History UsefulNotes / Israel

Since then, the "Arab-Israeli Conflict" has continued without any significant improvement as all sides got increasingly more radical and aggressive due to the underlying religious and political tensions that had built up since the 1920s. To this day Israel remains at odds with most of its neighbors and the UN, despite the fact that the UN decision gave Israel a significant portion of mandate Palestine that Zionists were not in ownership of (see Plan Dalet). As an interesting aside, technically Israel has only ever successfully made peace with two Arab nations (Jordan and Egypt), and thus is still at war with at least five of them, making the "Arab-Israeli Conflict" one of the longest wars in history, although that's not the usual usage of that term.

** There have been calls to raise the threshold, but also objections to doing it--mostly by members of the three current Arab parties and their allies who worry they wouldn't be able to make it in unless they combined, which, given that their ideologies have no similarities aside from the fact that all three are non-Zionist--Hadash is Communist/Socialist, Balad is secular Arab nationalist, and the UAL is Islamist--is unfeasible.
** Israel upped the threshold to 3.25% in 2014, forcing the Arab parties into the [[EnemyMine Joint List]].

[[/index]]

** And Sabra, of the Israel Super Soldiers. (It's implied there are others, but they've never been seen.)

* '''Highest point:''' Mount Hermon (2236 m/7,336 ft) (112nd)

* '''Highest point:''' Mount Hermon (2236 m/7,336 ft) (130th)

* '''Country calling code:''' 972

* '''ISO-3166-1 Code:''' IL

** President: Reuven Rivlin

* Israeli Political System -- Israel has a Westminister-style parliamentary democracy with universal suffrage and--significantly--a party-list direct-proportional system based on that of [[/index]]UsefulNotes/TheNetherlands[[index]], with a very low threshold. This explains why their government often seems crazy: coalitions can live or die if as little as 2.5% of the vote swings to one party instead of another.

Israel, also known as the '''State of Israel''' ('''''Hebrew:''' מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל‎, Medīnat Yisrā'el; '''Arabic:''' دولة إِسرائيل‎, Dawlat Isrāʼīl'') is a Western Asian country whose constituents comprise primarily of Jews, but also has a large minority Arab population.

It should also be noted that Israel has plenty of conflicts and issues that have nothing to do with the UsefulNotes/ArabIsraeliConflict, or (like disputes between the government of Israel and Bedouin tribes in the Negev, or accusations by Israeli Arabs that they are treated like second-class citizens) are only tangentially related to it. In particular, there are increasing disagreements between secular and Ultra-Orthodox Jews, over the latter being excused from serving in the army and who often are supported by government allowances to allow them to study the Torah and the Talmud (the previous ruling coalition in the Israeli Knesset revolved around ending these exemptions, leading to many Ultra-Orthodox Jews both inside Israel and in the Diaspora to protest), and between religious but non-Orthodox Jews and the Israeli Rabbinate which only includes ''extremely'' Orthodox Jews, and who gets to decide who counts as a Jew for religious matters (although not for the Right of Return), and who sets the rules for the Kotel (aka the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism). There are also racial and ethnic tensions between Ashkenazi (aka "European," although many of them wouldn't identify like that), Sephardic and Mizrachi (aka "Middle Eastern," although it's more complicated than that), and Beta Israel (Ethiopian) Jews. Israel has a significant population of Filipinos and Chinese people who moved there for work; unfortunately, if they're fired their right to stay in the country is terminated and their children (even those born in Israel) are often not considered eligible for Israeli citizenship. Finally, Israel, as the most stable and tolerant nation in the region (not that that's saying much), has attracted a significant population of people who have fled mostly from Sudan and Eritrea, who the international community generally considers refugees but whom the Israeli government considers "economic infiltrators" (aka illegal immigrants), who are currently in limbo (Israel has allowed them to stay but not to work legally, and there have been increasing pushes to lock them up at a facility in the middle of the Negev desert).

* '''Area:''' 20,770–22,072 sq km (8,019–8,522 sq mi) (150th)

** Knesset Speaker: Miki Levy

** Knesset Speaker: Benny Gantz

** Prime Minister: Benjamin Netanyahu

Israel, also known as the '''State of Israel''' ('''''Hebrew:''' מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל‎, Medīnat Yisrā'el; '''Arabic:''' دولة إِسرائيل‎, Dawlat Isrāʼīl'') is a Western Asian country whose constituents comprise primarily of Jews, but also has a minority Arab population.

