ISRAEL. STORY
The State of Israel was established on May 14, 1948 after the end of the British Mandate for Palestine. The connection of the Jewish people with the land of Israel has been repeatedly noted in oral traditions and written sources. Even during the Babylonian captivity, Jews expressed a desire to return to their historical homeland. This desire intensified after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 AD. and the subsequent dispersion of the Jews throughout the world. Israel's modern history dates back to Jewish immigration from Europe (especially Russia and Poland) to Palestine in the 19th century. The real attempt to create a Jewish state is associated with the birth of the Zionist movement, i.e. since the founding of the World Zionist Organization by Theodor Herzl at the end of the 19th century. In 1917, this idea was supported by the British government in the Balfour Declaration, which contained a promise to form a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. British Mandatory Territory of Palestine. In July 1922, the League of Nations gave Great Britain a mandate to govern Palestine and called for promoting the formation of a national Jewish state. In 1919-1939, immigrants were sent to Palestine. The settlers laid the foundations of social and economic infrastructure, created kibbutzim, moshavim and villages, built residential buildings and roads. They settled in Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem, where they organized construction firms and light industrial enterprises. The last major surge in immigration occurred in the 1930s (after Hitler came to power), when approx. 165 thousand people, mainly from Germany. The British authorities in Palestine allowed the Jewish and Arab communities to be involved in solving their internal affairs. The Jewish community chose its own self-government body, and that was the National Council, which was to shape its policies and develop action programs. Both of these bodies received financial assistance from local sources and funds established abroad and dealt with issues of education, religious life, medical and social services for the Jewish population. During the years of British rule, agriculture developed, industrial enterprises were put into operation, the flow of the Jordan River was regulated for energy needs, new roads were built throughout the country and the extraction of salt from the waters of the Dead Sea was established. The Histadrut was established, which contributed to the improvement of the conditions of workers and the provision of employment by organizing cooperatives in the industrial sector and for the marketing of agricultural products. Culture was revived, vocational schools and studios were created, art galleries and concert halls were opened. Hebrew was officially recognized as one of the country's three languages, along with English and Arabic, and was used on documents, currency and postage stamps, and on radio. Publishing activity flourished. Theaters arose and attempts were made to create original plays in Hebrew. The efforts of the Jewish community to rebuild the country were opposed by Arab nationalists, and Arab hostility grew, resulting in demonstrations, uprisings and outbreaks of violence. In the 1930s, when Jewish immigration to Palestine intensified and increased sharply with the establishment of the Nazi regime in Germany, the problem became much more acute. Major anti-Jewish protests by Arabs forced England to sharply limit Jewish immigration in 1939.
The Second World War. During World War II, the Nazi regime carried out the systematic extermination of Jews; 6 million people were liquidated. When Allied forces liberated concentration camp prisoners at the end of the war, many of the surviving Jews tried to leave for Palestine. However, fearing protests from the Arabs, the British authorities tightened restrictions on the entry and settlement of Jews in Palestine. The Jewish community responded by creating an extensive network of illegal and secret immigration (aliyah bet); in the period 1945-1948 approx. 85 thousand victims of the Holocaust were brought to Palestine by roundabout routes.
UN plan for the division of Palestine. In February 1947, Great Britain decided to transfer consideration of the issue of mandated territory to the UN. The UN Special Committee on Palestine put forward a plan for the partition of Palestine. On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly approved this plan with a 2/3 majority vote. The creation of two states - Jewish and Arab - was envisaged in the lands of Palestine, and international governance was established in Jerusalem. After the plan was approved, the situation in Palestine escalated. Arabs attacked Jewish settlements and other objects. Yishuv forces successfully repelled these attacks in many areas. The civil war between the Jewish and Arab communities in Palestine was a prelude to the full-scale war that broke out after the end of the British Mandate.
Declaration of Independence and War of Independence. After the withdrawal of British troops from Palestine in May 1948, the new Jewish state of Israel declared its independence. David Ben-Gurion became prime minister and Chaim Weizmann became president. A provisional government was created, which was soon recognized by the USA, USSR and a number of other countries. After Israel declared independence, the Arab League declared war on Israel on all fronts. Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iran and Iraq were drawn into the fighting, with the support of other Arab states. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF), formed from defense units that had arisen in the previous period, managed to hold back the onslaught of Arab troops. In the spring of 1949, agreements were signed between Israel and each of the neighboring countries (Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon) establishing armistice lines and demilitarized zones. During the war, Israel occupied additional lands not provided for in the decision of the UN General Assembly. At the same time, part of the territory allocated to the Palestinian Arabs came under the control of Egypt (Gaza Strip) and Transjordan (since 1950 - Jordan), which annexed the territory, which was called the West Bank. Jerusalem was divided between Israel and Transjordan. Large numbers of Arabs fled the war zones for safer places in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, as well as neighboring Arab countries. At the end of hostilities, the number of refugees reached hundreds of thousands (according to various estimates - from 200 thousand to 700 thousand people). Of the original Arab population of Palestine, only ca. 160 thousand people remained on the territory of the State of Israel. A special UN agency was created to assist the Palestinian refugees.
Formation of the state. After the war ended, Israel concentrated its efforts on creating state structures. After the elections on January 25, 1949, in which almost 85% of all voters took part, the first Knesset began to function. On May 11, 1949, Israel became the 59th member of the UN. The Knesset affirmed the right of every Jew to live in Israel and allowed unrestricted immigration under the Law of Return (1950). In the first four months of the existence of the new state, approx. 50 thousand repatriates, mostly Jews who suffered from the Holocaust. By the end of 1951, 687 thousand people had migrated, including over 300 thousand from Arab countries. As a result, the Jewish population doubled. Economic difficulties during the Revolutionary War and rapid population growth required restrictions on domestic consumption and financial assistance from abroad. This assistance came in the form of loans from American banks, donations from the US government and the diaspora, and also came in the form of post-war West German reparations. By the end of the first decade in Israel's history, industrial output had doubled, as had the number of people employed, and industrial exports had quadrupled. The development of new lands and the rapid development of agriculture made it possible to achieve self-sufficiency in basic food products, except meat and grain. The education system was significantly strengthened, and free compulsory education was introduced for children aged 6 to 13 years. Culture and art developed, combining the heritage of the West and the Middle East. When Israel's first president, Chaim Weizmann, died (1952), he was succeeded by Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, who held the post until his death in 1963. David Ben-Gurion served as prime minister until December 1953, after which he temporarily retired to a kibbutz in the Negev. . Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett became Prime Minister. Ben-Gurion returned to the government as defense minister in February 1955, and nine months later resumed his post as prime minister, where he remained until 1963. Despite the collapse of coalitions and frequent splits and mergers of parties, Israel's political system and government remained stable. The 1949 agreements with the Arab states did not result in a peace treaty. These countries did not accept military failures and continued to consider the creation of Israel an unjust action, organizing a political and economic boycott of Israel. Unrest broke out on Israel's borders as Arab terrorists began to infiltrate its territory from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel blamed these actions on Arab governments and launched retaliatory strikes. The wave of violence, which led to the death of Israeli and Arab civilians and military personnel, eventually spread to Syria. Conflicts also arose over control of border demilitarized zones and over Israeli projects to divert water from the Jordan River.
War in the Sinai Peninsula. Tensions continued to mount in the region, exacerbated by the supply of weapons from outside. On February 28, 1955, Israeli troops launched an attack on the Egyptian military base in Gaza. Gamal Abdel Nasser later claimed that this action prompted him to organize Palestinian Arab guerrilla operations against Israel. President Abdel Nasser decided to create a strong army, and an agreement was concluded with Czechoslovakia (acting on behalf of the USSR) to receive weapons from abroad. The Israeli authorities considered these events a threat to the security of their country. Egypt sent troops to the Sinai Peninsula and nationalized the Suez Canal in July 1956, which angered Great Britain and France. In an effort to overthrow the Nasser regime, these countries agreed to a military operation against Egypt together with Israel, whose troops invaded the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula on October 26, 1956. Having captured these territories and eliminated the military bridgehead, Israeli units advanced to the Suez Canal zone, where British and French military units found themselves between them and the Egyptians. Under pressure from the UN and the United States, Israel was forced to withdraw its armed forces from Egypt and the Gaza Strip. The UN Rapid Reaction Force was stationed on the border of both countries and helped maintain order in the area for the next decade. After 1957, Israel's conflict with the Arabs receded into the background, although border incidents occasionally resumed. Thanks to the development of industry and agriculture, the government managed to lift restrictive economic measures, unemployment almost disappeared, and the standard of living of the population increased.
Foreign policy. Due to the increase in foreign trade on the Mediterranean coast, the port of Ashdod was built in addition to the previously existing port of Haifa, accessible to deep-draft ships. Israel's international ties deepened, including with the United States, many countries of Western Europe and the British Commonwealth, and with almost all countries of Latin America and Africa. The second decade of Israel's existence was marked by large-scale cooperation programs: hundreds of Israeli doctors, engineers, teachers, agronomists, land reclamation workers and youth organizers shared their experience of working with the population of young sovereign states of the Third World. On May 23, 1960, Adolf Eichmann, one of the organizers of the Nazi program of extermination of Jews during World War II, was secretly brought to Israel. He was charged under the 1950 law for the punishment of Nazi criminals and their collaborators. The court began hearing this case in April 1961. Eichmann, found guilty of crimes against humanity and the Jewish people, was sentenced to death. He was hanged on May 30, 1962, after an appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court. In 1965, Israel established diplomatic relations with Germany. The normalization of relations was preceded by strong opposition and heated discussions in society. A building for the permanent meetings of the Knesset was built in Jerusalem, and on both sides of it the buildings of the Hadassah Medical Center and the Hebrew University were erected to replace the previous ones located on Mount Scopus, which had to be abandoned after the War of Independence. In 1958, the Israel Museum was founded to collect, preserve, study and display the cultural and artistic heritage of the Jewish people (Eretz Israel Museum). In 1963, Ben-Gurion resigned as prime minister, and two years later, together with his supporters, including Moshe Dayan and Shimon Peres, he left Mapai and founded a new political party, RAFI. Levi Eshkol of the Mapai party served as prime minister from 1963 until his death in 1969, when he was succeeded by Golda Meir.
Six Day War. In the ten years after the end of the 1956 war, no real steps were taken to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. There were no military actions, and the situation on the Egyptian-Israeli border remained calm, but there were border clashes with Jordan and Syria. The situation escalated in 1964, when the Israeli National Water Supply Network was created and the withdrawal of water from the Jordan River began. The conflict between Syria and Israel over water and the use of demilitarized zones have led to numerous border incidents. In 1965, Palestinian terrorists launched a series of armed actions against Israel; in response, Israel attacked Palestinian bases in Syria and Jordan. In 1966 and 1967 skirmishes took on a wider scope, threatening to escalate into a regional conflict. In May 1967, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser called for the withdrawal of UN forces, mobilized and moved troops to the Sinai Peninsula. He also announced the closure of the Strait of Tiran to Israeli ships bound for the port of Eilat. Israel appealed to the UN with a request to ensure freedom of passage to Eilat and prevent military clashes in the Sinai Peninsula. Prime Minister Levi Eshkol mobilized into the army and formed a government of national unity with representatives from all parties except the communists. Moshe Dayan, a popular war hero of 1956, was appointed Minister of Defense. Full-scale hostilities began on June 5, 1967, when Israel launched a preemptive strike on Egypt. Other Arab states, including Jordan, Syria and Iraq, have taken part in military operations. Within a few hours, Israeli aircraft disabled the Egyptian aircraft on the ground, and its troops quickly captured the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula. Israel also recaptured East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan and the Golan Heights from Syria. Within six days, the Arab armed forces were defeated, and now in the hands of their enemy was a territory with a population of more than 1 million people, which was 4 times his own. The Arab quarters of Jerusalem were annexed. In June 1967 the USSR and its allies broke off diplomatic relations with Israel. Israel now controlled the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. It was decided not to withdraw troops from these lands until the successful completion of negotiations with the Arab states on the conclusion of a peace treaty, which would recognize the right of the state of Israel to exist and fix its borders. In November 1967, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution No. 242, which called for the conclusion of a just and lasting peace between the Arab countries and Israel and the withdrawal of the latter's troops from the occupied territories. This compromise proposal, under the motto "land for peace", was the focus of all subsequent negotiations. After the Six-Day War, the attempt to achieve a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict and ensure the implementation of the specified Security Council resolution acquired key importance. Despite all the efforts made, a peace treaty was never concluded. The war waged by Egypt against Israel in the Suez Canal zone in April 1969 and lasting until 1970 (the so-called War of Attrition) and the Yom Kippur War (1973) marked the fourth and fifth rounds of the conflict between Israel and the Arab countries. It was during this time that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was reborn under the leadership of Yasser Arafat.
