Israel (country)

E

Political Parties

Despite a wide range of secular and religious political parties, two parties with origins in the prestate period dominate contemporary Israeli politics. The Israel Labor Party, formed in 1968 when three previous labor parties merged, supports Zionist and socialist policies such as continued Jewish immigration, a social welfare state, and a primarily state-planned and regulated economy. The Labor Party also supports separation of religion and state, equality for minorities, and negotiated settlement between Israel and the Arab states concerning the land seized in the 1967 Six-Day War, known collectively as the Occupied Territories. The other major party, Likud, emerged in 1973 from an alliance of several right-of-center parties. It has focused on retaining the Occupied Territories and privatizing the economy, and it remains strongly nationalist and assertive in foreign and security matters. Whereas neither party has achieved an absolute majority in the Knesset since independence, the Israel Labor Party and its predecessors predominated until 1977, when Likud became the largest party. Labor regained the lead in the Knesset in 1992, but lost it again in 2003, when its coalition, known as One World, won only 19 seats to Likud’s 38. The Kadima party was established by former Likud leader Ariel Sharon in 2005. The party was established primarily to support Sharon’s decision to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, a decision that was opposed by some within Likud. Sharon took many former Likud supporters with him in forming Kadima. In the 2006 parliamentary elections Kadima won the single largest bloc of seats and set up a coalition with Labor, the Shas Party, and the newly formed Pensioners Party, which is concerned with the rights of the elderly. The remaining supporters of Likud won only 12 seats in the Knesset as opposed to 38 in the previous parliament.

Various other political parties play significant roles and are sometimes pivotal in sustaining or opposing the government in power. Shinui, formed in 1974, is a secular liberal party that opposes the influence of the ultra-Orthodox religious establishment. Meretz was formed in 1992 as a coalition of leftist groups. Formed in 1995, the Third Way supports a centrist alternative to Likud and Labor, combining a willingness to compromise over the Occupied Territories with an insistence on keeping areas deemed vital to Israel’s security (especially the Golan Heights) and preserving Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Yisrael Ba’aliya was founded by Natan Sharansky to compete in the 1996 parliamentary elections and to encourage Jewish immigration from the former Soviet Union, while promoting the needs of new immigrants to Israel. In 2003 it merged with Likud. Another party based largely among Russian or former Soviet Union immigrants is Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Is Our Home), led by Avigdor Lieberman, an immigrant to Israel from Kishinev, Moldova.

Arab political parties have been involved in Israeli politics since independence. The Progressive List for Peace (PLP), an Arab-Jewish party formed in 1984, advocates Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. The Arab Democratic Party (ADP), made up entirely of Arab candidates, formed in 1988 to support moderate policies more acceptable to Zionists in order to exert influence within the political system. Many Arabs support communist parties, often more as a form of dissent against the establishment than from ideological commitment.

Religious parties generally play a crucial role in forming and maintaining governments. Shas, a party of Orthodox Sephardic Jews stressing ethnic pride and traditional values, maintains a conciliatory position on Middle East peace. United Torah Judaism, a party of Orthodox Ashkenazi Jews, seeks to enhance the role of religion in the state and opposes all forms of secularism. The National Religious Party (NRP) advocates legislation based on Judaic religious law. It promotes rapid Jewish settlement of Israeli-occupied territories based on divine right to inhabit biblical lands.

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F

Defense

Founded in 1948, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) acts as a unified command over all of Israel’s air, land, and sea forces. In 2004 Israel maintained a standing army of 168,300 with an additional 430,000 in reserve forces. Most Israelis are inducted into the army at age 18. Jewish and Druze men serve for three years, and unmarried Jewish women serve for 21 months. Men continue in reserve duty until age 55 for up to 45 days a year (or longer in the event of emergency). Women are rarely called for reserve duty, but technically, unmarried women may be called until age 50. Arabs are exempt but may serve voluntarily. By an agreement dating from the late 1940s, Israel’s minister of defense could grant religious Jews exemptions from military service. However, in December 1998 the Supreme Court ruled that this agreement was illegal and instructed the Knesset to pass legislation to regularize the situation within one year. A government-appointed chief of staff heads the IDF and is responsible to the cabinet minister of defense. Although the IDF as an institution has no formal or informal role in the political process, retired senior officers have become significant political figures.

