1.
Amos Oz
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Amos Oz is an Israeli writer, novelist, journalist and intellectual. He is also a professor of literature at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba and he is regarded as Israels most famous living author. Ozs work has been published in 42 languages, including Arabic and he has received many honours and awards, among them the Legion of Honour of France, the Goethe Prize, the Prince of Asturias Award in Literature, the Heinrich Heine Prize and the Israel Prize. In 2007, a selection from the Chinese translation of A Tale of Love, since 1967, Oz has been a prominent advocate of a two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Amos Klausner was born in 1939 in Jerusalem, where he grew up at No.18 Amos Street in the Kerem Avraham neighborhood and his parents, Fania and Yehuda Arieh Klausner, were immigrants to Mandatory Palestine, who met while studying at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His fathers family was from Lithuania, where they had been farmers, raising cattle and his father studied history and literature in Vilnius, Lithuania and hoped to become a professor of comparative literature but never gained headway in the academic world. He worked most of his life as a librarian at the Jewish National and she was a highly sensitive and cultured daughter of a wealthy mill owner and attended Charles University in Prague where she studied history and philosophy. She had to abandon her studies when her fathers business collapsed in the Great Depression, Ozs parents were multilingual but neither was comfortable speaking in Hebrew. They spoke with other in Polish, but the only language they allowed Oz to learn was Hebrew. Many of Ozs family members were right-wing Revisionist Zionists and his great uncle Joseph Klausner was the Herut party candidate for the presidency against Chaim Weizmann and was chair of the Hebrew literature department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Oz and his family were not religious, considering it irrational, Oz, however, attended the community religious school Tachkemoni since the only alternative was a socialist school affiliated with the labour movement, to which his family was even more opposed. The noted poet Zelda was one of his teachers, after Tachkemoni he attended Gymnasia Rehavia. His mother, who suffered from depression, committed suicide when he was 12 and he would later explore the repercussions of this event in his memoir A Tale of Love and Darkness. Two years after the suicide of his mother, at the age of 14, he became a Labor Zionist, left home, there he was adopted by the Huldai family and changed his last name to Oz, Hebrew for courage. Asked why he did not leave Jerusalem for Tel Aviv, he later said, by his own account he was a disaster as a laborer. When Oz first began to write, the kibbutz allotted him one day per week for this work, when his book My Michael turned out to be a best-seller Oz quipped that he had become a branch of the economy and the kibbutz allotted him three days. By the 1980s he was four days for writing, two for teaching, while continuing to take his turn as a waiter in the kibbutz dining hall on Saturdays. ”Oz did his Israel Defense Forces service in the Nahal brigade. After concluding his service he was sent by his kibbutz to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem
2.
Amir Peretz
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Amir Peretz is an Israeli politician who currently serves as a member of the Knesset for the Zionist Union. He previously served as Minister of Defence, leader of the Labor Party, Peretz is the former chairman of the Histadrut trade union federation and defeated Shimon Peres in the primary elections for the Labor leadership on 9 November 2005. He led the Labor Party to a place showing in the 2006 elections. He was defeated by Ehud Barak for the Labor leadership on 12 June 2007 and he joined the Hatnuah party in December 2012, before rejoining the Labor Party in September 2015. Peretz was born as Armand Peretz in Boujad, Morocco, on 9 March 1952 during French colonial rule and his father David was head of the Jewish community in Boujad. He worked as an accountant and at a petrol station, the family emigrated to Israel when Morocco won independence in 1956. They were settled in the development town of Sderot, where Peretz lived until the age of 18 and he went to high school in a nearby kibbutz. He served in the Israel Defense Forces as the ordnance officer of the 202nd paratroopers brigade. On 22 April 1974, Peretz was badly wounded as a result of an accident at the Mitla Pass and he spent a year in the hospital recuperating. After leaving the hospital, he bought a farm in the village of Nir Akiva, still in a wheelchair, he began growing vegetables and flowers for export. During this period he met his wife Ahlama and they married, in 1983, answering a call made by friends, Peretz ran for the office of mayor of Sderot, as candidate of the Israel Labor Party. At only 31 years of age he won a victory that ended a period of dominance of the towns politics by the right-wing Likud party. It was the first in a series of councils that passed back to Labor control in the late 1980s. As mayor, he emphasized education and worked to improve previously fractious relations with the kibbutzim in the area. In 1988 he was elected a member of the Knesset, in 1994, after failing in a previous bid for Histadrut leadership, Peretz joined forces with Haim Ramon to contest control of the then powerful trade union federation. They ran on an independent list against the candidate of then Labor leader Yitzhak Rabin. They won, and Peretz became Ramons deputy at the Histadrut and he became chairman of the Histadrut in December 1995, when Ramon reentered the cabinet following Rabins assassination. During his early years at the helm of the Histadrut, Peretz was regarded as a militant firebrand, sometimes the pretext for declaring a general strike would be an inopportune statement by the finance minister, as had been the case with Yaakov Neeman in 1996
3.
Yuli Tamir
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Yael Yuli Tamir is an Israeli academic and former politician who served as a member of the Knesset for the Labor Party between 2003 and 2010, and as Minister of Immigrant Absorption and Education. Since 2010 she has been President of Shenkar College of Engineering, born in Tel Aviv, Tamir served in Amans 848 Unit during her national service, and during the Yom Kippur War, she served as an officer in an outpost on the Sinai. She received a BA in Biology and an MA in Political Science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and she received a PhD in Political Philosophy from Oxford. Between 1989 and 1999, she was a lecturer in Tel Aviv University. Tamir was one of the founders of Peace Now in 1978, from 1998 until 1999, she was chairwoman of the Israeli Association for Civil Rights. From 1995, she became active in the Labour Party, although Tamir failed to win election to the Knesset in the 1999 election, she was appointed Minister of Immigrant Absorption by Ehud Barak. She was elected to the Knesset in the following 2003 election, and served on the finance, constitutional, law and order, public input and she also served on the investigatory parliamentary committee into government corruption. She was elected to the Knesset again in the 2006 elections, Tamir also served as acting Science, Culture and Sport minister following Ophir Pines-Pazs resignation in November 2006 until March 2007 when Raleb Majadele was appointed. Placed ninth on the partys list, she retained her seat in the 2009 elections, however, she resigned her seat in 2010 to become President of Shenkar College of Engineering and Design, and was replaced by Majadele. Tamir has been a figure in Israel. As Minister of Education, she approved a history textbook for Arab children, Tamir defended her act as a way of giving expression to feelings as well. On 11 August 2008, it was reported that Tamir had announced plans to remove Zeev Jabotinskys work from the education curriculum. Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, Yuli Tamir on the Knesset website
4.
Tzali Reshef
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Betzalel Tzali Reshef is a former Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset for the Labor Party between August 2002 and February 2003. Reshef obtained a degree in law and economics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He then began working as an attorney, One of the founders of Peace Now, he authored a book on the organisation in 1996 entitled Peace Now, From the Officers Letter to the Peace Now. Prior to the 1999 elections he was placed 35th on the One Israel list, although he entered the Knesset on 21 August 2002 as a replacement for Raanan Cohen, he did not contest the 2003 elections and lost his seat. He was placed ninth on the Meretz list for the 2009 elections and he was a co-host, along with Geulah Cohen, of a radio show on Reshet Bet. Tzali Reshef on the Knesset website
5.
Avshalom Vilan
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Avshalom Abu Vilan is an Israeli politician and economist. He served as a Knesset member for Meretz between 1999 and 2009, Vilan studied Economics and Philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem after his national service, gaining a BA. He worked as an economist and agriculturalist before becoming an emissary for HaShomer Hatzair, upon his return to Israel in 1996 he became secretary of Kibbutz Artzi, a role he remained in until 1999. During his younger years, Vilan played for the Hatzor volleyball team in the national league, Vilan had become involved in political activism in the 1970s and was a founding member of Peace Now in 1978. He joined the socialist Mapam, and eventually became party secretary in 1990, when Mapam merged with Ratz and Shinui to form Meretz in 1992, Vilan assumed membership of the new party. In the 1999 elections Vilan was elected to the Knesset on Meretzs list, during his first term in the Knesset he chaired the Knesset Inquiry Committee on Violence in Sports. Vilan retained his seat in the 2003 elections and chaired the same committee and he again retained his seat in the 2006 elections. For two terms, Vilan chaired the Parliamentary Inquiry Committee on Violence in Sports, prior to the 2009 elections he won fifth place on the Meretz list. However, he lost his seat when the party was reduced to three mandates, Vilan lives in kibbutz Negba, and is married with two children. He occasionally writes articles in the Israeli press, avshalom Vilan on the Knesset website
6.
Non-governmental organization
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A non-governmental organization is a not-for-profit organization that is independent from states and international governmental organizations. They are usually funded by donations but some avoid formal funding altogether and are run primarily by volunteers, NGOs are highly diverse groups of organizations engaged in a wide range of activities, and take different forms in different parts of the world. Some may have charitable status, while others may be registered for tax exemption based on recognition of social purposes, others may be fronts for political, religious, or other interests. The number of NGOs worldwide is estimated to be 3.7 million, India is estimated to have had around 2 million NGOs in 2009, just over one NGO per 600 Indians, and many times the number of primary schools and primary health centres in India. China is estimated to have approximately 440,000 officially registered NGOs, NGOs are difficult to define, and the term NGO is not always used consistently. In some countries the term NGO is applied to an organization that in another country would be called an NPO, there are many different classifications of NGO in use. The most common focus is on orientation and level of operation, an NGOs orientation refers to the type of activities it takes on. These activities might include human rights, environmental, improving health, an NGOs level of operation indicates the scale at which an organization works, such as local, regional, national, or international. The term non-governmental organization was first coined in 1945, when the United Nations was created, later the term became used more widely. One characteristic these diverse organizations share is that their non-profit status means they are not hindered by short-term financial objectives. Accordingly, they are able to devote themselves to issues which occur across longer time horizons, such as change, malaria prevention. Public surveys reveal that NGOs often enjoy a degree of public trust. NGO/GRO types can be understood by their orientation and level of how they operate, charitable orientation often involves a top-down paternalistic effort with little participation by the beneficiaries. It includes NGOs with activities directed toward meeting the needs of the poor people, in the classical community development project, participation begins with the need definition and continues into the planning and implementation stages. There is maximum involvement of the beneficiaries with NGOs acting as facilitators, community-based organizations arise out of peoples own initiatives. They can be responsible for raising the consciousness of the poor, helping them to understand their rights in accessing needed services. City-wide organizations include organizations such as chambers of commerce and industry, coalitions of business, ethnic or educational groups, national NGOs include national organizations such as the YMCAs/YWCAs, professional associations and similar groups. Some have state and city branches and assist local NGOs and they can be responsible for funding local NGOs, institutions and projects and implementing projects
7.
