Israel

**Israel**, officially the **State of Israel**, is a country in the Middle East, situated on the Levantine Coast of the Mediterranean Sea, bordering the North African Caliphate to the south, Jordan and Palestine to the east and Syria to the north.

## History

### Independence

On 14 May 1948, the day before the expiration of the British Mandate, David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, declared "the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel". The following day, the armies of four Arab countries — Egypt, Syria, Transjordan and Iraq — entered what had been British Mandatory Palestine, launching the 1948 Arab–Israeli War; Contingents from Yemen, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Sudan joined the war. The apparent purpose of the invasion was to prevent the establishment of the Jewish state at inception, and some Arab leaders talked about driving the Jews into the sea. After a year of fighting, a ceasefire was declared and temporary borders, known as the Green Line, were established. Jordan annexed what became known as the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Egypt took control of the Gaza Strip.

### Conflicts with the Arab World

In 1950 Egypt closed the Suez Canal to Israeli shipping and tensions mounted as armed clashes took place along Israel's borders. In 1956, Great Britain and France aimed at regaining control of the Suez Canal, which the Egyptians had nationalized. The continued blockade of the Suez Canal and Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, together with the growing amount of Fedayeen attacks against Israel's southern population, and recent Arab grave and threatening statements, prompted Israel to attack Egypt. Israel joined a secret alliance with Great Britain and France and overran the Sinai Peninsula but was pressured to withdraw by the United Nations in return for guarantees of Israeli shipping rights in the Red Sea via the Straits of Tiran and the Canal.

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. Other Arab states mobilized their forces. Israel reiterated that these actions were a casus belli. On 5 June 1967, Israel launched a pre-emptive strike against Egypt. Jordan, Syria and Iraq responded and attacked Israel. In a Six-Day War, Israel defeated Jordan and captured the West Bank, defeated Egypt and captured the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula, and defeated Syria and captured the Golan Heights. Jerusalem's boundaries were enlarged, incorporating East Jerusalem, and the 1949 Green Line became the administrative boundary between Israel and the occupied territories.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Palestinian groups launched a wave of attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets around the world, including a massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. The Israeli government responded with an assassination campaign against the organizers of the massacre, a bombing and a raid on the PLO headquarters in Lebanon.

On 6 October 1973, as Jews were observing Yom Kippur, the Egyptian and Syrian armies launched a surprise attack against Israeli forces in the Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights which began the Yom Kippur War. The war ended on 26 October with Israel successfully repelling Egyptian and Syrian forces. 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.

### Peace and Conflicts with the PLO

On 11 March 1978, a PLO guerilla raid from Lebanon led to the Coastal Road Massacre. Israel responded by launching an invasion of southern Lebanon to destroy the PLO bases south of the Litani River. Most PLO fighters withdrew, but Israel was able to secure southern Lebanon until a UN force and the Lebanese army could take over. 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. In the two years that followed, Sadat and Begin signed the Camp David Accords (1978) and the Israel–Egypt Peace Treaty (1979). In return, Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula.

The Basic Law: Jerusalem, the Capital of Israel, passed in 1980, was believed by some to reaffirm Israel's 1967 annexation of Jerusalem by government decree, and reignited international controversy over the status of the city. In 1981 Israel annexed the Golan Heights, although annexation was not recognized internationally. On 7 June 1981, the Israeli air force destroyed Iraq's sole nuclear reactor, in order to impede Iraq's nuclear weapons program. The reactor was under construction just outside Baghdad. Following a series of PLO attacks in 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon that year to destroy the bases from which the PLO launched attacks and missiles into northern Israel.

The First Intifada, a Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule, broke out in 1987, with waves of uncoordinated demonstrations and violence occurring in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. Over the following six years, the Intifada became more organised and included economic and cultural measures aimed at disrupting the Israeli occupation. More than a thousand people were killed in the violence. During the 1991 Gulf War and Iraqi Scud missile attacks against Israel. The PLO also recognized Israel's right to exist and pledged an end to terrorism. In 1994, the Israel–Jordan Treaty of Peace was signed, making Jordan the second Arab country to normalize relations with Israel.

### Further Conflicts with Hezbollah and Hamas

After the collapse of the talks and a controversial visit by Likud leader Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount, the Second Intifada began. Some commentators contend that the uprising was pre-planned by Yasser Arafat due to the collapse of peace talks. During his tenure, Sharon carried out his plan to unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip and also spearheaded the construction of the Israeli West Bank barrier, ending the Intifada. 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.

