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পটভূমি

বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতার পর ১৯৭৪ সালে ব্যাপক দুর্নীতির কারণে একটি দুর্ভিক্ষ দেখা দেয় যার ফলে সেই সময়ে দেশে খাদ্য ঘাটতি দেখা দেয়। সেই দুর্ভিক্ষে রংপুর অঞ্চলে প্রথম মন্দা দেখা দেয়[২] এবং এই অঞ্চল ছিল সবচেয়ে ক্ষতিগ্রস্ত তিন অঞ্চলের একটি।[৩]। সেই সময় দৈনিক ইত্তেফাক-এর এক সাংবাদিক জাল পরিহিত এক ব্যক্তি ও অন্য একজনের বমি খাওয়ার ভান করার ছবি তুলে পত্রিকায় প্রকাশ করেন। এই ছবিগুলো দেখে রফিক আজাদ রেগে গিয়ে কবিতাটি লেখেন। কবিতাটি প্রকাশিত হয় তার সীমাবদ্ধ জলে, সীমিত সবুজে কাব্যগ্রন্থে। কবিতাটির জন্য শেখ মুজিবুর রহমানের নেতৃত্বাধীন তৎকালীন সরকার বইটি নিষিদ্ধ করে। তৎকালীন প্রধানমন্ত্রী শেখ মুজিবুর রহমান তার প্রতি কোনো মন্তব্য না করলেও, রফিক আজাদকে কবিতাটি লেখার কারণ লিখিত আকারে পুলিশের উপ-মহাপরিদর্শকের নিকট বিশেষ শাখার দপ্তরে জবাবদিহি হিসেবে জমা দিতে হয়।

Yaksha Prashna

Vana Parva

At the end of their 12 years of exile in the forests, the time had come for the Pandavas to live incognito in Agyatavasa (exile). As they were discussing their course of action, the princes met a Brahmana who complained that a deer has taken on its antlers his arani— a pair of wooden blocks used to start fire by friction— so he couldn't light the fire for Vedic rituals. So, the Pandavas set out to retrieve the Brahmin's arani and followed the hoofprints of the deer. While following the mysterious deer, Yudhishthira became exhausted and thirsty. So, his brother Nakula set out to fetch water and found a beautiful lake. The lake was devoid of any living creature, except for a crane. When he attempted to take water from the lake, the crane spoke, "O Nakula! The water of this lake will turn into poison if you take it without satisfactorily answering my questions." Nakula ignored the crane, hastily drank the poisonous water, and died. Nakula's twin, Sahadeva, came in search of his brother and found the same lake, saw Nakula dead, and was warned by the crane. But, Sahadeva too ignored the crane and died after drinking the water. One after the other, Arjuna and Bhima met the same fate.

When none of his brothers returned with water, Yudhishthira followed the trail to the lake and found them all lying dead. Before searching for his brothers' killer, he decided to drink some water from the lake. But when the crane warned him, he realised that the crane held the answer to the turn of events, and agreed to answer its questions. The crane then revealed itself as a Yaksha. The Yaksha asked Yudhishthira approximately 125 questions on gods, metaphysics, philosophy, and similar topics:

যক্ষের প্রশ্ন	যুধিষ্ঠিরের উত্তর
সূর্য দেবতা
কে সূর্যকে উদিত করান?	ব্রক্ষ্ম
কে সূর্যের চারদিকে ভ্রমণ করেন?	দেবতাগণ
কে সূর্যকে অস্তমিত করেন?	ধর্ম
কার মধ্যে সূর্য প্রতিষ্ঠিত আছেন?	সত্য
Learning, Intelligence
By what does one become learned?	By Srutis (that scriptures which are heard)
How one acquires something very great?	By ascetics austerities (tapas)
How can one acquire intelligence?	By serving the old
Brahmins (Learned/Saints)
What constituents the divinity of Brahmanas?	Study of Vedas (Scriptures)
What is pious practice in them?	Their asceticism (penance) constituents' behavior that is like that of the pious.
What is human attributes of Brahmanas?	Death
What is impious practice in them?	Insulting anyone is their impiety
Kshatriyas (Kings/Warriors)
What constituents the divinity of Kshatriyas?	Arrows and their Weapons
What is pious practice in them?	Celebration of Sacrifices
What is human attributes of Kshatriyas?	Fear
What is impious practice in them?	Refusal of protection Dharma
Cultivate, Sow, Prosperity
What is value to those who cultivate?	Rain
What is value to those who sow?	Seed
What is value to those who wish the prosperity in this world?	Preacher
What is value to those who that bring forth?	Offspring
Living Dead
What person who enjoying all the objects of sensing, breathing but yet is not alive?	The person who do not offer anything to Gods, Guests, Servant, Pitris etc.
Heavier, Higher, Fleeter, Numerous
What is heavier than Earth?	Mother
What is higher than Heaven?	Father
What is fleeter (running fast) than Wind?	Mind
What is more numerous than Grass?	Thoughts
Generic ~ Miscallenous
What which sleep does not close eyes?	Fish
What which does not move after birth?	Egg
What which is without heart?	Stone
What which swells in its own impetus?	River
Friend
Who is friend of the exile?	Companion
Who is friend of the householder?	Wife
Who is friend of the sick?	Physician
Who is friend of one who is about to die?	Charity
Duty, Guest, Amrita, Universe
Who is guest of all creatures?	Agni (Fire)
What is eternal duty?	Homa (Yajna Sacrifice), Following Regulations of Sanatan Dharam
What is Amrita?	Milk of Cow is Amrita
What is in the universe?	Universe consists of Air alone.
Mortal/Immortal/Rebirth
What is that which stays alone?	The Sun
What is reborn after its birth?	The Moon
What is remedy against cold?	Fire
What is the largest field?	Earth
Virtue/Fame/Heaver/Happiness
What is Highest shelter of virtue?	Liberty is the Highest Guard of virtue
What is Highest shelter of fame?	Gift is the Highest Guard of Fame
What is Highest shelter of heaven?	Truth is Highest Guard of Heaven
What is Highest shelter of happiness?	Good Behavior is the Highest Guard of Happiness
Man's (Soul, Friend, Support)
What is soul of man?	Son
Who is that friend bestowed on man by the gods?	Wife
What is man's chief support?	Clouds
What is man's chief refuge?	Charity
Possessions / Gains /Happiness
What is best of all laudable things?	Skills
What is most valuable possession?	Knowledge
What is best of all gains?	Health
What is best of all kind of happiness?	Contentment
Duty, Regret, Alliance
What is the highest duty in the world?	Refrain from injury is the highest duty
What is that virtue which always bears fruits?	Rites ordained in Vedas always bear fruits
What is that if controlled, leads to no regret?	Mind if controlled, leads no regrets
With whom alliance cannot break?	Alliance with Good never breaks
What if Renounced
What if renounced, make one agreeable?	Pride
What if renounced, leads no regret?	Anger
What if renounced, makes one wealthy?	Desire
What if renounced, makes one happy?	Greed
Why Giving
Why one give to Brahmanas?	For Religious Merit
Why one give to actors/dancers?	For Fame
Why one give to servants?	For Supporting them
Why one give to king?	For obtaining Relief from Fear
Discovering
With what is world enveloped?	Darkness
What is that owing to which a thing cannot discover itself?	Darkness not permit a thing to show itself
Why one fail to go to heaven?	Connection with world make one fail to go to heaven
Why friends are forsaken?	Greed and Lust
Dead
Which one is considered as dead?	One having want of wealth
Which sacrifice is considered as dead?	One having no gifts for Brahmanas
Which Shardha (Puja) is considered as dead?	Shardha performed by aid of Guru, who having no real knowledge
Which kingdom is considered as dead?	Kingdom of want of a king
Restrain, Forgiveness, Shame
What is sign of asceticism?	Staying in one's own religion
What is true restraint?	Restrain of Mind
What is forgiveness?	Stable Enmity
What is shame?	Withdrawing from all Unworthy Acts
Knowledge, Peace, Mercy, Simplicity
What is true knowledge?	True knowledge of the Lord (Krishna)
What is tranquility (peace)?	True Tranquility of Heart
What is mercy?	Wishing Happiness for All Living Creatures
What is simplicity?	Calmness of Heart
Enemy, Disease, Honest/Dishonest
Which enemy is invincible?	Anger
What is incurable disease?	Greediness
Who is honest?	Wishes well for all Creatures
Who is dishonest?	Un-merciful
Ignorance, Pride, Idleness, Grief
What is ignorance?	Not knowing one's duty
What is pride?	Consciousness of one's being himself sufferer in life (Ignorance)
What is idleness?	Not discharging one's prescribed duties
What is grief?	Ignorance
Patience, Real Bath, Charity
What is steadiness?	Staying in one's own religion
What is patience?	Overpowering of senses
What is real ablution (bath)?	Washing the mind, clean of all impurities
What is charity?	Protecting all creatures
Learned, Atheist, Desire, Envy
Who is learned?	Who knows his duties
Who is atheist?	Who is ignorant
What is desire?	Desire is due to object of possession
What is envy?	Grief of Heart
Hypocrisy, Wickedness
What is hypocrisy?	Setting up of Religious Standards
What is wickedness?	Speaking bad of others
What is grace of gods?	Fruits of our gifts (charity)
What one gains, on…..
What one gains on speaking agreeable words?	One becomes agreeable to all
What one gains on acting with judgment?	One obtains whatever one seeks
What one gains having many friends?	One lives happily
What one gain if devoted to virtue?	One obtains a happy state in next world
True Happiness, Most Woderful
Who is truly happy?	One who can cook in own home One who refrain from Tamas Food One who has no debt One who does not come out of home for his livelihood One who does not over striving for material things
What is most wonderful?	Every day numerous living entities are dying and going to the abode of Yama. Yet one think/believe one will live remain forever (Immortal). What can be more wonderful than this?
What is the path?	The best path is to follow in the footsteps of the pure devotees (mahajanas) whose hearts are full of Real Truth regarding Dharma.
What is the news? (What is the real situation in the material world)?	This world full of ignorance is like a pan. The sun is fire, the days and nights are fuel. The months and the seasons constitute the wooden ladle. Time is the cook that is cooking all creatures in that pan (with such aids); This is the real news of what is happening in the material world, which is a miserable place full of ignorance
Dharma, Artha, Kama
Virtue (Dharma), Artha (profit) and Kama (desire) are opposed to each other, how they can co-exist harmoniously?	They can co-exists only if, one having a virtuous Wife.
Condemned to Everlasting Hell
Who is condemned on what acts, to Everlasting Hell?	If one promise a poor Brahmin, a charity; but upon his arrival refuse to give him. Who speak falsehood of Vedas, Scriptures, Who despite possessing, does not give because of greediness.
About Real Brahmin
What constituents the real Brahmana? Birth, Study, Family, Learning or Behaviour?	Behaviour Note: A Shudra is better; if his behavior is better than a so-called learned Brahmana (having wicked behavior, not matter how much he has learned)
True Man
Who is true man, possessing all kinds of wealth?	One who has overcome the dualities of material life, i.e. Happiness/Sadness, Friend/Enemy, Love/Hate,  Heat/Cold, etc. possesses all kinds of wealth.
Generic ~ Miscallenous
What is poison?	Requesting someone
What is proper time for Puja (Shraddha)?	There is no proper time for Shraddha (puja), when one want one can, (if possible find a Guru). One can do puja to Lord Hari any time; one can takes His name any time.
What is food?	Cow is the root of all foods, Cow gives milk, which produce butter ghee, which is used in Yajna, sacrifices. The sacrifices are causes of clouds, which bring rain. Rain is essential for producing food from seeds, (corps).

Yudhishthira had answered all questions in a satisfactory manner, but the Yaksha only allowed him to choose one of his brothers to be restored to life. Yudhishthira chose his younger half-brother, Nakula, the son of his stepmother Madri, reasoning that his own mother, Kunti, had a living son regardless, but his stepmother Madri did not.

The Yaksha was impressed by how Yudhishthira followed dharma in every little thing he did. Yaksha revealed himself to be Yama-Dharma, the god of death, who was also Yudhishthira's father. He revealed to that it was he who had disguised himself as a deer and stolen the arani. He blessed Yudishthira, telling him that since he had adhered to dharma (righteousness), that dharma would protect the Pandavas and no one would recognise them during their exile. All of the Pandavas were restored to life.

Ancient Israel and Judah

ইসরায়েল এবং যিহূদা (দ্বিতীয় লৌহ যুগ)

৮৫৪ খ্রিষ্ঠপূর্বে আসিরীয় নথি অনুসারে (কুর্ক মনোলিথে সংরক্ষিত), ইসরায়েলের আহাব এবং আরাম দামাস্কাসের দ্বিতীয় বেন হাদাদের মধ্যে একটি চুক্তি হয়, যার ফলে কোয়ার্কার যুদ্ধে বিজয়ের মাধ্যমে আসিরীয়দের অনুপ্রবেশ আটকাতে একসাথে তারা কাজ করেছে। যদিও বাইবেলে ভিন্ন কথা বলা হয়েছে। বাইবেলে বেন হাদাদ এবং আহাবের মধ্যে মতানৈক্যের কথা বলা হয়েছে। সেই সময় Another important discovery of the period is the Mesha Stele, a Moabite stele found in Dhiban, now in the Louvre. In the stele, Mesha, king of Moab, tells how Chemosh, the god of Moab, had been angry with his people and had allowed them to be subjugated to the Kingdom of Israel, but at length, Chemosh returned and assisted Mesha to throw off the yoke of Israel and restore the lands of Moab. It refers to Omri, king of Israel, to the god Yahweh, and may contain another early reference to the House of David. Jehu, son of Omri, is referenced by the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III.

দ্বিতীয় মন্দির সময়কাল

Main article: Second Temple period

Jewish–Roman wars

The revolt's failure had profound demographic, theological, political, and economic consequences. Many Jews died fighting and under siege during the revolt, and a sizable portion of the population was either expelled from the country or displaced. Without the Temple, Judaism had to change to ensure its survival. Judaism's Temple-based sects, most notably the Sadducees, vanished. The Pharisees, led by Yochanan ben Zakai, obtained Roman permission to establish a school at Yavne. Their teachings became the foundational, liturgical, and ritualistic basis for Rabbinic Judaism, which eventually became the mainstream form of Judaism.

From 115 to 117, tensions and attacks on Jews around the Roman Empire led to a massive Jewish uprising against Rome, known as the Kitos War. Jews in Libya, Egypt, Cyprus and Mesopotamia fought against Rome. This conflict was accompanied by large-scale massacres of both sides. Cyprus was so severely depopulated that new settlers were imported and Jews banned from living there.

In 132 CE, the Bar Kokhba revolt erupted. The uprising was led by a Jew named Simon Bar Kokhba, who ruled as nasi, and was viewed by some of the rabbis of the period as the long-awaited messiah. Based on the Bar Kokhba revolt coinage, the independent Jewish state was named "Israel". It has been suggested that a rabbinical assembly which convened during the revolt decided which books could be regarded as part of the Hebrew Bible; the Jewish apocrypha and Christian books were excluded. As a result, the original text of some Hebrew texts, including the Books of Maccabees, were lost (Greek translations survived). A rabbi of this period, Simeon bar Yochai, is regarded as the author of the Zohar, the foundational text for Kabbalistic thought. However, modern scholars believe it was written in Medieval Spain. Christians refused to participate in the revolt and from this point the Jews regarded Christianity as a separate religion.

The Bar Kokhba revolt was eventually crushed by emperor Hadrian himself, with serious losses. Today, it is viewed by modern scholars as having decisive historic importance. According to Cassius Dio, writing in the century following the revolt, "50 of the Jews most important outposts and 985 of their most famous villages were razed to the ground. 580,000 men were slain in the various raids and battles, and the number of those that perished by famine, disease and fire was past finding out, thus nearly the whole of Judaea was made desolate." While scholars debate whether these numbers are accurate, archaeological surveys and excavations appear to confirm the claim of Cassius Dio that the district of Judaea was largely depopulated. Most scholars agree that, in contrast to the aftermath of the First Jewish–Roman War, Judea was devastated after the Bar Kokhba revolt, with many Jews killed, exiled, or sold into slavery.

Around the time of the revolt, the province of Judaea (Iudaea) was renamed Syria Palaestina. The commonly-held view is that it was implemented as punishment for the Bar Kokhba revolt or to "disassociate the Jewish people from their historical homeland" and hold Hadrian accountable. However, no evidence exists for this narrative, and it has been disputed by scholars in recent years. No other revolt led to a province being renamed.

