1.
IWI Negev
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Design work on this new indigenous firearm began in 1985, it was inspired by the Belgian FN Minimi but the design was improved to make the new weapon more reliable, especially in adverse conditions. It was officially adopted by the Israeli Defense Forces in 1997, in 2012, IWI introduced the new NEGEV NG-7, in 7. 62mm caliber, to become the standard issue for the IDF. The NEGEV is a selective fire firearm that uses propellant gases from the barrel to cycle a short-stroke gas piston operating system under the barrel. The bolt contains a spring-powered casing extractor unit, while a lever ejector is housed inside the receiver, the NEGEV is striker-fired, where the bolt carrier assembly acts as the striker. The light machine gun fires from an open bolt position, a lever-type fire control selector switch is provided, installed on the left side of the pistol grip, which doubles as a manual safety against accidental firing. The safe “S” position disables the sear mechanism, by lifting the lever responsible for holding the bolt carrier in the forward position, the weapon can be secured safe regardless of the position of the bolt carrier group. The cocking handle is equipped with a mechanism that immobilizes the partially cocked bolt carrier. 200-round ammunition belt containers are also available, belted ammunition is introduced into the feed tray port from the left side, while the magazine is inserted vertically into the magazine well at the base of the receiver. The feed system uses a feeding mechanism, driven by the recoiling bolt carrier. The non-reciprocating charging handle is located on the side of the weapon. The NEGEV has a quick-change chrome-lined barrel that is manufactured using a hammer forging process. The barrel is fitted with a flash suppressor and a fixed carry handle. The barrel can be changed only after lifting open the feed tray cover, during the weapon’s initial development a barrel with a 1 in 305 mm rifling twist rate was also planned, adapted for the lightweight M193 cartridge. Additionally, a muzzle device was designed, used to launch rifle grenades. The NEGEV’s iron sights consist of a front post and an aperture sight with an elevation adjustment drum. For night-time operation the weapon is equipped with gaseous tritium-illuminated vials, one installed in the front sight post, a rail is integrated into the receiver top cover that allows optical day and night-time sights to be mounted to the weapon. The barrel can also be fitted with mounting hardware that would allow the Negev to mount a laser pointer or reflex sight. The machine gun has a metal side-folding stock and a bipod, installed to the forward end of the handguard
2.
Negev Bedouin
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The Negev Bedouin are traditionally pastoral nomadic Arab tribes living in the Negev region in Israel. From 1858 during Ottoman rule, the Negev Bedouin underwent a process of sedentarization which accelerated after the founding of Israel, in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, most resettled in neighbouring regions. Between 1968 and 1989, Israel built seven townships in the northeast of the Negev for the Bedouin population, others remained in unrecognized villages built without planning which lacked basic services such as electricity and running water. The Prawer Plan was drawn up to land ownership claims. The plan also called for the evacuation of 35 unrecognized villages, according to human rights organizations opposed to the plan, it discriminated against the Bedouin population of the Negev and violated the communitys historic land rights. In December 2013, the plan was rescinded, the Bedouin population in the Negev numbers 200, 000-210,000. Negev Bedouin used to be nomadic and later also semi-nomadic Arabs who live by rearing livestock in the deserts of southern Israel, the community is traditional and conservative, with a well-defined value system that directs and monitors behaviour and interpersonal relations. Al-Tarabin tribe is the largest tribe in the Negev and the Sinai Peninsula, Al-Tarabin along with Al-Tayaha, and Al-Azazma are the largest tribes in the Negev. Today, many Bedouin call themselves Negev Arabs rather than Bedouin, although the Bedouin in Israel continue to be perceived as nomads, today all of them are fully sedentarized, and about half are urbanites. Historically, the Bedouin engaged in herding, agriculture and sometimes fishing. They also earned income by transporting goods and people across the desert, scarcity of water and of permanent pastoral land required them to move constantly. The first recorded settlement in Sinai dates back 4, 000-7,000 years. The Bedouin of the Sinai peninsula migrated to and from the Negev, cemeteries known as nawamis dating to the late fourth millennium B. C. have been also found. Similarly, open-air mosques dating from the early Islamic period are common, the Bedouin conducted extensive farming on plots scattered throughout the Negev. During the 6th century, Emperor Justinian sent Wallachian and Bosnian slaves to the Sinai to build Saint Catherines Monastery, over time these slaves converted to Islam, and adopted an Arab Bedouin lifestyle. In the 7th century, the Islamic Umayyad dynasty defeated the Byzantine armies, the Umayyads began sponsoring building programs throughout Palestine, a region in close proximity to the dynastic capital in Damascus, and the Bedouin flourished. However, this activity decreased after the capital was moved to Baghdad during the subsequent Abbasid reign, most of the Negev Bedouin tribes migrated to the Negev from the Arabian Desert, Transjordan, Egypt, and the Sinai from the 18th century onwards. Traditional Bedouin lifestyle began to change after the French invasion of Egypt in 1798, the rise of the puritanical Wahhabi sect forced them to reduce their raiding of caravans
3.
Ein Avdat
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Ein Avdat or Ein Ovdat is a canyon in the Negev Desert of Israel, south of Kibbutz Sde Boker. Archaeological evidence shows that Ein Avdat was inhabited by Nabateans and Catholic monks, numerous springs at the southern opening of the canyon empty into deep pools in a series of waterfalls. The water emerges from the layers with salt-tolerant plants like Poplar trees and Atriplexes growing nearby. Ein is Hebrew for spring or water source, Avdat derives from the nearby city of Avdat that stood south of the canyon. Avdat was named after the Nabataean King Obodas I who, according to tradition, was buried there, habitation during the prehistoric era is attested to by numerous flint artifacts found in the area believed to be 80, 000–90,000 years old and part of Mousterian culture. The flint in the nearby was utilized for arrows and points. Ostrich egg shells and onager bones shed light on the fauna of the time, man-made knives and other hand held implements date from the Paleolithic and Mesolithic periods. Remains of a settlement consisting of several round structures dates from the Bronze Age. During the Hellenistic period Avdat became a station along the Nabatean Incense Route, agriculture developed during the early Roman era. Forts along the Incense Route developed into thriving cities with public buildings. In the Byzantine period, Ein Avdat was inhabited by monks who lived in caves and they carved out closets, shelves, benches, stairs, and water systems, and decorated the walls of the caves with crosses and prayers. UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization recognizes Avdat as a Heritage Site in part because of the uniqueness of the magnificent Byzantine Church. Dating from the century, it is both one of the earliest and one of the best-preserved churches constructed before the recognition of Christianity by the Emperor Constantine. The church was damaged by Bedouin vandals in 2009. After the Muslim conquest of Palestine, the region was abandoned, after the establishment of Kibbutz Sde Boker in 1952 and the construction of Highway 40 to Eilat, a hiking trail was created. Ein Avdat has been designated a National Park of Israel, the canyon of Ein Avdat is part of Nahal Zin, the largest Wadi or dry riverbed in the Negev. The 120 kilometer-long riverbed begins at the tip of Makhtesh Ramon. Ein Avdat was created by erosion, the southernmost spring is Ein Maarif, featuring a series of waterfalls and pools
4.
Southern District (Israel)
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The Southern District is one of Israels six administrative districts, and is the largest in terms of land area as well as the most sparsely populated. It covers most of the Negev desert, as well as the Arava valley, the population of the Southern District is 1,086,240 and its area is 14,185 km2. It is 79. 66% Jewish and 12. 72% Arab and 7. 62% Others, the district capital is Beersheba, while the largest city is Ashdod. Beershebas dormitory towns of Omer, Meitar, and Lehavim are all relatively affluent, while the development towns, some villages do not fall under the jurisdiction of a regional council. These include, Mahane Yatir Umm al-Hiran List of cities in Israel Arab localities in Israel Gaza Strip
5.
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
6.
Tiberian vocalization
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The system soon became used to vocalize other Hebrew texts as well. The Tiberian vocalization marks vowels and stress, makes fine distinctions of consonant quality and length, the sin dot distinguishes between the two values of ש. A dagesh indicates a consonant is geminate or unspirantized, and a raphe indicates spirantization, the mappiq indicates that ה is consonantal, not silent, in syllable-coda position. Each of the vowel phonemes could be lengthened, occasionally. The ultrashort vowels are more complicated. There were two graphemes corresponding to the vowel /ă/, attested by alternations in manuscripts like ארֲריך~ארְריך, ואשמֳעָה~ואשמְעָה. . In addition, one of the graphemes could also be silent, Shva was used both to indicate lack of a vowel and as another symbol to represent the phoneme /ă/, the latter also represented by hataf patah. The phoneme /ă/ had a number of allophones, /ă/ had to be written with shva rather than hataf patah when it was not pronounced as, before a laryngeal-pharyngeal, mobile šwa was pronounced as an ultrashort copy of the following vowel and as preceding /j/. Using ḥataf vowels was mandatory under gutturals but optional under other letters, קָ֫מֶץ also denotes a slighter, as שׁוּרֶק and קִבּוּץ a firmer, compression or contraction of the mouth. Segôl takes its name from its form, so שָׁלֹשׁ נְקֻדּוֹת is another name for Qibbúṣ. Moreover the names were mostly so formed, that the sound of each vowel is heard in the first syllable, in order to carry this out consistently some even write Sägôl, Qomeṣ-ḥatûf, cantillation signs mark stress and punctuation. Metheg may mark secondary stress, and maqqaf conjoins words into one stress unit, babylonian vocalization Palestinian vocalization Niqqud Cardinal vowels Blau, Joshua. Phonology and Morphology of Biblical Hebrew, a History of the Hebrew Language
7.
Arabic
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Arabic is a Central Semitic language that was first spoken in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. Arabic is also the language of 1.7 billion Muslims. It is one of six languages of the United Nations. The modern written language is derived from the language of the Quran and it is widely taught in schools and universities, and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, government, and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, which is the language of 26 states. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the standards of Quranic Arabic. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-Quranic era, Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics. As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Many words of Arabic origin are found in ancient languages like Latin. Balkan languages, including Greek, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has also borrowed words from languages including Greek and Persian in medieval times. Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include, The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense, the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms, the development of an internal passive. These features are evidence of descent from a hypothetical ancestor. In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside of the Ancient South Arabian family were spoken and it is also believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages were also spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hijaz, Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages, in Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested
8.
