1.
Tel Aviv
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Tel Aviv-Yafo is a major city in Israel, located on the countrys Mediterranean coastline. It is the center and the technology hub of Israel, with a population of 432,892. Tel Aviv is the largest city in the Gush Dan region of Israel, Tel Aviv is also a focal point in the high-tech concentration known as the Silicon Wadi. Tel Aviv is governed by the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality, headed by Ron Huldai, Tel Aviv is a global city, and is the thirty eighth most important financial center in the world. Tel Aviv is known to have the third-largest economy of any city in the Middle East after Abu Dhabi and Kuwait City, the city receives over a million international visitors annually. Known as The City that Never Sleeps and a party capital, it has a lively nightlife, the city was founded in 1909 by Jewish immigrants on the outskirts of the ancient port city of Jaffa. It is named after the Hebrew translation of Theodor Herzls 1902 novel, Altneuland, the modern citys first neighbourhoods had already been established in 1886, the first being Neve Tzedek. Immigration by mostly Jewish refugees meant that the growth of Tel Aviv soon outpaced Jaffas, Tel Aviv and Jaffa were merged into a single municipality in 1950, two years after the establishment of the State of Israel. Tel Avivs White City, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003, Tel Aviv is the Hebrew title of Theodor Herzls Altneuland, translated from German by Nahum Sokolow. The name was chosen in 1910 from several suggestions, including Herzliya and it was found fitting as it embraced the idea of a renaissance in the ancient Jewish homeland. Aviv is Hebrew for spring, symbolizing renewal, and tel is a man-made mound accumulating layers of civilization built one over the other and symbolizing the ancient. Although founded in 1909 as a settlement on the sand dunes North of Jaffa. The marketing pamphlets advocating for its establishment in 1906, wrote, In this city we will build the streets so they have roads and sidewalks and electric lights. Every house will have water wells that will flow through pipes as in every modern European city. Since 1886, Jewish settlers had founded new neighborhoods outside Jaffa on the current territory of Tel Aviv, the first was Neve Tzedek, built on lands owned by Aharon Chelouche and inhabited primarily by Mizrahi Jews. Other neighborhoods were Neve Shalom, Yafa Nof, Achva, Ohel Moshe, Kerem HaTeimanim, once Tel Aviv received city status in the 1920s, those neighborhoods joined the newly formed municipality, now becoming separated from Jaffa. The Second Aliyah led to further expansion, in 1906, a group of Jews, among them residents of Jaffa, followed the initiative of Akiva Aryeh Weiss and banded together to form the Ahuzat Bayit society. The societys goal was to form a Hebrew urban centre in an environment, planned according to the rules of aesthetics
2.
Mandatory Palestine
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Mandatory Palestine was a geopolitical entity under British administration, carved out of Ottoman Southern Syria after World War I. British civil administration in Palestine operated from 1920 until 1948, further confusing the issue was the Balfour Declaration of 1917, promising British support for a Jewish national home in Palestine. At the wars end the British and French set up a joint Occupied Enemy Territory Administration in what had been Ottoman Syria, the British achieved legitimacy for their continued control by obtaining a mandate from the League of Nations in June 1922. The civil Mandate administration was formalized with the League of Nations consent in 1923 under the British Mandate for Palestine, the land west of the Jordan River, known as Palestine, was under direct British administration until 1948. The land east of the Jordan, a region known as Transjordan, under the rule of the Hashemite family from the Hijaz. The divergent tendencies regarding the nature and purpose of the mandate are visible already in the discussions concerning the name for this new entity. As a set-off to this, certain of the Arab politicians suggested that the country should be called Southern Syria in order to emphasise its close relation with another Arab State. During the British Mandate period the area experienced the ascent of two major nationalist movements, one among the Jews and the other among the Arabs, following its occupation by British troops in 1917–1918, Palestine was governed by the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration. In July 1920, the administration was replaced by a civilian administration headed by a High Commissioner. The first High Commissioner, Herbert Samuel, a Zionist recent cabinet minister, arrived in Palestine on 20 June 1920, following the arrival of the British, Muslim-Christian Associations were established in all the major towns. In 1919 they joined to hold the first Palestine Arab Congress in Jerusalem and its main platforms were a call for representative government and opposition to the Balfour Declaration. The Zionist Commission was formed in March 1918 and was active in promoting Zionist objectives in Palestine, on 19 April 1920, elections were held for the Assembly of Representatives of the Palestinian Jewish community. The Zionist Commission received official recognition in 1922 as representative of the Palestinian Jewish community, Rutenberg soon established an electric company whose shareholders were Zionist organizations, investors, and philanthropists. Palestinian-Arabs saw it as proof that the British intended to favor Zionism, when Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Kamil al-Husayni died in March 1921, High Commissioner Samuel appointed his half-brother Mohammad Amin al-Husseini to the position. Amin al-Husseini, a member of the clan of Jerusalem, was an Arab nationalist. As Grand Mufti, as well as the influential positions that he held during this period. In 1922, al-Husseini was elected President of the Supreme Muslim Council which had created by Samuel in December 1921. The Council controlled the Waqf funds, worth annually tens of thousands of pounds, in addition, he controlled the Islamic courts in Palestine
3.
Likud
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The Likud, officially the Likud–National Liberal Movement, is a major center-right to right-wing political party in Israel. A secular party, it was founded in 1973 by Menachem Begin in an alliance with several right-wing, Likuds landslide victory in the 1977 elections was a major turning point in the countrys political history, marking the first time the left had lost power. In addition, it was the first time in Israel that a party won the plurality of the votes. However, after ruling the country for most of the 1980s, nevertheless, Likuds candidate Benjamin Netanyahu did win the vote for Prime Minister in 1996 and was given the task of forming a government after the 1996 elections. Netanyahus government fell apart after a vote of no confidence, which led to elections being called in 1999, in 2001, Likuds Ariel Sharon, who replaced Netanyahu following the 1999 election, defeated Barak in an election called by the Prime Minister following his resignation. After the party recorded a win in the 2003 elections. This resulted in Likud slumping to fourth place in the 2006 elections, Netanyahu has been Prime Minister since and Likud has been the leading vote-getter in each election. A member of the party is called a Likudnik. Herut had been the nations largest right-wing party since growing out of the Irgun in 1948 and it had already been in coalition with the Liberals since 1965 as Gahal, with Herut as the senior partner. Herut remained the senior partner in the new grouping, which was given the name Likud, meaning Consolidation and it worked as a coalition under Heruts leadership until 1988, when the member parties merged into a single party under the Likud name. From its establishment in 1973, Likud enjoyed great support from blue-collar Sephardim who felt discriminated against by the ruling Alignment, Likud made a strong showing in its first elections in 1973, reducing the Alignments lead to 12 seats. The party went on to win the 1977 elections, finishing 11 seats ahead of the Alignment, Begin was able to form a government with the support of the religious parties, consigning the left-wing to opposition for the first time since independence. A former leader of the hard-line paramilitary Irgun, Begin helped initiate the process with Egypt, which resulted in the 1978 Camp David Accords. Likud was reelected with a reduced mandate in 1981. Likud has long been an alliance between politicians committed to different and sometimes opposing policy preferences and ideologies. Begin resigned in October 1983 and was succeeded as Likud leader, although Shamir lost the 1984 election, the Alignment was unable to form a government on its own. Likud and the Alignment thus formed a unity government, with Peres as Prime Minister. After two years, Peres and Shamir switched posts and this government remained in power through 1990, when the Alignment pulled out and Shamir stitched together a right-wing coalition that held on until its defeat in 1992 by Labor
4.
Hebrew language
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Hebrew is a language native to Israel, spoken by over 9 million people worldwide, of whom over 5 million are in Israel. Historically, it is regarded as the language of the Israelites and their ancestors, the earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date from the 10th century BCE. Hebrew belongs to the West Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family, Hebrew is the only living Canaanite language left, and the only truly successful example of a revived dead language. Hebrew had ceased to be a spoken language somewhere between 200 and 400 CE, declining since the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt. Aramaic and to a lesser extent Greek were already in use as international languages, especially among elites and it survived into the medieval period as the language of Jewish liturgy, rabbinic literature, intra-Jewish commerce, and poetry. Then, in the 19th century, it was revived as a spoken and literary language, and, according to Ethnologue, had become, as of 1998, the language of 5 million people worldwide. After Israel, the United States has the second largest Hebrew-speaking population, with 220,000 fluent speakers, Modern Hebrew is one of the two official languages of the State of Israel, while premodern Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world today. Ancient Hebrew is also the tongue of the Samaritans, while modern Hebrew or Arabic is their vernacular. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Leshon Hakodesh, the modern word Hebrew is derived from the word Ivri, one of several names for the Israelite people. It is traditionally understood to be a based on the name of Abrahams ancestor, Eber. This name is based upon the root ʕ-b-r meaning to cross over. Interpretations of the term ʕibrim link it to this verb, cross over, in the Bible, the Hebrew language is called Yәhudit because Judah was the surviving kingdom at the time of the quotation. In Isaiah 19,18 it is called the Language of Canaan, Hebrew belongs to the Canaanite group of languages. In turn, the Canaanite languages are a branch of the Northwest Semitic family of languages, according to Avraham ben-Yosef, Hebrew flourished as a spoken language in the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah during about 1200 to 586 BCE. Scholars debate the degree to which Hebrew was a vernacular in ancient times following the Babylonian exile. In July 2008 Israeli archaeologist Yossi Garfinkel discovered a ceramic shard at Khirbet Qeiyafa which he claimed may be the earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered, dating around 3000 years ago. The Gezer calendar also dates back to the 10th century BCE at the beginning of the Monarchic Period, classified as Archaic Biblical Hebrew, the calendar presents a list of seasons and related agricultural activities. The Gezer calendar is written in an old Semitic script, akin to the Phoenician one that through the Greeks, the Gezer calendar is written without any vowels, and it does not use consonants to imply vowels even in the places where later Hebrew spelling requires it
5.
