Israel: -- Description and History --

Presented by

The Sonoma County Israel Action Committee

ISRAEL (2002)

Israeli Demographics*• 6.4 million citizens inside the “Green Line”

– 4.9 million Jews (77%)– 1.0 million Muslims (16%)– 135,000 Christians (2%)– 100,000 Druze (2%)

• Official languages: – Hebrew– Arabic

* US State Dept (2005)

Israeli Demographics (cont’d)• Immigrants from more than

100 countries, including 50,000 African Jews rescued from Ethiopia*

• More than 50% of Israeli Jews are indigenous to the Middle East and Northern Africa

* US State Dept (2005)

Israeli Form of Government

• Parliamentary democracy• Legislative, executive, and judicial branches

operating on the principle of separation of powers

• All Israelis– Arabs and Jews, women and men– share the same freedoms of speech, press, religion, and assembly.

• All Israeli citizens are guaranteed equal access to universal health care

Prime Minister Olmert

Supreme Court

Freedom of the Press in Israel:Unique in the Middle East

• Israel has one of the highest concentrations of journalists in the world– 350 foreign news

organizations based in Jerusalem

– 1,300 journalists visit each year

• Israeli media, in Hebrew and Arabic, can strongly criticize the head of government without fear of closure, arrest, imprisonment, or bodily harm

Freedom of Religion in Israel

• No official religion

• The only growing Christian population in the Middle East

• All Israeli citizens - Christians, Muslims and Jews - have freedom of religion and the right to vote

Ba’hai

Druze

Islam

Judaism

Christianity

Human Rights in Israel

• According to recent opinion surveys, “66% of Palestinians give a positive evaluation tothe status of democracy and human rights in Israel.*”

* West Bank-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research

• Arabs hold 12 of 120 seats in the Israeli parliament• There are 5 Arab political parties in Israel

Women’s Rights in Israel

• Free to dress as they please

• Free to drive

• Free to study and work

• Free to choose their own mates

• Free to travel abroad without the consent of a male relative

• Free to make reproductive choices

• 16 women serve in the Israeli Parliament

• Golda Meir: the 2nd woman in the world elected as head of government in 1969

Gay Rights in Israel

• Israel hosts the only Gay Pride Parade in the Middle East

• Gay men and women serve openly in the Israeli Defense Force

• World’s highest per capita rate of university degrees

Israel Economy

• Major cities

• Major exports– Agriculture: Cut flowers, melons, kiwis, strawberries, tomatoes,

cucumbers, peppers and avocados– Hi Tech: medical electronics, agrotechnology, telecommunications, fine

chemicals, computer hardware and software, and solar energy

– Diamond cutting and polishing

Jerusalem (capital)Tel Aviv (largest)

Haifa (main port)

Israeli Economy (cont’d)

• World’s highest per capita rate of scientific papers

• World’s largest number of start-up companies, except US

• World’s highest concentration of high-tech companies, except Silicon Valley

• World’s highest per capita rate of home computers

Israel’s Technological Contributions

Environmental Achievements• World’s only country

to have a net gain in trees in 2000

• Innovator of drip irrigation systems to conserve water

• Developed large-scale solar electricity plant in CA Mojave desert

• Innovator of desalination technology

Jewish people have maintained ties to their historic homeland for more than 3,700 years.

Jewish Communities in the Land of Israel

(7th to 11th Centuries)

Pre-State History of Israel/Palestine

• Part of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire for 400 years (1516 – 1918) ending with World War I

• Heterogeneous population– "Palestine’s population was composed of so

‘widely differing’ a group of inhabitants whose ‘ethnological affinities’ create ‘early in the 20th century a list of no less than fifty languages’” Encyclopedia Britannica of 1911

• In 1880’s fewer than 300,000 population– “Desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but

is given over wholly to weeds – a silent mournful expanse...” Mark Twain, 1867

Modern Zionism• Started in 1897, when Jews were already a majority in the

city of Jerusalem*• National liberation movement of the Jewish people, which

holds that Jews, like any other nation, are entitled to a homeland.

• Goal was to empower Jews, who were a powerless minority in countries throughout the world

• History has demonstrated the need to ensure Jewish security through a national homeland.

• Zionism recognizes that Jewishness is defined by shared origin, religion, culture and history.

*US Library of Congress Country Studies(1988)

League of Nations Mandate

• “….Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, …shall encourage...close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not acquired for public purposes ….”

British Mandate

Jewish Achievements During Mandate Period

• Technicon (Israel Institute of Technology) established in Haifa in 1924

• Dedication of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1925

• OTHERS????