Two-state solution
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The two-state solution refers to a solution of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict which calls for two states for two groups of people. The two-state solution envisages an independent State of Palestine alongside the State of Israel, the boundary between the two states is still subject to dispute and negotiation, with Palestinian and Arab leadership insisting on the 1967 borders, which is not accepted by Israel. The territory of the former Mandate Palestine which shall not form part of the Palestinian State, the framework of the solution is set out in UN resolutions on the Peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine, going back to 1974. The borders of the state of Palestine are based on the pre-1967 borders, the latest resolution in November 2013 was passed 165 to 6, with 6 abstentions. The countries voting against were Canada, Israel, the United States, the Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, the Palestinians have shown serious interest in a two-state solution since the mid-1970s, and its mainstream leadership has embraced the concept since the 1982 Arab Summit in Fez. Over the years, polls have consistently shown respectable Israeli and Palestinian majorities in favor of a negotiated two-state settlement, there have been many diplomatic efforts to realize a two state solution, starting from the 1991 Madrid Conference. There followed the 1993 Oslo Accords and the failed 2000 Camp David Summit followed by the Taba negotiations in early 2001, in 2002, the Arab League proposed the Arab Peace Initiative. The latest initiative, which failed, was the 2013–14 peace talks. The recommended partition proposal was rejected by the Arab community of Palestine, Partition was again proposed by the 1947 UN Partition plan for the division of Palestine. It proposed a division, again with Jerusalem held separately. The partition plan was accepted by the Jewish leadership, however, the plan was rejected by the leadership of Arab nations and the Palestinian leadership, which opposed any partition of Palestine and any independent Jewish presence in the area. The 1948 Arab-Israeli War for control of the disputed land broke out on the end of the British Mandate, the war resulted in the fleeing or expulsion of 711,000 Palestinians, which the Palestinians call Nakba, from the territories which became the state of Israel. The Palestine Liberation Organization, which had formed in 1964, strongly criticized the resolution. In September 1974,56 Member States proposed that the question of Palestine be included as an item in the General Assembly’s agenda and these rights have been affirmed every year since. The first indication that the PLO would be willing to accept a solution, on at least an interim basis, was articulated by Said Hammami in the mid-1970s. The idea has had overwhelming support in the UN General Assembly since the mid-1970s, the Partition Plan was invoked to provide legitimacy to Palestinian statehood. Subsequent clarifications were taken to amount to the first explicit Palestinian recognition of Israel, in 1975, the General Assembly established the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. The Security Council discussed the recommendations but failed to reach a decision due to the vote of the United States
8.
Tel Aviv
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Tel Aviv-Yafo is a major city in Israel, located on the countrys Mediterranean coastline. It is the center and the technology hub of Israel, with a population of 432,892. Tel Aviv is the largest city in the Gush Dan region of Israel, Tel Aviv is also a focal point in the high-tech concentration known as the Silicon Wadi. Tel Aviv is governed by the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality, headed by Ron Huldai, Tel Aviv is a global city, and is the thirty eighth most important financial center in the world. Tel Aviv is known to have the third-largest economy of any city in the Middle East after Abu Dhabi and Kuwait City, the city receives over a million international visitors annually. Known as The City that Never Sleeps and a party capital, it has a lively nightlife, the city was founded in 1909 by Jewish immigrants on the outskirts of the ancient port city of Jaffa. It is named after the Hebrew translation of Theodor Herzls 1902 novel, Altneuland, the modern citys first neighbourhoods had already been established in 1886, the first being Neve Tzedek. Immigration by mostly Jewish refugees meant that the growth of Tel Aviv soon outpaced Jaffas, Tel Aviv and Jaffa were merged into a single municipality in 1950, two years after the establishment of the State of Israel. Tel Avivs White City, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003, Tel Aviv is the Hebrew title of Theodor Herzls Altneuland, translated from German by Nahum Sokolow. The name was chosen in 1910 from several suggestions, including Herzliya and it was found fitting as it embraced the idea of a renaissance in the ancient Jewish homeland. Aviv is Hebrew for spring, symbolizing renewal, and tel is a man-made mound accumulating layers of civilization built one over the other and symbolizing the ancient. Although founded in 1909 as a settlement on the sand dunes North of Jaffa. The marketing pamphlets advocating for its establishment in 1906, wrote, In this city we will build the streets so they have roads and sidewalks and electric lights. Every house will have water wells that will flow through pipes as in every modern European city. Since 1886, Jewish settlers had founded new neighborhoods outside Jaffa on the current territory of Tel Aviv, the first was Neve Tzedek, built on lands owned by Aharon Chelouche and inhabited primarily by Mizrahi Jews. Other neighborhoods were Neve Shalom, Yafa Nof, Achva, Ohel Moshe, Kerem HaTeimanim, once Tel Aviv received city status in the 1920s, those neighborhoods joined the newly formed municipality, now becoming separated from Jaffa. The Second Aliyah led to further expansion, in 1906, a group of Jews, among them residents of Jaffa, followed the initiative of Akiva Aryeh Weiss and banded together to form the Ahuzat Bayit society. The societys goal was to form a Hebrew urban centre in an environment, planned according to the rules of aesthetics
9.
Jerusalem
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Jerusalem is a city located on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is considered a city in the three major Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed at least twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, the part of Jerusalem called the City of David was settled in the 4th millennium BCE. In 1538, walls were built around Jerusalem under Suleiman the Magnificent, today those walls define the Old City, which has been traditionally divided into four quarters—known since the early 19th century as the Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Quarters. The Old City became a World Heritage Site in 1981, and is on the List of World Heritage in Danger, Modern Jerusalem has grown far beyond the Old Citys boundaries. These foundational events, straddling the dawn of the 1st millennium BCE, the sobriquet of holy city was probably attached to Jerusalem in post-exilic times. The holiness of Jerusalem in Christianity, conserved in the Septuagint which Christians adopted as their own authority, was reinforced by the New Testament account of Jesuss crucifixion there, in Sunni Islam, Jerusalem is the third-holiest city, after Mecca and Medina. As a result, despite having an area of only 0, outside the Old City stands the Garden Tomb. Today, the status of Jerusalem remains one of the issues in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, West Jerusalem was among the captured and later annexed by Israel while East Jerusalem, including the Old City, was captured. Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan during the 1967 Six-Day War and subsequently annexed it into Jerusalem, one of Israels Basic Laws, the 1980 Jerusalem Law, refers to Jerusalem as the countrys undivided capital. All branches of the Israeli government are located in Jerusalem, including the Knesset, the residences of the Prime Minister and President, the international community does not recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital, and the city hosts no foreign embassies. Jerusalem is also home to some non-governmental Israeli institutions of importance, such as the Hebrew University. In 2011, Jerusalem had a population of 801,000, of which Jews comprised 497,000, Muslims 281,000, a city called Rušalim in the Execration texts of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt is widely, but not universally, identified as Jerusalem. Jerusalem is called Urušalim in the Amarna letters of Abdi-Heba, the name Jerusalem is variously etymologized to mean foundation of the god Shalem, the god Shalem was thus the original tutelary deity of the Bronze Age city. The form Yerushalem or Yerushalayim first appears in the Bible, in the Book of Joshua, according to a Midrash, the name is a combination of Yhwh Yireh and the town Shalem. The earliest extra-biblical Hebrew writing of the word Jerusalem is dated to the sixth or seventh century BCE and was discovered in Khirbet Beit Lei near Beit Guvrin in 1961. The inscription states, I am Yahweh thy God, I will accept the cities of Judah and I will redeem Jerusalem, or as other scholars suggest, the mountains of Judah belong to him, to the God of Jerusalem
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.
Israeli-occupied territories
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The Israeli-occupied territories are the territories occupied by Israel during the Six-Day War of 1967. Originally, those included the Syrian Golan Heights, the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula and Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip. Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict, termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for the right of every state in the area to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries. From 1967 to 1982, the four areas were governed under the Israeli Military Governorate, the IMG was dissolved in 1982, after the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty. Between 1998 and 2012, the term Palestinian territories, Occupied was used to refer to territories controlled by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, the International Court of Justice, the UN General Assembly and the United Nations Security Council regards Israel as the Occupying Power. UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk called Israels occupation an affront to international law, the Israeli High Court of Justice has ruled that Israel holds the West Bank under belligerent occupation. Israeli governments have preferred the term disputed territories in the case of the West Bank, officially Israel maintains that the West Bank is disputed territory. Israel asserts that since the disengagement of Israel from Gaza in 2005, the significance of the designation of these territories as occupied territory is that certain legal obligations fall on the occupying power under international law. Under international law there are laws of war governing military occupation, including the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. In 2015, over 800,000 Israelis resided over the 1949 Armistice Lines, Israel captured the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt in the 1967 Six-Day War. It established settlements along the Gulf of Aqaba and in the northeast portion and it had plans to expand the settlement of Yamit into a city with a population of 200,000, though the actual population of Yamit did not exceed 3,000. The Sinai Peninsula was returned to Egypt in stages beginning in 1979 as part of the Israel–Egypt Peace Treaty, as required by the treaty, Israel evacuated Israeli military installations and civilian settlements prior to the establishment of normal and friendly relations between it and Egypt. Israel dismantled eighteen settlements, two air bases, a naval base, and other installations by 1982, including the only oil resources under Israeli control. The evacuation of the population, which took place in 1982, was done forcefully in some instances. The settlements were demolished, as it was feared that settlers might try to return to their homes after the evacuation, since 1982, the Sinai Peninsula has not been regarded as occupied territory. Israels stated purpose for the Security Belt was to create a space separating its northern border towns from terrorists residing in Lebanon, during the stay in the security belt, the IDF held many positions and supported the SLA. The SLA took over daily life in the security zone, initially as the force of the Free Lebanon State. Notably, the South Lebanon Army controlled the prison in Khiam, in addition, United Nations forces and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon were deployed to the security belt
12.
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
13.
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
14.
Menachem Begin
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Menachem Begin was an Israeli politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of Israel. Before the creation of the state of Israel, he was the leader of the Zionist militant group Irgun and he proclaimed a revolt, on 1 February 1944, against the British mandatory government, which was opposed by the Jewish Agency. As head of the Irgun, he targeted the British in Palestine, later, the Irgun fought the Arabs during the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine. He remained in opposition in the eight elections, but became more acceptable to the political center. His 1977 electoral victory and premiership ended three decades of Labor Party political dominance, Begin’s most significant achievement as Prime Minister was the signing of a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979, for which he and Anwar Sadat shared the Nobel Prize for Peace. In the wake of the Camp David Accords, the Israel Defense Forces withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula, later, Begin’s government promoted the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Begin authorized the bombing of the Osirak nuclear plant in Iraq, as IDF forces remained mired in Lebanon and the economy suffered from hyperinflation, the public pressure on Begin mounted. Depressed by the death of his wife Aliza in November 1982, he withdrew from public life. He was the youngest of three children, on his mothers side he was descended from distinguished rabbis. His father, a merchant, was a community leader, a passionate Zionist. The midwife who attended his birth was the grandmother of Ariel Sharon, after a year of a traditional cheder education Begin started studying at a Tachkemoni school, associated with the religious Zionist movement. In his childhood, Begin, like most Jewish children in his town, was a member of the Zionist scouts movement Hashomer Hatzair and he was a member of Hashomer Hatzair until the age of 13, and at 16, he joined Betar. At 14, he was sent to a Polish government school, Begin studied law at the University of Warsaw, where he learned the oratory and rhetoric skills that became his trademark as a politician, and viewed as demagogy by his critics. During his studies, he organized a group of Jewish students to counter harassment by anti-Semites on campus. He graduated in 1935, but never practiced law, at this time, he became a disciple of Vladimir Zeev Jabotinsky, the founder of the nationalist Revisionist Zionism movement and its Betar youth wing. His rise within Betar was rapid, At 22, he shared the dais with his mentor at the Betar World Congress in Kraków, the pre-war Polish government actively supported Zionist youth and paramilitary movements. Begins leadership qualities were quickly recognised, in 1937 he was the active head of Betar in Czechoslovakia and became head of the largest branch, that of Poland. As head of Betars Polish branch, Begin traveled among regional branches to encourage supporters, to save money, he stayed at the homes of Betar members
15.