Israel
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Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in the Middle East, on the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the northern shore of the Red Sea. The country contains geographically diverse features within its small area. Israels economy and technology center is Tel Aviv, while its seat of government and proclaimed capital is Jerusalem, in 1947, the United Nations adopted a Partition Plan for Mandatory Palestine recommending the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states and an internationalized Jerusalem. The plan was accepted by the Jewish Agency for Palestine, next year, the Jewish Agency declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel. Israel has since fought several wars with neighboring Arab states, in the course of which it has occupied territories including the West Bank, Golan Heights and it extended its laws to the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, but not the West Bank. Israels occupation of the Palestinian territories is the worlds longest military occupation in modern times, efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have not resulted in peace. However, peace treaties between Israel and both Egypt and Jordan have successfully been signed, the population of Israel, as defined by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, was estimated in 2017 to be 8,671,100 people. It is the worlds only Jewish-majority state, with 74. 8% being designated as Jewish, the countrys second largest group of citizens are Arabs, at 20. 8%. The great majority of Israeli Arabs are Sunni Muslims, including significant numbers of semi-settled Negev Bedouins, other minorities include Arameans, Armenians, Assyrians, Black Hebrew Israelites, Circassians, Maronites and Samaritans. Israel also hosts a significant population of foreign workers and asylum seekers from Africa and Asia, including illegal migrants from Sudan, Eritrea. In its Basic Laws, Israel defines itself as a Jewish, Israel is a representative democracy with a parliamentary system, proportional representation and universal suffrage. The prime minister is head of government and the Knesset is the legislature, Israel is a developed country and an OECD member, with the 35th-largest economy in the world by nominal gross domestic product as of 2016. The country benefits from a skilled workforce and is among the most educated countries in the world with one of the highest percentage of its citizens holding a tertiary education degree. The country has the highest standard of living in the Middle East and the third highest in Asia, 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 historically used to refer to the biblical Kingdom of Israel. The name Israel in these phrases refers to the patriarch Jacob who, jacobs twelve sons became the ancestors of the Israelites, also known as the Twelve Tribes of Israel or Children of Israel. The earliest known 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, Islam
6.
Mizrahi Jews
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Yemeni Jews are sometimes also included, but their history is separate from Babylonian Jewry. The use of the term Mizrahi can be somewhat controversial, before the establishment of the State of Israel, Mizrahi Jews did not identify themselves as a separate Jewish subgroup. Instead, Mizrahi Jews generally characterized themselves as Sephardi, as follow the traditions of Sephardic Judaism. From the point of view of the official Israeli rabbinate, any rabbis of Mizrahi origin in Israel are under the jurisdiction of the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel, as of 2005, over 61% of Israeli Jews are of at least partial Mizrahi ancestry. Mizrahi is literally translated as Oriental, Eastern, מזרח, Hebrew for east, in the past the word Mizrahim, corresponding to the Arabic word Mashriqiyyun, referred to the natives of Syria, Iraq and other Asian countries, as distinct from those of North Africa. In medieval and early times the corresponding Hebrew word maarav was used for North Africa. In Talmudic and Geonic times, however, this word maarav referred to the land of Israel as contrasted with Babylonia, for this reason many object to the use of Mizrahi to include Moroccan and other North African Jews. In modern Israeli usage, it refers to all Jews from Central and West Asian countries, the term came to be widely used more by Mizrahi activists in the early 1990s. Since then in Israel it has become an accepted semi-official and media designation, most of the Mizrahi activists actually originated from North African Jewish communities, traditionally called Westerners, rather than Easterners. g. Moroccan Jew, or prefer to use the old term Sephardic in its broader meaning, today, many identify all non-Ashkenazi rite Jews as Sephardic - in modern Hebrew Sfaradim, mixing ancestral origin and religious rite. This broader definition of Sephardim as including all, or most, the reason for this classification of all Mizrahim under Sephardic rite is that most Mizrahi communities use much the same religious rituals as Sephardim proper due to historical reasons. The prevalence of the Sephardic rite among Mizrahim is partially a result of Sephardim proper joining some of Mizrahi communities following the 1492 expulsion from Sepharad. Even before this assimilation, the rite of many Jewish Oriental communities was already closer to the Sephardi rite than to the Ashkenazi one. Many of the Sephardic Jews exiled from Spain resettled in greater or lesser numbers in many Arabic-speaking countries, such as Syria, in Syria, most eventually intermarried with and assimilated into the larger established communities of Arabic-speaking Jews and Mizrahi Jews. In some North African countries such as Morocco, Sephardic Jews came in greater numbers, in Arab nations, Mizrahim most often speak Arabic, although Arabic is now mainly used as a second language, especially by the older generation. Most of the many notable philosophical, religious and literary works of the Jews in Spain, North Africa, Neo-Aramaic is a Semitic language closely related to Hebrew. It is identified as a Jewish language, since it is the language of major Jewish texts such as the Talmud and Zohar, traditionally, Aramaic has been a language of Talmudic debate in yeshivoth, as many rabbinic texts are written in a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic. The current alphabet used for Hebrew, known as Assyrian lettering or the script, was in fact borrowed from Aramaic
7.
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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The Hebrew University of Jerusalem is Israels second oldest university established in 1918,30 years before the State of Israel. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot, the worlds largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J. Safra Givat Ram campus. The university has 5 affiliated teaching hospitals including the Hadassah Medical Center,7 faculties, more than 100 research centers, a third of all the doctoral candidates in Israel are studying in the Hebrew University. The first Board of Governors included Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Martin Buber, four of Israels prime ministers are alumni of the Hebrew University. In the last decade, eight researchers and alumni of the University received the Nobel Prize, one was awarded the Fields Medal, one of the visions of the Zionist movement was the establishment of a Jewish university in the Land of Israel. Founding a university was proposed as far back as 1884 in the Kattowitz conference of the Hovevei Zion society, the cornerstone for the university was laid on July 24,1918. The Universitys first Chancellor was Judah Magnes, by 1947, the University had become a large research and teaching institution. Plans for a school were approved in May 1949, and in November 1949. In 1952, it was announced that the institute founded by the University in 1940 would become a full-fledged faculty. During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, attacks were carried out against convoys moving between the Israeli-controlled section of Jerusalem and the University. The leader of the Arab forces in Jerusalem, Abdul Kader Husseini, after the Hadassah medical convoy massacre, in which 79 Jews, including doctors and nurses, were slaughtered, the Mount Scopus campus was cut off from Jerusalem. British soldier Jack Churchill coordinated the evacuation of 700 Jewish doctors, when the Jordan government denied Israeli access to Mount Scopus, a new campus was built at Givat Ram in western Jerusalem and completed in 1958. In the interim, classes were held in 40 different buildings around the city, the Terra Santa building in Rehavia, rented from the Franciscan Custodians of the Latin Holy Places, was also used for this purpose. A few years later, together with the Hadassah Medical Organization, by the beginning of 1967, the students numbered 12,500, spread among the two campuses in Jerusalem and the agricultural faculty in Rehovot. After the unification of Jerusalem, following the Six-Day War of June 1967, the University was able to return to Mount Scopus, in 1981 the construction work was completed, and Mount Scopus again became the main campus of the University. On July 31,2002, a member of a terrorist cell detonated a bomb during lunch hour at the Universitys Frank Sinatra cafeteria when it was crowded with staff and students. Nine people — five Israelis, three Americans, and one dual French-American citizen — were murdered and more than 70 wounded, World leaders, including Kofi Annan, President Bush, and the President of the European Union issued statements of condemnation. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, Rothberg International School, the Rothberg International School features secular studies and Jewish/Israeli studies
8.
Irgun
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The Irgun was a Zionist paramilitary organization that operated in Mandate Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of the older and larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah, when the group broke from the Haganah it became known as the Haganah Bet, or alternatively as haHaganah haLeumit or Hamaamad. Irgun members were absorbed into the Israel Defense Forces at the start of the 1948 Arab–Israeli war, the Irgun is also referred to as Etzel, an acronym of the Hebrew initials, or by the abbreviation IZL. The Irgun policy was based on what was then called Revisionist Zionism founded by Zeev Jabotinsky, the Irgun has been viewed as a terrorist organization or organization which carried out terrorist acts. Irguns tactics appealed to many Jews who believed that any action taken in the cause of the creation of a Jewish state was justified, the Irgun was a political predecessor to Israels right-wing Herut party, which led to todays Likud party. Likud has led or been part of most Israeli governments since 1977, members of the Irgun came mostly from Betar and from the Revisionist Party both in Palestine and abroad. The Revisionist Movement made up a backing for the underground organization. Zeev Jabotinsky, founder of Revisionist Zionism, commanded the organization until he died in 1940 and he formulated the general realm of operation, regarding Restraint and the end thereof, and was the inspiration for the organization overall. An additional major source of inspiration was the poetry of Uri Zvi Greenberg. The number of members of the Irgun varied from a few hundred to a few thousand, most of its members were people who joined the organizations command, under which they carried out various operations and filled positions, largely in opposition to British law. Most of them were people, who held regular jobs. Therefore, the Irgun tended to ignore the decisions made by the Zionist leadership, the Irgun put out numerous advertisements, an underground newspaper and even ran the first independent Hebrew radio station – Kol Zion HaLochemet. As members of an armed organization, Irgun personnel did not normally call Irgun by its name. In the first years of its existence it was primarily as Ha-Haganah Leumit, and also by names such as Haganah Bet, Irgun Bet, the Parallel Organization. Later on it became most widely known as המעמד, the anthem adopted by the Irgun was Anonymous Soldiers, written by Avraham Stern who was at the time a commander in the Irgun. Later on Stern defected from the Irgun and founded Lehi, the Irguns new anthem then became the third verse of the Betar Song, by Zeev Jabotinsky. The Irgun gradually evolved from its origins into a serious. The movement developed a hierarchy of ranks and a sophisticated command-structure and it developed clandestine networks of hidden arms-caches and weapons-production workshops, safe-houses, and training camps
9.
