Israel

A state founded in 1948 as a homeland for a people who had been persecuted across Europe for centuries and had just been murdered in millions, on land where another people already lived. Jewish presence in the region is continuous from antiquity, and Zionism emerged in nineteenth-century Europe arguing that assimilation had failed as protection - a case the Holocaust settled for most Jews. Britain's Balfour Declaration of 1917 promised a national home in Palestine while ruling it under mandate, and Jewish immigration, Arab opposition and revolt followed. The UN partition plan of 1947 was accepted by Jewish leaders and rejected by Arab states; Israel declared independence in May 1948 and won the war that followed, and around seven hundred thousand Palestinians fled or were expelled in what Palestinians call the Nakba. Roughly the same number of Jews left or were forced from Arab and Muslim countries in the following years. Israel took the West Bank, Gaza, Sinai and the Golan in 1967. It made peace with Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994. Settlement of the occupied territories is held unlawful by most states and by the International Court of Justice, and disputed by Israel. Jerusalem is claimed as the capital by both sides. The country has about ten million people, around a fifth of them Arab citizens. Hebrew is official and was revived as an everyday spoken language in the twentieth century, the only case of its kind. Tel Aviv is the economic centre and most embassies are there. The kibbutz movement shaped the early state and now holds a small share of the population. Nine of its sites are World Heritage listed.

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