President of Egypt
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The President of the Arab Republic of Egypt is the head of state of Egypt. Under the various iterations of the Constitution of Egypt, the president is also the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, the first president of Egypt was Muhammad Naguib, one of the leaders of the Egyptian Revolution of 1952. He took office on 18 June 1953, the day on which the monarchy of Egypt was overthrown. Following the 2011 Egyptian revolution, Hosni Mubarak, who held office from 14 October 1981 until 11 February 2011, was forced to resign following calls for his removal from office. On 10 February 2011 Mubarak transferred presidential powers to then-Vice President Omar Suleiman, on 30 June 2012, Mohamed Morsi was sworn in as President of Egypt, having won the 2012 Egyptian presidential election on 24 June. The Egyptian Constitution has had various forms since its 1953 change to become a republic, under the 1980 amendments of the 1971 Egyptian Constitution, the president of the republic was elected indirectly in a two-stage system unique to Egypt. The People’s Assembly, the house of Parliament, nominated one of a number of candidates for presidency. In 2005 and 2007, constitutional amendments were made, principles in the amended constitution include, The election of the president of the republic by direct secret ballot from among all citizens who have the right to vote. Ensuring that multiple candidates be put forward for the people to choose from, ensuring the credibility of the nomination process. Providing the opportunity for political parties to put one of their leaders to contest the first presidential elections to be held in light of the amendment. The establishment of an election commission that would enjoy complete independence to supervise the election process. Carrying out the election in a single day, ensuring judicial supervision over the voting process. The following provisions regarding the process are stipulated in Article 76 as amended. If no candidate attains such a majority, elections will be repeated after at least seven days between the two candidates having the highest votes. In case of a tie between the candidate who attained the second highest votes and a candidate, the third candidate shall participate in the second round. The candidate who receives the highest votes in the second round shall be declared president, the amendment also provides that a law will be passed to regulate the relevant election procedures. This law is expected to regulate the various aspects of the process itself, including campaign funding, equal access to the media. As required by the amendment, the law will be submitted to the Supreme Constitutional Court to opine on its constitutionality
16.
Anwar Sadat
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Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat was the third President of Egypt, serving from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by fundamentalist army officers on 6 October 1981. His refusal to reconcile with them over the Palestinian issue resulted in Egypt being suspended from the Arab League from 1979 to 1989, the peace treaty was also one of the primary factors that led to his assassination. Anwar Sadat was born on 25 December 1918 in Mit Abu El Kom, Monufia, Egypt to a poor Nubian family, one of his brothers, Atef Sadat, later became a pilot and was killed in action during the October War of 1973. His father, Anwar Mohammed El Sadat was an Upper Egyptian, thus, they said his mother did not look Egyptian enough and some called him Nassers black poodle. He graduated from the Royal Military Academy in Cairo in 1938 and was appointed to the Signal Corps and he entered the army as a second lieutenant and was posted to Sudan. During the Second World War he was imprisoned by the British for his efforts to help from the Axis Powers in expelling the occupying British forces. Along with his fellow Free Officers, Sadat participated in the coup that launched the Egyptian Revolution of 1952. Sadat was assigned to announce the news of the revolution to the Egyptian people over the radio networks, during the presidency of Gamal Abdel Nasser, Sadat was appointed minister of State in 1954. He was also appointed editor of the newly founded daily Al Gomhuria, in 1959, he assumed the position of Secretary to the National Union. Sadat was the President of the National Assembly and then vice president and he was reappointed as vice president again in December 1969. Sadat succeeded Nasser as president after the death in October 1970. Sadats presidency was widely expected to be short-lived, viewing him as having been little more than a puppet of the former president, Nassers supporters in government settled on Sadat as someone they could manipulate easily. Sadat surprised everyone with a series of political moves by which he was able to retain the presidency. On 15 May 1971, Sadat announced his Corrective Revolution, purging the government, political, Sadat encouraged the emergence of an Islamist movement, which had been suppressed by Nasser. Believing Islamists to be socially conservative he gave them considerable cultural and ideological autonomy in exchange for political support and this peace initiative failed as neither Israel nor the United States of America accepted the terms as discussed then. The Egyptian and Syrian performance in the stages of the war astonished both Israel, and the Arab World. The most striking achievement was the Egyptian militarys advance approximately 15 km into the occupied Sinai Peninsula after penetrating and this line was popularly thought to have been an impregnable defensive chain. As the war progressed, three divisions of the Israeli army led by General Ariel Sharon had crossed the Suez Canal, although agreed upon, the ceasefire was immediately broken
17.
Cabinet of Israel
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The Government of Israel exercises executive authority in the State of Israel. It consists of ministers who are chosen and led by the prime minister, the composition of the government must be approved by a vote of confidence in the Knesset. Under Israeli law, the minister may dismiss members of the government, but must do so in writing. Most ministers lead ministries, though some are ministers without portfolio, most ministers are members of the Knesset, though only the Prime Minister and the designated acting prime minister are required to be Knesset members. Some ministers are also called deputy and vice prime ministers, unlike the designated acting prime minister, these roles have no statutory meanings. The government operates in accordance with the Basic Law and it meets on Sundays weekly in Jerusalem. There may be additional meetings if circumstances require it, the prime minister convenes these meetings. The body discussed in this article is referred to in Israeli official documents as the Government of Israel and this is in accordance to the normal translation of its Hebrew name. Another term in use is the Kitchen Cabinet, a collection of senior officials and it was formed as the Peoples Administration on 12 April 1948, in preparation for independence just over a month later. All its thirteen members were taken from Moetzet HaAm, the legislative body set up at the same time. This government has 21 ministers and seven deputy ministers, deri resigned his post as economy minister reportedly in protest of a gas monopoly deal. Netanyahu took the portfolio himself and promised to speed up the deal, Basic Law, The Government List of female cabinet ministers of Israel Current and past cabinets—Knesset website Basic Law, The Government —Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs
18.
1982 Lebanon War
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The military operation was launched after gunmen from Abu Nidals organization attempted to assassinate Shlomo Argov, Israels ambassador to the United Kingdom. Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin blamed Abu Nidals enemy, the PLO, for the incident, the PLO, under the chairmanship of Yasser Arafat, had relocated its headquarters to Tripoli in June 1982. Following the assassination of Gemayel in September 1982, Israels position in Beirut became untenable and the signing of a peace treaty became increasingly unlikely. After Israeli forces withdrew from most of Lebanon, the War of the Camps broke out between Lebanese factions, the remains of the PLO and Syria, in which Syria fought its former Palestinian allies. At the same time, Shia militant groups began consolidating and waging a low-intensity guerrilla war over the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, the Lebanese Civil War would continue until 1990, at which point Syria had established complete dominance over Lebanon. After the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, Lebanon became home to more than 110,000 Palestinian refugees, after their settlements in Palestine and Israel had been depopulated as a result of the war. After its founding in 1964 and the radicalization among Palestinians, which followed the Six Day War, continual violence near the Lebanese border occurred between Israel and the PLO starting from 1968, this peaked, following the relocation of PLO bases to Lebanon after the civil war in Jordan. The violence between Israel and the PLO peaked during Operation Litani in 1978, provoked by the Coastal Road Massacre which was carried out by Palestinian militants, as early as 1976, Israel had been assisting Lebanese Christian militias in their sporadic battles against the PLO. But Israels main partner was to be the Maronite Phalange party, whose paramilitary was led by Bashir Gemayel, gemayels strategy during the early stages of the Lebanese Civil War was to provoke the Syrians into retaliatory attacks on Christians, such that Israel could not ignore. In 1978, Menachem Begin declared that Israel would not allow a genocide of Lebanese Christians, hundreds of Lebanese militiamen began to train in Israel, at the IDF Staff and Command College. During the period June to December 1980 the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon recorded an increase in activities along the border zone, during the same period Israel protested numerous attacks by Palestinian forces, unrelated to the Lebanese border zone. In contrast the IDF had launched attacks on Lebanese territory often in support of the Lebanese Christian militia. In doing so Israel had violated UN Security Council resolution 425 on hundreds of occasions, in the subsequent period 16 June to 10 December 1981, a relative quiet was reported continuing from 29 May 1981 until 10 July. This was broken when Israeli aircraft resumed strikes against targets in southern Lebanon north of the UNIFIL area, led to exchanges of heavy firing between armed elements, on the one hand, and IDF and the de facto forces on the other. On 13 and 14 July, widespread Israeli air-strikes continued, armed elements fired into the enclave and northern Israel. Israeli-initiated attacks had led to rocket and artillery fire on northern Israel and this pattern continued in the coming days. Israel renewed its air strikes in an attempt to trigger a war that would allow it to out the PLO. On 17 July, the Israel Air Force launched an attack on PLO buildings in downtown Beirut
19.