Lehi (group)
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Lehi, often known pejoratively as the Stern Gang, was a Zionist paramilitary organization founded by Avraham Stern in Mandatory Palestine. It was initially called the National Military Organization in Israel, upon being founded in August 1940, according to Jean E. Rosenfeld, the group admitted to have used terrorist attacks. Lehi split from the Irgun militant group in 1940 in order to fighting the British during World War II. Believing that Nazi Germany was a enemy of the Jews than Britain. During World War II, it declared that it would establish a Jewish state based upon nationalist, after Sterns death in 1942, the new leadership of Lehi began to move it towards support for Joseph Stalins Soviet Union. In 1944, Lehi officially declared its support for National Bolshevism, Lehi and the Irgun were jointly responsible for the massacre in Deir Yassin. Lehi assassinated Lord Moyne, British Minister Resident in the Middle East, after the assassination, the new Israeli government declared Lehi a terrorist organization, arresting and convicting some 200 members. Just before the first Israeli elections, an amnesty to Lehi members was granted by the government. In 1980, Israel instituted a decoration, an award for activity in the struggle for the establishment of Israel. Former Lehi leader Yitzhak Shamir became Prime Minister of Israel in 1983, Lehi was created in August 1940 by Avraham Stern. Stern had been a member of the Irgun high command, zeev Jabotinsky, then the Irguns supreme commander, had decided that diplomacy and working with Britain would best serve the Zionist cause. World War II was in progress, and Britain was fighting Nazi Germany, the Irgun suspended its underground military activities against the British for the duration of the war. Stern argued that the time for Zionist diplomacy was over and that it was time for armed struggle against the British, like other Zionists, he objected to the White Paper of 1939, which restricted both Jewish immigration and Jewish land purchases in Palestine. For Stern, no difference existed between Hitler and Chamberlain, between Dachau or Buchenwald and sealing the gates of Eretz Israel, Stern wanted to open Palestine to all Jewish refugees from Europe, and considered this as by far the most important issue of the day. Therefore, he concluded, the Yishuv should fight the British rather than them in the war. When the Irgun made a truce with the British, Stern left the Irgun to form his own group, Stern and his followers believed that dying for the foreign occupier who was obstructing the creation of the Jewish State was useless. They differentiated between enemies of the Jewish people and Jew haters, believing that the former needed to be defeated, in September 1940, the organization was officially named Lehi. In 1940, the idea of the Final Solution was still unthinkable, in December 1940, Lehi even contacted Germany with a proposal to aid German conquest in the Middle East in return for recognition of a Jewish state open to unlimited immigration
10.
Bethlehem
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Bethlehem is a Palestinian city located in the central West Bank, Palestine, about 10 km south of Jerusalem. Its population is approximately 25,000 people and it is the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate. The earliest known mention of the city was in the Amarna correspondence of 1350–1330 BCE during its habitation by the Canaanites. The Hebrew Bible, which says that the city of Bethlehem was built up as a city by Rehoboam, identifies it as the city David was from. The New Testament identifies Bethlehem as the birthplace of Jesus, the church was badly damaged by the Samaritans, who sacked it during a revolt in 529, but was rebuilt a century later by Emperor Justinian I. Bethlehem became part of Jund Filastin following the Muslim conquest in 637, Muslim rule continued in Bethlehem until its conquest in 1099 by a crusading army, who replaced the towns Greek Orthodox clergy with a Latin one. In the mid-13th century, the Mamluks demolished the citys walls, control of Bethlehem passed from the Ottomans to the British at the end of World War I. Bethlehem came under Jordanian rule during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and was captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. Since the 1995 Oslo Accords, Bethlehem has been administered by the Palestinian Authority, Bethlehem now has a Muslim majority, but is still home to a significant Palestinian Christian community. Bethlehems chief economic sector is tourism, which peaks during the Christmas season when Christians make pilgrimage to the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem has over 30 hotels and 300 handicraft workshops. Rachels Tomb, an important Jewish holy site, is located at the entrance of Bethlehem. The earliest reference to Bethlehem appears in the Amarna correspondence, let the king hear the words of your servant Abdi-Heba, and send archers to restore the imperial lands of the king. It is thought that the similarity of name to its modern forms indicates that this was a settlement of Canaanites who shared a Semitic cultural. Lachmo was the Chaldean god of fertility, worshipped by the Canaanites as Lachama, some time in the 3rd millennium BCE, they erected a temple to worship the god on the hill now known as the Hill of the Nativity. The town was known as Beit Lachama, meaning House of Lachama, the Philistines later established a garrison there. The archaeologists were able to identify at least 30 tombs, the Bible also calls it Beth-Lehem Judah, and the New Testament describes it as the City of David. It is first mentioned in the Tanakh and the Bible as the place where the matriarch Rachel died and was buried by the wayside, Rachels Tomb, the traditional grave site, stands at the entrance to Bethlehem. According to the Book of Ruth, the valley to the east is where Ruth of Moab gleaned the fields and it was the home of Jesse, father of King David of Israel, and the site of Davids anointment by the prophet Samuel
11.
Declaration of Independence (Israel)
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It declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel, which would come into effect on termination of the British Mandate at midnight that day. The event is celebrated annually in Israel with a national holiday Yom Haatzmaut on 5 Iyar of every year according to the Hebrew calendar, the possibility of a Jewish homeland in Palestine had been a goal of Zionist organizations since the late 19th century. After World War I, the United Kingdom was given a mandate for Palestine, in the face of increasing violence after World War II, the British handed the issue over to the recently established United Nations. The result was Resolution 181, a plan to partition Palestine into Independent Arab and Jewish States, the Jewish state was to receive around 56% of the land area of Mandate Palestine, encompassing 82% of the Jewish population, though it would be separated from Jerusalem. The plan was accepted by most of the Jewish population, the result was 33 to 13 in favour of the resolution, with 10 abstentions. Resolution 181, PART I, Future constitution and government of Palestine, TERMINATION OF MANDATE, PARTITION AND INDEPENDENCE, Clause 3 provides, Independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem. Shall come into existence in Palestine two months after the evacuation of the forces of the mandatory Power has been completed. The first draft of the declaration was made by Zvi Berenson, a revised second draft was made by three lawyers, A. Beham, A. Hintzheimer and Z. E. Baker, and was framed by a committee including David Remez, Pinchas Rosen, Haim-Moshe Shapira, Moshe Sharett, a second committee meeting, which included David Ben-Gurion, Yehuda Leib Maimon, Sharett and Zisling produced the final text. On 12 May 1948, the Minhelet HaAm was convened to vote on declaring independence, three of the thirteen members were missing, with Yehuda Leib Maimon and Yitzhak Gruenbaum being blocked in besieged Jerusalem, while Yitzhak-Meir Levin was in the United States. The meeting started at 1,45 in the afternoon and ended after midnight, the decision was between accepting the American proposal for a truce, or declaring independence. The latter option was put to a vote, with six of the ten members present supporting it, For, David Ben-Gurion, Moshe Sharett, Peretz Bernstein, Haim-Moshe Shapira, Mordechai Bentov, against, Eliezer Kaplan, David Remez, Pinchas Rosen, Bechor-Shalom Sheetrit. Chaim Weizmann, chairman of the World Zionist Organization and soon to be the first President of Israel, endorsed the decision, after reportedly asking What are they waiting for, the idiots. The draft text was submitted for approval to a meeting of Moetzet HaAm at the JNF building in Tel Aviv on 14 May. The meeting started at 13,50 and ended at 15,00, an hour before the declaration was due to be made, during the process, there were two major debates, centering on the issues of borders and religion. On the border issue, the draft had declared that the borders would be that decided by the UN partition plan. While this was supported by Rosen and Bechor-Shalom Sheetrit, it was opposed by Ben-Gurion and Zisling, with Ben-Gurion stating, We accepted the UN Resolution and they are preparing to make war on us. If we defeat them and capture western Galilee or territory on both sides of the road to Jerusalem, these areas become part of the state
12.
Israel Eldad
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Israel Eldad, was an Israeli Revisionist Zionist philosopher and member of the pre-state underground group Lehi. Israel Scheib was born in 1910 in Pidvolochysk, Galicia in a traditional Jewish home, the Scheibs wandered as refugees during the First World War. In 1918, in Lvov, young Scheib witnessed a funeral procession for Jews murdered in a pogrom, after high school, Scheib enrolled at the Rabbinical Seminary of Vienna for religious studies and the University of Vienna for secular studies. He completed his doctorate on The Voluntarism of Eduard von Hartmann, Based on Schopenhauer, meanwhile, he attended, with his father, a protest demonstration in front of the local British Consulate following the 1929 Arab riots in Palestine. The next year he read a poem by Uri Zvi Greenberg, Ill Tell It to a Child, about a messiah who cannot redeem his people because they are not ready to accept redemption. Two or three years later, Scheib met Greenberg at a speech Greenberg was giving entitled “The Land of Israel Is in Flames. ”Scheibs first job after graduation was high school teaching in Volkovisk. He also published articles in Revisionist Zionist journals and became the commander of a local Betar section, Scheib joined the staff of the Teachers Seminary in Vilna in 1937 while this city was part of Poland, where he stayed for two years. During that time he rose in the Betar ranks to the position of staff officer. In 1938, at the Third Betar Conference in Warsaw, when the Revisionist leader Zeev Jabotinsky attacked the militant stance of Polands Betar leader Menachem Begin, the next year, when the Second World War broke out, Scheib and Begin escaped together from Warsaw. The Lehi was at that point waging a violent struggle for freedom from British rule, Scheib adopted several aliases while living underground, including Sambatyon and Eldad. He worked in 1942 directly with Lehi founder Avraham Stern, after Stern’s killing by the British, Eldad became one of a triumvirate of Lehi commanders, serving with Natan Yellin-Mor and future prime minister Yitzhak Shamir. It was in this role that, in September 1948, Eldad participated in ordering the assassination of Folke Bernadotte, Yellin-Mor was the diplomatic foreign minister, Shamir the operations man, and Eldad the ideologue. For the next six years Eldad wrote articles for various underground newspapers, Eldad also wrote some of the speeches delivered in court by Lehi defendants. Eldad was arrested by the British fleeing from a Tel Aviv apartment, he was injured in a fall from a water pipe and he continued his political and philosophical writing from Cell 18 of the hospital ward at the Jerusalem Central Prison. Eventually Eldad healed enough to escape while on a visit in a dentists clinic, during Israels War of Independence, Eldad was critical of Menachem Begins Irgun for what he thought of not fighting against the Israel Defence Forces during the Altalena Affair. He was also critical of the IDF for not fighting harder to conquer Jerusalems Old City, towards the end of the war, Eldad disguised himself as a foreign journalist in order to sneak past Israeli military roadblocks and join the battle for Jerusalem. The Lehi veterans organized politically as the Fighters List, the party won one seat in the election for the First Knesset and dissolved afterwards. At one party meeting, Eldad lectured on Sulam, Jacobs ladder, for 14 years he published a revolutionary journal, Sulam
13.