Desert
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A desert is a barren area of land where little precipitation occurs and consequently living conditions are hostile for plant and animal life. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to the processes of denudation, about one third of the land surface of the world is arid or semi-arid. This includes much of the regions where little precipitation occurs. Deserts can be classified by the amount of precipitation falls, by the temperature that prevails. Deserts are formed by weathering processes as large variations in temperature between day and night put strains on the rocks which consequently break in pieces, although rain seldom occurs in deserts, there are occasional downpours that can result in flash floods. Rain falling on hot rocks can cause them to shatter and the resulting fragments and this picks up particles of sand and dust and wafts them aloft in sand or dust storms. Wind-blown sand grains striking any solid object in their path can abrade the surface, rocks are smoothed down, and the wind sorts sand into uniform deposits. The grains end up as level sheets of sand or are piled high in billowing sand dunes, other deserts are flat, stony plains where all the fine material has been blown away and the surface consists of a mosaic of smooth stones. These areas are known as desert pavements and little further erosion takes place, other desert features include rock outcrops, exposed bedrock and clays once deposited by flowing water. Temporary lakes may form and salt pans may be left when waters evaporate, there may be underground sources of water in the form of springs and seepages from aquifers. Where these are found, oases can occur, plants and animals living in the desert need special adaptations to survive in the harsh environment. Plants tend to be tough and wiry with small or no leaves, water-resistant cuticles, some annual plants germinate, bloom and die in the course of a few weeks after rainfall while other long-lived plants survive for years and have deep root systems able to tap underground moisture. Animals need to cool and find enough food and water to survive. Many are nocturnal and stay in the shade or underground during the heat of the day and they tend to be efficient at conserving water, extracting most of their needs from their food and concentrating their urine. Some animals remain in a state of dormancy for long periods and they then reproduce rapidly while conditions are favorable before returning to dormancy. People have struggled to live in deserts and the surrounding lands for millennia. Nomads have moved their flocks and herds to wherever grazing is available, the cultivation of semi-arid regions encourages erosion of soil and is one of the causes of increased desertification. Many trade routes have been forged across deserts, especially across the Sahara Desert, large numbers of slaves were also taken northwards across the Sahara
9.
Semi-arid climate
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A semi-arid climate or steppe climate is the climate of a region that receives precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not extremely. There are different kinds of climates, depending on such variables as temperature. Semi-arid climates tend to short or scrubby vegetation, with semi-arid areas usually dominated by either grasses or shrubs. To determine if a location has a climate, the precipitation threshold must first be determined. If the areas precipitation is less than the threshold but more than half the threshold. Hot semi-arid climates tend to be located in the tropics and subtropics and these climates tend to have hot, sometimes extremely hot, summers and warm to cool winters, with some to minimal precipitation. Hot semi-arid climates are most commonly found around the fringes of subtropical deserts, hot semi-arid climates are most commonly found in Africa, Australia and South Asia. In Australia, a portion of the Outback surrounding the central desert regions lies within the hot semi-arid climate regime. Hot semi-arid climates can also be found in North America, primarily in Mexico, areas of Texas near Mexico, cold semi-arid climates tend to be located in temperate zones or elevated portions in subtropical zones. They are typically found in continental interiors some distance from bodies of water. Cold semi-arid climates usually feature warm and dry summers, though their summers are not quite as hot as those of hot semi-arid climates. Unlike hot semi-arid climates, areas with cold semi-arid climates tend to have cold winters and these areas usually see some snowfall during the winter, though snowfall is much lower than at locations at similar latitudes with more humid climates. These large diurnal temperature variations are seen in hot semi-arid climates. Cold semi-arid climates are most commonly found in Asia and North America, however, they can also be found in Northern Africa, South Africa, Europe, sections of South America and sections of interior southern Australia and New Zealand. As a result of this, some areas can have climates that are classified as hot or cold depending on the isotherm used. One such location is San Diego, California, which has cool summers for the due to prevailing winds off the ocean. Arid Forest Research Institute Continental climate Dust Bowl Goyders Line Pallisers Triangle Köppen climate classification Wave height Ustic
10.
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
11.
Beersheba
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Beersheba also spelled Beer-Sheva is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Beersheba grew in importance in the 19th century, when the Ottoman Turks built a police station there. The Battle of Beersheba was part of a wider British offensive in World War I aimed at breaking the Turkish defensive line from Gaza to Beersheba. In 1947, Bir Seba, as it was known, was envisioned as part of the Arab state in the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, following the declaration of Israels independence, the Egyptian army amassed its forces in Beersheba as a strategic and logistical base. In the Battle of Beersheba waged in October 1948, it was conquered by the Israel Defense Forces, Beersheba has grown considerably since then. Second and third waves of immigration have taken place since 1990, bringing Russian-speaking Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union, the Soviet immigrants have made the game of chess a major sport in Beersheba and the city is now a developing technology center. The city is now Israels national chess center, with more chess grandmasters per capita than any city in the world. There are several etymologies for the origin of the name Beersheba, the oath of Abraham and Abimelech is the one stated in Gen.21,31. Others include the seven wells dug by Isaac though only three or four have been identified, the oath of Isaac and Abimelech, the seven lambs that sealed Abraham, Beer is the Hebrew word for well, sheva could mean seven or oath. In this case the meaning is probably oath, as the ancient Hebrews believed seven to be a number. The Arabic toponym can also be translated as Seven wells or as commonly believed Lions well. During Ottoman administration city was referred as بلدية بءرالسبع Birüsseb, Beersheba is mainly dealt with in the Hebrew Bible in connection with the Patriarchs Abraham and Isaac, who both dig a well and close peace treaties with King Abimelech of Gerar at the site. Hence it receives its name twice, first after Abrahams dealings with Abimelech, the place is thus connected to two of the three Wife–sister narratives in the Book of Genesis. According to the Hebrew Bible, Beersheba was founded when Abraham and Abimelech settled their differences over a well of water, Abimelechs men had taken the well from Abraham after he had previously dug it so Abraham brought sheep and cattle to Abimelech to get the well back. He set aside seven lambs to swear that it was he that had dug the well, Abimelech conceded that the well belonged to Abraham and, in the Bible, Beersheba means Well of Seven or Well of the Oath. Beersheba is further mentioned in following Bible passages, Isaac built an altar in Beersheba, jacob had his dream about a stairway to heaven after leaving Beersheba. Beersheba was the territory of the tribe of Simeon and Judah, the sons of the prophet Samuel were judges in Beersheba. Saul, Israels first king, built a fort there for his campaign against the Amalekites, the prophet Elijah took refuge in Beersheba when Jezebel ordered him killed
12.
Gulf of Aqaba
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The Gulf of Aqaba or Gulf of Eilat is a large gulf at the northern tip of the Red Sea, east of the Sinai Peninsula and west of the Arabian mainland. Its coastline is divided between four countries, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, the gulf is east of the Sinai Peninsula and west of the Arabian Peninsula. With the Gulf of Suez to the west, it extends from the portion of the Red Sea. It reaches a depth of 1,850 m in its central area. The gulf measures 24 kilometres at its widest point and stretches some 160 kilometres north from the Straits of Tiran to where Israel meets Egypt, like the coastal waters of the Red Sea, the gulf is one of the worlds premier sites for diving. At this northern end of the gulf are three important cities, Taba in Egypt, Eilat in Israel, and Aqaba in Jordan and they are strategically important commercial ports and popular resorts for tourists seeking to enjoy the warm climate. Further south, Haql is the largest Saudi Arabian city on the gulf, on Sinai, Sharm el-Sheikh and Dahab are the major centers. The largest population center is Aqaba, with a population of 108,000, followed by Eilat with a population of 48,000. The gulf is one of two created by the Sinai Peninsulas bifurcation of the northern Red Sea, the Gulf of Suez lying to the west of the peninsula. Geologically, the forms the southern end of the Dead Sea Transform. It contains three small pull-apart basins, the Elat Deep, Aragonese Deep and Dakar Deep, formed between four left lateral strike-slip fault segments, movement on one of these faults caused the 1995 Gulf of Aqaba earthquake. Trade across the Red Sea between Thebes port of Elim and Elat at the head of the gulf is documented as early as the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt, egyptian settlements near Timna at the head of the gulf date to the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt. At the northern edge, the ancient city of Ayla was a hub for the Nabateans. The Romans built the Via Traiana Nova, which joined the Kings Highway at Aqaba and connected Africa to Asia, Aqaba was a major Ottoman port, connected to Damascus and Medina by the Hejaz railway. During World War I, the Battle of Aqaba was the key battle that ended a 500-year Ottoman rule over Greater Syria, the gulf is one of the most popular diving destinations in the world. About 250,000 dives are performed annually in Eilats 11 km coastline, the Landscape of Wadi Rum to the east of the northern edge of the gulf is a popular destination. Other destinations are the ruins of the civilization of Ayla in the city of Aqaba. Whales, orcas, dolphins, dugongs, and whale sharks live in the gulf as well
13.
Resort town
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A resort town, often called a resort city or resort destination, is an urban area where tourism or vacationing is the primary component of the local culture and economy. A typical resort town has one or more actual resorts in the surrounding area, sometimes the term resort town is used simply for a locale popular among tourists. The term can refer to either an incorporated or unincorporated contiguous area where the ratio of transient rooms. Generally, tourism is the main export in a resort town economy, shops and luxury boutiques selling locally themed souvenirs, motels, and unique restaurants often proliferate the downtown areas of a resort town. In the case of the United States, resort towns were created around the late 1800s, consistent, however, throughout many resort towns includes elements of ambitious architecture, romanticizing a location, and dependence on cheap labor. In addition, resort towns are popular with wealthy retirees and people wishing to purchase vacation homes, which typically drives up property values. Sometimes, resort towns can become due to the quick development of retirement. However, most of the employment available in towns are typically low paying. Many resort towns have spawned nearby bedroom communities where the majority of the resort workforce lives, local residents are generally receptive of the economic impacts of tourism. Increased economic activity in resort towns can also have effects on the countrys overall economic growth. Among the participants, 67% had lived in Antalya for over ten years, 66% had at least a high school degree, the results are as follows, Perceived impact on select economic impact items More recently, resort towns have come under greater scrutiny by local communities. Instances where resort towns are poorly managed have adverse effects on the local economy, one example is the uneven distribution of income and land ownership between local residents and businesses. This results in a preponderance of foreigners in the land market, the revenues amassed from tourism typically do not benefit the host country or the local communities. These funds are referred to as leakages, tourism has also been blamed for other negative economic impacts to local communities. Although resort towns usually boast more improved infrastructure than surrounding areas, reallocating government funds to subsidize infrastructure and tax breaks to firms shift available funding to local education and health services. In addition, resort towns typically do not have dynamic economies, economic dependence on tourism poses particular challenges to resort towns and its local residents given the seasonal nature of the job market in some areas. Local residents of resort towns face job insecurity, difficulties in obtaining training, medical-benefits, every resort town is unique and local governance should be viewed on a case-by-case basis. There are, however, several criteria for insuring the most effective governance models
14.