On 6 September 2007, the Israeli Air Force destroyed a nuclear reactor in Syria. In May 2008, Israel confirmed it had been discussing a peace treaty with Syria for a year, with Turkey as a go-between. However, at the end of the year, Israel entered another conflict as a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel collapsed. The Gaza War lasted three weeks and ended after Israel announced a unilateral ceasefire. Israel began an operation in Gaza on 14 November 2012, lasting eight days. Israel started another operation in Gaza following an escalation of rocket attacks by Hamas in July 2014.

### IS and the Third Intifada

*See Full Articles: War against ISIS, Third Intifada & Gaza Civil War*

In May 2016, the Islamic State infiltrated the West Bank and sparked the Third Intifada. By June 2016, Hamas was fighting IS, causing what was called the Gaza Civil War, as the two groups battled for control. Israel launched an invasion of Gaza to root out IS groups and to disarm Hamas. By July, the death toll for Palestinian civilians had reached 8000. Israel and Hamas agreed to ceasefire talks under pressure from the anti-IS coalition, led by the US. By the time the fighting ended at the end of July, 12,000 Palestinians and 500 Israelis had been killed. Israeli forces also joined the allied offensive against Damascus, which fell on September 29.

### Third Lebanon War

*See Full Article: Third Lebanon War*

On 17 June 2018, Hezbollah assassinated Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv and following a similar attempted assassination of the Syrian President Abdul-Ilah al-Bashir in Damascus, Israel and Syria opened negotiations in Nicosia, Cyprus. The two sides signed a bilateral peace treaty ending hostilities, and confirmed Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. On 2 July, Israel and Syria invaded Lebanon to crush Hezbollah once and for all. The United Islamic Republic fought against Israeli-Syrian action in Lebanon. On 4 August, Hezbollah surrendered, having seized control of the government in a coup d’état several days earlier. The Istanbul Agreement for Peace in Lebanon officially ended the war, and was signed by Israel, Syria, the US, the UK, Cyprus, Turkey and the members of the Cairo Pact. At the end of the war, Israel handed a captured Iranian general over to Syria, sparking the Safavi Affair.

## Government and Politics

The prime minister is the head of government and head of the cabinet. Israel is governed by a 120-member parliament, known as the Knesset. Membership of the Knesset is based on proportional representation of political parties, with a 3.25% electoral threshold, which in practice has resulted in coalition governments. The president of Israel is head of state, with limited and largely ceremonial duties.

### Administrative Divisions

The State of Israel is divided into seven main administrative districts:

* Center
* Haifa
* Golan Heights
* Jerusalem
* North
* Southern
* Tel Aviv District

On top of this, Israel claims Judea and Samaria in the West Bank as an administrative districts.

### Foreign Relations

Israel maintains diplomatic relations with 157 countries and has 100 diplomatic missions around the world. Only four members of the Arab League have ever normalized relations with Israel: Egypt, Jordan and Syria signed peace treaties in 1979, 1994 and 2018, respectively, and Mauritania opted for full diplomatic relations with **Israel** in 1999. Under Israeli law the UIR and NAC are enemy countries. The United States is one of Israel’s closest allies, and maintains close relations with India, Germany, Russia, Turkey and Cyprus. Israel also has cordial relations with Ethiopia and the East African Federation and supported the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the Second Congo War. In 2023, Turkey, Israel, Palestine, Syria and Jordan announce the Jerusalem Mutual Defence and Assistance Pact – called the Jerusalem Five – as a response to the threat of the UIR and NAC.

## Military

The Israeli military is known as the Israeli Defense Force or IDF. Surrounding by enemies, Israel has universal conscription and maintains cutting edge land, sea and air forces. Israel developed the Iron Dome and Iron Beam missile defense systems in the first three decades of the 21st century to provide anti air defense against regional rivals Hamas and Hezbollah. **Israel** expanded its air defense systems to meet the threats posed by the much more formidable militarized of the United Islamic Republic and the North African Caliphate during the 2020s. **Israel** developed the uzi, considered by many military experts to be the finest small arms weapon in the world. **Israel** was the world's largest manufacturer and exporter of military drones in the 2010s although it lost that position to the Chinese in the 2020s.

## Economy

Israel has a developed, high tech economy and produces many innovations in medicine, surgery, pharmaceuticals, computer technology and military hardware. In the 2010s, Israel became one of the the largest manufacturers and exporters of military drones in the world, supplying other nations such as India and Russia with these cutting edge weapons. The IDF also made extensive use of these drones, keeping Israeli military contractors busy. The market for military drones continued to expand in the 2020s while Israel also used its expertise in drone technology to expand into the commercial drone market.