Maariv
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Maariv or Maariv, also known as Arvit, is a Jewish prayer service held in the evening or night. It consists primarily of the evening Shema and Amidah, the service usually begins with two verses from Psalms, followed by the communal recitation of Barechu. The three paragraphs of the Shema are then said, both preceded and followed by two blessings, although sometimes a fifth blessing is added at the end, the Amidah is said quietly by everyone, and, unlike at the other services, is not repeated by the hazzan. He recites the full Kaddish, Aleinu is recited, and the mourners Kaddish ends the service, other prayers occasionally added include the Counting of the Omer and Psalm 27. Maariv is generally recited after sunset, however, it may be recited as early as one and a quarter seasonal hours before sunset. This is common only on Friday nights, in order to begin Shabbat earlier, at the conclusion of Shabbat and holidays, the service is usually delayed until nightfall. While Maariv should be prayed before midnight, it may be recited until daybreak or even sunrise, the word Maariv is the first significant word in the opening blessing of the evening service. It is derived from the Hebrew word erev, which translates to evening, Maariv is a conversion of this word into a verb, which means bringing on night. Arvit is the form of this word, roughly translated as of the evening. Maariv is said to correspond to the observances in the Holy Temple. Although there were no sacrifices brought at night, any parts which were not burned during the day could be offered at night. Since this was not always necessary, the prayer was declared to be optional as well. However, the Jews long ago accepted it as an obligation, however, there remain some vestiges of its original voluntary status, for example, the Amidah is not repeated by the leader, unlike by all other prayers. Another explanation is that as the prayer, Maariv corresponds to Jacob. Support is brought from Genesis 28,11, which says that when Jacob left his hometown of Beersheva to go to Haran, the Talmud understands this to mean that Jacob prayed at night, and hence instituted Maariv. Some suggest that he first started reciting the prayer after he fled from his homeland, and as a result, generally, the time when Maariv can first be recited is when the time for reciting Mincha ends. But there are varying opinions on this, Maariv should not begin before 1¼ hours before sunset. Others delay Maariv until after sunset or after dusk and this is so the Shema can be recited in its proper time
14.
Menachem Mendel Schneerson
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Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known to many as the Rebbe, was a Russian Empire-born American Orthodox Jewish rabbi, and the last Lubavitcher Rebbe. He is considered one of the most influential Jewish leaders of the 20th century, the institutions he established include kindergartens, schools, drug-rehabilitation centers, care-homes for the disabled and synagogues. He is recognized as the pioneer of Jewish outreach, in 1978, the U. S. Congress asked President Carter to designate Schneersons birthday as the national Education Day U. S. A. It has been commemorated as Education and Sharing Day. In 1994, he was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for his outstanding and lasting contributions toward improvements in world education, morality. Schneersons resting place attracts Jews and non-Jews for prayer, Menachem Mendel Schneerson was born on Friday, April 5,1902 in the Black Sea port of Nikolaev in the Russian Empire. His father was Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, a renowned Talmudic scholar and authority on Kabbalah and his mother was Rebbetzin Chana Schneerson. He was named after the third Chabad rebbe, the Tzemach Tzedek, in 1907, when Schneerson was six years old, the family moved to Yekatrinislav, where Levi Yitzchak was appointed Chief Rabbi of the city. He served until 1939, when he was exiled by the Soviets to Uzbekistan, Schneerson had two younger brothers, Dov Ber, who was murdered in 1944 by Nazi collaborators, and Yisrael Aryeh Leib, who died in 1952 while completing doctoral studies at Liverpool University. Schneerson was described as a boy with blond hair, and was gifted with extraordinary intelligence. During his youth, he received an education and was tutored by Zalman Vilenkin from 1909 through 1913. When Schneerson was eleven years old, Vilenkin informed his father that he had nothing more to teach his son, at that point, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak began teaching his son Talmud and rabbinic literature, as well as Kabbalah. Schneerson proved gifted in both Talmudic and Kabalistic study and also took exams as a student of the local Soviet school. He was considered an Illui and genius, and by the time he was seventeen, he had mastered the entire Talmud, throughout his childhood Schneerson was involved in the affairs of his fathers office. He was also said to have acted as an interpreter between the Jewish community and the Russian authorities on a number of occasions, Levi Yitzchaks courage and principles were a guide to his son for the rest of his life. Many years later, when he once reminisced about his youth, when it comes to saving lives, I speak up whatever others may say. Schneerson went on to receive separate rabbinical ordinations from the Rogatchover Gaon, Rabbi Yosef Rosen, in 1923 Schneerson for the first time visited the sixth Chabad-Lubavitch Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, where he met the Rabbis middle daughter Chaya Mushka. Sometime later they engaged, but were not married until 1928 in Warsaw
15.
Mossad
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Mossad, short for HaMossad leModiʿin uleTafkidim Meyuḥadim, is the national intelligence agency of Israel. It is one of the entities in the Israeli Intelligence Community, along with Aman. Its director reports directly to the Prime Minister, the largest department of Mossad is Collections, tasked with many aspects of conducting espionage overseas. Employees in the Collections Department operate under a variety of covers, including diplomatic, the Political Action and Liaison Department is responsible for working with allied foreign intelligence services, and nations that have no normal diplomatic relations with Israel. Additionally, Mossad has a Research Department, tasked with production. Metsada is the unit responsible for attacking the enemy, which is different from the assassination unit. Mossad was formed on December 13,1949, as the Central Institute for Coordination at the recommendation of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to Reuven Shiloah, in March 1951, it was reorganized and made a part of the prime ministers office, reporting directly to the prime minister. Mossads former motto, be-tachbūlōt taaseh lekhā milchāmāh is a quote from the Bible, the motto was later changed to another Proverbs passage, be-éyn tachbūlōt yippol ām, ū-teshūāh be-rov yōéts. This is translated by NRSV as, Where there is no guidance, a nation falls, the Kidon is described by Yaakov Katz as an elite group of expert assassins who operate under the Caesarea branch of the espionage organization. Not much is known about this unit, details of which are some of the most closely guarded secrets in the Israeli intelligence community. The unit only recruits from former soldiers from the elite IDF special force units, a team of five Mossad agents led by Shimon Ben Aharon slipped into Argentina and through surveillance, confirmed that he had been living there under the name of Ricardo Klement. He was abducted on May 11,1960 and taken to a hideout and he was subsequently smuggled to Israel, where he was tried and executed. Mossad abandoned a second operation, intended to capture Josef Mengele, during the 1990s, Mossad discovered a Hezbollah agent operating within the United States in order to procure materials needed to manufacture IEDs and other weapons. In a joint operation with U. S. intelligence, the agent was kept under surveillance in hopes that he would betray more Hezbollah operatives, but was eventually arrested. Mossad informed the FBI and CIA in August 2001 that based on its intelligence as many as 200 terrorists were slipping into the United States and planning a major assault on the United States. The Israeli intelligence agency cautioned the FBI that it had picked up indications of a target in the United States. However, It is not known whether U. S. authorities thought the warning to be credible, a month later, terrorists struck at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in the largest terrorist attack in history. Mossad assassinated Latvian Nazi collaborator Herberts Cukurs in 1965, Mossad gathered information on Austrian politician Jörg Haider using a mole
16.
Yitzhak Shamir
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Yitzhak Shamir was an Israeli politician and the seventh Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms, 1983–84 and 1986–1992. Before the establishment of the State of Israel, Shamir was a leader of the Zionist paramilitary group Lehi, after the establishment of the State of Israel he served in the Mossad between 1955 and 1965, a Knesset Member, a Knesset Speaker and a Foreign Affairs Minister. Shamir was the countrys third longest-serving prime minister after David Ben-Gurion and those close to Shamir noted that he often recalls his childhood and youth in Belarus. Shamir later moved to Białystok, Poland and studied at a Hebrew high school network, as a youth he joined Betar, the Revisionist Zionist youth movement. He studied law at the University of Warsaw, but cut his studies short to immigrate to what was then Mandatory Palestine, Shamir once stated that every Pole sucked anti-Semitism with his mothers milk. The comment caused controversy within Poland as being slanderous and libelous, the Polish writer and former resistance fighter Jan Nowak-Jeziorański commented, To conclude from the 1941 pogroms that the Holocaust was the common work of Poles and Germans is a libel. All who feel themselves to be Polish have the responsibility to defend themselves against such slander, the difference is that Poles were eyewitnesses, defenseless witnesses living in constant fear for their lives and the lives of their families. His parents and two died during the Holocaust. However this story has never confirmed by other sources. His mother and a sister died in the camps and another sister was shot dead. According to an obituary, he had dreamed of living in the Land of Israel since he was a boy, in 1935, Shamir emigrated to Palestine, where he worked in an accountants office. He later adopted as his surname the name he used on a forged underground identity card and he told his wife this was because Shamir means a thorn that stabs and a rock that can cut steel. In 1944 he married Shulamit, whom he met in a detention camp when she migrated to Mandate Palestine from Bulgaria by boat in 1941 and was incarcerated because she entered the territory illegally and they had two children, Yair and Gilada. Shulamit died on July 29,2011, Shamir joined the Irgun Zvai Leumi, a Zionist paramilitary group that opposed British control of Palestine. When the Irgun split in 1940, Shamir joined the militant faction Lehi, also known as the Stern Gang. In 1941 Shamir was imprisoned by British authorities, Shamir, together with Giladi, Anshell Shpillman and Yehoshua Cohen, reorganized the movement into cells and trained its members. In 1943, he one of the three leaders of the group, serving with Nathan Yellin-Mor and Israel Eldad. Shamir sought to emulate the anti-British struggle of the Irish Republicans, Shamir plotted the 1944 assassination of Lord Moyne, British Minister for Middle East Affairs, and personally selected Eliyahu Hakim and Eliyahu Bet-Zuri to carry it out
17.
