web resources provided by GovPubs at the University of Colorado Boulder Libraries
Wikimedia Atlas of Israel
Geographic data related to Israel at OpenStreetMap

31°N 35°E / 31°N 35°E

Stein, Kenneth W. (1987) [Original in 1984]. The Land Question in Palestine, 1917–1939. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-4178-5. pp. 3–4, 247
Imseis 2021, pp. 13–14: “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”.”
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.”

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/ ˈ ɪ z r i.ə l,- r eɪ -/; Hebrew: יִשְׂרָאֵל, romanized:Yīsrāʾēl [jisʁaˈʔel]; Arabic: إِسْرَائِيل, romanized:ʾIsrāʾīl ↩
Hebrew: מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, romanised:Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl [mediˈnatjisʁaˈʔel]; Arabic: دَوْلَة إِسْرَائِيل, romanised:Dawlat Isrāʾīl ↩
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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) ↩
Miller, James Maxwell; Hayes, John Haralson (1986). A History of Ancient Israel and Judah. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 978-0-664-21262-9. ↩
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. Sheffield Academic Press Ltd. pp. 28, 31. ISBN 978-1-85075-657-6. ↩
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. ↩
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.” ↩
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. Archived from the original on 9 April 2023. Retrieved 1 December 2018. ↩
Kuhrt, Amiele (1995). The Ancient Near East. Routledge. p. 438. ISBN 978-0-415-16762-8. ↩
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.). Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-684-86912-4. ↩
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 Archived 9 April 2023 at the Wayback Machine 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. 146–147: 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. ↩
Finkelstein, Israel (2013). The Forgotten Kingdom: the archaeology and history of Northern Israel. pp. 65– 66, 73, 74, 78, 87– 94. ISBN 978-1-58983-911-3. OCLC 880456140. ↩ ↩²
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. ↩
Broshi, Maguen (2001). Bread, Wine, Walls and Scrolls. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 174. ISBN 978-1-84127-201-6. Archived from the original on 10 February 2023. Retrieved 1 December 2018. ↩
Broshi, M., & Finkelstein, I. (1992). “The Population of Palestine in Iron Age II” Archived 5 March 2023 at the Wayback Machine. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 287 (1), 47–60. ↩ ↩²
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. ↩
“Second Temple Period (538 BCE to 70 CE) Persian Rule”. Biu.ac.il. Archived from the original on 16 January 1999. Retrieved 15 March 2014. ↩ ↩²
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. Archived from the original on 19 December 2023. Retrieved 1 December 2018. ↩
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 978-0-674-39731-6. 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. Univ of California Press. 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. ↩
Schwartz, Seth (2014). The ancient Jews from Alexander to Muhammad. Cambridge University Press. pp. 85– 86. ISBN 978-1-107-04127-1. OCLC 863044259. Archived from the original on 3 April 2024. Retrieved 4 February 2024. 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. ↩ ↩²
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 (70–136 CE). 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. ↩
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. ↩ ↩²
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 978-0-674-39731-6, 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 978-0-89236-800-6 ↩
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History. 4:6.3-4 ↩
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. ↩
הר, משה דוד (2022). “היהודים בארץ-ישראל בימי האימפריה הרומית הנוצרית” [The Jews in the Land of Israel in the Days of the Christian Roman Empire]. ארץ-ישראל בשלהי העת העתיקה: מבואות ומחקרים [Eretz Israel in Late Antiquity: Introductions and Studies] (in Hebrew). Vol. 1. ירושלים: יד יצחק בן-צבי. pp. 210– 212. ISBN 978-965-217-444-4. ↩
Ehrlich, Michael (2022). The Islamization of the Holy Land, 634–1800. 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. ↩ ↩²
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. Cambridge University Press. 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. Archived from the original on 19 December 2023. Retrieved 30 March 2023. ↩
“Roman Palestine”. Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 30 October 2023. Retrieved 30 March 2023. ↩
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. ↩ ↩²
