Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe
Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe is the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's Allied Command Operations. Since 1967 it has been located at Casteau, north of the Belgian city of Mons, but it had been located, from 1953, at Rocquencourt, next to Versailles, France. From 1951 to 2003, SHAPE was the headquarters of Allied Command Europe. Since 2003 it has been the headquarters of Allied Command Operations, controlling all NATO operations worldwide. SHAPE retained its traditional name with reference to Europe for legal reasons although the geographical scope of its activities was extended in 2003. At that time, NATO's command in Lisbon part of Allied Command Atlantic, was reassigned to ACO; the commander of Allied Command Operations has retained the title "Supreme Allied Commander Europe", continues to be a U. S. four-star general officer or flag officer who serves as Commander, U. S. European Command. An integrated military structure for NATO was first established after the Korean War raised questions over the strength of Europe's defences against a Soviet attack.
The first choice for commander in Europe was American General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower, as he had directed the Allied landings in Normandy and subsequent march into Germany during World War II, amid many inter-Allied controversies over the proper conduct of the campaign on the Western Front. On December 19, 1950, the North Atlantic Council announced the appointment of General Eisenhower as the first SACEUR. British Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery moved over from the predecessor Western Union Defence Organization to become the first Deputy SACEUR, who would serve until 1958. Volume 3 of Nigel Hamilton's Life of Montgomery of Alamein gives a good account of Montgomery's exacting, tireless approach to improving the command's readiness, which caused a good deal of bruised feelings in doing so. In establishing the command, the first NATO planners drew extensively on WUDO personnel. General Eisenhower arrived in Paris on January 1, 1951, set to work with a small group of planners to devise a structure for the new European command.
The Planning Group worked in the Hotel Astoria in central Paris while construction of a permanent facility began at Rocquencourt, just west of the city, at Camp Voluceau. Devising command arrangements in the Central Region, which contained the bulk of NATO's forces, proved to be much more complicated. General Eisenhower considered naming an overall Commander-in-Chief there as well but soon realized it would be difficult to find an arrangement that would satisfy all three major powers with forces in the Center—the United States, United Kingdom and France—as they had differing views on the proper relationship of air and ground power. Drawing upon his World War II experience, General Eisenhower decided to retain overall control himself and did not appoint a C-in-C for the Central Region. Instead there would be three separate C-in-C's. In December 1950 it was announced that the forces to come under General Eisenhower's command were to be the U. S. Seventh Army in Germany, the British Army of the Rhine, with the 2nd Infantry and 7th Armoured Divisions, to be bolstered by the 11th Armoured Division and a further infantry division, three French divisions in Germany and Austria, the Danish and the Independent Norwegian Brigades in Western Germany, the American and British garrisons in Austria and Berlin.
Four days after Eisenhower's arrival in Paris, on 5 January 1951, the Italian defence minister, Randolfo Pacciardi, announced that three Italian divisions were to be formed as Italy's'initial contribution to the Atlantic army', that these divisions would come under Eisenhower's control. On April 2, 1951, General Eisenhower signed the activation order for Allied Command Europe and its headquarters at SHAPE. Headquarters, Allied Forces Central Europe was activated in Fontainebleau, France in 1953. On the same day, ACE's subordinate headquarters in Northern and Central Europe were activated, with the Southern Region following in June. By 1954 ACE's forces consisted of Allied Forces Northern Europe, at Oslo, Allied Forces Central Europe, Allied Forces Southern Europe and Allied Forces Mediterranean at Malta; the commanders and commands in 1957 were: Supreme Allied Commander Europe – General Lauris Norstad, United States Air Force Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe – Field Marshal The Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, British Army Chief of Staff – General Courtlandt Van R. Schuyler, United States Army Allied Forces Northern Europe – Lieutenant General Sir Cecil Sugden, British Army Allied Forces Central Europe – Général d'Armée Jean-Étienne Valluy, French Army Allied Air Forces Central Europe – Air Chief Marshal Sir George Mills, Royal Air Force Northern Army Group – General Sir Richard Gale, British Army Central Army Group – General Henry I.
