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Israel
Located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, Israel is the only Jewish-majority state in the world. It has a total land area of 22,072 sq km with an estimated population of approximately 7.7 million as of 2010.
6,421 Questions
What is the capital of israel in the 900's BC?
Israel did not exist as a state until 1948!
In 1947, the British concluded that they could no longer manage Palestine and handed the issue over to the United Nations. On November 29, 1947, after much debate and discussion, the UN recommended the partition of Palestine into two states one Jewish and one Arab. The Jews accepted the UN resolution while the Arabs rejected it.
The British mandate over Palestine officially terminated on May 14, 1948 at midnight. Earlier in the day, at 4:00 p.m., David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the creation of the State of Israel and became its first prime minister. Longtime advocate of Zionism in Britain Chaim Weizmann (1874-1952) became Israel's first president. On May 15, 1948, the United States recognized the State of Israel as a nation and the Soviet Union followed suit the next day.
Why was Moses denied entry into the promised Land of Israel?
"Despite living to 120, he did not enter the Land of Israel,or the promised land, because he hit the rock twice instead of speaking to the rock" An alternate answer: Moses's function as the deliverer of the Israelites (they weren't "Jews" yet) from Egypt to the promised land had concluded. The Israelites now had to conquer the land - fighting some tribes and making peace with others. This phase required a completely different persona, embodied in the young, charismatic military tactician, Joshua. An alternative to this theory is that Moses had been "building up" the promised land in the imaginations of the Israelites for 40 years. Moses knew that the reality on the ground would be much more difficult and complex. Had Moses crossed the Jordan river with his people, they might have rebelled against him and the LORD for misleading them. This is why a new leader, one that could start with a "clean slate" was needed.
What was the name of Israel at the time of Jesus' birth?
What do the Palestinians want to do with the land of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip?
A number of Palestinians would like to create an independent Palestinian State on the lands of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. This aspiration is seen as legitimate by the United Nations, which currently recognizes the early elements of this state as the State of Palestine and previously recognized it as the Palestinian Authority.
However, the majority of Palestinians who support the full independence of the State of Palestine do not believe that the territory of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are sufficient and lay claim to all or part of the current State of Israel as a longer-term ambition.
What countries are Israelis from?
Israelis are from a variety of different places around the world, similar to Americans. There is also a lot intermarriage between Jews from different areas, which makes the demographics difficult to hash out. However, the most common ethnicities in Israel are listed below:
1) Endemically Palestinian: The largest ethnicity of Israeli citizens (approximately 1.7 million Israelis) are those who can trace their ancestry to the territory of the former Mandate of Palestine while it was still under Ottoman occupation. The majority of these citizens are non-Jewish and are identified as Israeli Arabs.
2) Russian: After the Russian mass immigration to Israel in the early 1990s, Russians make up the largest Jewish ethnicity (at approximately 1.4 million Israelis).
3) Moroccan: Due to the large Moroccan Jewish immigration in the early 1950s and continuing trickle into the 1970s, the Moroccan Jewish community in Israel is still very large (at approximately 1.2 million Israelis).
The remainder of Israelis hail mostly from Europe, North America, the Arab World, and small minorities from Africa, South America, and East Asia. However, this geographic mixing and matching refers to people's ethnicities. Most Israelis are Israeli-born, not foreign-born.
Are Israel and Iran mostly similar?
The Israeli people and Iranian people are actually rather similar. They both are very cultured with a "European" disposition. They like to read and write, have on-average a high degree of commerce and education, and a strong feeling of a national historic narrative.
The governments and social organization of Israel and Iran, though, could not be more different. Israel is a secular Parliamentary Democracy, where all citizens, including minorities, have the right to vote for the political party that will best represent them. The governing authority forms through various coalitions of different parties which between them select a Prime Minister. Israel protects most basic freedoms such as freedom of speech, freedom from unwarranted searches and seizures, personal freedom (permission of homosexuality and abortions), trial by jury, and numerous other rights. Iran is an Islamic Republic which means that while it has a legislature, its power is strongly circumscribed by an unelected judiciary: the Supreme Council of Ayatollahs. These religious leaders have prevented basic civil rights by repressing minorities, banning freedom of speech and assembly, and executing individuals for violations of Islamic Law. They also have a veto over the candidacy of any politician running for office, meaning that they can effectively prevent any politician who wishes to push Iran in a different direction than they do. Iran has become increasingly religious and apocalyptic in its world view.