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 vacuum was apparently filled by nomads who, at a later stage, gradually became sedentarized ↩ ↩²
Al-Fasi, D. (1936). Solomon L. Skoss (ed.). The Hebrew-Arabic Dictionary of the Bible, Known as ‘Kitāb Jāmiʿ al-Alfāẓ’ (Agron) (in Hebrew). Vol. 1. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. xxxix–xl (Introduction). ↩
Gil, Moshe (1997). A History of Palestine, 634–1099. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-59984-9. ↩
Gil, Moshe (1992). A History of Palestine, 634–1099. Cambridge University Press. p. 14. ISBN 978-0-521-59984-9. Archived from the original on 17 May 2024. Retrieved 17 May 2024. ↩ ↩²
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. ↩
“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. ↩ ↩²
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…” ↩ ↩²
D. Tamar, “On the Jews of Safed in the Days of the Ottoman Conquest” Cathedra 11 (1979), cited Dan Ben Amos, Dov Noy (eds.),Folktales of the Jews, V. 3 (Tales from Arab Lands), Jewish Publication Society 2011 p.61, n.3: Tamar..challenges David’s conclusion concerning the severity of the riots against the Jews, arguing that the support of the Egyptian Jews saved the community of Safed from destruction’. ↩
The Solomon Goldman lectures. Spertus College of Judaica Press. 1999. p. 56. ISBN 978-0-935982-57-2. The Turks’ conquest of the city in 1517, was marked by a violent pogrom of murder, rape, and plunder of Jewish homes. The surviving Jews fled to the ” land of Beirut ”, not to return until 1533. ↩
Toby Green (2007). Inquisition; The Reign of Fear. Macmillan Press ISBN 978-1-4050-8873-2 pp. xv–xix. ↩
Alfassá, Shelomo (17 August 2007). “Sephardic Contributions to the Development of the State of Israel” (PDF). Alfassa.com. Archived from the original on 12 October 2007. Retrieved 14 January 2015. ↩
Cane, Peter; Conaghan, Joanne (2008). Millet system – Oxford Reference. doi:10.1093/acref/9780199290543.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-929054-3. ↩
Kieser, Hans-Lukas (27 October 2006). Turkey Beyond Nationalism: Towards Post-Nationalist Identities. I.B.Tauris. ISBN 978-0-85771-757-3. ↩
H. Inalcik; The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300–1600, Phoenix Press, (2001) ↩
“EARLY MODERN JEWISH HISTORY: Overview » 5. Ottoman Empire”. jewishhistory.research.wesleyan.edu. Archived from the original on 28 September 2020. Retrieved 24 November 2018. ↩
Akbar, M. J. (2003), The shade of swords: jihad and the conflict between Islam and Christianity, p. 89 ↩
L. Stavrianos; The Balkans since 1453, NYU Press (2000) ↩
Avineri 2017. ↩ ↩²
Shimoni 1995. ↩
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. ↩
“Palestine – Ottoman rule”. Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 4 December 2021. Retrieved 27 November 2018. ↩
Macalister, R. A. Stewart; Masterman, E. W. G. (1906). “The Modern Inhabitants of Palestine”. Quarterly Statement – Palestine Exploration Fund: 40. ↩
Halpern, Ben (1998). Zionism and the creation of a new society. Reinharz, Jehuda. Oxford University Press. pp. 53 –54. ISBN 978-0-585-18273-5. OCLC 44960036. ↩
Mandel, Neville J. (1974). “Ottoman Policy and Restrictions on Jewish Settlement in Palestine: 1881–1908: Part I” (PDF). Middle Eastern Studies. 10 (3): 312– 332. doi:10.1080/00263207408700278. ISSN 0026-3206. Archived (PDF) from the original on 3 December 2023. Retrieved 1 December 2023. ↩
Levine, Aaron (2014). Russian Jews and the 1917 Revolution (PDF). p. 14. Archived (PDF) from the original on 8 March 2023. Retrieved 7 December 2023. ↩
Herzl 1946, p. 11. ↩
Stein 2003, p. 88. “As with the First Aliyah, most Second Aliyah migrants were non-Zionist orthodox Jews…” ↩
Moris, Beni (2001). Righteous victims: a history of the Zionist-Arab conflict, 1881 – 2001 (1. Vintage Books ed.). New York, NY: Vintage Books. ISBN 978-0-679-74475-7. Many of these newcomers possessed a mixture of socialist and nationalist values, and they eventually succeeded in setting up a separate Jewish economy, based wholly on Jewish labor. ↩
Romano 2003, p. 30. ↩
Moris, Beni (2001). Righteous victims: a history of the Zionist-Arab conflict, 1881 – 2001 (1. Vintage Books ed.). New York, NY: Vintage Books. ISBN 978-0-679-74475-7. Another major cause of antagonism was the labor controversy. The hard core of Second Aliyah socialists, who were to become the Yishuv’s leaders in the 1920s and 1930s, believed that the settler economy must not depend on or exploit Arab labor… But, in reality, rather than “meshing,” the nationalist ethos had simply overpowered and driven out the socialist ethos… There were other reasons for the “conquest of labor.” The socialists of the Second Aliyah used the term to denote three things: overcoming the Jews’ traditional remove from agricultural labor and helping them transform into the “new Jews”; struggling against employers for better conditions; and replacing Arabs with Jews in manual jobs. ↩