Doomsday War. October 6, 1973, on the day of Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement, the holy day of the Jewish calendar), Egyptian and Syrian troops attacked the positions of the Israeli army in the Suez Canal zone and on the Golan Heights. Despite initial gains during this attack, the Israel Defense Forces drove the Syrians back behind the 1967 ceasefire line and crossed the Suez Canal to take up positions on its western bank. The war ended with a truce at the end of October. Despite military successes, Israel suffered heavy losses. Elections to the Knesset were postponed until December, and Golda Meir returned to the post of prime minister, where she remained until her resignation in the spring of 1974. Negotiations between Israel and Egypt soon opened the way for a peace conference in Geneva (December 1973), where they met delegations of Egypt, Jordan and Israel under the supervision of the UN and with the participation of representatives of the USSR and the USA. After this conference, through the mediation of US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, it was possible to separate the troops of Israel and Egypt (in January 1974) and the troops of Israel and Syria (in May 1974). In 1975, Kissinger achieved the signing of a second agreement between Israel and Egypt. Although Israel spent an amount equal to its annual GDP on the war, already in the second half of 1974 its economy was on the rise again. By becoming an associate member of the European Common Market in 1975, Israel received new opportunities to market its goods. The flow of tourists from abroad has increased, and foreign investment has increased significantly. The Likud bloc won the Knesset elections in 1977, which put an end to the Avod party's many years in power. This was perceived as a “political earthquake”: for the first time since the declaration of independence, a new government, consisting of representatives of the political center and religious parties, came to power, and Labor went into opposition. The new Prime Minister Menachem Begin invited the leaders of Arab countries to sit down at the negotiating table.
peace with Egypt. The negative attitude of Arab leaders towards Israel's peace calls was broken by the visit of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to Jerusalem in November 1977. Following this, a complex process of negotiations began, which culminated in a summit meeting between the leaders of Egypt and Israel at the residence of US President Jimmy Carter at Camp -David (September 1978). The program of these negotiations was seen as the basis for concluding a peace treaty not only between Israel and Egypt, but also between Israel and other Arab countries. To develop the program, detailed proposals were put forward to discuss the status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and their populations. On March 26, 1979, the leaders of Israel and Egypt signed a treaty on the lawn of the White House in Washington. Israeli troops were withdrawn from the Sinai Peninsula, which was returned to Egypt. Diplomatic relations were established between both states, and the process of normalizing ties began, culminating in the exchange of ambassadors in 1982. The parties agreed to discuss the issue of granting autonomy to the Palestinians. The peace treaty was an important step towards the settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The process of normalizing relations between the two countries has been developing without disruption since January 26, 1980. By this date, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from most of the Sinai Peninsula, as provided for by the agreement, was completed, and land, air and sea borders between Egypt and Israel were opened. At the end of February, an Israeli embassy opened in Cairo and an Egyptian embassy in Tel Aviv. The conclusion of a peace treaty with Egypt eliminated the threat of an attack on Israel by the most powerful neighbor, who had the largest military potential. It also led to an increase in American economic and military aid to both states. However, tensions have not eased on Israel's other borders. The Arab League condemned Egypt, which was expelled from the League.
War in Lebanon. The border between Israel and Lebanon remained relatively calm between the 1948-1949 war and the early 1970s, when PLO forces were driven out of Jordan by King Hussein's forces and relocated to Lebanon. Tensions were heightened by Palestinian incursions into northern Israel. Israel was concerned about the presence in Lebanon of rocket launchers delivered from Syria in the spring of 1981, as well as attacks by PLO members on Israeli citizens and Jews around the world, despite a ceasefire agreement reached with the assistance of the United States in the summer of 1981. On June 6, 1982, Israel carried out a major military action against the PLO in Lebanon called "Peace for Galilee." The purpose of these actions was to ensure security in northern Israel, destroy the PLO infrastructure that had created a "state within a state" in Lebanon, and eradicate a center of international terrorism and a base for attacks on Israel. However, the political goals of the operation were not clearly defined. In many respects, her results were questionable. In August 1982, the PLO withdrew its forces from Lebanon. The security of Israel's northern border was ensured, but Israeli military units remaining on Lebanese soil until the summer of 1985 became targets of terrorist attacks, resulting in numerous casualties. Hostilities in Lebanon ceased thanks to a truce concluded with the support of the United States, which sent a special emissary to the Middle East, Philip Habib. PLO forces left Beirut. After the cessation of hostilities, the newly elected Lebanese President Bashir Jemal was assassinated on September 14, 1992. In response, right-wing Lebanese “Christian law enforcement” stormed the Sabra and Shatila camps near Beirut, killing hundreds of Palestinians in a massacre. Meanwhile, Israel began negotiations under the auspices of the United States with Lebanon on the issue of the withdrawal of foreign troops from its territory. During discussions that lasted several months, in which US Secretary of State George Shultz took an active part, it was possible to reach an agreement signed on May 17, 1983. The parties declared the need to “respect the sovereignty, political independence and territorial integrity of each state” and confirmed that “the war between Israel and ended with Lebanon." Israel has committed to withdrawing its military forces from Lebanon. Syria rejected this agreement (the PLO leaders who met in Damascus did the same), considering the presence of Israeli troops in Southern Lebanon as an encroachment on the sovereignty of this country and a threat to its own security. The USSR claimed that the United States and Israel had “grossly violated” the borders of Lebanon and demanded the withdrawal of Israeli troops from its territory “without any conditions” as a “primary” condition for restoring peace. Despite the fact that the agreement of May 17, 1983 was signed and ratified by both interested parties, Lebanon annulled it in March 1984, yielding to pressure from Syria. In the fall of 1983, Prime Minister Menachem Begin resigned. His successor as prime minister was Yitzhak Shamir.
Coalition government. In the Knesset elections in 1984, the distribution of votes between the parties did not give any of them a clear advantage, although the Labor Party was slightly ahead of the Likud. In this regard, there was a need to create a coalition. Ultimately, an agreement was reached on the formation of a government of national unity, in which the two main political forces would be represented - Likud and Labor. They also agreed that their leaders, Yitzhak Shamir and Shimon Peres, respectively, would alternate as prime minister and foreign minister. Each retained one post for 25 months. The government withdrew troops from Lebanon, leaving a small contingent to provide security in the border area. Economic measures, including government spending cuts and wage and currency freezes, have helped reduce inflation. Special attention was paid to stimulating the economic development of the country. The free trade agreement signed with the United States in 1985 strengthened Israel's position in the world market. The relative calm in the West Bank and Gaza Strip was broken in December 1987, when an armed Arab uprising (intifada) broke out in many places. Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin was entrusted with combating mass unrest and demonstrations. In the Knesset elections in 1988, none of the leading parties won a majority of mandates: Likud and Labor received only one-third of the votes of the electorate. A coalition government of national unity was created. This time, for the entire term of his work, the duties of prime minister were entrusted to Shamir, who was supported by religious parties, which received 18 seats in the Knesset. Meanwhile, Arafat issued a statement recognizing the PLO's right to exist and agreeing with UN Security Council Resolution No. 242, and also condemned terrorism, i.e. accepted all proposals on the basis of which the United States agreed to conduct a dialogue with the PLO. Formally, such negotiations began in Tunisia through the mediation of the American ambassador to that country. They continued until June 1990, when Yasser Arafat refused to condemn the terrorist attack by Palestinians trying to enter Tel Aviv from the sea. Another attempt to establish peace in the Middle East was made in the first months of the administration of US President George W. Bush. In the spring of 1989, the Israeli government took the initiative and put forward conditions for ending the war with the Arab states: negotiations with freely elected representatives of Palestinian Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on the transfer of these territories to them; making peace with Jordan; solving the problem of residents of Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In March 1990, Shamir's government fell without receiving the confidence of parliament. After the failure of Peres' attempts to form a new cabinet of ministers, Shamir managed to create a coalition of center, right and religious parties in June 1990. However, the peacemaking process slowed down as the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent Gulf War overshadowed the search for a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Israel was deliberately excluded from the coalition opposing Iraq to appease its Arab members, especially Saudi Arabia. Shortly after the resumption of hostilities in January 1991, Iraq fired Scud missiles at targets in Israel and Saudi Arabia. Thus, an attempt was made to split the anti-Iraqi bloc by capitalizing on opposition to Israel. However, Israel did not respond to the attacks. At this time, Israel was faced with the need to accept flows of repatriates from the USSR and Ethiopia. In 1989, Soviet authorities relaxed restrictions on the departure of Jews, and over the next six years, over 500 thousand people immigrated to Israel. In May 1991, Israeli planes transported 14 thousand Ethiopian Jews (Falasha) from Addis Ababa.
The path to peace. After the end of the Gulf War (1990-1991), the US renewed its attempts to speed up the Arab-Israeli peace process. After months of shuttle diplomacy led by US Secretary of State James Baker, a peace conference on the Middle East opened in Madrid on October 30, 1991. The formal meetings gave way to bilateral talks between participants in Washington and a multilateral discussion of regional problems of water supply, refugees, economic development, security environment, weapons and security. In June 1992, elections to the Knesset were held in Israel. They were won by the Avodah party, led by Yitzhak Rabin (who defeated Shimon Peres in the struggle for leadership of this party in the spring of that year). Labor won 44 seats and became the ruling party, while Likud suffered significant losses, winning only 32 seats. A new government coalition was formed, consisting mainly of centrists and leftists. Changes in government composition have affected internal politics and intensified the peace process, although its practical results took more than a year to emerge. In the spring of 1993, secret negotiations took place between Israel and the PLO in Oslo, as well as in Washington (as a continuation of the Madrid meeting), which culminated in agreement. In September 1993, the parties exchanged messages in which the PLO recognized Israel's right to exist in peace and security, and Israel recognized the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people. The PLO condemned the use of terrorism and other forms of violence and expressed its readiness to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict through negotiations. As a result, on September 13, 1993, a bilateral declaration was signed in Washington, which outlined the principles of self-government for the Palestinian people. This agreement concerned primarily the Gaza Strip and the city of Ariha (Jericho) and established the terms for the transfer of these territories to the Palestinian Authority led by Yasser Arafat. After signing the declaration, Israel and Jordan established a “common agenda” for negotiations. In the fall of 1994, a peace treaty was concluded between these countries, and at the beginning of 1995 they exchanged ambassadors. At the same time, Morocco opened its representative office in Israel, which meant the formal consolidation of ties that already existed between these states. It seemed that peace would soon come to the region, but optimistic hopes were soon dealt a blow: on November 4, 1995, at a rally in Tel Aviv, an Israeli law student who belonged to an extremist group that opposed the policies of the Rabin government assassinated the prime minister. Shocked by Rabin's murder, many Israelis then spoke out in favor of his Middle East course and supported Peres. The new prime minister called early elections in February 1996 - in May instead of September. Meanwhile, Palestinian terrorists killed 58 Israelis in several raids, and that same spring, terrorists from Lebanon invaded northern Israel. The response, Operation Grapes of Wrath, was launched to stop an attack by Hezbollah from Lebanon. In the country's first prime ministerial elections, held in May 1996, Likud party leader Benjamin Netanyahu defeated Shimon Peres and formed a coalition government, this time of the center and right. Netanyahu's election campaign was based on the idea of a "secure world", which corresponded to widespread perceptions that the situation with the Palestinians was changing too quickly and that Israel's concessions outweighed its benefits. As a result, the peace process stalled, despite the efforts of the United States and other countries. In January 1997, an agreement was signed on the redeployment of Israeli troops in Hebron, but further resolution of this problem required new initiatives from the United States. In October 1998, at a meeting between Netanyahu, Yasser Arafat and Bill Clinton in Maryland, a memorandum was drawn up and then signed at the White House. It called for continued negotiations between the PLO and Israel, which agreed to additional troop movements to bring new areas in the West Bank under Palestinian control. In turn, the PLO promised to provide greater security to Israel by tightening control over the activities of Palestinian terrorists and taking a number of other measures. The Labor party won the parliamentary elections in May 1999, and its leader Ehud Barak was elected the new Prime Minister of Israel.
