War of
Independence
The Arab League members Egypt,
Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq refused to accept the UN partition plan
and proclaimed the right of self-determination for the Arabs across the whole
of Palestine. The Arab states marched their forces into what had, until the
previous day, been the British Mandate for Palestine. The new state of Israel
had an organized and efficient army, the Haganah, under the command of Israel Galili. The
Arab forces were of varying quality, but Arab states had heavy military
equipment at their disposal. The invading Arab armies were initially on the
offensive but the Israelis soon recovered from the initial shock of being
invaded on all sides. On May 29, 1948, the British initiated United Nations Security Council Resolution 50 and declared an
arms embargo on the region. Czechoslovakia violated the resolution supplying the
Jewish state with critical military hardware to match the (mainly British)
heavy equipment and planes already owned by the invading Arab states. On June
11, a month-long UN truce was put into effect.
Following the
announcement of independence, the Haganah became the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The Palmach, Etzel and Lehi were required to
cease independent operations and join the IDF. During the ceasefire, Etzel
attempted to bring in a private arms shipment aboard a ship called "Altalena". When
they refused to hand the arms to the government, Ben-Gurion ordered that the
ship be sunk. Several Etzel members were killed in the fighting. Large numbers
of Jewish immigrants, many of them World War II veterans and Holocaust
survivors, now began arriving in the new state of Israel, and many joined the
IDF.[90]
After an initial
loss of territory by the Jewish state and occupation of Arab Palestine by the
Arab armies, from July the tide gradually turned in the Israelis favour and
they pushed the Arab armies out and conquered some of the territory which had
been included in the proposed Arab state. At the end of November, tenuous local
ceasefires were arranged between the Israelis, Syrians and Lebanese. On
December 1, King
Abdullah announced
the union of Transjordan with Arab Palestine west of the Jordan, the new state
name being the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. He adopted the title
"King of Arab Palestine", much to the disgust of most other Arab
states.
Armistice
Agreements
Peace talks were
held on Rhodes, under the chairmanship of UN mediator Dr. Ralph Bunche.
Israel signed armistices with Egypt (February 24), Lebanon (March 23), Jordan
(April 3) and Syria (July 20). No actual peace agreements were signed. With permanent ceasefire coming into
effect, Israel's new borders, later known as the Green
Line, were established.[citation needed] The IDF had
overrun Galilee and the Negev. The Syrians remained in control of a
strip of territory along the Sea of Galilee originally allocated to the Jewish
state, the Lebanese occupied a tiny area at Rosh
Hanikra, and the Egyptians retained the Gaza strip and still had
some forces surrounded inside Israeli territory. Jordanian forces remained in occupation of the West Bank and
East Jerusalem, exactly where the British had stationed them before
the war. Jordan annexed the areas it occupied while Egypt kept Gaza as an occupied zone.
Following the
ceasefire declaration, Britain released over 2,000 Jewish detainees it was
still holding in Cyprus and recognized the state of Israel. On May 11, 1949,
Israel was admitted as a member of the United Nations.[91] Out of an Israeli
population of 650,000, some 6,000 men and women were killed in the fighting,
including 4,000 soldiers in the IDF. According to United Nations figures,
726,000 Palestinians had fled or were evicted by the Israelis between 1947 and
1949.[92] Except in Jordan,
the Palestinian refugees were settled in large refugee camps in poor,
overcrowded conditions. In December 1949, the UN (in response to a British
proposal) established an agency (UNRWA)
to provide aid to the Palestinian refugees.
1948–1954:
Ben-Gurion I
A 120-seat
parliament, the Knesset, met first
in Tel Aviv then moved to Jerusalem after the 1949
ceasefire. In January 1949, Israel held its first elections. The Socialist-Zionist parties Mapai and Mapam won
the most seats (46 and 19 respectively), but not an outright majority. Mapai's
leader, David Ben-Gurion,
was appointed Prime Minister. The Knesset elected Chaim Weizmann as the first
(largely ceremonial) President
of Israel. Hebrew and Arabic were
made the official languages of the new state. All governments have been coalitions—no party
has ever won a majority in the Knesset. From 1948 until 1977 all governments
were led by Mapai and
the Alignment, predecessors of the Labour
Party. In those years Labour Zionists,
initially led by David Ben-Gurion,
dominated Israeli politics and the economy was run on primarily socialist lines.
Within three years
(1948 to 1951), immigration doubled the Jewish population of Israel and left an
indelible imprint on Israeli society.[93][94] Overall, 700,000
Jews settled in Israel during this period.[95] Some 300,000
arrived from Asian and North African nations as part of the Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries.[96] Among them, the
largest group (over 100,000) was from Iraq. The rest of the immigrants were
from Europe, including more than 270,000 who came from Eastern Europe,[97] mainly Romania and
Poland (over 100,000 each). Nearly all the Jewish immigrants could be described
as refugees, however
only 136,000 who immigrated to Israel from Central Europe, had international
certification because they belonged to the 250,000 Jews registered by the
allies as displaced after World War II and living in Displaced persons camps in Germany,
Austria and Italy.[98]
In 1950 the
Knesset passed the Law of Return, which
granted to all Jews and those of Jewish ancestry, and their spouses, the right
to settle in Israel and gain citizenship. That year, 50,000 Yemenite Jews (99%)
were secretly flown to
Israel. In 1951 Iraqi Jews were granted temporary permission to leave the
country and 120,000 (over 90%) opted to move to Israel. Jews also fled from Lebanon, Syria
and Egypt. By the late sixties, about 500,000 Jews had left Algeria, Morocco
and Tunisia. Over the course of twenty years, some 850,000 Jews from Arab
countries (almost the entire Jewish population of the Arab lands) relocated to
Israel (680,000), France and the Americas.[99][100] The land and
property left behind the Jews (much of it in Arab city centres) is still a
matter of some dispute. Today there are about 9,000 Jews living in Arab states,
of whom 75% live in Morocco and 15% in Tunisia.
Menachem Begin addressing a mass
demonstration in Tel Aviv againstnegotiations with Germany in 1952. The sign
reads: "Our honor shall not be sold for money; Our blood shall not be
atoned by goods. We shall wipe out the disgrace!"
Between 1948 and
1958, the population of Israel rose from 800,000 to two million. During this
period, food, clothes and furniture had to be rationed in what became known as
the Austerity
Period (Tkufat
haTsena). Immigrants were mostly refugees with no money or possessions and
many were housed in temporary camps known as ma'abarot. By 1952,
over 200,000 immigrants were living in tents or prefabricated shacks built by
the government. Israel received financial aid from private donations from outside the country (mainly the United
States).[101] The pressure on
the new state's finances led Ben-Gurion to sign a reparations agreement with West Germany. During
the Knesset debate some 5,000 demonstrators gathered and riot police had to
cordon the building.[102] Israel received
several billion marks and in return agreed to open diplomatic relations with
Germany.