Gelvin, James (2014) [2002]. The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War (3 ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-85289-0. Archived from the original on 9 October 2023. Retrieved 9 November 2020. ↩
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Yapp, M.E. (1987). The Making of the Modern Near East 1792–1923. Longman. p. 290. ISBN 978-0-582-49380-3. ↩
Avi Shlaim (2001). “PROLOGUE: THE ZIONIST FOUNDATIONS”. The Iron Wall. W.W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-32112-8. Archived from the original on 3 April 2024. Retrieved 4 February 2024. ↩
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“The Covenant of the League of Nations”. Article 22. Archived from the original on 26 July 2011. 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.” ↩
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Levenberg, Haim (1993). Military Preparations of the Arab Community in Palestine: 1945–1948. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-7146-3439-5, pp. 74–76 ↩
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Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, Village Statistics, 1945. ↩
Fraser 2004, p. 27. ↩
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Encyclopædia Britannica Archived 17 April 2015 at the Wayback Machine article on the Irgun Zvai Leumi ↩
Clarke, Thurston. By Blood and Fire, G.P. Puttnam’s Sons, 1981 ↩ ↩²
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Hoffman, Bruce: Anonymous Soldiers (2015) ↩
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↩
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.” ↩ ↩²
Matthews, John: Israel-Palestine land division Archived 5 October 2023 at the Wayback Machine ↩
Imseis 2021, pp. 14–15: ‘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’ ↩
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."" ↩
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Dominic Joseph Caraccilo (2011). Beyond Guns and Steel: A War Termination Strategy. ABC-CLIO. pp. 113–. ISBN 978-0-313-39149-1. Archived from the original on 19 December 2023. Retrieved 1 December 2018. 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. ↩
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↩
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Zafrir Renat, Israel Is Due, and Ill Prepared, for Major Earthquake, Haaretz, 15 January 2010. “On average, a destructive earthquake takes place in Israel once every 80 years, causing serious casualties and damage.” [2] Archived 15 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine ↩ ↩²
Watzman, Haim (8 February 1997). “Left for dead”. New Scientist. Archived from the original on 14 November 2012. Retrieved 20 March 2012. ↩
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Goldreich 2003, p. 85. ↩
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Degani, Corin (14 August 2023). “How Israel achieved one of the most secure water economies, drip by drip”. Haaretz. Retrieved 17 June 2024. ↩
“The History of Drip Irrigation”. 21 September 2017. ↩
Grossman, Gershon; Ayalon, Ofira; Baron, Yifaat; Kauffman, Debby. “Solar energy for the production of heat Summary and recommendations of the 4th assembly of the energy forum at SNI”. Samuel Neaman Institute for Advanced Studies in Science and Technology. Archived from the original on 16 January 2013. Retrieved 12 August 2012. ↩ ↩²
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“The Electoral System in Israel”. The Knesset. Retrieved 8 August 2007. ↩
סגל, עמית (2021). סיפורה של הפוליטיקה הישראלית: מבן גוריון ועד בנט (in Hebrew). Hotsaʼat ʻAmit Segal. ISBN 978-965-599-597-8. ↩
Jewish settlers can vote in Israeli elections, though West Bank is officially not Israel, Fox News, February 2015: “When Israelis go to the polls next month, tens of thousands of Jewish settlers in the West Bank will also be casting votes, even though they do not live on what is sovereign Israeli territory. This exception in a country that doesn’t allow absentee voting for citizens living abroad is a telling reflection of Israel’s somewhat ambiguous and highly contentious claim to the territory, which has been under military occupation for almost a half century.” ↩
The Social Composition of the 20th Knesset, Israeli Democracy Institute, 30 March 2015 ↩
Halbfinger, David M.; McCann, Allison (28 February 2020). “As Israel Votes Again (and Again), Arabs See an Opportunity”. The New York Times. Archived from the original on 6 January 2022. ↩
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Mazie 2006, p. 34. ↩