Collier Encyclopedia. - Open society. 2000 .
Among the historical achievements of the 20th century, significant is the act that became fateful for the Jewish people: after two thousand years of scattering around the world, on May 14, 1948, the UN decreed the creation of the State of Israel.
It seems that there will be readers, even fairly knowledgeable ones, who would be interested in learning (or remembering) about the events in the Middle East that unfolded around the creation of the Jewish state and its struggle for its existence. Moreover, many people know the foreign policy situation that prepared this act, and much less know about the behind-the-scenes diplomacy that took place in those years on the sidelines of the UN.
On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly approved a plan to create two independent states in Palestine - Jewish and Arab.
Initially, the Soviet leadership was in favor of creating a single Arab-Jewish state, but then came to the conclusion that the division of the mandated territory would be the only reasonable option for resolving the conflict between the Yishuv (this term was used to describe the more or less organized Jewish community in Eretz Israel since the destruction Jerusalem in 70 and before the creation of the state Israel in 1948. In the Talmud Yishuv was the name given to the population in general, but also to the Jewish population of Eretz Israel)and the Arabs of Palestine.
How the State of Israel was created, this is what our article is about.
“The Jewish state was not created by the United States, but by the Soviet Union. Israel would never have appeared if Stalin had not wanted it...” (L. Mlechin “Why Stalin created Israel”).
The existence of Israel from the very moment of its proclamation to this day is not only a “stumbling block” for many political forces and countries, an irritant and an object of enduring hatred for many Arabs, but also amazing fact modernity, the likelihood of which was negligible.
After the end of World War II and the new redistribution of the world, when the pretty battered states were coming to their senses, they had no time for the problems of the Jewish people, much less the establishment of a “Jewish home” in Mandatory Palestine. At that time, the “Zionism factor” had lost its relevance and weight.
“Spiritual” Zionism (Ahad-Hamism) collapsed, since its leader W. Churchill [ 1 ] was removed from the post of Prime Minister of England, and the new Prime Minister, together with Foreign Minister E. Bevin, were irreconcilable opponents of this idea. “House of Rothschild” - Great Britain ceded its role as a superpower to America, simultaneously losing its colonies and oil to Saudi Arabia.
Theodor Herzl “Political Zionism” (Herzlism) rested on the enthusiasm of illegal immigrants, and most importantly, on the fanaticism and heroism, reinforced by guerrilla warfare, of its leaders such as D. Ben-Gurion and M. Begin; their faith in the implementation of the plans of T. Herzl (1897 - 1904, founder of the political Zionism , Chairman of the World Zionist Organization, proponent of reconstructionJewish statehood), which at that time seemed to most to be nothing more than a daring scam.
The United States, which received all possible dividends from the war, saw in the newly created UN a prototype of the World Government and used nuclear blackmail to impose the New World Order of the Anlo-Saxons, did not consider political Zionism a significant force (not to be confused with Jewish world- our note). In their essentially fascist project of the New Order, there was no place for an independent Jewish state because the “white Protestants” considered themselves descendants of the “ten lost tribes” of the old Israel, and America - the “New Israel”, and not only because of the “streams Arab oil."
The dream of Dr. Herzl and his followers became a reality, his prophecy came true exactly 50 years later thanks to the unexpected, “cunning” move of the “experienced Judeophobe” Joseph Stalin, his determination and active consistency. This move, which broke the plans of the Anglo-Saxons, became a saving “straw”, which was grabbed by the “cosmopolitans” - Ahad-Hamites (Ahad-ha-Am or Asher Gunzberg, 1856 -1927, or Jewish Hitler, this ancient Hebrew word means “One among the People." He believed that Palestinophilism could not bring economic and social deliverance to the masses, and preached emigration to America. In his opinion, Palestine should become the "spiritual center" of the Jewish people, from which the emanation of a revived Jewish culture would emanate. He believed , that only what is written in Hebrew can be attributed to Jewish culture. Everything written in other languages cannot be attributed to it (including Yiddish, which he considered jargon). He is credited with the authorship of a book known entitled “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” If this book exists, it must be the work of a man who is fanatically passionate about the idea of Jewish Nationalism or, more precisely, Judaism in its nationalistic sense.
It is widely believed that the State of Israel arose in this territory only in 1948. So that readers have general idea about the milestones in the formation of this state, it is worth recalling the chronological time order of the formation of the state of Israel.
Israel appeared on the world map three times.
FirstIsrael arose after the invasion led by Joshua and existed until the early 6th century BC, until it was divided into two different kingdoms during the Babylonian conquests.
SecondIsrael came into existence after the Persians defeated the Babylonians in 540 BC. However, the country's fortunes changed in the 4th century BC, when Greece conquered the Persian Empire and Israel, and again in the 1st century BC, when the region was conquered by the Romans.
The second time Israel acted as a small participant within the major imperial powers, a position that lasted until the destruction of the Jewish state by the Romans.
ThirdThe emergence of Israel began in 1948, like the previous two, it goes back to a collection of at least some of the Jews who were dispersed after the conquests around the world. The founding of Israel took place in the context of the decline and fall of the British Empire, and therefore the history of this country, at least in part, should be understood as part of the history of the British Empire.
For the first 50 years, Israel played an important role in the confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union, and, in a sense, it was a hostage to the dynamics of these two countries. In other words, as in the first two cases, the emergence of Israel takes place in a constant struggle for its sovereignty and independence, among imperial ambitions.
We omit the period of the Egyptian pharaohs, Roman legionaries and crusaders, and begin the chronological description from the end of the 19th century.
Year 1882. Start first aliyah(waves of Jewish emigration to Eretz Israel).
IDPs In the period until 1903, about 35 thousand Jews were resettled in the Ottoman Empire's province of Palestine, fleeing persecution in Eastern Europe. Baron Edmond de Rothschild provides enormous financial and organizational assistance. During this period, the cities of Zichron Yaakov were founded. Rishon Lezion, Petah Tikva, Rehovot and Rosh Pina.
Year 1897. The first World Zionist Congress in the Swiss city of Basel. Its goal is to create a national home for Jews in Palestine, which was at that time under the rule of the Ottoman Empire.
Congress opening At this conference, Theodor Herzl was elected president of the World Zionist Organization.
It should be noted that in modern Israel there is practically no city where one of the central streets does not bear the name of Herzl. This reminds us of something...
Herzl held numerous negotiations with the leaders of European powers, including the German Emperor Wilhelm II and the Turkish Sultan Abdul Hamid II, in order to enlist their support in creating a state for the Jews. The Russian Emperor informed Herzl that, apart from prominent Jews, he was not interested in the rest.
Year 1902. The World Zionist Organization founded the Anglo-Palestine Bank, which later became the National Bank of Israel (Bank Leumi).
Israel's largest bank, Bank Hapoalim, was created in 1921 by the Israeli Association of Trade Unions and the World Zionist Organization.
The year is 1902.Shaare Zedek Hospital is founded in Jerusalem.
Former Shaare Zedek Hospital building in Jerusalem The first Jewish hospital in Palestine was opened by the German doctor Chaumont Frenkel in 1843, in Jerusalem. In 1854, the Meir Rothschild Hospital was opened in Jerusalem. Bikur Holim Hospital was founded in 1867, although it existed as a medical clinic since 1826, and in 1843 it had only three chambers. In 1912, Hadassah Hospital was founded in Jerusalem by a one-shift women's Zionist organization from the United States. Assuta Hospital was founded in 1934, Rambam Hospital in 1938.
Year 1904. Start second aliyah.
Winery in Rishon Lezion 1906 In the period before 1914, about 40 thousand Jews moved to Palestine. The second wave of emigration was caused by a series of Jewish pogroms around the world, the most famous of which was the Kishinev pogrom of 1903. The second aliyah was organized by the kibbutz movement.
Kibbutz- an agricultural commune with common property, equality in labor, consumption and other attributes of communist ideology.
Year 1906. Lithuanian artist and sculptor Boris Schatz founded the Bezalel Academy of Arts in Jerusalem.
Bezalel Academy of Arts Year 1909. The creation in Palestine of the paramilitary Jewish organization Hashomer, the purpose of which is believed to have been self-defense and protection of settlements from attacks by Bedouins and robbers who stole herds from Jewish peasants.
Year 1912. In Haifa, the Jewish German Ezra Foundation founded the Technion technical school (since 1924 - an institute of technology). The language of instruction is German, subsequently Hebrew. In 1923, Albert Einstein visited it and planted a tree there.
In the same 1912Naum Tsemakh, together with Menachem Gnessin, assembles a troupe in Bialystok, Poland, which became the basis of the professional Habima Theater created in Palestine in 1920. The first theatrical performances in Hebrew in Eretz Israel date back to the period of the first aliyah. On Sukkot 1889 in Jerusalem, at the Lemel school, the play “Zrubavel, O Shivat Zion” (“Zrubavel, or Return to Zion” based on the play by M. Lilienblum took place. The play was published in Yiddish in Odessa in 1887, translated and staged by D. Elin).
Year 1915. On the initiative of Jabotinsky and Trumpeldor, a “Mule Driver Detachment” was created within the British Army, consisting of 500 Jewish volunteers, the majority of whom were immigrants from Russia. The detachment takes part in the landing of British troops on the Gallipoli Peninsula on the shores of Cape Helles, losing 14 killed and 60 wounded. The detachment was disbanded in 1916.
Hero of the Russian-Japanese War Joseph Trumpeldor Year 1917. The Balfour Declaration is an official letter from British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Walter Rothschild, which, in particular, said the following:
“His Majesty's Government is considering with approval the question of establishing in Palestine a national home for the Jewish people and will make every effort to promote the achievement of this goal; it is expressly understood that no action shall be taken which might interfere with the civil and religious rights existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country....”
After defeat in the First World War, the Ottoman Empire lost its control over Palestine (the territory that came under the rule of the British crown).
In 1918, France, Italy and the United States supported the declaration.
Soldiers of the Jewish Legion near the Western Wall in Jerusalem in 1917 Year 1917. On the initiative of Rotenberg, Jabotinsky and Trumpeldor, the Jewish Legion is being created within the British army.
Year 1919. Third Aliyah. Due to Britain's violation of the League of Nations mandate and the introduction of restrictions on the entry of Jews, until 1923, 40 thousand Jews, mainly from Eastern Europe, moved to Palestine.
Year 1920. The creation of the Jewish military underground organization Haganah in Palestine in response to the destruction by the Arabs of the northern settlement of Tel Hai, which resulted in the death of 8 people, including the hero of the war in Port Arthur, Trumpeldor.
Naharayim Hydroelectric Power Station Year 1921. Pinchas Rutenberg (revolutionary and comrade-in-arms of priest Gapon, one of the founders of the Jewish self-defense units “Haganah”) founded the Jaffa Electric Company, then the Palestinian Electric Company, and since 1961 the Israeli Electric Company.
Territories covered by the British Mandate Year 1922. Representatives of the 52 countries that were members of the League of Nations (predecessor of the UN) officially approve the British Mandate for Palestine. Palestine then meant the current territories of Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Jordan and parts of Saudi Arabia.
It is noteworthy that by “Palestinian Administration” the League of Nations meant Jewish authorities and did not mention at all the idea of creating an Arab state in a mandate territory that also included Jordan.
Year 1924. fourth aliyah. In two years, about 63 thousand people move to Palestine. The emigrants were mainly from Poland, since by that time the USSR was already blocking the free exit of Jews. At this time, the city of Afula was founded in the Israeli Valley on lands purchased by the American Eretz Israel Development Company.
Year 1927. The Palestinian pound is introduced into circulation. In 1948, it was renamed the Israeli lira, although the old name Palestine Pound was present on the banknotes in Latin script.
Sample of a banknote from that time This name was present on the Israeli currency until 1980, when Israel switched to shekels, and from 1985 to this day the new shekel has been in circulation. Since 2003, the new shekel has been one of 17 international freely convertible currencies.
Year 1929. Fifth Aliyah. In the period before 1939, due to the rise of Nazi ideology, about 250 thousand Jews moved from Europe to Palestine, 174 thousand of which in the period from 1933 to 1936. In this regard, tensions between the Arab and Jewish populations of Palestine are increasing.
Year 1933. The largest transport cooperative to this day, Egged, is being created.