Late Roman and Byzantine periods

Late Roman period (136–390)

Further information: Syria Palaestina, Rabbinic literature, and Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire

As a result of the disastrous effects of the Bar Kokhba revolt, Jewish presence in the region significantly dwindled. Over the next centuries, more Jews left to communities in the Diaspora, especially the large, speedily growing Jewish communities in Babylonia and Arabia. Others remained in the Land of Israel, where the spiritual and demographic center shifted from the depopulated Judea to Galilee. Jewish presence also continued in the southern Hebron Hills, in Ein Gedi, and on the coastal plain. The Mishnah and the Jerusalem Talmud, huge compendiums of Rabbinical discussions, were compiled during the 2nd to 4th centuries CE in Tiberias and Jerusalem.

Following the revolt, Judea's countryside was penetrated by pagan populations, including migrants from the nearby provinces of Syria, Phoenicia, and Arabia, whereas Aelia Capitolina, its immediate vicinity, and administrative centers were now inhabited by Roman veterans and settlers from the western parts of the empire.

The Romans permitted a hereditary Rabbinical Patriarch from the House of Hillel, called the "Nasi", to represent the Jews in dealings with the Romans. One prominent figure was Judah ha-Nasi, credited with compiling the final version of the Mishnah, a vast collection of Jewish oral traditions. He also emphasized the importance of education in Judaism, leading to requirements that illiterate Jews be treated as outcasts. This might have contributed to some illiterate Jews converting to Christianity. Jewish seminaries, such as those at Shefaram and Bet Shearim, continued to produce scholars. The best of these became members of the Sanhedrin, which was located first at Sepphoris and later at Tiberias. In the Galillee, many synagogues have been found dating from this period, and the burial site of the Sanhedrin leaders was discovered in Beit She'arim. In the 3rd century, the Roman Empire faced an economic crisis and imposed heavy taxation to fund wars of imperial succession. This situation prompted additional Jewish migration from Syria Palaestina to the Sasanian Empire, known for its more tolerant environment; there, a flourishing Jewish community with important Talmudic academies thrived in Babylonia, engaging in a notable rivalry with the Talmudic academies of Palaestina.

Early in the 4th century, the Emperor Constantine made Constantinople the capital of the East Roman Empire and made Christianity an accepted religion. His mother Helena made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem (326–328) and led the construction of the Church of the Nativity (birthplace of Jesus in Bethlehem), the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (burial site of Jesus in Jerusalem) and other key churches that still exist. The name Jerusalem was restored to Aelia Capitolina and became a Christian city. Jews were still banned from living in Jerusalem, but were allowed to visit and worship at the site of the ruined temple. Over the course of the next century Christians worked to eradicate "paganism", leading to the destruction of classical Roman traditions and eradication of their temples. In 351–2, another Jewish revolt in the Galilee erupted against a corrupt Roman governor.

Byzantine period (390–634)

Main articles: Palaestina Prima and Palaestina Secunda

Further information: Jewish revolt against Heraclius, Sasanian conquest of Jerusalem, and Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem

Heraclius returning the True Cross to Jerusalem, 15th-century painting by Miguel Ximénez

The Roman Empire split in 390 CE and the region became part of the Eastern Roman Empire, known as the Byzantine Empire. Under Byzantine rule, much of the region and its non-Jewish population were won over by Christianity, which eventually became the dominant religion in the region. The presence of holy sites drew Christian pilgrims, some of whom chose to settle, contributing to the rise of a Christian majority. Christian authorities encouraged this pilgrimage movement and appropriated lands, constructing magnificent churches at locations linked to biblical narratives. Additionally, monks established monasteries near pagan settlements, encouraging the conversion of local pagans.

During the Byzantine period, the Jewish presence in the region declined, and it is believed that Jews lost their majority status in Palestine in the fourth century. While Judaism remained the sole non-Christian religion tolerated, restrictions on Jews gradually increased, prohibiting the construction of new places of worship, holding public office, or owning Christian slaves. In 425, after the death of the last Nasi, Gamliel VI, the Nasi office and the Sanhedrin were officially abolished, and the standing of yeshivot weakened. The leadership void was gradually filled by the Jewish center in Babylonia, which would assume a leading role in the Jewish world for generations after the Byzantine period.

During the 5th and 6th centuries CE, the region witnessed a series of Samaritan revolts against Byzantine rule. Their suppression resulted in the decline of Samaritan presence and influence, and further consolidated Christian domination. Though it is acknowledged that some Jews and Samaritans converted to Christianity during the Byzantine period, the reliable historical records are limited, and they pertain to individual conversions rather than entire communities.

In 611, Khosrow II, ruler of Sassanid Persia, invaded the Byzantine Empire. He was helped by Jewish fighters recruited by Benjamin of Tiberias and captured Jerusalem in 614. The "True Cross" was captured by the Persians. The Jewish Himyarite Kingdom in Yemen may also have provided support. Nehemiah ben Hushiel was made governor of Jerusalem. Christian historians of the period claimed the Jews massacred Christians in the city, but there is no archeological evidence of destruction, leading modern historians to question their accounts. In 628, Kavad II (son of Kosrow) returned Palestine and the True Cross to the Byzantines and signed a peace treaty with them. Following the Byzantine re-entry, Heraclius massacred the Jewish population of Galilee and Jerusalem, while renewing the ban on Jews entering the latter.

Early Muslim period

Main articles: Medina § Early_history_and_Jewish_control, Dhimmi, Jund Filastin, and Jund al-Urdunn

Aerial view of the Temple Mount showing the Dome of the Rock in the center and the al-Aqsa mosque to the south

The Levant was conquered by an Arab army under the command of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb in 635, and became the province of Bilad al-Sham of the Rashidun Caliphate. Two military districts—Jund Filastin and Jund al-Urdunn—were established in Palestine. A new city called Ramlah was built as the Muslim capital of Jund Filastin, while Tiberias served as the capital of Jund al-Urdunn. The Byzantine ban on Jews living in Jerusalem came to an end.

In 661, Muawiyah was crowned Caliph in Jerusalem, becoming the first of the (Damascus-based) Umayyad dynasty. In 691, Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik (685–705) constructed the Dome of the Rock shrine on the Temple Mount, where the two Jewish temples had been located. A second building, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, was also erected on the Temple Mount in 705. Both buildings were rebuilt in the 10th century following a series of earthquakes.

In 750, Arab discrimination against non-Arab Muslims led to the Abbasid Revolution and the Umayyads were replaced by the Abbasid Caliphs who built a new city, Baghdad, to be their capital. This period is known as the Islamic Golden Age, the Arab Empire was the largest in the world and Baghdad the largest and richest city. Both Arabs and minorities prospered across the region and much scientific progress was made. There were however setbacks: During the 8th century, the Caliph Umar II introduced a law requiring Jews and Christians to wear identifying clothing. Jews were required to wear yellow stars round their neck and on their hats, Christians had to wear Blue. Clothing regulations arose during repressive periods of Arab rule and were more designed to humiliate then persecute non-Muslims. A poll tax was imposed on all non-Muslims by Islamic rulers and failure to pay could result in imprisonment or worse.

In 982, Caliph Al-Aziz Billah of the Cairo-based Fatimid dynasty conquered the region. The Fatimids were followers of Isma'ilism, a branch of Shia Islam and claimed descent from Fatima, Mohammed's daughter. Around the year 1010, the Church of Holy Sepulchre (believed to be Jesus burial site), was destroyed by Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim, who relented ten years later and paid for it to be rebuilt. In 1020 al-Hakim claimed divine status and the newly formed Druze religion gave him the status of a messiah.

Demographic changes

Although the Arab conquest was relatively peaceful and did not cause widespread destruction, it did alter the country's demographics significantly. Over the ensuing several centuries, the region experienced a drastic decline in its population, from an estimated 1 million during Roman and Byzantine times to some 300,000 by the early Ottoman period. This demographic collapse was accompanied by a slow process of Islamization, that resulted from the flight of non-Muslim populations, immigration of Muslims, and local conversion. The majority of the remaining populace belonged to the lowest classes. While the Arab conquerors themselves left the area after the conquest and moved on to other places, the settlement of Arab tribes in the area both before and after the conquest also contributed to the Islamization. As a result, the Muslim population steadily grew and the area became gradually dominated by Muslims on a political and social level.

During the early Islamic period, many Christians and Samaritans, belonging to the Byzantine upper class, migrated from the coastal cities to northern Syria and Cyprus, which were still under Byzantine control, while others fled to the central highlands and the Transjordan. As a result, the coastal towns, formerly important economic centers connected with the rest of the Byzantine world, were emptied of most of their residents. Some of these cities—namely Ashkelon, Acre, Arsuf, and Gaza—now fortified border towns, were resettled by Muslim populations, who developed them into significant Muslim centers. The region of Samaria also underwent a process of Islamization as a result of waves of conversion among the Samaritan population and the influx of Muslims into the area. The predominantly Jacobite Monophysitic Christian population had been hostile to Byzantium orthodoxy, and at times for that reason welcomed Muslim rule. There is no strong evidence for forced conversion, or for possibility that the jizya tax significantly affected such changes.

The demographic situation in Palestine was further altered by urban decline under the Abbasids, and it is thought that the 749 earthquake hastened this process by causing an increase in the number of Jews, Christians, and Samaritans who emigrated to diaspora communities while also leaving behind others who remained in the devastated cities and poor villages until they converted to Islam. Historical records and archeological evidence suggest that many Samaritans converted under Abbasid and Tulunid rule, after suffering through severe difficulties such droughts, earthquakes, religious persecution, heavy taxes and anarchy. The same region also saw the settlement of Arabs. Over the period, the Samaritan population drastically decreased, with the rural Samaritan population converting to Islam, and small urban communities remaining in Nablus and Caesarea, as well as in Cairo, Damascus, Aleppo and Sarepta. Nevertheless, the Muslim population remained a minority in a predominantly Christian area, and it is likely that this status persisted until the Crusader period.

Crusades and Mongols

Main articles: Kingdom of Jerusalem and Maimonides

Painting of the siege of Jerusalem during the First Crusade (1099)

In 1095, Pope Urban II called upon Christians to wage a holy war and recapture Jerusalem from Muslim rule. Responding to this call, Christians launched the First Crusade in the same year, a military campaign aimed at retaking the Holy Land, ultimately resulting in the successful siege and conquest of Jerusalem in 1099. In the same year, the Crusaders conquered Beit She'an and Tiberias, and in the following decade, they captured coastal cities with the support of Italian city-state fleets, establishing these coastal ports as crucial strongholds for Crusader rule in the region.

Following the First Crusade, several Crusader states were established in the Levant, with the Kingdom of Jerusalem (Regnum Hierosolymitanum) assuming a preeminent position and enjoying special status among them. The population consisted predominantly of Muslims, Christians, Jews, and Samaritans, while the Crusaders remained a minority and relied on the local population who worked the soil. The region saw the construction of numerous robust castles and fortresses, yet efforts to establish permanent European villages proved unsuccessful.

Around 1180, Raynald of Châtillon, ruler of Transjordan, caused increasing conflict with the Ayyubid Sultan Saladin (Salah-al-Din), leading to the defeat of the Crusaders in the 1187 Battle of Hattin (above Tiberias). Saladin was able to peacefully take Jerusalem and conquered most of the former Kingdom of Jerusalem. Saladin's court physician was Maimonides, a refugee from Almohad (Muslim) persecution in Córdoba, Spain, where all non-Muslim religions had been banned.

The Christian world's response to the loss of Jerusalem came in the Third Crusade of 1190. After lengthy battles and negotiations, Richard the Lionheart and Saladin concluded the Treaty of Jaffa in 1192 whereby Christians were granted free passage to make pilgrimages to the holy sites, while Jerusalem remained under Muslim rule. In 1229, Jerusalem peacefully reverted into Christian control as part of a treaty between Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II and Ayyubid sultan al-Kamil that ended the Sixth Crusade. In 1244, Jerusalem was sacked by the Khwarezmian Tatars who decimated the city's Christian population, drove out the Jews and razed the city. The Khwarezmians were driven out by the Ayyubids in 1247.

Mamluk period

Further information: Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo)

See also: Kingdom of Semien and History of the Jews in India

The Bahri Mamluk dynasty 1250–1382

Between 1258 and 1291, the area was the frontier between Mongol invaders (occasional Crusader allies) and the Mamluks of Egypt. The conflict impoverished the country and severely reduced the population. In Egypt a caste of warrior slaves, known as the Mamluks, gradually took control of the kingdom. The Mamluks were mostly of Turkish origin, and were bought as children and then trained in warfare. They were highly prized warriors, who gave rulers independence of the native aristocracy. In Egypt they took control of the kingdom following a failed invasion by the Crusaders (Seventh Crusade). The first Mamluk Sultan, Qutuz of Egypt, defeated the Mongols in the Battle of Ain Jalut ("Goliath's spring" near Ein Harod), ending the Mongol advances. He was assassinated by one of his Generals, Baibars, who went on to eliminate most of the Crusader outposts. The Mamluks ruled Palestine until 1516, regarding it as part of Syria. In Hebron, Jews were banned from worshipping at the Cave of the Patriarchs (the second-holiest site in Judaism); they were only allowed to enter 7 steps inside the site and the ban remained in place until Israel assumed control of the West Bank in the Six Days War. The Egyptian Mamluk sultan Al-Ashraf Khalil conquered the last outpost of Crusader rule in 1291.

The Mamluks, continuing the policy of the Ayyubids, made the strategic decision to destroy the coastal area and to bring desolation to many of its cities, from Tyre in the north to Gaza in the south. Ports were destroyed and various materials were dumped to make them inoperable. The goal was to prevent attacks from the sea, given the fear of the return of the Crusaders. This had a long-term effect on those areas, which remained sparsely populated for centuries. The activity in that time concentrated more inland.

With the 1492 expulsion of Jews from Spain and 1497 persecution of Jews and Muslims by Manuel I of Portugal, many Jews moved eastward, with some deciding to settle in the Mamluk Palestine. As a consequence, the local Jewish community underwent significant rejuvenation. The influx of Sephardic Jews began under Mamluk rule in the 15th century, and continued throughout the 16th century and especially after the Ottoman conquest. As city-dwellers, the majority of Sephardic Jews preferred to settle in urban areas, mainly in Safed but also in Jerusalem, while the Musta'arbi community comprised the majority of the villagers' Jews.

Ottoman period

Further information: History of the Jews in the Ottoman Empire and Ottoman Syria

Under the Mamluks, the area was a province of Bilad a-Sham (Syria). It was conquered by Turkish Sultan Selim I in 1516–17, becoming a part of the province of Ottoman Syria for the next four centuries, first as the Damascus Eyalet and later as the Syria Vilayet (following the Tanzimat reorganization of 1864).

Old Yishuv

Main article: Old Yishuv

16th-century Safed rabbi Joseph Karo, author of the Jewish law book

With the more favorable conditions that followed the Ottoman conquest, the immigration of Jews fleeing Catholic Europe, which had already begun under Mamluk rule, continued, and soon an influx of exiled Sephardic Jews came to dominate the Jewish community in the area.

In 1558 Selim II (1566–1574), successor to Suleiman, whose wife Nurbanu Sultan was Jewish, gave control of Tiberias to Doña Gracia Mendes Nasi, one of the richest women in Europe and an escapee from the inquisition. She encouraged Jewish refugees to settle in the area and established a Hebrew printing press. Safed became a centre for study of the Kabbalah. Doña Nasi's nephew, Joseph Nasi, was made governor of Tiberias and he encouraged Jewish settlement from Italy.

In 1660, a Druze power struggle led to the destruction of Safed and Tiberias. In the late 18th century a local Arab sheikh Zahir al-Umar created a de facto independent Emirate in the Galilee. Ottoman attempts to subdue the Sheikh failed, but after Zahir's death the Ottomans restored their rule in the area.

In 1799 Napoleon briefly occupied the country and planned a proclamation inviting Jews to create a state. The proclamation was shelved following his defeat at Acre. In 1831, Muhammad Ali of Egypt, an Ottoman ruler who left the Empire and tried to modernize Egypt, conquered Ottoman Syria and imposed conscription, leading to the Arab revolt.

Jewish workers in Kerem Avraham neighbourhood of Jerusalem (c. 1850s)

In 1838 there was another Druze revolt. In 1839 Moses Montefiore met with Muhammed Pasha in Egypt and signed an agreement to establish 100–200 Jewish villages in the Damascus Eyalet of Ottoman Syria, but in 1840 the Egyptians withdrew before the deal was implemented, returning the area to Ottoman governorship. In 1844, Jews constituted the largest population group in Jerusalem. By 1896 Jews constituted an absolute majority in Jerusalem, but the overall population in Palestine was 88% Muslim and 9% Christian.

