The main language of Israel is Hebrew.

A large portion of Israelis who were born in Israel are the children of parents who came from another country, and they heard virtually any language you can name in their home as they grew up.

All street signs and highway directions in Israel are printed in Hebrew, Arabic, and English.

There are about 1 million people who speak Russian, and most people in Israel speak some level of English. English is taught everywhere, and holds a semi-official status. Most street signs and highway instructions in the country are posted in Hebrew, Arabic, and English.

Street/road signs are posted in Hebrew, Arabic, and English.

Radio and TV broadcasts are in Hebrew, Arabic, and English.

The most common household language is Hebrew, followed by Arabic and English.

Newspapers are published in Hebrew, Arabic, and English.

Business is conducted in Hebrew, Arabic, and English.

English, Russian and to some extent Amharic are common but not official, though English is taught as a second language and occurs on many signs (road signs, product labels) together with Hebrew and Arabic, and Russian is also often used in various contexts.

The primary official language in Israel is Hebrew. The majority of the population know some English, and many of the population are fluent in English. Arabic is widely spoken, as are the languages of the countries from which immigrants have come to Israel in the past 70 years; a few of those are Poland, Russia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Spain, China, Germany, France, Greece, Egypt, Ethiopia, Turkey, Roumania, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Portugal, Netherlands, and several others.
hebrew

Answer

Zionism was (and is) the movement to establish and preserve a Jewish homeland.

It is the ideology that Jewish people should have their own state. The Land of Israel was promised to the Jewish people by God, according to the Bible. Jews lived in the Land of Israel from the time of Joshua until the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. Almost all Jews were exiled to other countries, known to Jews as the Diaspora. For centuries, Jews prayed for a return to Zion. In the nineteenth century, the Zionist movement, led by Theodor Herzl and Chaim Weizmann, encouraged Jews to turn the dream into reality, and lobbied the international community to understand that a "Jewish national home" was the only solution to anti-Semitism and the "Jewish problem."

In 1947, the dream was realized when the UN voted to partition Palestine between the Jews and the Arabs. The Arabs immediately attacked the Jews and in the middle of the war, on May 14, 1948, the State of Israel declared its independence. Today, about half of the world's Jewry lives in Israel. Most Jews living in and out of Israel are supporters of Israel and the Zionist ideology, although a small percent believe only divine intervention should bring about a Jewish state.

It is worth noting that many Anti-Semites claim that Zionism is a code word for some unclear international cabal of evil Jews trying to control the world. Such a cabal does not exist and insinuations without evidence or with evidence that has proven to be a hoax that it does exist are Anti-Semitic. Aside from this, since such a cabal would not be concerned with Jewish Nationalism, it, therefore, could not be Zionism.

Additional Definitions

These are several other people's different descriptions:

• Zionism was the movement for (originally) the reestablishment and (now) the development and protection of a Jewish nation in what is now Israel. It was established as a political organization in 1897 under Theodor Herzl, and was later led by Chaim Weizmann.
• The English word 'Zionism' has two distinct senses: 1: a policy for establishing and developing a national homeland for Jews in Palestine; 2: a movement of world Jewry that arose late in the 19th century with the aim of creating a Jewish state in Palestine
• Zionism is the belief that the Jews should have political self-sovereignty and is the patriotic sentiment behind the Establishment of the State of Israel.
• Jewish nationalist movement with the goal of creating a Jewish homeland.
• "Jewish" national movement
• Zionism = belief that Israel has the right to EXIST, which is no different to the belief that the 22 Muslim nations have a right to exist.
• Zionism is basically the hope and wish of the Jews to return to their homeland - The land of Israel. This is called Zionism because the land of Israel is also called "Zion". (In the Tanakh or Jewish Bible, it is referred to as another name of Jerusalem and in later eras the meaning became more general, regarding the whole land of Israel.)
• Zionism can be described as a yearning to make Israel a homeland for Jews
• Zionism can be described as a peaceful nationalistic movement. It is the desire of Jews to peacefully live in their ancestral lands.
• The term Zionism refers to a national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland.

Answer 1

Primarily, the Jews historically lived in the area known as Palestine around 2000 years ago. The majority were then exiled by the Romans. The people who remained in the territory in the interim period began to consider themselves Arabs by the mid-1200s. When the British occupied the area and called it Palestine, these Arabs began to call themselves Palestinians. During this period, however, many Jews sought to return to their ancestral homeland and declare it as their own historic country. This provoked conflict between the people returning to their homeland and those who had lived there for centuries.

Please see the Related Questions for more information.

