Israel (/ˈɪzriəl, ˈɪzreɪəl/; Hebrew: יִשְׂרָאֵל; Arabic: إِسْرَائِيل), also known as the State of Israel, is a country in Western Asia, located on the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the northern shore of the Red Sea. It has land borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the northeast, Jordan on the east, the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip[20] to the east and west, respectively, and Egypt to the southwest. The country contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area.[21][22] Israel's economic and technological center is Tel Aviv,[23] while its seat of government and proclaimed capital is Jerusalem, although the state's sovereignty over Jerusalem has only partial recognition.[24][25][26][27][fn 4]
Israel has evidence of the earliest migration of hominids out of Africa.[28] Canaanite tribes are archaeologically attested since the Middle Bronze Age,[29][30] while the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah emerged during the Iron Age.[31][32] The Neo-Assyrian Empire destroyed Israel around 720 BCE.[33] Judah was later conquered by the Babylonian, Persian and Hellenistic empires and had existed as Jewish autonomous provinces.[34][35] The successful Maccabean Revolt led to an independent Hasmonean kingdom by 110 BCE,[36] which in 63 BCE however became a client state of the Roman Republic that subsequently installed the Herodian dynasty in 37 BCE, and in 6 CE created the Roman province of Judea.[37] Judea lasted as a Roman province until the failed Jewish revolts resulted in widespread destruction,[36] the expulsion of the Jewish population[36][38] and the renaming of the region from Iudaea to Syria Palaestina.[39] Jewish presence in the region has persisted to a certain extent over the centuries. In the 7th century CE, the Levant was taken from the Byzantine Empire by the Arabs and remained in Muslim control until the First Crusade of 1099, followed by the Ayyubid conquest of 1187. The Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt extended its control over the Levant in the 13th century until its defeat by the Ottoman Empire in 1517. During the 19th century, national awakening among Jews led to the establishment of the Zionist movement in the diaspora followed by waves of immigration to Ottoman Syria and later Mandatory Palestine.
In 1947, the United Nations (UN) adopted a Partition Plan for Palestine recommending the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states and an internationalized Jerusalem.[40] The plan was accepted by the Jewish Agency, and rejected by Arab leaders.[41][42][43] The following year, the Jewish Agency declared the independence of the State of Israel, and the subsequent 1948 Arab–Israeli War saw Israel's establishment over most of the former Mandate territory, while the West Bank and Gaza were held by neighboring Arab states.[44] Israel has since fought several wars with Arab countries,[45] and since the Six-Day War in 1967 held occupied territories including the West Bank, Golan Heights and the Gaza Strip (still considered occupied after the 2005 disengagement, although some legal experts dispute this claim).[46][47][48][fn 5] It extended its laws to the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, but not the West Bank.[49][50][51][52] Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories is the world's longest military occupation in modern times.[fn 5][54] Efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have not resulted in a final peace agreement. However, peace treaties between Israel and both Egypt and Jordan have been signed.
In its Basic Laws, Israel defines itself as a Jewish and democratic state and the nation state of the Jewish people.[55] The country has a liberal democracy (one of only two in the Middle East and North Africa region, the other being Tunisia),[56][57] with a parliamentary system, proportional representation, and universal suffrage.[58][59] The prime minister is head of government and the Knesset is the legislature. With a population of around 9 million as of 2019,[60] Israel is a developed country and an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member,[61] and has the 31st or 32nd-largest economy in the world by nominal gross domestic product (GDP). Israel has the highest standard of living in the Middle East,[19] and ranks among the world's top countries by percentage of citizens with military training,[62] percentage of citizens holding a tertiary education degree,[63] research and development spending by GDP percentage,[64] women's safety,[65] life expectancy,[66] innovativeness,[67] and happiness.
