Regional council (Israel)
Regional councils are one of the three types of Israel's local government entities, with the other two being cities and local councils. As of 2019, there were 54 regional councils responsible for governing a number of settlements spread across rural areas. Regional councils include representation of anywhere between 3 and 54 communities spread over a large area within geographical vicinity of each other; each community within a regional council does not exceed 2000 in population and is managed by a local committee. This committee sends representatives to the administering regional council proportionate to their size of membership and according to an index, fixed before each election; those settlements without an administrative council do not send any representatives to the regional council, instead being dealt by it directly. Representatives from those settlements which are represented directly are either chosen directly or through an election; the predominant form of communities represented on regional councils are moshavim.
The following sortable table lists all 53 regional councils by name, the district or area according to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. The list includes the regional councils in the Golan Heights and the West Bank, areas considered occupied territories under international law, although the Israeli government disputes this. City council Local council List of Israeli cities Local Government in Israel; the Knesset Lexicon of Terms. 2009
Poland
Poland the Republic of Poland, is a country located in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative subdivisions, covering an area of 312,696 square kilometres, has a temperate seasonal climate. With a population of 38.5 million people, Poland is the sixth most populous member state of the European Union. Poland's capital and largest metropolis is Warsaw. Other major cities include Kraków, Łódź, Wrocław, Poznań, Gdańsk, Szczecin. Poland is bordered by the Baltic Sea, Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast and Lithuania to the north and Ukraine to the east and Czech Republic, to the south, Germany to the west; the establishment of the Polish state can be traced back to AD 966, when Mieszko I, ruler of the realm coextensive with the territory of present-day Poland, converted to Christianity. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, in 1569 it cemented its longstanding political association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin; this union formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th and 17th century Europe, with a uniquely liberal political system which adopted Europe's first written national constitution, the Constitution of 3 May 1791.
More than a century after the Partitions of Poland at the end of the 18th century, Poland regained its independence in 1918 with the Treaty of Versailles. In September 1939, World War II started with the invasion of Poland by Germany, followed by the Soviet Union invading Poland in accordance with the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. More than six million Polish citizens, including 90% of the country's Jews, perished in the war. In 1947, the Polish People's Republic was established as a satellite state under Soviet influence. In the aftermath of the Revolutions of 1989, most notably through the emergence of the Solidarity movement, Poland reestablished itself as a presidential democratic republic. Poland is regional power, it has the fifth largest economy by GDP in the European Union and one of the most dynamic economies in the world achieving a high rank on the Human Development Index. Additionally, the Polish Stock Exchange in Warsaw is the largest and most important in Central Europe. Poland is a developed country, which maintains a high-income economy along with high standards of living, life quality, safety and economic freedom.
Having a developed school educational system, the country provides free university education, state-funded social security, a universal health care system for all citizens. Poland has 15 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Poland is a member state of the European Union, the Schengen Area, the United Nations, NATO, the OECD, the Three Seas Initiative, the Visegrád Group; the origin of the name "Poland" derives from the West Slavic tribe of Polans that inhabited the Warta river basin of the historic Greater Poland region starting in the 6th century. The origin of the name "Polanie" itself derives from the early Slavic word "pole". In some languages, such as Hungarian, Lithuanian and Turkish, the exonym for Poland is Lechites, which derives from the name of a semi-legendary ruler of Polans, Lech I. Early Bronze Age in Poland begun around 2400 BC, while the Iron Age commenced in 750 BC. During this time, the Lusatian culture, spanning both the Bronze and Iron Ages, became prominent; the most famous archaeological find from the prehistory and protohistory of Poland is the Biskupin fortified settlement, dating from the Lusatian culture of the early Iron Age, around 700 BC.
Throughout the Antiquity period, many distinct ancient ethnic groups populated the regions of what is now Poland in an era that dates from about 400 BC to 500 AD. These groups are identified as Celtic, Slavic and Germanic tribes. Recent archeological findings in the Kujawy region, confirmed the presence of the Roman Legions on the territory of Poland; these were most expeditionary missions sent out to protect the amber trade. The exact time and routes of the original migration and settlement of Slavic peoples lacks written records and can only be defined as fragmented; the Slavic tribes who would form Poland migrated to these areas in the second half of the 5th century AD. Up until the creation of Mieszko's state and his subsequent conversion to Christianity in 966 AD, the main religion of Slavic tribes that inhabited the geographical area of present-day Poland was Slavic paganism. With the Baptism of Poland the Polish rulers accepted Christianity and the religious authority of the Roman Church.