Birth of Zionism

Main articles: History of Zionism and Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem

Between 1882 and 1903, approximately 35,000 Jews moved to Palestine, known as the First Aliyah. In the Russian Empire, Jews faced growing persecution and legal restrictions. Half the world's Jews lived in the Russian Empire, where they were restricted to living in the Pale of Settlement. Severe pogroms in the early 1880s and legal repression led to 2 million Jews emigrating from the Russian Empire. 1.5 million went to the United States. Popular destinations were also Germany, France, England, Holland, Argentina and Palestine.

"Russian" Jews established the Bilu and Hovevei Zion ("Lovers of Zion") movements with the aim of settling in Palestine. In 1878, "Russian" Jewish emigrants established the village of Petah Tikva, followed by Rishon LeZion in 1882. The existing Ashkenazi-Jewish communities were concentrated in the Four Holy Cities, extremely poor and relied on donations (halukka) from groups abroad, while the new settlements were small farming communities, but still relied on funding by the French Baron, Edmond James de Rothschild, who sought to establish profitable enterprises. Many early migrants could not find work and left, but despite the problems, more settlements arose and the community grew. After the Ottoman conquest of Yemen in 1881, a large number of Yemenite Jews also emigrated to Palestine, often driven by Messianism.

In 1896 Theodor Herzl published Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), in which he asserted that the solution to growing antisemitism in Europe (the so-called "Jewish Question") was to establish a Jewish state. In 1897, the World Zionist Organization was founded and the First Zionist Congress proclaimed its aim "to establish a home for the Jewish people in Palestine secured under public law."

Between 1904 and 1914, around 40,000 Jews settled in the area now known as Israel (the Second Aliyah). In 1908 the World Zionist Organization set up the Palestine Bureau (also known as the "Eretz Israel Office") in Jaffa and began to adopt a systematic Jewish settlement policy. In 1909 residents of Jaffa bought land outside the city walls and built the first entirely Hebrew-speaking town, Ahuzat Bayit (later renamed Tel Aviv).

In 1915-1916 Talaat Pasha of the Young Turks forced around a million Armenian Christians from their homes in Eastern Turkey, marching them south through Syria, in what is now known as the Armenian genocide. The number of dead is thought to be around 700,000. Hundreds of thousands were forcibly converted to Islam. A community of survivors settled in Jerusalem, one of whom developed the now iconic Armenian pottery.

World War I

Main articles: Sinai and Palestine campaign and Balfour Declaration

Occupied Enemy Territory Administration, 1918

During World War I, most Jews supported the Germans because they were fighting the Russians who were regarded as the Jews' main enemy. In Britain, the government sought Jewish support for the war effort for a variety of reasons including an antisemitic perception of "Jewish power" in the Ottoman Empire's Young Turks movement which was based in Thessaloniki, the most Jewish city in Europe (40% of the 160,000 population were Jewish). The British also hoped to secure American Jewish support for US intervention on Britain's behalf.

There was already sympathy for the aims of Zionism in the British government, including the Prime Minister Lloyd George. Over 14,000 Jews were expelled by the Ottoman military commander from the Jaffa area in 1914–1915, due to suspicions they were subjects of Russia, an enemy, or Zionists wishing to detach Palestine from the Ottoman Empire, and when the entire population, including Muslims, of both Jaffa and Tel Aviv was subject to an expulsion order in April 1917, the affected Jews could not return until the British conquest ended in 1918, which drove the Turks out of Southern Syria. A year prior, in 1917, the British foreign minister, Arthur Balfour, sent a public letter to the British Lord Rothschild, a leading member of his party and leader of the Jewish community. The letter subsequently became known as the Balfour Declaration. It stated that the British Government "view[ed] with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people". The declaration provided the British government with a pretext for claiming and governing the country. New Middle Eastern boundaries were decided by an agreement between British and French bureaucrats.

A Jewish Legion composed largely of Zionist volunteers organized by Ze'ev Jabotinsky and Joseph Trumpeldor participated in the British invasion. It also participated in the failed Gallipoli Campaign. The Nili Zionist spy network provided the British with details of Ottoman plans and troop concentrations.

After pushing out the Ottomans, Palestine came under martial law. The British, French and Arab Occupied Enemy Territory Administration governed the area shortly before the armistice with the Ottomans until the promulgation of the mandate in 1920.

Mandatory Palestine

Main article: Mandatory Palestine

First years

See also: History of Zionism

The British Mandate (in effect, British rule) of Palestine, including the Balfour Declaration, was confirmed by the League of Nations in 1922 and came into effect in 1923. The territory of Transjordan was also covered by the Mandate but under separate rules that excluded it from the Balfour Declaration. Britain signed a treaty with the United States (which did not join the League of Nations) in which the United States endorsed the terms of the Mandate.

The Balfour declaration was published on the 2nd of November 1917 and the Bolsheviks seized control of Russia a week later. This led to civil war in the Russian Empire. Between 1918 and 1921, a series of pogroms led to the death of at least 100,000 Jews (mainly in what is now Ukraine), and the displacement as refugees of a further 600,000. This led to further migration to Palestine. Between 1919 and 1923, some 40,000 Jews arrived in Palestine in what is known as the Third Aliyah. Many of the Jewish immigrants of this period were Socialist Zionists and supported the Bolsheviks. The migrants became known as pioneers (halutzim), experienced or trained in agriculture who established self-sustaining communes called Kibbutzim. Malarial marshes in the Jezreel Valley and Hefer Plain were drained and converted to agricultural use. Land was bought by the Jewish National Fund, a Zionist charity that collected money abroad for that purpose.

The opening ceremony of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem visited by Arthur Balfour, 1 April 1925

After the French victory over the Arab Kingdom of Syria ended hopes of Arab independence, there were clashes between Arabs and Jews in Jerusalem during the 1920 Nebi Musa riots and in Jaffa the following year, leading to the establishment of the Haganah underground Jewish militia. A Jewish Agency was created which issued the entry permits granted by the British and distributed funds donated by Jews abroad. Between 1924 and 1929, over 80,000 Jews arrived in the Fourth Aliyah, fleeing antisemitism and heavy tax burdens imposed on trade in Poland and Hungary, inspired by Zionism and motivated by the closure of United States borders by the Immigration Act of 1924 which severely limited immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe.

Pinhas Rutenberg, a former Commissar of St Petersburg in Russia's pre-Bolshevik Kerensky Government, built the first electricity generators in Palestine. In 1925 the Jewish Agency established the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Technion (technological university) in Haifa. British authorities introduced the Palestine pound (worth 1000 "mils") in 1927, replacing the Egyptian pound as the unit of currency in the Mandate.

From 1928, the democratically elected Va'ad Leumi (Jewish National Council or JNC) became the main administrative institution of the Palestine Jewish community (Yishuv) and included non-Zionist Jews. As the Yishuv grew, the JNC adopted more government-type functions, such as education, health care and security. With British permission, the Va'ad Leumi raised its own taxes and ran independent services for the Jewish population.

In 1929 tensions grew over the Kotel (Wailing Wall), the holiest spot in the world for Modern Judaism, which was then a narrow alleyway where the British banned Jews from using chairs or curtains: Many of the worshippers were elderly and needed seats; they also wanted to separate women from men. The Mufti of Jerusalem said it was Muslim property and deliberately had cattle driven through the alley. He alleged that the Jews were seeking control of the Temple Mount. This provided the spark for the August 1929 Palestine riots. The main victims were the (non-Zionist) ancient Jewish community at Hebron, who were massacred. The riots led to right-wing Zionists establishing their own militia in 1931, the Irgun Tzvai Leumi (National Military Organization, known in Hebrew by its acronym "Etzel"), which was committed to a more aggressive policy towards the Arab population.

During the interwar period, the perception grew that there was an irreconciliable tension between the two Mandatory functions, of providing for a Jewish homeland in Palestine, and the goal of preparing the country for self-determination. The British rejected the principle of majority rule or any other measure that would give the Arab population, who formed the majority of the population, control over Palestinian territory.

Increase in Jewish immigration

Main articles: Fifth Aliyah, Nuremberg Laws, and Tripartite Pact

Between 1929 and 1938, 250,000 Jews arrived in Palestine (Fifth Aliyah). In 1933, the Jewish Agency and the Nazis negotiated the Ha'avara Agreement (transfer agreement), under which 50,000 German Jews would be transferred to Palestine. The Jews' possessions were confiscated and in return the Nazis allowed the Ha'avara organization to purchase 14 million pounds worth of German goods for export to Palestine and use it to compensate the immigrants. Although many Jews wanted to leave Nazi Germany, the Nazis prevented Jews from taking any money and restricted them to two suitcases so few could pay the British entry tax and many were afraid to leave. The agreement was controversial and the Labour Zionist leader who negotiated the agreement, Haim Arlosoroff, was assassinated in Tel Aviv in 1933. The assassination was used by the British to create tension between the Zionist left and the Zionist right. Arlosoroff had been the boyfriend of Magda Ritschel some years before she married Joseph Goebbels. There has been speculation that he was assassinated by the Nazis to hide the connection but there is no evidence for it.

Between 1933 and 1936, 174,000 arrived despite the large sums the British demanded for immigration permits: Jews had to prove they had 1,000 pounds for families with capital (equivalent to £85,824 in 2023), 500 pounds if they had a profession and 250 pounds if they were skilled labourers.

Arab revolt and the White Paper

Main articles: 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine and White Paper of 1939

Jewish Settlement Police members watching the settlement Nesher during 1936–1939 Arab revolt

Jewish immigration and Nazi propaganda contributed to the large-scale 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine, a largely nationalist uprising directed at ending British rule. The head of the Jewish Agency, Ben-Gurion, responded to the Arab Revolt with a policy of "Havlagah"—self-restraint and a refusal to be provoked by Arab attacks in order to prevent polarization. The Etzel group broke off from the Haganah in opposition to this policy.

The British responded to the revolt with the Peel Commission (1936–37), a public inquiry that recommended that an exclusively Jewish territory be created in the Galilee and western coast (including the population transfer of 225,000 Arabs); the rest becoming an exclusively Arab area. The two main Jewish leaders, Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion, had convinced the Zionist Congress to approve equivocally the Peel recommendations as a basis for more negotiation. The plan was rejected outright by the Palestinian Arab leadership and they renewed the revolt, which caused the British to appease the Arabs, and to abandon the plan as unworkable.

Testifying before the Peel Commission, Weizmann said "There are in Europe 6,000,000 people ... for whom the world is divided into places where they cannot live and places where they cannot enter." In 1938, the US called an international conference to address the question of the vast numbers of Jews trying to escape Europe. Britain made its attendance contingent on Palestine being kept out of the discussion. No Jewish representatives were invited. The Nazis proposed their own solution: that the Jews of Europe be shipped to Madagascar (the Madagascar Plan). The agreement proved fruitless, and the Jews were stuck in Europe.

With millions of Jews trying to leave Europe and every country in the world closed to Jewish migration, the British decided to close Palestine. The White Paper of 1939, recommended that an independent Palestine, governed jointly by Arabs and Jews, be established within 10 years. The White Paper agreed to allow 75,000 Jewish immigrants into Palestine over the period 1940–44, after which migration would require Arab approval. Both the Arab and Jewish leadership rejected the White Paper. In March 1940 the British High Commissioner for Palestine issued an edict banning Jews from purchasing land in 95% of Palestine. Jews now resorted to illegal immigration: (Aliyah Bet or "Ha'apalah"), often organized by the Mossad Le'aliyah Bet and the Irgun. With no outside help and no countries ready to admit them, very few Jews managed to escape Europe between 1939 and 1945. Those caught by the British were mostly imprisoned in Mauritius.

World War II and the Holocaust

Further information: Aliyah Bet, History of the Jews during World War II, The Holocaust, and Italian bombing of Mandatory Palestine in World War II

See also: Einsatzgruppe Egypt

Jewish Brigade headquarters under both Union Flag and Jewish flag

During the Second World War, the Jewish Agency worked to establish a Jewish army that would fight alongside the British forces. Churchill supported the plan but British Military and government opposition led to its rejection. The British demanded that the number of Jewish recruits match the number of Arab recruits.

In June 1940, Italy declared war on the British Commonwealth and sided with Germany. Within a month, Italian planes bombed Tel Aviv and Haifa, inflicting multiple casualties. In May 1941, the Palmach was established to defend the Yishuv against the planned Axis invasion through North Africa. The British refusal to provide arms to the Jews, even when Rommel's forces were advancing through Egypt in June 1942 (intent on occupying Palestine) and the 1939 White Paper, led to the emergence of a Zionist leadership in Palestine that believed conflict with Britain was inevitable. Despite this, the Jewish Agency called on Palestine's Jewish youth to volunteer for the British Army (both men and women). 30,000 Palestinian Jews and 12,000 Palestinian Arabs enlisted in the British armed forces during the war. In June 1944 the British agreed to create a Jewish Brigade that would fight in Italy.

Approximately 1.5 million Jews around the world served in every branch of the allied armies, mainly in the Soviet and US armies. 200,000 Jews died serving in the Soviet army alone.

A small group (about 200 activists), dedicated to resisting the British administration in Palestine, broke away from the Etzel (which advocated support for Britain during the war) and formed the "Lehi" (Stern Gang), led by Avraham Stern. In 1942, the USSR released the Revisionist Zionist leader Menachem Begin from the Gulag and he went to Palestine, taking command of the Etzel organization with a policy of increased conflict against the British. At about the same time Yitzhak Shamir escaped from the camp in Eritrea where the British were holding Lehi activists without trial, taking command of the Lehi (Stern Gang).

Jews in the Middle East were also affected by the war. Most of North Africa came under Nazi control and many Jews were used as slaves. The 1941 pro-Axis coup in Iraq was accompanied by massacres of Jews. The Jewish Agency put together plans for a last stand in the event of Rommel invading Palestine (the Nazis planned to exterminate Palestine's Jews).

Between 1939 and 1945, the Nazis, aided by local forces, led systematic efforts to kill every person of Jewish extraction in Europe (The Holocaust), causing the deaths of approximately 6 million Jews. A quarter of those killed were children. The Polish and German Jewish communities, which played an important role in defining the pre-1945 Jewish world, mostly ceased to exist. In the United States and Palestine, Jews of European origin became disconnected from their families and roots. As the Holocaust mainly affected Ashkenazi Jews, Sepharadi and Mizrahi Jews, who had been a minority, became a much more significant factor in the Jewish world. Those Jews who survived in central Europe, were displaced persons (refugees); an Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, established to examine the Palestine issue, surveyed their ambitions and found that over 95% wanted to migrate to Palestine.

In the Zionist movement the moderate Pro-British (and British citizen) Weizmann, whose son died flying in the RAF, was undermined by Britain's anti-Zionist policies. Leadership of the movement passed to the Jewish Agency in Palestine, now led by the anti-British Socialist-Zionist party (Mapai) led by David Ben-Gurion.

Illegal Jewish immigration and insurgency

Main articles: Bricha and Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine

See also: Anti-Jewish violence in Poland, 1944–46

The British Empire was severely weakened by the war. In the Middle East, the war had made Britain conscious of its dependence on Arab oil. British firms controlled Iraqi oil and Britain ruled Kuwait, Bahrain and the Emirates. Shortly after VE Day, the Labour Party won the general election in Britain. Although Labour Party conferences had for years called for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, the Labour government now decided to maintain the 1939 White Paper policies.

Buchenwald survivors arrive in Haifa to be arrested by the British, 15 July 1945

Illegal migration (Aliyah Bet) became the main form of Jewish entry into Palestine. Across Europe Bricha ("flight"), an organization of former partisans and ghetto fighters, smuggled Holocaust survivors from Eastern Europe to Mediterranean ports, where small boats tried to breach the British blockade of Palestine. Meanwhile, Jews from Arab countries began moving into Palestine overland. Despite British efforts to curb immigration, during the 14 years of the Aliyah Bet, over 110,000 Jews entered Palestine. By the end of World War II, the Jewish population of Palestine had increased to 33% of the total population.

In an effort to win independence, Zionists now waged a guerrilla war against the British. The main underground Jewish militia, the Haganah, formed an alliance called the Jewish Resistance Movement with the Etzel and Stern Gang to fight the British. In June 1946, following instances of Jewish sabotage, such as in the Night of the Bridges, the British launched Operation Agatha, arresting 2,700 Jews, including the leadership of the Jewish Agency, whose headquarters were raided. Those arrested were held without trial.