Hodes, United States Army Allied Forces Southern Europe – Admiral R. P. M. Bristol, United States Navy Naval Striking and Support Forces Southern Europe – Vice Admiral Charles R. Brown, United States Navy Allied Forces Mediterranean – Admiral Sir Ralph Edwards, Royal Navy Four exercises were conducted in the ACE area during autumn 1952. Blue Alliance was a major allied air force exercise for the Allied Air Forces Central Europe to achieve air supremacy over the Central European front and provide close air support to NORTHAG ground forces under the overall command of Lt. General Lauris Norstad, USAF. Two 1952 central region exercises involved air-ground combined forces. Equinox was a major air-ground
Albanians
The Albanians are an ethnic group native to the Balkan Peninsula and are identified by a common Albanian ancestry, culture and language. They live in Albania, North Macedonia, Serbia as well as in Croatia and Italy, they constitute a diaspora with several communities established in the Americas and Oceania. The ethnogenesis of the Albanians and the Albanian language is a matter of controversy among the historians and ethnologists, they appear for the first time in historical records from the 11th century mentioning a tribe of people living in the area which today constitutes the mountainous region around the Mat and Drin. The Shkumbin splits the Albanians into two cultural and linguistical subgroups, the Ghegs and Tosks, though both groups identify with a common ethnic and national culture; the history of the Albanian diaspora is centuries old and has its roots in migration from the Middle Ages established in Southern Europe and subsequently on across other parts of the world. Between the 13th and 18th centuries, sizeable numbers of Albanians migrated to escape either various social, economic or political difficulties.
One population who became the Arvanites settled Southern Greece between the 13th and 16th centuries assimilating into and now self-identifying as Greeks. Another population who emerged as the Arbëreshës settled Sicily and Southern Italy constituting the oldest continuous Albanian diaspora. Smaller populations such as the Arbanasis whose migration dates back to the 18th century are located in Southern Croatia and scattered across Southern Ukraine. In the 13th century, the Ghegs converted to Roman Catholicism from Eastern Orthodoxy as a means to resist the Slavic Serbs. In the 15th century, Skanderbeg led the medieval Albanian resistance to the Ottoman conquest. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Albanians in large numbers converted to Islam, in part due to the privileged legal and social position of Muslims in the empire and coercion by Ottoman authorities in times of war. Albanians attained important political and military positions within the Ottoman Empire and culturally contributed to the wider Muslim world.
Following the Albanian National Awakening, during the Balkan Wars, in 1912, Albanians were partitioned between the newly-formed Independent Albania and Serbia and Montenegro. From 1945 to 1992, Albania was ruled by a communist government. Albanians in neighbouring Yugoslavia underwent periods of discrimination that concluded with the breakup of that state in the early 1990s and the independence of Kosovo in 2008; the Albanians and their country Albania have been identified by many ethnonyms. The most common native ethnonym is "Shqiptar", plural "Shqiptarë". From these ethnonyms, names for Albanians were derived in other languages, that were or still are in use. In English "Albanians"; the term "Albanoi" is first encountered twice in the works of Byzantine historian Michael Attaliates, the term "Arvanitai" is used once by the same author. He referred to the "Albanoi" as having taken part in a revolt against the Byzantine Empire in 1043, to the "Arbanitai" as subjects of the Duke of Dyrrachium; these references have been disputed as to.
Historian E. Vranoussi believes, she notes that the same term in medieval Latin meant "foreigners". The reference to "Arvanitai" from Attaliates regarding the participation of Albanians in a rebellion around 1078 is undisputed. In Byzantine usage, the terms "Arbanitai" and "Albanoi" with a range of variants were used interchangeably, while sometimes the same groups were called by the classicising name Illyrians; the first reference to the Albanian language dates to the latter 13th century. The ethnonym Albanian has been hypothesized to be connected to and stem from the Albanoi, an Illyrian tribe mentioned by Ptolemy with their centre at the city of Albanopolis. Linguists believe that the alb part in the root word originates from an Indo-European term for a type of mountainous topography, from which other words such as alps are derived. Through the root word alban and its rhotacized equivalents arban and arbar, the term in Albanian became rendered as Arbëneshë/Arbëreshë for the people and Arbënia/Arbëria for the country.