Which of the two Israelite kingdoms went into exile first - Israel or Judah?
Israel, comprising ten of the twelve Jewish tribes, was exiled 133 years before Judah was exiled.
What was the climate in ancient Israel?
In Ancient Israel, the temperature was about what it is today. It received four or five more inches (15 centimeters) of rainfall than today. Farms dotted the Sinai with the Bedouins using the hills. Today, there are no farms.
What are the ways of life of people in Israel?
Israelis currently live very similarly to Americans or West Europeans. Most work at businesses, some work in hospitality or the tourism industry, some work in agriculture, and some work in entertainment. They go to malls and beaches when they are off the clock and buy the latest fashions at their leisure.
What was the impact on Israel and Palestine after the Suez Crisis?
Palestine was minimally impacted. There were some border skirmishes with Egyptian-supported Fedayeen in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip was overrun during the Arab-Israeli War of 1956, but for the most part, the effect on Palestinians was only slight disheartenment.
Israel had a better showing, occupying parts of the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip for nearly half-a-year, securing freedom of access to the Straits of Tiran (at least until 1967, when Egypt would try to close them off agains), and setting the standard of a demilitarized Sinai Peninsula (which was reinstated in 1979 following the Camp David Accords). It was also Israel's first real military success and showed that the state was not going to disappear in the next few years, as predicted by its unabashedly violent neighbors.
Should Israel have its own land?
Answer 1
Israel already has its own land, so this question sounds strange.
The State of Israel is situated on the historically Jewish land that formed The Kingdom of Israel and The Kingdom of Judah, and the capital of Israel is that same city that was its capital 3,000 years ago: Jerusalem.
Answer 2
Since Israel is an extant country, there is no justifiable reason to deprive it of the land it lawfully occupies. India controls several disputed territories like Arunchal Pradesh and Kashmir, but nobody makes the absurd statement that India should cease to control land at all because there are disputed territories.
The reason why people find it is legitimate to ask these questions of Israel is because Jews did not make up the majority of people in Mandatory Palestine prior to mass immigrations. (Note that this does not legitimize these views, but explains why people have them.) Therefore, Jews have had to defend why their state was legitimate. There is the implicit question as to whether a Jewish State is something that should exist. There is the second implicit question as to whether the geographical location chosen for this Jewish State is proper for its mission. Both questions should be answered in the affirmative for the following reasons.
1) Why a Jewish State: Herzl explained quite well that the European concept of a nation-state was dependent on the idea that all of the people in any particular nation were of the same ethnic stock and heritage. Jews were branded by this system to be "the Other" and were regarded at best as possible equals and at worse as traitors, spies, thieves, and fifth columns. When the Dreyfus Affair turned out marches in Paris that said "Death to the Jews" on account of a kangaroo court against a particular guiltless Jew, it became clear that the Jew could not be integrated into Europe. After the Holocaust, the strongest proof that the Jew and the European Nation-State were irreconcilable, this view persists. In Europe, it is now directed at the Muslims since the Jews are not large enough of a threat to the European System. Unlike Muslims, though, which can return to their countries of origin if the discrimination becomes intolerable, the Jews did not have such a place. This is why the Jewish State is necessary. Since it came into existence it has accepted Jewish political refugees from over 50 nations and flown missions at its own expense to rescue Jews from at least 10 nations.
2) Why Palestine: Ahad Ha'am explains that the Jewish Soul is intrinsically connected to his history and in the same way that a German-American can never be as properly German as a German in Germany, the People of Israel can never be as properly Jewish if they are not in the Land of Israel. The relics in that land speak to a Jewish sensibility and character. There are also religious reasons as expounded by Rav Avraham Kook which posit that the development of a Jewish State in Israel hastens the arrival of the Messiah. There are additional political reasons why Palestine and not Europe. As explained above, the European Culture is strongly anti-Other and making a Jewish State there would have fostered much more contempt and alienation (ironically).
Who is to blame for starting the Arab-Israeli conflict?