On 4 July 1946 a massive pogrom in Poland led to a wave of Holocaust survivors fleeing Europe for Palestine. Three weeks later, Irgun bombed the British Military Headquarters of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing 91 people. In the days following the bombing, Tel Aviv was placed under curfew and over 120,000 Jews, nearly 20% of the Jewish population of Palestine, were questioned by the police. In the US, Congress criticized British handling of the situation and considered delaying loans that were vital to British post-war recovery. The alliance between Haganah and Etzel was dissolved after the King David bombings.

Between 1945 and 1948, 100,000–120,000 Jews left Poland. Their departure was largely organized by Zionist activists in Poland under the umbrella of the semi-clandestine organization Berihah ("Flight").

United Nations Partition Plan

Main article: United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine

United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, 1947

On 2 April 1947, the United Kingdom requested that the question of Palestine be handled by the General Assembly. The General Assembly created a committee, United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP), to report on "the question of Palestine".

The principal non-Zionist Orthodox Jewish (or Haredi) party, Agudat Israel, recommended to UNSCOP that a Jewish state be set up after reaching a religious status quo agreement with Ben-Gurion regarding the future Jewish state. The agreement granted an exemption from military service to a quota of yeshiva (religious seminary) students and to all orthodox women, made the Sabbath the national weekend, guaranteed Kosher food in government institutions and allowed Orthodox Jews to maintain a separate education system.

The majority report of UNSCOP proposed "an independent Arab State, an independent Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem", the last to be under "an International Trusteeship System". On 29 November 1947, in Resolution 181 (II), the General Assembly adopted the majority report of UNSCOP, but with slight modifications. The Plan also called for the British to allow "substantial" Jewish migration by 1 February 1948.

Neither Britain nor the UN Security Council took any action to implement the recommendation made by the resolution and Britain continued detaining Jews attempting to enter Palestine. Concerned that partition would severely damage Anglo-Arab relations, Britain denied UN representatives access to Palestine during the period between the adoption of Resolution 181 (II) and the termination of the British Mandate. The British withdrawal was finally completed in May 1948. However, Britain continued to hold (formerly illegal) Jewish immigrants of "fighting age" and their families on Cyprus until March 1949.

Civil War

Main article: 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine

Supply convoy on its way to besieged Jerusalem, April 1948

The General Assembly's vote caused joy in the Jewish community and anger in the Arab community. Violence broke out between the sides, escalating into civil war. From January 1948, operations became increasingly militarized, with the intervention of a number of Arab Liberation Army regiments inside Palestine, each active in a variety of distinct sectors around the different coastal towns. They consolidated their presence in Galilee and Samaria. Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni came from Egypt with several hundred men of the Army of the Holy War. Having recruited a few thousand volunteers, he organized the blockade of the 100,000 Jewish residents of Jerusalem. The Yishuv tried to supply the city using convoys of up to 100 armoured vehicles, but largely failed. By March, almost all Haganah's armoured vehicles had been destroyed, the blockade was in full operation, and hundreds of Haganah members who had tried to bring supplies into the city were killed.

Up to 100,000 Arabs, from the urban upper and middle classes in Haifa, Jaffa and Jerusalem, or Jewish-dominated areas, evacuated abroad or to Arab centres eastwards. This situation caused the US to withdraw their support for the Partition plan, thus encouraging the Arab League to believe that the Palestinian Arabs, reinforced by the Arab Liberation Army, could put an end to the plan for partition. The British, on the other hand, decided on 7 February 1948 to support the annexation of the Arab part of Palestine by Transjordan. The Jordanian army was commanded by the British.

David Ben-Gurion proclaiming the Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948

David Ben-Gurion reorganized the Haganah and made conscription obligatory. Every Jewish man and woman in the country had to receive military training. Thanks to funds raised by Golda Meir from sympathisers in the United States, and Stalin's decision to support the Zionist cause, the Jewish representatives of Palestine were able to purchase important arms in Eastern Europe.

Ben-Gurion gave Yigael Yadin the responsibility to plan for the announced intervention of the Arab states. The result of his analysis was Plan Dalet, in which Haganah passed from the defensive to the offensive. The plan sought to establish Jewish territorial continuity by conquering mixed zones. Tiberias, Haifa, Safed, Beisan, Jaffa and Acre fell, resulting in the flight of more than 250,000 Palestinian Arabs. The situation was one of the catalysts for the intervention of neighbouring Arab states.

On 14 May 1948, on the day the last British forces left from Haifa, the Jewish People's Council gathered at the Tel Aviv Museum and proclaimed the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel.

State of Israel

Main article: History of Israel (1948–present)

Arab–Israeli War

Main article: 1948 Arab–Israeli War

Avraham Adan raising the Ink Flag marking the end of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War

Immediately following the declaration of the new state, both superpower leaders, US President Harry S. Truman and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, recognized the new state. The Haganah became the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The Palmach, Etzel and Lehi were required to cease independent operations and join the IDF.

The Arab League members Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq refused to accept the UN partition plan and proclaimed the right of self-determination for the Arabs across the whole of Palestine. The Arab states marched their forces into what had, until the previous day, been the British Mandate for Palestine, starting the first Arab–Israeli War. After an initial loss of territory by the Jewish state, the tide turned in the Israelis' favour and they pushed the Arab armies back beyond the borders of the proposed Arab state. By November, tenuous ceasefires were arranged between the Israelis, Syrians and Lebanese. On 1 December King Abdullah announced the union of Transjordan with Arab Palestine west of the Jordan; only Britain recognized the annexation.

Armistice Agreements

Main article: 1949 Armistice Agreements

1949 Green Line

Israel signed armistices with Egypt (24 February), Lebanon (23 March), Jordan (3 April) and Syria (20 July), establishing the demilitarized Green Line. These borders were not recognized by the Arab states as international boundaries.

Following the ceasefire declaration, Britain released over 2,000 Jewish detainees it was still holding in Cyprus and recognized the state of Israel. On 11 May 1949, Israel was admitted as a member of the United Nations. Out of an Israeli population of 650,000, some 6,000 men and women were killed in the fighting, including 4,000 soldiers in the IDF (approximately 1% of the population). According to United Nations figures, 726,000 Palestinians had fled or were expelled by the Israelis between 1947 and 1949.

1948–1955: Ben-Gurion I; Sharett

Further information: Austerity in Israel, Lavon Affair, and Reprisal operations

See also: Provisional, First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth governments of Israel

A 120-seat parliament, the Knesset, met first in Tel Aviv then moved to Jerusalem after the 1949 ceasefire. In January 1949, Israel held its first elections. The Socialist-Zionist parties Mapai and Mapam won the most seats (46 and 19 respectively). Mapai's leader, David Ben-Gurion, was appointed Prime Minister, he formed a coalition which did not include Mapam who were Stalinist and loyal to the USSR (another Stalinist party, non-Zionist Maki won 4 seats). This was a significant decision, as it signaled that Israel would not be in the Soviet bloc. The Knesset elected Chaim Weizmann as the first (largely ceremonial) President of Israel. Hebrew and Arabic were made the official languages of the new state. All governments have been coalitions—no party has ever won a majority in the Knesset. From 1948 until 1977 all governments were led by Mapai and the Alignment, predecessors of the Labour Party. In those years Labour Zionists, initially led by David Ben-Gurion, dominated Israeli politics and the economy was run on primarily socialist lines.

Within three years (1948 to 1951), immigration doubled the Jewish population of Israel and left an indelible imprint on Israeli society. Overall, 700,000 Jews settled in Israel during this period. Some 300,000 arrived from Asian and North African nations as part of the Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries. Among them, the largest group (over 100,000) was from Iraq. The rest of the immigrants were from Europe, including more than 270,000 who came from Eastern Europe, mainly Romania and Poland (over 100,000 each). Nearly all the Jewish immigrants could be described as refugees, however only 136,000 who immigrated to Israel from Central Europe, had international certification because they belonged to the 250,000 Jews registered by the allies as displaced after World War II and living in displaced persons camps in Germany, Austria and Italy.

In 1950 the Knesset passed the Law of Return, which granted to all Jews and those of Jewish ancestry (Jewish grandparent), and their spouses, the right to settle in Israel and gain citizenship. That year, 50,000 Yemenite Jews (99%) were secretly flown to Israel in Operation Magic Carpet. In 1951 Iraqi Jews were granted temporary permission to leave the country and 120,000 (over 90%) opted to move to Israel as part of Operation Ezra and Nehemiah. Jews also fled from Lebanon, Syria and Egypt. By the late sixties, about 500,000 Jews had left Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. Over the course of twenty years, some 850,000 Jews from Arab countries (99%) relocated to Israel (680,000), France and the Americas. The land and property left behind by the Jews (much of it in Arab city centres) is still a matter of some dispute. Today there are about 9,000 Jews living in Arab states, of whom 75% live in Morocco and 15% in Tunisia. Vast assets, approximately $150 billion worth of goods and property (before inflation) were left behind in these countries.

Menachem Begin addressing a mass demonstration in Tel Aviv against negotiations with Germany in 1952

Between 1948 and 1958, the population of Israel rose from 800,000 to two million. During this period, food, clothes and furniture had to be rationed in what became known as the Austerity Period (Tkufat haTsena). Immigrants were mostly refugees with no money or possessions and many were housed in temporary camps known as ma'abarot. By 1952, over 200,000 immigrants were living in tents or prefabricated shacks built by the government. Israel received financial aid from private donations from outside the country (mainly the United States). The pressure on the new state's finances led Ben-Gurion to sign a controversial reparations agreement with West Germany. During the Knesset debate some 5,000 demonstrators gathered and riot police had to cordon the building. Israel received several billion marks and in return agreed to open diplomatic relations with Germany.

In 1949, education was made free and compulsory for all citizens until the age of 14. The state now funded the party-affiliated Zionist education system and a new body created by the Haredi Agudat Israel party. A separate body was created to provide education for the remaining Palestinian-Arab population. The major political parties now competed for immigrants to join their education systems. The government banned the existing educational bodies from the transit camps and tried to mandate a unitary secular socialist education under the control of "camp managers" who also had to provide work, food and housing for the immigrants. There were attempts to force orthodox Yemenite children to adopt a secular life style by teachers, including many instances of Yemenite children having their side-curls cut by teachers. The Yemenite Children Affair led to the first Israeli public inquiry (the Fromkin Inquiry), the collapse of the coalition, and an election in 1951.

On 19 May 1950, in contravention of international law, Egypt announced that the Suez Canal was closed to Israeli ships and commerce. In 1952 a military coup in Egypt brought Abdel Nasser to power. The United States pursued close relations with the new Arab states, particularly the Nasser-led Egyptian Free Officers Movement and Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia. Israel's solution to diplomatic isolation was to establish good relations with newly independent states in Africa and with France, which was engaged in the Algerian War.

In the January 1955 elections Mapai won 40 seats and the Labour Party 10, Moshe Sharett became prime minister of Israel at the head of a left-wing coalition. Between 1953 and 1956, there were intermittent clashes along all of Israel's borders as Arab terrorism and breaches of the ceasefire resulting in Israeli counter-raids. Palestinian fedayeen attacks, often organized and sponsored by the Egyptians, were made from (Egyptian) occupied Gaza. Fedayeen attacks led to a growing cycle of violence as Israel launched reprisal attacks against Gaza. In 1954 the Uzi submachine gun first entered use by the Israel Defense Forces. In 1955 the Egyptian government began recruiting former Nazi rocket scientists for a missile program.

Sharett's government was brought down by the Lavon Affair, a crude plan to disrupt US–Egyptian relations, involving Israeli agents planting bombs at American sites in Egypt. The plan failed when eleven agents were arrested. Defense Minister Lavon was blamed despite his denial of responsibility. The Lavon affair led to Sharett's resignation and Ben-Gurion returned to the post of prime minister.

1955–1963: Ben-Gurion II

Further information: Suez Crisis

See also: Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth governments of Israel

In 1955 Egypt concluded a massive arms deal with Czechoslovakia, upsetting the balance of power in the Middle East. In 1956, the increasingly pro-Soviet President Nasser of Egypt, announced the nationalization of the (French and British owned) Suez Canal, which was Egypt's main source of foreign currency. Egypt also blockaded the Gulf of Aqaba preventing Israeli access to the Red Sea. Israel made a secret agreement with the French at Sèvres to co-ordinate military operations against Egypt. Britain and France had already begun secret preparations for military action. It has been alleged that the French also agreed to build a nuclear plant for the Israelis and that by 1968 this was able to produce nuclear weapons. Britain and France arranged for Israel to give them a pretext for seizing the Suez Canal. Israel was to attack Egypt, and Britain and France would then call on both sides to withdraw. When, as expected, the Egyptians refused, Anglo-French forces would invade to take control of the Canal.

Israeli paratroopers dig in near the Mitla Pass, 31 October 1956

Israeli forces, commanded by General Moshe Dayan, launched Operation Kadesh against Egypt on 29 October 1956. On 30 October Britain and France made their pre-arranged call for both sides to stop fighting and withdraw from the Canal area, and for them to be allowed to take up positions at key points on the Canal. Egypt refused and the allies commenced air strikes on 31 October aimed at neutralizing the Egyptian air force. By 5 November the Israelis had overrun the Sinai. The Anglo-French invasion began that day. There was uproar in the UN, with the United States and USSR for once in agreement in denouncing the actions of Israel, Britain and France. A demand for a ceasefire was reluctantly accepted on 7 November.

At Egypt's request, the UN sent an Emergency Force (UNEF), consisting of 6,000 peacekeeping troops from 10 nations to supervise the ceasefire. This was the first ever UN peacekeeping operation. From 15 November the UN troops marked out a zone across the Sinai to separate the Israeli and Egyptian forces. Upon receiving US guarantees of Israeli access to the Suez Canal, freedom of access out of the Gulf of Aqaba and Egyptian action to stop Palestinian raids from Gaza, the Israelis withdrew to the Negev. In practice the Suez Canal remained closed to Israeli shipping. The conflict marked the end of West-European dominance in the Middle East. Nasser emerged as the victor in the conflict, having won the political battle.

In 1956, two modern-orthodox (and religious-zionist) parties, Mizrachi and Hapoel HaMizrachi, joined to form the National Religious Party. The party was a component of every Israeli coalition until 1992, usually running the Ministry of Education. Mapai was once again victorious in the 1959 elections, increasing its number of seats to 47, Labour had 7. Ben-Gurion remained Prime Minister.

Trial of Adolf Eichmann

Rudolph Kastner, a minor political functionary, was accused of collaborating with the Nazis and sued his accuser. Kastner lost the trial and was assassinated two years later. In 1958 the Supreme Court exonerated him. In May 1960 Adolf Eichmann, one of the chief administrators of the Nazi Holocaust, was located in Argentina by the Mossad, later kidnapping him and bringing him to Israel. In 1961 he was put on trial, and after several months found guilty and sentenced to death. He was hanged in 1962 and is the only person ever sentenced to death by an Israeli court. Testimonies by Holocaust survivors at the trial and the extensive publicity that surrounded it has led the trial to be considered a turning point in public awareness of the Holocaust.

In 1961 a Herut no-confidence motion over the resurfaced Lavon affair led to Ben-Gurion's resignation. Ben-Gurion declared that he would only accept office if Lavon was fired from the position of the head of Histadrut, Israel's labour union organization. His demands were accepted and Mapai won the 1961 election (42 seats keeping Ben-Gurion as PM) with a slight reduction in its share of the seats. Menachem Begin's Herut party and the Liberals came next with 17 seats each. In 1962 the Mossad began assassinating German rocket scientists working in Egypt in Operation Damocles after one of them reported the missile program was designed to carry chemical warheads. This action was condemned by Ben-Gurion and led to the Mossad director, Isser Harel, resignation. In 1963 Ben-Gurion quit again over the Lavon affair. His attempts to make his party Mapai support him over the issue failed. Levi Eshkol became leader of Mapai and the new prime minister.

1963–1969: Eshkol

Further information: Six-Day War

See also: Eleventh, Twelfth, and Thirteenth governments of Israel

In 1963 Yigael Yadin began excavating Masada. In 1964, Egypt, Jordan and Syria developed a unified military command. Israel completed work on a national water carrier, a huge engineering project designed to transfer Israel's allocation of the Jordan river's waters towards the south of the country in realization of Ben-Gurion's dream of mass Jewish settlement of the Negev desert. The Arabs responded by trying to divert the headwaters of the Jordan, leading to growing conflict between Israel and Syria.

Ben-Gurion quit Mapai to form the new party Rafi, he was joined by Shimon Peres and Moshe Dayan. Begin's Herut party joined with the Liberals to form Gahal. Mapai and Labour united for the 1965 elections, winning 45 seats and maintaining Levi Eshkol as Prime Minister. Ben-Gurion's Rafi party received 10 seats, Gahal got 26 seats becoming the second largest party.