Soldiers of the Jewish Brigade in Italy in 1945 Year 1944. The Jewish Brigade is created as part of the British Army. The British government initially resisted the idea of creating Jewish militias, fearing that it would give greater weight to the political demands of the Jewish population of Palestine.
Year 1947. April 2nd. British government refuses from the Mandate for Palestine, arguing that it is unable to find an acceptable solution for Arabs and Jews and asks the UN to find a solution to the problem.
Year 1947. November 29th. The United Nations adopts the partition plan for Palestine (UNGA Resolution No. 181). This plan provides for the termination of the British Mandate in Palestine by August 1, 1948 and recommends the creation of two states on its territory: Jewish and Arab. 23% of the mandated territory transferred to Great Britain by the League of Nations is allocated for the Jewish and Arab states (77% of Great Britain was organized by the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan, 80% of whose citizens are so-called Palestinians). The UNSCOP commission allocates 56% of this territory for the Jewish state, 43% for the Arab state, and one percent comes under international control. Subsequently, the division is adjusted taking into account Jewish and Arab settlements, and 61% is allocated to the Jewish state; the border is moved so that 54 Arab settlements fall into the territory allocated to the Arab state. Thus, only 14% of the territories allocated by the League of Nations for the same purposes 30 years ago are allocated for the future Jewish state.
The Palestinian Jewish authorities happily accept the UN plan to partition Palestine; Arab leaders, including the Arab League and the Palestinian High Arab Council, categorically reject this plan.
Partition plan for Palestine on the eve of the War of Independence, 1947 Year 1948. May 14th. The day before the end of the British Mandate for Palestine, David Ben-Gurion proclaims the creation of an independent Jewish state on the territory allocated according to the UN plan.
Year 1948. May 15th. The Arab League declares war on Israel, and Egypt, Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Trans-Jordan attack Israel. Trans-Jordan annexes the West Bank, and Egypt annexes the Gaza Strip (territories allocated for the Arab state).
Year 1949. In July, a ceasefire agreement is signed with Syria. The War of Independence is over.
This is some prehistory of the creation of the State of Israel. As you can see, the process of its formation was long and it did not arise on empty space. Now let’s look at some points that will help us understand how and why this state could have arisen, who defended the right of Jews to a sovereign state, and why the fight against cosmopolitanism was waged in the United States.
On November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly approved a plan to create two independent states in Palestine - Jewish and Arab.
Documents show that of all the great powers at that time, the Soviet Union took the most definite and clear position on the issue of the division of Palestine.
Initially, the Soviet leadership was in favor of the creation of a single Arab-Jewish state, but then came to the conclusion that the division of the mandated territory would be the only reasonable option for resolving the conflict between the Yishuv and the Arabs of Palestine.
Defending resolution No. 181 at the Second Special Session of the UN General Assembly in April 1948, A.A. Gromyko emphasized:
“The division of Palestine makes it possible for each of the peoples inhabiting it to have their own state. It thereby makes it possible to radically regulate relations between peoples once and for all.”
Both the USA and the USSR voted for Resolution No. 181 in November 1947. The position of the USSR remained unchanged. The United States sought to delay and modify the text of the resolution before the vote. The “adjustment” of US Middle East policy occurred on March 19, 1948, when, at a meeting of the UN Security Council, the American representative expressed the opinion that after the end of the British Mandate in Palestine, “chaos and major conflict” would arise, and therefore, he said, the United States believed that temporary trusteeship should be established over Palestine. Thus, Washington actually opposed Resolution No. 181, which it voted for in November.
Soviet representative S.K. Tsarapkin in 1948 opposed:
“No one can dispute the high cultural, social, political and economic level of the Jewish people. Such people cannot be patronized. Such a people has every right to its own independent state.”
A. Gromyko (sitting) The Soviet position has always remained unchanged. So, even before the second decisive vote on November 29, 1947, Foreign Minister A.A. Gromyko came up with a clearer proposal:
“The essence of the problem is the right to self-determination of the hundreds of thousands of Jews and also Arabs living in Palestine... their right to live in peace and independence in their own states. We must take into account the suffering of the Jewish people, whom none of the states of Western Europe could help during their struggle against Hitlerism and with Hitler’s allies in protecting their rights and their existence... The UN must help every people to obtain the right to independence and self-determination..." [ 2 ],
“...The experience of studying the question of Palestine has shown that Jews and Arabs in Palestine do not want or cannot live together. This led to the logical conclusion: if these two peoples inhabiting Palestine, both having deep historical roots in this country, cannot live together within a single state, then there is nothing else left to do but to form two states instead of one - Arab and Jewish. In the opinion of the Soviet delegation, no other practically feasible option can be thought of...” [ 3 ].
Great Britain took a consistently anti-Jewish position at this crucial moment. Forced to abandon the Mandate for Palestine, it voted against Resolution No. 181, and then essentially pursued an obstructionist policy, creating serious obstacles to the settlement of the Palestinian problem. Thus, the British government did not comply with the decision of the UN General Assembly to open a port for Jewish emigration in Palestine on February 1, 1948. Moreover, the British authorities detained ships with Jewish emigrants in the neutral waters of the Mediterranean Sea and forcibly sent them to Cyprus, or even to Hamburg.
On April 28, 1948, speaking in the House of Commons of the British Parliament, Foreign Secretary E. Bevin said that, in accordance with the Transjordan Treaty concluded in March, Great Britain
“and henceforth intends to provide funds for the maintenance of the Arab Legion, as well as send military instructors.”
Why did the USSR defend the right of Jews to their own statehood and why did the United States want to at least delay the adoption of resolution No. 181?
The USSR wanted to remove imperialist Great Britain from the Middle East and strengthen its position in this strategic region (more on this later).
Now it’s worth explaining the US position on the Jewish question in a little more detail.
First, it is necessary to clarify what "cosmopolitanism" is. Probably, many of us have ever heard such words as “cosmopolitanism”, “cosmopolitan”, but does everyone correctly understand their meaning? In some countries, the concept of these terms is somewhat distorted; at different times, the meaning of this view of the world was perceived and interpreted differently.
Notes in the margins. What is cosmopolitanism?
The meaning of the term "cosmopolitanism" is to be found in Greek, where kosmopolites is a citizen of the world. That is, a cosmopolitan is a person who considers his homeland not a particular state or region, but the planet Earth as a whole. At the same time, cosmopolitans tend to deny their national identity, such a person sees himself as a citizen of the whole world, and perceives humanity as one big family.
In our opinion, it is important to think not only for your country and your people, but for the entire planet, because no matter how many peoples inhabit it, no matter how many borders are drawn, the Earth is our common home, but at the same time you need to have your own national identity , remember your roots and take care of your small homeland.
There is an opinion that the US government, long before the events of the 1940s, took an unambiguously pro-Zionist position on the Palestinian issue. This is wrong. In fact, the United States showed serious hesitation in its approach to solving this problem due to strong pro-Arab and anti-Jewish sentiments in the ruling circles of the country.
There were also anti-Semitic sentiments in the United States at that time. There was an anti-Semitic campaign in the press by Henry Ford, who replicated the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” all over America (whether they exist or not, let the experts say, but the text has been circulating around for a long time and excites the minds).
Anti-Jewish sentiment intensified when in 1947 the famous "Hollywood Ten" of film writers and directors was accused of "anti-American activities" - eight of them were Jews. And although they were accused of communist propaganda, but Jewish origin also played a role. So in the USA, in their own way, they also fought against “cosmopolitanism”, which was often expressed in the behavior of Jews who historically did not have their own small homeland, and therefore more like a mafia, against which there was a struggle, both in the USA and in the USSR.
Therefore, two powerful lobbies clashed with the United States: the oil monopolies with multi-billion dollar investments in Arab countries and the Jewish financial lobby, which exists not only in the United States. The White House faces a difficult choice. The US presidential election was approaching. The five million Jewish electorate could not be ignored.
On the eve of the historic UN vote, Jews handed a petition to Truman, unambiguously demanding the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. Under the petition - 100 thousand signatures of Jews - prominent statesmen and public figures.
And finally, the United States could not afford to remain isolated when it became clear that a majority of countries would vote for Resolution 181 at the UN General Assembly.
The British Mandate officially ended at midnight, 12:00, on 14 May 1948. At 4 pm in Tel Aviv, at a meeting of members of the Jewish National Council, the creation of the State of Israel was proclaimed.
On May 15, the Arab League declared that "all Arab countries are, from this day forward, at war with the Jews." On the night of May 14–15, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Yemen invaded Palestine from the north, east and south, and King Abdullah hastened to issue new banknotes with his portrait and the inscription: “Arab Hashemite Kingdom.” .
Israel's foreign policy situation at that time was complex: a hostile Arab environment, the unfriendly position of England, unstable US support and changing worst relationship with the Soviet Union, despite its support.
The transfer of the question of Palestine to the United Nations by Great Britain in 1947 represented an opportunity for the USSR for the first time not only to express its point of view on the question of Palestine, but also to take an effective part in the fate of Palestine. The Soviet Union could not help but support the demands of the Jews to create their own state in Palestine.
When discussing this issue, Vyacheslav Molotov, and then Joseph Stalin, agreed with this decision. On May 14, 1947, Andrei Gromyko, the permanent representative of the USSR to the UN, voiced the Soviet position. At a special session of the General Assembly, he said, in particular:
“The Jewish people suffered exceptional misfortunes and suffering in the last war. In the territory where the Nazis dominated, the Jews were subjected to almost complete physical extermination - about six million people died. The fact that not a single Western European state was able to protect the basic rights of the Jewish people and protect them from violence from the fascist executioners explains the desire of the Jews to create their own state. It would be unfair not to take this into account and to deny the right of the Jewish people to realize such aspirations.”
Now it is worth dwelling on an issue that liberals sometimes interpret based on their convictions, including because of a negative attitude towards the USSR and Stalin, as the Jewish issue during the years of Soviet power.
The Jewish Question and Stalin
Legal and social status Russian Jews radically improved precisely after the October Revolution. The revolution provided in 1921-1930 the opportunity for Jews to move to Moscow and other big cities USSR, since the Pale of Settlement was eliminated. So in 1912, 6.4 thousand Jews lived in Moscow, in 1933 - 241.7 thousand. The population of Moscow grew over these years from 1 million 618 thousand to 3 million 663 thousand. In other words, the Jewish population of Moscow grew 17 times faster than the population of other peoples and nationalities.
The Soviet leadership did not prevent Jews from entering key positions in the state. In particular, from the memoirs of Academician Pontryagin (mathematician, 1908 - 1988) you can find out that in 1942, 98% of graduates of the physics department of Moscow State University were Jews. After the war, a certain graduate student complained to Pontryagin that “the Jews are being erased; last year 39% of Jews were accepted into graduate school, but this year only 25%.”
Stalin and the Jews during the Great Patriotic War
The Soviet Union saved millions of Soviet Jews from Nazi genocide. The Jewish problem, invisible to the majority of the country's population in the context of the general tragedy of the war and the death of millions of Russians, Ukrainians and other representatives of the Soviet people on the battlefields, became especially acute at the beginning of 1943. After the victory in the Battle of Stalingrad, the Red Army troops moving west discovered the monstrous facts of the complete extermination of Jews in territories previously occupied by the Germans. Jews were simply shot and killed in special vans - “gas chambers”. Concentration camps for the liquidation of Jews - Majdanek, Auschwitz and others - were filled mainly with Jews brought from Western countries, as well as Polish Jews. Soviet Jews who fell under occupation were liquidated on the spot. This practice began in the Baltic states and Western Ukraine as early as July 1941. But still, about 70 percent of the Jews who lived in Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and other areas were able to escape by leaving for the eastern regions of the USSR. There were also hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from Poland, Romania, Bessarabia and Hungary and from several other European countries.
European Jews, physically exterminated by Hitler, had no other refuge at this time except the USSR, even if they managed to escape the Nazi genocide. The American government refused to issue visas to Jewish refugees and did not fulfill the minimum quotas for Jewish emigration that were introduced in 1933-1939 at the beginning of the Nazi anti-Semitic campaign. Britain prevented Jews from coming to Palestine, which was a British mandate. The British and American press wrote very little about the extermination of Jews in Europe during the war years.