However, the transition from paganism was not a smooth and instantaneous process for the rest of the population as evident from the pagan reaction of the 1030s. Poland began to form into a recognizable unitary and territorial entity around the middle of the 10th century under the Piast dynasty. Poland's first documented ruler, Mieszko I, accepted Christianity with the Baptism of Poland in 966, as the new official religion of his subjects; the bulk of the population converted in the course of the next few centuries. In 1000, Boleslaw the Brave, continuing the policy of his father Mieszko, held a Congress of Gniezno and created the metropolis of Gniezno and the dioceses of Kraków, Kołobrzeg, Wrocław. However, the pagan unrest led to the transfer of the capital to Kraków in 1038 by Casimir I the Restorer. In 1109, Prince Bolesław III Wrymouth defeated the King of Germany Henry V at the Battle of Hundsfeld, stopping the Ge
Hamadia
Hamadia is a kibbutz in the Beit She'an Valley, just north of Beit She'an in northern Israel. It belongs to the Valley of Springs Regional Council. In 2017 it had a population of 379; the kibbutz took its name from al-Hamidiyya, an abandoned Arab village north of the kibbutz named for the sultan of Turkey, Abdul Hamid II. The kibbutz was founded in 1939 as part of the stockade movement, it was re-established in 1942 by the "Hermonim" pioneers, a garin of native-born Israelis who were part of a youth group. The location is situated on a terrace of 200 metres below sea level. Tell Hamadia is a single layer archaeological site of about 100 m2, first reported and excavated at Hamadia by N. Tzori in 1958 again by Jacob Kaplan in 1964. Ovens and fireplaces were found with Yarmukian pottery and an assemblage of many axes, scrapers, "saw" elements and sickles. Large saw elements indicated possible earlier Neolithic occupation, suggested to date at least to the early Chalcolithic. A flint sickle workshop was located close to the site with over 300 sickle blades found.
Tell Hamadia is 10 km south of Munhata and is suggested to date between ca. 5800 and 5400 BCE. Detailed reports have yet to be published. Gal Nevo, Olympic swimmer
Meirav
Meirav is the name of King Saul's oldest daughter. Meirav is a religious kibbutz in northern Israel. Located on the downward slopes of Mount Gilboa around ten kilometres southwest of Beit She'an and less than 500 metres from the Green Line, it falls under the jurisdiction of Valley of Springs Regional Council. In 2017 it had a population of 700; some people connect the name "Meirav" to the story of Saul's death in the Battle of Gilboa against the Philistines, believed to have occurred nearby, because Saul's oldest daughter was named Meirav. However, the name can be interpreted as meaning "a lot of water" and " the most of"; the kibbutz was founded as a Nahal settlement on Mount Malkishua in 1982, is the newest religious kibbutz in the country. In 1987, it moved to its current location on Mount Avinadav. Meirav is located just south of Ma'ale Gilboa; as they are both religious kibbutzim, it was decided that although they are located in the Gilboa mountains, it would be better to include them in Beit She'an Valley Regional Council, where there is a group of religious kibbutzim, including Ein HaNatziv, Sde Eliyahu and Tirat Zvi.
On 18 November 2011, Haaretz reported that the route of the separation barrier near kibbutz Meirav has been changed so that about 1,500 dunams of Palestinian land would be on the Israeli side. Assigned to the kibbutz by the Israel Lands Administration, the parcel of owned Palestinian land, registered as such with the Israeli authorities, was transferred to the kibbutz, located about seven kilometers northwest of it, it is thought to be the first instance of Palestinian-owned land being transferred to a community on Israeli territory within the Green line. According to Haaretz, the ILA, which has no authority in the West Bank and had no right to transfer the owned Palestinian land to the kibbutz, informed the kibbutz in January 2012 that the land was being removed from their allotted slot; the kibbutz continued to cultivate the land. As Haaretz reports, the land is to be returned to its Palestinian owners after the ILA admitted its mistake in a letter to the Palestinian landowner's attorney in February 2013.