Palestinian refugees
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The number of original refugees who meet UNRWAs Palestine Refugee criteria was 711,000 in 1950 of which approximately 30, 000–50,000 were still alive in 2012. Only 10% said they would live in Israel if given the option, a Palestine refugee camp is a plot of land placed at the disposal of UNRWA by the host government to accommodate Palestine refugees and to set up facilities to cater to their needs. Only around 1.4 million of registered Palestine refugees, approximately one-third, live in the 58 UNRWA-recognised refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip, the UNRWA definition does not cover final status. Registered descendants of UNRWA Palestine refugees, like Nansen passport and Certificate of Eligibility holders or like UNHCR refugees, the patrilineal descendants of the original Palestine refugees are also eligible for registration. In many cases UNHCR provides support for the children of Palestine refugees too, Palestinians make several distinctions relating to Palestinian refugees. The 1948 refugees and their descendants are broadly defined as refugees and those who left since 1967, and their descendants, are called nazihun or displaced persons, though many may also descend from the 1948 group. Most Palestinian refugees have retained their status and continue to reside in refugee camps, including within the State of Palestine in the West Bank. Their descendants form a portion of the Palestinian diaspora. During the 1948 Palestine War,711,000 out of around 900,000 Palestine Arabs fled or were expelled from the territories became the State of Israel. Instead, they chose to leave, either because they were unwilling to live with the Jews and they thought they could leave temporarily and return at their leisure. Later, a claim was put forth, namely that the Palestinians were ordered to leave. According to Benny Morris, between December 1947 and March 1948, around 100,000 Palestine Arabs fled. Among them were many from the higher and middle classes from the cities, expulsions took place in many towns and villages, particularly along the Tel-Aviv-Jerusalem road and in Eastern Galilee. About 50, 000-70,000 inhabitants of Lydda and Ramle were expelled towards Ramallah by the Israel Defense Forces during Operation Danny, during Operation Dekel, the Arabs of Nazareth and South Galilee were allowed to remain in their homes. Today they form the core of the Arab Israeli population and these events generated an exodus of 200,000 to 220,000 Palestinian Arabs. Here, Arabs fled fearing atrocities or were expelled if they had not fled, after the war, from 1948 to 1950, the IDF resettled around 30,000 to 40,000 Arabs from the borderlands of the new Israeli state. The Palestinian exodus from Kuwait took place during and after the Gulf War, after the Gulf War, Kuwaiti authorities forcibly pressured nearly 200,000 Palestinians to leave Kuwait in 1991. Prior to the Gulf War, Palestinians numbered 400,0000 of Kuwaits population of 2.2 million, the Palestinians who fled Kuwait were Jordanian citizens
20.
Christianity in Lebanon
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Christianity in Lebanon has a long and continuous history. Biblical Scriptures purport that Peter and Paul evangelized to the Phoenicians, the spread of Christianity in Mount Lebanon was very slow where paganism persisted in mountaintop strongholds. A2015 study estimates some 2,500 Lebanese Christians have Muslim ancestry, before the Christian faith reached the territory of Lebanon, Jesus had traveled to its southern parts near Tyre where the scripture tells us that he cured a possessed Canaanite child. Christianity in Lebanon is almost as old as gentile Christian faith itself, early reports relate the possibility that Saint Peter himself was the one who evangelized the Phoenicians whom he affiliated to the ancient patriarchate of Antioch. Paul also preached in Lebanon, having lingered with the early Christians in Tyre, even though Christianity was introduced to Lebanon after the first century AD, its spread was very slow, particularly in the mountainous areas where paganism was still unyielding. By faith, liturgy, rite, religious books and heritage, nevertheless, the influence of the Maronite establishment spread throughout the Lebanese mountains and became a considerable feudal force. The existence of the Maronites was largely ignored by the world until the Crusades. In the 16th century, the Maronite Church adopted the catechism of the Catholic Church, moreover, Rome dispatched Franciscan, Dominican and later Jesuit missionaries to Lebanon to secure the conversion of the Maronites to Catholicism. Due to their turbulent history, the Maronites formed a secluded identity in the mountains and valleys of Lebanon and they identify themselves as a unique community whose religion and culture is distinct from the predominantly Muslim Arab world. The Maronites played a part in the definition of and the creation of the state of Lebanon. With the creation of the state of Lebanon, Arabism was overcome by Lebanism, according to the pact, the President of the Lebanese republic shall always be a Maronite. Furthermore, the pact also states that Lebanon is a state with an Arab face, the number of Christians in Lebanon has been disputed for many years. There has been no census in Lebanon since 1932. Christians were still half the country by mid-century, but by 1985, many argue over the percentage and population of Christians in Lebanon. One estimate of the Christian share of Lebanons population as of 2012 is 40. 5%, therefore, the country has the largest percentage of Christians of all the Middle Eastern nations. The Maronite Church, a church in communion with the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest and politically most active, the Eastern Orthodox Church forms the second largest proportion of Lebanese Christians. The Armenian Apostolic Church also forms a portion of the Christian population in Lebanon. Other branches of Christianity, including the Melkite Catholic Church, an Eastern Catholic Church loyal to the Pope, are common in Lebanon
21.
Kataeb Party
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The Lebanese Phalanges Party, better known in English as the Phalange, is a Christian Democratic political party in Lebanon. In spite of it being officially secular, it is supported mainly by Maronite Catholics, the party played a major role in the Lebanese Civil War. In decline in the late 1980s and 1990s, the party slowly re-emerged since the early 2000s and it is now part of the March 14 Alliance. The Lebanese Phalanges Party is also known as Phalanges Libanaises in French, Kataeb is the plural of Katiba which is a translation into Arabic of the Greek word phalanx which is also the origin of the Spanish term Falange. The movements uniforms originally included brown shirts and members used the Roman salute, in an interview by Robert Fisk, Gemayel stated about the Berlin Olympics, I was the captain of the Lebanese football team and the president of the Lebanese Football federation. We went to the Olympic Games of 1936 in Berlin, and I saw then this discipline and order. And I said to myself, Why cant we do the thing in Lebanon. So when we came back to Lebanon, we created this youth movement, when I was in Berlin then, Nazism did not have the reputation which it has now. In every system in the world, you can find something good, but Nazism was not Nazism at all. In their system, I saw discipline, and we in the Middle East, we need discipline more than anything else. He founded the party along with four other young Lebanese, Charles Helou, Chafic Nassif, Emile Yared, Pierre was chosen to lead the organization, in part because he was not a political figure at that time. During the first years of the Kataeb Party, the Party was strongly opposed to having anyone dominate Lebanon and they opposed the pan-Arabists who tried to take over Lebanon and also the French, whom they saw as trying to infiltrate their culture and impose themselves within Lebanon. Pierre and the Kataeb Party have always believed in an independent and it actively took part in the struggle against the French Mandate, until Lebanese independence was proclaimed in November 1943. Its motto was God, Nation and Family, the influence of the Phalangists was very limited in the early years of Lebanons independence, but came to prominence as a strong ally of the government in the 1958 crisis. In the aftermath of the crisis, Pierre Gemayel was appointed to the cabinet, by the end of the decade, the party created its own militia, the Kataeb Regulatory Forces and soon clashes began with the rising Palestinian militant guerrillas. By the 1970s, the party had become a giant in Lebanon. The vast majority of members were Maronites, but some were members of minority Christian communities, Shiites, Druze, the primacy of preserving the Lebanese nation, but with a Phoenician identity, distinct from its Arab, Muslim neighbors. Party policies have been uniformly anticommunist and anti-Palestinian and have allowed no place for pan-Arab ideals, a nationalistic ideology that considers the Lebanese people, particularly Maronites, to be a unique nation independent from the Arab nation
22.
Shatila refugee camp
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The Shatila refugee camp, also known as the Chatila refugee camp, is a refugee camp, originally set-up for Palestinian refugees in 1949. It is located in southern Beirut, Lebanon and houses more than 9,842 registered Palestine refugees, since the eruption of the Syrian Civil War, the camp has swollen with Syrian refugees. As of 2014, the population is estimated to be from 10,000 to 22,000. Shatila was set up by the International Committee of the Red Cross to accommodate hundreds of refugees who came there after 1948 and they were from villages around the area of Amka, Majd al-Krum and Yajur in northern Palestine. Since the eruption of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, Lebanons population has swelled by more than 1 million Syrian refugees, the camp has also swollen with Syrian refugees, receiving mostly the poor Syrians. As of 2014, the population is estimated to be from 10,000 to 22,000. The camp comprises approximately one kilometer and thus has an exceptionally high population density. UNRWA operates one health center and two schools within the camp. Naji al-Ali Lebanon - Camp Profiles - Shatila Windward between Naples and Baghdad Are Knudsen and S. Hanafi Palestinian Refugees, Identity, Space and Place in the Levant
23.
Ariel Sharon
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Ariel Sharon was an Israeli general and politician who served as the 11th Prime Minister of Israel from March 2001 until April 2006. Sharon was incapacitated by a stroke in January 2006, Sharon was a commander in the Israeli Army from its creation in 1948. As Minister of Defense, he directed the 1982 Lebanon War, Sharon was considered the greatest field commander in Israels history, and one of the countrys greatest military strategists and tacticians. After his assault of the Sinai in the Six-Day War and his encirclement of the Egyptian Third Army in the Yom Kippur War, the Israeli public nicknamed him The King of Israel. Upon retirement from the military, Sharon entered politics, joining the Likud and he became the leader of the Likud in 2000, and served as Israels prime minister from 2001 to 2006. From the 1970s through to the 1990s, Sharon championed construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, however, as Prime Minister, in 2004–05 Sharon orchestrated Israels unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip. Facing stiff opposition to this policy within the Likud, in November 2005 he left Likud to form a new party, Kadima. He had been expected to win the election and was widely interpreted as planning on clearing Israel out of most of the West Bank. After suffering a stroke on January 4,2006, Sharon remained in a permanent vegetative state until his death in January 2014. Sharon was born on February 26,1928 in Kfar Malal and his mother, Vera, was from a family of Russian Subbotnik Jewish origin. His parents met while at university in Tiflis, where Sharons father was studying agronomy and they immigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1922 in the wake of the Russian Communist governments growing persecution of Jews in the region. The family arrived with the Third Aliyah and settled in Kfar Malal, although his parents were Mapai supporters, they did not always accept communal consensus, The Scheinermans eventual ostracism. They were expelled from the local clinic and village synagogue. The cooperatives truck wouldnt make deliveries to their farm nor collect produce, Sharon grew up to be bilingual in both Hebrew and Russian languages. Four years after their arrival at Kfar Malal, the Sheinermans had a daughter, Ariel was born two years later. At age 10, he joined the youth movement HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed, as a teenager, he began to take part in the armed night-patrols of his moshav. Sharons unit of the Haganah became engaged in serious and continuous combat from the autumn of 1947, without the manpower to hold the roads, his unit took to making offensive hit-and-run raids on Arab forces in the vicinity of Kfar Malal. In units of thirty men, they would hit constantly at Arab villages, bridges and bases, Sharon wrote in his autobiography, We had become skilled at finding our way in the darkest nights and gradually we built up the strength and endurance these kind of operations required
24.
Kahan Commission
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The Kahan Commission was chaired by the President of the Supreme Court, Yitzhak Kahan. Its other two members were Supreme Court Judge Aharon Barak, and Major general Yona Efrat, following a four-month investigation, on 8 February 1983, the Kahan Commission submitted its report, which was released to the public by spokesman Bezalel Gordon simultaneously in Hebrew and English. The Defence minister Ariel Sharon was found to bear responsibility for ignoring the danger of bloodshed and revenge. Initially, Sharon refused to resign, and Prime Minister Menachem Begin refused to fire him, although Sharon resigned as Defence Minister, he remained in the Cabinet as a Minister without Portfolio. Years later Sharon would be elected Israels Prime Minister, the Commission arrived to similar conclusions with respect to Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Critics of the Commission point to its scope, some of whom argue it amounted to a whitewash. In fact, Israels standing in the community, which had sunk to an all-time low in the wake of the massacre. Israel was praised from many quarters for having investigated itself and punishing members of its government. Command responsibility International law War crimes Bregman, Ahron, Israels Wars, A History Since 1947. ISBN 0-415-28716-2 The Beirut Massacre, the Complete Kahan Commission Report, Report of the Kahan Commission - hosted by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Kahan Commission on Sabra and Shatila Massacre report & related documents at Israel State Archives, released 2012
25.