Population Changes during Mandate• 1915 population in Palestine*

– 83,000 Jews – 590,000 Muslim and Christian Arabs

• Throughout the Mandate period the British restricted Jewish immigration, but did not restrict Arab immigration

• 1948 population between the Jordan and the Mediterranean**– 650,000 Jews– 1,300,000 Arabs

*Arieh Avneri, The Claim of Dispossession p. 28; Yehoshua Porath, The Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab National

Movement 1918-1929. pp. 17-18.**Howard Sachar, A History of Israel From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time, p. 292.

UN Partition Resolution - 1947

“….Independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem, set forth in part III of this plan, shall come into existence in Palestine two months after the evacuation of the armed forces of the mandatory Power has been completed but in any case not later than 1 October 1948. …”

UN Partition Resolution - 1947

UN Partition Resolution - 1947• Jews were a majority in the area allotted to them by the

resolution*– 538,000 Jews– 397,000 Arabs

• Jews were a majority in Jerusalem• Israel accepted the resolution• Arabs rejected it

– “I declare holy war” – the Mufti of Jerusalem– Armies of 5 Arab states attacked Israel

• Israel victorious after 15 months of fighting, but 6,000 Jews were killed (nearly 1% of the population)

**Howard Sachar, A History of Israel From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time, p. 292

Lost Jewish Communities

Refugees• During the 1948 war

approximately 720,000 Arabs fled from what is now Israel*. – They and their descendants are

still confined to refugee camps in Arab territories

• During and after the 1948 war approximately 600,000 Jews fled from Arab countries to Israel*– They were quickly absorbed into

Israeli society*Irving Howe and Carl Gershman (eds.), Israel, the

Arabs and the Middle East (New York: Bantam, 1972), p. 168.

Jews of Arab Countries

JEWISH POPULATION 1945 2002 Algeria 140,000 100 Egypt 80,000 200 Iraq 150,000 100 Lebanon 20,000 100 Lybia 40,000 0 Morroco 265,000 5,800 Syria 35,000 200 Tunesia 105,000 1,300 Yemen and Aden 63,000 200

Israel Development 1948 - 1967

• Established 440 new agricultural settlements: kibbutzim and moshavim

• LIST ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Events Leading Up to 6-Day War (1967)

Outcome of 6-Day War

UN Resolution 242 (1967)

• Calls for a negotiated settlement to determine secure and recognized boundaries

• Israel immediately accepted UN Resolution 242. •  The Arab Summit rejected 242 with the infamous

"three No's", – "no peace with Israel, – no negotiations with Israel, – no recognition of Israel.."

•  Secure borders could not be drawn because of the refusal of the Arab states to negotiate.

Yom Kippur War (1973)

• Egypt and Syria launched an attack on Israel

• Israel was able to push them back beyond the 1967 lines

• OTHER POINTS???

Land for Peace Agreements

• Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty (26 March 1979) – Israel handed the Sinai over to Egypt in 1982

• Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty (26 October 1994)• Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement (28

September 1995)– By 2000, 95% of Palestinian population was under PA

sovereignty or civilian administration

Recent Withdrawal from Gaza

• To be completed

• End on positive note

SLIDES TO USE JUST IN CASE QUESTIONS COME

UP

Terrorist Attacks 1948-1967

Terrorist Attacks 1967-1993

Terrorist Attacks 1993-2000

Terrorist Attacks 2000-2005

Israel’s Security Barrier

Israel’s Geographic Vulnerabilities

Kassam and Katyusha Rocket Threats

Human Shields

Palestinian militants exchange fire with Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip February 11, 2004. REUTERS/Str

A masked Hamas militant sets up a makeshift mortar launcher against Israeli forces, as Palestinian youths try to cover him from the sight of the forces in a Gaza city neighborhood, Wednesday Feb. 11, 2004. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)

What are the “Settlements”?• Some are reclaimed Jewish communities lost in the War of

Independence

• Some of the other settlements in the West Bank are the expanding suburbs of Jerusalem

• Established only after an exhaustive investigation process, under the supervision of the Supreme Court of Israel, designed to ensure that no settlements are established on private Arab land.

• At the July 2000 Camp David talks, Israel proposed to evacuate the isolated settlements, retain those near Jerusalem, and swap Israeli land to compensate the Palestinians. Arafat rejected the proposal, left the talks with no counter-offer, and resorted to violence.

• In 2005 Israeli evacuated all settlements in Gaza

Palestinian Attitudes toward Israel

• Palestinian Authority charter calls for the destruction of Israel

• Hamas charter calls for the destruction of Israel

• Many Muslim clerics in the PA call for the murder of Jews

• Many PA school textbooks deny Israel’s right to exist

Teaching Children to Hate

Jerusalem Demographics