Until 1966, Israel's principal arms supplier was France, however in 1966, following the withdrawal from Algeria, Charles de Gaulle announced France would cease supplying Israel with arms (and refused to refund money paid for 50 warplanes). On 5 February 1966, the United States announced that it was taking over the former French and West German obligations, to maintain military "stabilization" in the Middle East. Included in the military hardware would be over 200 M48 tanks. In May of that year the US also agreed to provide A-4 Skyhawk tactical aircraft to Israel. In 1966 security restrictions placed on Arab-Israelis were eased and efforts made to integrate them into Israeli life.

In 1966, Black and white TV broadcasts began. On 15 May 1967, the first public performance of Naomi Shemer's classic song "Jerusalem of Gold" took place and over the next few weeks it dominated the Israeli airwaves. Two days later Syria, Egypt and Jordan amassed troops along the Israeli borders, and Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping. Nasser demanded that the UNEF leave Sinai, threatening escalation to a full war. Egyptian radio broadcasts talked of a coming genocide. On 26 May Nasser declared, "The battle will be a general one and our basic objective will be to destroy Israel". Israel considered the Straits of Tiran closure a Casus belli. Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq signed defence pacts and Iraqi troops began deploying to Jordan, Syria and Egypt. Algeria also announced that it would send troops to Egypt. Between 1963 and 1967 Egyptian troops had tested chemical weapons on Yemenite civilians as part of an Egyptian intervention in support of rebels.

Gen. Uzi Narkiss, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, Chief of staff Yitzhak Rabin and Gen. Rehavam Ze'evi in the Old City of Jerusalem, 7 June 1967

On the morning before Dayan was sworn in, 5 June 1967, the Israeli air force launched Operation Focus, a series of pre-emptive attacks in which it pre-emptively attacked the Egyptian air force, kicking off the Six-Day War, and then, later the same day, struck the air forces of Jordan and Syria. By 11 June the Arab forces were routed and all parties had accepted the cease-fire called for by UN Security Council Resolutions 235 and 236. Israel gained control of the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, and the formerly Jordanian-controlled West Bank of the Jordan River. East Jerusalem was annexed by Israel.

The result of the 29 August 1967 Arab League summit was the Khartoum Resolution, which according to Abd al Azim Ramadan, left only one option -a war with Israel.

In 1968 Moshe Levinger led a group of Religious Zionists who created the first Jewish settlement, a town near Hebron called Kiryat Arba. There were no other religious settlements until after 1974. Ben-Gurion's Rafi party merged with the Labour-Mapai alliance. Ben-Gurion remained outside as an independent. In 1968, compulsory education was extended until the age of 16 for all citizens (it had been 14) and the government embarked on an extensive program of integration in education. In the major cities children from mainly Sephardi/Mizrahi neighbourhoods were bused to newly established middle schools in better areas. The system remained in place until after 2000.

In March 1968, Israeli forces attacked the Palestinian militia, Fatah, at its base in the Jordanian town of Karameh. The attack was in response to land mines placed on Israeli roads. The Israelis retreated after destroying the camp, however the Israelis sustained unexpectedly high casualties and the attack was not viewed as a success. Despite heavy casualties, the Palestinians claimed victory, while Fatah and the PLO (of which it formed part) became famous across the Arab world. In early 1969, fighting broke out between Egypt and Israel along the Suez Canal. In retaliation for repeated Egyptian shelling of Israeli positions along the Suez Canal, Israeli planes made deep strikes into Egypt in the 1969–1970 "War of Attrition".

1969–1974: Meir

Further information: War of Attrition, Jarring Mission, Rogers Plan, Munich massacre, and Yom Kippur War

See also: Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Sixteenth governments of Israel

In early 1969, Levi Eshkol died in office of a heart attack and Golda Meir became Prime Minister with the largest percentage of the vote ever won by an Israeli party, winning 56 of the 120 seats after the 1969 election. Meir was the first female prime minister of Israel and the first woman to have headed a Middle Eastern state in modern times. Gahal retained its 26 seats, and was the second largest party.

In September 1970 King Hussein of Jordan drove the Palestine Liberation Organization out of his country. On 18 September 1970, Syrian tanks invaded Jordan, intending to aid the PLO. At the request of the US, Israel moved troops to the border and threatened Syria, causing the Syrians to withdraw. The centre of PLO activity then shifted to Lebanon, where the 1969 Cairo agreement gave the Palestinians autonomy within the south of the country. The area controlled by the PLO became known by the international press and locals as "Fatahland" and contributed to the 1975–1990 Lebanese Civil War. The event also led to Hafez al-Assad taking power in Syria. Egyptian President Nasser died of a heart attack immediately after and was succeeded by Anwar Sadat.

Increased Soviet antisemitism and enthusiasm generated by the 1967 victory led to a wave of Soviet Jews applying to emigrate to Israel. . Most Jews were refused exit visas and persecuted by the authorities. Some were arrested, becoming known as Prisoners of Zion. During 1971, violent demonstrations by the Israeli Black Panthers, made the Israeli public aware of resentment among Mizrahi Jews at ongoing discrimination and social gaps. In 1972 the US Jewish Mafia leader, Meyer Lansky, who had taken refuge in Israel, was deported to the United States.

At the 1972 Munich Olympics, two members of the Israeli team were killed, and nine members taken hostage by Palestinian terrorists. A botched German rescue attempt led to the death of the rest along with five of the eight hijackers. The three surviving Palestinians were released by the West German authorities eight weeks later without charge, in exchange for the hostages of hijacked Lufthansa Flight 615. The Israeli government responded with an air raid, a raid on the PLO headquarters in Lebanon (led by future Prime Minister, Ehud Barak) and an assassination campaign against the organizers of the massacre.

In 1972 the new Egyptian President Anwar Sadat expelled the Soviet advisers from Egypt. This and frequent invasion exercises by Egypt and Syria led to Israeli complacency about the threat from these countries. In addition the desire not to be held responsible for initiating conflict and an election campaign highlighting security, led to an Israeli failure to mobilize, despite receiving warnings of an impending attack.

143rd Division crossing the Suez Canal in the direction of Cairo during the Yom Kippur War, 15 October 1973

The Yom Kippur War (also known as the October War) began on 6 October 1973, with the Syrian and Egyptian armies launching a surprise attack against the unprepared Israeli Defense Forces. Both the Soviets and the Americans (at the orders of Henry Kissinger) rushed arms to their allies in Operation Nickel Grass. The Syrians were repulsed at the Valley of Tears on the Golan and, while the Egyptians captured a strip of territory in Sinai, but were outflanked by Israeli forces over the Suez Canal in the Battle of Ismailia, which trapped the Egyptian Third Army in Sinai. On 18 January 1974, US diplomatic efforts led to a Disengagement of Forces agreement with the Egyptian government and on 31 May with the Syrian government.

The war was the catalyst for the 1973 oil crisis, a Saudi-led oil embargo in conjunction with OPEC against countries trading with Israel. Severe shortages led to massive increases in the price of oil, and as a result, many countries broke off relations with Israel or downgraded relations, and Israel was banned from participation in the Asian Games and other Asian sporting events.

Prior to the December 1973 elections, Gahal and a number of right-wing parties united to form the Likud (led by Begin). In the December 1973 elections, Labour won 51 seats, leaving Golda Meir as Prime Minister. The Likud won 39 seats.

In May 1974, Palestinians attacked a school in Ma'alot, holding 102 children hostage. Twenty-two children were killed. In November 1974 the PLO was granted observer status at the UN and Yasser Arafat addressed the General Assembly. Later that year, the Agranat Commission, appointed to assess responsibility for Israel's lack of preparedness for the war, exonerated the government of responsibility, and held the Chief of Staff and head of military intelligence responsible. Despite the report, public anger at the Government led to Golda Meir's resignation.

1974–1977: Rabin I

See also: Seventeenth government of Israel

Following Meir's resignation, Yitzhak Rabin became prime minister. Religious Zionist followers of the teachings of Abraham Isaac Kook, formed the Gush Emunim movement, and began an organized drive to settle the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In November 1975, the United Nations General Assembly, under the guidance of Austrian Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, adopted Resolution 3379, which asserted Zionism to be a form of racism. The General Assembly rescinded this resolution in December 1991 with Resolution 46/86. In March 1976, there was a massive strike by Israeli-Arabs in protest at a government plan to expropriate land in the Galilee.

In July 1976, Rabin ordered Operation Entebbe to rescue kidnapped Jewish passengers from an Air France flight hijacked by PFLP militants and German revolutionaries and flown to Uganda.

In January 1977, French authorities arrested Abu Daoud, the planner of the Munich massacre, releasing him a few days later. In March 1977 Anatoly Sharansky, a prominent Refusenik and spokesman for the Moscow Helsinki Group, was sentenced to 13 years' hard labour.

Rabin resigned in April 1977 after it emerged that his wife maintained a dollar account in the United States (illegal at the time), which had been opened while Rabin was Israeli ambassador. The incident became known as the Dollar Account affair. Shimon Peres informally replaced him as prime minister, leading the Alignment in the subsequent elections.

1977–1983: Begin

Further information: Camp David Accords, 1978 South Lebanon conflict, and 1982 Lebanon War

See also: Eighteenth and Nineteenth governments of Israel

In a surprise result, the Likud led by Menachem Begin won 43 seats in the 1977 elections. This was the first time in Israeli history that the government was not led by the left. In November 1977, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat visited Jerusalem and spoke at the Knesset at the invitation of Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Sadat recognized Israel's right to exist and established the basis for direct negotiations between Egypt and Israel. Following Sadat's visit, 350 Yom Kippur War veterans organized the Peace Now movement to encourage Israeli governments to make peace with the Arabs.

In March 1978, eleven armed Lebanese Palestinians reached Israel in boats and carried out the Coastal Road Massacre in opposition to the Egyptian–Israeli peace process. Three days later, Israeli forces crossed into Lebanon beginning Operation Litani. After passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 425, calling for Israeli withdrawal and the creation of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) peace-keeping force, Israel withdrew its troops.

Menachem Begin, Jimmy Carter and Anwar Sadat celebrating the signing of the Camp David Accords

In September 1978, US President Jimmy Carter invited President Sadat and Prime Minister Begin to meet with him at Camp David, and on 11 September they agreed on a framework for peace between Israel and Egypt, and a comprehensive peace in the Middle East. It set out broad principles to guide negotiations between Israel and the Arab states. It also established guidelines for a West Bank–Gaza transitional regime of full autonomy for the Palestinians residing in these territories, and for a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. The treaty was signed 26 March 1979 by Begin and Sadat, with President Carter signing as witness. Under the treaty, Israel returned the Sinai peninsula to Egypt in April 1982. The Arab League reacted to the peace treaty by suspending Egypt from the organization and moving its headquarters from Cairo to Tunis. Sadat was assassinated in 1981 by Islamic fundamentalist members of the Egyptian army who opposed peace with Israel. Following the agreement Israel and Egypt became the two largest recipients of US military and financial aid (Iraq and Afghanistan have now overtaken them).

In December 1978 the Israeli Merkava battle tank entered use with the IDF. In 1979, over 40,000 Iranian Jews migrated to Israel, escaping the Islamic Revolution there. On 30 June 1981, the Israeli air force destroyed the Osirak nuclear reactor in Operation Opera that France was building for Iraq. Three weeks later, Begin won again, in the 1981 elections (48 seats Likud, 47 Labour). Ariel Sharon was made defence minister. The new government annexed the Golan Heights and banned the national airline from flying on Shabbat. By the 1980s a diverse set of high-tech industries had developed in Israel.

In the decades following the 1948 war, Israel's border with Lebanon was quiet compared to its borders with other neighbours. But the 1969 Cairo agreement gave the PLO a free hand to attack Israel from South Lebanon. The area was governed by the PLO independently of the Lebanese Government and became known as "Fatahland" (Fatah was the largest faction in the PLO). Palestinian irregulars constantly shelled the Israeli north, especially the town of Kiryat Shmona, which was a Likud stronghold inhabited primarily by Jews who had fled the Arab world. Lack of control over Palestinian areas was an important factor in causing civil war in Lebanon.

In June 1982, the attempted assassination of Shlomo Argov, the ambassador to Britain, was used as a pretext for an Israeli invasion aiming to drive the PLO out of the southern half of Lebanon. Sharon agreed with Chief of Staff Raphael Eitan to expand the invasion deep into Lebanon even though the cabinet had only authorized a 40 kilometre deep invasion. The invasion became known as the 1982 Lebanon War and the Israeli army occupied Beirut, the only time an Arab capital has been occupied by Israel. Some of the Shia and Christian population of South Lebanon welcomed the Israelis, as PLO forces had maltreated them, but Lebanese resentment of Israeli occupation grew over time and the Shia became gradually radicalized under Iranian guidance. Constant casualties among Israeli soldiers and Lebanese civilians led to growing opposition to the war in Israel.

In August 1982, the PLO withdrew its forces from Lebanon (moving to Tunisia). Bashir Gemayel was elected President of Lebanon, and reportedly agreed to recognize Israel and sign a peace treaty. However, Gemayal was assassinated before an agreement could be signed, and one day later Phalangist Christian forces led by Elie Hobeika entered two Palestinian refugee camps and massacred the occupants. The massacres led to the biggest demonstration ever in Israel against the war, with as many as 400,000 people (almost 10% of the population) gathering in Tel Aviv. In 1983, an Israeli public inquiry found that Israel's defence minister, Sharon, was indirectly but personally responsible for the massacres. It also recommended that he never again be allowed to hold the post (it did not forbid him from being Prime Minister). In 1983, the May 17 Agreement was signed between Israel and Lebanon, paving the way for an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory through a few stages. Israel continued to operate against the PLO until its eventual departure in 1985, and kept a small force stationed in Southern Lebanon in support of the South Lebanon Army until May 2000.

1983–1992: Shamir I; Peres I; Shamir II

Further information: 1983 Israel bank stock crisis, South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000), First Intifada, and Gulf War

See also: Twentieth, Twenty-first, Twenty-second, Twenty-third, and Twenty-fourth governments of Israel

Patriot missiles launched to intercept an Iraqi Scud over Tel Aviv during the Gulf War

In September 1983, Begin resigned and was succeeded by Yitzhak Shamir as prime minister. The 1984 election was inconclusive, and led to a power sharing agreement between Shimon Peres of the Alignment and Shamir of Likud. Peres was prime minister from 1984 to 1986 and Shamir from 1986 to 1988. In 1984, continual discrimination against Sephardi Ultra-Orthodox Jews by the Ashkenazi Ultra-Orthodox establishment led political activist Aryeh Deri to leave the Agudat Israel party and join former chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef in forming Shas, a new party aimed at the non-Ashkenazi Ultra-Orthodox vote.

In June 1985, Israel withdrew most of its troops from Lebanon, leaving a residual Israeli force and an Israeli-supported militia in southern Lebanon as a "security zone" and buffer against attacks on its northern territory. Since then, the IDF fought for many years against the Shia organization Hezbollah, which became a growing threat to Israel. By July 1985, Israel's inflation, buttressed by complex index linking of salaries, had reached 480% per annum and was the highest in the world. Peres introduced emergency control of prices and cut government expenditure successfully bringing inflation under control. The currency (known as the old Israeli shekel) was replaced and renamed the Israeli new shekel at a rate of 1,000 old shkalim = 1 new shekel.

Growing Israeli settlement and continuing occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip led to the First Intifada in 1987, which lasted until the Oslo accords of 1993, despite Israeli attempts to suppress it. Human rights abuses by Israeli troops led a group of Israelis to form B'Tselem, an organization devoted to improving awareness and compliance with human rights requirements in Israel.

The Alignment and Likud remained neck and neck in the 1988 elections. Shamir successfully formed a national unity coalition with the Labour Alignment. In March 1990, Alignment leader Shimon Peres engineered a defeat of the government in a non-confidence vote and then tried to form a new government. The attempt, which became known as "the dirty trick", failed and Shamir became prime minister at the head of a right-wing coalition.

In August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait, triggering the Gulf War between Iraq and a large allied force, led by the United States. Iraq attacked Israel with 39 Scud missiles. Israel did not retaliate at request of the US, fearing that if Israel responded against Iraq, other Arab nations might desert the allied coalition.

The coalition's victory in the Gulf War opened new possibilities for regional peace, and in October 1991 the US president, George H. W. Bush, and Soviet Union Premier, Mikhail Gorbachev, jointly convened a historic meeting in Madrid of Israeli, Lebanese, Jordanian, Syrian, and Palestinian leaders. Shamir opposed the idea but agreed in return for loan guarantees to help with absorption of immigrants from the former Soviet Union. His participation in the conference led to the collapse of his (right-wing) coalition.