Upon independence in 1948, the country formally adopted the name "State of Israel" (Hebrew: מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל About this soundMedīnat Yisrā'el [mediˈnat jisʁaˈʔel]; Arabic: دَوْلَة إِسْرَائِيل Dawlat Isrāʼīl [dawlat ʔisraːˈʔiːl]) after other proposed historical and religious names including Eretz Israel ("the Land of Israel"), Zion, and Judea, were considered but rejected.[69] In the early weeks of independence, the government chose the term "Israeli" to denote a citizen of Israel, with the formal announcement made by Minister of Foreign Affairs Moshe Sharett.[70]
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.[71] The name "Israel" (Hebrew: Yisraʾel, Isrāʾīl; Septuagint Greek: Ἰσραήλ Israēl; 'El (God) persists/rules', though after Hosea 12:4 often interpreted as "struggle with God")[72][73][74][75] in these phrases 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.[76] Jacob's twelve sons became the ancestors of the Israelites, also known as the Twelve Tribes of Israel or Children of Israel. Jacob and his sons had lived in Canaan but were forced by famine to go into Egypt for four generations, lasting 430 years,[77] until Moses, a great-great grandson of Jacob,[78] led the Israelites back into Canaan during the "Exodus". The earliest known archaeological artifact to mention the word "Israel" as a collective is the Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt (dated to the late 13th century BCE).[79]
The area is also known as the Holy Land, being holy for all Abrahamic religions including Judaism, Christianity, Islam and the Bahá'í Faith. Under British Mandate (1920–1948), the whole region was known as Palestine (Hebrew: פלשתינה [א״י], lit. 'Palestine [Eretz Israel]').[80] Through the centuries, the territory was known by a variety of other names, including Canaan, Djahy, Samaria, Judea, Yehud, Iudaea, Syria Palaestina and Southern Syria.
History
Main article: History of Israel
Prehistory
Further information: Prehistory of the Levant
The oldest evidence of early humans in the territory of modern Israel, dating to 1.5 million years ago, was found in Ubeidiya near the Sea of Galilee.[81] Other notable Paleolithic sites include the caves Tabun, Qesem and Manot. The oldest fossils of anatomically modern humans found outside Africa are the Skhul and Qafzeh hominins, who lived in the area that is now northern Israel 120,000 years ago.[82] Around 10th millennium BCE, the Natufian culture existed in the area.[83]
Antiquity
Main article: History of ancient Israel and Judah
Further information: Israelites, Kingdom of Israel (Samaria), and Kingdom of Judah
The early history of the territory is unclear.[31]:104 Modern archaeology has largely discarded the historicity of the narrative in the Torah concerning the patriarchs, The Exodus, and the conquest of Canaan described in the Book of Joshua, and instead views the narrative as constituting the Israelites' national myth.[84] During the Late Bronze Age (1550–1200 BCE), large parts of Canaan formed vassal states paying tribute to the New Kingdom of Egypt, whose administrative headquarters lay in Gaza.[85] Ancestors of the Israelites are thought to have included ancient Semitic-speaking peoples native to this area.[86]:78–79 The Israelites and their culture, according to the modern archaeological account, did not overtake the region by force, but instead branched out of these Canaanite peoples and their cultures through the development of a distinct monolatristic—and later monotheistic—religion centered on Yahweh.[87][88][89][90][91][92] The archaeological evidence indicates a society of village-like centres, but with more limited resources and a small population.[93] Villages had populations of up to 300 or 400,[94][95] which lived by farming and herding, and were largely self-sufficient;[96] economic interchange was prevalent.[97] Writing was known and available for recording, even in small sites.[98]
While it is unclear if there was ever a United Monarchy,[99][31][100][101] there is well-accepted archeological evidence referring to "Israel" in the Merneptah Stele which dates to about 1200 BCE;[102][103][104] and the Canaanites are archaeologically attested in the Middle Bronze Age (2100–1550 BCE).[30][105] There is debate about the earliest existence of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah and their extent and power, but historians agree that a Kingdom of Israel existed by ca. 900 BCE[31]:169–195[100][101] and that a Kingdom of Judah existed by ca. 700 BCE.[32] The Kingdom of Israel was destroyed around 720 BCE, when it was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire.[33]
In 586 BCE, King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon conquered Judah. According to the Hebrew Bible, he destroyed Solomon's Temple and exiled the Jews to Babylon. The defeat was also recorded in the Babylonian Chronicles.[34][106] The Babylonian exile ended around 538 BCE under the rule of the Medo-Persian Cyrus the Great after he captured Babylon.[107][108] The Second Temple was constructed around 520 BCE.[107] As part of the Persian Empire, the former Kingdom of Judah became the province of Judah (Yehud Medinata) with different borders, covering a smaller territory.[109] The population of the province was greatly reduced from that of the kingdom, archaeological surveys showing a population of around 30,000 people in the 5th to 4th centuries BCE.[31]:308
Classical period
Main article: Second Temple period
Further information: Hasmonean dynasty, Herodian dynasty, and Jewish–Roman wars
With successive Persian rule, the autonomous province Yehud Medinata was gradually developing back into urban society, largely dominated by Judeans. The Greek conquests largely skipped the region without any resistance or interest. Incorporated into the Ptolemaic and finally the Seleucid empires, the southern Levant was heavily hellenized, building the tensions between Judeans and Greeks. The conflict erupted in 167 BCE with the Maccabean Revolt, which succeeded in establishing an independent Hasmonean Kingdom in Judah, which later expanded over much of modern Israel, as the Seleucids gradually lost control in the region.