It was the USSR that allowed Jews to fulfill the dream of several generations - to create the state of Israel: in 1948, the Jews of the USSR and the whole world had a second homeland (which, however, did not at all contribute to the growth of their patriotism towards the USSR). Stalin was a supporter of the creation of the state of Israel. One can say even more - without Stalin’s active support for the project of creating the state of Israel on the territory of Palestine, such a state would not exist at present. Hasidic Rabbi Aaron Shmulevich wrote:
“We must not forget about the role of the USSR and Stalin in the creation of the State of Israel. It was only thanks to the support of the Soviet Union that the UN adopted a resolution on the creation of a state.”
“Since Stalin was determined to give the Jews their own state, it would be stupid for the United States to resist!” - concluded US President Harry Truman and instructed the “anti-Semitic” State Department to support the “Stalinist initiative” at the UN.
In November 1947, resolution No. 181(2) was adopted on the creation of two independent states in Palestine: Jewish and Arab, immediately after the withdrawal of British troops (May 14, 1948).
Notes in the margins
For: 33
Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Belarus, Canada, Costa Rica, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, Guatemala, Haiti, Iceland, Liberia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Sweden, Ukrainian SSR, South Africa, USA, USSR, Uruguay, Venezuela.
Against: 13
Afghanistan, Cuba, Egypt, Greece, India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Yemen.
Abstained: 10
Argentina, Chile, China, Colombia, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Honduras, Mexico, Great Britain, Yugoslavia.
Supporters of partition managed to collect the necessary two-thirds of the votes. The Soviet Union gave its three votes in support of the resolution (in addition to the USSR, Ukraine and Belarus, represented at the UN as separate delegations, took part in the voting), as well as Poland and Czechoslovakia, thanks to what is also a success of Soviet diplomacy. The five votes of the Soviet bloc played a decisive role in this final vote, which is the decisive role of the USSR and J.V. Stalin personally. At the same time, the USSR managed to come to an agreement with the United States, which also voted in support of the formation of a Jewish state. Jerusalem and Bethlehem, according to the UN decision, were to become territory under international control. [6].
On the day the resolution was adopted, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Jews, distraught with happiness, took to the streets. When the UN made its decision, Stalin smoked his pipe for a long time and then said:
“That’s it, now there will be no peace here” [ 4 ]
“Here” is in the Middle East, as you can see, his words turned out to be prophetic.
Arab countries did not accept the UN decision. They were incredibly outraged by the Soviet position. The Arab communist parties, which were accustomed to fighting against “Zionism - the agents of British and American imperialism,” were simply at a loss, seeing that the Soviet position had changed beyond recognition.
For this purpose, the USSR prepared a government “for the Jews of Palestine.” The prime minister of the new state was to be Solomon Lozovsky, a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, former deputy people's commissar for foreign affairs, and director of the Sovinformburo. Twice Hero of the Soviet Union, tanker David Dragunsky was appointed to the post of Minister of Defense, Grigory Gilman, a senior officer in the intelligence department of the USSR Navy, became Minister of the Navy. But ultimately, a government was created from the international Jewish Agency, headed by its chairman Ben-Gurion (a native of Russia); and the “Stalinist government”, already ready to fly to Palestine, was dissolved.
On the night of Friday 14 May 1948, amid a seventeen-gun salute, the British High Commissioner for Palestine sailed from Haifa. The mandate has expired.
David Ben-Gurion, future Prime Minister, proclaims Israel's independence under a portrait of Theodor Herzl. At four o'clock in the afternoon, in the museum building on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv, the State of Israel was proclaimed (Judea and Zion were also included among the name options; and herethere is one strange thing: in the past of the Jews, the state called Judea lasted a thousand years, but the state called Israel lasted only 100, such a “strange” matrix). Future Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, after persuading the frightened (after a warning from the United States) ministers to vote for the declaration of independence, promising the arrival of two million Jews from the USSR within two years, read out the Declaration of Independence prepared by “Russian experts.”
On May 18, the Soviet Union was the first to recognize the Jewish state de jure. On the occasion of the arrival of Soviet diplomats, about two thousand people gathered in the building of one of the largest cinemas in Tel Aviv, “Ester,” and about five thousand more people stood on the street listening to the broadcast of all the speeches. A large portrait of Stalin and the slogan “Long live the friendship between the State of Israel and the USSR!” were hung above the presidium table. The working youth choir sang the Jewish anthem, then the anthem of the Soviet Union. The whole hall was already singing “Internationale”. Then the choir performed “March of the Artillerymen”, “Song of Budyonny”, “Get Up, Huge Country”.
Soviet diplomats stated at the UN Security Council: since Arab countries do not recognize Israel and its borders, Israel may not recognize them either.
Documents, figures and facts give a certain idea of the role of the Soviet military component in the formation of the State of Israel. No one helped the Jews with weapons and immigrant soldiers except the Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe. To this day, in Israel you can often hear and read that the Jewish state survived the “Palestinian war” thanks to “volunteers” from the USSR and other socialist countries (is that true, that’s the question).
Although he did everything to ensure that within six months the mobilization capabilities of sparsely populated Israel could “digest” the huge amount of supplied weapons. Young people from “nearby” states - Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and to a lesser extent, Czechoslovakia and Poland - made up the conscription contingent that made it possible to create a fully equipped and well-armed Israel Defense Forces.
In Palestine, and especially after the creation of the State of Israel, there was exceptionally strong sympathy for the USSR as a state that, firstly, saved the Jewish people from destruction during the Second World War, and, secondly, provided enormous political and military assistance to Israel in his struggle for independence.
In Israel, “Comrade Stalin” was truly loved, and the overwhelming majority of the adult population simply does not want to hear any criticism of the Soviet Union.
“Many Israelis idolized Stalin,” wrote the son of the famous intelligence officer Edgar Broide-Trepper. — Even after Khrushchev’s report at the 20th Congress, portraits of Stalin continued to decorate many government agencies, not to mention the kibbutzim.”
The political nature of Stalin's attitude to Jewish problems is obvious from the fact that he showed himself to be an active supporter of the creation of the state of Israel. One can say even more - without Stalin’s support for the project of creating a Jewish state on the territory of Palestine, this state could not have been created in 1948. Since Israel could actually appear only in 1948, since it was at that time that the British mandate to govern this territory ended, Stalin’s decision, directed against Great Britain and its Arab allies, was of historical significance.
Israel's pro-American orientation was all too clear. New country was created with money from wealthy American Zionist organizations, which also paid for the weapons that were purchased in Eastern Europe. In 1947, many in both the USSR and Israel believed that the USSR's position in the UN was determined by moral considerations. Gromyko briefly became the most popular person in Israel.
Golda Meir Even Golda Meir in 1947 and 1948 was sure that Stalin was helping the Jews for some high moral reasons:
“The recognition of the Soviet Union, which followed the American one, had different roots. Now I have no doubt that the main thing for the Soviets was the expulsion of England from the Middle East. But in the fall of 1947, when the debates took place in the United Nations, it seemed to me that the Soviet bloc supported us also because the Russians themselves paid for their victory at a terrible price and therefore, deeply sympathizing with the Jews who suffered so hard from the Nazis, they understand what they deserved your state." [ 5 ]
In fact, according to Stalin, the creation of Israel answered the foreign policy interests of the USSR at that time and for the foreseeable future. By supporting Israel, Stalin “drived a wedge” into relations between the United States and Great Britain and into relations between the United States and Arab countries. According to Sudoplatov, Stalin foresaw that the Arab countries would subsequently turn towards the Soviet Union, disillusioned with the British and Americans because of their support for Israel. Molotov’s assistant Mikhail Vetrov recounted Stalin’s words to Sudoplatov:
“Let's agree to the formation of Israel. It will be like an awl in the ass for the Arab states and make them turn their backs on Britain. Ultimately, British influence will be completely undermined in Egypt, Syria, Turkey and Iraq." [7]
Stalin's foreign policy forecast was largely justified. In Arab and many other Muslim countries, the influence of not only Britain, but also the United States was undermined. But what political course did Israel choose?
The latter was inevitable. Israel's democratic political system and its pro-Western orientation were increasingly determined, which did not meet the hopes of the Stalinist leadership. In 1951, a correspondent for the magazine “New Time” visited Israel. He wrote:
“Three years of Israel's existence cannot but disappoint those who expected that the emergence of a new independent state in the Middle East would contribute to strengthening the forces of peace and democracy.”
And in 1956, the magazine International Affairs said:
“Israel launched a war against Arab countries literally the day after the English flag was lowered in Jerusalem on May 14, 1948 and the formation of the State of Israel was proclaimed.”
And the United States concluded a “Mutual Security Assistance Agreement” with Israel. And they provided Israel with a loan of 100 million dollars, which indicated that the young state had contact not only with American Jews, but also with the government of this country.
It became increasingly clear that Israel's future would increasingly depend on friendly relations with the United States. But, on the other hand, it was necessary to maintain positive relations with the USSR. Not only the government, but also a significant part of the population of the revived Jewish state were interested in developing economic, cultural and military cooperation with a powerful power, which also had great authority in the world after the victory over Nazi Germany.
D. Ben-Gurion On the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the October Revolution, Prime Minister Ben-Gurion sent congratulations addressed to Stalin. On November 8, 1952, the House of Friendship between Israel and the USSR was inaugurated in Tel Aviv.
US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, in a personal conversation with British Ambassador MacDonald in November 1948, said:
“England has proven to be an unreliable guide in the Middle East — her predictions have so often failed. We must strive to maintain Anglo-American unity, but the United States must be the senior partner."
It was this division of roles that developed in the future - the United States gradually became the "guide" in the Middle East.
In December 2012, the most influential Henry Kissinger said that America had overstrained itself, and in ten years there would be no Israel... But one can guess that “the West has betrayed the Jews” for a long time, and the US policy on the Jewish issue has always been ambivalent.
In a very controversial but very curious book by D. Loftus and M. Aarons "The Secret War Against the Jews" (1997), America is accused of Nazism, large-scale secret games, where the Jews are "a bargaining chip." Here is just one sentence from this book:
"The mighty world powers are constantly hatching secret plans aimed at the complete or partial destruction of Israel" ...
What was and is the position of the USSR/Russia?
Now let's look at our then Motherland. THE USSR -the only one in the worlda state of that time where the Criminal Code has an article for anti-Semitism. By the end of the 1920s, Jewish collective farms and state farms, schools and theaters were operating in the country, and there were national Jewish territorial units at the level of local self-government.
For Stalin, the Jews are the equal people of the USSR, like all others, worthy of earning happiness by their labor (whatever our liberals say today).
On March 28, 1928, the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR adopted a resolution “On assigning to KOMZET for the needs of the complete settlement of free lands in the Amur region of the Far Eastern Territory by working Jews.” And on May 7, 1934, the Jewish Autonomous Region was formed in the USSR, apparently in response to the introduction of the ardent anti-Semite Hitler into the game, knocking out provocative “trump cards” from some of the Zionists. Those. for the first time since biblical times, Jews received their own state education (before that, let us remember, all Jewish self-government for centuries was limited to the boundaries of the ghetto!). At the height of the Holocaust of 1944-45, intelligence reports began to land on Stalin’s desk that, thanks to Oppenheimer (an American scientist), the United States would receive an atomic bomb within the next year. And for Joseph Vissarionovich a question
“How to keep the USA and the West from aggression against the USSR against the backdrop of a nuclear monopoly?” has become extremely relevant. As Vladimir Ilyich said, “delay in death is like...”
Not making full use of the Jewish factor, which the USSR successfully used throughout the Great Patriotic War, would have been an unaffordable luxury for Stalin. He understood perfectly well that before the situation of mutually assured destruction, the West would not abandon attempts to conquer Russia, and immediately after the Second World War, the Third World War would begin, first “cold” and then “strange”. He moved his Jewish divisions to cover forces from the Third World War... This is how the state of Israel was formed, which our country always treats with respect.
Igor Kurchatov (1903 - 1960) And in 1949, thanks to our scientists led by Kurchatov and under the leadership of Beria, the first nuclear bomb appeared, the design of which was laid down back in 1940. This is how Russia’s nuclear shield was created, which to this day is the guarantor of our security and sovereignty. Jews gathered for a crusade against "Putin's Russia"
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The State of Israel was formed in 1948 on territory considered sacred by the world's three greatest religions - Christianity, Judaism and Islam. It is therefore not surprising that heated controversy surrounds her story. But in order to understand the Israelis, you should familiarize yourself with their point of view.