1992–1996: Rabin II; Peres II

Further information: Oslo Accords and Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin

See also: Twenty-fifth and Twenty-sixth governments of Israel

In the 1992 elections, the Labour Party, led by Yitzhak Rabin, won a significant victory (44 seats) promising to pursue peace while promoting Rabin as a "tough general" and pledging not to deal with the PLO in any way. The left Zionist party Meretz won 12 seats, and the Arab and communist parties a further 5, meaning that parties supporting a peace treaty had a full (albeit small) majority in the Knesset.

Yitzhak Rabin, Bill Clinton, and Yasser Arafat during the Oslo Accords signing ceremony at the White House on 13 September 1993

On 25 July 1993, Israel carried out a week-long military operation in Lebanon to attack Hezbollah positions dubbed Operation Accountability. On 13 September 1993, Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) signed the Oslo Accords (a Declaration of Principles) on the South Lawn of the White House. The principles established objectives relating to a transfer of authority from Israel to an interim Palestinian Authority, as a prelude to a final treaty establishing a Palestinian state, in exchange for mutual recognition. The DOP established May 1999 as the date by which a permanent status agreement for the West Bank and Gaza Strip would take effect. In February 1994, Baruch Goldstein, a follower of the Kach party, killed 29 Palestinians and wounded 125 at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, which became known as the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre. Kach had been barred from participation in the 1992 elections (on the grounds that the movement was racist). It was subsequently made illegal. Israel and the PLO signed the Gaza–Jericho Agreement in May 1994, and the Agreement on Preparatory Transfer of Powers and Responsibilities in August, which began the process of transferring authority from Israel to the Palestinians. On 25 July 1994, Jordan and Israel signed the Washington Declaration, which formally ended the state of war that had existed between them since 1948 and on 26 October the Israel–Jordan Treaty of Peace, witnessed by US President Bill Clinton.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat signed the Israeli–Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip on 28 September 1995 in Washington. The agreement allowed the PLO leadership to relocate to the occupied territories and granted autonomy to the Palestinians with talks to follow regarding final status. In return the Palestinians promised to abstain from use of terror and changed the Palestinian National Covenant, which had called for the expulsion of all Jews who migrated after 1917 and the elimination of Israel.

The agreement was opposed by Hamas and other Palestinian factions, which launched suicide bomber attacks at Israel. Rabin had a barrier constructed around Gaza to prevent attacks. The growing separation between Israel and the "Palestinian Territories" led to a labour shortage in Israel, mainly in the construction industry. Israeli firms began importing labourers from the Philippines, Thailand, China and Romania; some of these labourers stayed on without visas. In addition, a growing number of Africans began illegally migrating to Israel. On 4 November 1995, a far-right-wing religious Zionist opponent of the Oslo Accords assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. In February 1996 Rabin's successor, Shimon Peres, called early elections. In April 1996, Israel launched Operation Grapes of Wrath in southern Lebanon as a result of Hezbollah's Katyusha rocket attacks on Israeli population centres along the border.

1996–2001: Netanyahu I; Barak

Further information: 2000 Camp David Summit

See also: Twenty-seventh and Twenty-eighth governments of Israel

The May 1996 elections were the first featuring direct election of the prime minister and resulted in a narrow election victory for Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu. A spate of suicide bombings reinforced the Likud position for security. Hamas claimed responsibility for most of the bombings. Despite his stated differences with the Oslo Accords, Prime Minister Netanyahu continued their implementation, but his prime ministership saw a marked slow-down in the Peace Process. Netanyahu also pledged to gradually reduce US aid to Israel.

In September 1996, a Palestinian riot broke out against the creation of an exit in the Western Wall tunnel. Over the subsequent few weeks, around 80 people were killed as a result. In January 1997 Netanyahu signed the Hebron Protocol with the Palestinian Authority, resulting in the redeployment of Israeli forces in Hebron and the turnover of civilian authority in much of the area to the Palestinian Authority.

In the election of July 1999, Ehud Barak of the Labour Party became Prime Minister. His party was the largest in the Knesset with 26 seats. In September 1999 the Supreme Court of Israel ruled that the use of torture in interrogation of Palestinian prisoners was illegal. On 21 March 2000, Pope John Paul II arrived in Israel for an historic visit.

On 25 May 2000, Israel unilaterally withdrew its remaining forces from the "security zone" in southern Lebanon. Several thousand members of the South Lebanon Army (and their families) left with the Israelis. The UN Secretary-General concluded that, as of 16 June 2000, Israel had withdrawn its forces from Lebanon in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 425. Lebanon claims that Israel continues to occupy Lebanese territory called "Sheba'a Farms" (however this area was governed by Syria until 1967 when Israel took control). The Sheba'a Farms provided Hezbollah with a pretext to maintain warfare with Israel. The Lebanese government, in contravention of the UN Security Council resolution, did not assert sovereignty in the area, which came under Hezbollah control. In the Fall of 2000, talks were held at Camp David to reach a final agreement on the Israel/Palestine conflict. Ehud Barak offered to meet most of the Palestinian teams requests for territory and political concessions, including Arab parts of east Jerusalem; however, Arafat abandoned the talks without making a counterproposal.

Following its withdrawal from South Lebanon, Israel became a member of the Western European and Others Group at the United Nations. Since December 2013 it has been a permanent member of the group.

On 28 September 2000, Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon visited the Al-Aqsa compound, or Temple Mount, the following day the Palestinians launched the al-Aqsa Intifada. David Samuels and Khaled Abu Toameh have stated that the uprising was planned much earlier.

In 2001, with the Peace Process increasingly in disarray, Ehud Barak called a special election for Prime Minister. Barak hoped a victory would give him renewed authority in negotiations with the Palestinians. Instead opposition leader Ariel Sharon was elected PM. After this election, the system of directly electing the Premier was abandoned.

2001–2006: Sharon

Further information: Second Intifada, Israeli West Bank barrier, and Israel's unilateral disengagement plan

See also: Twenty-ninth and Thirtieth governments of Israel

The Israeli West Bank barrier route built (red), under construction (pink) and proposed (white), as of June 2011

The failure of the peace process, increased Palestinian terror and occasional attacks by Hezbollah from Lebanon, led much of the Israeli public and political leadership to lose confidence in the Palestinian Authority as a peace partner. Most felt that many Palestinians viewed the peace treaty with Israel as a temporary measure only. Many Israelis were thus anxious to disengage from the Palestinians. In response to a wave of suicide bomb attacks, culminating in the Passover massacre (see List of Israeli civilian casualties in the Second Intifada), Israel launched Operation Defensive Shield in March 2002, and Sharon began the construction of a barrier around the West Bank. Around the same time, the Israeli town of Sderot and other Israeli communities near Gaza became subject to constant shelling and mortar bomb attacks from Gaza.

Thousands of Jews from Latin America began arriving in Israel due to economic crises in their countries of origin. In January 2003 separate elections were held for the Knesset. Likud won the most seats (27). An anti-religion party, Shinui, led by media pundit Tommy Lapid, won 15 seats on a secularist platform, making it the third largest party (ahead of orthodox Shas). Internal fighting led to Shinui's demise at the next election. In 2004, the Black Hebrews were granted permanent residency in Israel. The group had begun migrating to Israel 25 years earlier from the United States, but had not been recognized as Jews by the state and hence not granted citizenship under Israel's Law of Return. They had settled in Israel without official status. From 2004 onwards, they received citizen's rights.

In 2005, all Jewish settlers were evacuated from Gaza (some forcibly) and their homes demolished. Disengagement from the Gaza Strip was completed on 12 September 2005. Military disengagement from the northern West Bank was completed ten days later.

In 2005 Sharon left the Likud and formed a new party called Kadima, which accepted that the peace process would lead to creation of a Palestinian state. He was joined by many leading figures from both Likud and Labour.

Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian legislative election, the first and only genuinely free Palestinian elections. Hamas' leaders rejected all agreements signed with Israel, refused to recognize Israel's right to exist, refused to abandon terror, and occasionally claimed the Holocaust was a Jewish conspiracy. The withdrawal and Hamas victory left the status of Gaza unclear, as Israel asserted it was no longer an occupying power but continued to control air and sea access to Gaza although it did not exercise sovereignty on the ground. Egypt insisted that it was still occupied and refused to open border crossings with Gaza, although it was free to do so.

In April 2006 Ariel Sharon was incapacitated by a severe hemorrhagic stroke and Ehud Olmert became Prime Minister.

2006–2009: Olmert

Further information: Start-up Nation, 2006 Hamas cross-border raid, 2006 Lebanon War, and Gaza War (2008–09)

See also: Thirty-first government of Israel

Ehud Olmert was elected Prime Minister after his party, Kadima, won the most seats (29) in the 2006 Israeli legislative election. In 2005 Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was officially elected president of Iran; since then, Iranian policy towards Israel has grown more confrontational.

On 14 March 2006, Israel carried out Operation Bringing Home the Goods in the Palestinian Authority prison of Jericho in order to capture Ahmad Sa'adat and several Palestinian Arab prisoners located there who assassinated Israeli politician Rehavam Ze'evi in 2001. The operation was conducted as a result of the expressed intentions of the newly elected Hamas government to release these prisoners. On 25 June 2006, a Hamas force crossed the border from Gaza and attacked a tank, capturing Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, sparking clashes in Gaza.

Nahal Brigade soldiers returning after the 2006 Lebanon War

On 12 July, Hezbollah attacked Israel from Lebanon, shelled Israeli towns and attacked a border patrol, taking two dead or badly wounded Israeli soldiers. These incidents led Israel to initiate the Second Lebanon War, which lasted through August 2006. Israeli forces entered some villages in Southern Lebanon, while the air force attacked targets all across the country. Israel only made limited ground gains until the launch of Operation Changing Direction 11, which lasted for 3 days with disputed results. Shortly before a UN ceasefire came into effect, Israeli troops captured Wadi Saluki. The war concluded with Hezbollah evacuating its forces from Southern Lebanon, while the IDF remained until its positions could be handed over to the Lebanese Armed Forces and UNIFIL.

In June 2007 Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in the course of the Battle of Gaza, seizing government institutions and replacing Fatah and other government officials with its own. Following the takeover, Egypt and Israel imposed a partial blockade, on the grounds that Fatah had fled and was no longer providing security on the Palestinian side, and to prevent arms smuggling by terrorist groups. On 6 September 2007, the Israeli Air Force destroyed a nuclear reactor in Syria in Operation Orchard. On 28 February 2008, Israel launched Operation Hot Winter in Gaza in response to the constant firing of Qassam rockets by Hamas militants. On 16 July 2008, Hezbollah swapped the bodies of Israeli soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, kidnapped in 2006, in exchange for the Lebanese terrorist Samir Kuntar, four Hezbollah prisoners, and the bodies of 199 Palestinian Arab and Lebanese fighters.

Olmert came under investigation for corruption and this led him to announce on 30 July 2008, that he would be stepping down as Prime Minister following election of a new leader of the Kadima party in September 2008. Tzipi Livni won the election, but was unable to form a coalition and Olmert remained in office until the general election. Israel carried out Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip from 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009 in response to rocket attacks from Hamas militants, leading to a decrease of Palestinian rocket attacks.

2009–2021: Netanyahu II

Further information: 2011 Israeli social justice protests, Tamar gas field, Operation Pillar of Defense, 2014 Gaza War, and 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis

See also: Thirty-second, Thirty-third, Thirty-fourth, and Thirty-fifth governments of Israel

In the 2009 legislative election Likud won 27 seats and Kadima 28; however, the right-wing camp won a majority of seats, and President Shimon Peres called on Netanyahu to form the government. Russian immigrant-dominated Yisrael Beiteinu came third with 15 seats, and Labour was reduced to fourth place with 13 seats. In 2009, Israeli billionaire Yitzhak Tshuva announced the discovery of huge natural gas reserves off the coast of Israel.

On 31 May 2010, an international incident broke out in the Mediterranean Sea when foreign activists trying to break the maritime blockade over Gaza, clashed with Israeli troops. During the struggle, nine Turkish activists were killed. In late September 2010 took place direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians without success. As a defensive countermeasure to the rocket threat against Israel's civilian population, at the end of March 2011 Israel began to operate the advanced mobile air defence system "Iron Dome" in the southern region of Israel and along the border with the Gaza Strip.

Protest in Tel Aviv on 6 August 2011

On 14 July 2011, the 2011 Israeli housing protests, in which hundreds of thousands of protesters from a variety of socio-economic and religious backgrounds in Israel protested against the continuing rise in the cost of living (particularly housing) and the deterioration of public services in the country (such as health and education). It was the largest social protest in the history of Israel, and peaked on 3 September 2011, when about 400,000 people demonstrated across the country.

In October 2011, a deal was reached between Israel and Hamas, by which the kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was released in exchange for 1,027 Palestinians and Arab-Israeli prisoners. In March 2012, Secretary-general of the Popular Resistance Committees, Zuhir al-Qaisi, a senior PRC member and two additional Palestinian militants were assassinated during a targeted killing carried out by Israeli forces in Gaza.

In May 2012, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reached an agreement with the Head of Opposition Shaul Mofaz for Kadima to join the government, thus cancelling the early election supposed to be held in September. However, in July, the Kadima party left Netanyahu's government due to a dispute concerning military conscription for ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel.

In response to over a hundred rocket attacks on southern Israeli cities, Israel began Operation Pillar of Defense in Gaza on 14 November 2012, with the targeted killing of Ahmed Jabari, chief of Hamas military wing, and airstrikes against twenty underground sites housing long-range missile launchers capable of striking Tel Aviv. In January 2013, construction of the barrier on the Israeli-Egyptian border was completed in its main section.

Benjamin Netanyahu was elected Prime Minister again after the Likud Yisrael Beiteinu alliance won the most seats (31) in the 2013 legislative election and formed a coalition government with secular centrist Yesh Atid party (19), rightist The Jewish Home (12) and Livni's Hatnuah (6), excluding Haredi parties. Labour came in third with 15 seats. In July 2013, as a "good will gesture" to restart peace talks with the Palestinian Authority, Israel agreed to release 104 Palestinian prisoners, most of whom had been in jail since before the 1993 Oslo Accords, including militants who had killed Israeli civilians. In April 2014, Israel suspended peace talks after Hamas and Fatah agreed to form a unity government.

Following an escalation of rocket attacks by Hamas, Israel started Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza Strip on 8 July 2014, which included a ground incursion aimed at destroying the cross-border tunnels. Differences over the budget and a "Jewish state" bill triggered early elections in December 2014. After the 2015 Israeli elections, Netanyahu renewed his mandate as Prime Minister when Likud obtained 30 seats and formed a right-wing coalition government with Kulanu (10), The Jewish Home (8), and Orthodox parties Shas (7) and United Torah Judaism (6), the bare minimum of seats required to form a coalition. The Zionist Union alliance came second with 24 seats. A wave of lone-wolf attacks by Palestinians took place in 2015 and 2016, particularly stabbings.

Dedication ceremony of the Embassy of the United States in Jerusalem in 2018

On 6 December 2017, President Donald Trump formally announced United States recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, which was followed by the United States recognition of the Golan Heights as part of Israel on 25 March 2019. In March 2018, Palestinians in Gaza initiated "the Great March of Return," a series of weekly protests along the Gaza–Israel border.

The COVID-19 pandemic began in Israel with the first case detected in February 2020 and the first death being that of a Holocaust survivor in March 2020. Israel Shield was the government's program to combat against the virus. Nationwide lockdowns and mask mandates were present throughout the country for much of 2020 into 2021, with the vaccination campaign beginning in December 2020 along with green passes.

In late 2020, Israel normalised relations with four Arab League countries: the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in September (known as the Abraham Accords), Sudan in October, and Morocco in December. In May 2021, after tensions escalated in Jerusalem, Israel launched Operation Guardian of the Walls, trading blows with Hamas for eleven days.

The 2019–2022 political crisis featured political instability in Israel leading to five elections to the Knesset over a 4 year time period. The April 2019 and September 2019 elections saw no party able to form a coalition leading to the March 2020 election. This election again looked to result in deadlock, but due to the worsening COVID-19 pandemic, Netanyahu, and Blue and White leader, Benny Gantz, were able to establish a unity government with a planned rotating prime ministership where Netanyahu would serve first and later be replaced by Gantz. The coalition failed by December due to a dispute over the budget and new elections were called for March 2021.