In 1949, education
was made free and compulsory for all citizens until the age of 14. The state
now funded the party-affiliated Zionist education system and a new body created
by the Haredi Agudat Israel party. A separate
body was created to provide education for the remaining Palestinian-Arab
population. The major political parties now competed for immigrants to join
their education systems. Fearing that the immigrants lacked sufficient
"Zionist motivation", the government banned the existing educational
bodies from the transit camps and tried to mandate a unitary secular socialist
education.[103] Education came
under the control of "camp managers" who also had to provide work,
food and housing for the immigrants. There were attempts to force orthodox
Yemenite children to adopt a secular life style by teachers, including many
instances of Yemenite children having their side-curls cut by teachers.
This treatment of Orthodox children led to the first Israeli public enquiry
(the Fromkin Inquiry).[104] The crisis led to
the collapse of the coalition and an election in
1951, with little change in the results from the previous election. In 1953 the
party-affiliated education system was scrapped. The General Zionist and
Socialist Zionist education systems were united to become the secular state
education system while the Mizrahi became the State Modern Orthodox system.
Agudat Israel were allowed to maintain their existing school system.
In its early years
Israel sought to maintain a non-aligned position between the super-powers.
However, in 1952, an antisemitic public trial was staged in Moscow in which a
group of Jewish doctors were accused of trying to poison Stalin (the Doctors' plot),
followed by a similar trial in Czechoslovakia (Slánský
trial). This, and the failure of Israel to be included in the Bandung
Conference (of non-aligned
states), effectively ended Israel's pursuit of non-alignment. On May
19, 1950, Egypt announced that the Suez Canal was closed to
Israeli ships and commerce. In 1952 a military coup in
Egypt brought Abdel
Nasser to
power. The United States pursued close relations with the new Arab states,
particularly the Nasser-led Egyptian Free Officers Movement and Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia. Israel's solution to
diplomatic isolation was to establish good relations with newly independent
states in Africa[105] and with France,
which was engaged in the Algerian War.
1954–1955: Sharett
In the January 1955 elections Mapai won 40 seats
and the Labour Party 10, Moshe Sharett became prime
minister of Israel at the head of a left-wing coalition. Between 1953 and 1956,
there were intermittent clashes along all of Israel's borders as Arab terrorism and breaches of
the ceasefire resulted in Israeli counter-raids. Palestinian
fedayeen attacks,
often organized and sponsored by the Egyptians, were made from (Egyptian occupied) Gaza. Fedayeen attacks led
to a growing cycle of violence as Israel launched reprisal attacks against Gaza.[106] In 1954 theUzi submachine
gun first entered use by the Israel Defense Forces. In 1955 the Egyptian
government began recruiting former Nazi rocket scientists for a missile
program.[107][108]
Archaeologist and
General Yigael Yadin,
purchased the Dead Sea Scrolls on behalf of the
State of Israel. The entire first batch to be discovered were now owned by
Israel and housed in theShrine
of the Book at
the Israel Museum.
Sharett's
government was brought down by the Lavon Affair, a
crude plan to disrupt U.S.–Egyptian relations, involving Israeli agents
planting bombs at American sites in Egypt.[109] The plan failed
when eleven agents were arrested. Defense Minister Lavon was blamed despite
his denial of responsibility. The Lavon affair led to Sharett's resignation and
Ben-Gurion returned to the post of prime minister.
1955–1963:
Ben-Gurion II
In 1956, the
increasingly pro-Soviet President Nasser of Egypt, announced the
nationalization of the (French and British owned) Suez Canal, which
was Egypt's main source of foreign currency. Egypt also blockaded the Gulf of Aqaba preventing Israeli
access to the Red Sea. Israel made
a secret
agreement with
the French at Sèvres to coordinate military operations against Egypt. Britain
and France had already begun secret preparations for military action. It has
been alleged that the French also agreed to build a nuclear plant for
the Israelis and that by 1968 this was able to produce nuclear weapons. Britain and France arranged for
Israel to give them a pretext for seizing the Suez Canal. Israel was to attack
Egypt, and Britain and France would then call on both sides to withdraw. When,
as expected, the Egyptians refused, Anglo-French forces would invade to take
control of the Canal.
U.S.
newsreel on the Sinai and Gaza invasions
Israeli forces,
commanded by General Moshe Dayan, attacked Egypt on October
29, 1956. On October 30, Britain and France made their pre-arranged call for
both sides to stop fighting and withdraw from the Canal area, and for them to
be allowed to take up positions at key points on the Canal. Egypt refused and
the allies commenced air strikes on October 31 aimed at neutralizing the
Egyptian air force. By November 5 the Israelis had overrun the Sinai. The
Anglo-French invasion began that day. There was uproar in the UN, with the
United States and USSR for once in agreement in denouncing the actions of
Israel, Britain and France. A demand for a ceasefire was reluctantly accepted
on November 7.
At Egypt's
request, the UN sent an Emergency Force (UNEF),
consisting of 6,000 peacekeeping troops from 10 nations to supervise the
ceasefire. From November 15, the UN troops marked out a zone across the Sinai
to separate the Israeli and Egyptian forces. Upon receiving U.S. guarantees of
Israeli access to the Suez Canal, freedom of access out of the Gulf of Aqaba
and Egyptian action to stop Palestinian raids from Gaza, the Israelis withdrew
to the Negev.[110] In practice the
Suez Canal remained closed to Israeli shipping. The conflict signalled the end
of West-European dominance in the Middle East.
In 1956, two modern-orthodox (and religious-zionist)
parties Mizrachi and Hapoel HaMizrachi joined to form the National Religious Party. The party was a component
of every Israeli coalition until 1992, usually running the Ministry of
Education. In October 1957 a deranged man threw a hand grenade inside the
Knesset wounding Ben-Gurion.[111] Mapai was once
again victorious in the 1959 elections, increasing its number of seats
to 47, Labour had 7. Ben-Gurion remained Prime Minister.
In 1959, there
were renewed skirmishes along Israel's borders that continued throughout the
early 1960s. The Arab League continued to maintain an economic boycott and there was a
dispute over water rights in the River Jordan basin. With Soviet backing, the
Arab states, particularly Egypt, were continuing to build up their forces.
Israel's main military hardware supplier was France.
Rudolph Kastner, a
minor political functionary, was accused of collaborating with the Nazis and
sued his accuser. Kastner lost the trial and was assassinated two years later.
In 1958 theSupreme Court exonerated
him. In May 1960 the Mossad located Adolf Eichmann, one
of the chief administrators of the Nazi Holocaust, in Argentina and kidnapped
him to Israel. In 1961 he was put on trial, and after several months found
guilty and sentenced to death. He was hanged in 1962 and is the only person
ever sentenced to death by an Israeli court. Testimonies by Holocaust survivors
at the trial and the extensive publicity that surrounded it has led the trial
to be considered a turning point in public awareness of the Holocaust.[112]
In 1961 a Herut no-confidence
motion over the Lavon affair led to Ben-Gurion's resignation. Ben-Gurion
declared that he would only accept office if Lavon was fired from the position
of the head ofHistadrut, Israel's
labour union organization (due to his role in the Lavon Affair). His
demands were accepted and Mapai won the 1961 election (42 seats keeping
Ben-Gurion as PM) with a slight reduction in its share of the seats. Menachem
Begin's Herut party and the Liberals came next with 17 seats each. In 1962 the Mossad began
assassinating German rocket scientists working in Egypt after one of them
reported the missile program was designed to carry chemical warheads. This
action was condemned by Ben-Gurion and led to the Mossad director, Isser Harel,
resignation.[113] In 1963 Ben-Gurion
quit again over the Lavon scandal. His attempts to make his party Mapai support
him over the issue failed. Levi Eshkol became leader of
Mapai and the new prime minister.