Sabra and Shatila massacre
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From approximately 18,00 on 16 September to 08,00 on 18 September 1982, a widespread massacre was carried out by the militia virtually under the eyes of their Israeli allies. The IDF received reports of some of the Phalanges atrocities in Sabra and Shatila, the massacre was presented as retaliation for the assassination of newly elected Lebanese president Bachir Gemayel, the leader of the Lebanese Kataeb Party. It was wrongly assumed that Palestinian militants had carried out the assassination, in June 1982, the Israel Defense Forces had invaded Lebanon with the intention of rooting out the PLO. By mid-1982, under the supervision of the Multinational Force, the PLO withdrew from Lebanon following weeks of battles in West Beirut and shortly before the massacre took place. The Israeli advance over West Beirut in the wake of the PLO withdrawal, the Israeli Army surrounded Sabra and Shatila and stationed troops at the exits of the area to prevent camp residents from leaving and, at the Phalangists request, fired illuminating flares at night. The killings are believed to have taken place under Hobeikas direct orders. Hobeika later became a long-serving Member of the Parliament of Lebanon, other Phalangist commanders involved were Joseph Edde from South Lebanon, Dib Anasta, head of the Phalangist Military Police, Michael Zouein, and Maroun Mischalani from East Beirut. In all 300–400 militiamen were involved, including some from Saad Haddads South Lebanon Army, the commission also concluded that the massacre was a form of genocide. The commission deemed Israel indirectly responsible, and Ariel Sharon, then Defense Minister, bore personal responsibility for ignoring the danger of bloodshed and revenge, from 1975 to 1990, groups in competing alliances with neighboring countries fought against each other in the Lebanese Civil War. Infighting and massacres between these groups claimed several thousand victims, the total death toll in Lebanon for the whole civil war period was around 150,000 victims. The PLO had been attacking Israel from southern Lebanon and Israel had been bombing PLO positions in southern Lebanon since the early 1970s till early 1980s. The casus belli cited by the Israeli side to declare war, however, was an attempt, on 3 June 1982. The attempt was the work of the Iraq-based Abu Nidal, possibly with Syrian or Iraqi involvement, the PLO also issued a condemnation of the attempted assassination of the Israeli ambassador. Nonetheless Israel used the event as a justification to break the ceasefire with the PLO, after the war, Israel presented its actions as a response to terrorism being carried out by the PLO from several fronts, including from the border with Lebanon. During that ceasefire, which lasted 8 months, UNIFIL — the UN peacekeeping forces in Lebanon — reported that not an act of provocation against Israel had been launched by the PLO. All such justifications, before the assassination of the ambassador, had been shot down by its ally. On 6 June 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon moving northwards to surround the capital, following an extended siege of the city, the fighting was brought to an end with a U. S. The subsequent Israeli inquiry estimated the strength of militias in West Beirut, excluding Palestinians and they estimated the Phalange to be 5,000 when fully mobilized of whom 2,000 were full-time
26.
Ezer Weizman
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Ezer Weizman listen was the seventh President of Israel, first elected in 1993 and re-elected in 1998. Before the presidency, Weizman was commander of the Israeli Air Force, Weizman was born in Tel Aviv in the British Mandate of Palestine on 15 June 1924. His father, Yechiel, was an agronomist, Weizman was a nephew of Israels first president, Chaim Weizmann. He grew up in Haifa, and attended the Hebrew Reali School and he married Reuma Schwartz, sister of Ruth Dayan, wife of Moshe Dayan, and they had two children, Shaul and Michal. He received his training in the British Army in which he enlisted in 1942 during World War II and he served as a truck driver in the Western Desert campaigns in Egypt and Libya. In 1943, he joined the British Royal Air Force and attended school in Rhodesia. He served with the RAF in India in early 1944, Weizman ended his service in the RAF as a sergeant pilot. Between 1944 and 1946, he was a member of the Irgun underground in Mandatory Palestine, between 1946 and 1947, he studied aeronautics in England. After the establishment of the State of Israel, Weizman was a pilot for the Haganah in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and he was the commander of the Negev Air Squadron near Nir-Am. An RAF Hawker Tempest was shot down by the IAF, resulting in the death of the pilot, due to a failure by ground crewmen, most of the RAF aircraft were not armed. Weizman joined the Israel Defense Forces and served as the Chief of Operations on the General Staff, in 1951 he attended the RAF Staff College, Andover in England. Upon his return he became commander of Ramat David and he served as the commander of the Israeli Air Force between 1958 and 1966, and later served as deputy Chief of the General Staff. A total of 400 enemy planes were destroyed by the Israeli Air Force on the 1st day of the 6 Day War, in 1966, he oversaw the defection of an Iraqi fighter pilot and his MiG fighter which gave Israel vital intelligence information. Although he became the IDFs Deputy Chief of Staff in 1966, upon retiring from the military, Weizman joined the right-wing Gahal party. He served as Minister of Transportation in Levi Eshkols national unity government until Gahal left the coalition in 1970, Weizman quit Gahal in 1972, but returned in 1976, by which time it had become Likud. In 1977, he became Defense Minister under Menachem Begin, during his term, Israel developed the IAI Lavi fighter and launched the Litani Operation against the PLO in south Lebanon. During this operation his own son, Saul, suffered an injury from a snipers bullet which left him in a vegetive state. When the commission confirmed that the Beit Jala story was true he fired the military Governor of the West Bank, Brigadier General David Hagoel, over time, Weizmans views became more dovish
27.
Yasser Arafat
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Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa, popularly known as Yasser Arafat or by his kunya Abu Ammar, was a Palestinian political leader. He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization from 1969 to 2004, ideologically an Arab nationalist, he was a founding member of the Fatah political party, which he led from 1959 until 2004. Arafat was born to Palestinian parents in Cairo, Egypt, where he spent most of his youth, while a student, he embraced Arab nationalist and anti-Zionist ideas. Opposed to the 1948 creation of the State of Israel, he fought alongside the Muslim Brotherhood during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, returning to Cairo, he served as president of the General Union of Palestinian Students from 1952 to 1956. In the latter part of the 1950s he co-founded Fatah, an organisation seeking the disestablishment of Israel. Fatah operated within several Arab countries, from where it launched attacks on Israeli targets, in the latter part of the 1960s Arafats profile grew, in 1967 he joined the PLO and in 1969 was elected chair of the Palestinian National Council. Fatahs growing presence in Jordan resulted in clashes with King Husseins Jordanian government. There, Fatah assisted the Lebanese National Movement during the Lebanese Civil War and continued its attacks on Israel, from 1983 to 1993, Arafat based himself in Tunisia, and began to shift his approach from open conflict with the Israelis to negotiation. In 1988, he acknowledged Israels right to exist and sought a solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. In 1994 he returned to Palestine, settling in Gaza City and he engaged in a series of negotiations with the Israeli government to end the conflict between it and the PLO. These included the Madrid Conference of 1991, the 1993 Oslo Accords, in 1994 Arafat received the Nobel Peace Prize, together with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, for the negotiations at Oslo. At the time, Fatahs support among the Palestinians declined with the growth of Hamas, in late 2004, after effectively being confined within his Ramallah compound for over two years by the Israeli army, Arafat fell into a coma and died. While the cause of Arafats death has remained the subject of speculation, investigations by Russian, the majority of the Palestinian people view him as a heroic freedom fighter and martyr who symbolized the national aspirations of his people. Arafat was born in Cairo, Egypt and his father, Abdel Raouf al-Qudwa al-Husseini, was a Palestinian from Gaza City, whose mother, Yassers paternal grandmother, was Egyptian. Arafats father battled in the Egyptian courts for 25 years to claim land in Egypt as part of his inheritance but was unsuccessful. He worked as a merchant in Cairos religiously mixed Sakakini District. Arafat was the second-youngest of seven children and was, along with his younger brother Fathi and his mother, Zahwa Abul Saud, was from a Jerusalem-based family. She died from an ailment in 1933, when Arafat was four years of age
28.
Palestine Liberation Organization
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The Palestine Liberation Organization is an organization founded in 1964 with the purpose of the liberation of Palestine through armed struggle, with much of its violence aimed at Israeli civilians. The PLO was considered by the United States and Israel to be a terrorist organization until the Madrid Conference in 1991, at its first summit meeting in Cairo in 1964, the Arab League initiated the creation of an organization representing the Palestinian people. The Palestinian National Council convened in Jerusalem on 28 May 1964, concluding this meeting the PLO was founded on 2 June 1964. Its stated goal was the liberation of Palestine through armed struggle, the ideology of the PLO was formulated in the founding year 1964 in the Palestinian National Covenant. The document is a combative anti-Zionist statement dedicated to the restoration of the Palestinian homeland and it has no reference to religion. In 1968, the Charter was replaced by a revised version. Until 1993, the only promoted option was armed struggle, from the signing of the Oslo Accords, negotiation and diplomacy became the only official policy. In April 1996, a number of articles, which were inconsistent with the Oslo Accords, were wholly or partially nullified. They demanded that Palestinian refugees should be allowed to return to their homes and this article was adapted in 1996 to meet the Oslo Accords. Article 20 states, ″The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality, nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own, they are citizens of the states to which they belong″. This article was nullified in 1996, the PLO has always labelled the Palestinian people as Arabs. This was a consequence of the fact that the PLO was an offshoot of the Arab League. It also has an element, as to keep the backing of Arab states. Over the years, the Arab identity remained the stated nature of the Palestinian State and it is a reference to the ″Arab State″ envisioned in the UN Partition Plan. The PLO and its dominating faction Fatah are often contrasted to more religious orientated factions like Hamas, all, however, represent a predominant Muslim population. Practically the whole population of the Territories is Muslim, most of them Sunni, the National Charter has no reference to religion. The draft Constitution, which never materialized, contains the same provisions, at the time, the PLC did not include a single Hamas member
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United Nations Security Council Resolution 242
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United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 was adopted unanimously by the UN Security Council on November 22,1967, in the aftermath of the Six-Day War. It was adopted under Chapter VI of the UN Charter, the resolution was sponsored by British ambassador Lord Caradon and was one of five drafts under consideration. Egypt, Jordan, Israel and Lebanon entered into consultations with the UN Special representative over the implementation of 242, after denouncing it in 1967, Syria conditionally accepted the resolution in March 1972. Syria formally accepted UN Security Council Resolution 338, the cease-fire at the end of the Yom Kippur War, I am also authorized to reaffirm that we are willing to seek agreement with each Arab State on all matters included in that resolution. In September 1993, the PLO agreed that Resolutions 242 and 338 should be the basis for negotiations with Israel when it signed the Declaration of Principles. Resolution 242 is one of the most widely affirmed resolutions on the Arab–Israeli conflict and these led to Peace Treaties between Israel and Egypt and Jordan, as well as the 1993 and 1995 agreements with the Palestinians. Upon presenting the draft resolution to the Security Council, the U. K. representative Lord Caradon said, none of us wishes a temporary truce or a superficial accommodation. We could never advocate a return to uneasy hostility, as to the second operative paragraph, there is I believe no vestige of disagreement between us all that there must be a guarantee of freedom of navigation through international waterways. There must be a just settlement of the refugee problem, there must be a guarantee and adequate means to ensure the territorial inviolability and political independence of every State in the area. In the French version, which is authentic, it says withdrawal de territory. We also wanted to leave open demilitarization measures in the Sinai, but we never contemplated any significant grant of territory to Israel as a result of the June 1967 war. On that point we and the Israelis to this day remain sharply divided and this situation could lead to real trouble in the future. Our best answer is that we stand by that pledge, the tough question is whether wed force Israel back to 4 June borders if the Arabs accepted terms that amounted to an honest peace settlement. Secretary Rusk told the Yugoslav Foreign Minister, The US had no problem with frontiers as they existed before the outbreak of hostilities, if we are talking about national frontiers--in a state of peace--then we will work toward restoring them. But we all know that could lead to a tangle with the Israelis, Rusk met with Foreign Minister Nikezic on August 30,1967. We have no preconceptions on frontiers as such, what we believe to be important is that the frontiers be secure. For this the single most vital condition is that they be acceptable to both sides and it is a source of regret to us that the Arabs appear to misunderstand our proposal and misread our motives. Furthermore, Secretary Rusks Telegram dated March 2,1968 to the U. S, interests Section of the Spanish Embassy in Cairo summarizing Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Eugene Rostow’s conversation with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin states, Rostow said
30.
