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Israel

For other uses, see Israel (disambiguation).

State of Israel
Hebrew:	מדינת ישראל (Medinat Yisra'el)
Arabic:	دولة اسرائيل (Daulat Isra'il)

(Full size)
Official languages	Hebrew, Arabic
Capital	Jerusalem, (disputed1)
Largest City	Jerusalem
President	Moshe Katsav
Prime Minister	Ariel Sharon
Area  - Total  - % water	Ranked 149th aprox. 20,000 km² ~2%
Population  - Total (2003)  - Density	Ranked 99th 6,700,000 ~300/km²
Independence	May 14, 1948 Iyar 5, 5708
Currency	1 New sheqel (NIS) = 100 Agorot
Time zone	UTC +2/+3
National anthem	Hatikvah
Internet TLD	.IL
Calling Code	972

Table of contents

1 History 1.1 Wars 2 Politics 3 Military 4 Geography 5 Economy 6 Demographics 7 Culture and religion 8 Miscellaneous topics 9 Footnotes 10 External links 10.2 Government 10.3 Media 10.4 News articles 10.5 Blogs

History

Many Jews consider Israel to be their spiritual home (see Holy Land). A series of Jewish kingdoms and states existed intermittently in the region for over a millennium until the widescale expulsion of Jews from their homeland by the Roman authorities. (see Fall of Jerusalem, AD 70). After crushing the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135, Emperor Hadrian renamed the land Palestine after the Jews' ancient enemies, who lived along the coast in the area of the Gaza Strip centuries before - the Philistines. It was conquered from the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantines) by the Muslim Caliphate in the seventh century and attracted Arab settlers. Throughout the centuries the size of Jewish population in the land fluctuated. Before the birth of modern Zionism, by the early 19th century, more than 10,000 Jews lived in the area that is today's Israel. (Dan Bahat, Twenty Centuries of Jewish Life in the Holy Land, 1976, pp. 61-63)

Following centuries of Diaspora, the nineteenth century saw the rise of Zionism, a desire to see the creation of a Jewish State in Palestine and significant immigration. Zionism remained a minority movement until the rise of Nazism in 1933 and the subsequent attempted extermination of the Jewish people in the Shoah, or Holocaust. In the last 1800's large numbers of Jews began moving to the Turkish and later British-controlled region: the British mandate of Palestine, resulting in their rise from 11% of the population in 1922 to 30% by 1940.

In 1947, following increasing levels of violence and unsuccessful efforts to reconcile the Jewish and Arab populations, the British government withdrew from the Palestine Mandate. Fulfillment of the 1947 UN Partition Plan would have divided the mandated territory into two states, Jewish and Arab, giving about half the land area to each state. This plan, as well as an earlier 1937 partition proposed by the Peel Commission, was rejected by Arab leaders.

On May 14, 1948, the State of Israel was proclaimed in territory given for the Jewish state in the UN plan. The armies of five Arab nations intervened in the ongoing war between Jews and Arabs in Palestine (see: Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, May 14, 1948, 1948 Arab-Israeli War). Israel captured an additional 26% of the Mandate territory west of the Jordan river and annexed it to the new state. After the war, only 14-25% (depending on estimate) of the Arab population remained in Israel, the rest having fled prior to and during the war. When Israel refused their reentry, they became refugees; see Palestinian Exodus for a discussion of the circumstances. Over the following decade, many Jews came to Israel as refugees from the surrounding Arab nations, as well as Iran and Europe, doubling Israel's population within one year of independence. Israel's Jewish population continued to grow at a very high rate for some years, fed by waves of Jewish immigration from around the world, most notably recently following the collapse of the USSR. As with many states, Israel has minority ethnic groups that do not feel themselves properly part of the "Israeli nation," though they do hold Israeli citizenship. Prominent among these are the Israeli Arabs, many of whom consider themselves as belonging to a Palestinian nation. How to adjust the Israeli state to accommodate the sense of identity of this grouping without endangering the state's Jewish character is an important issue in modern-day Israeli-Palestinian relations.

In 1967, a perceived hostile buildup of Egyptian soldiers and the Egyptian blockade of the southern city of Eilat led to Israel launching an attack on its neighbors, starting with Egypt. Hostilities came to include Jordan (after Jordan reluctantly chose to dismiss Israeli appeals for neutrality and undertook shelling of Tel Aviv - in adherence with the Hashemite Kingdom's signed defence treaty with Egypt), Syria, and the Iraqi air force. This was the Six-Day War (June 5 - 10, 1967), which resulted in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip being administered and the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula becoming occupied by Israel. Previously, the West Bank was an annex of Jordan, but was never recognized as such by the international community. The Golan Heights and East Jerusalem have since been annexed by Israel; the formerly occupied Sinai has since been returned to Egypt under the 1978 Camp David Accords. The status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip is the subject of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations (see Geography below for more).