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Sharot, Stephen (2007). “Judaism in Israel: Public Religion, Neo-Traditionalism, Messianism, and Ethno-Religious Conflict”. In Beckford, James A.; Demerath, Jay (eds.). The Sage Handbook of the Sociology of Religion. Sage Publications. pp. 671– 672. ISBN 978-1-4129-1195-5. It is true that Jewish Israelis, and secular Israelis in particular, conceive of religion as shaped by a state-sponsored religious establishment. There is no formal state religion in Israel, but the state gives its official recognition and financial support to particular religious communities, Jewish, Islamic and Christian, whose religious authorities and courts are empowered to deal with matters of personal status and family law, such as marriage, divorce, and alimony, that are binding on all members of the communities. ↩
Jacoby, Tami Amanda (2005). Women in Zones of Conflict: Power and Resistance in Israel. McGill-Queen’s University Press. pp. 53– 54. ISBN 978-0-7735-2993-9. Although there is no official religion in Israel, there is also no clear separation between religion and state. In Israeli public life, tensions frequently arise among different streams of Judaism: Ultra-Orthodox, National-Religious, Mesorati (Conservative), Reconstructionist Progressive (Reform), and varying combinations of traditionalism and non-observance. Despite this variety in religious observances in society, Orthodox Judaism prevails institutionally over the other streams. This boundary is an historical consequence of the unique evolution of the relationship between Israel nationalism and state building… Since the founding period, in order to defuse religious tensions, the State of Israel has adopted what is known as the ‘status quo,’ an unwritten agreement stipulating that no further changes would be made in the status of religion, and that conflict between the observant and non-observant sectors would be handled circumstantially. The ‘status quo’ has since pertained to the legal status of both religious and secular Jews in Israel. This situation was designed to appease the religious sector, and has been upheld indefinitely through the disproportionate power of religious political parties in all subsequent coalition governments… On one hand, the Declaration of Independence adopted in 1948 explicitly guarantees freedom of religion. On the other, it simultaneously prevents the separation of religion and state in Israel. ↩
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Gilead Sher, The Application of Israeli Law to the West Bank: De Facto Annexation?, INSS Insight No. 638, 4 December 2014 ↩ ↩² ↩³
⁴⁸⁴ ↩
See for example:
* Hajjar, Lisa (2005). Courting Conflict: The Israeli Military Court System in the West Bank and Gaza. University of California Press. p. 96. ISBN 978-0-520-24194-7. The Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is the longest military occupation in modern times.
* Anderson, Perry (July–August 2001). “Editorial: Scurrying Towards Bethlehem”. New Left Review. 10. Archived from the original on 1 October 2018. Retrieved 9 January 2015. longest official military occupation of modern history—currently entering its thirty-fifth year
* Makdisi, Saree (2010). Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation. W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-33844-7. longest-lasting military occupation of the modern age
* Kretzmer, David (Spring 2012). “The law of belligerent occupation in the Supreme Court of Israel” (PDF). International Review of the Red Cross. 94 (885): 207– 236. doi:10.1017/S1816383112000446. S2CID 32105258. This is probably the longest occupation in modern international relations, and it holds a central place in all literature on the law of belligerent occupation since the early 1970s
* Alexandrowicz, Ra’anan (24 January 2012). “The Justice of Occupation”. The New York Times (opinion). Israel is the only modern state that has held territories under military occupation for over four decades
* Weill, Sharon (2014). The Role of National Courts in Applying International Humanitarian Law. Oxford University Press. p. 22. ISBN 978-0-19-968542-4. Although the basic philosophy behind the law of military occupation is that it is a temporary situation modem occupations have well demonstrated that rien ne dure comme le provisoire A significant number of post-1945 occupations have lasted more than two decades such as the occupations of Namibia by South Africa and of East Timor by Indonesia as well as the ongoing occupations of Northern Cyprus by Turkey and of Western Sahara by Morocco. The Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, which is the longest in all occupation’s history has already entered its fifth decade.