United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine
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The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was a proposal by the United Nations, which recommended a partition of Mandatory Palestine at the end of the British Mandate. On 29 November 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted the Plan as Resolution 181, the resolution recommended the creation of independent Arab and Jewish States and a Special International Regime for the city of Jerusalem. Part I of the Plan stipulated that the Mandate would be terminated as soon as possible, the new states would come into existence two months after the withdrawal, but no later than 1 October 1948. The Plan sought to address the objectives and claims of two competing movements, Palestinian nationalism and Jewish nationalism, or Zionism. The Plan also called for Economic Union between the states, and for the protection of religious and minority rights. The Plan was accepted by the Jewish Agency for Palestine, despite its perceived limitations, immediately after adoption of the Resolution by the General Assembly, a civil war broke out and the plan was not implemented. The British administration was formalized by the League of Nations under the Palestine Mandate in 1923, the Mandate reaffirmed the 1917 British commitment to the Balfour Declaration, for the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people, with the prerogative to carry it out. A British census of 1918 estimated 700,000 Arabs and 56,000 Jews, the Commission concluded that the Mandate had become unworkable, and recommended Partition into an Arab state linked to Transjordan, a small Jewish state, and a mandatory zone. The Jewish leaders, Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion, persuaded the Zionist Congress to lend provisional approval to the Peel recommendations as a basis for further negotiations. In a letter to his son in October 1937, Ben-Gurion explained that partition would be a first step to possession of the land as a whole, the same sentiment, that acceptance of partition was a temporary measure beyond which the Palestine would be redeemed. In its entirety, was recorded by Ben-Gurion on other occasions, such as at a meeting of the Jewish Agency executive in June 1938, the British Woodhead Commission was set up to examine the practicality of partition. The Peel plan was rejected and two alternatives were considered. Representatives of Arabs and Jews were invited to London for the St. James Conference, with World War II looming, British policies were influenced by a desire to win Arab world support and could ill afford to engage with another Arab uprising. However, the League of Nations commission held that the White Paper was in conflict with the terms of the Mandate as put forth in the past, the outbreak of the Second World War suspended any further deliberations. The Jewish Agency hoped to persuade the British to restore Jewish immigration rights, aliyah Bet was organized to spirit Jews out of Nazi controlled Europe, despite the British prohibitions. The White Paper also led to the formation of Lehi, a small Jewish organization which opposed the British, the Jewish community rejected the restriction on immigration and organized an armed resistance. These actions and United States pressure to end the policy led to the establishment of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry. N. U. S. endorsed the Commission findings concerning Jewish immigration and land purchase restrictions, in effect the British continued to carry out its White Paper policy
31.
Yitzhak Rabin
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Yitzhak Rabin was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–77 and 1992 until his assassination in 1995, Rabin was born in Jerusalem to Ukrainian-Jewish immigrants and was raised in a Labor Zionist household. He learned agriculture in school and excelled as a student and he led a 27-year career as a soldier. As a teenager he joined the Palmach, the force of the Yishuv. He eventually rose through its ranks to become its chief of operations during Israels War of Independence and he joined the newly formed Israel Defense Forces in late 1948 and continued to rise as a promising officer. He helped shape the training doctrine of the IDF in the early 1950s and he was appointed Chief of the General Staff in 1964 and oversaw Israels victory in the 1967 Six-Day War. Rabin served as Israels ambassador to the United States from 1968 to 1973 and he was appointed Prime Minister of Israel in 1974, after the resignation of Golda Meir. In his first term, Rabin signed the Sinai Interim Agreement and he resigned in 1977 in the wake of a financial scandal. Rabin was Israels minister of defense for much of the 1980s, in 1992, Rabin was re-elected as prime minister on a platform embracing the Israeli–Palestinian peace process. He signed several agreements with the Palestinian leadership as part of the Oslo Accords. In 1994, Rabin won the Nobel Peace Prize together with long-time political rival Shimon Peres, Rabin also signed a peace treaty with Jordan in 1994. In November 1995, he was assassinated by an extremist named Yigal Amir, Rabin was the first native-born prime minister of Israel, the only prime minister to be assassinated and the second to die in office after Levi Eshkol. Rabin has become a symbol of the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, Nehemiah Rubitzov was born in the shtetl Sydorovychi near Ivankiv in the southern Pale of Settlement. His father Menachem died when he was a boy, and Nehemiah worked to support his family from an early age, at the age of 18, he emigrated to the United States, where he joined the Poale Zion party and changed his surname to Rabin. In 1917, Nehemiah went to Mandatory Palestine with a group of volunteers from the Jewish Legion, yitzhaks mother, Rosa Cohen, was born in 1890 in Mogilev in Belarus. Her father, a rabbi, opposed the Zionist movement and sent Rosa to a Christian high school for girls in Gomel, early on, Rosa took an interest in political and social causes. In 1919, she traveled to the region on the steamship Ruslan, after working on a kibbutz on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, she moved to Jerusalem. Rabins parents met in Jerusalem during the 1920 Nebi Musa riots and they moved to Tel Avivs Chlenov Street near Jaffa in 1923
32.
Oslo I Accord
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It was the first face-to-face agreement between the government of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. C. On 13 September 1993, in the presence of PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the Accord provided for the creation of a Palestinian interim self-government, the Palestinian National Authority. The Palestinian Authority would have responsibility for the administration of the territory under its control, the Accords also called for the withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces from parts of the Gaza Strip and West Bank. It was anticipated that this arrangement would last for an interim period during which a permanent agreement would be negotiated. Remaining issues such as Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees, Israeli settlements, security, in August 1993, the delegations had reached an agreement, which was signed in secrecy by Peres while visiting Oslo. Yasser Arafat was allowed to return to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, in 1995, the Oslo I Accord was followed by Oslo II. Palestinian rule was to last for an interim period during which permanent status negotiations would commence in order to reach a final agreement. The negotiations would cover major issues such as Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees, Israeli settlements, Israel was to grant interim self-government to the Palestinians in phases. In order that the Palestinians govern themselves according to principles, free. Jurisdiction of the Palestinian Council would cover the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the two sides viewed the West Bank and Gaza as a single territorial unit. That withdrawal began with the signing of the Gaza–Jericho Agreement on 4 May 1994, the five-year transitional period would commence with Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and Jericho area. There would be a transfer of authority from the Israel Defense Forces to the authorized Palestinians, concerning education and culture, health, social welfare, direct taxation, and tourism. The Council would establish a police force, while Israel would continue to carry the responsibility for defending against external threats. An Israeli–Palestinian Economic Cooperation Committee would be established in order to develop, the Declaration of Principles would enter into force one month after its signing. All protocols annexed to the Declaration of Principles and the Agreed Minutes pertaining to it were to be regarded as a part of it, the Oslo I Accord contains 17 articles. An agreement on the withdrawal of Israeli military forces from the Gaza Strip and this agreement will include comprehensive arrangements to apply in the Gaza Strip and the Jericho area subsequent to the Israeli withdrawal. Internal security and public order by the Palestinian police force consisting of officers recruited locally. Those who will participate in the Palestinian police force coming from abroad should be trained as police and police officers, a temporary international or foreign presence, as agreed upon
33.
White House
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The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the President of the United States, located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D. C. It has been the residence of every U. S. president since John Adams in 1800, the term White House is often used to refer to actions of the president and his advisers, as in The White House announced that. The residence was designed by Irish-born architect James Hoban in the Neoclassical style, construction took place between 1792 and 1800 using Aquia Creek sandstone painted white. When Thomas Jefferson moved into the house in 1801, he added low colonnades on each wing that concealed stables and storage. In 1814, during the War of 1812, the mansion was set ablaze by the British Army in the Burning of Washington, destroying the interior, reconstruction began almost immediately, and President James Monroe moved into the partially reconstructed Executive Residence in October 1817. Exterior construction continued with the addition of the semi-circular South portico in 1824, because of crowding within the executive mansion itself, President Theodore Roosevelt had all work offices relocated to the newly constructed West Wing in 1901. Eight years later in 1909, President William Howard Taft expanded the West Wing and created the first Oval Office, in the main mansion, the third-floor attic was converted to living quarters in 1927 by augmenting the existing hip roof with long shed dormers. A newly constructed East Wing was used as an area for social events. East Wing alterations were completed in 1946, creating additional office space, by 1948, the houses load-bearing exterior walls and internal wood beams were found to be close to failure. Under Harry S. Truman, the rooms were completely dismantled. Once this work was completed, the rooms were rebuilt. The Executive Residence is made up of six stories—the Ground Floor, State Floor, Second Floor, the property is a National Heritage Site owned by the National Park Service and is part of the Presidents Park. In 2007, it was ranked second on the American Institute of Architects list of Americas Favorite Architecture, in May 1790, New York began construction of Government House for his official residence, but he never occupied it. The national capital moved to Philadelphia in December 1790, the July 1790 Residence Act named Philadelphia, Pennsylvania the temporary national capital for a 10-year period while the Federal City was under construction. The City of Philadelphia rented Robert Morriss city house at 190 High Street for Washingtons presidential residence, the first president occupied the Market Street mansion from November 1790 to March 1797, and altered it in ways that may have influenced the design of the White House. As part of an effort to have Philadelphia named the permanent national capital, Pennsylvania built a much grander presidential mansion several blocks away. President John Adams also occupied the Market Street mansion from March 1797 to May 1800, on Saturday, November 1,1800, he became the first president to occupy the White House. The Presidents House in Philadelphia became a hotel and was demolished in 1832, the Presidents House was a major feature of Pierre Charles LEnfants plan for the newly established federal city, Washington, D. C
34.