Eilat
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Eilat is Israels southernmost city, a busy port and popular resort at the northern tip of the Red Sea, on the Gulf of Aqaba. The citys beaches, coral reef, nightlife and desert landscapes make it a destination for domestic. A concerted effort by the Israeli Government to populate Elat began in 1955, Eilats arid desert climate and low humidity are moderated by proximity to a warm sea. Temperatures often exceed 40 °C in summer, and 21 °C in winter, Eilat averages 360 sunny days a year. With an annual rainfall of 28 millimetres and summer temperatures of 40 °C and higher, water resources. The main elements that influenced the history were the copper resources and other minerals, the ancient international roads that crossed the area. These resulted in a settlement density that defies the environmental conditions, like numerous other localities, Eilat is mentioned in the Bible both in singular and plural form. The original settlement was probably at the tip of the Gulf of Eilat. Ancient Egyptian records also document the extensive and lucrative mining operations, Eilat is mentioned in antiquity as a major trading partner with Elim, Thebes Red Sea Port, as early as the Twelfth dynasty of Egypt. In antiquity Eilat bordered the states of Edom, Midian and the territory of the Rephidim. Eilat is first mentioned in the Hebrew Bible in the Book of Exodus, the first six stations of the Exodus are in Egypt. The 7th is the crossing of the Red Sea and the 9th–13th are in and around Eilat, after the exodus from Egypt, station 12 refers to a dozen campsites in and around Timna in Modern Israel near Eilat. When King David conquered Edom, which up to then had been a border of Edom and Midian, he took over Eilat. The commercial port city and copper based industrial center were maintained by Egypt until reportedly rebuilt by Solomon at a known as Ezion-Geber. In 2 Kings 14, 21–22 All the people of Judah took Uzziah, who was sixteen years old and he rebuilt Elath, and restored it to Judah, after his fathers death. And again in 2 Kings 16,6, At that time the king of Edom recovered Elath for Edom and it was a prosperous Judean trading port from the 9th through 7th centuries BCE. Naʾaman, Nadav. During the Roman period a road was built to link the area with the Nabataean city of Petra, in the writings of medieval Muslim scholars, such as Al-Waqidi, it is told that Muhammad made a treaty with Eilats population, Jews and Christians. In the treaty, Muhammad offered protection to the Jews and the Christians, preserving their self-rule over the city, another reference to the Eilat in Islamic texts is believed to appear in the Quran, sura 7, 163–169
15.
Development town
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The towns were designated to expand the population of the countrys peripheral areas and to ease development pressure on the countrys crowded centre. The towns are the results of the Sharon plan – the master plan of Israel, the majority of such towns were built in the Galilee in the north of Israel, and in the northern Negev desert in the south. In addition to the new towns, Jerusalem was also given development town status in the 1960s, the sudden arrival of over 130,000 Iraqi Jews in Israel in the early 1950s meant that almost a third of Maabarah dwellers were of Iraqi Jewish origin. At the end of 1949 there had been 90,000 Jews housed in Maabarot, by the end of 1951 this population rose to over 220,000 people, Maabarot residents were housed in tents or in temporary tin dwellings. Over 80% of the residents were Jewish refugees from Arab and Muslim countries of Middle East, the number of people housed in Maabarot began to decline in 1952, and the last Maabarot were closed sometime around 1963. Over time, the Maabarot metamorphosed into Israeli towns, or were absorbed as neighbourhoods of the towns they were attached to, most of the Maabarah camps transformed into development towns. Maabarot, which became development towns, include Kiryat Shmona, Sderot, Beit Shean, Yokneam Illit, Or Yehuda, the first development town was Beit Shemesh, founded in 1950 around 20 km from Jerusalem. The newly established towns were populated by Jewish refugees from Arab and Muslim countries – Morocco, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Libya, Yemen. Development towns were populated by Holocaust survivors from Europe and Jewish immigrants. A high proportion of the population is religious or traditional, with a 2003 survey showing that 39% of residents would rather Israel be run more by halakhic law. In 1984, the Development Towns project was awarded the Israel Prize for its contribution to society. Many towns gained a new influx of residents during the immigration from former Soviet states in the early 1990s. 11 points in the Negev List of Israel Prize recipients
16.
Dimona
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Dimona is an Israeli city in the Negev desert,36 kilometres to the south of Beersheba and 35 kilometres west of the Dead Sea above the Arava valley in the Southern District of Israel. In 2015 its population was 33,258, the citys name is derived from a biblical town, mentioned in Joshua 15, 21-22. Dimona was one of the development towns created in the 1950s under the leadership of Israels first Prime Minister, Dimona itself was conceived in 1953, and settled in 1955, mostly by new immigrants from Northern Africa, who also constructed the citys houses. The emblem of Dimona, adopted 2 March 1961, appeared on a stamp issued on 24 March 1965, in spite of a gradual decrease during the 1980s, the citys population began to grow once again with the beginning of the Russian immigration in the 1990s. Currently, Dimona is the third largest city in the Negev, due to projected rapid population growth in the Negev, the city is expected to triple in size by 2025. Dimona is described as mini-India by many for its 7, 500-strong Indian Jewish community and it is also home to Israels Black Hebrew community, formerly governed by its founder and spiritual leader, Ben Ammi Ben-Israel, now deceased. The Black Hebrews number about 3,000 in Dimona, with families in Arad, Mitzpe Ramon. Their official status in Israel was an issue for many years, but in May 1990, the issue was resolved with the issuing of first B/1 visas. Status was extended to August 2003, when the Israeli Ministry of Interior granted permanent residency, in the early 1980s, textile plants, such as Dimona Textiles Ltd. dominated the industrial landscape. Dimona Silica Industries Ltd. manufactures precipitated silica and calcium carbonate fillers, about a third of the citys population works in industrial workplaces, and another third in the area of services. Due to the introduction of new technologies, many workers have been made redundant in the recent years, Dimona has taken part of Israels solar transformation. Luz II, Ltd. plans to use the solar array to test new technology for the three new plants to be built in California for Pacific Gas and Electric Company. Dimona is at an height of about 550–600 metres above sea level. It is in the Negev Desert, therefore it has a climate with low humidity for most of the year. Summers are hot with a max temperature of about 33 °C in August. Average annual precipitation is about 100 mm, mostly during the winter, in the early 1950s, an extension to Dimona and south was constructed from the Railway to Beersheba, designed for freight traffic. A passenger service began in 2005, after pressure from Dimonas municipality, Dimona Railway Station is located in the southwestern part of the city. The main bus terminal is the Dimona Central Bus Station, with lines to Beersheba, Tel Aviv, Eilat, and nearby towns
17.
Arad, Israel
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Arad is a city in the Southern District of Israel. It is located on the border of the Negev and Judean Deserts,25 kilometres west of the Dead Sea and 45 kilometres east of Beersheba. The city is home to a population of 24,436, including Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews. The city is notable for its clean, dry air and serves as an attraction to asthmatics worldwide. After attempts to settle the area in the 1920s, Arad was founded in November 1962 as an Israeli development town, Arads population grew significantly with the Aliyah from the Commonwealth of Independent States in the 1990s, and peaked in 2002 at 24,500 residents. Landmarks in Arad include the ruins of Tel Arad, Arad Park, the city is known for its annual summer music festival, The Arad Festival. Arad is named after the Biblical Canaanite town located at Tel Arad, however, Shoshenq Is chronicles seem to mention a settlement in Tel Arad. During the Byzantine period, the location was correctly identified by Eusebius. Ancient Arad became a Christian bishopric, no longer a residential bishopric, Arad is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see. Nine men and two women attempted the task, but after four months were forced to leave because water was not found in the area. On 15 November 1960, a team was appointed by the Israeli cabinet to examine the possibility of establishing a city in the northeastern Negev desert. An initial budget of 50,000 Israeli liras was granted for the project, on 31 January 1961, the final location was chosen, and plans were approved for roads and water connections. In March 1961, blueprints for a city of 10, 000-20,000 residents were drawn up, yona Pitelson was the chief architect and planner. The plan took into account topography and climate, with buildings constructed with large inner courtyards that offered protection from the desert sun. High density residential areas were built first in order to create an urban milieu, the oil company Nefta built a work camp in the area in July 1961, consisting of six temporary sheds, after oil was found there in commercial quantities. The town itself was established in 1962 by a group of young ex-kibbutz and ex-moshav members seeking an environment free of overcrowding, traffic, noise, the founding ceremony was held on 21 November, and attended by then-Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. It was one of the last development towns to be founded, according to the city website, Arad was the first pre-planned city in Israel. Until 1964 Arad had about 160 families, most of whom were natives
18.