1963–1969: Eshkol
In 1963 Yigael Yadin began excavating Masada. In 1964, Egypt, Jordan and Syria
developed a unified military command. Israel completed work on a national water carrier, a huge engineering project
designed to transfer Israel's allocation of the Jordan river's
waters towards the south of the country in realization of Ben-Gurion's dream of
mass Jewish settlement of the Negev desert.
The Arabs responded by trying to divert the headwaters of the Jordan, leading
to growing conflict between
Israel and Syria.[114]
In 1964, Israeli
Rabbinical authorities accepted that the Bene Israel of India were
indeed Jewish and most of the remaining Indian Jews migrated to
Israel. The 2,000-strong Jewish community ofCochin had already
migrated in 1954. Ben-Gurion quit Mapai to form a new party Rafi, he was joined by Shimon Peres and Moshe Dayan. Begin's Herut party
joined with the Liberals to formGahal.
Mapai and Labour united for the 1965 elections, winning 45 seats and
maintaining Levi Eshkol as Prime Minister.
Ben-Gurion's Rafi party received 10 seats, Gahal got 26 seats becoming the
second largest party.
Until 1966,
Israel's principal arms supplier was France, however in 1966, following the
withdrawal from Algeria, Charles
de Gaulle announced
France would cease supplying Israel with arms (and refused to refund money paid
for 50 warplanes).[115] On February 5,
1966, the United States announced that it was taking over the former French and
West German obligations, to maintain military "stabilization" in the
Middle East. Included in the military hardware would be over 200 M48 tanks. In May of
that year the U.S. also agreed to provide A-4 Skyhawk tactical aircraft
to Israel. In 1966 security restrictions placed on Arab-Israelis were eased and
efforts made to integrate them into Israeli life.
In 1966, Black
and white TV broadcasts
began. On May 15, 1967, the first public performance of Naomi Shemer's
classic song "Jerusalem
of Gold" took place and over the next few weeks it dominated
the Israeli airwaves. Two days later Syria, Egypt and Jordan amassed troops
along the Israeli borders, and Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli
shipping. Nasser demanded that the UNEF leave
Sinai, threatening escalation to a full war. Egyptian radio broadcasts talked
of a coming genocide.[116][117][118] Israel responded
by calling up its civilian reserves, bringing much of the Israeli economy to a
halt. The Israelis set up a national unity coalition, including for the first
time Menachem Begin's
party, Herut, in a coalition. During a national radio
broadcast, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol stammered, causing widespread fear in
Israel. To calm public concern Moshe Dayan (Chief of Staff
during the Sinai war) was appointed Defence Minister.
Gen. Uzi Narkiss, Defense
MinisterMoshe Dayan, Chief
of staff Yitzhak Rabinand
Gen. Rehavam Ze'evi in the Old
City of Jerusalem, 7 June 1967
On the morning
before Dayan was sworn in, June 5, 1967, the Israeli air force launched pre-emptive attacks destroying first
the Egyptian air force, and then later the same day destroying the air forces
of Jordan and Syria. Israel then defeated (almost
successively) Egypt, Jordan and Syria. By June 11 the Arab forces were routed
and all parties had accepted the cease-fire called for by UN Security Council
Resolutions 235 and 236. Israel gained control of the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, and
the formerly Jordanian-controlled West Bank of the Jordan River. East Jerusalemwas
immediately arguably[119] annexed by Israel
and its population granted Israeli citizenship. Other areas occupied remained
under military rule (Israeli civil law did not apply to them) pending a final
settlement. The Golan was also annexed in 1981. On November 22, 1967, the
Security Council adopted Resolution 242, the "land for peace"
formula, which called for the establishment of a just and lasting peace based
on Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied in 1967 in return for the end
of all states of belligerency, respect for the sovereignty of all states in the
area, and the right to live in peace within secure, recognized boundaries. The
resolution was accepted by both sides, though with different interpretations,
and has been the basis of all subsequent peace negotiations. After 1967 the
U.S. began supplying Israel with aircraft and the Soviet block (except Romania) broke off relationswith Israel. Antisemitic purges led to the final
migration of the last Polish Jews to Israel.
For the first time
since the end of the British Mandate, Jews could visit the Old
City of Jerusalem and
pray at the Western Wall (the holiest site
in modern Judaism), to which they had been denied access by the Jordanians in
contravention of the 1949 Armistice agreement. The four-meter-wide public alley
beside the Wall was expanded into a massive plaza and worshippers were allowed
to sit, or use other furniture, for the first time in centuries. In Hebron, Jews gained access to the Cave of the Patriarchs (the second most
holy site in Judaism) for the first time since the 14th century (previously
Jews were only allowed to pray at the entrance).[120] A third Jewish
holy site, Rachel's Tomb, in Bethlehem, also
became accessible. Sinai oil fields made Israel
self-sufficient in energy.
In 1968 Moshe Levinger led a group of Religious Zionists who created the
first Jewish
settlement, a town near Hebron called Kiryat Arba. There
were no other religious settlements until after 1974. Ben-Gurion's Rafi party
merged with the Labour-Mapai alliance. Ben-Gurion remained outside as an
independent. In 1968, compulsory education was extended until the age of 16 for
all citizens (it had been 14) and the government embarked on an extensive
program of integration in education. In
the major cities children from mainly Sephardi/Mizrahi neighbourhoods
were bused to
newly established middle schools in better areas.
The system remained in place until after 2000. By 1970, over 400,000 public
housing units had been built since 1949.[121]
In March 1968,
Israeli forces attacked the Palestinian militia, Fatah, at its base in the Jordanian town of
Karameh. The attack was in response to land mines placed on Israeli
roads. The Israelis retreated after destroying the camp. Despite heavy
casualties, Palestinians claimed victory, while Fatah and the PLO (of
which it formed part) became famous across the Arab world. In early 1969,
fighting broke out between Egypt and Israel along the Suez Canal. In
retaliation for repeated Egyptian shelling of Israeli positions along the Suez
Canal, Israeli planes made deep strikes into Egypt in the 1969–1970 "War of Attrition".
1969–1974: Meir
In late 1969, Levi
Eshkol died in office of a heart attack and Golda Meir became Prime
Minister with the largest percentage of the vote ever won by an Israeli party,
winning 56 of the 120 seats after the 1969 election. Meir was the first female prime minister of
Israel and
the first woman to have headed a Middle Eastern state in modern times.[citation needed] Gahal remained on
26 seats, and was the second largest party.
In December 1969,
Israeli naval commandos took five missile boats during the night
from Cherbourg Harbour in France. Israel had paid for the boats but the French
had refused to supply them. In July 1970 the Israelis shot
down five Soviet fighters that
were aiding the Egyptians in the course of the War of Attrition.
Following this, the U.S. worked to calm the situation and in August 1970 a
cease fire was agreed.