The Albanian language was referred to as Arbërisht. While the exonym Albania for the general region inhabited by the Albanians does have connotations to Classical Antiquity, the Albanian language employs a different ethnonym, with modern Albanians referring to themselves as Shqiptarë and to their country as Shqipëria. Two etymologies have been proposed for this ethnonym: one, derived from the etymology from the Albanian word for eagle. In Albanian folk etymology, this word denotes a bird totem, dating from the times of Skanderbeg as displayed on the Albanian flag; the other is within scholarship that connects it to the verb'to speak' from the Latin "excipere". In this instance the Albanian endonym like Slav and others would have been a term connoting "those who speak [intelligibly, th
Welfare Party
The Welfare Party was an Islamist political party in Turkey. It was founded by Ali Türkmen, Ahmet Tekdal, Necmettin Erbakan in Ankara in 1983 as heir to two earlier parties, National Order Party and National Salvation Party, which were banned from politics; the RP participated in mayoral elections at that time and won in three cities Konya, Şanlıurfa, Van. Their vote percentage was 5%; the Welfare Party participated in the 1991 elections in a triple alliance with the Nationalist Movement Party and the Reformist Democracy Party. They gained 16.9% of the vote. They won 62 deputies to parliament, but 19 deputies of MHP and 3 of IDP left the Welfare Party after the election, their popular vote increased over the years until they became the largest party under Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan in 1996. The coalition government of Erbakan was forced out of power by the Turkish military in 1997, due to being suspected of having an Islamist agenda. In 1998, the Welfare Party was banned from politics by the Constitutional Court of Turkey for violating the separation of religion and state as mandated by the constitution.
The ban was upheld by the European Court of Human Rights on 13 February 2003. The ECtHR's decision was criticized by Human Rights Watch for lack of consistency, as the ECtHR had refused disbanding of other parties on several occasions, but the ECtHR defended its decision; the incumbent president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, was a former member of the party. After being banned from politics for a period, he left this Islamist group and founded the Justice and Development Party. Abdullah Gül, the former President of Turkey, was the deputy leader of the Welfare Party until its dissolution. After the closure of the party, the Treasury demanded the return of grants worth around one trillion lira, i.e. one million in today's currency. Party officials stated. However, an investigation revealed. In the beginning of 1999, Necmettin Erbakan and 78 party officials stood trial in Ankara for embezzlement charges; the case became known as the "Lost Trillion Case" or the "Missing Trillion Case". In March 2002, the court sentenced Erbakan to four months in prison.
68 party officials received two months in prison. The sentences were approved by the Supreme Court of Appeals; the European Court of Human Rights upheld the ban as well. ECHR Third Section judgment ECHR Grand Chamber judgment
Somalia
Somalia the Federal Republic of Somalia (Somali: Jamhuuriyadda Federaalka Soomaaliya. Jumhūrīyah aṣ-Ṣūmāl al-Fīdirālīyah, is a country located in the Horn of Africa, it is bordered by Ethiopia to the west, Djabuti to the northwest, the Gulf of Aden to the north, the Guardafui Channel and Somali Sea to the east, Kenya to the southwest. Somalia has the longest coastline on Africa's mainland, its terrain consists of plateaus and highlands. Climatically, hot conditions prevail year-round, with periodic monsoon winds and irregular rainfall. Somalia has an estimated population of around 14.3 million. And has been described as the most culturally homogeneous country in Africa. Around 85% of its residents are ethnic Somalis, who have inhabited the northern part of the country. Ethnic minorities are concentrated in the southern regions; the official languages of are Arabic. Most people in the country are Muslim, with the majority being Sunni. In antiquity, Somalia was an important commercial centre, it is among the most probable locations of the fabled ancient Land of Punt.
During the Middle Ages, several powerful Somali empires dominated the regional trade, including the Ajuran Empire, the Adal Sultanate, the Warsangali Sultanate, the Sultanate of the Geledi. The toponym Somalia was coined by the Italian explorer Luigi Robecchi Bricchetti. In the late 19th century, the British and Italian empires established the colonies of British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland. In the interior, Mohammed Abdullah Hassan's Darwiish repelled the British four times, forcing a retreat to the coast, before succumbing in the Somaliland campaign. Italy acquired full control of the northeastern and southern parts of the area after waging the Campaign of the Sultanates against the ruling Majeerteen Sultanate and Sultanate of Hobyo. In 1960, the two regions united to form the independent Somali Republic under a civilian government; the Supreme Revolutionary Council seized power in 1969 and established the Somali Democratic Republic, which collapsed in 1991 as the Somali Civil War broke out.