Mitzpe Ramon
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Mitzpe Ramon is a town in the Negev desert of southern Israel. The name Ramon comes from the Hebrew Romaim meaning Romans and it is situated on the northern ridge at an elevation of 860 meters overlooking a sizable erosion cirque known as the Ramon Crater. In 2015 it had a population of 4,998, Mitzpe Ramon was founded in 1951 as a camp for the workers building the road to Eilat. The towns first permanent residents, immigrants from North Africa and Romania, settled there in the 1960s, several young families came from Kibbutz Reim and other parts of Israel around 1956–57. There was an influx of immigrants from Morocco and India in the early 1960s, conditions in the early years were harsh, with limited food supplies and practically no modern day amenities. Ice blocks and provisions were delivered once a week by a supply truck, there was a single school with one classroom for all ages. The homes of the first settlers were prefabricated asbestos barracks, later, rows of small attached stone houses were built and after that, apartment buildings, beginning in the early 1960s. Ramon Crater, known as a makhtesh, is 38 km long,6 km wide and 450 meters deep, Mitzpe Ramons climate borders between hot desert climate and cold desert climate, characterized by hot, dry summers and cold winters. There are moderate to strong winds all year long, caused by its location above the crater, precipitation is scarce, concentrated around the winter months, with an annual precipitation amount of roughly 70 millimeters. Snowfall occurs on average once in a couple of years, the development of Mitzpe Ramon was adversely affected by the opening of Route 90 in the late 1960s. After the inauguration of this highway, traffic to and from Eilat bypassed Mitzpe Ramon almost entirely. However, growing interest in ecotourism, Jeep trekking, mountain biking and hiking, and the upgrading of Route 40, Jerusalem Marble, one of a few major suppliers and overseas exporters of Jerusalem stone, inaugurated a new, state-of-the-art factory in Mitzpe Ramon in January 2000. Jerusalem Stone is exported globally by a handful of respected suppliers including companies from both Israel and the Palestinian Authority area who have access to the stone from Mitzpe Ramon quarry, Mitzpe Ramon has six hotels and dozens of Bed and Breakfast establishments. In 2011, the Isrotel hotel chain opened a luxury hotel, in December 2013, plans were proposed to build a Las Vegas-style Casino in the town. The Mitzpe Ramon Jazz Club hosts musical ensembles on the weekend, on weekdays, it operates as a music school. Meever, a hostel and event space, located in the artist quarter of Mitzpe Ramon
19.
Rahat
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Rahat is a predominantly Bedouin city in the Southern District of Israel. In 2015 it had a population of 62,415, as such, it is the largest Bedouin settlement in the world, and the only one in Israel to have city status. In Arabic, rahat means relief or groups, the city has a total of 33 neighborhoods. All but one of the neighborhoods consist entirely of separate Bedouin clans, between each neighborhood there is a wadi. The city also has a market, public and commercial services, neighborhood parks, public areas, womens employment centers, childrens play areas, and several mosques. Members of several Bedouin family clans reside in Rahat, Al-Qrenawi, Tarabin, Al-Huzeil, Al-Tayaha, Al-Azazma, Al-Jubur, Al-Tawarah, Howeitat, Rahats society is considered a young one, as more than half of its residents are under the age of 18. According to the CBS, in 2001 there were 16,300 males and 16,100 females, the population growth rate in 2001 was 5. 9%. Also according to the CBS, at the end of 2010 there were 26,700 males and 26,400 females. Some 60. 4% of Rahats population were 19 years old or younger,15. 4% between 20 and 29,15. 3% between 30 and 44,5. 9% from 45 to 59, 1% from 60 to 64, and 2%65 years of age or older. The population growth rate has decreased significantly to 2. 7%, according to citys mayor the city is home to an estimated 7,000 illegal immigrants at any given time. The region of the city owned by Al-Tayaha tribe. Until the year 1972 the town was called Al-Hezeel before changing its name, in 1972 Rahat was considered by the government of Israel as a new settlement for Bedouin who lived in the surrounding area without permanent domicile. Until 1980, Rahat was part of the Bnei Shimon Regional Council, in 1994 it was recognized as a city – the first Bedouin city in Israel. As a result of rapid and unexpected changes of the infrastructure, Bedouin faced many difficulties. The rate of unemployment remains high in Bedouin townships, as well as the crime level, school through age 16 is mandatory by law, but the vast majority of the population does not receive a high school education. Women are discriminated against in the patriarchal-type Bedouin society, there is another serious problem of trespassing on state lands and building of unrecognized Bedouin settlements, which have no municipal status and face demolition orders. Rahat is one of several projects aimed at improving life for the Negev Bedouin. Unlike illegal villages with access to water, electricity and other services
20.
Tel as-Sabi
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For the UNESCO World Heritage Site see Tel Beer Sheva Tel as-Sabi or Tel Sheva is a Bedouin town in the Southern District of Israel, bordering the city of Beersheba. In 2015 it had a population of 18,671, the first Bedouin township in Israel, Tel as-Sabi was founded in 1967 as part of a government project to settle Bedouins in permanent settlements and became a local council in 1984. It is one of seven Bedouin townships in the Negev desert with approved plans, most researches agree that Bedouins arrived to the Negev around 1800 AD, but there is evidence of earlier migrations as well. The Negev Bedouin, a society, has been going through a process of sedentarization since the later part of Ottoman rule in the region. During the British Mandate period, the administration did not provide a frame to justify. In order to settle this issue, Israels land policy was adapted to an extent from the Ottoman land regulations of 1858 as the only preceding legal frame. Thus Israel nationalized most of the Negev lands using the states land regulations from 1969, Israel has continued the policy of sedentarization of the Negev Bedouins first imposed by the Ottoman authorities. Israels measures at first it included regulation and relocation, during the 1950s Israel has relocated two-thirds of the Negev Bedouins into an area that was administered under martial law. The other six townships are Hura, Lakiya, Ararat an-Naqab, Shaqib al-Salam, Kuseife and the city of Rahat, not all Bedouins agree to move from tents and structures built on state lands and into apartments prepared for them. Only about 60% of the Bedouin citizens of Israel live in permanent, planned villages like Tel as-Sabi, as Tel as-Sabi was the first Bedouin township in Israel, many mistakes were made by planners and government officials. The authorities tried to learn from this planning and building new Bedouin villages. For example, creating an urban environment rather than a rural locality, as of 2000, the town has been ranked lowest in socio-economic standing, with an average income of 3,237 shekels, less than half the national average of 6,835 NIS. Only 43% of Tel as-Sabis twelfth-grade students are eligible to graduate high school. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, the population of Tel as-Sabi was 13,000 in December 2005 and 15,700 in December 2010, Tel as-Sabis jurisdiction measures 5,000 dunams. Despite the fact that unemployment level among Negev Bedouins is high, several industrial parks are situated in the area - Ramat Hovav, Hura, but the closest industrial zone to Tel as-Sabi is situated in Beersheba. They are primarily aimed at Bedouin women, twenty Arab-Bedouin women participated in a sewing course for fashion design at the Amal College in Beer Sheva, including lessons on sewing and cutting, personal empowerment and business initiatives. A number of Bedouin women have undergone professional botanical training and established a business producing a range of skin care products based on traditional Bedouin herbal medicine. Their products include cosmetic and dermatological lotions, creams and ointments and their products are manufactured at the laboratories of Hlavin, an international cosmetics manufacturer and exporter in Ra’anana
21.
Kibbutz
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A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1909, was Degania, today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism, in recent decades, some kibbutzim have been privatized and changes have been made in the communal lifestyle. A member of a kibbutz is called a kibbutznik, in 2010, there were 270 kibbutzim in Israel. Their factories and farms account for 9% of Israels industrial output, worth US$8 billion, some Kibbutzim had also developed substantial high-tech and military industries. For example, in 2010, Kibbutz Sasa, containing some 200 members, the kibbutzim were founded by members of the Bilu movement who emigrated to Palestine. The first kibbutz was Degania Alef, founded in 1909, joseph Baratz, one of the pioneers of the kibbutz movement, wrote a book about his experiences. We were happy enough working on the land, but we knew more and more certainly that the ways of the old settlements were not for us. This was not the way we hoped to settle the old way with Jews on top and Arabs working for them, anyway, we thought that there shouldnt be employers. There must be a better way, though Baratz and others wanted to farm the land themselves, becoming independent farmers was not a realistic option in 1909. Ottoman Palestine was a harsh environment, the Galilee was swampy, the Judaean Mountains rocky, and the south of the country, the Negev, was a desert. To make things more challenging, most of the settlers had no farming experience. The sanitary conditions were also poor, malaria, typhus and cholera were rampant. Bedouins would raid farms and settled areas, sabotage of irrigation canals and burning of crops were also common. Living collectively was simply the most logical way to be secure in an unwelcoming land, finally, the land had been purchased by the greater Jewish community. From around the world, Jews dropped coins into Jewish National Fund Blue Boxes for land purchases in Palestine, in 1909, Baratz, nine other men, and two women established themselves at the southern end of the Sea of Galilee near the Arab village of Umm Juni/Juniya. These teenagers had hitherto worked as day laborers converting wetlands for human development, as masons and their dream was now to work for themselves, building up the land. They called their community Kvutzat Degania, now Degania Alef, the founders of Degania endured backbreaking labor, The body is crushed, the legs fail, the head hurts, the sun burns and weakens, wrote one of the pioneers
22.
Revivim
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Revivim is a kibbutz in the Negev desert in southern Israel. Located around half an hour south of Beersheba, it falls under the jurisdiction of Ramat HaNegev Regional Council, in 2015 it had a population of 1,035. The kibbutz itself was established on 7 July 1943 as one of the three lookouts, and was initially named Tel HaTzofim. It was later renamed Revivim by Berl Katznelson after the magazine edited by Yosef Haim Brenner, level its ridges, you soften it with showers. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Revivim fell behind Egyptian lines for several months, members of the kibbutz lived in underground dugouts, and received food supplies by air and convoys that ran the Egyptian battle lines. Thirty members of the kibbutz survived the war, while eight were killed in raids, near the kibbutz stands Mizpe Revivim, a museum depicting the history of the lookout observer points and the events of the 1948 war in the northern Negev. Agriculture is important in Revivim, the groves are irrigated with locally available brackish water. The olive oil has won a number of prizes, there is a large dairy farm which recently was awarded the prize for the largest amount of milk produced by any farm in Israel. There is also a chicken hatchery and a growing farm. Aside from agriculture, Revivim has interests in a variety of including an injection moulding company. Golda Meir, later Prime Minister of Israel Official website Revivim Negev Information Centre
23.
