Israel

There are two viable answers:

Jordan: In 1970/1971 The P.L.O actually tried to overthrow King Hussein of Jordan. This bought about a war in Jordan (called Black September) that ended with the P.L.O being expelled from that country and 15,000 Palestinian deaths.

Lebanon: The Lebanese Civil War began in 1975 as the PLO had turned Southern Lebanon into its own micro-country and repressed the endemic Shiite Lebanese population. This Palestinian violence towards the Lebanese Shiites was one of many reasons why the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1991) broke out.

The Arab-Israeli War of 1956 (Commonly called the Suez Crisis) began when British and French forces, which were jointly controlling the Suez Canal were forced out by Gamal Abdel Nasser during his attempt to nationalize the Canal. The British and French were not interested in losing the canal to the Egyptians and neither were the Israelis. The British and French motivation was to avoid having to pay tolls and worry about crossing easily. The Israeli motivation was to be allowed to continue crossing between the Mediterranean and Red Seas as Egypt did not recognize Israel at the time.

Britain and France incentivized Israel (and joined with Israel) to attack Egypt and take the Suez Canal back. Israel successfully conquered all of the Sinai Peninsula and even landed a foothold on the west bank of the Suez Canal (which meant that they effectively controlled it). The United States, however, intervened and requested that Israel withdraw to the 1949 boundaries under the condition that Egypt return the Canal to British and French joint control.
Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, which angered the British and the French.

Top 10 Air forces During World War 2:

3-Germany

4-England

5-Japan

6-France

7-Subcontinent

8-Italy

9-China

10-Ottoman Empire.

Tel Aviv - A great city that lives 24/7. Lots of dance-bars, pubs, nightlife, great restaurants.

Jerusalem - A Must Have! Visit the old city of Jerusalem, the lovely Mahane Yehuda Market, and of course the Wall.

If you're looking for a holiday to sit back and relax, try the city Eilat, with its great hotels, beach and sun!

The problem with questions like this is that they are seldom what they appear to be. On the surface, it looks as if the question is asking something like this: '1. How big is 'the economy' (American, European, global, by the way?) and 2. what percentage of it is controlled or owned by Jews?' This assumes a simple small-town setup, and one where everyone is either Jewish or non-Jewish.

Things are not like that, however. Major corporations are owned by shareholders, and the majority of shares are owned by institutions, such as pension funds and so on.

There is another serious problem with the question. Although such questions may be asked naively, there is a nearly always a sub-text, along the lines of: 'Do Jews (however defined) control the economy conspiratorially?' In other words, 'Do they put their heads together in order to run the economy in such a way as to further 'Jewish interests', 'Israeli interests'? etc. The question is not what it appears to be.

It is really a question about a conspiracy theory, and where broad conspiracy theories of this kind are concerned people usually believe what they want to.

Many asking such questions tend to want cast-iron disproof, but of course one cannot prove a negative. Worse still, the moment one lays one ghost, so to speak, another appears: people tend to widen the scope by claiming that more and more people are Jewish or of Jewish origin: and there is no way that anybody can prove online that so-and-so doesn't have a Jewish grandparent or great grandparent. The moment they come across someone in a corporation who has what looks to them like a Jewish name they start leaping up and down with excitement.

Perhaps the biggest 'giveway' that this kind of question isn't really what it appears to be is the fact that you almost never read or hear questions like 'Do the Italians (or Hungarians, Poles, etc) control the economy?' It's almost invariably about the Jews.

Note on "Winning"

It's important to note beforehand that Israel did not "win" the territories on two counts. Firstly, Israel fought and shed blood to gain those territories, they were not just awarded or gifted to Israel. Secondly, no one can "win" territories without a formal peace treaty awarding territories to one country or another. The Arab-Israeli Conflict has only had partial treaties and none of them have awarded territory conquered during the Six Day War to Israel. (1979 Peace with Egypt returned the Sinai to Egypt and confirmed follow-up discussions on the Gaza Strip and 1994 Peace with Jordan required Israel to cede the West Bank to a future Palestinian State.)

In addition to the new territories, Israel also gained a fundamental shift in Middle Eastern policy. It would now be negotiating with Arab countries from a position of strength, being able to return tracts of Arab land to the Arab States for peace as opposed to merely just asking for peace. This is the main reason that Egypt and Jordan eventually were willing to sue for peace even though no other Arab country has done so.

Territories

To see the list of territories for which Israeli occupation was legitimated subject to a future peace treaty according to UNSC Resolution 242, see the list below:

East Jerusalem: Considered by many Israelis to be the greatest success of winning the Six-Day War, Israel was able to unite the city of West New Jerusalem with the Old City and East New Jerusalem to create a united municipality and capital (although unrecognized internationally as such). Of the territories here considered it is the smallest and most controversial as Palestinians want East Jerusalem and the Old City to be part of their eventual capital city.

West Bank: From 1949-1967, this area was a province of Jordan and included all areas within the Mandate of British Palestine along the Jordan River which Israel did not control prior to 1967. It represents roughly 18% of the total area of the British Mandate of Palestine, making it the largest Palestinian territorial acquisition in the War. It is home to many Ancient Jewish and Christian sites/cities like Nablus (Shchem), Bethlehem, Hebron, and Jericho.