G

International Organizations

Israel has been a member of the UN since 1949 and is a member of many other international organizations. It participates in a wide range of UN activities, including nongovernmental organizations addressing issues such as aviation, immigration, communications, meteorology, trade, and the status of women. Israel’s relationship with the UN has varied considerably. The UN partition plan created the state, and UN resolutions in 1967 and 1973 called for acknowledgement of Israel’s sovereignty by all states in the region. However, Israel has been excluded from regional UN caucusing groups, and hundreds of UN resolutions have been critical of Israeli policies and activities. For example, in 1975 the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution that labeled Zionism as a form of racism; the General Assembly repealed the resolution in 1991. In 1998 the General Assembly passed a resolution acknowledging anti-Semitism (hostility toward Jews) as a form of racism.

Israel is a member of many agencies within the UN, including the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Israel also participates in other international organizations such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Israel is excluded from many regional organizations uniting surrounding Arab nations, such as the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which embraces every Middle Eastern nation except Israel and Cyprus, and the Arab League, which promotes the common interests of Middle Eastern and North African Arab states. Through the 1980s most Arab nations did not recognize Israel. After peace talks began in the 1990s, many began tentative diplomatic relations.

VII

History

Although the modern state of Israel came into being in 1948, its history is based on an ancient Jewish connection to the region, a recurrent theme in Jewish tradition and writing since the 2nd millennium bc. King Saul established the first Hebrew state, the Kingdom of Israel, in the region of Palestine in the 11th century bc. Saul’s successors, David and Solomon, further consolidated the kingdom. The southern part soon became the independent kingdom of Judah. When both kingdoms were defeated by the 6th century bc, most Jews were exiled from Palestine. The desire of the exiled Jews, known collectively as the Diaspora, to return to their historical homeland is recorded in the Bible and became a universal Jewish theme after Roman rulers destroyed the ancient city of Jerusalem in ad 70. For the history of Palestine before the 19th century, see Palestine: History.

The modern concept of a Jewish homeland in Palestine began in the late 19th century, when the region was part of the Ottoman Empire. In 1880 Palestine had a Jewish population of about 25,000, composing about 5 percent of the total population in the predominantly Arab region. Jews resided primarily in Jerusalem and in other holy cities such as Ẕefat, Tiberias, and Hebron. In the early 1880s Eastern European Jews, primarily from Russia and Poland, began to immigrate to the region to escape persecution (see Pogrom). Beginning in the mid-1890s Zionism, the movement to unite Jews of the Diaspora and settle them in Palestine, further bolstered immigration. In his book The Jewish State (1896), Hungarian-born Jewish journalist Theodor Herzl analyzed the causes of anti-Semitism and proposed as a solution the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. In 1897 Herzl convened the first Zionist Congress, representing Jewish communities and organizations throughout the world, in Basel, Switzerland. The congress formulated the Basel Program, which defined Zionism’s goal: “to create for the Jewish people a home in Palestine secured by public law.” The congress also established the movement’s administrative body, the World Zionist Organization (WZO).

By 1914 the Jewish population of Palestine had grown to about 85,000, or about 12 percent of the total population. In 1917, during World War I, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, which expressed Britain’s support for the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. By issuing the declaration Britain apparently hoped to generate support from both American and Russian Jews for the Allied war effort and to preempt efforts by its rival, Germany, to win Jewish support by issuing a similar declaration. Britain’s main long-term goal was to retain Palestine as a strategic territory after the war. Despite these underlying motives, the Zionist movement saw the declaration as an important achievement promoting Jewish settlement and development in Palestine. However, the British had already made two previous agreements to others in the region. In the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 Britain had agreed to split the Ottoman lands into British, French, and Russian areas of control upon defeating the Ottomans. The British had also made vague promises in 1915 and 1916 to support Arab independence in the lands of the former Ottoman Empire in return for Arab support of British forces against the Ottomans. Aided by the Arabs, the British captured Palestine from the Ottomans in 1917 and 1918.

A

The British Mandate Period

In July 1922 the League of Nations, an alliance of world powers formed in 1920 to preserve peace, issued a mandate granting control over Palestine to Britain, entrusting it to facilitate the establishment of a Jewish national home. Encouraged by British support of the Zionist cause, waves of Jewish immigrants arrived in Palestine between 1919 and 1939, each contributing to the developing Jewish community (Yishuv). About 35,000 came between 1919 and 1923, mainly from Russia. These pioneers laid the foundations of a comprehensive social and economic infrastructure, developed agriculture, established kibbutzim and moshavim, and provided labor for construction of housing and roads. Another 60,000 Jews, primarily from Poland, arrived between 1924 and 1932. This group developed and enriched urban life. These immigrants settled and established businesses in Tel Aviv (now part of Tel Aviv-Yafo), Haifa, and Jerusalem. As German dictator Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party rose to power, about 144,000 Jews, primarily from Germany, immigrated to Palestine in the early 1930s to escape increasingly ruthless persecution. Increased momentum internationally of the Zionist movement, combined with economic recession in Europe, brought thousands more Jews from elsewhere in Western and Central Europe to Palestine in the late 1930s. Many were professionals and academics whose education, skills, and experience raised business standards, improved urban and rural life, and broadened the community’s cultural life.