Sde Boker
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Sde Boker is a kibbutz in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Best known as the retirement home of Israels first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, in 2015 it had a population of 440. A large agricultural farm or small village existed here in the early Islamic period, remains of dozens of structures exist, including a mosque near which hundreds of Arabic inscriptions were found. The modern kibbutz was established on 15 May 1952, in 1953 Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion resigned from office and moved to the kibbutz. Although he returned to politics in 1955, he continued to live in the kibbutz until his death in 1973, Ben-Gurion moved to the kibbutz due to his vision of cultivating the Negev desert and building up its surrounding towns such as Yeruham and Dimona. He believed that eventually the Negev would be home to many Jews who would move to Israel and his home was later turned into a museum. In his official writings Ben-Gurion often mused about his efforts at rejuvenating the Negev and this is a vital element of our renaissance in Israel. For it is in mastering nature that man learns to control himself and it is in this sense, more practical than mystic, that I define our Redemption on this land. Israel must continue to cultivate its nationality and to represent the Jewish people without renouncing its glorious past and it must earn this—which is no small task—a right that can only be acquired in the desert. For we planted each tree in place and watered them with the water we provided at the cost of numerous efforts. Why does a mother love her children so, why does the Jew feel an affinity with Israel. Because everything here must still be accomplished and it depends only on him to participate in this privileged act of creation. The trees at Sde Boker speak to me differently than do the trees planted elsewhere. Not only because I participated in their planting and in their maintenance, but also because they are a gift of man to nature and it is also well known for its Bedouin tents. In 2014, it was host to the Midburn festival, Sde Boker, Discover Israel, Go Israel
24.
Prime Minister of Israel
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The Prime Minister of Israel is the head of the Israeli government and the most powerful figure in Israeli politics. Although the President of Israel is the head of state, his powers are largely ceremonial. The official residence of the minister, Beit Rosh Hamemshala is in Jerusalem. The current prime minister is Benjamin Netanyahu of Likud, the person to hold the position. Following an election, the president nominates a member of the Knesset to become prime minister after asking party leaders whom they support for the position, the nominee then presents a government platform and must receive a vote of confidence in order to become prime minister. In practice, the minister is usually the leader of the largest party in the governing coalition. Between 1996 and 2001, the minister was directly elected. The office of prime minister came into existence on 14 May 1948, the date of the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, david Ben-Gurion, leader of Mapai and head of the Jewish Agency became Israels first prime minister. The position became permanent on 8 March 1949, when the first government was formed, Ben-Gurion retained his role until late 1953, when he resigned in order to settle in the Kibbutz of Sde Boker. He was replaced by Moshe Sharett, however, Ben-Gurion returned in a little under two years to reclaim his position. He resigned for a time in 1963, breaking away from Mapai to form Rafi. Levi Eshkol took over as head of Mapai and prime minister and he became the first prime minister to head the country under the banner of two parties when Mapai formed the Alignment with Ahdut HaAvoda in 1965. In 1968 he also became the party leader to command an absolute majority in the Knesset, after Mapam and Rafi merged into the Alignment. On 26 February 1969, Eshkol became the first prime minister to die in office, however, Allons stint lasted less than a month, as the party persuaded Golda Meir to return to political life and become prime minister in March 1969. Meir was Israels first woman minister, and the third in the world. Meir resigned in 1974 after the Agranat Commission published its findings on the Yom Kippur War, Yitzhak Rabin took over, though he also resigned towards the end of the eighth Knessets term following a series of scandals. Rabins wife, Leah, was found to have had an overseas bank account. Menachem Begin became the first right-wing prime minister when his Likud won the 1977 elections and he resigned in 1983 for health reasons, passing the reins of power to Yitzhak Shamir
25.
David Ben-Gurion
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David Ben-Gurion was the primary founder of the State of Israel and the first Prime Minister of Israel. Ben-Gurions passion for Zionism, which early in life, led him to become a major Zionist leader. On 14 May 1948, he proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel, and was the first to sign the Israeli Declaration of Independence. Ben-Gurion led Israel during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and united the various Jewish militias into the Israel Defense Forces, subsequently, he became known as Israels founding father. Following the war, Ben-Gurion served as Israels first Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, as Prime Minister, he helped build the state institutions, presiding over various national projects aimed at the development of the country. He also oversaw the absorption of vast numbers of Jews from all over the world, a centerpiece of his foreign policy was improving relationships with the West Germans. He worked very well with Konrad Adenauers government in Bonn, in 1954 he resigned as both Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, although he remained a member of the Knesset. However, he returned as Minister of Defense in 1955 after the Lavon Affair resulted in the resignation of Pinhas Lavon, later in the year he became Prime Minister again, following the 1955 elections. He stepped down from office in 1963, and retired from life in 1970. He then moved to Sde Boker, a kibbutz in the Negev desert, posthumously, Ben-Gurion was named one of Time magazines 100 Most Important People of the 20th century. David Ben-Gurion was born in Płońsk in Congress Poland – then part of the Russian Empire and his father, Avigdor Grün, was a lawyer and a leader in the Hovevei Zion movement. His mother, Scheindel, died when he was 11 years old, Ben-Gurions birth certificate, when rediscovered in Poland in 2003, indicated that he had a twin brother who died shortly after birth. At the age of 14 he and two formed a youth club, Ezra, promoting Hebrew studies and emigration to the Holy Land. In 1905, as a student at the University of Warsaw and he was arrested twice during the Russian Revolution of 1905. Ben-Gurion discussed his hometown in his memoirs, saying, For many of us, I personally never suffered anti-Semitic persecution. Płońsk was remarkably free of it, nevertheless, and I think this very significant, it was Płońsk that sent the highest proportion of Jews to Eretz Israel from any town in Poland of comparable size. We emigrated not for reasons of escape but for the positive purpose of rebuilding a homeland. Life in Płońsk was peaceful enough, there were three main communities, Russians, Jews and Poles
26.
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
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Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, is a public research university in Beer-Sheva, Israel. Ben-Gurion University was established in 1969 as the University of the Negev with the aim of promoting the development of the Negev desert that comprises more than sixty percent of Israel. The University was later renamed after Israels founder and first prime minister David Ben-Gurion, after Ben-Gurions death in 1973, the University was renamed Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Today, Ben-Gurion University is a center for teaching and research with about 20,000 students and this was the genesis of Computer Science education at Ben-Gurion University which eventually lead to a separate Department of Computer Science. The Medical School for International Health grew out of collaborations between faculty at Ben-Gurion University and Columbia University, a joint global health and medical care program, it was established in 1997. The MSIH is a four-year, North American-style medical school that incorporates global health coursework into all four years of the school curriculum. It is an English-language collaboration between Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Faculty of Health Sciences and Columbia University Medical Center and is located in Beer-Sheva, the school enrolls more than 40 students each year. Most of the students are from the United States, with several from Canada, BGU has been ranked 320th in the world, 70th in Asia and 4th in Israel according to the 2016 QS World University Rankings. BGU also ranked 31st overall in the ranking of young universities according to the 2016 QS Top 50 Under 50, BGU is ranked between 101st and 150th overall in computer science accordong to the 2015 Academic Ranking of World Universities in Computer Science for four consecutive years. He previously served as the countrys Foreign Minister, Finance Minister, minister of science and deputy defense minister Eliezer Shkedi, CEO of the Israeli national airline, El Al. Sonnenfeldt, Owner and Chairman of TIGER21, Chairman of Magnolia Purchasing Advisors, the lead owner and Chairman of SOL, Inc. and Chairman of Carmanah Technologies, Ltd
27.
Midreshet Ben-Gurion
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Midreshet Ben-Gurion, also known as Midreshet Sde Boker, is an educational center and boarding school in southern Israel. Located in the Negev next to kibbutz Sde Boker, it falls under the jurisdiction of Ramat HaNegev Regional Council, in 2015 it had a population of 1,787. The construction of a school began in 1962, inspired by David Ben-Gurions vision of developing a thriving Jewish culture in the arid Negev. Ben-Gurion and his wife Paula Ben-Gurion are buried on the cliff overlooking the Zin valley, an adobe house was built with rational fenestration, small windows in the northern side and heat collecting concrete prisms in the windows of the south facing wall. The prisms are situated in the rooms and they absorb heat during the day and can be rotated to allow the heat to discharge into the rooms at night. The chimney is part of a cooling system that maintains the temperature of the house during the day at bearable levels. A double skin greenhouse uses copper sulfate solution as a screen during the day. The liquid is pumped between the two skins, protects the interior from ultraviolet rays and collects heat, at night the liquid is recirculated returning the heat to the greenhouse. David Faiman of the Solar Center has made advancements in the realm of concentrator photovoltaics CPV, Faiman has produced a CPV unit capable of producing energy at a factor of up to a thousand more than conventional units. Researchers at Midreshet Ben-Gurion have made breakthroughs in agriculture and biotechnology relevant to drylands, the STRS1 and STRS2 genes, master controller genes in stress responses, discovered by Dr. Sammy Boussiba of astaxanthin accumulation in green algae. Astaxanthin is an extremely valuable poly-unsaturated fatty acid which is valued for its use as a pigment, nutritional value, and possible use in bio-diesel
28.
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
29.
St John Philby
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Harry St John Bridger Philby, CIE, also known as Jack Philby or Sheikh Abdullah, was a British Arabist, adviser, explorer, writer, and colonial office intelligence officer. As he states in his autobiography, he became something of a fanatic, after studying oriental languages at the University of Cambridge, he was posted to Lahore in the Punjab in 1908, acquiring fluency in Urdu, Punjabi, Baluchi, Persian, and eventually Arabic. His only son, Kim Philby, became infamous as a agent for the Soviet Union in 1963. Philby married Dora Johnston in September 1910, with his distant cousin Bernard Law Montgomery as best man, alongside their son Kim, born in 1912, they had three daughters. In late 1915 Percy Cox recruited Philby as head of the branch of the British administration in Baghdad. Their mission was twofold, to organise the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Turks and to protect the oil fields near Basra and the Shatt al Arab, which was the source of oil for the Royal Navy. The revolt was organised with the promise of creating a unified Arab state, or Arab federation, gertrude Bell was his first controller and taught him the finer arts of espionage. In 1916 he became Revenue Commissioner for British Occupied Territories, Philby secretly began to favour Ibn Saud even though British policy supported Sherif Hussein. Philby completed a crossing from Riyadh to Jeddah by a route, thus demonstrating Saud. In November 1918, Britain and France issued the Anglo-French Declaration to the Arabs, Philby felt there was a betrayal of this assurance, along with others made in the Balfour Declaration and the Sykes-Picot Agreement. He saw the promise of a single unified Arab nation as having been betrayed, Philby argued that Ibn Saud was a democrat guiding his affairs by mutual counsel as laid out in the Quran, in contrast to George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedlestons support for Hussein. After the Iraqi revolt of 1920 Philby was appointed Minister of Internal Security in the British Mandate of Iraq. In November 1921, Philby was named head of the Secret Service in Mandatory Palestine, working with T. E. Lawrence and meeting his American counterpart. Philby was forced to resign his post in 1924 over differences of allowing Jewish immigration to Palestine and he was found to have had unauthorised correspondence with Ibn Saud, sending confidential information, which carried with it the connotation of espionage. In 1925 Philby claimed Ibn Saud had brought unprecedented order into Arabia, Philby settled in Jeddah and became a partner in a trading company. Over the next few years he became famous as a writer and explorer. Philby personally mapped on camel back what is now the Saudi–Yemeni border on the Rub al Khali, in his unique position he became Ibn Sauds chief adviser in dealing with the British Empire and Western powers. He converted to Islam in 1930, in 1931 Philby invited Charles Richard Crane to Jeddah to facilitate exploration of the kingdoms subsoil oil
30.