Second Intifada
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The Second Intifada, also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada, was the second Palestinian uprising against Israel – a period of intensified Israeli–Palestinian violence. The death toll, including military and civilian, is estimated to be about 3,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis. They reaffirmed their commitment to the Roadmap for Peace which began at Madrid, however, the violence did not stop in the following years, though suicide bombings decreased significantly. Second Intifada refers to a second Palestinian uprising, following the first Palestinian uprising, Intifada translates into English as uprising. Its root is an Arabic word meaning the shaking off and it has been used in the meaning of insurrection in various Arab countries. The Egyptian riots of 1977 were called the bread intifada, the term refers to a revolt against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories. Al-Aqsa Intifada refers to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the place where the intifada started, others have named what they consider disproportionate response to what was initially a popular uprising by unarmed demonstrators as the reason for the escalation of the Intifada into an all out war. For their part, the Palestine Liberation Organization formally recognised Israel, Palestinian self-rule was to last for a five-year interim period during which a permanent agreement would be negotiated. However, the realities on the left both sides deeply disappointed with the Oslo process. Israelis and Palestinians have blamed each other for the failure of the Oslo peace process, from 1996 Israel made extensive contingency plans and preparations, collectively code-named Musical Charm, in the eventuality that peace talks might fail. Palestinian preparations were defensive, and small scale, more to reassure the population than to cope with an eventual attack from Israel. The intensity of operations led one Brigadier General, Zvi Fogel to wonder whether Israels military preparations would not turn out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. In 1995, Shimon Peres took the place of Yitzhak Rabin, who had been assassinated by Yigal Amir, in the 1996 elections, Israelis elected a right-wing coalition led by the Likud candidate, Benjamin Netanyahu who was followed in 1999 by the Labor Party leader Ehud Barak. The talks ultimately failed with each blaming the other. There were four principal obstacles to agreement, territory, Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, refugees and the right of return, disappointment at the situation over the summer led to a significant fracturing of the PLO as many Fatah factions abandoned it to join Hamas and Islamic Jihad. On 13 September 2000, Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Legislative Council postponed the planned unilateral declaration of an independent Palestinian state, however, he fell far short of the Shamir governments 1991–92 level and refrained from building new settlements, although the Oslo agreements stipulated no such ban. Construction of Housing Units Before Oslo, 1991–92,13,960, After Oslo, 1994–95,3,840 and it failed with the latter two blaming each other for the failure of the talks. There were four principal obstacles to agreement, territory, Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, Palestinian refugees, on 28 September, Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon together with a Likud party delegation surrounded by hundreds of Israeli riot police, visited the Temple Mount
35.
First Intifada
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The First Intifada or First Palestinian Intifada was a Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. The uprising lasted from December 1987 until the Madrid Conference in 1991, though some date its conclusion to 1993, the uprising began on 9 December, in the Jabalia refugee camp after an Israeli Defense Forces truck collided with a civilian car, killing four Palestinians. Israel, deploying some 80,000 soldiers and initially firing live rounds, in the first 13 months,332 Palestinians and 12 Israelis were killed. Given the high proportion of children, youths and civilians killed, it adopted a policy of might, power. The global diffusion of images of soldiers beating adolescents with clubs then led to the adoption of firing semi-lethal plastic bullets, in the intifadas first year, Israeli security forces killed 311 Palestinians, of which 53 were under the age of 17. Over the first two years, according to Save the Children, an estimated 7% of all Palestinians under 18 years of age suffered injuries from shootings, beatings, over six years the IDF killed an estimated 1, 162–1,204 Palestinians. Between 23, 600-29,900 Palestinian children required medical treatment from IDF beatings in the first 2 years. Among Israelis,100 civilians and 60 IDF personnel were killed often by militants outside the control of the Intifadas UNLU, intra-Palestinian violence was also a prominent feature of the Intifada, with widespread executions of an estimated 822 Palestinians killed as alleged Israeli collaborators. At the time Israel reportedly obtained information from some 18,000 Palestinians who had been compromised, the ensuing Second Intifada took place from September 2000 to 2005. Israel opened its labor market to Palestinians in the occupied territories. Palestinians were recruited mainly to do unskilled or semi-skilled labor jobs Israelis did not want, by the time of the Intifada, over 40 percent of the Palestinian work force worked in Israel daily. At the time of the Intifada, only one in eight college-educated Palestinians could find degree-related work, the Israeli Labor Partys Yitzhak Rabin, the then Defense Minister, added deportations in August 1985 to Israels Iron Fist policy of cracking down on Palestinian nationalism. Referring to the developments, Israeli minister of Economics and Finance, Gad Yaacobi, a policy of deportation was introduced to intimidate activists in January 1987. Violence simmered as a schoolboy from Khan Yunis was shot dead by Israelis soldiers pursuing him in a Jeep. Over the summer the IDFs Lieutenant Ron Tal, who was responsible for guarding detainees at Ansar 11, was dead at point-blank range while stuck in a Gaza traffic jam. A curfew forbidding Gaza residents from leaving their homes was imposed for three days, during the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha. In two incidents on 1 and 6 October 1987, respectively, the IDF ambushed and killed seven Gaza men, reportedly affiliated with Islamic Jihad, who had escaped from prison in May. Some days later, a 17-year-old schoolgirl, Intisar al-Attar, was shot in the back while in her schoolyard in Deir al-Balah by a settler in the Gaza Strip
36.
Israel Defense Forces
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The Israel Defense Forces, commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal, are the military forces of the State of Israel. They consist of the forces, air force, and navy. It is the military wing of the Israeli security forces. The IDF is headed by its Chief of General Staff, the Ramatkal, subordinate to the Defense Minister of Israel, Lieutenant general Gadi Eizenkot has served as Chief of Staff since 2015. The number of wars and border conflicts in which the IDF has been involved in its history makes it one of the most battle-trained armed forces in the world. The Israel Defense Forces differs from most armed forces in the world in many ways, differences include the mandatory conscription of women and its structure, which emphasizes close relations between the army, navy, and air force. Since its founding, the IDF has been designed to match Israels unique security situation. The IDF is one of Israeli societys most prominent institutions, influencing the economy, culture. In 1965, the Israel Defense Forces was awarded the Israel Prize for its contribution to education, the Uzi submachine gun was invented in Israel and used by the IDF until December 2003, ending a service that began in 1954. The Israeli cabinet ratified the name Israel Defense Forces, Tzva HaHagana LeYisrael, literally army for the defense of Israel, the other main contender was Tzva Yisrael. The name was chosen because it conveyed the idea that the role was defense, and because it incorporated the name Haganah. Among the primary opponents of the name were Minister Haim-Moshe Shapira, the IDF traces its roots to Jewish paramilitary organizations in the New Yishuv, starting with the Second Aliyah. The first such organization was Bar-Giora, founded in September 1907 and it was converted to Hashomer in April 1909, which operated until the British Mandate of Palestine came into being in 1920. Hashomer was an elitist organization with narrow scope, and was created to protect against criminal gangs seeking to steal property. During World War I, the forerunners of the Haganah/IDF were the Zion Mule Corps, after the Arab riots against Jews in April 1920, the Yishuvs leadership saw the need to create a nationwide underground defense organization, and the Haganah was founded in June of the same year. The Haganah became a defense force after the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine with an organized structure. During World War II the successor to the Jewish Legion of World War I was the Jewish Brigade, the IDF was founded following the establishment of the State of Israel, after Defense Minister and Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion issued an order on 26 May 1948. The order called for the establishment of the Israel Defense Forces, although Ben-Gurion had no legal authority to issue such an order, the order was made legal by the cabinet on 31 May
37.
West Bank
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The West Bank shares boundaries to the west, north, and south with Israel, and to the east, across the Jordan River, with Jordan. The West Bank also contains a significant section of the western Dead Sea shore, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has a land area of 5,640 km2 plus a water area of 220 km2, consisting of the northwest quarter of the Dead Sea. As of July 2015 it has an population of 2,785,366 Palestinians, and approximately 371,000 Israeli settlers. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, illegal under international law and this annexation was recognized only by Britain, Iraq and Pakistan. The term was chosen to differentiate the west bank of the River Jordan from the east bank of this river, the neo-Latin name Cisjordan or Cis-Jordan is the usual name for the territory in the Romance languages and Hungarian. The name West Bank, however, has become the standard usage for this entity in English. The analogous Transjordan has historically used to designate the region now roughly comprising the state of Jordan. From 1517 through 1917, the now known as the West Bank was under Ottoman rule as part of the provinces of Syria. At the 1920 San Remo conference, the victorious Allied powers allocated the area to the British Mandate of Palestine, the San Remo Resolution adopted on 25 April 1920 incorporated the Balfour Declaration of 1917. It and Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations were the basic documents upon which the British Mandate for Palestine was constructed. Faced with the determination of Emir Abdullah to unify Arab lands under the Hashemite banner, the West Bank area, was conquered by Jordan during the 1948 war with the new state of Israel. In 1947, it was designated as part of a proposed Arab state by the United Nations partition plan for Palestine. 1949 Armistice Agreements defined the boundary between Israel and Jordan. In 1950, Transjordan annexed the area west of the Jordan River, naming it West Bank or Cisjordan, Jordan ruled over the West Bank from 1948 until 1967. Jordans annexation was never recognized by the international community, with the exception of the United Kingdom. King Abdullah of Jordan had been crowned King of Jerusalem by the Coptic Bishop on 15 November 1948. and granted Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank, in June 1967, the West Bank and East Jerusalem were captured by Israel as a result of the Six-Day War. With the exception of East Jerusalem and the former Israeli-Jordanian no mans land, the Israeli settlements were, on the other hand, administered subsequently as Judea and Samaria Area directly by Israel. Since the 1993 Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority officially controls a geographically non-contiguous territory comprising approx, 11% of the West Bank which remains subject to Israeli incursions
38.