* Azarova, Valentina. 2017, Israel’s Unlawfully Prolonged Occupation: Consequences under an Integrated Legal Framework, European Council on Foreign Affairs Policy Brief: “June 2017 marks 50 years of Israel’s belligerent occupation of Palestinian territory, making it the longest occupation in modern history.” ↩
“UNRWA in Figures: Figures as of 30 June 2009” (PDF). United Nations. June 2009. Retrieved 27 September 2007. ↩
Yiftachel, O. (1999). “‘Ethnocracy’: The Politics of Judaizing Israel/Palestine” (PDF). Constellations. 6 (3): 364– 390. doi:10.1111/1467-8675.00151. Israel’s political structure and settlement activity have […] in effect undermined the existence of universal suffrage (as Jewish settlers in the Occupied Territories can vote to the parliament that governs them, but their Palestinian neighbours cannot). ↩
Ghanem, A. A.; Rouhana, N.; Yiftachel, O. (1998). “Questioning” ethnic democracy”: A response to Sammy Smooha”. Israel Studies. 3 (2): 253– 267. doi:10.2979/ISR.1998.3.2.253. JSTOR 30245721. S2CID 3524173. settlers remain fully enfranchised Israeli citizens while their Palestinian neighbors have no voting rights and no impact on Israeli policies ↩
“Situation Report on the Humanitarian Situation in the Gaza Strip”. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. 23 January 2009. Archived from the original on 12 June 2012. ↩
“The occupied Palestinian territories: Dignity Denied”. International Committee of the Red Cross. 13 December 2007. ↩
“World Report 2013: Israel/Palestine”. Israel/Palestine. Human Rights Watch. 2013. Retrieved 13 June 2013. ↩
“Human Rights in Palestine and Other Occupied Arab Territories: Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict” (PDF). United Nations Human Rights Council. 15 September 2009. p. 85. ↩
“Israel/Occupied Territories: Road to nowhere”. Amnesty International. 1 December 2006. ↩
“The scope of Israeli control in the Gaza Strip”. B’Tselem. Retrieved 20 March 2012. ↩ ↩²
“Agreed documents on movement and access from and to Gaza”. Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 15 November 2005. Retrieved 13 June 2013. ↩
Jerome Slater (1 October 2020). Mythologies Without End: The US, Israel, and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1917–2020. Oxford University Press. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-19-045909-3. It is now clear that Israel is a true democracy in its broadest sense only for its Jewish citizens. The Arab-Israeli (or, as some prefer, the Palestinian-Israeli) peoples, roughly 20 percent of the total population of Israel its pre-1967 boundaries, are citizens and have voting rights, but they face political, economic, and social discrimination. And, of course, Israeli democracy is inapplicable to the nearly 4 million Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza, conquered by Israel in June 1967, who are occupied, repressed, and in many ways, directly and indirectly, effectively ruled by Israel. ↩
Ben White (15 January 2012). Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination and Democracy. Pluto Press. ISBN 978-0-7453-3228-4. ↩
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“Olmert: Willing to trade land for peace”. Ynetnews. 16 December 2006. Retrieved 26 September 2007. ↩
“Syria ready to discuss land for peace”. The Jerusalem Post. 12 June 2007. Retrieved 20 March 2012. ↩
“Egypt: Israel must accept the land-for-peace formula”. The Jerusalem Post. 15 March 2007. Retrieved 20 March 2012. ↩
“A/RES/36/147. Report of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied Territories”. Retrieved 12 February 2017. ↩
Rudoren, Jodi; Sengupta, Somini (22 June 2015). “U.N. Report on Gaza Finds Evidence of War Crimes by Israel and by Palestinian Militants”. The New York Times. Retrieved 12 February 2017. ↩
“Human Rights Council establishes Independent, International Commission of Inquiry for the Occupied Palestinian Territory”. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. 23 July 2014. Retrieved 12 February 2017. ↩
“UN condemns Israel’s West Bank settlement plans”. BBC News. 25 January 2017. Retrieved 12 February 2017. ↩
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“Faced with Israeli denial of access to Occupied Palestinian Territory, UN expert resigns”. 4 January 2016. Archived from the original on 5 December 2016. ↩