The Roman Empire 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 eventually led to the installation of Herod the Great and consolidation of the Herodian kingdom as a vassal Judean state of Rome. With the decline of the Herodian dynasty, Judea, transformed into a Roman province, became the site of a violent struggle of Jews against Greco-Romans, culminating in the Jewish–Roman wars, ending in wide-scale destruction, expulsions, and genocide. Jewish presence in the region significantly dwindled after the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt against the Roman Empire in 132 CE.[110]
Nevertheless, there was a continuous small Jewish presence and Galilee became its religious center.[111][112] The Mishnah and part of the Talmud, central Jewish texts, were composed during the 2nd to 4th centuries CE in Tiberias and Jerusalem.[113] The region came to be populated predominantly by Greco-Romans on the coast and Samaritans in the hill-country. Christianity was gradually evolving over Roman Paganism, when the area stood under Byzantine rule. Through the 5th and 6th centuries, the dramatic events of the repeated Samaritan revolts reshaped the land, with massive destruction to Byzantine Christian and Samaritan societies and a resulting decrease of the population. After the Persian conquest and the installation of a short-lived Jewish Commonwealth in 614 CE, the Byzantine Empire reconquered the country in 628.
Middle Ages and modern history
Further information: History of Jerusalem during the Middle Ages, Muslim conquest of the Levant, Crusades, and Old Yishuv
Israel has evidence of the earliest migration of hominids out of Africa.[28] Canaanite tribes are archaeologically attested since the Middle Bronze Age,[29][30] while the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah emerged during the Iron Age.[31][32] The Neo-Assyrian Empire destroyed Israel around 720 BCE.[33] Judah was later conquered by the Babylonian, Persian and Hellenistic empires and had existed as Jewish autonomous provinces.[34][35] The successful Maccabean Revolt led to an independent Hasmonean kingdom by 110 BCE,[36] which in 63 BCE however became a client state of the Roman Republic that subsequently installed the Herodian dynasty in 37 BCE, and in 6 CE created the Roman province of Judea.[37] Judea lasted as a Roman province until the failed Jewish revolts resulted in widespread destruction,[36] the expulsion of the Jewish population[36][38] and the renaming of the region from Iudaea to Syria Palaestina.[39] Jewish presence in the region has persisted to a certain extent over the centuries. In the 7th century CE, the Levant was taken from the Byzantine Empire by the Arabs and remained in Muslim control until the First Crusade of 1099, followed by the Ayyubid conquest of 1187. The Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt extended its control over the Levant in the 13th century until its defeat by the Ottoman Empire in 1517. During the 19th century, national awakening among Jews led to the establishment of the Zionist movement in the diaspora followed by waves of immigration to Ottoman Syria and later Mandatory Palestine.