* Israeli Political System -- Israel has a Westminister-style parliamentary democracy with universal suffrage and--significantly--a party-list direct-proportional system based on that of[[/index]]UsefulNotes/TheNetherlands[[index]], with a very low threshold. This explains why their government often seems crazy: coalitions can live or die if as little as 2.5% of the vote swings to one party instead of another.

In terms of the modern Jewish history in the area, there has always been a small Jewish presence in the area that is modern-day Israel (centered around the Four Holy Cities: Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed, and Tiberias) since the various Biblical upheavals that destroyed several Jewish kingdoms (Babylonians, Assyrians, Romans, etc.) and scattered its population across Europe, Asia, and Africa. However in the mid 19th century, after centuries of anti-Semitic persecution and pogroms throughout Europe (but particularly the Russian Empire), a Jewish movement called Zionism steadily evolved with the aim of ensuring the Jewish people would have a homeland where they could be protected from the anti-Semitic violence and discrimination.

In 1897, the early cause for providing the Jews with a homeland coalesced into the Zionist Movement, led by the World Zionist Council which had been founded by Jewish intellectuals Theodor Herzl and Nathan Birnbaum, partly in response to the infamous [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyfus_Affair Dreyfus Affair]], with the official aim of peacefully settling Palestine with Jewish refugees (though there was briefly considered a possible settlement in Uganda weirdly enough) as well as to keep the Jewish traditions, culture, and language alive (the language, Hebrew, was dead as a language of every day speech, and was revitalized with the founding of the Zionist state). However, as they were unable to get the permission of the Ottoman empire to do this on a large scale, they were initially able to only continue and support the small scale immigration.

The past half century of Jewish interest in the area has perturbed many Arabs, who believed this was the precursor to a full on Jewish takeover of their land. This fear had only been compounded by the growth of the Zionist movement and the threat Arab nationalists perceived this to be to their homeland, families and children. The Zionist plan of colonizing Palestine with large numbers of mostly European Jews in the 1920s caused serious concern among the Arabs. Compounding the problems with Zionist colonization was a (well-justified) sense of betrayal felt by many Arabsover the fact the British promised them independence during WWI yet now seemed to be betraying them in favor of the Jews.

These tensions irritated Britain, which had had plenty of experience of just how hellish religious and political sectarianism could get in Ireland, India, and other Imperial territories, and thus desired any Jewish immigration to be as low key and slow as possible, as to not alienate Muslim allies and partners, nor cause a major civil war related headache in the territory.

In terms of the modern Jewish history in the area, there has always been a small Jewish presence in the area that is modern-day Israel (centered around the Four Holy Cities: Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed, and Tiberias) since the various Biblical upheavals that destroyed several Jewish kingdoms (Babylonians, Assyrians, Romans, etc.) and scattered its population across Europe, Asia, and Africa. However in the mid 19th century, after centuries of antisemetic persecution and pogroms throughout Europe (but particularly the Russian Empire), a Jewish movement called Zionism steadily evolved with the aim of ensuring the Jewish people would have a homeland where they could be protected from the anti-Semitic violence and discrimination.

* '''Area:''' 20,770–22,072 km (8,019–8,522 sq mi) (150th)

** Chief Justice: Esther Hayut

Israel, also known as the State of Israel ('''''Hebrew:''' מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל‎, Medīnat Yisrā'el; '''Arabic:''' دولة إِسرائيل‎, Dawlat Isrāʼīl'') is a Western Asian country whose constituents comprise primarily of Jews, but also has a minority Arab population.

* ''Series/{{Masada}}'' is [[BooksEnds book-ended]] by footage of Israeli soldiers swearing their oath on the historical site in (then-)modern day.