During this period most regions returned to religious law. The early 2000s saw the creation of interim federal administrations; the Transitional National Government was established in 2000, followed by the formation of the Transitional Federal Government in 2004, which reestablished the military. In 2006, the TFG assumed control of most of the nation's southern conflict zones from the newly formed Islamic Courts Union; the ICU subsequently splintered into more radical groups such as Al-Shabaab, which battled the TFG and its AMISOM allies for control of the region. By mid-2012, the insurgents had lost most of the territory that they had seized, a search for more permanent democratic institutions began. A new provisional constitution was passed in August 2012; the same month, the Federal Government of Somalia was formed and a period of reconstruction began in Mogadishu. Somalia has maintained an informal economy based on livestock, remittances from Somalis working abroad, telecommunications, it is a member of the United Nations, the Arab League, African Union, Non-Aligned Movement and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
Somalia has been inhabited since at least the Paleolithic. During the Stone Age, the Doian and Hargeisan cultures flourished here; the oldest evidence of burial customs in the Horn of Africa comes from cemeteries in Somalia dating back to the 4th millennium BCE. The stone implements from the Jalelo site in the north were characterized in 1909 as important artefacts demonstrating the archaeological universality during the Paleolithic between the East and the West. According to linguists, the first Afroasiatic-speaking populations arrived in the region during the ensuing Neolithic period from the family's proposed urheimat in the Nile Valley, or the Near East; the Laas Geel complex on the outskirts of Hargeisa in northwestern Somalia dates back 5,000 years, has rock art depicting both wild animals and decorated cows. Other cave paintings are found in the northern Dhambalin region, which feature one of the earliest known depictions of a hunter on horseback; the rock art is in the distinctive Ethiopian-Arabian style, dated to 1,000 to 3,000 BCE.
Additionally, between the towns of Las Khorey and El Ayo in northern Somalia lies Karinhegane, the site of numerous cave paintings of real and mythical animals. Each painting has an inscription below it, which collectively have been estimated to be around 2,500 years old. Ancient pyramidical structures, ruined cities and stone walls, such as the Wargaade Wall, are evidence of an old civilization that once thrived in the Somali peninsula; this civilization enjoyed a trading relationship with ancient Egypt and Mycenaean Greece since the second millennium BCE, supporting the hypothesis that Somalia or adjacent regions were the location of the ancient Land of Punt. The Puntites traded myrrh, gold, short-horned cattle and frankincense with the Egyptians, Babylonians, Indians and Romans through their commercial ports. An Egyptian expedition sent to Punt by the 18th dynasty Queen Hatshepsut is recorded on the temple reliefs at Deir el-Bahari, during the reign of the Puntite King Parahu and Queen Ati.
In 2015, isotopic analysis of ancient baboon mummies from Punt, brought to Egypt as gifts indicated that the specimens originated from an area encompassing eastern Somalia and the Eritrea-Ethiopia corridor. In the classical era, the Macrobians, who may have b
Buca
Buca is a district of İzmir Province of Turkey. It is one of the main districts of İzmir Metropolitan Municipality. Buca was one of the preferred settlement areas of İzmir's community of Levantines; the great mansions they built in the 19th century stand to this day, most of them restored. The district center is situated inland like the district of Bornova with which it shares important points in common, on the higher ground that commands the southern shores of the tip of the Gulf of İzmir. Buca existed from the Byzantine times and was inhabited by Greeks farmers. However, Buca started to develop as of the end of the 17th century when the French consulate in İzmir moved there following the 1676 plague and the 1688 Smyrna earthquake that shook İzmir's core as an international trade center, its rich Levantine residents who acquired the surrounding vineyards had Latin backgrounds, as opposed to those who came from Britain and who preferred Bornova. But in the case both of Bornova and of Buca, the concentration in terms of ethnic backgrounds was far from having an exclusive nature.
Yet, in 1770, following the failure of the Orlov Revolt, a revolt of the Greeks in today's Greece against the Ottoman occupation encouraged by the Russian Nobles Orlov in 1770, many Greeks from the revolted regions fled from Peloponnese, Chios and Kythira and settled in Buca, contributing to the growth of the place. In 1861, when the railway reached Buca from Smyrna, many rich Europeans from Smyrna built their summer houses in Buca. Yet, due to its substantial growth, Buca soon became a suburb of Smyrna and people started to stay there permanently. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were three Greek Orthodox churches, two Greek community schools as well as some private Greek schools while there were two private English schools, one catholic nonnes' school and one Capuchin monks school; the Greeks, together with other Christian inhabitants, constituted the majority of the local population, while Muslim population was small. However, Greek inhabitants were expulsed in 1922 and fled to Greece, where they named their new settlement "Neos Voutzas", close to Athens.