In 1947, the United Nations (UN) adopted a Partition Plan for Palestine recommending the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states and an internationalized Jerusalem.[40] The plan was accepted by the Jewish Agency, and rejected by Arab leaders.[41][42][43] The following year, the Jewish Agency declared the independence of the State of Israel, and the subsequent 1948 Arab–Israeli War saw Israel's establishment over most of the former Mandate territory, while the West Bank and Gaza were held by neighboring Arab states.[44] Israel has since fought several wars with Arab countries,[45] and since the Six-Day War in 1967 held occupied territories including the West Bank, Golan Heights and the Gaza Strip (still considered occupied after the 2005 disengagement, although some legal experts dispute this claim).[46][47][48][fn 5] It extended its laws to the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, but not the West Bank.[49][50][51][52] Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories is the world's longest military occupation in modern times.[fn 5][54] Efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have not resulted in a final peace agreement. However, peace treaties between Israel and both Egypt and Jordan have been signed.
In its Basic Laws, Israel defines itself as a Jewish and democratic state and the nation state of the Jewish people.[55] The country has a liberal democracy (one of only two in the Middle East and North Africa region, the other being Tunisia),[56][57] with a parliamentary system, proportional representation, and universal suffrage.[58][59] The prime minister is head of government and the Knesset is the legislature. With a population of around 9 million as of 2019,[60] Israel is a developed country and an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member,[61] and has the 31st or 32nd-largest economy in the world by nominal gross domestic product (GDP). Israel has the highest standard of living in the Middle East,[19] and ranks among the world's top countries by percentage of citizens with military training,[62] percentage of citizens holding a tertiary education degree,[63] research and development spending by GDP percentage,[64] women's safety,[65] life expectancy,[66] innovativeness,[67] and happiness.
Upon independence in 1948, the country formally adopted the name "State of Israel" (Hebrew: מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל About this soundMedīnat Yisrā'el [mediˈnat jisʁaˈʔel]; Arabic: دَوْلَة إِسْرَائِيل Dawlat Isrāʼīl [dawlat ʔisraːˈʔiːl]) after other proposed historical and religious names including Eretz Israel ("the Land of Israel"), Zion, and Judea, were considered but rejected.[69] In the early weeks of independence, the government chose the term "Israeli" to denote a citizen of Israel, with the formal announcement made by Minister of Foreign Affairs Moshe Sharett.[70]
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.[71] The name "Israel" (Hebrew: Yisraʾel, Isrāʾīl; Septuagint Greek: Ἰσραήλ Israēl; 'El (God) persists/rules', though after Hosea 12:4 often interpreted as "struggle with God")[72][73][74][75] in these phrases 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.[76] Jacob's twelve sons became the ancestors of the Israelites, also known as the Twelve Tribes of Israel or Children of Israel. Jacob and his sons had lived in Canaan but were forced by famine to go into Egypt for four generations, lasting 430 years,[77] until Moses, a great-great grandson of Jacob,[78] led the Israelites back into Canaan during the "Exodus". The earliest known archaeological artifact to mention the word "Israel" as a collective is the Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt (dated to the late 13th century BCE).[79]
The area is also known as the Holy Land, being holy for all Abrahamic religions including Judaism, Christianity, Islam and the Bahá'í Faith. Under British Mandate (1920–1948), the whole region was known as Palestine (Hebrew: פלשתינה [א״י], lit. 'Palestine [Eretz Israel]').[80] Through the centuries, the territory was known by a variety of other names, including Canaan, Djahy, Samaria, Judea, Yehud, Iudaea, Syria Palaestina and Southern Syria.