Gaza Strip
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Gaza, together with the West Bank, comprise the Palestinian territories claimed by the Palestinians as the State of Palestine. The territories of Gaza and the West Bank are separated from each other by Israeli territory, both fall under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority, but Gaza has since June 2007 been governed by Hamas, a Palestinian Islamic organization which came to power in free elections in 2006. It has been placed under an Israeli and U. S. -led international economic, the territory is 41 kilometers long, and from 6 to 12 kilometers wide, with a total area of 365 square kilometers. With around 1.85 million Palestinians on some 362 square kilometers, an extensive Israeli buffer zone within the Strip renders much land off-limits to Gazas Palestinians. Gaza has a population growth rate of 2. 91%, the 13th highest in the world. The population is expected to increase to 2.1 million in 2020, by that time, Gaza may be rendered unliveable, if present trends continue. Due to the Israeli and Egyptian border closures and the Israeli sea and air blockade, Sunni Muslims make up the predominant part of the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip. Israel maintains direct control over Gaza and indirect control over life within Gaza, it controls Gazas air and maritime space. It reserves the right to enter Gaza at will with its military, Gaza is dependent on Israel for its water, electricity, telecommunications, and other utilities. When Hamas won the Palestinian legislative election,2006, Fatah refused to join the proposed coalition, when this collapsed under joint Israeli and United States pressure, the Palestinian Authority instituted a non-Hamas government in the West Bank while Hamas formed a government on its own in Gaza. Further economic sanctions were imposed by Israel and the European Quartet against Hamas, a brief civil war between the two groups had broken out in Gaza when, apparently under a U. S. -backed plan, Fatah contested Hamas’s administration. Hamas emerged the victor and expelled Fatah-allied officials and members of the PAs security apparatus from the Strip, since 2007, the Gaza Strip has been de facto governed by Hamas, which claims to represent the Palestinian National Authority and the Palestinian people. Israel maintains direct control over Gaza and indirect control over life within Gaza, it controls Gazas air and maritime space. It reserves the right to enter Gaza at will with its military, Gaza is dependent on Israel for its water, electricity, telecommunications, and other utilities. The Gaza Strip acquired its current northern and eastern boundaries at the cessation of fighting in the 1948 war, article V of the Agreement declared that the demarcation line was not to be an international border. At first the Gaza Strip was officially administered by the All-Palestine Government, All-Palestine in the Gaza Strip was managed under the military authority of Egypt, functioning as a puppet state, until it officially merged into the United Arab Republic and dissolved in 1959. From the time of the dissolution of the All-Palestine Government until 1967, Israel captured the Gaza Strip from Egypt in the Six-Day War in 1967. In 2005, Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip under their unilateral disengagement plan, in July 2007, after winning the 2006 Palestinian legislative election, Hamas became the elected government
39.
Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs
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The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs is one of the most important ministries in the Israeli government. The ministrys role is to implement Israels foreign policy, and promote economic, cultural, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is located in the government complex in Givat Ram, Jerusalem. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu currently holds the Foreign Ministry post, moshe Sharett, formerly head of the Political Department of the Jewish Agency, was placed in charge of foreign relations, with Walter Eytan as Director General. A new organization was founded, the Israeli Association for Diplomacy, in response to issues raised, MK Ronen Hoffman arranged for the Knesset to launch a caucus entitled the “Caucus for the strengthening of the foreign service and Israeli diplomacy” in December 2014. Joined by politicians across the spectrum, Hoffman said, “As long as the security establishment. A country whose foreign service doesn’t take a central position doesn’t act in the best national interest. ”Israel maintains diplomatic relations with 159 countries, in October 2000, Morocco, Tunisia and the Sultanate of Oman closed the Israeli offices in their countries and suspended relations with Israel. Niger, which renewed relations with Israel in November 1996, severed them in April 2002, venezuela and Bolivia severed diplomatic ties with Israel in January 2009, in the wake of the IDF operation against Hamas in Gaza. of Toronto. The building consists of three wings, One houses the offices of the Foreign Minister and director-general, another houses the diplomatic corps and the library, the outside walls of the reception hall incorporate onyx plates that diffuse an amber light. In June 2001, the won the prize for excellence from the Royal Institute of Architects of Canada. The building is described as an essay in the play between solid and void, mass and volume, and light and shadow. The Foreign Affairs Minister of Israel is the head of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The position is one of the most important in the Israeli cabinet after Prime Minister, Foreign relations of Israel Official website Official website Official website Official website All Ministers in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Knesset website
40.
Operation Defensive Shield
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Operation Defensive Shield was a large-scale military operation conducted by the Israel Defense Forces in 2002 during the course of the Second Intifada. It was the largest military operation in the West Bank since the 1967 Six-Day War, the stated goal of the operation was to stop terrorist attacks. The Israel Defense Forces invaded Tulkarm and Qalqilya on April 1, Bethlehem the next day, Jenin and Nablus the next. In May 2002, the Israeli troops had pulled out of the Palestinian cities, but maintained cordons of troops around West Bank towns and villages, and continued carrying out raids on Palestinian areas. The UN report on the subject says, Combatants on both sides conducted themselves in ways that, at times, placed civilians in harms way, much of the fighting during Operation Defensive Shield occurred in areas heavily populated by civilians and in many cases heavy weaponry was used. The Israeli–Palestinian conflict between Israel and the Palestinians escalated during the Second Intifada, in January and February 2002,71 people were killed on all sides during attacks from Palestinian militants and the Israeli army. March and April 2002 saw an increase in attacks against Israelis by Palestinian militant groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad. In addition to shooting and grenade attacks, fifteen suicide bombings were carried out in March. March 2002 became known in Israel as Black March, the high rate of attacks severely disrupted daily life throughout Israel. We must cause them losses, victims, so that they feel a heavy price, Palestinian attacks continued, with suicide bombings on 9 March,20 March, and 21 March. Shooting and grenade attacks also continued to occur in Israel and Israeli settlements, on 27 March, a suicide attack occurred in Netanya, where 30 people were killed in the Park Hotel while celebrating Passover. The event became known as the Passover massacre, the following day, a Palestinian gunman infiltrated into the Israeli settlement of Elon Moreh and killed four members of the same family. On March 29, the Israeli government announced Operation Defensive Shield, the Israel Defense Forces issued emergency call-up notices for 30,000 reserve soldiers, the largest call-up since the 1982 Lebanon War. The same day, two Israelis were stabbed in the Gaza settlement of Netzarim, two suicide bombings occurred the next day, and another one took place the day after that. The orders are clear, target and paralyze anyone who takes up weapons and tries to oppose our troops, IDF officers also noted that incursions would force Palestinian militants to exert their energy by defending their homes in the camps instead of by plotting attacks on Israelis. Operation Defensive Shield was announced on March 29, but it is widely assumed preparations began nearly a month before. In early April, the IDF was conducting military operations inside all Palestinian cities, but the majority of the fighting centered on Bethlehem, Jenin, Nablus. Over 20,000 Israeli reservists were activated during the conflict, the IDF spokesman attributed 23 of the 60 suicide bombers that attacked Israel in 2002 to Palestinians from Jenin
41.
Israeli disengagement from Gaza
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Four settlements in the northern West Bank were also evacuated. The disengagement was proposed in 2003 by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, adopted by the Government in June 2004, approved by the Knesset in February 2005 and enacted in August 2005. The eviction of all residents, demolition of the residential buildings, the eviction and dismantlement of the four settlements in the northern West Bank was completed ten days later. A total of 8,000 Jewish settlers from all 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip were relocated, the average settler received compensation of over U. S $200,000. Post-disengagement, Israel continued to control over the external perimeter of Gaza, including seaports, air space. In his book Sharon, The Life of a Leader, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharons son Gilad wrote that he gave his father the idea of the disengagement. Sharon suggested his disengagement plan for the first time on December 18,2003 at the Fourth Herzliya Conference. ″ It was at time that he began to use the word occupation. Effectively, this package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. And all this with authority and permission, all with a presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress. You know, the peace process is a bundle of concepts and commitments. The peace process is the establishment of a Palestinian state with all the security risks that entails, the peace process is the evacuation of settlements, its the return of refugees, its the partition of Jerusalem. And all that has now been frozen, what I effectively agreed to with the Americans was that part of the settlements would not be dealt with at all, and the rest will not be dealt with until the Palestinians turn into Finns. That is the significance of what we did, Sharon formally announced the plan in his April 14,2004 letter to U. S. President George W. Bush, stating that there exists no Palestinian partner with whom to advance peacefully toward a settlement. On June 6,2004, Sharons government approved an amended disengagement plan, on February 16,2005, the Knesset finalized and approved the plan. Failing to gain support from senior ministers, Sharon agreed that the Likud party would hold a referendum on the plan in advance of a vote by the Israeli Cabinet. Commentators and the described the rejection of the plan as a blow to Sharon. Sharon himself announced that he accepted the Likud referendum results and would take time to consider his steps and he ordered Minister of Defense Shaul Mofaz to create an amended plan which Likud voters could accept. On June 6,2004, Sharons government approved an amended disengagement plan, following the approval of the plan, it was decided to close the Erez industrial zone and move its factories to cities and towns in Israel such as Ashkelon, Dimona, Yeruham, and Sderot
42.
Amona, Mateh Binyamin
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Amona was an Israeli outpost in the central West Bank. Located on a hill overlooking Ofra within the boundaries of the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council. As of 2012, its population was around 200, as of October 2013, the outpost lodged 42 families. In May 2014 an Israeli police investigation revealed the entire outpost lay on private Palestinian land, in December 2014, the Israeli High Court ordered the state to completely evacuate and demolish the settlement within two years. The international community considers all Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law and its name is derived from the Book of Joshua 18,24, which mentions Kfar HaAmmoni or Kfar HaAmmonah. Amona was founded in 1995 on private Palestinian land by settlers from Ofra who thought it was getting too urbanized for their taste. It was one of the first outposts, Amona was constructed on property the Palestinians of Silwad used to cultivate and grow crops on, land that was stolen from them by Ofra teenagers. Yesh Din states that Amona is built on the land of three Palestinian villages, Silwad, Ein Yabrud and Taybeh. Back at the start of the 1980s, nine dunams he owns, planted with fig trees and grapevines, stopped laughing by force of various military orders preventing access to them. Thirty-two dunams stopped laughing after the outpost of Amona was established at the end of the 1990s on private lands belonging to inhabitants of the villages of Silwad, Dir Jarir and Taibeh. Amona has become highly symbolic, revealing the role in the settlement enterprise of the settlement movement, the Israeli State, in 1997, the first demolition order was issued, followed by another one in 2003. In 2006, settlers were evacuated, but only nine permanent buildings were razed, in 2008, the state said that construction on the site was illegal and announced that the entire outpost would be razed. In 2011, the announcement was repeated, but as of January 2015 the outpost was still there, in 2004, the Amana settlement organization completed the construction of nine permanent homes at Amona, all built illegally on privately owned land and appropriately registered to Palestinians. In October 2004, the Israeli Civil Administration ordered the demolition of the structures, in November 2005, Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz ordered the demolition by the end of January 2006. On 1 February 2006, settlers and protesters were evacuated, attended with unprecedented clashes,10,000 Israel Police, Israel Border Police, and Israel Defense Forces troops appeared in Amona to carry out the demolition and to secure the troops involved in the operation. They faced an estimated 4,000 Israeli protesters, one thousand actively protesting inside and around the houses, over 300 people were injured, including about 80 security personnel. Among the injured were three Knesset members, after several hours, the houses were demolished. Young girls that were evacuated accused police officers of sexual assault, Internal Security Minister Gideon Ezra was criticised for preventing police commanders from testifying at the hearings