2021–present: Bennett; Lapid; Netanyahu III

See also: Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh governments of Israel

Following the March 2021 election, Naftali Bennett signed a coalition agreement with Yair Lapid and different parties opposed to Netanyahu on the right, center and left whereby Bennett would serve as Prime Minister until September 2023 and then Lapid would assume the role until November 2025. An Israeli Arab party, Ra'am, was included in the government coalition for the first time in decades. In June 2022, following several legislative defeats for the governing coalition, Bennett announced the introduction of a bill to dissolve the Knesset and call for new elections to be held in November. Yair Lapid became the new interim Prime Minister. After the 2022 elections, Netanyahu was able to return as Prime Minister under a coalition that included Likud, Shas, United Torah Judaism, Religious Zionist Party, Otzma Yehudit and Noam, in what was described as the most right-wing government in the country's history. The government has overseen an uptick in violence in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, driven by military actions such as the July 2023 Jenin incursion as well as Palestinian political violence, producing a death toll in 2023 that is the highest in the conflict since 2005. In October 2023, the 2023 Israel–Hamas war started.

Demographics

Main article: Demographic history of Palestine

Population of the Land of Israel 65–650

	65	100	150	300	550	650
Estimated Jewish Population (thousands)	2,500	1,800	1,200	500	200	100
Estimated Total Population	3,000	2,300	1,800	1,100	1,500	1,500

Development of Israel by decade

	1950	1960	1970	1980	1990	2000	2010	2020
Population (thousands)	1,370.1	2,150.4	3,022.1	3,921.7	4,821.7	6,369.3	7,695.1	9,097.0
World Jewry percentage	6%	15%	20%	25%	30%	38%	42%	44%
GDP per capita (current US$)		1,366	1,806	5,617	11,264	19,859	28,522	34,788

See also

• Archaeology of Israel
• Hebrew calendar
• History of the Arab–Israeli conflict
• History of the Israel Defense Forces
• History of Jerusalem
• History of the Jews and Judaism in the Land of Israel
• History of the Middle East
• History of Palestine
• History of Zionism
• Jewish history
• Jewish military history
• Levantine archaeology
• LGBT history in Israel
• List of Israeli museums
• List of Jewish leaders in the Land of Israel
• List of years in Israel
• Politics of Israel
• Postage stamps and postal history of Israel
• Time periods in the Palestine region
• Timeline of Israeli history
• Timeline of the history of the region of Palestine

References

Works cited

• Coogan, Michael D., ed. (1998). The Oxford History of the Biblical World. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-513937-2. Archived from the original on 15 November 2020. Retrieved 4 April 2018.
• Dever, William (2003). Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From?. Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0-8028-0975-9. Archived from the original on 21 April 2020. Retrieved 4 April 2018.
• Feldman, Louis H. (1990). "Some Observations on the Name of Palestine". Hebrew Union College Annual. 61. Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion: 1–23. JSTOR 23508170.
• Foster, Zachary (November 2017). The Invention of Palestine (thesis). Princeton University. ISBN 978-0-355-48023-8. Docket 10634618. Retrieved 9 February 2018.
• Frei, Peter (2001). "Persian Imperial Authorization: A Summary". In Watts, James (ed.). Persia and Torah: The Theory of Imperial Authorization of the Pentateuch. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press. p. 6. ISBN 9781589830158.
• Gelber, Yoʾav (2006). Palestine 1948: war, escape and the emergence of the Palestinian refugee problem. Brighton Portland Toronto: Sussex Academic Press. ISBN 978-1-84519-075-0.
• Jacobson, David (2001). "When Palestine Meant Israel". Biblical Archaeology Review. 27 (3). Archived from the original on 2011-07-25.
• Killebrew, Ann E. (2005). Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity: An Archaeological Study of Egyptians, Canaanite. Society of Biblical Lit. ISBN 978-1-58983-097-4.
• Lapierre, Dominique; Collins, Larry (1971). O Jerusalem. Laffont. ISBN 978-2-253-00754-8.
• Laurens, Henry (2005). Paix et guerre au Moyen-Orient: l'Orient arabe et le monde de 1945 à nos jours (in French). Armand Colin. ISBN 978-2-200-26977-7.
• McNutt, Paula (1999). Reconstructing the Society of Ancient Israel. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 978-0-664-22265-9.
• Miller, Robert D. (2005). Chieftains of the Highland Clans: A History of Israel in the 12th and 11th Centuries B.C. Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0-8028-0988-9.
• Morçöl, Göktuğ (2006). Handbook of Decision Making. CRC Press. ISBN 978-1-57444-548-0.
• Morkholm, Otto (2008). "Antiochus IV". In William David Davies; Louis Finkelstein (eds.). The Cambridge History of Judaism: Volume 2, The Hellenistic Age. Cambridge University Press. pp. 278–291. ISBN 978-0-521-21929-7.
• Morris, Benny (2004). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-00967-7. Archived from the original on 25 July 2020.
• Sachar, Howard M. (1976). A History of Israel. New York: Knopf. ISBN 0-394-48564-5.
• Shen, P.; Lavi, T.; Kivisild, T.; Chou, V.; Sengun, D.; Gefel, D.; Shpirer, I.; Woolf, E.; Hillel, J.; Feldman, M.W.; Oefner, P.J. (2004). "Reconstruction of Patrilineages and Matrilineages of Samaritans and Other Israeli Populations From Y-Chromosome and Mitochondrial DNA Sequence Variation". Human Mutation. 24 (3): 248–260. doi:10.1002/humu.20077. PMID 15300852. S2CID 1571356.
• Stager, Lawrence. "Forging an Identity: The Emergence of Ancient Israel". In Coogan (1998).
• Yamada, Keiko; Yamada, Shiego (2017). "Shalmaneser V and His Era, Revisited". In Baruchi-Unna, Amitai; Forti, Tova; Aḥituv, Shmuel; Ephʿal, Israel; Tigay, Jeffrey H. (eds.). "Now It Happened in Those Days": Studies in Biblical, Assyrian, and Other Ancient Near Eastern Historiography Presented to Mordechai Cogan on His 75th Birthday. Vol. 2. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns. ISBN 978-1575067612.

Further reading

• Berger, Earl The Covenant and the Sword: Arab–Israeli Relations, 1948–56, London, Routledge K. Paul, 1965.
• Bregman, Ahron A History of Israel, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002 ISBN 0-333-67632-7.
• Bright, John (2000). A History of Israel. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 978-0-664-22068-6. Archived from the original on 2 November 2020. Retrieved 4 April 2018.
• Butler, L. J. Britain and Empire: Adjusting to a Post-Imperial World I.B. Tauris 2002 ISBN 1-86064-449-X
• Caspit, Ben. The Netanyahu Years (2017) excerpt Archived 3 September 2021 at the Wayback Machine
• Darwin, John Britain and Decolonisation: The Retreat from Empire in the Post-War World Palgrave Macmillan 1988 ISBN 0-333-29258-8
• Davis, John, The Evasive Peace: a Study of the Zionist-Arab Problem, London: J. Murray, 1968.
• Eytan, Walter The First Ten Years: a Diplomatic History of Israel, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1958
• Feis, Herbert. The birth of Israel: the tousled diplomatic bed (1969) online
• Gilbert, Martin Israel: A History, New York: Morrow, 1998 ISBN 0-688-12362-7.
• Horrox, James A Living Revolution: Anarchism in the Kibbutz Movement, Oakland: AK Press, 2009
• Herzog, Chaim The Arab–Israeli Wars: War and Peace in the Middle East from the War of Independence to Lebanon, London: Arms and Armour; Tel Aviv, Israel: Steimatzky, 1984 ISBN 0-85368-613-0.
• Israel Office of Information Israel's Struggle for Peace, New York, 1960.
• Klagsbrun, Francine. Lioness: Golda Meir and the Nation of Israel (Schocken, 2017) excerpt Archived 31 December 2021 at the Wayback Machine.
• Laqueur, Walter Confrontation: the Middle-East War and World Politics, London: Wildwood House, 1974, ISBN 0-7045-0096-5.
• Lehmann, Gunnar (2003). "The United Monarchy in the Countryside: Jerusalem, Juday, and the Shephelah during the Tenth Century B.C.E.". In Vaughn, Andrew G.; Killebrew, Ann E. (eds.). Jerusalem in Bible and Archaeology: The First Temple Period. Society of Biblical Lit. pp. 117–162. ISBN 978-1-58983-066-0. Archived from the original on 20 August 2020. Retrieved 4 January 2021.
• Lucas, Noah The Modern History of Israel, New York: Praeger, 1975.
• Miller, James Maxwell; Hayes, John Haralson (1986). A History of Ancient Israel and Judah. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 0-664-21262-X.
• Morris, Benny 1948: A History of the First Arab–Israeli War, Yale University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-300-12696-9.
• O'Brian, Conor Cruise The Siege: the Saga of Israel and Zionism, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986 ISBN 0-671-60044-3.
• Oren, Michael Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002 ISBN 0-19-515174-7.
• Pfeffer, Anshel. Bibi: The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu (2018).
• Rabinovich, Itamar. Yitzhak Rabin: Soldier, Leader, Statesman (Yale UP, 2017). excerpt Archived 3 September 2021 at the Wayback Machine
• Rubinstein, Alvin Z. (editor) The Arab–Israeli Conflict: Perspectives, New York: Praeger, 1984 ISBN 0-03-068778-0.
• Lord Russell of Liverpool, If I Forget Thee; the Story of a Nation's Rebirth, London, Cassell 1960.
• Samuel, Rinna A History of Israel: the Birth, Growth and Development of Today's Jewish State, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1989 ISBN 0-297-79329-2.
• Schultz, Joseph & Klausner, Carla From Destruction to Rebirth: The Holocaust and the State of Israel, Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1978 ISBN 0-8191-0574-0.
• Segev, Tom The Seventh Million: the Israelis and the Holocaust, New York: Hill and Wang, 1993 ISBN 0-8090-8563-1.
• Shapira Anita. Israel: A History (Brandeis University Press/University Press of New England; 2012) 502 pages;
• Sharon, Assaf, "The Long Paralysis of the Israeli Left" (review of Dan Ephron, Killing a King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel, Norton, 290 pp.; and Itamar Rabinovich, Yitzhak Rabin: Soldier, Leader, Statesman, Yale University Press, 272 pp.), The New York Review of Books, vol. LXVI, no. 17 (7 November 2019), pp. 32–34.
• Shatz, Adam, "We Are Conquerors" (review of Tom Segev, A State at Any Cost: The Life of David Ben-Gurion, Head of Zeus, 2019, 804 pp., ISBN 978 1 78954 462 6), London Review of Books, vol. 41, no. 20 (24 October 2019), pp. 37–38, 40–42. "Segev's biography... shows how central exclusionary nationalism, war and racism were to Ben-Gurion's vision of the Jewish homeland in Palestine, and how contemptuous he was not only of the Arabs but of Jewish life outside Zion. [Liberal Jews] may look at the state that Ben-Gurion built, and ask if the cost has been worth it." (p. 42 of Shatz's review.)
• Shlaim, Avi, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (2001)
• Talmon, Jacob L. Israel Among the Nations, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1970 ISBN 0-297-00227-9.
• Wolffsohn, Michael Eternal Guilt?: Forty years of German-Jewish-Israeli Relations, New York: Columbia University Press, 1993 ISBN 0-231-08274-6.

Primary sources

• Laqueur, Walter, and Dan Schueftan, eds. The Israel-Arab Reader: A Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict (8th ed. Penguin, 2016). online 2001 edition

External links

• Facts About Israel: History at the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• Israel profile – Timeline at the BBC News Online
• History of Israel at the Knesset website
• Official website of the Israel State Archives

Israel, history of *

Ancient Israel and Judah

Main articles: History of ancient Israel and Judah and History of Palestine

Early Israelites (Iron Age I)

Main articles: Hebrews, Israelites, and Biblical judges

See also: Origins of Judaism, Biblical archaeology, and The Bible and history

The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel (as ysrỉꜣr) occurs in the Egyptian Merneptah Stele, erected for Pharaoh Merneptah (son of Ramesses II) c. 1209 BCE, which states "Israel is laid waste and his seed is not."

The Merneptah Stele. According to mainstream archeology, it represents the first instance of the name "Israel" in the historical record.

Archeological evidence indicates that during the early Iron Age I, hundreds of small villages were established on the highlands of Canaan on both sides of the Jordan River, primarily in Samaria, north of Jerusalem. These villages had populations of up to 400, were largely self-sufficient and lived from herding, grain cultivation, and growing vines and olives with some economic interchange. The pottery was plain and undecorated. Writing was known and available for recording, even in small sites. William G. Dever sees this "Israel" in the central highlands as a cultural and probably political entity, more an ethnic group rather than an organized state.

Modern scholars believe that the Israelites and their culture branched out of the Canaanite peoples and their cultures through the development of a distinct monolatristic—and later monotheistic—religion centred on a national god Yahweh. According to McNutt, "It is probably safe to assume that sometime during Iron Age I a population began to identify itself as 'Israelite'", differentiating itself from the Canaanites through such markers as the prohibition of intermarriage, an emphasis on family history and genealogy, and religion.

Philistine cooking tools and the prevalence of pork in their diets, and locally made Mycenaean pottery—which later evolved into bichrome Philistine pottery—all support their foreign origin. Their cities were large and elaborate, which—together with the findings—point out to a complex, hierarchical society.

Tondo (art)

History

Artists have created tondi since Greek antiquity. The circular paintings in the centre of painted vases of that period are known as tondi, and the inside of the broad low winecup called a kylix also lent itself to circular enframed compositions. Although the earliest true Renaissance, or late Gothic painted tondo is Burgundian, from Champmol (of a Pietá by Jean Malouel of 1400–1415, now in the Louvre), the tondo became fashionable in 15th-century Florence, revived as a classical form especially in architecture. It may also have developed from the smaller desco da parto or birthing tray. The Desco da parto by Masaccio from around 1423 may be one of the first to use linear perspective, another feature of the Renaissance. Also using linear perspective was Donatello for the stucco tondi created around 1435–1440 for the Sagrestia Vecchia at the Basilica of San Lorenzo designed by Brunelleschi, one of the most prominent buildings of the Early Renaissance. For Brunelleschi's Hospital of the Innocents already (1421–24), Andrea della Robbia provided glazed terracotta babes in swaddling clothes in tondos with plain blue backgrounds to be set in the spandrels of the arches. Andrea and Luca della Robbia created glazed terracotta tondi that were often framed in a wreath of fruit and leaves, which were intended for immuring in a stuccoed wall. Filippo Lippi's Bartolini Tondo (1452-1453) was one of the earliest examples of such paintings.

In painting Botticelli created many examples, both Madonnas and narrative scenes, and Michelangelo employed the circular tondo for several compositions, both painted and sculpted, including the Doni Tondo at the Uffizi, as did Raphael.

In the sixteenth century the painterly style of istoriato decoration for maiolica wares was applied to large circular dishes (see also charger). Since then it has been less common. In Ford Madox Brown's painting The Last of England, the ship's wire railing curving round the figures helps enclose the composition within its tondo shape.

Sandro Botticelli

Career before Rome

Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist, c. 1470–1475, Louvre

From around 1461 or 1462 Botticelli was apprenticed to Fra Filippo Lippi, one of the leading Florentine painters and a favorite of the Medici. It was from Lippi that Botticelli learned how to create intimate compositions with beautiful, melancholic figures drawn with clear contours and only slight contrasts of light and shadow. For much of this period Lippi was based in Prato, a few miles west of Florence, frescoing the apse of what is now Prato Cathedral. Botticelli probably left Lippi's workshop by April 1467, when the latter went to work in Spoleto. There has been much speculation as to whether Botticelli spent a shorter period of time in another workshop, such as that of the Pollaiuolo brothers or Andrea del Verrocchio. However, although both artists had a strong impact on the young Botticelli's development, the young artist's presence in their workshops cannot be definitively proven.

Lippi died in 1469. Botticelli must have had his own workshop by then, and in June of that year he was commissioned a panel of Fortitude (Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi) to accompany a set of all Seven Virtues commissioned one year earlier from Piero del Pollaiuolo. Botticelli's panel adopts the format and composition of Piero's, but features a more elegant and naturally posed figure and includes an array of "fanciful enrichments so as to show up Piero's poverty of ornamental invention."

In 1472 Botticelli took on his first apprentice, the young Filippino Lippi, son of his master. Botticelli and Filippino's works from these years, including many Madonna and Child paintings, are often difficult to distinguish from one another. The two also routinely collaborated, as in the panels from a dismantled pair of cassoni, now divided between the Louvre, the National Gallery of Canada, the Musée Condé in Chantilly and the Galleria Pallavicini in Rome.