History
Main article: History of Israel
Prehistory
Further information: Prehistory of the Levant
The oldest evidence of early humans in the territory of modern Israel, dating to 1.5 million years ago, was found in Ubeidiya near the Sea of Galilee.[81] Other notable Paleolithic sites include the caves Tabun, Qesem and Manot. The oldest fossils of anatomically modern humans found outside Africa are the Skhul and Qafzeh hominins, who lived in the area that is now northern Israel 120,000 years ago.[82] Around 10th millennium BCE, the Natufian culture existed in the area.[83]
Antiquity
Main article: History of ancient Israel and Judah
Further information: Israelites, Kingdom of Israel (Samaria), and Kingdom of Judah
The early history of the territory is unclear.[31]:104 Modern archaeology has largely discarded the historicity of the narrative in the Torah concerning the patriarchs, The Exodus, and the conquest of Canaan described in the Book of Joshua, and instead views the narrative as constituting the Israelites' national myth.[84] During the Late Bronze Age (1550–1200 BCE), large parts of Canaan formed vassal states paying tribute to the New Kingdom of Egypt, whose administrative headquarters lay in Gaza.[85] Ancestors of the Israelites are thought to have included ancient Semitic-speaking peoples native to this area.[86]:78–79 The Israelites and their culture, according to the modern archaeological account, did not overtake the region by force, but instead branched out of these Canaanite peoples and their cultures through the development of a distinct monolatristic—and later monotheistic—religion centered on Yahweh.[87][88][89][90][91][92] The archaeological evidence indicates a society of village-like centres, but with more limited resources and a small population.[93] Villages had populations of up to 300 or 400,[94][95] which lived by farming and herding, and were largely self-sufficient;[96] economic interchange was prevalent.[97] Writing was known and available for recording, even in small sites.[98]
While it is unclear if there was ever a United Monarchy,[99][31][100][101] there is well-accepted archeological evidence referring to "Israel" in the Merneptah Stele which dates to about 1200 BCE;[102][103][104] and the Canaanites are archaeologically attested in the Middle Bronze Age (2100–1550 BCE).[30][105] There is debate about the earliest existence of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah and their extent and power, but historians agree that a Kingdom of Israel existed by ca. 900 BCE[31]:169–195[100][101] and that a Kingdom of Judah existed by ca. 700 BCE.[32] The Kingdom of Israel was destroyed around 720 BCE, when it was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire.[33]
In 586 BCE, King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon conquered Judah. According to the Hebrew Bible, he destroyed Solomon's Temple and exiled the Jews to Babylon. The defeat was also recorded in the Babylonian Chronicles.[34][106] The Babylonian exile ended around 538 BCE under the rule of the Medo-Persian Cyrus the Great after he captured Babylon.[107][108] The Second Temple was constructed around 520 BCE.[107] As part of the Persian Empire, the former Kingdom of Judah became the province of Judah (Yehud Medinata) with different borders, covering a smaller territory.[109] The population of the province was greatly reduced from that of the kingdom, archaeological surveys showing a population of around 30,000 people in the 5th to 4th centuries BCE.[31]:308
Classical period
Main article: Second Temple period
Further information: Hasmonean dynasty, Herodian dynasty, and Jewish–Roman wars
With successive Persian rule, the autonomous province Yehud Medinata was gradually developing back into urban society, largely dominated by Judeans. The Greek conquests largely skipped the region without any resistance or interest. Incorporated into the Ptolemaic and finally the Seleucid empires, the southern Levant was heavily hellenized, building the tensions between Judeans and Greeks. The conflict erupted in 167 BCE with the Maccabean Revolt, which succeeded in establishing an independent Hasmonean Kingdom in Judah, which later expanded over much of modern Israel, as the Seleucids gradually lost control in the region.
The Roman Empire 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 eventually led to the installation of Herod the Great and consolidation of the Herodian kingdom as a vassal Judean state of Rome. With the decline of the Herodian dynasty, Judea, transformed into a Roman province, became the site of a violent struggle of Jews against Greco-Romans, culminating in the Jewish–Roman wars, ending in wide-scale destruction, expulsions, and genocide. Jewish presence in the region significantly dwindled after the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt against the Roman Empire in 132 CE.[110]
Nevertheless, there was a continuous small Jewish presence and Galilee became its religious center.[111][112] The Mishnah and part of the Talmud, central Jewish texts, were composed during the 2nd to 4th centuries CE in Tiberias and Jerusalem.[113] The region came to be populated predominantly by Greco-Romans on the coast and Samaritans in the hill-country. Christianity was gradually evolving over Roman Paganism, when the area stood under Byzantine rule. Through the 5th and 6th centuries, the dramatic events of the repeated Samaritan revolts reshaped the land, with massive destruction to Byzantine Christian and Samaritan societies and a resulting decrease of the population. After the Persian conquest and the installation of a short-lived Jewish Commonwealth in 614 CE, the Byzantine Empire reconquered the country in 628.
Middle Ages and modern history
Further information: History of Jerusalem during the Middle Ages, Muslim conquest of the Levant, Crusades, and Old Yishuv
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