In September 1970 King Hussein of Jordan drove
the Palestine Liberation Organization out of his
country. On September 18, 1970, Syrian tanks invaded Jordan, intending to aid
the PLO. At the request of the U.S., Israel moved troops to the border and
threatened Syria, causing the Syrians to withdraw. The center of PLO activity
then shifted to Lebanon, where the
1969 Cairo agreement gave the
Palestinians autonomy within the south of the country. The area controlled by
the PLO became known by the international press and locals as "Fatahland" and contributed to the
1975–1990Lebanese
Civil War. The event also led to Hafez al-Assad taking power in
Syria. Egyptian President Nasser died immediately after and was succeeded by Anwar Sadat.
Increased Soviet antisemitism and enthusiasm
generated by the 1967 victory led to a wave of Soviet Jews applying to emigrate to
Israel. Those who left could only take two suitcases. Most Jews were refused exit visas and persecuted by
the authorities. Some were arrested and sent to Gulag camps,
becoming known as Prisoners of Zion.
During 1971, violent demonstrations by the Israeli Black Panthers, made the Israeli public aware
of resentment among Mizrahi Jews at ongoing
discrimination and social gaps.[122] In 1972 the U.S. Jewish Mafia leader, Meyer Lansky, who
had taken refuge in Israel, was deported to the United States.
At the Munich Olympics, 11
members of the Israeli team were taken hostage by Palestinian terrorists. A botched German rescue
attempt led to the death of all 11 Israeli
athletes and coaches. Five of the terrorists were shot and three survived
unharmed. The three surviving Palestinians were released
without charge by
the German authorities a month later. The Israeli government responded with a bombing, an assassination campaign against the
organizers of the massacre and a raid on the PLO headquarters in Lebanon (led by future
Prime Minister, Ehud Barak).
In 1972 the new
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat expelled the
Soviet advisers from Egypt. This and frequent invasion exercises by Egypt and
Syria led to Israeli complacency about the threat from these countries. In
addition the desire not to be held responsible for initiating conflict and an
election campaign highlighting security, led to an Israeli failure to mobilize,
despite receiving warnings of an impending attack.[123]
143rd
Division crossing the Suez Canal in the direction
of Cairo during
the Yom Kippur War, 15
October 1973
The Yom Kippur War (also known as the
October War) began on October 6, 1973 (the Jewish Day of Atonement),
the holiest day in the Jewish calendar and a day when adult Jews are required
to fast. The Syrian and Egyptian armies launched a well-planned surprise attack
against the unprepared Israeli Defense Forces. For the first few days there was
a great deal of uncertainty about Israel's capacity to repel the invaders. Both
the Soviets and the Americans (at the orders of Richard Nixon) rushed arms to their allies. The Syrians were
repulsed by the tiny remnant of the Israeli
tank force on
the Golan and, although the Egyptians captured a strip of territory in Sinai,
Israeli forces crossed
the Suez Canal, trapping the Egyptian Third Army in Sinai and were
100 kilometres from Cairo. The war cost Israel over 2,000 dead, resulted in a
heavy arms bill (for both sides) and made Israelis more aware of their
vulnerability. It also led to heightened superpower tension. Following the war, both
Israelis and Egyptians showed greater willingness to negotiate. On January 18,
1974, extensive diplomacy by U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger led to a Disengagement of Forces
agreement with
the Egyptian government and on May 31 with the Syrian government.
The war led the
Saudi government to initiate the 1973 oil crisis, an
oil embargo in conjunction with OPEC, against countries trading with Israel.
Severe shortages led to massive increases in the price of oil, and as a result,
many countries broke off relations with Israel or downgraded relations, and
Israel was banned from participation in the Asian Games and other Asian
sporting events.
Prior to the
December 1973 elections, Gahal and a number of right-wing parties united to
form the Likud (led
by Begin). In the December 1973 elections, Labour won 51 seats,
leaving Golda Meir as Prime Minister. The Likud won 39 seats.
In May 1974, Palestinians attacked a school
in Ma'alot, holding 102
children hostage. Twenty-two children were killed. In November 1974 the PLO was
granted observer status at the UN andYasser Arafat addressed the
General Assembly. Later that year the Agranat
Commission, appointed to assess responsibility for Israel's lack of
preparedness for the war, exonerated the government of responsibility, and held
the Chief of Staff and head of military intelligence responsible.
Despite the report, public anger at the Government led to Golda Meir's
resignation.
1974–1977: Rabin I
Following Meir's
resignation, Yitzhak Rabin (Chief of Staff
during the Six Day War) became prime minister. Modern
Orthodox Jews (Religious Zionist followers of the
teachings of Rabbi
Kook), formed the Gush Emunim movement, and
began an organized drive to settle the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In
November 1975 the United Nations General Assembly, under the guidance of
Austrian Secretary General Kurt Waldheim,
adopted Resolution 3379, which asserted Zionism to be a form of
racism. The General Assembly rescinded this resolution in December 1991 withResolution 46/86. In March 1976 there was a
massive strike
by Israeli-Arabs in
protest at a government plan to expropriate land in the Galilee.
In July 1976, an Air France plane carrying 260
people was hijacked by Palestinian and German terrorists
and flown to Uganda, then ruled by Idi Amin Dada.
There, the Germans separated the Jewish passengers from the non-Jewish
passengers, releasing the non-Jews. The hijackers threatened to kill the
remaining, 100-odd Jewish passengers (and the French crew who had refused to
leave). Despite the distances involved, Rabin ordered a daring rescue operation in which the
kidnapped Jews were freed.[124] UN Secretary
General Waldheim described the raid as "a serious violation of the
national sovereignty of a United Nations member state" (meaning Uganda).[125][126] Waldheim was a
former Nazi and suspected war criminal, with a record of offending Jewish
sensibilities.[127][128]
In 1976, the
ongoing Lebanese
Civil War led
Israel to allow South Lebanese to cross the border and work in
Israel. In January 1977, French authorities arrested Abu Daoud, the
planner of the Munich massacre, releasing him a few days later.[129] In March 1977 Anatoly Sharansky, a
prominent Refusenik and spokesman for
the Moscow Helsinki Group, was sentenced to 13 years'
hard labour.
Rabin resigned on
April 1977 after it emerged that his wife maintained a
dollar account in the United States (illegal at the time), which had been
opened while Rabin was Israeli ambassador. The incident became known as the Dollar Account affair. Shimon Peres informally
replaced him as prime minister, leading the Alignment in
the subsequent elections.
1977–1983: Begin
In a surprise
result, the Likud led
by Menachem Begin won 43 seats in
the 1977 elections (Labour got 32
seats). This was the first time in Israeli history that the government was not
led by the left. A key reason for the victory was anger among Mizrahi Jews at discrimination,
which was to play an important role in Israeli politics for many years.
Talented small town Mizrahi social activists, unable to advance in the Labour
party, were readily embraced by Begin. Moroccan-born David Levy and
Iranian-born Moshe Katzav were part of a
group who won Mizrahi support for Begin. Many Labour voters voted for the Democratic Movement for Change (15 seats) in
protest at high-profile corruption cases. The party joined in coalition with
Begin and disappeared at the next election.