Ancient period of history
The history of the State of Israel began about 4 thousand years ago (about 1600 BC) with the biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The Book of Genesis tells how Abraham, born in the Sumerian city of Ur, located in the southern part of modern Iraq, was commanded to go to Canaan and find people who worshiped the One God. After a famine began in Canaan, Abraham's grandson Jacob (Israel) with his twelve sons and their families went to Egypt, where their descendants were enslaved.
Modern scholars are constantly detailing and clarifying our understanding of the historical context of the events described in the Bible. But the powerful events of the Hebrew Bible represent the cornerstone of Jewish identity. So, after several generations had grown up in slavery in Egypt, Moses led the Jews to freedom, to the revelation of the Ten Commandments at Sinai, and to slowly form into a nation during forty years of wandering. Joshua (Jesus) stood at the head of the process of conquering Canaan, the Promised Land, a land of plenty - rivers of milk and banks of jelly, where the children of Israel would have to build a highly moral and spiritual society that would become “a light for the Gentiles.” The Exodus from Egypt, which remains forever in consciousness, is celebrated annually by Jews, regardless of where they are on that day. This holiday of freedom is called Passover or Jewish Passover.
Biblical kingdoms of Israel (c. 1000-587 BC)
Jews settled the central, hilly part of Canaan and lived there for over a thousand years before the birth of Jesus Christ. These were the years of biblical judges, prophets and kings. David, an Israelite warrior during the reign of King Saul, defeated the giant Goliath and secured victory over the Philistines. He founded his kingdom with its capital in Jerusalem, which became the most powerful in the region. His son Solomon built it in the 10th century BC. e. First Temple in Jerusalem. Through marriages, he formed political alliances, developed foreign trade, and promoted domestic prosperity. After his death, the kingdom was divided into two parts - the kingdom of Israel in the north with its capital Shechem (Samaria) and the kingdom of Judah in the south with its capital Jerusalem.
Exile and return
The small kingdoms of Judah quickly became involved in a power struggle between the rival empires of Egypt and Assyria. Around 720 BC e. The Assyrians defeated the northern kingdom of Israel and consigned its inhabitants to oblivion. In 587 BC. The Babylonians destroyed Solomon's Temple and expelled almost everyone, even the poorest Jews, to Babylon. Throughout the period of exile, the Jews remained faithful to their religion: “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, forget me, my right hand” (Book of Psalms 137:5). After the conquest of Babylon by the Persians in 539 BC. Cyrus the Great allowed the exiles to return home and rebuild the Temple. Many Jews remained in Babylon, and their communities began to appear and grow in every large city on the Mediterranean coast. Thus, a model of coexistence between Jews living in the land of Israel and Jewish communities in the “outside” world, which are collectively called the diaspora (dispersion), began to take shape.
In 332 BC. conquered this region. After his death in 323 BC. his empire was divided. Judea eventually ended up in the Syrian part, which was ruled by the Seleucid dynasty. Their policy of imposing Hellenistic (Greek) influence caused resistance, which resulted in a rebellion, led by the priest Mattathias (or Matthias, which in Hebrew means “gift of Yahweh”) and his son Judah, nicknamed Maccabeus, who in 164 BC AD re-dedicated the desecrated Temple. The victory won on that day is celebrated with a holiday called Hanukkah. They founded the royal family of the Jews - the Hasmoneans, or Maccabees, which ruled Judea until the Roman commander Pompey captured Jerusalem in 63 BC. After this, the Jewish state was absorbed by the Roman Empire.
Roman power and Jewish revolts
N 37 BC The Roman Senate appointed Herod as king of Judea. He was given unlimited freedom of action in internal affairs, and Herod quickly became one of the most powerful kings of the subject kingdoms in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. Herod kept his subjects under tight control and engaged in extensive construction. It was he who built the cities of Caesarea and Sebaste, as well as the fortresses of Herodion and Masada. He rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem, turning it into one of the most magnificent buildings of his time. Despite his many achievements, he was never able to win the trust and support of his Jewish subjects.
After the death of Herod in 4 AD. began years of political instability, civil disobedience and the rise of messianism. Disparate Jewish groups united together against the cruel and corrupt Roman procurators. In 67 AD e. a general Jewish uprising began. Emperor Nero sent his general Vespasian with three legions to Judea. After Nero's suicide in 68 AD. e. Vespasian took the imperial and mountain throne and directed his son Titus to continue the campaign to pacify Judea. In 70 AD e. Roman armies began a siege of Jerusalem, and on the ninth day of the month of Av according to the Jewish calendar, the Temple was burned to the ground. All other buildings were also completely destroyed, with the exception of three towers, and the city's inhabitants were captured. A group of Zealots took refuge in the fortress of Masada, a fortified palace complex built by Herod on an inaccessible mountain plateau overlooking the Dead Sea. In 73 AD. After many years of attempts to drive the defenders out of the fortress, the Romans managed to besiege the fortress with the help of an army of ten thousand people. When the Romans finally breached the defensive wall, they discovered that all but five of Masada's defenders, men, women and children, had committed suicide rather than be crucified or enslaved.
A second Jewish uprising, much better organized, broke out in 131. Rabbi Akiba became its spiritual leader, and Simon Bar Kochba was the general leader. The Romans were forced to leave Jerusalem. A Jewish administration was established there. Four years later, in 135 AD, at the cost of very heavy losses on the part of the Romans, Emperor Hadrian managed to suppress the uprising. Jerusalem was rebuilt as a Roman city dedicated to Jupiter and named Aelia Capitolina. Jews were forbidden to enter it. Judea was renamed Palestine Syria.
Byzantine rule (327-637)
After the destruction of the Jewish state and the establishment of Christianity as official religion Under the Roman Empire, the country became predominantly Christian and developed into a place of Christian pilgrimage. In 326, Helen, the mother of Emperor Constantine, visited the Holy Land. Churches began to be built in Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Galilee, and monasteries began to appear throughout the country. The Persian invasion in 614 led to the devastation of the country, but Byzantium restored its dominance in 629.
First Muslim period (638-1099)
The first Muslim occupation began four years after the death of the Prophet Muhammad and continued for more than four centuries. In 637, Jerusalem was captured by Caliph Omar, who was distinguished by his extraordinary tolerance towards both Christians and Jews. In 688, Caliph Abd el-Malik of the Umayyad dynasty ordered the construction of the majestic Dome of the Rock mosque to begin on the site of the Temple on Mount Moriah. It was from here that the Prophet Muhammad was ascended during his famous “Night Journey”. Al-Aqsa Mosque was also built next to the Dome of the Rock mosque. In 750 Palestine came under the control of the Abbasid Caliphate. She began to rule from the new capital of the Abbasids - Baghdad. In 969, it came under the rule of Shiite Muslims from Egypt - the Fatimids (known in Europe as the Saracens). The Church of the Holy Sepulcher was destroyed, and Christians and Jews were under severe oppression.
Crusades (1099-1291)
In general, during the time of Muslim rule, Christians were not prevented from worshiping their shrines in Jerusalem. In 1071, the nomadic tribes of the Seljuk Turks, who had recently converted to Islam, defeated the Byzantine emperor at the Battle of Manzikert, near Lake Van, and forced the Fatimids to withdraw from Palestine and Syria. In 1077 they closed access to Jerusalem to Christian pilgrims. In 1095, the Byzantine emperor and pilgrims turned to Pope Urban II for help. In response, he called for a Crusade or Holy War to free the Holy Land from the pagans. In the period from 1096 to 1204. four major military campaigns of European Christians in the Middle East took place.
In July 1099, after a five-week siege, the crusader army, led by Gottfried of Bouillon, captured Jerusalem. The invaders staged a terrible massacre, destroying all its non-Christian inhabitants and burning the synagogues along with the Jews in them. Godfrey founded the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. After Godfrey's death in 1100, power in the kingdom passed to his brother Baldwin. From the middle of the 12th century, the territories occupied by Christians were forced to constantly defend themselves, despite the fact that the great military-religious orders of the Knights Hospitaller and the Templars had already been created.
In 1171, the Seljuk Turks from Mosul destroyed the power of the Fatimids in Egypt and established their protege, the Kurdish commander Saladin, as ruler. This had a profound impact on the region. Saladin literally swept through Galilee and in the battle near the village of Khyttin, not far from the Lake of Tiberias (Sea of Galilee), defeated the crusader army led by Guy de Lusignan and captured Jerusalem in 1187. Only the cities of Tire, Tripoli and Antioch remained in the hands of the Christians. In response, the Europeans organized the Third Crusade. It was led by Richard Lion Heart. Under his command, the crusaders managed to recapture a narrow strip along the coast, Acre, but not Jerusalem. Having concluded a truce with Saladin, Richard returned to Europe. Subsequent campaigns led by European monarchs, including the future King of England Edward I, did not bring any results. Eventually, the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt recaptured Palestine and Syria. The last Christian stronghold ended its existence in 1302.
Reign of the Mamluk dynasty (1291-1516)
The Mamluk dynasty, which descended from slave warriors of Turkish and Circassian origin, ruled Egypt from 1250 to 1517. Under their rule, Palestine entered a period of decline. Ports were destroyed in order to prevent new crusades, which led to a sharp decline in trade. In the end, the whole country, including Jerusalem, was simply abandoned. Small Jewish communities were ruined and reduced to poverty. During the final period of Mamluk rule, the country suffered from power struggles and natural disasters.
Rule of the Ottoman Empire (1517-1917)
In 1517, Palestine became part of the expanding Ottoman Empire and became part of the vilayet (province) of Damascus-Syria. The walls that surround Jerusalem today were built by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1542. After 1660, it became part of the Saida vilayet in Lebanon. At the beginning of Ottoman rule, approximately 1,000 Jewish families lived in the region. They represented the heirs of those Jews who had always lived here, and immigrants from other parts of the Ottoman Empire. In the 18th century, work began on the construction of the Hurva synagogue in the Old City of Jerusalem. In 1831, Muhammad Ali, viceroy of Egypt, nominally under the Turkish Sultan, occupied the country and opened it to European influence. Although the Ottoman rulers reclaimed direct rule in 1840, Western influence was unstoppable. In 1856, the Sultan issued an Edict of Tolerance for all religions in the Empire. After this, the activities of Christians and Jews in the Holy Land intensified.
The desire to return to the land of Israel (in Hebrew, Eretz Yisrael) was heard in church services and remained in the consciousness of the Jewish people since the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. e. The belief that the Jews would return to Zion was part of Jewish messianism. Thus, long before the invention of Zionism as a political movement, the deep attachment of Jews to the Holy Land found expression in aliyah ("ascent" or immigration) to the Land of Israel. Supported by Jewish philanthropists, Jews came from countries such as Morocco, Yemen, Romania and Russia. In 1860, Jews founded the first settlement outside the walls of Jerusalem. Before the start of Zionist colonization, there were quite large Jewish settlements in Safed, Tiberias, Jerusalem, Jericho and Hebron. Overall, the country's Jewish population increased by 104 percent between 1890 and 1914.
Balfour Declaration
The Balfour Declaration of 1917 became a means of ensuring the security of the Jewish historical homeland. In it, Great Britain stated that it was interested in the idea of establishing a national Jewish state in Palestine.
At the same time, during the First World War, agreements were reached with national Arab leaders encouraging action against Ottoman rule. After the end of the war, the Ottoman Empire split into Chisti, and the newly formed League of Nations gave Britain a mandate to govern Palestine on both banks of the Jordan River.
British Mandate (1919-1948)
The terms of the Palestine Mandate, contained in Article 6 of the Balfour Declaration, required that Jewish immigration and settlement construction be facilitated and encouraged while ensuring the rights and places of settlement of other population groups whose interests should not be infringed. At the same time, the basis was the principle that independence should be established in the mandated territory as soon as possible. Thus, by making contradictory promises, Britain found itself embroiled in a nearly impossible mission. One of its first actions was the formation in 1922 of the Emirate of Transjordan on the east bank of the Jordan River. Jews were allowed to settle only in western Palestine.
Immigration
Between 1919 and 1939, successive waves of Jewish immigrants began to be accepted into Palestine. Naturally, this led to the expansion and growth of the local Jewish community, or yishuv. Between 1919 and 1923, about 35 thousand Jews arrived, mainly from Russia. They laid the foundations for a developed socio-economic infrastructure, established a foothold on the land and created unique public and cooperative forms of agricultural settlements - kibbutzim and moshavim.