“Human Rights Council adopts six resolutions and closes its thirty-first regular session”. Retrieved 12 February 2017. ↩
‘Significant human rights issues included credible reports of: unlawful or arbitrary killings; arbitrary detention, often extraterritorial detention of Palestinians from the occupied territories in Israel; restrictions on Palestinians residing in Jerusalem including arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy, family, and home; substantial interference with the freedom of association; arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy; harassment of nongovernmental organizations; significant restrictions on freedom of movement within the country; violence against asylum seekers and irregular migrants; violence or threats of violence against national, racial, or ethnic minority groups; and labor rights abuses against foreign workers and Palestinians from the West Bank.’ Israel 2021 Human Rights Report,United States Department of State 17 April 2021. ↩
‘With respect to Israeli security forces in the West Bank: credible reports of unlawful or arbitrary killings due to unnecessary or disproportionate use of force by Israeli officials; torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by Israeli officials; arbitrary arrest or detention; arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy; restrictions on free expression and media, including violence, threats of violence, unjustified arrests and prosecutions against journalists, and censorship; restrictions on internet freedom; restrictions on Palestinians residing in Jerusalem, including arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy, family, and home; substantial interference with the rights of peaceful assembly and freedom of association, including harassment of nongovernmental organizations; and restrictions on freedom of movement and residence.’ 2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Israel, West Bank and Gaza,United States Department of State 12 April 2022 ↩
Heyer, Julia Amalia (7 October 2014). “Kids Behind Bars: Israel’s Arbitrary Arrests of Palestinian Minors”. Der Spiegel. Retrieved 23 April 2017. ↩
“Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories 2016/2017”. Amnesty International. Retrieved 23 April 2017. ↩
Isfahan, Ali (11 August 2014).. Foreign Policy Journal. Retrieved 23 April 2017. ↩
Barghouti, Marwan (16 April 2017). “Why We Are on Hunger Strike in Israel’s Prisons”. The New York Times. Retrieved 23 April 2017. ↩
Dorfman, Zach. “George Mitchell wrote ‘A Path to Peace’ about Israel and Palestine. Is there one?“. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 1 February 2017. ↩
“Outrage over Maimane’s visit to Israel”. Retrieved 1 February 2017. ↩
“The subordination of Palestinian rights must stop”. The National. Retrieved 1 February 2017. ↩
“Palestine-Israel Journal: Settlements and the Palestinian Right to Self-Determination”. pij.org. Retrieved 1 February 2017. ↩
Hammond, Jeremy R. “The Rejection of Palestinian Self Determination” (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 February 2017. Retrieved 1 February 2017. ↩
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“Allegations of Israeli Human Rights Violations Closely Scrutinized, Says U.S. State Department”. Haaretz. 6 May 2017. Retrieved 12 February 2017. ↩
Barak-Erez, Daphne (1 July 2006). “Israel: The security barrier—between international law, constitutional law, and domestic judicial review”. International Journal of Constitutional Law. 4 (3): 548. doi:10.1093/icon/mol021. The real controversy hovering over all the litigation on the security barrier concerns the fate of the Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. Since 1967, Israel has allowed and even encouraged its citizens to live in the new settlements established in the territories, motivated by religious and national sentiments attached to the history of the Jewish nation in the land of Israel. This policy has also been justified in terms of security interests, taking into consideration the dangerous geographic circumstances of Israel before 1967 (where Israeli areas on the Mediterranean coast were potentially threatened by Jordanian control of the West Bank ridge). The international community, for its part, has viewed this policy as patently illegal, based on the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention that prohibit moving populations to or from territories under occupation. ↩