Gaza Strip: This is a very small strip of territory that Egypt held from 1949-1967. It remained under Israeli military control until 1993 when it was given to the Palestinian Authority as part of the Oslo Accords.

Sinai Peninsula: Easily the largest piece of territory (60,000 km square) that Israel acquired during the Six-Day War, the Sinai Peninsula is larger than the entire British Mandate of Palestine. It was used by Israelis as a resort area and for its oil reserves until the territory was returned to Egypt over the course of three years (1979-1982) for peace and a continuous stream of oil.

Eastern Bank of the Sea of Galilee: This is the smallest peace of land (5 km square) that Israel recaptured and is the only territory from the British Mandate of Palestine that the Palestinians have never explicitly claimed. From 1949-1967, Syria held this piece of land, giving Syria direct access to a small portion of the Sea of Galilee and thus Israel/Palestine's main water source.

Golan Heights: This is a Syrian Mountain Range just north of western Jordan. This territory is small, but strategic, giving Israel a position where Syria cannot take military advantage of it. Currently, UNDOF monitors the border between the Golan Heights and Syria.

The United Nations voted to create Israel. The land was taken from Palestine an Israel was formed. Israel is officially a Jewish country and it was created right after WWII as a safe place for Jewish people to live.

I will try to give you a short overview:

In the end of the 19th century first Jewish settlers came to Israel mainly from Europe to escape from Anti-semitism. Those settlers had huge problems, such as a low economic development standard, no available infrastructure, bad health care and dry land to grow food on.

At the end of the 19h century a Austrian Jewish journalist called Theaodor Herzl initiated a movement which is called Zionism (named after the hill Zion in Jerusalem which is used as a Synonym for Jerusalem). The aim of Zionism was to create a Jewish homeland to get a safe place for all of the Jews in the world. It was not planned by everyone to create this state in Palestine (South America or African states were discussed as well), but the historical and religious connection of the Jews with Palestine was very big.

After the British took control over Palestine in 1920 after World War I, Zionists worked together with the British closely and managed to establish a "State-in-a-state" during World War II. More and more Jews emigrated to Palestine (however, most Jews that left Europe went to the USA at that time), and their political influence grew gradually.

Even before the state of Israel was declared there were several fights between Jews and Arabs in Palestine and as time went on Arabs became more desperate about not getting enough political influence. Eventually both Jews and Arabs attacked British troops and institutions. Therefore in the 1940s the British handed over the Problem to the United Nations, which set up a plan for partition. Palestine would be divided in two states: One Palestinian and one Jewish (Israel).

After World War II ended, a civil war broke out in Palestine, which seamlessly merged in to the Israeli War of Independence. The War of Independence started after Israel declared independence in May 1948, when the state Israel was born. When the War of Independence ended in July 1949 Israel could live in peace for the first time, but it was a short time. Arabs and Palestinians are still fighting today.
The British slowed immigration during World War II, a time when Jews needed to get out of Europe. After the end of World War II and after the scale of the Holocaust became understood by world leaders. Palestinians started to sell there land for high prices that Jews can afford. After hundreds of hundreds of acres sold to Jews, Britain gave its province (palestine) to Jews and then thousands of Jews came and Israel became

The way the question is written is to assume that it is not theirs, which is not the case in the slightest. Nobody asks what "entitled" Poles to create a nation-state in Prussian, Russian, and Austrian land or what "entitled" British colonists to create a European-Style country in North America. The people who live in a certain area and have a connection to that area have an intrinsic right to that land. The Jews are no different as concerns Palestine.

According to historical, religious, legal, and political grounds, the territory of the British Mandate of Palestine at least partially, if not entirely, belongs to the Jewish people.

1) Historically: The Jews have an undeniable presence in the land from at least 700 BCE until 70 CE and this is proven not only by the Biblical account, but from Assyrian Ruins, Babylonian documents, Hellenistic inscriptions, and Roman volumes. Jews had a continuous presence in the land from 70 CE until the present day (even though they were nowhere near the majority) even though they were forcibly deported from the territory. The fact that they survived, as opposed to the Arameans or Hittites who were similarly exiled does not illegitimate their claims.

In addition to the population-part of the historical claim, Jews have physical ruins and cities that are very sacred to them in the territory of the British Mandate of Palestine. The city of Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in the Jewish Bible. The city of Nablus used to be the Northern Metropolis of Shechem. Hebron was the first capital of Ancient Israel whence Saul ruled and David ruled until he conquered Jerusalem from the Jebusites. Even more recent sites like Masada document the Jewish presence and struggle to persevere.

2) Religiously: The Jewish claim to have a connection to the land of the British Mandate of Palestine is firmly grounded in their religion. Jews as early as the Babylonian exiles wrote about returning to the land because God had promised it to them. According to the Pentateuch, God promised Abraham that piece of land. (This promise is even acknowledged in the Qur'an 5:20-21, 17:104, and 26:59.) Many Jewish Holy Sites are in Israel such as the Kotel Hama'aravi (Western Wall).