The next wave of immigrants, about 60 thousand people, arrived between 1924 and 1932. It was dominated by immigrants from Poland. They settled in cities and contributed to their development. These immigrants settled mainly in the new city of Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem, where they engaged in small business and light industry, and founded construction firms. The last serious wave of immigration occurred in the thirties of the 20th century, after Hitler came to power in Germany. The new arrivals, some 165 thousand people, many of whom were members of the intelligentsia, constituted the first large-scale wave of immigration from Western and Central Europe. They had a tangible impact on the cultural and commercial future of the Jewish community.
The opposition of Palestinian Arabs to Zionism resulted in mass riots and brutal murders, which occurred in Hebron, Jerusalem, Safed, Zaif, Motza and other cities in the twenties of the last century. In 1936-1938. Hitler's Germany and its political allies financed the general Arab uprising under the leadership of the Jerusalem mufti Haj Amin el-Husseini, during which the first clashes between paramilitary groups of Arabs and Jews took place. Britain responded by creating the Peel Commission in 1937, which recommended dividing the territory into Arab and Jewish states, while maintaining British control over Jerusalem and Haifa. The Jews reluctantly accepted this plan, but the Arabs rejected it.
The threat of war with Germany became increasingly obvious, and Great Britain, concerned about the mood of the Arab countries, revised its policy towards Palestine in Malcolm MacDonald's White Paper (May 1939). At the same time, Jewish immigration was practically stopped and the purchase of land by Jews was prohibited. Jews from Europe were essentially prohibited from taking refuge in Palestine. They found themselves alone with their fate. Ships carrying Jewish immigrants from Europe were turned back. Some went to seek refuge in other countries of the world, and some were drowned. After the White Paper, the outraged and shocked Yishuvah reconsidered its relationship with Great Britain and began to pursue a more aggressive and militant Zionist policy.
Jewish underground
During the British Mandate, there were three underground Jewish organizations. The largest of these was the Haganah, founded in 1920 by the Labor Zionist movement to protect and ensure the security of the Jewish community. It arose in response to the ban on demonstrations and sabotage by workers imposed on Jewish immigrants. Etzel, or Irgun, was created by the opposition nationalist revisionist movement in 1931. Subsequently, the head of this organization was Menachem Begin, who became Prime Minister of Israel in 1977. These formations were engaged in conducting secret military operations against the Arabs and the British. The smallest and least extremist organization, Lehi, or Stern Gang, began its terrorist activities in 1940. All three movements were dissolved after the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.
Jewish volunteers from Palestinian lands in World War II
With the outbreak of World War II, the Yishuv focused on supporting Britain in the war with Germany. More than 26,000 members of the Palestinian Jewish community served in the British armed forces, army, air force and navy. In September 1944, the Jewish Brigade was created as a separate military formation of the British Armed Forces with its own flag and emblem, in which about 5 thousand people served. This brigade took part in combat operations in Egypt, northern Italy and northwestern Europe. After the defeat of Nazi Germany and its allies, many of those who served in the brigade took part in secret operations to transport Jewish Holocaust survivors to Palestine.
Holocaust
It is impossible to view the conflict in the Middle East in isolation from the Nazi Holocaust. The Jews, whom fate had scattered across many countries of the world, could not even imagine the horrors that were in store for them during the Second World War. The Nazi regime systematically, on an industrial basis, was engaged in the elimination of Jews from Europe, destroying six and a half million people, including one and a half million children. After the German armies conquered one European country after another, the Jews were herded together like cattle and locked in ghettos. From there they were taken to concentration camps, where they died of hunger and disease, died during mass executions or in gas chambers. Those who managed to escape the Nazi delirium fled to other countries or joined partisan detachments. Some of them were hidden by non-Jews, risking their lives. Only a third of the Jews living in Europe before the war managed to survive. Only after the end of the war did the world learn about the extent of the genocide and how far humanity had fallen. For most Jews, regardless of their previous positions, the question of organizing a Jewish state and national refuge has become a pressing human need and moral imperative. This became an expression of the Jews' desire to survive and preserve themselves as a nation.
Post-World War II period
After the end of the war, Britain increased restrictions on the number of Jews who could come and settle in Palestine. The Yishuv responded by organizing “illegal immigration,” organizing a network of activists who rescued Holocaust survivors. Between 1945 and 1948, despite the blockade of sea routes by the British fleet and the presence of patrols on the border, about 85 thousand Jews were brought illegally, often along dangerous routes. Those who were caught were sent to internment camps in Cyprus or returned to Europe.
Jewish resistance to the British Mandate intensified. The escalating violence involved an increasing number of diverse Jewish underground groups. The peak of this confrontation came in 1946, when a terrorist attack was organized on the headquarters of the British armed forces at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. Ninety-one people died as a result. Great Britain referred the issue of increasing tension in Palestine to the United Nations. The UN Special Committee organized a visit to Palestine and made its recommendations.
On November 29, 1947, with the support of the United States and the Soviet Union, despite fierce opposition from Palestinian Arabs and neighboring Arab states, the UN voted to divide Palestine into two - a Jewish and an Arab state. This decision was greeted with joy by the Zionists and rejected by the Arabs. Mass unrest began in Palestine and many Arab countries. In January 1948, while Britain was still nominally in control of the area, the Arab Liberation Army, organized by the Arab League, arrived in Palestine and joined the local paramilitary organizations and militia. They invited the world's media to observe specially organized maneuvers.
Britain announced its intention to leave in May and refused to hand over power to both Arabs, Jews and the UN. In the spring of 1948, Arab armed forces blocked the road connecting Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, thereby cutting off the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the rest of the Jewish population.
War for independence
On May 14, 1948, the day the British finally left, the creation of the State of Israel with a population of 650 thousand people was officially proclaimed. Its first president was Chaim Weizmann, and its prime minister was David Ben-Gurion. The Declaration of Independence declared that the State of Israel would be open to the immigration of Jews from all countries.
The next day, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq attacked Israel. It was, in essence, a battle for existence. As a result of this conflict, thousands of Palestinian Arabs were forced to seek refuge in neighboring Arab countries, where, in the absence of a peace treaty, they remained refugees. At the time of the ceasefire in January 1949, the Israelis managed not only to push Arab troops abroad, but also to significantly increase the territory allocated to them by UN decision. Subsequently, most of the territory designated by the UN for the location of an Arab state, including the Eastern
Jerusalem and the Old City were annexed by Jordan
Israel's population has doubled in the four years since 1948. The displaced Jews from Europe were joined by 600 thousand Jews fleeing persecution in Arab countries. Safe absorption by the structures of a small state of such a number of newly arrived people from completely different cultures, at a time when this state itself was still forming its own infrastructure, had no precedents in history and can be considered the greatest achievement.
The main events in the history of the State of Israel that occurred after 1948
Over the 60 years of its existence, the State of Israel has grown and strengthened in all respects, and primarily in economic and socio-demographic ones. Despite a hostile environment, Israel survived wars, took its rightful place in the international community, built a democratic society and encouraged its development, and became a world leader in science and high technology.
1949 Israel is admitted to the UN.
1956 Sinai War
In 1955, Egyptian President Gamal Abd el-Nasser blockaded the Gulf of Aqaba, cutting off the port of Eilat. In 1956, Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal and closed it to the passage of foreign ships, which led to a military conflict involving France, Great Britain and Israel. In October, the Israeli army took control of the Sinai Peninsula. Having received international guarantees that the sea routes vital to it would be open, Israel withdrew its troops in March 1957.
1960 Eichmann trial
Adolf Eichmann, the chief leader of the Nazi Final Solution program, was kidnapped and taken from Argentina by Israeli secret agents. He was tried in an Israeli court and found guilty of crimes against humanity and the Jewish people. By court verdict, he was executed on May 30, 1962. This is the only death sentence imposed in the history of the State of Israel.
1967 Six Day War
President Nasser secured the withdrawal of UN security troops patrolling the ceasefire line on the border with Israel, sent Egyptian troops into Sinai and blocked shipping traffic in the Straits of Tiran, blocking the port of Eilat. The armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Algeria were preparing for a new military aggression against Israel.
On the morning of June 5, Israeli aviation struck an unexpected blow, completely destroying the aircraft of the Egyptian Air Force. Ground forces entered the Sinai Peninsula and quickly advanced to the Suez Canal). Having successfully repelled the attack of the armed forces of Jordan and Syria, Israeli troops occupied the entire Sinai Peninsula and East Jerusalem. West Bank of the Jordan River, Gaza Strip, Syrian fortifications on the Golan Heights. The war ended in six days. The Soviet Union, which supported the Arab states, breaks off diplomatic relations with Israel.
1972 Beginning of the wave of Palestinian terrorism
During the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972, territories from the Palestinian organization Black September took eleven athletes of the Israeli team hostage. The unsuccessful operation of the German special services, undertaken to free them, ended in tragedy: all the hostages died.
1973 Yom Kippur War
The armies of Egypt and Syria suddenly attacked Israel on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur (Judgment Day), a time of sacred prayers and strict fasting. In the first days of the war, the Israeli army was defeated and suffered losses. But two weeks later, the situation ended with the defeat of the Arab troops. An investigation into the reasons for the unpreparedness of the army and government for this war was conducted by a special commission headed by the chairman of the Supreme Court, Shimon Agranat. The results of the investigation led to resignations in the army command.
1976, Entebbe
An Air France plane en route from Tel Aviv to Paris was hijacked by Palestinian terrorists and landed in Uganda. The Israeli military flew to Africa and, in a daring and dramatic operation, freed the passengers who were being held hostage at Entebbe Airport.
1979 Peace Treaty with Egypt
In 1979, following the historic speech of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in the Knesset in Jerusalem (1977) and the signing of the Camp David Accords under the auspices of US President Jimmy Carter (1978), Israel and Egypt signed a peace agreement in Washington. This was the first peace treaty with an Arab country.
1981 Bombing of a nuclear reactor in Iraq
In June 1981, Israeli aircraft bombed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor as it was preparing to restart, ending the immediate threat posed by Saddam Hussein's regime's nuclear weapons program.
1982 Invasion of Lebanon
From Lebanon, militants from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), led by Yasser Arafat, launched a series of attacks on Israeli towns and villages in the north of the country. To destroy PLO bases, Israeli troops launched Operation Peace to Galilee, invaded Lebanon and briefly occupied Khayrut, where the PLO headquarters was located. PLO fighters fled to Tunisia in disgrace. Later, a “security zone” was created along the Israeli-Lebanese border, which until 2000 was jointly controlled by the Israel Defense Forces and the South Lebanese Army.
1984 As a result of the elections, a government of national unity was formed, in which the post of prime minister, by agreement on rotation, was alternately occupied by Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Shamir. Thanks to the efforts of this cabinet, Israel is overcoming the economic crisis.
1987 First intifada
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and West Bank staged violent demonstrations against the Israeli occupation. The protesters pelted Israeli soldiers and police with a hail of stones and Molotov cocktails. Aggressive attacks against Israeli civilians have become more frequent. The Israel Defense Forces managed to stop street riots and rampant violence by 1991.
1989 One million emigrants from the Soviet Union
In the USSR with the end cold war and the fall of the Iron Curtain lifted the ban on Jewish emigration to Israel. In the early 90s, the most a big wave there are almost a million repatriates from the republics of the former Soviet Union.
1991 Gulf War
After the American-led coalition invaded Iraq in January-February 1991, Saddam Hussein began firing Scud ballistic missiles into Israel. Fortunately, most of them missed their targets, and they were not equipped with chemical warheads.
1991 Peace Conference in Madrid
From October 30 to November 1, the international Conference on the Middle East, convened on the initiative of the USSR and the United States and designed to advance the peace process in all areas of the settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The conference was attended by delegations from the USSR, USA, European Union, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt.
On October 18, Moscow and Jerusalem restore diplomatic relations in full. From this moment on, bilateral cooperation between Russia and Israel is developing increasingly.
1993 Oslo talks
Closed Palestinian-Israeli negotiations in Oslo resulted in a declaration of principles aimed at mutual recognition and an end to violence. The signing of the declaration, which took place on September 13, 1993, was preceded by an exchange of letters between PLO Chairman Arafat and Prime Minister Rabin. In the messages, the PLO renounced the use of terrorist acts, recognized the right to exist of Israel, and also committed itself to seeking a peaceful resolution to the conflict. In response, Israel recognized the PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people in negotiations to resolve the conflict. Israel confirmed that after the elections to the Palestinian self-government bodies, all power would gradually transfer to local governing structures, and expressed its readiness to develop trade and economic contacts. In Oslo in September 1995, Prime Minister Rabin and PLO Chairman Arafat signed an agreement that incorporated the fundamental agreements reached in 1993.