Meir Kahane
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He was an ordained Orthodox rabbi, and later served as a member of the Israeli Knesset. He gained recognition as an advocate for Jewish causes, such as organizing defense squads and patrols in Jewish neighborhoods. Kahane founded the Jewish Defense League in the United States, as well as the Israeli political party Kach, in 1971, he was convicted for conspiracy to manufacture explosives. In 1984, he became a member of the Knesset, when Kach gained one seat in parliamentary elections, in 1988, after polls showed Kach gaining popularity, the Israeli government banned Kach for being racist and anti-democratic under the terms of an ad hoc law. Kahane was assassinated in a Manhattan hotel by an Arab gunman in November 1990, Martin David Kahane was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1932 to an Orthodox Jewish family. As a teenager, Kahane became an ardent admirer of Zeev Jabotinsky and Peter Bergson, who were frequent guests in his parents home, and joined the Betar youth wing of Revisionist Zionism. He was active in protests against Ernest Bevin, the British Foreign Secretary who maintained restrictions on immigration of Jews to Palestine after the end of the Second World War. In 1947, Kahane was arrested for throwing eggs and tomatoes at Bevin, a photo of the arrest appeared in the New York Daily News. In 1954, he became the mazkir of Greater New York City’s sixteen Bnei Akiva chapters, Kahane’s formal education included elementary school at the Yeshiva of Flatbush, and high school at both Abraham Lincoln H. S. and at the Brooklyn Talmudical Academy. Kahane received his ordination from the Mir Yeshiva in Brooklyn, where he was especially admired by the head, Rabbi Abraham Kalmanowitz. He was fully conversant with the Tanakh, Talmud, Midrash, and Jewish law. Subsequently, Kahane earned a B. A. in Political Science from Brooklyn College, a Bachelor of Law – LL. B. from New York Law School and an M. A. in International Relations from New York University. In 1956, Kahane married Libby Blum, with whom he had four children, Tzipporah, Tova, Baruch, in 1958, he became the rabbi of the Howard Beach Jewish Center in Queens, New York City. At the Jewish Center, Kahane influenced many of the youngsters to adopt a more observant lifestyle. He trained Arlo Guthrie for his bar mitzvah, when his contract was not renewed, he soon published an article entitled End of the Miracle of Howard Beach. This was Kahane’s first article in the Jewish Press, American-Jewish weekly, Kahane also used the pen name David Sinai and the pseudonyms Michael King, David Borac and Martin Keene. In the late 1950s to early 1960s, Kahanes life of secrecy, according to his wife, Libby, his assignment was to infiltrate the anti-communist John Birch Society and report his findings back to the FBI. Later, Michael T. Kaufman published an article claiming that at this point, at some time in the late 1950s, Kahane took on the persona of a non-religious individual, along with the pseudonym Michael King
18.
Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
19.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
20.
Menachem Begin
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Menachem Begin was an Israeli politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of Israel. Before the creation of the state of Israel, he was the leader of the Zionist militant group Irgun and he proclaimed a revolt, on 1 February 1944, against the British mandatory government, which was opposed by the Jewish Agency. As head of the Irgun, he targeted the British in Palestine, later, the Irgun fought the Arabs during the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine. He remained in opposition in the eight elections, but became more acceptable to the political center. His 1977 electoral victory and premiership ended three decades of Labor Party political dominance, Begin’s most significant achievement as Prime Minister was the signing of a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979, for which he and Anwar Sadat shared the Nobel Prize for Peace. In the wake of the Camp David Accords, the Israel Defense Forces withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula, later, Begin’s government promoted the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Begin authorized the bombing of the Osirak nuclear plant in Iraq, as IDF forces remained mired in Lebanon and the economy suffered from hyperinflation, the public pressure on Begin mounted. Depressed by the death of his wife Aliza in November 1982, he withdrew from public life. He was the youngest of three children, on his mothers side he was descended from distinguished rabbis. His father, a merchant, was a community leader, a passionate Zionist. The midwife who attended his birth was the grandmother of Ariel Sharon, after a year of a traditional cheder education Begin started studying at a Tachkemoni school, associated with the religious Zionist movement. In his childhood, Begin, like most Jewish children in his town, was a member of the Zionist scouts movement Hashomer Hatzair and he was a member of Hashomer Hatzair until the age of 13, and at 16, he joined Betar. At 14, he was sent to a Polish government school, Begin studied law at the University of Warsaw, where he learned the oratory and rhetoric skills that became his trademark as a politician, and viewed as demagogy by his critics. During his studies, he organized a group of Jewish students to counter harassment by anti-Semites on campus. He graduated in 1935, but never practiced law, at this time, he became a disciple of Vladimir Zeev Jabotinsky, the founder of the nationalist Revisionist Zionism movement and its Betar youth wing. His rise within Betar was rapid, At 22, he shared the dais with his mentor at the Betar World Congress in Kraków, the pre-war Polish government actively supported Zionist youth and paramilitary movements. Begins leadership qualities were quickly recognised, in 1937 he was the active head of Betar in Czechoslovakia and became head of the largest branch, that of Poland. As head of Betars Polish branch, Begin traveled among regional branches to encourage supporters, to save money, he stayed at the homes of Betar members
21.
Herut
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Herut was the major right-wing nationalist political party in Israel from 1948 until its formal merger into Likud in 1988. It was an adherent of Revisionist Zionism and was known in part for its militia actions. Herut was founded by Menachem Begin on 15 June 1948 as a successor to the Revisionist Irgun, the new party was a challenge to the Hatzohar party established by Zeev Jabotinsky. Herut also established a newspaper, with many of its founding journalists defecting from Hatzohars HaMashkif. Heruts political expectations were high as the first election approached in 1949 and it took credit for driving the British government out and as a young movement, reflecting the esprit of the nation, it perceived its image as being more attractive than the old establishment. They hoped to win 25 seats, which would place second and make them leader of the opposition. This analysis was shared by other parties, objection to withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces and negotiations with Arab states was the partys main platform in the first election. The party vigorously opposed the agreements with the Arab states until the annexation of Gaza Strip. According to Joseph Heller, Herut was a one-issue party intent on expanding Israels borders, Heruts socio-economic platform represented a clear shift to the right, with support for private initiative but also for legislation preventing the trusts from exploiting workers. Begin was at first careful not to appear anti-socialist, stressing his opposition to monopolies and trusts, Herut was from the outset inclined to sympathise with the underdog and, according to Hannah Torok Yablonka, tended to serve as a lodestone for societys misfits. The party was renowned for its views and militia actions. The practical differences between Herut and Mapai, however, were less dramatic than the rhetoric suggested, the party and its leader, Begin, had met fierce resistance from the Labor Zionist establishment in Israel and abroad for many years. They were criticised by Jewish intellectuals on the occasion of Begins visit to New York City in an letter to The New York Times on 4 December 1948. The letter condemned Herut as akin to Nazi and Fascist parties and it was signed by over twenty prominent Jewish intellectuals, including Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt, Zellig Harris and Sidney Hook. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, today they speak of freedom, democracy and anti-imperialism, whereas until recently they openly preached the doctrine of the Fascist state. It is in its actions that the terrorist party betrays its real character, the hostility between Begin and Israels first Prime Minister, the Mapai leader, David Ben-Gurion, which had begun over the Altalena Affair was evident in the Knesset. Ben-Gurion coined the phrase without Herut and Maki, a reference to his position that he would any party in his coalition. In fact, Herut was approached at least three times by Mapai for government negotiations but Begin turned down the each time, suspecting that they were designed to divide his party
22.
Knesset
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The Knesset is the unicameral national legislature of Israel. As the legislative branch of the Israeli government, the Knesset passes all laws, elects the President and Prime Minister, approves the cabinet, in addition, the Knesset elects the State Comptroller. The Prime Minister may also dissolve the Knesset, however, until an election is completed, the Knesset maintains authority in its current composition. The Knesset is located in Givat Ram, Jerusalem, as the legislative branch of the Israeli government, the Knesset passes all laws, elects the president, approves the cabinet, and supervises the work of the government through its committees. It also has the power to waive the immunity of its members, remove the President and the State Comptroller from office, the Knesset is presided over by a Speaker and a Deputy Speaker. The Knesset is divided into committees, which amend bills on the appropriate subjects, Committee chairpersons are chosen by their members, on recommendation of the House Committee, and their factional composition represents that of the Knesset itself. Committees may elect sub-committees and delegate powers to them, or establish joint committees for issues concerning more than one committee, to further their deliberations, they invite government ministers, senior officials, and experts in the matter being discussed. There are four types of committees in the Knesset, permanent committees amend proposed legislation dealing with their area of expertise, and may initiate legislation. However, such legislation may only deal with Basic Laws and laws dealing with the Knesset, elections to the Knesset, Knesset members, or the State Comptroller. Special committees function in a manner to permanent committees, but are appointed to deal with particular manners at hand. Parliamentary inquiry committees are appointed by the plenum to deal with issues viewed as having national importance. The Ethics Committee is responsible for jurisdiction over Knesset members who violate the rules of ethics of the Knesset, within the framework of responsibility, the Ethics Committee may place various sanctions on a member, but is not allowed to restrict a members right to vote. The Knesset numbers 120 members, a subject which has often been a cause for proposed reforms and this proposed law has also been favoured by other politicians, including Benjamin Netanyahu. The 120 members of the Knesset are popularly elected from a single electoral district to concurrent four-year terms. All Israeli citizens 18 years or older may vote in legislative elections, Knesset seats are allocated among the various parties using the DHondt method of party list proportional representation. A party or electoral alliance must pass the threshold of 3. 25% of the overall vote to be allocated a Knesset seat. Parties select their candidates using a closed list, thus, voters select the party of their choice, not any specific candidate. The electoral threshold was set at 1% from 1949 to 1992, then 1. 5% from 1992 to 2003
23.