The mandate authorities allowed Jewish and Arab communities to run their own internal affairs. The Jewish community elected a self-governing assembly, which in turn elected a council to implement its policies and programs. Financed by local resources and funds raised by worldwide Jewish organizations, these bodies developed and maintained a network of educational, religious, health, and social services for the Jewish population. Meanwhile the Jewish Agency, established by the mandate, handled matters of immigration, settlement, and economic development. The Arab Executive, a coalition of leading Muslim and Christian Arabs against Zionism, handled political, administrative, and economic affairs of the Arab community until 1934, when more activist groups emerged.

Through the 1920s and 1930s economic and cultural development of the country gained momentum. Yishuv leaders expanded agriculture, established factories, set up hydroelectric facilities on the Jordan River, built new roads throughout the country, and began tapping the mineral resources of the Dead Sea. The Histadrut (General Federation of Labor) advanced workers’ welfare and provided employment by setting up cooperative industrial enterprises and marketing services for the communal agricultural settlements. Art, music, theater, and dance developed gradually with the establishment of professional schools and studios. Galleries and halls were set up for exhibitions and performances. The Hebrew language became one of three official languages of the mandated area; it was used for documents, coins and stamps, and radio broadcasts. Publishing and Hebrew literary activity flourished.

During the mandate the British realized that their World War I promises to the Jews and Arabs had led to conflicting expectations of the two communities in Palestine: Each community felt entitled to the territory. Anti-Jewish attacks occurred in Jerusalem and elsewhere in the 1920s. Attempting to placate both communities, Britain issued periodic policy statements that reaffirmed support for a Jewish national home but also limited Jewish immigration and land purchases. But the Arabs, viewing any British support of Jewish statehood as a threat to Arab independence, continued demonstrations, protests, and attacks on the Jewish community. Arab resistance culminated in a full-scale revolt between 1936 and 1939. Britain issued a policy statement called a White Paper in 1939 imposing drastic restrictions on Jewish immigration and providing for the establishment within ten years of a single independent state with Jewish and Arab government participation in proportion to the population. Zionists, who saw the White Paper as a reversal of the Balfour Declaration and a denial of mandate obligations, emphatically rejected the document.

During World War II (1939-1945) the Nazi regime carried out a systemic plan to murder the European Jewish population. As German armies swept through Europe, Jews were herded into ghettos and eventually transported to concentration camps. Experts estimate that between 5.6 million and 5.9 million Jews had died at the hands of the Nazis (see Holocaust) by the end of the war. During the war the United States became a center of Zionist activity. A Zionist conference in New York in May 1942 resulted in the Biltmore Program, which rejected British restrictions, called for the fulfillment of the Balfour Declaration and the mandate, and urged the establishment of Palestine as a Jewish commonwealth. Nevertheless, British restrictions on Jewish immigration continued throughout the war and intensified in the years after. The Jewish community responded by instituting a network of illegal immigration activities. Between 1945 and 1948 about 85,000 Holocaust survivors were brought to Palestine by secret immigration routes.

Exhausted by the war, Britain sought to reassess its position and policy in Palestine and other locations in the mid-1940s. After efforts to negotiate with the Arabs and the Zionists, the British government referred the Palestine issue to the United Nations in February 1947. After extensive evaluation of the situation, the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) proposed that the territory of the British mandate west of the Jordan River be partitioned into Jewish and Arab states with Jerusalem under international control. On November 29, 1947, the UN adopted a partition plan. Both the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics voted in favor, while Britain abstained. Zionists reluctantly accepted the plan as the best resolution they could expect given political circumstances, but the Arab world denounced and rejected it. The Arabs felt that the UN had no right to make such a decision and that Arabs should not be made to pay for Europe’s crimes against the Jews. Fighting in Palestine escalated rapidly in the months after the plan was adopted.

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