1994 Conclusion of a peace treaty with Jordan
On October 26, 1994, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and King Hussein signed a peace treaty between Israel and Jordan. The normalization of relations led to agreement between the parties on issues of state borders and the use of water resources, the resolution of controversial issues peacefully, cooperation in the field of security, and an increase in the volume of trade and economic partnership.
1995 Assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin
On November 4, 1995, at a peace rally in Tel Aviv, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was shot dead by a Jewish fanatic who was seeking the abolition of the Palestinian-Israeli agreements.
1996 Suicide bombers from the Islamist fundamentalist group Hamas carried out several attacks in Israeli cities to derail the peace process and discredit the efforts of the government of Shimon Peres.
1997 Hebron Protocol
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and representatives of the Palestinian Authority signed a protocol regulating the jurisdiction of the parties in the management of Hebron, after the document came into force, Israel would withdraw military units from the city.
1998 At negotiations at Wye River Plantation, Prime Minister Netanyahu and PLO Chairman Arafat entered into an agreement that fixed the agreements reached in Oslo.
2000 Negotiations at Camp David
In July, US President Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Barak and PLO Chairman Arafat met at Camp David to hammer out a final agreement. The Israeli side made enormous concessions, but Arafat refused to sign the agreement.
2000 Second Intifada (Al-Aqsa Intifada)
Mass riots among Palestinians began on September 28, after opposition leader Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount, although his visit was officially announced and agreed in advance with the Palestinian authorities. During the Second Intifada, Palestinian suicide bombers entered Israeli cities, detonating bombs in buses, markets, shopping malls and entertainment events.
2002 In response to an increase in terrorist attacks by Palestinian militants, the government led by Sharon continues to crack down on them. Many leaders and militants of extremist units have been arrested, Yasser Arafat is blocked in his residence in Ramallah. The construction of the so-called "Protective Fence" along the perimeter of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank began.
2003 Road Map
On May 25, 2003, on the basis of Resolution 1515 of the UN Security Council, a peace plan called the "Road Map" was adopted, developed by a quartet of mediators - the USA, Russia, the UN and the EU. The document provided for three stages in achieving an Israeli-Palestinian settlement.
The Palestinians have not fulfilled their obligations under the first stage of the Roadmap (recognition of Israel's right to exist, unconditional cessation of terrorist acts and incitement to them). The radical movements Hamas and Islamic Jihad vowed to continue terrorism against Israel.
2005 Summit Conference in Sharm el-Sheikh
After the death of PLO chairman Arafat on November 11, 2004, Mahmoud Abbas was elected president of the Palestinian Authority in January 2005.
In February, Prime Minister Sharon, President Abbas, Egyptian President Mubarak and King Abdullah of Jordan met in Egypt to discuss peace. The end of the intifada was announced, but the terrorists continued their subversive activities; Hamas, from the Gaza Strip, intensified rocket attacks on the southern regions of Israel. In response, Israel froze the planned transfer of control of Palestinian cities and carried out an anti-terrorist operation.
2005 At the end of April, on the eve of the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Victory over Nazism, the first visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Israel took place; negotiations with Prime Minister Sharon gave new impetus to the positive dynamics of bilateral relations.
2005 Israel withdrew settlements and military forces from the Gaza Strip
In August, Sharon's government unilaterally evacuated 8,000 settlers and destroyed 21 Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip, followed by a complete withdrawal of Israeli armed forces.
2006 Reshuffle in the Middle East
Ariel Sharon left the Likud and created a new centrist party, Kadima. After some time, due to a serious illness, Sharon is unable to continue working. His deputy, Ehud Olmert, took over the government and led the party to electoral victory.
In the Palestinian Authority, the Islamist organization Hamas, which declared its goal to destroy Israel, won a majority of seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council, defeating in the elections the supporters of the moderate wing of the Fatah movement, which advocates a peaceful resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
2006 Israel's war against Hezbollah
From southern Lebanon, the extremist group Hezbollah, backed by Iran and Syria, launched a series of rocket and mortar attacks and captured two soldiers on Israeli territory. The Israel Defense Forces carried out a military operation against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, which changed the “rules of the game”: Hezbollah and similar groups realized that terrorist crimes would not go unpunished.
2007 Hamas seizes power in the Gaza Strip
In the summer of 2007, Hamas Islamists carried out an armed coup, seizing power in the Gaza Strip. The territories in the West Bank remained under the administration of Mahmoud Abbas.
2007 Annapolis International Conference
On November 27, the International Conference on the Middle East Settlement took place in Annapolis, which was attended by the leaders of more than fifty states and international organizations, including the Quartet of mediators (Russia, the USA, the European Union and the UN). E. Olmert and M. Abbas managed to overcome contradictions and continue dialogue on all issues related to the implementation of the Road Map plan.
2008 Operation Cast Lead
For eight years, starting in 2000, Palestinian militants from various terrorist groups from the Gaza Strip to varying degrees The southern cities of Israel were fired at with homemade rockets. In November 2008, Hamas intensified its attacks, launching massive daily rocket and mortar strikes. In response, on December 27, the Israel Defense Forces launched Operation Cast Lead, which ended on January 18, 2009 with the withdrawal of military units from the Gaza Strip after the destruction of most militants, terrorist infrastructure, arms smuggling channels and bases of the Islamist group Hamas.
2008 The 60th anniversary of the State of Israel was marked by significant events in bilateral relations with Russia: the abolition of visas for mutual trips of citizens of both countries (September) and the transfer of ownership rights to the Sergievskoye Metochion in Jerusalem to Russia (December).
- a state in Asia, the Middle East, on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea.
Official name of Israel:
State of Israel.
Territory of Israel:
The area of the State of Israel is 27,800 km² (the territory of Israel is not officially defined).
Israeli population:
The population of Israel is more than 7 million inhabitants (7,172,400 people).
Ethnic groups of Israel:
76% are Jews, 20% are Arabs (including Muslim Arabs - Palestinians), Bedouins, Christian Arabs and 4% are Druze, Circassians, Russians and representatives of other national minorities. Among Jews, 65% were born in Israel (tzabarim) and 35% were immigrants (olim). About 1.1 million people come from the former USSR, 500 thousand come from Morocco, 240 thousand from Iraq, 230 thousand from Romania, 210 thousand from Poland, 105 thousand from Ethiopia. Ashkenazim make up the majority of the country's population - 2.2 million or 40%, Sephardim - 0.9 million people.
Average life expectancy in Israel:
The average life expectancy in Israel is 79.02 years (see Ranking of countries in the world by average life expectancy).
Capital of Israel:
Jerusalem.
Major cities in Israel:
Jerusalem, Tel Aviv - Jaffa, Haifa, Rishon LeZion, Beer Sheva.
Official language of Israel:
Israel is a multilingual country. Hebrew and Arabic are both official languages, in addition, English, Russian and Amharic (Ethiopian) languages, which have been given the status of “officially recognized” languages, are common.
Religion in Israel:
According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, at the end of 2004, 76.2% of Israelis were Jewish, 16.1% Muslim, 2.1% Christian, 1.6% Druze and the remaining 3.9% were unaffiliated.
Geographical location of Israel:
Israel is located in southwest Asia, on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea (coastline - 230 km). It borders on Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt in the southwest. In the south is the Red Sea (coastline - 12 km). The length of Israel from north to south is 470 km, from east to west at its widest point – 135 km. The total length of Israel's borders is 1125 km. The area of Israel within the borders and ceasefire lines, including the territory of the Palestinian Authority, is 27.8 thousand km², of which 6.22 thousand km² are in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, occupied by Israel during the 1967 war.
The relief of Israel is quite diverse - in the west, along the Mediterranean coast, stretches the Coastal Plain, in the northeast - the Golan Heights, in the east - the mountain ranges of Galilee and Samaria, as well as the depressions of the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea. The southern part of the country is occupied by the Negev Desert and the Arava Valley. Highest point Israel - Mount Hermon (2224 m) in the north, the lowest - Dead Sea(408 m below sea level - the lowest point of land on Earth). The Negev Plateau occupies approximately half of Israel's territory and stretches from the Judean Desert (between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea) in the north to the Gulf of Aqaba in the south.
Rivers of Israel:
Israel's largest river, the Jordan, flows from north to south through Lake Tiberias (Lake Kinneret) and flows into the Dead Sea. Other rivers are short and usually dry up in the summer. The exceptions are the rivers Kishon, 13 km long, and Yarkon, 26 km long, flowing into the Mediterranean Sea at Haifa and Tel Aviv.
Administrative divisions of Israel:
Geographically, Israel is divided into 6 districts.
State structure of Israel:
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic. The establishment of the state was proclaimed on May 14, 1948, in accordance with the Palestine partition plan adopted by the United Nations.
The head of state of Israel is the president, who is elected by the Knesset for a five-year term by secret ballot.
The first president of Israel was the chairman of the World Zionist Organization, Professor Chaim Weizmann. According to the current legislation, the president does not have real powers of power; he serves as one of the symbols of the state and performs representative functions.
Israel's highest legislative body is the Knesset, a unicameral parliament consisting of 120 deputies. The first Knesset began its work after the general elections in January 1949.
The central executive body of Israel is the government, headed by the Prime Minister. The head of the Jewish Agency, David Ben-Gurion, became the first Prime Minister of Israel.
The highest judicial body in Israel is the Supreme Court (High Court of Justice). It is the final authority for civil and criminal cases, and also acts as a constitutional court, deciding on the conformity of individual legislative acts with basic laws.
The Knesset, the residence of the President, the Office of the Prime Minister, the Supreme Court, as well as most ministries and government agencies are located in Jerusalem.
Executive power in Israeli cities is exercised by directly elected mayors. Municipal councils are directly elected from party lists and participate in the leadership and control of the executive branch. In towns and villages there are local councils, regional councils govern groups of small settlements.
In Israel, religion is not separated from the state and there are local religious councils, consisting of appointees of local authorities and the central rabbinate, engaged in providing civil registration and religious services to the population.
The first Kingdom of Israel appeared in the Eastern Mediterranean in the 10th century. BC. However, this country did not last long as an independent country. From the 7th century it was under the control of various conquerors until it was captured by the Roman Empire in 63 BC. This territory always caused a lot of problems for the Romans, including because of the Jewish religion: the canons of Judaism forbade the worship of the Roman emperor as a deity, which was a prerequisite for the loyalty of local authorities in the eyes of Rome.
In 135 AD. An unsuccessful uprising against the Romans took place on the territory of the Israeli province. These unrest had a serious impact on the fate of the Jewish people. By decision of the emperor, the Jews were evicted from the territory of their province as punishment, and it was occupied by other peoples. This marked the beginning of the emergence of Jewish communities throughout the Roman Empire and beyond.
Over time, Jewish communities also appeared in the Slavic lands.
The emergence of the modern Israeli state
At the end of the 19th century. among the Jews there was a desire to return to the historical lands of Israel. The first settlers went to Palestine after 1881, with another wave occurring before the First World War. Jews created settlements in territories that belonged to the Ottoman Empire, and for the time being did not lay claim to independence.
The bulk of Jews moved to Palestine for religious reasons, but there were also those who planned to build socialist communes in the country.
After World War I, Palestine became a British mandate. The resettlement of Jews to these lands continued, but it caused discontent among the Arab population. Britain introduced entry quotas for foreign Jews, but they were not always respected. The most acute situation arose in the late thirties, when a large influx of Jews from Germany caused an uprising of Palestinian Arabs. As a result, Great Britain banned Jewish migration to its controlled territories from 1939.
After World War II, the problem of creating a Jewish state became truly urgent. Since 1947, Britain has relinquished control of Palestine. The USA and the USSR came to an agreement on the Palestinian issue - it was decided to divide the land between Jews and Arabs. Thus, the founding date of Israel can be considered May 14, 1948, when David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the creation of an independent Jewish state. However, diplomats from other countries failed to translate the dialogue between Arabs and Jews into a peaceful direction. Soon after Israel declared independence, several Arab states began a military conflict with it. However, gradually Israel was recognized by almost all countries of the world.