As well as agriculture, the kibbutz has a candle factory. Until 2001, it employed around 100 Palestinians from the nearby West Bank village of Jalbun. However, a terrorist attack on the kibbutz's residents, resulting in the death of a young girl, another in Beit She'an led to the building of a fence between the two communities, resulting in the Palestinians losing their jobs
Ecology
Ecology is the branch of biology which studies the interactions among organisms and their environment. Objects of study include interactions of organisms that include biotic and abiotic components of their environment. Topics of interest include the biodiversity, distribution and populations of organisms, as well as cooperation and competition within and between species. Ecosystems are dynamically interacting systems of organisms, the communities they make up, the non-living components of their environment. Ecosystem processes, such as primary production, nutrient cycling, niche construction, regulate the flux of energy and matter through an environment; these processes are sustained by organisms with specific life history traits. Biodiversity means the varieties of species and ecosystems, enhances certain ecosystem services. Ecology is not synonymous with natural history, or environmental science, it overlaps with the related sciences of evolutionary biology and ethology. An important focus for ecologists is to improve the understanding of how biodiversity affects ecological function.
Ecologists seek to explain: Life processes and adaptations The movement of materials and energy through living communities The successional development of ecosystems The abundance and distribution of organisms and biodiversity in the context of the environment. Ecology has practical applications in conservation biology, wetland management, natural resource management, city planning, community health, economics and applied science, human social interaction. For example, the Circles of Sustainability approach treats ecology as more than the environment'out there', it is not treated as separate from humans. Organisms and resources compose ecosystems which, in turn, maintain biophysical feedback mechanisms that moderate processes acting on living and non-living components of the planet. Ecosystems sustain life-supporting functions and produce natural capital like biomass production, the regulation of climate, global biogeochemical cycles, water filtration, soil formation, erosion control, flood protection, many other natural features of scientific, economic, or intrinsic value.
The word "ecology" was coined in 1866 by the German scientist Ernst Haeckel. Ecological thought is derivative of established currents in philosophy from ethics and politics. Ancient Greek philosophers such as Hippocrates and Aristotle laid the foundations of ecology in their studies on natural history. Modern ecology became a much more rigorous science in the late 19th century. Evolutionary concepts relating to adaptation and natural selection became the cornerstones of modern ecological theory; the scope of ecology contains a wide array of interacting levels of organization spanning micro-level to a planetary scale phenomena. Ecosystems, for example, contain interacting life forms. Ecosystems are dynamic, they do not always follow a linear successional path, but they are always changing and sometimes so that it can take thousands of years for ecological processes to bring about certain successional stages of a forest. An ecosystem's area can vary from tiny to vast. A single tree is of little consequence to the classification of a forest ecosystem, but critically relevant to organisms living in and on it.
Several generations of an aphid population can exist over the lifespan of a single leaf. Each of those aphids, in turn, support diverse bacterial communities; the nature of connections in ecological communities cannot be explained by knowing the details of each species in isolation, because the emergent pattern is neither revealed nor predicted until the ecosystem is studied as an integrated whole. Some ecological principles, however, do exhibit collective properties where the sum of the components explain the properties of the whole, such as birth rates of a population being equal to the sum of individual births over a designated time frame; the main subdisciplines of ecology, population ecology and ecosystem ecology, exhibit a difference not only of scale, but of two contrasting paradigms in the field. The former focus on organisms distribution and abundance, while the focus on materials and energy fluxes; the scale of ecological dynamics can operate like a closed system, such as aphids migrating on a single tree, while at the same time remain open with regard to broader scale influences, such as atmosphere or climate.
Hence, ecologists classify ecosystems hierarchically by analyzing data collected from finer scale units, such as vegetation associations and soil types, integrate this information to identify emergent patterns of uniform organization and processes that operate on local to regional and chronological scales. To structure the study of ecology into a conceptually manageable framework, the biological world is organized into a nested hierarchy, ranging in scale from genes, to cells, to tissues, to organs, to organisms, to species, to populations, to communities, to ecosystems, to biomes, up to the level of the biosphere; this framework exhibits non-linear behaviors.