Lonely Planet
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Lonely Planet is the largest travel guide book publisher in the world. The company is owned by American billionaire Brad Kelleys NC2 Media, originally called Lonely Planet Publications, the company changed its name to Lonely Planet in July 2009 to reflect its broad travel industry coverage and an emphasis on digital products. As of 2011, the company had sold 120 million books since inception and by early 2014, it had sold around 11 million units of its travel apps. As of 2014, Lonely Planets largest office is located in Footscray, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia, other Lonely Planet offices are spread throughout the world, in locations such as London, United Kingdom, Beijing, China, and Delhi, India. Lonely Planet was founded by married couple Maureen and Tony Wheeler, Tony Wheeler graduated from the University of Warwick and London Business School, and was a former engineer at the Chrysler corporation. The pair met in London in 1970 and, in July 1972, they embarked on a trip through Europe and Asia. The route that followed was first undertaken by vehicle on the 1955 Oxford-Cambridge Overland Expedition. Lonely Planets first book, Across Asia on the Cheap, consisting of 94 pages, was written by the couple in their home, the original print run consisted of stapled booklets and sold out. In October 2007 Observer writer Carol Cadwalladr—who also coauthored Travellers Survival Kit Lebanon—described the book as canonical, across Asia on the Cheap offered the advice of amateur travelers who had completed the overland trip from London to Sydney, Australia in just under six months. During the 1970s, traveling was considered an aspect of the counterculture and Tony Wheeler said in 2013, what became known as the hippie trail was a popular route for such travelers, as the price of travel dropped and numerous Asian travel companies were launched. Cadwalladr further states that Wheelers peers throughout the world made the decision to travel. Other travel guide brand names also emerged in the early 1970s, such as Rough Guides, the popularity of the hippy trail, combined with the success of the original Lonely Planet publications, led the Wheelers to further develop the brand they had founded. The couple discovered writers in bars and also people that if they could return to Australia with a completed book. Tony Wheeler explained, You couldn’t just look for travel book writers because they weren’t out there and we just told people that if you turn up in a year and a half with a book, we’ll publish it, and we did. It was very rough and ready, the popularity of the overland route taken by the Wheelers in 1972 declined when Irans borders closed in 1979. For a long time we had a problem that every writer wanted to rewrite the history, we’d say, “Why are we rewriting the history of India for the 10th time. Surely, it’s not changing every two years, in a 2007 interview, Tony Wheeler discussed one of the original Lonely Planet writers, Geoff Crowther, who wrote guides for India, South America, Africa and Korea. His writing was instrumental to the rise of Lonely Planet, however, Crowther at the time was not living in Goa, nor was he a broken man, instead he was living in the rainforests of East Coast Australia
31.
British Mandate for Palestine (legal instrument)
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The Mandate of Palestine was superseded with UN Charter, Chapter XII, Article 80 UN Trusteeship Agreement, UNGA181 of November 29,1947. The Palestine Mandate was administrated by the United Kingdom from September 29,1922 to November 29,1947, Government of the State of Israel was proclaimed over parts of this territory on 14 May,1948. The approximate northern border with the French Mandate was agreed upon in the Paulet–Newcombe Agreement of 23 December 1920, Transjordan had been a no mans land following the July 1920 Battle of Maysalun. The Trans-Jordan Memorandum provided the detail to support Article 25 of the Mandate and it also established a separate Administration of Trans-Jordan for the application of the Mandate, under the general supervision of Great Britain. Transjordan became largely autonomous under British tutelage according to an agreement of February 20,1928, the League of Nations welcomed the end of the mandate in Transjordan on 18 April 1946. The conquest of Palestine became part of British strategies aimed at establishing a bridge between the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf. This would enable rapid deployment of troops to the Gulf, then the line of defence for British interests in India. A land bridge was also an alternative to the Suez Canal, the committee considered various scenarios and provided guidelines for negotiations with France, Italy, and Russia regarding the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire. The Committee recommended in favour of the creation of a decentralised, at the same time, the British and French also opened overseas fronts with the Gallipoli and Mesopotamian campaigns. In Gallipoli, the Turks successfully repelled the British, French and Australian, from 1915, Zionist leader and anglophile Zeev Jabotinsky was pressing the British to agree to the formation of a Zionist volunteer corps that would serve under the aegis of the British army. The British eventually agreed to set up the Zion Mule Corps, after Lloyd George was made prime minister during the war, the British waged the Sinai and Palestine Campaign under General Allenby. This time the British agreed to a Jewish Legion, which participated in the invasion, russian Jews regarded the German army as a liberator and the creation of the Legion was designed to encourage them to participate in the war on Britains side. At the same time, British intelligence officer T. E. Lawrence was encouraging an Arab Revolt led by the Sharif of Mecca. The British defeated Ottoman Turkish forces in 1917 and occupied Ottoman Syria, the land remained under British military administration for the remainder of the war, and beyond. The Ottoman Empire capitulated on 30 October 1918, and on 23 November 1918, the Middle East was divided into three OETAs. Occupied Enemy Territory Administration South extended from the Egyptian border of Sinai into Palestine and Lebanon as far north as Acre and Nablus, a temporary British military governor Major General Sir Arthur Wigram Money would administer this sector. In October 1919, British forces in Syria and the last British soldiers stationed east of the Jordan were withdrawn and the region came under exclusive control of Faisal bin Hussein from Damascus. In 1916, Britain and France concluded the Sykes–Picot Agreement, which proposed to divide the Middle East between them into spheres of influence, with Palestine as an international enclave, the British made two potentially conflicting promises regarding the territory it was expecting to acquire
32.
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
33.
Arabah
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The Arabah, known in Hebrew as Arava or Aravah, is a geographic name for the area south of the Dead Sea basin which forms part of the border between Israel to the west and Jordan to the east. This included the Jordan River Valley between Sea of Galilee and Dead Sea, the Dead Sea itself, and what is called today the Arava Valley. The modern use of the term is restricted to this section alone. The southern stretch of the Arabah is 166 km in length from the Gulf of Aqaba to the shore of the Dead Sea. Topographically, the region is divided into three sections, from this crest, the land slopes gently northward over the next 74 km to a point 15 km south of the Dead Sea. In the last section, the Arabah drops steeply to the Dead Sea, the Arabah is scenic with colorful cliffs and sharp-topped mountains. The southern Arabah is hot and dry and virtually without rain, there are numerous species of flora and fauna in the Aravah Valley. Notably the Caracal, Caracal caracal, is found on savannas of the valley, in Biblical times, the Arava was a center of copper production, King Solomon is believed to have had mines here based on copper mines dating to his reign. The Arabah was home to the Edomites, east of the Arabah was the domain of the Nabateans, the builders of the city of Petra. Kibbutz Yotvata founded in 1957, was named for an ancient town in the mentioned in the Bible. Kibbutz Lotan has a bird-watching center, the oldest moshav in the central Arava area is Ein Yahav. The Israel–Jordan Peace Treaty was signed in the Arava on October 26,1994, the governments of Jordan and Israel are promoting development of the region. There is a plan to bring sea water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea through a canal and this project was once an issue of dispute between Jordan and Israel, but it was recently agreed that the project shall be constructed on and by the Jordanian side. In 2004, the Jordanian administrative district of Wadi Araba had a population of 6,775, the main economic activities for these Arabah residents revolve around herding sheep, agriculture, handicrafts, and the Jordanian Army. Timna Valley Park is notable for its rock carvings, some of the oldest copper mines in the world. On the Jordanian side is the famous Wadi Rum, which is famous among rock climbers, hikers, campers, Feynan Ecolodge was opened in Wadi Feynan by the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature in 2005. Below is a list of Jordanian population clusters in Wadi Araba, The total population of the Jordanian portion of the region is 103,000, below is a list of Israeli localities in the Arava, from north to south. The population of the Israeli portion is 52,000, of which 47,500 live in Eilat, and just over 5,000 live in 20 small towns north of Eilat, the Israeli residents of the region are almost entirely Jews
34.
Makhtesh
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A makhtesh (Hebrew, מַכְתֵּשׁ, plural, מַכְתְּשִׁים is a geological landform considered unique to the Negev desert of Israel and the Sinai peninsula of Egypt. A makhtesh has steep walls of resistant rock surrounding a deep closed valley which is drained by a single wadi. The valleys have limited vegetation and soil, containing a variety of different colored rocks and diverse fauna, the best known and largest makhtesh is Makhtesh Ramon. Although commonly referred to as craters, these formations are erosion cirques, craters are formed by the impact of a meteor or volcanic eruption, whereas makhteshim are created by erosion. The word makhtesh is the Hebrew word for a mortar grinder, the geological landform was given this name, because of its similarity to a grinding bowl. Where a hard layer of rock covers softer rocks, erosion removes the softer minerals relatively quickly. The harder rocks eventually collapse under their own weight and a crater-like valley structure is formed, in Negev and Sinai makhteshim, the hard rocks are limestone and dolomite, while the inner softer rocks are chalk or sandstone. The center of the Negev is dominated by northeast-southwest anticlinal ridges, the crests of four ridges host five deep valleys surrounded by steep walls. The upper half consists of limestone and dolomite and the bottom of friable sandstone. Each valley, known as a makhtesh, is drained by a river bed. The Negev has five makhteshim, Makhtesh Ramon, Makhtesh Gadol, Makhtesh Katan, Makhtesh Ramon is exceptional as it is drained by two rivers. It is the largest makhtesh at over 40km long, 2–10km wide, the rocks in this makhtesh contain thousands of ammonite fossils, as well as volcanic and metamorphic rocks. Makhtesh Gadol At the time of naming, Makhtesh Ramon was uncharted and so this was thought to be the largest makhtesh, Makhtesh Katan is the smallest major makhtesh at 5km by 7km and was charted in 1942 by Jewish explorers. The two makhteshim in Sinai, Egypt, have no names for the basin, but their walls have several names including Jabal al-Manzur or Gebel Maghara, mazor, Emanuel and Krasnov, Boris, editors The Makhteshim Country - a Laboratory of Nature. Pensoft Publishers, Sofia,2001,411 pages
35.