3) Legally: 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 1947, the British gave direct authority to the League of Nations' successor, the United Nations, in accordance with the terms of their Mandate. The UN passed the 1947 Partition Plan 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.)

4) Politically: Jews invested a lot in building the political and physical infrastructure of the land even before they had control. Jews built farms, trained military brigades, created political parties, studied government, and defended themselves. This created a system that was able to repel the Arab Attacks in the Arab-Israeli War of 1948-9, secure expanded borders in the Six Day War of 1967, and hold those borders in the Arab-Israeli War of 1973. Israelis were actually able to exert control over this territory.

Of course, this list is not exhaustive, but should capture the sentiment of the question.

Israeli Answers

(1) The Gaza Strip is not so important. Until 2005, Israelis lived on the strip and used the land to grow produce and live peacefully. In 2005, Israel made the mistake of expelling all of the Jewish residents. Gaza now produces nothing. In the four years since the withdrawal, over 8000 rockets have been fired by Palestinian terrorists at Israeli targets. Fortunately, most of these rockets are not very good at hitting targets. One missile misfired and caused a major crisis in the Gaza strip when the sewer system backed up as a result.

(2) The Gaza Strip is one of the few places where the British Mandate of Palestine did not overlap with the historically Jewish region called the Land of Israel. Similar to how Palestinians have never made direct references to Tel Aviv being sacred to them, Jews have never made references about Gaza being sacred to them. By and large, for Israelis, the Gaza Strip is significant specifically because it is insignificant.

Palestinian Answer

What makes Gaza important is nothing other than history. It was the first territory that Israel finally conceded as a contiguous region (the West Bank territory conceded was non-contiguous) for a Palestinian State from what used to be the British Mandate of Palestine. It is also a place that shows just how horribly Israel can collectively punish the Palestinian people even when they supposedly wish for a two-state solution on account of the blockade both on land and by sea. The above answer describes how Gaza produces nothing and I would agree with him that Gaza produces nothing. However, this has nothing to do with laziness. When a location has one of the highest population densities in the world, is constantly bombed (Operation Cast Lead was symbolic of more common targeted-strikes), receives minimal raw materials, and has no access to export markets, it is impossible to produce anything.

Framing the question as why Israel occupies Palestine already sets the question as having a certain desired answer and also the lack of a definition for what constitutes "Palestine" makes the question difficult to answer.

"Palestine" is typically interpreted one of two ways. The first way is to refer to all of the land in the British Mandate of Palestine which includes the Modern State of Israel (except for the Golan Heights), the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank. The second way is to refer to exclusively those territories which the Palestinian Authority claims will serve as a basis for a future Palestinian State: the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Understandably, it changes the argument fundamentally if 78% of the territory in question is exempted from the discussion.

Additionally, the term "occupy" can be seen in either a neutral sense, i.e. that a group of people are in a certain piece of land, or in a negative sense, i.e. that a group of people are preventing a different group of people from exerting control over a piece of land. This answer will proceed under the understanding that "occupy" refers to the first, neutral definition.

As for the 78% of Mandatory Palestine which is now the State of Israel, this came about through Israel's acceptance of UN Resolution 181 and its border defense against Arab aggression to counter international laws that they did not like. As a result, the acquisition in the 1947-1949 of war was not an illegal act since self-defense is not a criminal act unless it is grossly disproportionate to the attack and the war was a relatively balanced affair as well as being resolved at the moment that each Arab state was willing to engage in an armistice. Just to clarify, this means that the 1949 borders of Israel belong to Israel.

As for the remaining Palestinian areas that were acquired in 1967, the situation becomes murkier, but as concerns the West Bank, Jordan attacked Israel first and Israel retaliated. Again the self-defense doctrine comes to the fore. Israel would have the rights to those territories acquired in self-defense. However, Israel was willing to concede some of those rights pursuant to a final, lasting peace with its neighbors, which is all that UN Resolution 242 discusses. Those states that have made peace with Israel since 1967 (Egypt and Jordan) have seen the return of territory (in Egypt's case) or the cession of the rights to occupied territory with tertiary partners (Jordan to the Palestinian Authority).

As for Gaza specifically, at this point in history, there are only two parties that claim it, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. Since Hamas is not recognized as an independent government by any country, it retains exclusively de facto control of the area while the Palestinian Authority retains de jurecontrol pursuant to the Oslo Accords of 1993.

As for the West Bank specifically, since Israel ceded the possible claim to the West Bank to Jordan in UN Resolution 242 and Jordan then agreed to cede its rights to claim the land in full to the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian Authority has the right to claim the lands of the West Bank. There are certainly Israelis who disagree with the extent of these rights, their viability vis à vis their religion, or use the doctrine of terra nullius to disavow the Palestinian Authority of these rights, but this is the minority of Israelis. Most Israelis want the majority of the West Bank to revert to the Palestinian Authority with a guarantee of peaceful coexistence.

To read more about Israeli-West Bank Issues, please read the Related Question below.