In addition to
starting a process of healing the Mizrahi–Ashkenazi divide, Begin's
government included Ultra-Orthodox Jews and was
instrumental in healing the Zionist–Ultra-Orthodox rift, however it did so at
the cost of expanding the exemption from military service to all Haredi Jewish
students of military age. This led to creation of a huge class of unemployed
Haredi Jews (the exemption was conditional on attendance of a religious
seminary, so they kept studying until they were too old for military service).
By remaining students, they were a massive burden on the state, while also
failing to participate in the military burden.
Begin's
liberalization of the economy led to hyper-inflation (around 150%
inflation) but enabled Israel to begin receiving U.S. financial aid. Begin
actively supported Gush Emunim's
efforts to settle the West Bank and Jewish
settlements in the occupied territories received government support, thus
laying the grounds for intense conflict with the Palestinian population of the
occupied territories.
In November 1977,
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat broke 30 years of
hostility with Israel by visiting Jerusalem at the invitation of Israeli Prime
Minister Menachem Begin.
Sadat's two-day visit included a speech before the Knesset and was a turning
point in the history of the conflict. The Egyptian leader created a new psychological
climate in the Middle East in which peace
between Israel and its Arab neighbours seemed possible. Sadat recognized
Israel's right to exist and established the basis for direct negotiations
between Egypt and Israel. Following Sadat's visit, 350 Yom Kippur War veterans
organized the Peace Now movement to
encourage Israeli governments to make peace with the Arabs.
In March 1978,
eleven armed Lebanese Palestinians reached Israel in boats and hijacked a bus carrying
families on a day outing, killing 38 people, including 13 children. The
attackers opposed the Egyptian–Israeli peace process. Three days later, Israeli
forces crossed into Lebanon beginning Operation Litani.
After passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 425,
calling for Israeli withdrawal and the creation of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL)
peace-keeping force, Israel withdrew its troops.
In September 1978,
U.S. President Jimmy Carter invited President
Sadat and Prime Minister Begin to meet with him at Camp David, and on
September 11 they agreed on a framework for peace between
Israel and Egypt, and a comprehensive peace in the Middle East. It set out
broad principles to guide negotiations between Israel and the Arab states. It
also established guidelines for a West Bank–Gaza transitional regime of full
autonomy for the Palestinians residing in these territories, and for a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. The treaty was
signed on March 26, 1979, by Begin and Sadat, with President Carter signing as
witness. Under the treaty, Israel returned the Sinai peninsula to Egypt in
April 1982. The final piece of territory to be repatriated was Taba, adjacent to Eilat, returned in 1989. The Arab League reacted to the
peace treaty by suspending Egypt from the organization and moving its
headquarters from Cairo to Tunis. Sadat was
assassinated in 1981 by Islamic fundamentalist members of the
Egyptian army who opposed peace with Israel. Following the agreement Israel and
Egypt became the two largest recipients of U.S. military and financial aid[130](Iraq and
Afghanistan have now overtaken them).
In December 1978
the Israeli Merkava battle tank
entered use with the IDF. In 1979, over 40,000 Iranian Jews migrated to
Israel, escaping the Islamic
Revolution there.
On June 30, 1981, the Israeli air force destroyed the Osirak nuclear
reactor that France was
building for Iraq. Three weeks later, Begin won yet again,
in the 1981 elections (48 seats Likud,
47 Labour). Ariel Sharon was made defence
minister. The new government annexed the Golan Heights and banned the national airline from flying on the
Sabbath.
In the decades
following the 1948 war, Israel's border with Lebanon was quiet compared
to its borders with other neighbours. But the 1969 Cairo agreement gave the PLO a
free hand to attackIsrael from South Lebanon. The area was
governed by the PLO independently of the Lebanese Government and became known
as "Fatahland" (Fatah was
the largest faction in the PLO). Palestinian irregulars constantly shelled the
Israeli north, especially the town of Kiryat Shmona, which
was a Likud stronghold inhabited primarily by Jews who had fled the Arab world.
Lack of control over Palestinian areas was an important factor in causing civil
war in Lebanon.
In June 1982, the
attempted assassination of Shlomo Argov, the
ambassador to Britain, was used as a pretext for an Israeli invasion aiming to
drive the PLO out of the southern half of Lebanon. Sharon agreed with Chief of Staff Raphael Eitan to expand the
invasion deep into Lebanon even though the cabinet had only authorized a 40
kilometre deep invasion.[131] The invasion
became known as the 1982 Lebanon War and the Israeli
army occupied Beirut, the only time an Arab capital has been
occupied by Israel. Some of the Shia and Christian population of South Lebanonwelcomed
the Israelis, as PLO forces had maltreated them, but Lebanese resentment of
Israeli occupation grew over time and the Shia became gradually radicalized under Iranian
guidance.[132]Constant
casualties among Israeli soldiers and Lebanese civilians led to growing
opposition to the war in Israel.
In August 1982,
the PLO withdrew its forces from Lebanon (moving to Tunisia). Israel
helped engineer the election of a new Lebanese president, Bashir Gemayel, who
agreed to recognize Israel and sign a peace treaty. Gemayal was assassinated
before an agreement could be signed, and one day later Phalangist Christian forces
led by Elie Hobeika entered two
Palestinian refugee camps and massacred the
occupants. The massacres led to the biggest demonstration ever in Israel
against the war, with as many as 400,000 people (almost 10% of the population)
gathering in Tel Aviv. In 1983, an Israeli public inquiry found that
Israel's defence minister, Sharon, was indirectly but personally responsible
for the massacres.[133] It also
recommended that he never again be allowed to hold the post (it did not forbid
him from being Prime Minister). In 1983, the May 17 Agreement was signed between
Israel and Lebanon, paving the way for an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese
territory through a few stages. Israel continued to operate against the PLO
until its eventual departure in 1985, and kept a small force stationed in
Southern Lebanon in support of theSouth
Lebanon Army until
May 2000.
1983–1992: Shamir
I; Peres I; Shamir II
Further
information: 1983 Israel bank stock crisis, South Lebanon conflict (1982–2000), First Intifada, and Gulf War
See
also: Twentieth, Twenty-first, Twenty-second, Twenty-third, and Twenty-fourth governments of
Israel
In September 1983,
Begin resigned and was succeeded by Yitzhak Shamir as prime minister.
The 1984 election was inconclusive,
and led to a power sharing agreement between Shimon Peresof the
Alignment (44 seats) and Shamir of Likud (41 seats). Peres was prime minister
from 1984 to 1986 and Shamir from 1986 to 1988. In 1984, continual
discrimination against Sephardi Ultra-Orthodox Jews by the Ashkenazi
Ultra-Orthodox establishment led political activist Aryeh Deri to leave the Agudat Israel party and join
former chief Rabbi
Ovadia Yosef in
forming Shas, a new party aimed at the non-Ashkenazi
Ultra-Orthodox vote. The party won 4 seats in the first election it contested
and over the next twenty years was the third largest party in the Knesset. Shas
established a nationwide network of free Sephardi Orthodox schools. In 1984,
during a severe famine in Ethiopia, 8,000 Ethiopian Jews were secretly transported to Israel. In 1986 Natan Sharansky, a
famous Russian human rights activist and Zionist refusenik (denied an exit
visa) was released from the Gulag in
return for two Soviet spies.