In the years since 1948, Israel and the United Nations have often suffered an adversarial relationship. Resolution 194 (passed in December 1948) (note: General Assembly resolutions are only suggested and not legally binding), granting the conditional right of return to Palestinian refugees; Resolution 242 (November 1967), calls for "withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict" (six day war), Israeli administration of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the annexation of East Jerusalem do not and did not fall under the legal category of occupation, unlike the Sinai and the Golan which were both formerly under the recognized sovereignty of a "high contracting party"; and Resolution 446 (March 1979), declaring settlements on the West Bank and Gaza Strip to be illegal. While most of the 65 security council and general assembly resolutions passed against Israeli actions, and the 41 security council resolutions vetoed by the United States, have had near universal support in the UN (often with the United States and Israel near alone among the dissenting), many supporters of Israel have claimed bias in the process. Israel is the only state that has not succeeded in joining any of the five geographical groupings that would make it eligible for Security Council membership according to accepted practice. It has indefinite temporary membership of the "Western Europe and Others" group but agreed to not seek UNSC membership on that basis. More than half of the UN's emergency meetings have been to condemn Israel.

See also:

• Jewish refugees
• Balfour Declaration 1917
• 1978 Camp David Peace Accords between Egypt and Israel
• 1993 Oslo Peace Accords between Palestinians and Israel
• Camp David 2000 Summit between Palestinians and Israel
• Proposals for a Palestinian state
• Arab-Israeli conflict
• Middle East conflict
• Israeli Security Forces
• Land of Israel
• Ancient kingdom of Israel

See also:

• 1948 Arab-Israeli War (see also: 1949 Armistice Agreements)
• 1956 Suez War
• 1967 Six Day War
• 1970 War of Attrition
• 1973 Yom Kippur War
• 1982 Lebanon War
• 1990/1 Gulf War

Israel is a constitutional, parliamentary republic. Israel's legislative branch is a 120-member parliament known as the Knesset. Elections to the Knesset are normally held every four years, but the Knesset can decide to dissolve itself ahead of time by a simple majority. The President of Israel is head of state, serving as a largely powerless figurehead. The President selects the leader of the majority party or ruling coalition in the Knesset as the Prime Minister, who serves as head of government.²

Another of the few powers granted to the president is the ability to appoint justices to the Supreme Court who serve for life. Their decisions have historically been subject to parliamentary supremacy and they can be removed from office by vote of the Knesset.

Israel has no official written constitution; its government functions are based on the laws of the Knesset, especially by the "Basic Laws of Israel", which are special laws the Knesset legislature, (currently there are 15 of them), which will become together the future official constitution. The declaration of the State of Israel has a significance in this matter as well.

Because of its parliamentary system, coalitions in the Knesset can often be unstable and are usually made up of at least two parties. Coalitions can be difficult to form and hard to keep together because of the large number of political parties, many of whom run on very specialized platforms, often advocating the tenets of particular Jewish sects.

In the past thirty years, the largest parties have been the conservative Likud Party and the third-way Labour Party. However, they do not attract sufficient support to be able to govern without the help of smaller parties such as Shas, a Haredi party which also tends to support high social spending; Shinui, a secularist conservative party and foe of Shas, which also works to undermine social spending; the National Union Party, a far-right party advocating "transfer of Palestinian refugees to resettle in Arab countries; the Mafdal - the national religious party, affiliated with religious Zionists (kipot srugot); and Meretz, a social-democratic party which is sometimes supportive of the Palestinian cause. All governments have so far avoided forming a coalition with parties representative of the Palestinian minority, such as the Arab-Jewish communist Hadash party, the liberal-nationalist Tajamu' party or the conservative-Islamic bloc United Arab List party.

Parties of the left have dominated Israel's elections until 1974, when following the 1973 War the ruling Labour party began to lose popularity. On the right, the Likud party was formed by a union of the Liberals and the nationalistic conservative Herut party. 1977 marked the beginning of right-wing dominance in Israeli politics, with the ascendance of Likud's Menachem Begin as prime minister. The Likud continued to form most governments since then, sometimes with Labour as its main coalition partner, with the exception of the Labour-Meretz coalitions between 1992-1996 and 1999-2001. In 2003, the Likud-headed government of prime minister Ariel Sharon gave left-wing parties their worst showing in years.

The premiership of Ariel Sharon is one of the most controversial since Israel's founding, with hostility emanating from both Left and Right. In 1983, the Israeli Kahan Commission found him partly responsible for the 1982 Phalangist-led Sabra and Shatila Massacre, leading to his dismissal as Defence Minister by Menachem Begin. Some of his milita
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