Makhtesh Ramon
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Makhtesh Ramon is a geological feature of Israels Negev desert. The crater is 40 km long, 2–10 km wide and 500 meters deep, the only settlement in the area is the small town of Mitzpe Ramon located on the northern edge of the crater. Today the crater and surrounding area forms Israels largest national park, hundreds of millions of years ago, the Negev desert was covered by an ocean. Slowly, this started to recede northwards leaving behind a hump-shaped hill, the hump was slowly flattened by water and climatic forces. Approximately five million years ago, the Arava Rift Valley was formed, with changing their courses. The crater bottom continued to deepen at a faster rate than the surrounding walls. As the crater deepened, more layers of ancient rock were exposed with rocks at the bottom of the crater being up to 200 million years old, Makhtesh Ramon contains a diversity of rocks including clay hills known for their fantastic red and yellow colors and forms. Limestone covered by basalt can also be found in smaller hills in the southern part of the makhtesh. Shen Ramon is a made of magma which hardened whilst underground. It later rose up through cracks in the Earths surface, and today stands in striking contrast with the nearby creamy coloured southern wall of the crater, as a black sharp-edged rock. In the centre of the makhtesh is HaMinsara, a low hill made up of columnar jointed sandstone - polygonal prismatic columns of quartzite, the pterioid bivalve Family Ramonalinidae is found in early Middle Triassic rocks of Makhtesh Ramon and was named after this feature. The Asian wild ass has been reintroduced to Makhtesh Ramon, in 1995 the population had increased to 40 adults in the area. The animals are hybrids of two different subspecies of the Asian Wild Ass and it is derived from the Turkmenian kulan and the Persian onager. The original subspecies, the Syrian wild ass, is completely extinct, other larger mammals of the area include Nubian ibexes, Dorcas gazelles, striped hyenas and few Arabian leopards. The ruins of a prehistoric stone structure known as Khan Saharonim are found in the makhtesh, as it lies along the ancient Incense Route. These ruins acted as a way station for the traders and their animals as they proceeded further westwards to the Mediterranean seaport city of Gaza, mazor, Emanuel and Krasnov, Boris, editors The Makhteshim Country - a Laboratory of Nature. Birds eye view of Ramon Crater
36.
HaMakhtesh HaGadol
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HaMakhtesh HaGadol is a makhtesh, a geological erosional landform of Israels Negev desert. A makhtesh has steep walls of resistant rock surrounding a deep closed valley, one of five makhteshim in Israel and seven in the world, HaMakhtesh HaGadol is the second largest, being exceptional in that it is drained by one river, Nahal Hatira. Makatesh Gadol was discovered and named before Makhtesh Ramon which is the largest Makhtesh in Israel, HaMakhtesh HaGadol is near Yeruham, Israels first development town, established in the early days of the state. The location was chosen because the region was thought to be rich in natural resources, Makhtesh Makhtesh Ramon Makhtesh Katan The gravimetric anomaly over the Makhtesh Hagadol and its vicinity HaMakhtesh HaGadol - video
37.
Wadi
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Wadi is the Arabic and Hebrew term traditionally referring to a valley. In some instances, it may refer to a dry riverbed that contains water only during times of heavy rain, the term wādī is very widely found in Arabic toponyms. Seasonal streams, frequent in south-east Spain, are called ramblas instead, in the Maghreb, the term wadi is applied to all rivers including regular ones. Wadis are located on the sloping, nearly flat parts of deserts, commonly they begin on the distal portions of fans. In basin and range topography, wadis trend along basin axes at the terminus of fans, permanent channels do not exist, due to lack of continual water flow. Wadi show braided stream patterns because of the deficiency of water, Water percolates down into the stream bed causing abrupt loss in energy and resulting vast deposition. Wadis may develop dams of sediment which results in change of stream patterns in the flash flood. Wind also plays its role in deposition, when wadi sediments are underwater or moist, wind sediments are deposited over them. Thus wadi sediments contain both wind and water sediments, wadi sediments may contain whole range from gravel to mud. There is also range of sedimentary structures. Thus, wadi sediments are most diagnostic of all other desert environments, flash floods represents severe energy conditions and results in wide range of sedimentary structures, including ripples and commonly plane beds. Gravels common display imbrications, Mud drapes show desiccation cracks, wind activity also generates its own sedimentary structures, large scales cross-stratification and wedge shape cross-sets are present. Typical wadi sequence consists of alternating units of wind and water sediments, Water laid sediments show complete fining upward sequence. Wind deposits are stratified and covered with mud-cracked deposits. Some horizontal Loess may also present, modern English usage differentiates a wadi from another canyon or wash by the action and prevalence of water. Wadis, as courses, are formed by water, but are distinguished from river valleys or gullies in that surface water is intermittent or ephemeral. Wadis are generally dry year round, except after a rain, the desert environment is characterized by sudden but infrequent heavy rainfall, often resulting in flash floods. Crossing wadis at certain times of the year can be dangerous as a result, Wadis tend to be associated with centers of human population because sub-surface water is sometimes available in them
38.
Mediterranean Sea
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The sea is sometimes considered a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it is usually identified as a separate body of water. The name Mediterranean is derived from the Latin mediterraneus, meaning inland or in the middle of land and it covers an approximate area of 2.5 million km2, but its connection to the Atlantic is only 14 km wide. The Strait of Gibraltar is a strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Gibraltar. In oceanography, it is called the Eurafrican Mediterranean Sea or the European Mediterranean Sea to distinguish it from mediterranean seas elsewhere. The Mediterranean Sea has a depth of 1,500 m. The sea is bordered on the north by Europe, the east by Asia and it is located between latitudes 30° and 46° N and longitudes 6° W and 36° E. Its west-east length, from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Gulf of Iskenderun, the seas average north-south length, from Croatia’s southern shore to Libya, is approximately 800 km. The Mediterranean Sea, including the Sea of Marmara, has an area of approximately 2,510,000 square km. The sea was an important route for merchants and travelers of ancient times that allowed for trade, the history of the Mediterranean region is crucial to understanding the origins and development of many modern societies. In addition, the Gaza Strip and the British Overseas Territories of Gibraltar and Akrotiri, the term Mediterranean derives from the Latin word mediterraneus, meaning amid the earth or between land, as it is between the continents of Africa, Asia and Europe. The Ancient Greek name Mesogeios, is similarly from μέσο, between + γη, land, earth) and it can be compared with the Ancient Greek name Mesopotamia, meaning between rivers. The Mediterranean Sea has historically had several names, for example, the Carthaginians called it the Syrian Sea and latter Romans commonly called it Mare Nostrum, and occasionally Mare Internum. Another name was the Sea of the Philistines, from the people inhabiting a large portion of its shores near the Israelites, the sea is also called the Great Sea in the General Prologue by Geoffrey Chaucer. In Ottoman Turkish, it has also been called Bahr-i Sefid, in Modern Hebrew, it has been called HaYam HaTikhon, the Middle Sea, reflecting the Seas name in ancient Greek, Latin, and modern languages in both Europe and the Middle East. Similarly, in Modern Arabic, it is known as al-Baḥr al-Mutawassiṭ, in Turkish, it is known as Akdeniz, the White Sea since among Turks the white colour represents the west. Several ancient civilisations were located around the Mediterranean shores, and were influenced by their proximity to the sea. It provided routes for trade, colonisation, and war, as well as food for numerous communities throughout the ages, due to the shared climate, geology, and access to the sea, cultures centered on the Mediterranean tended to have some extent of intertwined culture and history. Two of the most notable Mediterranean civilisations in classical antiquity were the Greek city states, later, when Augustus founded the Roman Empire, the Romans referred to the Mediterranean as Mare Nostrum
39.
Dune
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In physical geography, a dune is a hill of loose sand built by wind or the flow of water. Dunes occur in different shapes and sizes, formed by interaction with the flow of air or water, most kinds of dunes are longer on the windward side where the sand is pushed up the dune and have a shorter slip face in the lee of the wind. The valley or trough between dunes is called a slack, a dune field is an area covered by extensive sand dunes. Dunes occur, for example, in deserts and along some coasts. Some coastal areas have one or more sets of dunes running parallel to the shoreline directly inland from the beach, in most cases, the dunes are important in protecting the land against potential ravages by storm waves from the sea. Although the most widely distributed dunes are those associated with coastal regions, Dunes can form under the action of water flow, and on sand or gravel beds of rivers, estuaries and the sea-bed. The modern word dune came into English from French c,1790, which in turn came from Middle Dutch dūne. Crescent-shaped mounds are generally wider than they are long, the slipfaces are on the concave sides of the dunes. These dunes form under winds that blow consistently from one direction, some types of crescentic dunes move more quickly over desert surfaces than any other type of dune. A group of dunes moved more than 100 metres per year between 1954 and 1959 in Chinas Ningxia Province, and similar speeds have been recorded in the Western Desert of Egypt. The largest crescentic dunes on Earth, with mean crest-to-crest widths of more than three kilometres, are in Chinas Taklamakan Desert. They may be composed of clay, silt, sand, or gypsum, eroded from the floor or shore, transported up the concave side of the dune. Examples in Australia are up to 6.5 km long,1 km wide and they also occur in southern and West Africa, and in parts of the western United States, especially Texas. Straight or slightly sinuous sand ridges typically much longer than they are wide are known as linear dunes and they may be more than 160 kilometres long. Some linear dunes merge to form Y-shaped compound dunes, many form in bidirectional wind regimes. The long axes of these dunes extend in the resultant direction of sand movement, linear loess hills known as pahas are superficially similar. These hills appear to have formed during the last ice age under permafrost conditions dominated by sparse tundra vegetation. Radially symmetrical, star dunes are pyramidal sand mounds with slipfaces on three or more arms that radiate from the center of the mound
40.