Camp David Accords
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The Camp David Accords were signed by Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin on 17 September 1978, following twelve days of secret negotiations at Camp David. The two framework agreements were signed at the White House, and were witnessed by United States President Jimmy Carter, the second of these frameworks led directly to the 1979 Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty. Due to the agreement, Sadat and Begin received the shared 1978 Nobel Peace Prize, the first framework, which dealt with the Palestinian territories, was written without participation of the Palestinians and was condemned by the United Nations. The Camp David Accords were the result of 14 months of efforts by Egypt, Israel. The efforts initially focused on a resolution of disputes between Israel and the Arab countries, gradually evolving into a search for a bilateral agreement between Israel and Egypt. Upon assuming office on January 20,1977, President Carter moved to rejuvenate the Middle East peace process that had stalled throughout the 1976 presidential campaign in the United States, the Yom Kippur War further complicated efforts to achieve the objectives written in United Nations Security Council Resolution 242. Israels Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and his successor, Menachem Begin, were skeptical of an international conference. Even earlier, Begin had not been opposed to returning the Sinai, Carter visited the heads of state on whom he would have to rely to make any peace agreement feasible. By the end of his first year in office, he had met with Anwar El Sadat of Egypt, King Hussein of Jordan, Hafez al-Assad of Syria. Hafez al-Assad, who had no particular interest in negotiating peace with Israel, also refused to come to the United States, the Prime Minister had not yet arrived at his office and the caller spoke to Mr. Yechiel Kadishai, a Begin staff head. Kadishai said that no one was speaking with anyone and we expect a war in October and he also told the caller that if any high level talks were to occur the caller could be assured that they would be using his approach. Begin arrived, was informed of the plan, and contacted Sadat who agreed to the plan on that day, on the next day, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance traveled to the Middle East to obtain firsthand confirmation of the agreement between Israel and Egypt. The following day, Tuesday,8 August, the Camp David meeting was scheduled to take place in exactly 4 weeks time, the plan was that Israel agreed on 6 August to return the land to Egypt. Sadat’s then waning popularity would be enhanced as a result of such an achievement. Israels security was insured by the activities to take place during the transition period. Those activities also were included in the idea for peace communicated to Begins office on 6 August. President Anwar El Sadat came to feel that the Geneva track peace process was more show than substance and he also lacked confidence in the Western powers to pressure Israel after a meeting with the Western leaders. On 9 November 1977, President Sadat startled the world by announcing to parliament his intention to go to Jerusalem, shortly afterward, the Israeli government cordially invited him to address the Knesset in a message passed to Sadat via the US ambassador to Egypt
24.
Sinai Peninsula
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The Sinai Peninsula or simply Sinai is a peninsula in Egypt, situated between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, serving as a land bridge between Asia and Africa. It is the part of Egyptian territory located in Asia. Sinai has an area of about 60,000 km2. The bulk of the peninsula is divided administratively into two of Egypts 27 governorates, the Sinai Peninsula has been a part of Egypt from the First Dynasty of ancient Egypt. In periods of occupation, the Sinai was, like the rest of Egypt, also occupied and controlled by foreign empires, in more recent history the Ottoman Empire. Israel invaded and occupied Sinai during the Suez Crisis of 1956, on 6 October 1973, Egypt launched the Yom Kippur War to retake the peninsula, which was the site of fierce fighting between Egyptian and Israeli forces. Today, Sinai has become a tourist destination due to its setting, rich coral reefs. Mount Sinai is one of the most religiously significant places in Abrahamic faiths, in addition to its formal name, Egyptians also refer to it as Arḍ ul-Fairūz. The ancient Egyptians called it Ta Mefkat, or land of turquoise, Sinai is triangular in shape, with northern shore lying on the southern Mediterranean Sea, and southwest and southeast shores on Gulf of Suez and Gulf of Aqaba of the Red Sea. It is linked to the African continent by the Isthmus of Suez,125 kilometres wide strip of land, the eastern isthmus, linking it to the Asian mainland, is around 200 kilometres wide. The peninsulas eastern shore separates the Arabian plate from the African plate, the southernmost tip is the Ras Muhammad National Park. Most of the Sinai Peninsula is divided among the two governorates of Egypt, South Sinai and North Sinai, together, they comprise around 60,000 square kilometres and have a population of 597,000. Three more governates span the Suez Canal, crossing into African Egypt, Suez is on the end of the Suez Canal, Ismailia in the centre. The largest city of Sinai is Arish, capital of the North Sinai, other larger settlements include Sharm el-Sheikh and El-Tor, on the southern coast. Inland Sinai is arid, mountainous and sparsely populated, the largest settlements being Saint Catherine, Sinai is one of the coldest provinces in Egypt because of its high altitudes and mountainous topographies. Winter temperatures in some of Sinais cities and towns reach −16 °C, the mines were worked intermittently and on a seasonal basis for thousands of years. Modern attempts to exploit the deposits have been unprofitable and these may be the first historically attested mines. According to the Hebrew Bible, the peninsula was crossed by the Israelites during the Exodus from Egypt and this included numerous halts over a 40-year period of travel sometime towards the end of the Bronze Age
25.
Egypt
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Egypt, officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia by a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt is a Mediterranean country bordered by the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Gulf of Aqaba to the east, the Red Sea to the east and south, Sudan to the south, and Libya to the west. Across the Gulf of Aqaba lies Jordan, and across from the Sinai Peninsula lies Saudi Arabia, although Jordan and it is the worlds only contiguous Afrasian nation. Egypt has among the longest histories of any country, emerging as one of the worlds first nation states in the tenth millennium BC. Considered a cradle of civilisation, Ancient Egypt experienced some of the earliest developments of writing, agriculture, urbanisation, organised religion and central government. One of the earliest centres of Christianity, Egypt was Islamised in the century and remains a predominantly Muslim country. With over 92 million inhabitants, Egypt is the most populous country in North Africa and the Arab world, the third-most populous in Africa, and the fifteenth-most populous in the world. The great majority of its people live near the banks of the Nile River, an area of about 40,000 square kilometres, the large regions of the Sahara desert, which constitute most of Egypts territory, are sparsely inhabited. About half of Egypts residents live in areas, with most spread across the densely populated centres of greater Cairo, Alexandria. Modern Egypt is considered to be a regional and middle power, with significant cultural, political, and military influence in North Africa, the Middle East and the Muslim world. Egypts economy is one of the largest and most diversified in the Middle East, Egypt is a member of the United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Arab League, African Union, and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Miṣr is the Classical Quranic Arabic and modern name of Egypt. The name is of Semitic origin, directly cognate with other Semitic words for Egypt such as the Hebrew מִצְרַיִם, the oldest attestation of this name for Egypt is the Akkadian
26.
Israeli settlement
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Such settlements within Palestinian territories currently exist in Area C of the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, and within Syrian territory in the Golan Heights. Israel dismantled 18 settlements in the Sinai Peninsula in 1982, while in 2005 all 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip were dismantled, but only four in the West Bank. In the West Bank, however, Israel continues to expand its remaining settlements as well as settling new areas, the International Court of Justice also says these purportedly annexed settlements are illegal in a 2004 advisory opinion. Similar criticism was advanced by the EU and the US, Israel disputes the position of the international community and the legal arguments that were used to declare the settlements illegal. Most of the spending goes to the security of the Israeli citizens living there, on 30 June 2014, according to the Yesha Council,382,031 Israeli citizens lived in the 121 officially recognised Israeli settlements in the West Bank, almost exclusively Jewish citizens of Israel. In January 2015 the Israeli Interior Ministry gave figures of 389,250 Israeli citizens living in the West Bank, settlements range in character from farming communities and frontier villages to urban suburbs and neighborhoods. The four largest settlements, Modiin Illit, Maale Adumim, Beitar Illit, Ariel has 18,000 residents, while the rest have around 37,000 to 55,500 each. The 1967 Six-Day War left Israel in control of the entire West Bank of the Jordan River, the entire Sinai Peninsula up to the Suez Canal, and the Gaza strip. Most of the Golan Heights, since 1981, administered under the Golan Heights Law, as early as 1967, Israeli settlement policy was started by the Labor government of Levi Eshkol. The basis for Israeli settlement in the West Bank became the Allon Plan and it implied Israeli annexation of major parts of the Israeli-occupied territories, especially East Jerusalem, Gush Etzion and the Jordan Valley. The settlement policy of the government of Yitzhak Rabin, was derived from the Allon Plan. The first settlement was Kfar Etzion, in the southern West Bank, many settlements began as Nahal settlements. They were established as military outposts and later expanded and populated with civilian inhabitants, Ariel Sharon declared in the same year that there was a plan to settle 2 million Jews in the West Bank by 2000. Since 1967, government-funded settlement projects in the West Bank are implemented by the Settlement Division of the World Zionist Organization, though formally a non-governmental organization, it is funded by the Israeli government and leases lands from the Civil Administration to settle in the West Bank. It is authorized to create settlements in the West Bank on lands licensed to it by the Civil Administration, traditionally, the Settlement Division has been under the responsibility of the Agriculture Ministry. Since the Olso Accords, it was housed within the Prime Ministers Office. In 2007, it was moved back to the Agriculture Ministry, in 2009, the Netanyahu Government decided to subject all settlement activities to additional approval of the Prime Minister and the Defense Minister. In 2011, Netanyahu sought to move the Settlement Division again under the control of PMO
27.