In June 1985,
Israel withdrew most of its troops from Lebanon, leaving a residual Israeli
force and an Israeli-supported militia in southern Lebanon as a "security zone" and buffer against attacks on its
northern territory. Since then, IDF fought for
many years against Hezbollah Shia organization,
which became a growing threat to Israel. By July 1985, Israel's inflation,
buttressed by complex index linking of salaries, had
reached 480% per annum and was the highest in the world. Peres introduced
emergency control of prices and cut government expenditure successfully
bringing inflation under control. The currency (known as the Israeli lira until 1980) was
replaced and renamed the Israeli
new shekel. In October 1985, Israel responded to a Palestinian terrorist attack in Cyprus by bombing the PLO
headquarters in Tunis. Growing Israeli settlement and continuing occupation of
the West Bank and Gaza Strip, led to the first Palestinian Intifada (uprising) in
1987, which lasted until the Madrid Conference of 1991, despite Israeli attempts
to suppress it. Human rights abuses by Israeli
troops led a group of Israelis to form B'Tselem, an
organization devoted to improving awareness and compliance with human rights
requirements in Israel.
In August 1987,
the Israeli government cancelled the IAI Lavi project, an
attempt to develop an independent Israeli fighter aircraft. The Israelis found
themselves unable to sustain the huge development costs, and faced U.S.
opposition to a project that threatened U.S. influence in Israel and U.S.
global military ascendancy. In September 1988, Israel launched an Ofeqreconsaissance satellite into orbit, using
a Shavit rocket,
thus becoming one of only eight countries possessing a capacity to independently launch satellites into space (two
more have since developed this ability). The Alignment and Likud remained neck
and neck in the 1988 elections (39:40 seats).
Shamir successfully formed a national unity coalition with the Labour Alignment. In March 1990, Alignment leader Shimon Peres engineered a
defeat of the government in a non-confidence vote and then tried to form a new
government. He failed and
Shamir became prime minister at the head of a right-wing coalition.
In 1990, the Soviet Union finally permitted
free emigration of Soviet Jews to
Israel. Prior to this, Jews trying to leave the USSR faced persecution; those who succeeded arrived as refugees.
Over the next few years some one million Soviet citizens migrated to Israel.
Although there was concern that some of the new immigrants had only a very
tenuous connection to Judaism, and many were accompanied by non-Jewish
relatives, this massive wave of migration slowly transformed Israel, bringing
large numbers of highly educated Soviet Jews and creating a powerful Russian
culture in Israel.
In August 1990,
Iraq invaded Kuwait, triggering the Gulf War between Iraq and a
large allied force, led by the United States. Iraq
attacked Israel with 39 Scud missiles.
Israel did not retaliate at request of the U.S., fearing that if Israel
responded against Iraq, other Arab nations might desert the allied coalition.
Israel provided gas masks for both the Palestinian population and Israeli
citizens. In May 1991, during a 36 hour period, 15,000 Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jews)
were secretly airlifted to Israel. The
coalition's victory in the Gulf War opened new possibilities for regional
peace, and in October 1991 the U.S. President, George H.W. Bush and Soviet Union
Premier, Mikhail Gorbachev,
jointly convened a historic meeting in Madrid of Israeli,
Lebanese, Jordanian, Syrian, and Palestinian leaders. Shamir opposed the idea
but agreed in return for loan guarantees to help with absorption of immigrants
from the former Soviet Union. His participation in the conference led to the
collapse of his (right-wing) coalition.
1992–1996: Rabin
II; Peres II
In the 1992 elections, the Labour
Party, led by Yitzhak Rabin, won a
significant victory (44 seats) promising to pursue peace while promoting Rabin
as a "tough general" and pledging not to deal with the PLO in any
way. The pro-peace Zionist party Meretz won
12 seats, and the Arab and communist parties a further 5 meaning that parties
supporting a peace treaty had a full (albeit small) majority in the Knesset.
Later that year, the Israeli electoral system was changed to allow for direct
election of the prime minister. It was hoped this would reduce the power of
small parties (mainly the religious parties) to extract concessions in return
for coalition agreements. The new system had the opposite effect; voters could
split their vote for prime minister from their (interest based) party vote, and
as a result larger parties won fewer votes and smaller parties becoming more
attractive to voters. It thus increased the power of the smaller parties. By
the 2006 election the system was abandoned.
Yitzhak Rabin, Bill Clinton, and Yasser Arafat during the Oslo Accords signing ceremony
at the White House on 13 September
1993
On July 25, 1993,
Israel carried out a week-long military operation in Lebanon to
attack Hezbollah positions. On
September 13, 1993, Israel and thePalestine Liberation Organization (PLO) signed the Oslo Accords (a Declaration of
Principles)[134] on the South Lawn
of the White House. The
principles established objectives relating to a transfer of authority from
Israel to an interim Palestinian Authority, as a prelude to a final treaty
establishing a Palestinian state, in exchange for mutual recognition. The DOP
established May 1999 as the date by which a permanent status agreement for the
West Bank and Gaza Strip would take effect. In February 1994, a follower of the Kach movement killed 29
Palestinian Arabs at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron. Kach had been barred
from participation in the 1992 elections (on the grounds that the movement was
racist). It was subsequently made illegal. Israel and the PLO signed the Gaza–Jericho Agreement in May 1994, and
the Agreement on Preparatory
Transfer of Powers and Responsibilities in August, which
began the process of transferring authority from Israel to the Palestinians. On
July 25, 1994, Jordan and Israel signed the Washington Declaration, which formally ended the state of war that had existed
between them since 1948 and on October 26 theIsrael–Jordan Treaty of Peace, witnessed by U.S.
President Bill Clinton.[135][136]
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat signed the Israeli–Palestinian Interim
Agreement on
the West Bank and the Gaza Strip on September 28, 1995, in Washington. The
agreement was witnessed by President Bill Clinton on behalf of the United
States and by Russia, Egypt, Norway and the European Union, and incorporates
and supersedes the previous agreements, marking the conclusion of the first
stage of negotiations between Israel and the PLO. The agreement allowed the PLO
leadership to relocate to the occupied territories and granted autonomy to the
Palestinians with talks to follow regarding final status. In return the
Palestinians promised to abstain from use of terror and changed the Palestinian National Covenant, which had called for
the expulsion of all Jews who migrated after 1917 and the elimination of
Israel.[137]
The agreement was
opposed by Hamas and
other Palestinian factions, which launched suicide bomber attacks at Israel. Rabin
had a barrier constructed
around Gaza to prevent attacks. The growing separation between Israel and the
"Palestinian Territories" led to a labour shortage in Israel, mainly
in the construction industry. Israeli firms began importing labourers from thePhilippines, Thailand, China and Romania; some of
these labourers stayed on without visas. In addition, a growing number of
Africans began illegally migrating to Israel. On November 4, 1995, a
far-right-wing religious Zionist opponent of the Oslo Accords, assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. In
February 1996 Rabin's successor, Shimon Peres, called
early elections. In April 1996, Israel launched an operation in
southern Lebanon as a result of Hezbollah's Katyusha rocket attacks on Israeli
population centers along the border.