Answer 2

A very long one. In general, the Palestinians' ancestors lived in the Israeli area of the Middle East before the Jews arrived. According to the Bible as a historical book, and it is very accurate, Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt and into Canaan (Israel and Palestine), where Joshua took over and proceeded to pacify the Palestinians by force as God commanded him.

The Palestinians have ever since been arguing that they possessed the land first: finders keepers. They want the Jews to leave their land. The Israelites believe that the land belongs to them because God said so.

Answer 3

First, let´s clear some things. Palestine is not a country or a State and has never been it. Palestine is a geographical area like Balkans, and like in Balkans, there are various countries on its territory. One of such countries is Israel that occupies about 23% of the territory of the geographical area called Palestine. Another is Jordan, that occupies another approximately 75%. Also, the Southern parts of Lebanon and Syria are geographically also in Palestine.

The area of the modern Palestine thousands years ago was inhabitied by the union of the tribes under the common name Canaanites, and was called The Land of Canaan. Then, in approximately 1900 BC, the tribes of the "People of the Sea" began to arrive to the Land of Canaan and settle there. Their origin was not the Middle East; they were from Crete. The biggest among them was called Peleset, and this name was applied to all the posterior waves of the Sea People to the land of Canaan. In the Greek transcription, it was pronounced as "Philistine", so these invadersfrom Crete were called in Greek "Philistines", and in Latin- "Palestinians".They rapidly conquered the coastal part of the Land of Canaan and founded there five cities: Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, and Gath. As their number grew, they started to try to expand their territory by wars, but met an obstacle: the tribes of the Hebrews ( the forefathers of Jews and Israelis) who invaded the inland of the Land of Canaan and conquered it, like Phislistines conquered the coastal part. After many centuries of bloody wars, Hebrews defeated Philistines and made them their vassals. Then they created two Kingdoms on the land they called Eretz Israel, The Land of Israel: one in the North, it was called The Northern Kingdom of Israel and its capital was in Samaria, and another one in the South; it was called Kingdom of Judea and its capital was Jerusalem. So, the jewish and israeli hisotry on hte land the WestCalls "Palestine" and jews and Israelis call The Land of Israel is 3,000 years long.

In the 8th century, Assyrians defeated the Northern Kingdom of Israel and then fell on Philistines. As well as Israelis, they were "rooted out" aznd driven to other parts of the Assyrian Empire. But Jews later were granted the permission to return, while Philistines were not. After Alexander The Great conquests in approximately the 5th century, Philistines totally disappered from history - and remained disappeared until 1967, when Muslim Arabs all of a sudden proclaimed themselves "Palestinains".

What relations are there between Muslim Arabs from Arabia who confess Islam, and whose language is semitic - and the Sea People from Crete is a question even Muslim Allah would not be able to answer. But guided by the main Nazi´s ideologist Gebbels rule, who said that if you repeat the most monstrous lie continuously people will start to believe it, Arabs cry at every corner that they are "Palestinains", carefully avoiding answers to the questions like how to say "hello" in Palestinian, and since when Crete became the craddle for Arabs.

The truth is that Arabs use this hoax about "Palestinain people" as a weapon in their propagandistic war against Jews in the Arab-Israeli dispute over the land Romans called "Palestine" but whose original name for thousands years was The Land of Israel

Answer 4 (some hints on Answer 3 above):

Arabs; and more specifically Muslims; are never against Jews.

Judaism as a religion started by prophet Moses around 1200 years before Christ while Palestine was as a country thousands of years before this date. The claim that prophet Abraham was Jewish is not true. He was worshiping God as the one and only one God with no partner. That is the basic principle of Islam in its universal sense that all God prophets called their people for it.

It is not true that there was nothing called Palestine as a country. Otherwise, it could be claimed also that there was nothing called as Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq.

The country as Palestine was under control of:

1. Ancient Egyptians,
2. Canaanites,
3. Israelites,
4. Assyrians,
5. Babylonians,
6. Persians,
7. Ancient Greeks,
8. Romans,
9. Byzantines,
10. Arab Caliphates,
11. Fatimid Caliphate,
12. Crusaders,
13. Ayyubids,
14. Mameluks,
15. Ottomans,
16. the British, and
17. modern Israelis and Palestinians.

During the British occupation of Palestine, they promised the Jews to have their native land side by side with the Palestinians in Palestine and allowed immigration of thousands of Jews to the area.

The UN had taken the decision in 1947 to partition Palestine into two states Israel and Palestine. However, Israel State had been established while the Palestinian State not yet.

Even, if it was called the land of Israel it does not mean that it is the land of current Israelis. Otherwise, the US lands should be given back to the Indians.