West Bank
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The West Bank shares boundaries to the west, north, and south with Israel, and to the east, across the Jordan River, with Jordan. The West Bank also contains a significant section of the western Dead Sea shore, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has a land area of 5,640 km2 plus a water area of 220 km2, consisting of the northwest quarter of the Dead Sea. As of July 2015 it has an population of 2,785,366 Palestinians, and approximately 371,000 Israeli settlers. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, illegal under international law and this annexation was recognized only by Britain, Iraq and Pakistan. The term was chosen to differentiate the west bank of the River Jordan from the east bank of this river, the neo-Latin name Cisjordan or Cis-Jordan is the usual name for the territory in the Romance languages and Hungarian. The name West Bank, however, has become the standard usage for this entity in English. The analogous Transjordan has historically used to designate the region now roughly comprising the state of Jordan. From 1517 through 1917, the now known as the West Bank was under Ottoman rule as part of the provinces of Syria. At the 1920 San Remo conference, the victorious Allied powers allocated the area to the British Mandate of Palestine, the San Remo Resolution adopted on 25 April 1920 incorporated the Balfour Declaration of 1917. It and Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations were the basic documents upon which the British Mandate for Palestine was constructed. Faced with the determination of Emir Abdullah to unify Arab lands under the Hashemite banner, the West Bank area, was conquered by Jordan during the 1948 war with the new state of Israel. In 1947, it was designated as part of a proposed Arab state by the United Nations partition plan for Palestine. 1949 Armistice Agreements defined the boundary between Israel and Jordan. In 1950, Transjordan annexed the area west of the Jordan River, naming it West Bank or Cisjordan, Jordan ruled over the West Bank from 1948 until 1967. Jordans annexation was never recognized by the international community, with the exception of the United Kingdom. King Abdullah of Jordan had been crowned King of Jerusalem by the Coptic Bishop on 15 November 1948. and granted Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank, in June 1967, the West Bank and East Jerusalem were captured by Israel as a result of the Six-Day War. With the exception of East Jerusalem and the former Israeli-Jordanian no mans land, the Israeli settlements were, on the other hand, administered subsequently as Judea and Samaria Area directly by Israel. Since the 1993 Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority officially controls a geographically non-contiguous territory comprising approx, 11% of the West Bank which remains subject to Israeli incursions
28.
Gaza Strip
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Gaza, together with the West Bank, comprise the Palestinian territories claimed by the Palestinians as the State of Palestine. The territories of Gaza and the West Bank are separated from each other by Israeli territory, both fall under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority, but Gaza has since June 2007 been governed by Hamas, a Palestinian Islamic organization which came to power in free elections in 2006. It has been placed under an Israeli and U. S. -led international economic, the territory is 41 kilometers long, and from 6 to 12 kilometers wide, with a total area of 365 square kilometers. With around 1.85 million Palestinians on some 362 square kilometers, an extensive Israeli buffer zone within the Strip renders much land off-limits to Gazas Palestinians. Gaza has a population growth rate of 2. 91%, the 13th highest in the world. The population is expected to increase to 2.1 million in 2020, by that time, Gaza may be rendered unliveable, if present trends continue. Due to the Israeli and Egyptian border closures and the Israeli sea and air blockade, Sunni Muslims make up the predominant part of the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip. Israel maintains direct control over Gaza and indirect control over life within Gaza, it controls Gazas air and maritime space. It reserves the right to enter Gaza at will with its military, Gaza is dependent on Israel for its water, electricity, telecommunications, and other utilities. When Hamas won the Palestinian legislative election,2006, Fatah refused to join the proposed coalition, when this collapsed under joint Israeli and United States pressure, the Palestinian Authority instituted a non-Hamas government in the West Bank while Hamas formed a government on its own in Gaza. Further economic sanctions were imposed by Israel and the European Quartet against Hamas, a brief civil war between the two groups had broken out in Gaza when, apparently under a U. S. -backed plan, Fatah contested Hamas’s administration. Hamas emerged the victor and expelled Fatah-allied officials and members of the PAs security apparatus from the Strip, since 2007, the Gaza Strip has been de facto governed by Hamas, which claims to represent the Palestinian National Authority and the Palestinian people. Israel maintains direct control over Gaza and indirect control over life within Gaza, it controls Gazas air and maritime space. It reserves the right to enter Gaza at will with its military, Gaza is dependent on Israel for its water, electricity, telecommunications, and other utilities. The Gaza Strip acquired its current northern and eastern boundaries at the cessation of fighting in the 1948 war, article V of the Agreement declared that the demarcation line was not to be an international border. At first the Gaza Strip was officially administered by the All-Palestine Government, All-Palestine in the Gaza Strip was managed under the military authority of Egypt, functioning as a puppet state, until it officially merged into the United Arab Republic and dissolved in 1959. From the time of the dissolution of the All-Palestine Government until 1967, Israel captured the Gaza Strip from Egypt in the Six-Day War in 1967. In 2005, Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip under their unilateral disengagement plan, in July 2007, after winning the 2006 Palestinian legislative election, Hamas became the elected government
29.
Hanan Porat
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Porat was born in Kfar Pines in 1943, during the Mandate era. In 1944, his family moved to Kfar Etzion, in early 1948, during the Arab riots of 1948, Kfar Etzion was besieged and the children were evacuated to Jerusalem. Porats father also moved there to arrange convoys, after the Kfar Etzion massacre, his family settled in Kfar Pines. Porat studied at the Bnei Akiva yeshiva high school, Yeshivat Kerem BYavneh and the Mercaz HaRav talmudic college and he worked as a religious teacher at several yeshivas. He served in the Paratroopers Brigade of the Israel Defense Forces during the Six-Day War and was among the troops captured the Temple Mount. He later said that the Israeli victory should have become a national holiday, after the Six-Day War he helped re-establish the Gush Etzion settlement bloc in the West Bank. He convinced Prime Minister Levi Eshkol to grant permission to settle in Gush Etzion and he was badly wounded in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 on the bank of the Suez canal. He recovered and was amongst the founders of Gush Emunim movement, in 1975 he led the founding of Elon Moreh, the first Israeli settlement in the West Bank, in Sebastia. In the 1981 elections he was voted into the Knesset on the Tehiya list and he resigned on 7 March 1984, towards the end of the Knesset term, and was replaced by Zvi Shiloah. After the evacuation of Yamit in 1982, he announced his intention to build new settlements in parts of the Land of Israel still not in Israeli hands, in 1995, he convinced Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin not to hand over Rachels Tomb to the Palestinian Authority. He tried to repeat that in 2008, prior to Israels disengagement from Gaza, he instructed youngsters in Neve Dekalim in Gush Katif to disrupt evacuation forces. In 1988 he returned to the Knesset, this time as a member of the National Religious Party and he was re-elected in 1992 and 1996. In 1996 he was appointed the NRPs parliamentary group chairman, but on 4 March 1999 he and Zvi Hendel left the party to establish a new faction, initially named Emunim, prior to the 1999 elections Tkuma formed an alliance with other small right-wing parties named the National Union. Porat was placed third on the Unions list, and was re-elected again, however, he resigned from the Knesset on 20 October that year, and was replaced by Hendel. Porat died on 4 October 2011, aged 67, of cancer and he was survived by his wife,10 children and 20 grandchildren. Et Ahai Anohi Mevakesh Meat Min Haor Recorded lectures on Arutz Meir by Machon Meir Beit Orot Gorenberg, the Accidental Empire, Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967–1977. For the Land and the Lord, Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, hanan Porat on the Knesset website
30.
Elyakim Haetzni
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Elyakim Haetzni is an Israeli lawyer, settlement activist and former politician who served as a member of the Knesset for Tehiya from 1990 until 1992. Born Georg Bombach in Kiel, Germany in 1926, Haetzni made aliyah to Mandatory Palestine in 1938 with his parents and sister and he studied at the Mizrachi Teachers Seminary in Jerusalem, and was a member of the Haganah. He was severely wounded in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and spent eighteen months in hospital and he went on to attend the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, graduating with a law degree in 1954. In 1961 he established a law firm in Tel Aviv, after Israels victory in the Six-Day War in 1967, he was involved in Jewish settlement in the West Bank, including the re-establishment of the Etzion Bloc and a Jewish community in Hebron. In 1972 he moved from Ramat Gan to the new Kiryat Arba settlement near Hebron and he later opened a law practice in the settlement. He became a member of the Yesha Councils Steering Committee, and he was on the partys list for the 1988 Knesset elections, but failed to win a seat. However, he entered the Knesset on 31 January 1990 as a replacement for Eliezer Waldman, Haetzni is married, with four children. Elyakim Haetzni on the Knesset website
31.
Cabinet of Israel
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The Government of Israel exercises executive authority in the State of Israel. It consists of ministers who are chosen and led by the prime minister, the composition of the government must be approved by a vote of confidence in the Knesset. Under Israeli law, the minister may dismiss members of the government, but must do so in writing. Most ministers lead ministries, though some are ministers without portfolio, most ministers are members of the Knesset, though only the Prime Minister and the designated acting prime minister are required to be Knesset members. Some ministers are also called deputy and vice prime ministers, unlike the designated acting prime minister, these roles have no statutory meanings. The government operates in accordance with the Basic Law and it meets on Sundays weekly in Jerusalem. There may be additional meetings if circumstances require it, the prime minister convenes these meetings. The body discussed in this article is referred to in Israeli official documents as the Government of Israel and this is in accordance to the normal translation of its Hebrew name. Another term in use is the Kitchen Cabinet, a collection of senior officials and it was formed as the Peoples Administration on 12 April 1948, in preparation for independence just over a month later. All its thirteen members were taken from Moetzet HaAm, the legislative body set up at the same time. This government has 21 ministers and seven deputy ministers, deri resigned his post as economy minister reportedly in protest of a gas monopoly deal. Netanyahu took the portfolio himself and promised to speed up the deal, Basic Law, The Government List of female cabinet ministers of Israel Current and past cabinets—Knesset website Basic Law, The Government —Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs
32.
Israeli legislative election, 1992
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Elections for the 13th Knesset were held in Israel on 23 June 1992. The election resulted in the formation of a Labor government, led by Yitzhak Rabin,1 Two MKs left the Labor Party to establish the Third Way, whilst Nava Arad also left the party. 2 Two MKs left Likud to establish Gesher, whilst Efraim Gur also left the party,3 Three MKs left Tzomet to establish Yiud. One MK then left Yiud to establish Atid,5 United Torah Judaism split into Agudat Yisrael and Degel HaTorah. 6 One MK left Moldet to establish Yamin Yisrael, whilst Yosef Ba-Gad also left the party, labours Yitzhak Rabin formed the twenty-fifth government on 13 July 1992, including Meretz and Shas in his coalition, which had 17 ministers. Hadash and the Arab Democratic Party also supported the government despite not being coalition members, Shas left the coalition in September 1993, and Yiud joined in January 1995. Rabins government advanced the process to unprecedented levels, the Oslo Accords were signed with Yasser Arafats PLO in 1993. The governments willingness to make peace with Syria and concede the Golan Heights led to Avigdor Kahalani, after Rabins assassination on 4 November 1995, Shimon Peres took over as Prime Minister and formed a new government on 22 November 1995. His coalition was the same as before, Labor, Meretz, Peres called early elections in 1996 in order to seek a mandate to continue the peace process, in which he lost. Historical overview of the Thirteenth Knesset Knesset website Election results Knesset website
33.