1996–1999:
Netanyahu I
The May 1996 elections were the first
featuring direct election of the prime minister and resulted in a
narrow election victory for Likud leader Binyamin
Netanyahu. A spate of suicide bombings reinforced the Likud position
for security. Hamas claimed
responsibility for most of the bombings. Despite his stated differences with
the Oslo Accords, Prime
Minister Netanyahu continued their implementation, but his prime ministership
saw a marked slow-down in the Peace Process. Netanyahu also pledged to
gradually reduce U.S. aid to Israel.[138]
In September 1996,
a Palestinian
riot broke
out against the creation of an exit in the Western Wall tunnel. Over the
subsequent few weeks, around 80 people were killed as a result.[139][140] In January 1997
Netanyahu signed the Hebron Protocol with the
Palestinian Authority, resulting in the redeployment of Israeli forces in Hebron and
the turnover of civilian authority in much of the area to the Palestinian
Authority.
1999–2001: Barak
In the election of
July 1999, Ehud Barak of the Labour
Party became Prime Minister. His party was the largest in the Knesset with 26
seats. In September 1999 the Supreme Court of Israel ruled that the use
of torture in interrogation of Palestinian prisoners was illegal.[141] On March 21, 2000, Pope John Paul II arrived in Israel
for a historic visit.
On May 25, 2000,
Israel unilaterally withdrew its
remaining forces from the "security zone" in southern Lebanon.
Several thousand members of the South
Lebanon Army (and
their families) left with the Israelis. The UN Secretary-General concluded[142] that, as of June
16, 2000, Israel had withdrawn its forces from Lebanon in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 425. Lebanon
claims that Israel continues to occupy Lebanese territory called "Sheba'a Farms"
(however this area was governed by Syria until 1967 when Israel took control).[143] The Sheba'a Farms
provided Hezbollah with a ruse to
maintain warfare with Israel.[144] The Lebanese
government, in contravention of the UN resolution, did not assert sovereignty
in the area, which came under the control of Hezbollah. In the Fall of 2000, talks were held at Camp David to reach a final
agreement on the Israel/Palestine conflict. Ehud Barak offered to meet most of
the Palestinian teams requests for territory and political concessions, including Arab parts of east
Jerusalem; however, Arafat abandoned the talks without making a
counterproposal.[145]
In July 2000, Aryeh Deri was sentenced to 3
years in prison for bribe taking. Deri is regarded as the mastermind behind the
rise of Shas and was a government minister at the age of 24. Political manipulation
meant the investigation had lasted for years. Deri subsequently sued a Police
Officer who alleged that he was linked to the traffic-accident death of a
witness, who was run over in New York by a driver who had once been in the
employ of an associate of Deri.[146]
On September 28,
2000, Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon visited the
Al-Aqsa compound, or Temple Mount, the
following day the Palestinians launched the al-Aqsa Intifada.
David Samuels and Khaled Abu Toameh have stated that the uprising was planned
much earlier.[147][148] In October 2000,
Palestinians destroyed Joseph's Tomb, a
Jewish shrine in Nablus.
The Arrow missile, a missile designed to destroy ballistic missiles,
including Scud missiles, was
first deployed by Israel. In 2001, with the Peace Process increasingly in
disarray, Ehud Barak called a special election for Prime Minister. Barak
hoped a victory would give him renewed authority in negotiations with the
Palestinians. Instead opposition leader Ariel Sharon was elected PM.
After this election, the system of directly electing the Premier was abandoned.
2001–2006: Sharon
Further
information: Second Intifada, Israeli West Bank barrier, and Israel's unilateral disengagement plan
The Israeli West Bank barrierroute built (red), under
construction (pink) and proposed (white), as of June 2011
The failure of the
peace process, increased Palestinian terror and occasional attacks by Hezbollah from Lebanon, led
much of the Israeli public and political leadership to lose confidence in the
Palestinian Authority as a peace partner. Most felt that many Palestinians
viewed the peace treaty with Israel as a temporary measure only.[citation needed] Many Israelis were
thus anxious to disengage from the Palestinians. In response to a wave of
suicide bomb attacks, culminating in the "Passover massacre"
(see List of Israeli civilian
casualties in the Second Intifada), in 2002 Israel launched Operation Defensive Shield, and Sharon began
construction of a barrier around
the West Bank.
Thousands of Jews
from Latin America began arriving in
Israel due to economic crises in their countries of origin. In January 2003
separate elections were held for the
Knesset. Likud won the most seats (27). An anti-religion party, Shinui, led by media pundit Tommy Lapid, won 15
seats on a secularist platform, making it the third largest party (ahead of
orthodox Shas). Internal fighting led to Shinui's
demise at the next election. In 2004, the Black Hebrews were granted
permanent residency in Israel. The group had begun migrating to Israel 25 years
earlier from the United States, but had not been recognized as Jews by the
state and hence not granted citizenship under Israel's Law of Return. They
had settled in Israel without official status. From 2004 onwards, they received
citizen's rights.
In May 2004,
Israel launched Operation Rainbow in southern Gaza
to create a safer environment for the IDF soldiers along the Philadelphi Route.
On September 30, 2004, Israel carried out Operation Days of Penitence in northern Gaza
to destroy the launching sites of Palestinian rockets which were used to attack
Israeli towns. In 2005, all Jewish settlers were evacuated from Gaza (some forcibly)
and their homes demolished. Disengagement from the Gaza Strip was completed on
September 12, 2005. Military disengagement from the northern West Bank was
completed ten days later. Following the withdrawal, the Israeli town of Sderotand other Israeli communities near Gaza
became subject to constant shelling and
mortar bomb attacks from Gaza. In 2005 Sharon left the Likud and formed a new
party called Kadima, which accepted that the peace process
would lead to creation of a Palestinian state. He was joined by many leading
figures from both Likud and Labour.
Hamas won the Palestinian legislative election, 2006, the
first and only genuinely free Palestinian elections. Hamas' leaders rejected
all agreements signed with Israel, refused to recognize Israel's right to
exist, refused to abandon terror, and occasionally claimed the Holocaust was a Jewish conspiracy. The
withdrawal and Hamas victory left the status of Gaza unclear, Israel claimed it
was no longer an occupying power but continued to control air and sea access to
Gaza although it did not exercise sovereignty on the ground.
Egypt insisted that it was still occupied and refused to open border crossings
with Gaza, although it was free to do so.[149] On April 14, 2006,
after Ariel Sharon was incapacitated
by a severe haemorrhagic
stroke, Ehud Olmert became Prime Minister.[150]
2006–2009: Olmert
Ehud Olmert was elected Prime
Minister after his party, Kadima, won the most seats (29) in the Israeli legislative election, 2006. In 2005 Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad was
officially elected president of Iran; since then, Iranian policy towards Israel
has grown more confrontational. Israeli analysts believe Ahmadinejad has worked
to undermine the peace process with arms supplies and aid to Hezbullah in South
Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza,[151] and is developing nuclear weapons, possibly for use
against Israel.[152] Iranian support
for Hezbollah and its nuclear arms program are in contravention of UN Security
Council resolutions 1559 and 1747. Iran also encourages Holocaust denial.