Northern District (Israel)
The Northern District is one of Israel's six administrative districts. The Northern District has a land area of 4,478 km², which increases to 4,638 km² when both land and water are included; the district capital and largest city in the North District is Nazareth. The Golan Heights has been run as a sub-district of the North District of Israel since the 1981 Golan Heights Law was passed. Excluding the Golan Heights, which covers a land area of 1,154 km², the Northern District covers 3,324 km². According to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics data for 2016: Total population: 1,390,900 Ethnic: Arabs: 746,600 Jews: 599,700 Others: 44,600 Religious: Jews: 599,700 Muslims: 540,600 Druze: 111,400 Arab Christians: 93,100 Not classified: 40,000 Density: 311/km²As such, the North District is the only district in Israel where the majority of inhabitants are Arabs; the Northern District is divided into the following subdistricts: Safed Subdistrict Kineret sub-district Jezreel sub-district Acre Subdistrict Golan sub-district Galilee Arab localities in Israel List of cities in Israel
Israel
Israel the State of Israel, is a country in Western Asia, located on the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the northern shore of the Red Sea. It has land borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the northeast, Jordan on the east, the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the east and west and Egypt to the southwest; the country contains geographically diverse features within its small area. Israel's economic and technological center is Tel Aviv, while its seat of government and proclaimed capital is Jerusalem, although the state's sovereignty over Jerusalem has only partial recognition. Israel has evidence of the earliest migration of hominids out of Africa. Canaanite tribes are archaeologically attested since the Middle Bronze Age, while the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah emerged during the Iron Age; the Neo-Assyrian Empire destroyed Israel around 720 BCE. Judah was conquered by the Babylonian and Hellenistic empires and had existed as Jewish autonomous provinces.
The successful Maccabean Revolt led to an independent Hasmonean kingdom by 110 BCE, which in 63 BCE however became a client state of the Roman Republic that subsequently installed the Herodian dynasty in 37 BCE, in 6 CE created the Roman province of Judea. Judea lasted as a Roman province until the failed Jewish revolts resulted in widespread destruction, expulsion of Jewish population and the renaming of the region from Iudaea to Syria Palaestina. Jewish presence in the region has persisted to a certain extent over the centuries. In the 7th century CE, the Levant was taken from the Byzantine Empire by the Arabs and remained in Muslim control until the First Crusade of 1099, followed by the Ayyubid conquest of 1187; the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt extended its control over the Levant in the 13th century until its defeat by the Ottoman Empire in 1517. During the 19th century, national awakening among Jews led to the establishment of the Zionist movement in the diaspora followed by waves of immigration to Ottoman Syria and British Mandate Palestine.
In 1947, the United Nations adopted a Partition Plan for Palestine recommending the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states and an internationalized Jerusalem. The plan was accepted by the Jewish Agency, rejected by Arab leaders; the following year, the Jewish Agency declared the independence of the State of Israel, the subsequent 1948 Arab–Israeli War saw Israel's establishment over most of the former Mandate territory, while the West Bank and Gaza were held by neighboring Arab states. Israel has since fought several wars with Arab countries, since the Six-Day War in 1967 held occupied territories including the West Bank, Golan Heights and the Gaza Strip, it extended its laws to the Golan East Jerusalem, but not the West Bank. Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories is the world's longest military occupation in modern times. Efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have not resulted in a final peace agreement. However, peace treaties between Israel and both Egypt and Jordan have been signed.
In its Basic Laws, Israel defines itself as a democratic state. The country has a liberal democracy, with a parliamentary system, proportional representation, universal suffrage; the prime minister is head of government and the Knesset is the legislature. Israel is a developed country and an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development member, with the 32nd-largest economy in the world by nominal gross domestic product as of 2017; the country benefits from a skilled workforce and is among the most educated countries in the world with one of the highest percentages of its citizens holding a tertiary education degree. Israel has the highest standard of living in the Middle East, has one of the highest life expectancies in the world. Furthermore, Israel ranked 11th in the UN's 2018 World Happiness Report. Upon independence in 1948, the country formally adopted the name "State of Israel" after other proposed historical and religious names including Eretz Israel and Judea, were considered but rejected.
In the early weeks of independence, the government chose the term "Israeli" to denote a citizen of Israel, with the formal announcement made by Minister of Foreign Affairs Moshe Sharett. The names Land of Israel and Children of Israel have been used to refer to the biblical Kingdom of Israel and the entire Jewish people respectively; the name "Israel" in these phrases refers to the patriarch Jacob who, according to the Hebrew Bible, was given the name after he wrestled with the angel of the Lord. Jacob's twelve sons became the ancestors of the Israelites known as the Twelve Tribes of Israel or Children of Israel. Jacob and his sons had lived in Canaan but were forced by famine to go into Egypt for four generations, lasting 430 years, until Moses, a great-great grandson of Jacob, led the Israelites back into Canaan during the "Exodus"; the earliest known archaeological artifact to mention the word "Israel" as a collective is the Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt. The area is known as the Holy Land, being holy for all Abrahamic religions including Judaism, Christianity and the Bahá'í Faith.
Under British Mandate, the whole region was known as Palestine (Hebre