[[caption-width-right:330:[-There are reasons for all those disclaimers on the bottom-right. [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment And that's all we're going to say about them.]]-]]]

[[quoteright:330:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Israel-map_9440.gif]]

Perhaps more importantly for Zionists was a declaration by the British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour in 1917, known as the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration_of_1917 Balfour Declaration]], which promised to allow larger scale Jewish settlement in Palestine. This was a major breakthrough for the Zionist movement, as not only had a previously hostile ruler of Palestine been removed, but the nation which supplanted it was both liberal towards the Jews (relatively speaking) and had also promised to let them settle, so long as it was peaceful and that the native Palestinian Arabs were respected. All in all it seemed that things were looking pretty good.

The past half century of Jewish interest in the area has perturbed many Palestinians, who believed this was the precursor to a full on Jewish takeover of their land. This fear had only been compounded by the growth of the Zionist movement and the threat Arab nationalists perceived this to be to their homeland, families and children. The Zionist plan of colonizing Palestine with large numbers of mostly European Jews in the 1920s caused serious concern among the Palestinians. Compounding the problems with Zionist colonization was a (well-justified) sense of betrayal felt by many Palestinians over the fact the British promised them independence during WWI yet now seemed to be betraying them in favor of the Jews.

In 1920 anti-Jewish rioting broke out in UsefulNotes/{{Jerusalem}} in response to the Jewish immigrants, during which enraged Palestinians attacked Jewish areas in Jerusalem, causing massive devastation to Jewish property and murdering several Jews. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haganah#1920_and_1921_Arab_riots The Haganah]] was formed, who would later become the core of the IDF, in response to these riots and the feeling among the Jewish community that the British mandate authorities were taking insufficient action to prevent them.

However, by this point Britain's empire was being steadily disassembled, and Arab oil was vital to Britain and its interests, so Britain continued trying to keep some semblance of balance between the Palestinians and the Jews while drawing up plans for British withdrawal and not wanting to get involved in any resulting war. They also made passionate moral arguments (with varying degrees of sincerity) against the mass immigration - surely, they said, if the Jews left Europe, then the antisemitic argument that they could not co-exist with gentiles was as good as granted? The British were also extremely annoyed by other nations essentially dumping their refugees on the British Empire - President Truman, for instance, issued only 100,000 visas for European Jews, whilst encouraging 300,000 to go to Palestine. This resulted in many Jews escaping Europe to either be interned or even be forcibly deported after attempting to illegally enter Palestine. Needless to say, this was a PR nightmare for Britain, and resulted in the UN stepping in to effectively order Britain to partition Palestine into a Jewish state and a Palestinian state, a demand now supported by both the US and the Soviet Union.

Despite extreme reluctance, Britain eventually agreed to the UN's demands, and in 1948 pulled out. Their fears of a war between the Jewish immigrants and Palestinians were already realized, with the Jewish insurgency rolling right into a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947%E2%80%931948_Civil_War_in_Mandatory_Palestine civil war]] before the British even withdrew. The day that Israel declared independence, based on the United Nations plan that was rejected by Palestinians and Arab states, war was declared by seven Arab states. Palestinians were expelled from the areas they lived in in accordance with [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Dalet Plan Dalet]] or ordered to leave by their leaders, depending on who you ask. By 1949 the war had finished in Israel's favor, but with massive tensions with the Arab world, and serious issues regarding the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees still simmering. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_Arab_and_Muslim_countries To make things more complicated]], 800,000–1,000,000 Jews either left willingly, what Zionist organizations termed aliyah, or were expelled from their homes in Arab countries. The majority of Israel's Jewish population is descended from these Jews and other Mizrachi, or "Oriental," Jewish populations that had arrived earlier. To make matters even ''more'' complicated, there is still a substantial Arab minority in Israel, making up 10-15% of the population--and many of them are Christians, rather than Muslims, especially in cities that are significant to Christianity, such as Nazareth. While they are citizens of Israel, their status relative to Jewish citizens is subject of much debate.

->The white and blue design of the emblem (like the flag)was inspired by the ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tallit tallit]]'', a Jewish prayer shawl, specifically the version used by the Ashkenazi Jews from western Europe. At the center is the menorah (representing universal enlightenment as written in Isaiah 60: "Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn") on the Arch of Titus (the menorah used by the Temple in Jerusalem) with olive branches (representing peace but also a reference to the prophet Zechariah after seeing a menorah surrounded by two olive trees) on each side and the name of the country in Hebrew.