Following the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, Hezbollah had mounted periodic
attacks on Israel, which did not lead to Israeli retaliation. Similarly, the
withdrawal from Gaza led to incessant shelling of towns around the Gaza area
with only minimal Israeli response. The failure to react led to criticism from
the Israeli right and undermined the government.
On March 14, 2006,
Israel carried out an operation in
the Palestinian Authority prison of Jericho in order to
capture Ahmad Sa'adat and several
Palestinian Arab prisoners located there who assassinated Israeli politician Rehavam Ze'evi in 2001. The
operation was conducted as a result of the expressed intentions of the newly
elected Hamas government to release these prisoners. On June 25, 2006, a Hamas
force crossed the border from Gaza and attacked a
tank, capturing wounded Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit,
sparking clashes in
Gaza.[153]
On July 12,
Hezbollah attacked Israel from
Lebanon, shelled Israeli towns and attacked a border patrol, taking two dead or
badly wounded Israeli soldiers. These incidents led Israel to initiate the Second Lebanon War,
which lasted through August 2006. Israeli forces entered some villages in
Southern Lebanon, while the air force attacked targets all across the country.
Israel only made limited ground gains until the launch of Operation Changing Direction 11, which lasted for 3
days with disputed results. Shortly before a UN ceasefire came into effect,
Israeli troops captured Wadi Saluki. The war concluded with
Hezbollah evacuating its forces from Southern Lebanon, while the IDF remained
until its positions could be handed over to the Lebanese Armed Forces and UNIFIL.
In 2007 education
was made compulsory until the age of 18 for all citizens (it had been 16).
Refugees from the genocide in Darfur,
mostly Muslim, arrived in Israel illegally, with some given Asylum.[154][155] Illegal immigrants arrived mainly
from Africa in addition to foreign workers overstaying their visas. The numbers
of such migrants are not known, and estimates vary between 30,000 and over
100,000.
In June 2007,
Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in the course of the Battle of Gaza,[156] seizing government
institutions and replacing Fatah and other government officials with its own.[157] Following the
takeover, Egypt and Israel largely sealed their border crossings with Gaza
imposing ablockade, on the grounds that Fatah had fled and was
no longer providing security on the Palestinian side, and to prevent arms
smuggling by terrorist groups. On September 6, 2007, the Israeli Air Force destroyed a nuclear reactor
in Syria. On February 28, 2008, Israel launched a military
campaign in
Gaza in response to the constant firing of Qassam rockets by Hamas
militants. On July 16, 2008, Hezbollah swapped the
bodies of Israeli soldiersEhud
Goldwasser and Eldad Regev,
kidnapped in 2006, in exchange for the Lebanese terrorist Samir Kuntar, four Hezbollah prisoners, and the bodies of 199
Palestinian Arab and Lebanese fighters.
Olmert also came
under investigation for corruption and this ultimately led him to announce, on
July 30, 2008, that he would be stepping down as Prime Minister following
election of a new leader of the Kadima party
in September 2008. Tzippi Livni won the election,
but was unable to form a coalition and he remained in office until the general
election. Israel carried out Operation
Cast Leadin the Gaza Strip from December 27, 2008, to January 18,
2009 in response to rocket attacks from Hamas militants,[158] leading to a
decrease of Palestinian rocket attacks.[159]
2009–present:
Netanyahu II
In the 2009 legislative election Likud won 27 seats
and Kadima 28; however, the right-wing camp won a majority of seats, and
President Shimon Peres called on Netanyahu to form the government. Russian
immigrant-dominated Yisrael Beiteinu came third with 15
seats, and Labour was reduced to fourth place with 13 seats. In 2009, Israeli
billionaire Yitzhak Tshuva announced the
discovery of huge natural gas reserves off the coast of
Israel.[160]
On May 31, 2010,
an international
incident broke
out in the Mediterranean Sea when foreign activists trying to break the maritime blockade over Gaza, clashed
with Israeli troops. During the struggle, nine Turkish activists were killed.
In late September 2010 took place direct negotiations between Israel and
the Palestinians without success. As a defensive countermeasure to the rocket
threat against Israel's civilian population, at the end of March 2011 Israel
began to operate the advanced mobile air defence system "Iron Dome"[161] in the southern
region of Israel and along the border with the Gaza Strip.
On 14 July, 2011,
the largest social protest in the history of Israel began in which
hundreds of thousands of protesters from a variety of socio-economicand
religious backgrounds in Israel protested against the continuing rise in the cost of living (particularly
housing) and the deterioration of public services in the country (such as
health and education). The peak of the demonstrations took place on September
3, 2011, in which about 400,000 people demonstrated across the country.
In October 2011, a deal was reached between Israel and Hamas, by which the kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was released in
exchange for 1,027Palestinians and Arab-Israeli prisoners.[162][163] In March 2012,
Secretary-general of the Popular Resistance Committees, Zuhir al-Qaisi, a
senior PRC member and two additional Palestinian militants were assassinated
during a targeted killing carried out by
Israeli forces in Gaza.[164][165] The Palestinian
armed factions in the Gaza Strip, led by the Islamic Jihad and
the Popular Resistance Committees, fired a massive amount
of rockets towards southern Israel in retaliation, sparking five days of clashes along
the Gaza border.
In May 2012, Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reached an agreement with the Head of Opposition Shaul Mofaz for Kadima to
join the current government, thus canceling the early election supposed to be
held in September.[166][166] However, on July
Kadima party left Netanyahu's government due to a dispute concerning military conscription for
ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel.[167]
In June 2012,
Israel transferred the bodies of 91
Palestinian suicide bombers and other militants as part of what
Mark Regev, spokesman for Netanyahu, described as a "humanitarian
gesture" toPA chairman Mahmoud Abbas to help revive the
peace talks, and reinstate direct negotiations between Israel and the
Palestinians.[168] On October 21,
2012, United States and Israel began their biggest joint air and missile
defense exercise, known as Austere Challenge 12, involving around 3,500 U.S.
troops in the region along with 1,000 IDF personnel, expected to last three
weeks.[169]Germany
and Britain also participated.[170] In response to
over a hundred rocket attacks on southern Israeli cities, Israel began an operation in
Gaza on November 14, 2012, with the targeted killing of Ahmed Jabari, chief
of Hamas military wing, and airstrikes against twenty underground sites housing
long-range missile launchers capable of striking Tel Aviv. In January 2013,
construction of the barrier on the
Israeli-Egyptian border was completed in its main section.[171]
Statistics
1950
|
1960
|
1970
|
1980
|
1990
|
2000
|
2010
|
|
Population (millions)
|
1.4
|
2.1
|
3
|
3.9
|
4.8
|
6
|
7.5
|
% of world's Jews
|
7%
|
20%
|
25%
|
30%
|
39%
|
42%
|
|
GDP per capita 2005 NIS
|
17,000
|
27,000
|
45,000
|
58,000
|
65,000
|
77,000
|
90,000 (2006)
|
See also
_-_Defense_Minister_Moshe_Dayan,_Chief_of_staff_Yitzhak_Rabin,_Gen._Rehavam_Zeevi_(R)_And_Gen._Narkis_in_the_old_city_of_Jerusalem.jpg){kind=link}
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