Loess
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Loess is a clastic, predominantly silt-sized sediment that is formed by the accumulation of wind-blown dust. It covers about 10% of the Earths surface and it is usually homogeneous and highly porous and is traversed by vertical capillaries that permit the sediment to fracture and form vertical bluffs. It was first applied to Rhine River valley loess about 1821, Loess is homogeneous, porous, friable, pale yellow or buff, slightly coherent, typically non-stratified and often calcareous. Loess grains are angular with little polishing or rounding and composed of crystals of quartz, feldspar, mica, Loess can be described as a rich, dust-like soil. Loess deposits may become thick, more than a hundred meters in areas of China. It generally occurs as a deposit that covers areas of hundreds of square kilometers. Loess often stands in either steep or vertical faces, because the grains are angular, loess will often stand in banks for many years without slumping. This soil has a characteristic called vertical cleavage which makes it easily excavated to form cave dwellings, in several areas of the world, loess ridges have formed that are aligned with the prevailing winds during the last glacial maximum. These are called paha ridges in America and greda ridges in Europe, the form of these loess dunes has been explained by a combination of wind and tundra conditions. Loess comes from the German Löss or Löß, and ultimately from Alemannic lösch meaning loose as named by peasants, the term Löß was first described in Central Europe by Karl Cäsar von Leonhard who reported yellowish brown, silty deposits along the Rhine valley near Heidelberg. Charles Lyell brought this term into usage by observing similarities between loess and loess derivatives along the loess bluffs in the Rhine and Mississippi. At that time it was thought that the yellowish brown silt-rich sediment was of fluvial origin being deposited by the large rivers. It wasnt until the end of the 19th century that the origin of loess was recognized. A tremendous number of papers have been published since then, focusing on the formation of loess and on loess/palaeosol sequences as archives of climate and these water conservation works were carried out extensively in China and the research of Loess in China has been continued since 1954. Much effort was put into the setting up of regional and local loess stratigraphies, and Frechen, Horváth & Gábris for the Austrian and Hungarian loess stratigraphy, respectively. During the autumn and winter, when melting of the icesheets and icecaps ceased, as a consequence, large parts of the formerly submerged and unvegetated floodplains of these braided rivers dried out and were exposed to the wind. Because these floodplains consist of sediment containing a high content of glacially ground flour-like silt and clay, they were susceptible to winnowing of their silts. Once entrained by the wind, particles were then deposited downwind, the loess deposits found along both sides of the Mississippi River Alluvial Valley are a classic example of periglacial loess
41.
Negev Mountains
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Negev Mountains is a mountainous area in the north-western part of the Negev desert, in Israel. Mount Ramon is the summit of Negev Mountains and the highest point in southern Israel, most of the area belongs to Negev Mountains Nature Reserve, the largest reserve in Israel. Its area is about 1,045,000 dunam, list of peaks, sorted by height above sea level
42.
Dead Sea
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The Dead Sea, is a salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east and Israel and Palestine to the west. Its surface and shores are 430.5 metres below sea level, the Dead Sea is 304 m deep, the deepest hypersaline lake in the world. With 34. 2% salinity, it is 9.6 times as salty as the ocean and this salinity makes for a harsh environment in which plants and animals cannot flourish, hence its name. The Dead Sea is 50 kilometres long and 15 kilometres wide at its widest point and it lies in the Jordan Rift Valley and its main tributary is the Jordan River. The Dead Sea has attracted visitors from around the Mediterranean basin for thousands of years and it was one of the worlds first health resorts, and it has been the supplier of a wide variety of products, from asphalt for Egyptian mummification to potash for fertilizers. People also use the salt and the minerals from the Dead Sea to create cosmetics, the Dead Sea water has a density of 1.24 kg/litre, which makes swimming similar to floating. The Dead Sea is receding at an alarming rate, multiple canals and pipelines were proposed to reduce its recession, which had begun causing many problems. The Red Sea–Dead Sea Water Conveyance project, carried out by Jordan, will provide water to neighboring countries, the first phase of the project is scheduled to begin in 2018 and be completed in 2021. In Hebrew, the Dead Sea is Yām ha-Melaḥ, meaning sea of salt, the Bible uses this term alongside two others, the Sea of the Arabah, and the Eastern Sea. The designation Dead Sea never appears in the Bible, in prose sometimes the term Yām ha-Māvet is used, due to the scarcity of aquatic life there. In Arabic the Dead Sea is called al-Bahr al-Mayyit, or less commonly baḥrᵘ lūṭᵃ, another historic name in Arabic was the Sea of Zoʼar, after a nearby town in biblical times. The Greeks called it Lake Asphaltites, the Dead Sea is an endorheic lake located in the Jordan Rift Valley, a geographic feature formed by the Dead Sea Transform. This left lateral-moving transform fault lies along the plate boundary between the African Plate and the Arabian Plate. It runs between the East Anatolian Fault zone in Turkey and the end of the Red Sea Rift offshore of the southern tip of Sinai. It is here that the Upper Jordan River/Sea of Galilee/Lower Jordan River water system comes to an end. The Jordan River is the major water source flowing into the Dead Sea, although there are small perennial springs under and around the Dead Sea, forming pools. The Mujib River, biblical Arnon, is one the larger sources of the Dead Sea other than the Jordan. The Wadi Mujib valley,420 m below the sea level in the southern of Jordan valley, is a biosphere reserve, other more substantial sources are Wadi Darajeh /Nahal Dragot, and Nahal Arugot
43.
Acacia
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Acacia, commonly known as the wattles or acacias, is a large genus of shrubs, lianas and trees in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae. Initially it comprised a group of plant species native to Africa and Australia, controversy erupted in the early 2000s when it became evident that the genus as it stood was not monophyletic, and that several divergent lineages needed to be placed in separate genera. It turned out that one lineage comprising over 900 species mainly native to Australia was not closely related to the mainly African lineage that contained A. nilotica—the first and this meant that the Australian lineage would need to be renamed. Botanist Les Pedley named this group Racosperma, which was inconsistently adopted and this was officially adopted, but many botanists from Africa and elsewhere disagreed that this was necessary. A number of species have been introduced to parts of the world. The heterogeneous group varies considerably in habit, from mat-like subshrubs to canopy trees in forest, the genus was first described from Africa by C. F. P. von Martius in 1829. Several hundred combinations in Acacia were published by Pedley in 2003, the genus of 981 species, Acacia s. l. in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae is monophyletic. All but 10 of its species are native to Australia, where it constitutes the largest plant genus, following a controversial decision to choose a new type for Acacia in 2005, the Australian component of Acacia s. l. now retains the name Acacia. At the 2011 International Botanical Congress held in Melbourne, the decision to use the name Acacia, other Acacia s. l. taxa continue to be called Acacia by those who choose to consider the entire group as one genus. Australian species of the genus Paraserianthes s. l. are deemed its closest relatives, the origin of wattle may be an Old Teutonic word meaning to weave. From around 700 A. D. watul was used in Old English to refer to the branches and sticks which formed fences, walls. Since about 1810 it refers to the Australian legumes that provide these branches, acacias in Australia probably evolved their fire resistance about 20 million years ago when fossilised charcoal deposits show a large increase, indicating that fire was a factor even then. With no major mountain ranges or rivers to prevent their spread and they began to form dry, open forests with species of the genera Casuarina, Eucalyptus and Callitris. The southernmost species in the genus are Acacia dealbata, Acacia longifolia, Acacia mearnsii and they are present in all terrestrial habitats, including alpine settings, rainforests, woodlands, grasslands, coastal dunes and deserts. In drier woodlands or forest they are an important component of the understory, elsewhere they may be dominant, as in the Brigalow Belt, Myall woodlands and the eremaean Mulga woodlands. Several of its species bear vertically oriented phyllodes, which are green, broadened leaf petioles that function like leaf blades, some phyllodinous species have a colourful aril on the seed. A few species have rather than leaves. Aborigines of Australia have traditionally harvested the seeds of species, to be ground into flour
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Pistacia
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Pistacia is a genus of flowering plants in the cashew family, Anacardiaceae. Pistacia plants are shrubs and small trees growing to 5–15 m tall, the leaves are alternate, pinnately compound, and can be either evergreen or deciduous depending on species. All species are dioecious, but monoecious individuals of Pistacia atlantica have been noted, the genus is estimated to be about 80 million years old. It is a genus of flowering plants belonging to the family Anacardiaceae, the plants are dioecious, have male and female trees independently, a viable population should have both genders. The Pistacia species are vicarious Anacardiaceae with few species outside the Old World, many plant species are adapted to desert or summer drought typical of Mediterranean climate, so have a high tolerance to saline soil. They grow well in water containing up to 3.0 to 4. 0% of soluble salts and they are quite resilient in their ecological requirements, and can survive in temperatures ranging from −10 °C in winter to 45 °C in summer. They prefer places oriented toward the sun and well-drained soil, though very hardy and drought resistance, Pistacia species grow slowly and only begin to bear fruit after about seven to 10 years from planting, obtaining full development only after 15 to 20 years. The fruit ripens in the Mediterranean from August, only female trees have fruit, although some species prefer moderate humidity, they do not grow well in high humidity conditions. They are susceptible to rot, molds, and fungi, and parasites attack if they receive too much water. They require a period of each year for proper development. Their leaves are bright green and leathery, with three to 9 leaflets. The leaves are alternate, compound, and paripinnate, the flowers are unisexual, apetalous, and grouped in clusters. The flowers range from purple to green, the fruit is a drupe, generally unpalatable to humans, the size of a pea, and red to brown in color, depending on the degree of maturation. The seeds do not have endosperm, the commercial species of pistachio has larger fruits and is edible. The plants emit a bitter, resinous or medicative smell, which in species is very intense. Some species develop galls that occur in the leaves and leaflets after the bite of insects, although marred by the presence of galls, they are very vigorous and resistant plants that survive in degraded areas where other species have been eliminated. They multiply by seeds, stolons, and root shoots, various species hybridize easily between them, and hybrid plants are difficult to identify. Some tree species can exist as small bushes and shrubs due to the extremes of their habitat, adverse conditions, Pistacia lentiscus is a very common plant related to Pistacia terebinthus with which it hybridizes