It honestly depends on perspective. The Arabs claimed that the Israelis started it for having the audacity to realize their dreams for creating an independent country. The Israelis claimed that the Arabs started it for having the audacity to violently try to repress their dreams to create an independent country. As for what particular event started the conflict, every person would claim something else.
Christians in Israel celebrate Christmas on December 25, just as Christians
everywhere else in the world do. Although Jews don't celebrate Christmas,
Israeli police and military are posted at Christian holy sites, to protect the
security of the Christian pilgrims and avoid disruption of their worship.
Which group wants an independent state of their own in the West Bank and Gaza Strip?
Palestinians and their supporters wish to create a State of Palestine in those regions.
When does Daylight Saving Time end in Israel in 2010?
According to the website timeanddate.com, DST ends on Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 02:00 local daylight time.
(See the related link for more information.)
What role should the US play in the efforts to achieve peace in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict?
This is a question asking for opinion, and so naturally, there will be dissenting opinions. This is my view on the matter.
Answer
The US should have a key role in moderating the discussion between Israelis and Palestinians. As the largest financial beneficiary of both Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the US has a unique ability to leverage both countries and has the military power to back any tenuous solution with peacekeepers. However, the US should not impose a solution on the two countries, but rather help facilitate developing the tools, providing the spaces, and leading the initiatives that allow Israelis and Palestinians to find a solution. The US should also use its diplomatic clout to dislodge states that have adopted attitudes strongly favoring one side at the expense of the other, such as the Arab States, from this position.
Some of these moderating thoughts that the US should advocate in its relationships with both Israel and Palestine include:
1) Mutual Recognition: Israel would need to recognize a completely independent and sovereign Palestinian Government that would fully control a certain amount of the former British Mandate of Palestine (most likely Gaza and the West Bank). Israel would also have to confer on this state the unambiguous nature of being correct and necessary for Israel. Conversely, Palestine would have to recognize the Right for Israel to Exist as a Jewish State occupying the remaining amount of the British Mandate of Palestine (most likely 1949-Israel). Both sides would have to recognize the historical and emotional value that the land also has to the other.
2) Israeli Reparation Payments: Israel dispossessed many Palestinians of their property, either by malicious activities that took place during the Arab-Israeli Wars or by Ben-Gurion refusing to let Palestinians who left return after the 1948-9 War. Israel needs to pay the Palestinian government reparations for the land that was taken in this way.
3) Israeli Withdrawal from the Settlements: Israel must withdraw from the Settlements to provide Palestine with a viable infrastructure and complete sovereignty. The Settlers must return to Israeli territory. The buildings, however, should be left as partial payment of the above-mentioned reparations.
4) Palestinians Concession of the Right of Return:Recognizing the State of Israel as a Jewish State is meaningless if Palestinians en masse are allowed to Return to Israel. Therefore, Palestinians (and their backers) must abandon the notion that they can ever return to Israeli territory. Palestinians should leave the refugee camps and become proper citizens in this new country of Palestine.
5) Internationalization or Sharing of Jerusalem:Palestine and Israel both want Jerusalem and the only way to solve this is either divide the city East/West respectively and divide the Old City or Internationalize the City or some combination of Internationalization and division. Neither side will rest until it can assure its followers that its holy sites will be protected.
6) Liberal Thought: Just in general, people have to be willing to compromise and live with that compromise.
The land of Israel is the land that God promised to the Israelites (in Genesis ch.12, ch.15 and elsewhere).
The covenant is the contract binding the Jewish people to God (see Exodus ch.19 and Deuteronomy 26:16-19).
Monotheism is the most basic of all of the Jewish beliefs.
How many people died in the Six Day War in 1967 between Israel and Syria?
The Arabs took the hardest hit in the Six Day War, with 9,800-15,000 soldiers lost in battle. The Israelis had a death toll of 776-983 soldiers. The Syrians lost about 1,000 people in battle. Around 6,000 Jordanians were killed during the war as well.
Moses knew at 40 that he was to deliver Israel. What did God still need to teach him?
Faith in God's power, not his own.
Well, OK. Whatever. But Moses didn't get that assignment until he was 80.
How did Israel declare its independence?
David ben Gurion gathered some of the lead Zionists and their allies in a room in Tel Aviv and read a Declaration of Independence to them as well as over the radio.
