A:Until 1949, Israel - or more properly, Palestine - was a unitary mandate under British control. When Britain took control of Palestine from the defeated Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I, there was no clear understanding as to just what Britain would do with the mandate, or when the mandate would terminate and the Palestinians be granted independence. At that time, the population was very predominantly Palestinian, with 650,000 Muslims, 80,000 Christians and just 60,000 Jews.

In 1917, Lord Balfour, Foreign Secretary, declares British commitment to the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, provided it does not clash with the interests of the local (Palestinian) population. It is substantially on the basis of this commitment that future Jewish claims would be based. Jewish immigration, both legal and illegal, increased.

In response to Arab unexpected acceptance of parity in the local government under British Mandate, Zionists (Jewish nationalists) rejected parity and proposed partitioning of Palestine. The path was set towards future division of Palestine.

In 1936, the Peel Commission of Inquiry recommended the annexation of most of Palestine to Transjordan (the modern state of Jordan), with just a small portion of the land designated as a future Jewish state. In 1942, The Jewish leadership declared at a convention held in America that it would not be satisfied with less than the whole of Mandate Palestine as a Jewish state. Towards this end, the Stern Gang and the Palmach did all they could to drive Palestinians out of the country.

In November 1947, the UN Special Committee on Palestine presented a report to the General Assembly: the majority advocated division; a minority advocated a unitary state based on democracy. Intense pressure by USA and USSR was necessary to gain the necessary two thirds majority vote for partition.

After March 1948 both sides commenced military campaigns, but the Jews were better organised and more effective. Massacres were carried out by Jewish forces in a number of towns and villages they intended to be part of a new state of Israel. By the time the British left in May, one third of the Palestinian population had been evicted.

For one day, 11th May 1949, Israel consented to negotiate UN proposals for partition, during which time Israel was accepted as a member of the UN, then reneged on any further discussions. The rest is history.

Answer 2

It depends entirely on what the question is asking. The question is not terribly clear and therefore four distinct paraphrasings are provided below and will be answered in turn:

1) Why is the Modern State of Israel ethnically, politically, administratively, and religiously divided?

2) Why is the former British Mandate of Palestine divided between a Jewish State (now called Israel) and an Arab proto-state (now called Palestine)?

3) Why did the two Israelite Kingdoms, the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah, separate and remain politically divided?

4) Why do the People of Israel (Am Yisrael or the Jewish people) not act as a monolithic group with a singular political agenda or religious belief?

1) Why is the Modern State of Israel ethnically, politically, administratively, and religiously divided?

Israel is a multi-ethnic country both on account of its diverse indigenous population of Palestinian Jews, Christian Palestinians, Muslim Palestinians, Druze, Bedouins, Circassians, Turks, and Armenians AND from its immigrant population which includes Jews from around the world, but predominantly from Europe, the Arab World, and Russia. With so many ethnic groups, Israelis naturally will have a multitude of customs and traditions, some of which clash with the traditions of others, creating ethnic divisions.

Politically, Israel is divided because, like all true liberal democracies, Israel has a wide variety of divergent political opinions that are expressed by an incredible number of different parties. Different groups in Israel argue over foreign policy issues, such as peacemaking with the Arabs, or domestic issues such as welfare, infrastructure development, living costs, workplace rights, and so on. As a result, Israelis do not have political consensus.

Administratively, Israel is divided into six districts and fifty sub-districts to make civilian administration easier. This is no different than divisions of countries into provinces, states, parishes, counties, autonomous communities, and so on. This division makes for easy administration. Additionally, Israel keeps the West Bank under martial law since it is only in Israel's legal right to hold onto the territory pending a final resolution, not to annex it.

Religiously, Israel is divided both between Judaism and the minority religions (such as Sunni Islam, several strains of Christianity - including Messianic Judaism, Druze, and Baha'i) and the Jewish community is further subdivided between the Hilonim or Secular Jews and the Orthodox or Religious Jews. Israel is divided this way because it is only natural for different people from different parts of the world believe in different religious principles.

2) Why is the former British Mandate of Palestine divided between a Jewish State (now called Israel) and an Arab proto-state (now called Palestine)?

By international law, the Ottoman Empire took the territory from the Seljuks and Abbassids by internationally recognized conquest. The territory was ceded to the British as a Mandate by the Ottomans as a term of surrender in World War I. (Even though the British had promised the territory to both the Arabs and Jews during the War, neither promise is legally binding.) According to the terms of the Mandate, even though the British were in control, the League of Nations had official jurisdiction. In the League of Nations Mandate, specifically in Article 6, the British Mandate for Palestine spoke clearly in saying that Palestine should be a "Jewish National Homeland".

In keeping with this requirement, the British allowed for increased Jewish migration to Palestine. As a result, the Jewish Settlers or Zionists or Halutzim began to create settlements called the Yishuv and mixed with the indigenous Palestinian Jews to form a singular Jewish community. The Halutzim began build an economy in what had previously been an Ottoman backwater. The Zionists consistently reached out to Arabs during the Mandatory Period to create collective society. The Bedouins responded well, especially in the Galilee, as did the Druze. The Settled Arabs or Fellahin (who would become the Palestinians) did not wish to mix with the Zionists.