“Choosing not to veto, Obama lets anti-settlement resolution pass at UN Security Council”. The Times of Israel. Retrieved 23 December 2016. ↩
Nebehay, Stephanie (9 July 2021). “Israeli settlements amount to war crime – U.N. rights expert”. Reuters. Retrieved 6 April 2023. ↩
“Chapter 3: Israeli Settlements and International Law”. Amnesty International. 30 January 2019. Retrieved 6 April 2023. ↩
Siddique, Haroon (19 July 2024). “UN court orders Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian territories”. The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 20 August 2024. ↩
“ICJ says Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal”. BBC News. 19 July 2024. Retrieved 20 August 2024. ↩
“LEGAL CONSEQUENCES ARISING FROM THE POLICIES AND PRACTICES OF ISRAEL IN THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY, INCLUDING EAST JERUSALEM” (PDF). icj-cij.org. 19 July 2024. ↩
Shakir 2021. ↩
“Israel committing crimes of apartheid and persecution – HRW”. BBC News. 27 April 2021. Retrieved 6 April 2023. ↩ ↩²
“Here’s how experts on the Middle East see the region’s key issues, our new survey finds”. The Washington Post. 16 February 2021. Archived from the original on 18 February 2021. ↩
“Academic experts believe that Middle East politics are actually getting worse”. The Washington Post. 17 September 2021. Archived from the original on 17 September 2021. ↩
Mansour 2024, p. 134: “It stated that ‘all Palestinians living under Israeli rule are treated as inferior in right and status to Jews who live the very same area’; the gist was in the title: ‘A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid’ (B’Tselem 2021)” ↩
B’Tselem 2021. ↩
University Network for Human Rights 2025: “This report analyzes the crime of apartheid and its application to Israel’s policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT)1 before and after October 7, 2023. Our analysis relies on a close examination of more than 25 credible human rights reports and judicial opinions from institutions and individuals with expertise in the region. Consistent with the findings of these experts, we conclude that Israel has committed and continues to commit the crime of apartheid as defined by the 1973 United Nations International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (Apartheid Convention)” ↩
Amnesty International 2022. ↩
Rosenfeld, Arno (27 April 2021). “Israel is committing ‘crime of apartheid,’ Human Rights Watch says”. The Forward. Retrieved 15 February 2022. ↩ ↩²
“U.S. State Department Rejects Amnesty’s Apartheid Claim Against Israel”. Haaretz. Retrieved 16 February 2022. ↩
Elgot, Jessica (28 April 2022). “Keir Starmer hosts Israeli Labor party in charm offensive ahead of local elections”. The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 25 October 2023. ↩
“Parliamentary question E-000932/2022(ASW) | Answer given by High Representative/Vice-President Borrell i Fontelles on behalf of the European Commission”. European Parliament. 20 January 2023. Retrieved 25 October 2023. ↩
Andrew Tillett (2 February 2022). “PM, Labor defend Israel over apartheid claim”. Australian Financial Review. Retrieved 25 October 2023. ↩
“Netherlands rejects Amnesty report accusing Israel of apartheid”. The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 2 May 2022. ↩
“Germany rejects use of word ‘apartheid’ in connection with Israel”. Reuters. 2 February 2022. Retrieved 16 February 2022. ↩
“Israeli policies against Palestinians amount to apartheid – Amnesty”. BBC News. 1 February 2022. Retrieved 15 February 2022. ↩
“Arab League, OIC welcome Amnesty’s report on Israel’s ‘apartheid’ against Palestinians”. Arab News. 3 February 2022. ↩
Kingsley, Patrick (23 March 2022). “U.N. Investigator Accuses Israel of Apartheid, Citing Permanence of Occupation”. The New York Times. ↩
Berman, Lazar (23 March 2022). “UN Human Rights Council report accuses Israel of apartheid”. The Times of Israel. Retrieved 2 June 2024. ↩
“UN report urges plan to ‘end Israeli colonialism, apartheid’“. The New Arab. 19 October 2022. ↩
Tress, Luke (28 October 2022). “UN commission says it will investigate ‘apartheid’ charges against Israel”. The Times of Israel. ↩
Kattan, Victor (20 March 2024). “The Implications of An ICJ Finding that Israel is Committing the Crime Against Humanity of Apartheid”. Just Security. ↩