As a result, there are today only a Catholic and a Baptist church in service in Buca. Many of the 19th-century houses have been restored and are still being used either by public institutions or by private persons, although many still need care; the core area of Buca could preserve its traditional architectural tissue based on two-storey residences, while apartment blocks mushroomed in its extensions, as it is the case in all localities in Turkey which had to absorb immigration. There are a number of municipal parks, notably a vast ongoing project that comprises seven artificial lakes. Dokuz Eylül University, one of the two larger universities in İzmir, has its newly built main campus located in Buca, in the locality called Tınaztepe. While the university has dependencies scattered all over İzmir, it is associated with Buca, in the same way as the other large university, Ege University, is associated with Bornova; the hippodrome of İzmir is located in Buca, in the quarter named Şirinyer along the road to İzmir metropolitan center, the hippodrome is known under the name of this quarter.
Şirinyer area used to be called Kızılçullu, in reference to a legend according to which Tamerlane would have established his headquarters here during his 1402 siege of İzmir, Buca's Levantine population, who owned orchards and vineyards here, had named the area under the no less assumptive name of Paradiso. Çevik Bir, the retired Turkish general, the force commander of during the United Nations' Operation Restore Hope in Somalia and an influential figure in Turkey's politics and diplomacy in the 1990s, is from Buca and a public square is named after him. Cemil Şeboy Dokuz Eylül University Levantine mansions of Smyrna Metropolitan Municipality of Greater İzmir Dokuz Eylül University Dokuz Eylül University Forum Şirinyer Hippodrome page of Turkish Jockey Club
Turkey
Turkey the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country located in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan Peninsula in Southeast Europe. East Thrace, located in Europe, is separated from Anatolia by the Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorous strait and the Dardanelles. Turkey is bordered by Bulgaria to its northwest. Istanbul is the largest city. 70 to 80 per cent of the country's citizens identify as Turkish. Kurds are the largest minority. At various points in its history, the region has been inhabited by diverse civilizations including the Assyrians, Thracians, Phrygians and Armenians. Hellenization continued into the Byzantine era; the Seljuk Turks began migrating into the area in the 11th century, their victory over the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 symbolizes the start and foundation of Turkey. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, when it disintegrated into small Turkish principalities. Beginning in the late 13th-century, the Ottomans started uniting these Turkish principalities.
After Mehmed II conquered Constantinople in 1453, Ottoman expansion continued under Selim I. During the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent the Ottoman Empire encompassed much of Southeast Europe, West Asia and North Africa and became a world power. In the following centuries the state entered a period of decline with a gradual loss of territories and wars. In an effort to consolidate the weakening social and political foundations of the empire, Mahmut II started a period of modernisation in the early 19th century, bringing reforms in all areas of the state including the military and bureaucracy along with the emancipation of all citizens. In 1913, a coup d'état put the country under the control of the Three Pashas. During World War I, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian and Pontic Greek subjects. Following the war, the conglomeration of territories and peoples that comprised the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into several new states; the Turkish War of Independence, initiated by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his colleagues against occupying Allied Powers, resulted in the abolition of monarchy in 1922 and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, with Atatürk as its first president.
Atatürk enacted numerous reforms, many of which incorporated various aspects of Western thought and customs into the new form of Turkish government. The Kurdish–Turkish conflict, an armed conflict between the Republic of Turkey and Kurdish insurgents, has been active since 1984 in the southeast of the country. Various Kurdish groups demand separation from Turkey to create an independent Kurdistan or to have autonomy and greater political and cultural rights for Kurds in Turkey. Turkey is a charter member of the UN, an early member of NATO, the IMF and the World Bank, a founding member of the OECD, OSCE, BSEC, OIC and G-20. After becoming one of the first members of the Council of Europe in 1949, Turkey became an associate member of the EEC in 1963, joined the EU Customs Union in 1995 and started accession negotiations with the European Union in 2005 which have been stopped by the EU in 2017 due to "Turkey's path toward autocratic rule". Turkey's economy and diplomatic initiatives led to its recognition as a regional power while its location has given it geopolitical and strategic importance throughout history.
Turkey is a secular, unitary parliamentary republic which adopted a presidential system with a referendum in 2017. Turkey's current administration headed by president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of the AKP has enacted measures to increase the influence of Islam, undermine Kemalist policies and freedom of the press; the English name of Turkey means "land of the Turks". Middle English usage of Turkye is evidenced in an early work by Chaucer called The Book of the Duchess; the phrase land of Torke is used in the 15th-century Digby Mysteries. Usages can be found in the Dunbar poems, the 16th century Manipulus Vocabulorum and Francis Bacon's Sylva Sylvarum; the modern spelling "Turkey" dates back to at least 1719. The Turkish name Türkiye was adopted in 1923 under the influence of European usage; the Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world. Various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic period until the Hellenistic period.
Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family. In fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated; the European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has been inhabited since at least forty thousand years ago, is known to have been in the Neolithic era by about 6000 BC. Göbekli Tepe is the site of the oldest known man-made religious structure, a temple dating to circa 10,000 BC, while Çatalhöyük is a large Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from approximately
Israel
Israel the State of Israel, is a country in Western Asia, located on the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the northern shore of the Red Sea. It has land borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the northeast, Jordan on the east, the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the east and west and Egypt to the southwest; the country contains geographically diverse features within its small area. Israel's economic and technological center is Tel Aviv, while its seat of government and proclaimed capital is Jerusalem, although the state's sovereignty over Jerusalem has only partial recognition. Israel has evidence of the earliest migration of hominids out of Africa. Canaanite tribes are archaeologically attested since the Middle Bronze Age, while the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah emerged during the Iron Age; the Neo-Assyrian Empire destroyed Israel around 720 BCE. Judah was conquered by the Babylonian and Hellenistic empires and had existed as Jewish autonomous provinces.
The successful Maccabean Revolt led to an independent Hasmonean kingdom by 110 BCE, which in 63 BCE however became a client state of the Roman Republic that subsequently installed the Herodian dynasty in 37 BCE, in 6 CE created the Roman province of Judea. Judea lasted as a Roman province until the failed Jewish revolts resulted in widespread destruction, expulsion of Jewish population and the renaming of the region from Iudaea to Syria Palaestina. Jewish presence in the region has persisted to a certain extent over the centuries. In the 7th century CE, the Levant was taken from the Byzantine Empire by the Arabs and remained in Muslim control until the First Crusade of 1099, followed by the Ayyubid conquest of 1187; the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt extended its control over the Levant in the 13th century until its defeat by the Ottoman Empire in 1517. During the 19th century, national awakening among Jews led to the establishment of the Zionist movement in the diaspora followed by waves of immigration to Ottoman Syria and British Mandate Palestine.
In 1947, the United Nations adopted a Partition Plan for Palestine recommending the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states and an internationalized Jerusalem. The plan was accepted by the Jewish Agency, rejected by Arab leaders; the following year, the Jewish Agency declared the independence of the State of Israel, the subsequent 1948 Arab–Israeli War saw Israel's establishment over most of the former Mandate territory, while the West Bank and Gaza were held by neighboring Arab states. Israel has since fought several wars with Arab countries, since the Six-Day War in 1967 held occupied territories including the West Bank, Golan Heights and the Gaza Strip, it extended its laws to the Golan East Jerusalem, but not the West Bank. Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories is the world's longest military occupation in modern times. Efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have not resulted in a final peace agreement. However, peace treaties between Israel and both Egypt and Jordan have been signed.
In its Basic Laws, Israel defines itself as a democratic state. The country has a liberal democracy, with a parliamentary system, proportional representation, universal suffrage; the prime minister is head of government and the Knesset is the legislature. Israel is a developed country and an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development member, with the 32nd-largest economy in the world by nominal gross domestic product as of 2017; the country benefits from a skilled workforce and is among the most educated countries in the world with one of the highest percentages of its citizens holding a tertiary education degree. Israel has the highest standard of living in the Middle East, has one of the highest life expectancies in the world. Furthermore, Israel ranked 11th in the UN's 2018 World Happiness Report. Upon independence in 1948, the country formally adopted the name "State of Israel" after other proposed historical and religious names including Eretz Israel and Judea, were considered but rejected.
In the early weeks of independence, the government chose the term "Israeli" to denote a citizen of Israel, with the formal announcement made by Minister of Foreign Affairs Moshe Sharett. The names Land of Israel and Children of Israel have been used to refer to the biblical Kingdom of Israel and the entire Jewish people respectively; the name "Israel" in these phrases refers to the patriarch Jacob who, according to the Hebrew Bible, was given the name after he wrestled with the angel of the Lord. Jacob's twelve sons became the ancestors of the Israelites known as the Twelve Tribes of Israel or Children of Israel. Jacob and his sons had lived in Canaan but were forced by famine to go into Egypt for four generations, lasting 430 years, until Moses, a great-great grandson of Jacob, led the Israelites back into Canaan during the "Exodus"; the earliest known archaeological artifact to mention the word "Israel" as a collective is the Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt. The area is known as the Holy Land, being holy for all Abrahamic religions including Judaism, Christianity and the Bahá'í Faith.
Under British Mandate, the whole region was known as Palestine (Hebre