The Fellahin were quite adamant about not giving the Yishuv any land or space as soon as it became clear in the late 1920s that the Jews intended and would soon realize their own state apparatus. They attacked the Yishuv in Hebron in 1929, scalping and beating many Jewish inhabitants. The Yishuv retaliated and the fights between the Fellahin and the Yishuv continued throughout the 1930s and 1940s relatively sporadically. The Fellahin organized militias to attack other Jewish settlements, they petitioned the British government to prevent Jewish immigration (resulting in the White Papers of 1939 which banned Jewish immigration during the entire Holocaust when a place of refuge was most necessary), and consistently fought against Jewish Militias who were targeting the British colonizers instead of uniting to overthrow the British before trying to decide a resolution.

As a result of being unable to impose authority and power on the fighting Yishuv and Fellahin, in 1947, the British gave direct authority to the League of Nations' successor, the United Nations, in accordance with the terms of their Mandate, to determine a resolution. The UN passed the 1947 Partition Plan (UNGA Resolution 181 (II)) that gave both a Jewish State and an Arab State the Right to Declare Statehood. The fact that the Arabs decided not to immediately declare such a state does not make the Israeli declaration any less valid. (It is important to note that Palestine did declare statehood on these grounds in 1988, which further cements the legality of this view.)

While the USA and USSR did push for many countries to support the Partition Plan in 1947, the Arabs "helped" by being completely intransigent to any Jewish rights to self-rule or even autonomy. As a result, the UN Special Committee on Palestine, the UN commission sent to evaluate the Palestinian Mandate Controversy, left the Mandate of Palestine voting 9 to 3 in favor of a partition (which is why UNGA Resolution 181 (II) was proposed in the first place).

Abba Eban, one of the leading Zionist envoys and future Israeli Representative to the United Nations, noted in his biography that Arab intransigence helped to make the Zionist case to the United Nations in three critical ways.

(1) They showed that it would be impossible to negotiate with the Arabs. If the Arabs were not willing to reach a moderated solution on this issue, then it was not likely that they would be willing to negotiate with the Yishuv in a singular state. This would eventually lead to the Yishuv being discriminated against more openly by a dominant Arab State. The Israelis pointed this out to show a need for a Jewish State. Many UN States agreed with this analysis.

(2) It made the Zionists look better because they were willing to compromise, whereas the Arabs were not.

(3) The Arabs rejected any possibility of a divided Palestine and therefore did not send representatives to UN meetings on Partition and even the international group set to go to Mandatory Palestine to determine conditions on the ground. This allowed Eban, the Zionist representative, to show the representatives what he wanted to show them and help color their opinions.

3) Why did the two Israelite Kingdoms, the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah, separate and remain politically divided?

According to the Bible, the source of the division between the Northern and Southern Kingdoms of Israel and Judah respectively comes from Solomon's successor Rehoboam failing to lift the tax burden on Israelites as well as his lead general Jeroboam's charisma in leading ten of the Israelite tribes to secede from Rehoboam's country and establish another dominion.

Archaeologically, there is insufficient evidence at this point to say whether or not the Northern and Southern Israelite Kingdoms were ever united. (This is not to say that they were not or that they were, but that we do not have enough evidence to be sure either way.)

They remained politically divided as there was never an attempt by either state to conquer the other state. They were far more useful to one another as allies against other secondary powers like Aram, Moab, and Phoenicia as well as against the larger powers like Assyria (which eventually destroyed the Northern Kingdom of Israel), Egypt, and Babylonia (which eventually destroyed the Southern Kingdom of Judah).

4) Why do the People of Israel (Am Yisrael or the Jewish people) not act as a monolithic group with a singular political agenda or religious belief?

Judaism was strongly influenced by modernity. Those who accepted modern modes of thinking and processing began to moderate and liberalize their views of religion in accordance with modern philosophies with varying degrees of acceptance. This overall shift is called Liberal Judaism and the "varying degrees" results in the various Liberal Jewish movements such as Conservadoxy, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, and Hiloni, from most to least religious, along with other movements. Those who rejected modernity and continued to follow the traditions of the pre-modern period were considered Orthodox, but they two have varying degrees of conservatism which have branched out into Modern Orthodox, Secular Orthodox, Hasidim, Haredim, and numerous other movements. This is the reason for different religious perspectives.

In terms of politics, Liberal and Orthodox Jews desire different things from any given political system, which results in them typically voting against each other. Orthodox political views are typically easier to characterize. In most Diaspora countries, Orthodox Jews tend to vote along a hawkish Libertarian platform since hawkish parties in Anglo-America and Europe are usually pro-Israel and because Libertarian parties in these countries typically advocate smaller government and more freedom in religious practices. In the United States, this results in most Orthodox Jews voting Republican and in the United Kingdom, this results in most Orthodox Jews voting Tory. In Israel, Orthodox Jews vote almost uniformly for religious political parties advocating for their particular movement in Orthodoxy.

Liberal Jews have a wide variety of motives for voting the way they do, such as economics, family ties, gender roles and gender equality, gay rights, charisma, age, views on the military, and so on. As a general rule, Liberal Jews tend to vote for center-left parties, like the Democrats in the United States and Labour in the United Kingdom, but the statistics are more open to interpretation. In Israel, where Liberal Jews form the majority population, there are an incredibly number of Liberal Jewish parties that represent more liberal views and more conservative views. Typically, the issue of contention between liberal and conservative politicians in Israel is whether or not and under what conditions peace with the Arabs (both Palestinians and the Arab countries) should be pursued.

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