Tzachi Hanegbi
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Yitzhak Tzachi Hanegbi is a prominent Israeli politician and national security expert. A member of Likud, Hanegbi is currently Minister in the Prime Ministers Office, in charge of National Security and he was also responsible for overseeing Israels Atomic Energy Agency, and served as the minister in charge of Israels strategic relationship and security dialogue with the United States. He also served as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and as the Chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Hanegbi was born in Jerusalem in 1957. His mother is Geula Cohen, a prominent member of the 1940s underground group Lehi and later MK for Likud and his father, Immanuel Hanegbi, was the Operations Officer for the Lehi. After his military service in the corps, Hanegbi studied international relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. As president of the Hebrew University Student Union in 1980, he received a suspended sentence for leading an attack on Arab students. Despite this incident, he became president of the National Union of Israeli Students later that year, after his undergraduate studies, he went on to study law, obtaining an LL. B. Hanegbi lives in Mevaseret Zion, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, Hanegbi was first elected to the Knesset in the 1988 elections, and headed the Prime Ministers Bureau under Yitzhak Shamir. He lost his portfolio after Ehud Barak won the 1999 elections. Hanegbi was appointed Minister of the Environment in March 2001, adding the Transportation portfolio to his duties later in the year, after Likuds convincing win in the 2003 elections, Hanegbi was appointed Minister of Internal Security. When Sharon broke away to form Kadima in November 2005, Hanegbi was appointed chairman of Likud. On the following day, Hanegbi announced that he was switching to Kadima. However, he reappeared in the Knesset in April 2006 after winning a seat in the 2006 elections, from May 2006 until December 2010 Hanegbi served as the Chairman of the Knessets Security and Foreign Affairs Committee. Placed fourth on the partys list, he retained his seat in the 2009 elections, in July 2010, after a four-year trial for election bribery, fraud and breach of trust, a Jerusalem court cleared Hanegbi of all charges. However, the panel found him guilty of perjury. The case stems from Hanegbis denial that he was behind an ad boosting his appointments of Likud partys political activists to positions in the Ministry of the Environmental Protection, the court ruled that selectively prosecuting Hanegbi for what was a widespread and common practice was wrong and unfair. Hanegbi was urged by his team to appeal the perjury conviction to Israels High court of Justice. Following the verdict, several prominent leaders and officials publicly defended Hanegbi, former Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg who opposes Hanegbi politically, has called for the firing of the prosecutor by the Attorney General
34.
Israeli disengagement from Gaza
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Four settlements in the northern West Bank were also evacuated. The disengagement was proposed in 2003 by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, adopted by the Government in June 2004, approved by the Knesset in February 2005 and enacted in August 2005. The eviction of all residents, demolition of the residential buildings, the eviction and dismantlement of the four settlements in the northern West Bank was completed ten days later. A total of 8,000 Jewish settlers from all 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip were relocated, the average settler received compensation of over U. S $200,000. Post-disengagement, Israel continued to control over the external perimeter of Gaza, including seaports, air space. In his book Sharon, The Life of a Leader, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharons son Gilad wrote that he gave his father the idea of the disengagement. Sharon suggested his disengagement plan for the first time on December 18,2003 at the Fourth Herzliya Conference. ″ It was at time that he began to use the word occupation. Effectively, this package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. And all this with authority and permission, all with a presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress. You know, the peace process is a bundle of concepts and commitments. The peace process is the establishment of a Palestinian state with all the security risks that entails, the peace process is the evacuation of settlements, its the return of refugees, its the partition of Jerusalem. And all that has now been frozen, what I effectively agreed to with the Americans was that part of the settlements would not be dealt with at all, and the rest will not be dealt with until the Palestinians turn into Finns. That is the significance of what we did, Sharon formally announced the plan in his April 14,2004 letter to U. S. President George W. Bush, stating that there exists no Palestinian partner with whom to advance peacefully toward a settlement. On June 6,2004, Sharons government approved an amended disengagement plan, on February 16,2005, the Knesset finalized and approved the plan. Failing to gain support from senior ministers, Sharon agreed that the Likud party would hold a referendum on the plan in advance of a vote by the Israeli Cabinet. Commentators and the described the rejection of the plan as a blow to Sharon. Sharon himself announced that he accepted the Likud referendum results and would take time to consider his steps and he ordered Minister of Defense Shaul Mofaz to create an amended plan which Likud voters could accept. On June 6,2004, Sharons government approved an amended disengagement plan, following the approval of the plan, it was decided to close the Erez industrial zone and move its factories to cities and towns in Israel such as Ashkelon, Dimona, Yeruham, and Sderot
35.
Jerusalem
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Jerusalem is a city located on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is considered a city in the three major Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed at least twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, the part of Jerusalem called the City of David was settled in the 4th millennium BCE. In 1538, walls were built around Jerusalem under Suleiman the Magnificent, today those walls define the Old City, which has been traditionally divided into four quarters—known since the early 19th century as the Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Quarters. The Old City became a World Heritage Site in 1981, and is on the List of World Heritage in Danger, Modern Jerusalem has grown far beyond the Old Citys boundaries. These foundational events, straddling the dawn of the 1st millennium BCE, the sobriquet of holy city was probably attached to Jerusalem in post-exilic times. The holiness of Jerusalem in Christianity, conserved in the Septuagint which Christians adopted as their own authority, was reinforced by the New Testament account of Jesuss crucifixion there, in Sunni Islam, Jerusalem is the third-holiest city, after Mecca and Medina. As a result, despite having an area of only 0, outside the Old City stands the Garden Tomb. Today, the status of Jerusalem remains one of the issues in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, West Jerusalem was among the captured and later annexed by Israel while East Jerusalem, including the Old City, was captured. Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan during the 1967 Six-Day War and subsequently annexed it into Jerusalem, one of Israels Basic Laws, the 1980 Jerusalem Law, refers to Jerusalem as the countrys undivided capital. All branches of the Israeli government are located in Jerusalem, including the Knesset, the residences of the Prime Minister and President, the international community does not recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital, and the city hosts no foreign embassies. Jerusalem is also home to some non-governmental Israeli institutions of importance, such as the Hebrew University. In 2011, Jerusalem had a population of 801,000, of which Jews comprised 497,000, Muslims 281,000, a city called Rušalim in the Execration texts of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt is widely, but not universally, identified as Jerusalem. Jerusalem is called Urušalim in the Amarna letters of Abdi-Heba, the name Jerusalem is variously etymologized to mean foundation of the god Shalem, the god Shalem was thus the original tutelary deity of the Bronze Age city. The form Yerushalem or Yerushalayim first appears in the Bible, in the Book of Joshua, according to a Midrash, the name is a combination of Yhwh Yireh and the town Shalem. The earliest extra-biblical Hebrew writing of the word Jerusalem is dated to the sixth or seventh century BCE and was discovered in Khirbet Beit Lei near Beit Guvrin in 1961. The inscription states, I am Yahweh thy God, I will accept the cities of Judah and I will redeem Jerusalem, or as other scholars suggest, the mountains of Judah belong to him, to the God of Jerusalem
36.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
37.
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
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The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs magazine, published eight times per year, focuses on news and analysis from and about the Middle East and U. S. policy in that region. The New York Times has characterized it as critical of United States policies in the Middle East, in 2005, USA Today called it a non-partisan publication that has been critical of Bushs policies. Representatives of pro-Israel organizations have criticized the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs as being aligned with the Arab lobby, information Agency when he retired from the United States Foreign Service in 1980. Killgore is the publisher and Curtiss was the Executive Editor until his death in 2013, hanley, Curtisss daughter, is the current editor. Members of its Board of Directors and advisory committees receive no fees for their services, the Washington Report began in 1982 as a bi-weekly eight-page newsletter and today is a 76-page full-color magazine. The magazines nonprofit wing has donated 3,200 free subscriptions and dozens of books to libraries, the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs states its position as follows, The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs does not take partisan domestic political positions. As a solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, it endorses U. N. Security Council Resolution 242s land-for-peace formula, the Washington Report carries articles with perspectives ranging from the Israeli left, to libertarian, to the isolationist U. S. right. As long ago as 1990, the publication argued that criticism of Israel should not be equated with antisemitism and it also publishes a sum total of direct aid to Israel, which it estimates at almost $114 billion. This resource has been quoted by a number of publications over the years, the Washington Report has published dozens of articles about the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The case went to the United States Supreme Court, the FEC decided that AIPAC did not spend an amount of time or money on political issues to make it a PAC, and in 2010 the last of WRMEAs appeals to have the FEC ruling reversed was dismissed. The Washington Report has published a number of articles on Israels 1967 attack on the USS Liberty, james Ennes, a retired Naval lieutenant commander who was on the USS Liberty the day of the attack, wrote two articles detailing evidence that the attack was deliberate. It was one of several publications that pointed out in 2007 that Chinas Chengdu J-10 fighter bore a similarity to the Lavi. When he returned home, the U. S. seized his assets, richard Curtiss wrote about the Secret Evidence Repeal Act of 1999, which was motivated in part by the governments use of secret evidence to justify seizing Salahs assets. In 1999 Curtiss wrote that Salah alleged he was tortured with beatings by interrogators, including an American-born Israeli, Curtiss also quoted Salahs comments on his attorneys urging him to help put Israel on trial. He also defended the decision to allow Israeli interrogators to testify in closed court. In 2007, Salah was acquitted of financing Hamas, in 2003, the publication wrote that the United States government in that year provided the U. S. In 2004, AETs Andrew Killgore spearheaded a letter to President George W, in 2007, Fox News quoted Andrew Killgore on the prosecution of two AIPAC employees in the Lawrence Franklin espionage scandal. He has written at length on the topic in the Washington Report, the Israeli government disputed Omers claims