“‘Racial Segregation and Apartheid’ in the ICJ Palestine Advisory Opinion”. 31 July 2024. ↩
“Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the Legal Consequences of Israel’s Policies and Practices in the “Occupied Palestinian Territory"". January 2024. ↩
Solomon, Solon (20 August 2024). “The Limits of the ICJ Advisory Opinion on Israel’s Occupation and the West Bank”. Lawfare. ↩
“ICJ Delivers Advisory Opinion on the Legality of Israel’s Occupation of Palestinian Territories”. 20 July 2024. ↩
Keane, David (31 July 2024). “‘Racial Segregation and Apartheid’ in the ICJ Palestine Advisory Opinion”. ↩
Jeßberger, Florian; Mehta, Kalika (19 September 2024). “The Inadvertent Protagonist”. Verfassungsblog. doi:10.59704/27788635acf1f7b5 – via verfassungsblog.de. ↩
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Mohammed Mostafa Kamal (21 July 2012). “Why Doesn’t the Muslim World Recognize Israel?“. The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 30 November 2015. ↩
“Massive Israel protests hit universities” (Egyptian Mail, 16 March 2010) “According to most Egyptians, almost 31 years after a peace treaty was signed between Egypt and Israel, having normal ties between the two countries is still a potent accusation and Israel is largely considered to be an enemy country” ↩
Abadi 2004, pp. 47–49. ↩
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Flores, Paola (29 November 2019). “Bolivia to renew Israel ties after rupture under Morales”. ABC News. Retrieved 15 December 2020. ↩
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Yaakov, Saar (18 October 2017). “There Were Times (Hayu Zemanim)” (in Hebrew). Israel Hayom. p. 30. ↩
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“U.S. Overseas Loans and Grants” (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 May 2011. ↩ ↩²
“U.S. Government Foreign Grants and Credits by Type and Country: 2000 to 2010” (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 October 2011. ↩
“Foreign Aid”. Archived from the original on 25 December 2007. ↩
“Americans Still Pro-Israel, Though Palestinians Gain Support”. Gallup, Inc. 17 March 2022. ↩
. YouGov. 2 February 2022. ↩
“The bilateral relationship”. UK in Israel. Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Archived from the original on 16 January 2013. Retrieved 20 March 2012. ↩
“Congressional Research Service: Germany’s Relations with Israel: Background and Implications for German Middle East Policy, Jan 19, 2007. (p. CRS-2)” (PDF). Retrieved 29 September 2010. ↩
Eric Maurice (5 March 2015). “EU to Revise Relations with Turbulent Neighbourhood”. EUobserver. Retrieved 1 December 2015. ↩
Abadi 2004, p. 3. “However, it was not until 1991 that the two countries established full diplomatic relations.” ↩
Abadi 2004, pp. 4–6. ↩
Uzer, Umut (26 March 2013). “Turkish-Israeli Relations: Their Rise and Fall”. Middle East Policy. XX (1): 97– 110. doi:10.1111/mepo.12007. Retrieved 7 January 2017. ↩
“Israel woos Greece after rift with Turkey”. BBC News. 16 October 2010. ↩
“Turkey, Greece discuss exploration off Cyprus”. Haaretz. Associated Press. 26 September 2011. Retrieved 1 January 2012. ↩
Benari, Elad (5 March 2012). “Israel, Cyprus Sign Deal for Underwater Electricity Cable”. Arutz Sheva. Retrieved 7 January 2017. ↩
“Inequality Report: The Palestinian Arab Minority in Israel – Adalah”. www.adalah.org. Retrieved 12 January 2024. ↩ ↩²
“The Israel-Kazakhstan Partnership”. The Diplomat. 19 July 2016. Archived from the original on 18 May 2022. ↩
Kumar, Dinesh. “India and Israel: Dawn of a New Era” (PDF). Jerusalem Institute for Western Defense. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 May 2012. Retrieved 19 March 2012. ↩
“India to hold wide-ranging strategic talks with US, Israel”. The Times of India. 19 January 2010. Archived from the original on 7 July 2012. Retrieved 20 March 2012. ↩
“Iran and Israel in Africa: A search for allies in a hostile world”. The Economist. 4 February 2010. Retrieved 20 March 2012. ↩
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* Bertman, Stephen (14 July 2005). Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-518364-1.
* 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 Nebraska, 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. ↩

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