Key early paintings

Botticelli's earliest surviving altarpiece is a large sacra conversazione of about 1470–72, now in the Uffizi. The painting shows Botticelli's early mastery of composition, with eight figures arranged with an "easy naturalness in a closed architectural setting".

Another work from this period is the Saint Sebastian in Berlin, painted in 1474 for a pier in Santa Maria Maggiore, Florence. This work was painted soon after the Pollaiuolo brothers' much larger altarpiece of the same saint (London, National Gallery). Though Botticelli's saint is very similar in pose to that by the Pollaiuolo, he is also calmer and more poised. The almost nude body is very carefully drawn and anatomically precise, reflecting the young artist's close study of the human body. The delicate winter landscape, referring to the saint's feast-day in January, is inspired by contemporary Early Netherlandish painting, widely-appreciated in Florentine circles.

At the start of 1474 Botticelli was asked by the authorities in Pisa to join the work frescoing the Camposanto, a large prestigious project mostly being done by Benozzo Gozzoli, who spent nearly twenty years on it. Various payments up to September are recorded, but no work survives, and it seems that whatever Botticelli started was not finished. Nevertheless, that Botticelli was approached from outside Florence demonstrates a growing reputation.

Adoration of the Magi, 1475, 111 cm × 134 cm (44 in × 53 in)

The Adoration of the Magi for Santa Maria Novella (c. 1475–76, now in the Uffizi, and the first of 8 Adorations), was singled out for praise by Vasari, and was in a much-visited church, so spreading his reputation. It can be thought of as marking the climax of Botticelli's early style. Despite being commissioned by a money-changer, or perhaps money-lender, not otherwise known as an ally of the Medici, it contains the portraits of Cosimo de Medici, his sons Piero and Giovanni (all these by now dead), and his grandsons Lorenzo and Giuliano. There are also portraits of the donor and, in the view of most, Botticelli himself, standing at the front on the right. The painting was celebrated for the variety of the angles from which the faces are painted, and of their expressions.

A large fresco for the customs house of Florence, that is now lost, depicted the execution by hanging of the leaders of the Pazzi conspiracy of 1478 against the Medici. It was a Florentine custom to humiliate traitors in this way, by the so-called "pittura infamante". This was Botticelli's first major fresco commission (apart from the abortive Pisa excursion), and may have led to his summons to Rome. The figure of Francesco Salviati, Archbishop of Pisa was removed in 1479, after protests from the Pope, and the rest were destroyed after the expulsion of the Medici and return of the Pazzi family in 1494. Another lost work was a tondo of the Madonna ordered by a Florentine banker in Rome to present to Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga; this perhaps spread awareness of his work to Rome. A fresco in the Palazzo Vecchio, headquarters of the Florentine state, was lost in the next century when Vasari remodelled the building.

In 1480 the Vespucci family commissioned a fresco figure of Saint Augustine for the Ognissanti, their parish church, and Botticelli's. Someone else, probably the order running the church, commissioned Domenico Ghirlandaio to do a facing Saint Jerome; both saints were shown writing in their studies, which are crowded with objects. As in other cases, such direct competition "was always an inducement to Botticelli to put out all his powers", and the fresco, now his earliest to survive, is regarded as his finest by Ronald Lightbown. The open book above the saint contains one of the practical jokes for which Vasari says he was known. Most of the "text" is scribbles, but one line reads: "Where is Brother Martino? He went out. And where did he go? He is outside Porta al Prato", probably dialogue overheard from the Umiliati, the order who ran the church. Lightbown suggests that this shows Botticelli thought "the example of Jerome and Augustine likely to be thrown away on the Umiliati as he knew them".

• 
  Sacra conversazione altarpiece, c. 1470-72, Uffizi, called the Pala di Sant'Ambrogio
• 
  St. Sebastian, 1474
• 
  Madonna with Lilies and Eight Angels, c. 1478
• 
  Fresco Saint Augustine, Ognissanti, 1480

Wikipedia:But I'm an administrator!

On Wikipedia, no editors are given tiaras or fancy ceremonial tassels. Not editors with tens or hundreds of thousands of edits. Not even administrators.

Sometimes in discussions on Wikipedia, one editor's argument may be given more weight over another simply because one has more edits on Wikipedia or one may even be a Wikipedia administrator. Don't fall for it.

At the time this essay was created, the original author Paulmcdonald submitted this:

I have over 35,000 edits recorded on Wikipedia. According to Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits, I am ranked 1,927 in terms of most edits among all registered Wikipedians. I'm not "number 1" but I've done a lot. And I'm wrong a lot.--Paul McDonald (talk) 02:04, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Each argument should stand on its own accord and on its own merits in Wikipedia discussions. That means the newest editor, with the fewest edits, may have the best idea or the most relevant point of view. An anonymous IP editor who just began editing the project last week may have the best idea.

Don't let anything like "seniority", edit counts, or Wikipedia status of an editor (awards, Barnstars, years of experience) sway your opinion. If the "experienced" editor has knowledge that leads them to hold a certain position in a discussion, they should be able to convey it in an argument that other editors can judge on its own merits.

In other words, provide details for the experience and explain your argument, don't just respond with "Because I'm an admin/top editor, so there."

উল্লেখযোগ্যতার যুক্তি উপস্থাপন

পৃথিবীর কোনও গুরুত্বপূর্ণ অঞ্চল বা গুরুত্বপূর্ণ সামাজিক গোষ্ঠীর উপর প্রদর্শ‌নযোগ্য দীর্ঘমেয়াদী প্রভাব ফেলেছে এমন ঘটনা নিবন্ধ প্রণয়নের জন্য উল্লেখযোগ্য।

স্থায়ী প্রভাব অনুচ্ছেদে আলোচনা করা হয়েছে, যদি কোনো ঘটনা কোনো স্থায়ী প্রভাব সৃষ্টির পূর্বসূরি বা উদ্দীপক হিসেবে ভূমিকা রাখে তবে ঘটনাটি উল্লেখযোগ্য ধরা যাবে।

প্রথম আলোর বিশ্লেষণমুলক প্রতিবেদনে সুষ্পষ্টভাবে বলা হয়েছে, হিন্দুদের দেশত্যাগের অন্যতম কারণ পূজামণ্ডপ ভাঙচুর করা।। এখানে

ঘটনাকেন্দ্রিক নিবন্ধের উল্লেখযোগ্যতার একটি গুরুত্বপূর্ণ শর্তে বলা হয়েছে, ঘটনা অনেকাংশে উল্লেখযোগ্য হবে যদি তা ব্যাপকাকারে (জাতীয় বা আন্তর্জাতিক) প্রভাব ফেলে এবং বিভিন্ন প্রকার সূত্রে ব্যাপকভাবে উল্লেখিত হয়, বিশেষত যদি পরবর্তীতে পুনর্বি‌বেচিত হয়। ঠাকুরগাঁওতে এক রাতেই ১২ টি মন্দির ভাঙচুর হয়েছে এই খবরটি এতটাই আলোচিত হয়েছে এমনকি বিএনপির একাধিক নেতা এবিষয়ে সমালোচনা করেছেন। প্রথম আলো এছাড়াও এখানকার সংবাদ গুলো দেশে তো বটেই পার্শ্ববর্তী দেশ ভারতেও অধিক ফলাও করে প্রচার করা হয়েছে। আর মন্দির ভাঙচুর সেই এলাকা সহ পুরো দেশে সংখ্যালঘুদের উপর যদি প্রভাব না ফেলে তাহলে আসলে কী প্রভাব ফেলে এব্যাপারটা আমার জানা নেই।

অন্তর্ভুক্তির আরেকটি শর্তে বলা হয়েছে, ঘটনা উল্লেখযোগ্য হতে পারে যদি তা ঐতিহাসিকভাবে গুরুত্বপূর্ণ হয় এবং উল্লেখযোগ্যতার সাধারণ মানদণ্ড পূরণ করে, অথবা যদি সেটির স্থায়ী প্রভাব থাকে। বাংলাদেশে ১৯৫০ এর নোয়াখালি দাঙা হয়ে সময়ে সময়ে মন্দির ভাঙচুর হতে থাকে। স্বাধীনতা উত্তর বাংলাদেশেও এমন কোনো শারদীয় উৎসব পালিত হয় নি, যেখানে মন্দির ভাঙার ঘটনা ঘটে নি। ঐতিহাসিকভাবে চলমান এই প্রক্রিয়া অনুল্লেখযোগ্য ভাবার কারণ আসলে কী হতে পারে। তা সত্যিই বিষ্ময়কর।

কোনো ঘটনা নির্ভর নিবন্ধের উল্লেখযোগ্যতার মানদণ্ড পুরণের আরেকটি শর্ত হল, তা যদি আগ্রহোদ্দীপক হয়, এবং ভবিষ্যতে সে ঘটনা বিস্তৃত পরিসরে থাকে। দেখুন উল্লেখযোগ্যতা#ভবিষ্যতের ঘটনা বাংলাদেশে যেহেতু প্রতিমাসে মন্দির ভাঙচুর নৈমিত্তিক ঘটনা এবং এক শরতেই তা ৩-৪ গুণ হয়ে যায়, সেদিক থেকেও এধরনের নিবন্ধ থাকা আমি উল্লেখযোগ্য বলে মনে করি।

Casting aspersions

উইকিপিডিয়ার আরবিট্রেশন কমিটি অন্যদের সম্পর্কে অর্থহীন কথা না বলার বিষয়ে কিছু নিয়ম তৈরি করেছে। এই নিয়মগুলি এমন একটি নীতির উপর ভিত্তি করে যা বলে যে কোনো অবস্থাতেআপনার ব্যক্তিগতভাবে মানুষকে আক্রমণ করা উচিত নয়। বিধিমালায় এই নীতিমালার গুরুত্বপূর্ণ অংশ, কীভাবে কাজগুলো করা উচিত এবং একটি নির্দিষ্ট পরিস্থিতিতে কমিটি এ বিষয়ে কী ভাবছে তা নিয়ে কথা বলা হয়েছে।

২০০৮-২০১৫ এর সুনির্দিষ্ট উদাহরণসমূহ

একজন সম্পাদকের কারো সম্মানহানি করার জন্য ক্রমাগত চরম মাত্রার অভিযোগ করা অগ্রহণযোগ্য। যার বিরুদ্ধে অভিযোগ করা হচ্ছে সে যদি কোনো অপরাধমূলক কাজে জড়িতও হয়, অথবা এমন কোনো দলের সাথে জড়িত থাকে যাদের কার্যক্রম সভ্য সমাজে অবৈধ হিসেবে পরিগনিত তবুও সঠিক প্রমাণ ছাড়া এমনকি উইকিপিডিয়ার বাইরেও তার সম্মানহানি করা যাবে না।

Passed 10 to 0 at 23:51, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

It is unacceptable for an editor to routinely accuse others of misbehavior without reasonable cause. Legitimate concerns of fellow editors' conduct should be raised either directly with the editor in question, in a civil fashion, or if necessary on an appropriate noticeboard or dispute-resolution page. Although broad leeway is granted to allow editors to express themselves in their interactions with one another, particularly in dispute resolution, a consistent pattern of making objectively unsupported or exaggerated claims of misconduct can necessitate sanctions or restrictions even if the editor subjectively believes that they are true.

Passed 10 to 0 at 04:10, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

It is unacceptable for an editor to routinely accuse others of misbehavior without reasonable cause in an attempt to besmirch their reputations. Concerns, if they cannot be resolved directly with the other users involved, should be brought up in the appropriate forums with evidence, if at all.

Passed 8 to 0, 14:10, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

An editor must not accuse another of misbehavior without evidence, especially when the accusations are repeated or severe. If accusations must be made, they should be raised, with evidence, on the user-talk page of the editor they concern or in the appropriate forums.

Passed 7 to 0, 22:45, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

An editor must not accuse another of misbehavior without evidence, especially when the accusations are repeated or severe. This especially applies to accusations of being paid by a company to promote a point of view (i.e., a shill) or similar associations and using that to attack or cast doubt over the editor in content disputes. If accusations must be made, they should be raised, with evidence, at appropriate forums such as the user talk page, WP:COIN, or other appropriate places per WP:COI. Editors are however reminded that Wikipedia places importance on the ability of editors to edit pseudonymously. When investigating COI editing, the policy against harassment takes precedence; it requires that Wikipedians must take care not to reveal the identity of editors against their wishes. Instead, examine editors' behavior and refer to Wikipedia:Checkuser.

Passed 10 to 1 at 19:04, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

See also

• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration

References

Category:Wikipedia arbitration Category:Wikipedia civility

Kazi Lutfar Rahman

Dr. Kazi Lutfar Rahman (born on 1 February 1988) is a Bangladeshi doctor, scientist, researcher, model and Latin dancer.

Kazi Lutfar Rahman
কাজী লুৎফর রহমান বাবু
File:Kazi Lutfar Rahman.jpg Dr. Kazi Lutfar Rahman
Born	(1988-02-01) 1 February 1988
Nationality	Bangladeshi
Education	MBBS, MPhil.
Alma mater	Dhaka Medical College
Occupation(s)	Doctor, Scientist, Researcher, Latin Dancer.

Early life

Rahman spent his childhood in Dhaka, Bangladesh. After losing his mother, he was brought to Magura, Bangladesh where he was coping with severe depression. He used to engage himself with a variety of cultural activities to get rid of depression and completed both his secondary and higher secondary schooling in Magura. He enrolled himself in Dhaka Medical College from where he earned his MBBS degree. He also holds an MPhil in Physiology from Dhaka Medical College.

Work-life

By profession, Rahman is a doctor. He used to be a lecturer in a private medical college. Currently, he is working as a medical officer at Covid-19 dedicated Rt-PCR lab in Kurmitola General hospital. He had professional training in Latin and ballroom dancing and is a co-founder of the Latin dance institution "Two Steps". Besides that he used to be a model of the fashion house Nitya Upahar.

Research

Some studies revealed that despite having sufficient sun exposure and dietary supply, the level of serum 25(OH)D (Calcifediol) in Bangladeshi adults is lower than its normal range. The genetic pattern of an individual is also an essential factor that regulates the level of serum 25(OH)D. For the 1st time in Bangladesh, Dr. Rahman analyzed rs10741657 of the CYP2R1 gene and identified 3 different variants among them, where he found GG and GA genotypes were associated with low serum vitamin D levels. His research has been published in Plos one. All of his analyzed gene sequences were accepted and published in NCBI, GenBank of Japan, and European Nucleotide Archive.

Formal fallacies

Main article: Formal fallacy

A formal fallacy is an error in logic that can be seen in the argument's form. All formal fallacies are specific types of non sequitur.

• Appeal to probability – a statement that takes something for granted because it would probably be the case (or might be the case).
• Argument from fallacy (also known as the fallacy fallacy) – the assumption that if an argument for some conclusion is fallacious, then the conclusion is false.
• Base rate fallacy – making a probability judgment based on conditional probabilities, without taking into account the effect of prior probabilities.
• Conjunction fallacy – the assumption that an outcome simultaneously satisfying multiple conditions is more probable than an outcome satisfying a single one of them.
• Masked-man fallacy (illicit substitution of identicals) – the substitution of identical designators in a true statement can lead to a false one.

Propositional fallacies

A propositional fallacy is an error in logic that concerns compound propositions. For a compound proposition to be true, the truth values of its constituent parts must satisfy the relevant logical connectives that occur in it (most commonly: [and], [or], [not], [only if], [if and only if]). The following fallacies involve inferences whose correctness is not guaranteed by the behavior of those logical connectives, and hence, which are not logically guaranteed to yield true conclusions.
Types of propositional fallacies:

• Affirming a disjunct – concluding that one disjunct of a logical disjunction must be false because the other disjunct is true; A or B; A, therefore not B.
• Affirming the consequent – the antecedent in an indicative conditional is claimed to be true because the consequent is true; if A, then B; B, therefore A.
• Denying the antecedent – the consequent in an indicative conditional is claimed to be false because the antecedent is false; if A, then B; not A, therefore not B.

Quantification fallacies

A quantification fallacy is an error in logic where the quantifiers of the premises are in contradiction to the quantifier of the conclusion.
Types of quantification fallacies:

• Existential fallacy – an argument that has a universal premise and a particular conclusion.

Formal syllogistic fallacies

Syllogistic fallacies – logical fallacies that occur in syllogisms.

• Affirmative conclusion from a negative premise (illicit negative) – a categorical syllogism has a positive conclusion, but at least one negative premise.
• Fallacy of exclusive premises – a categorical syllogism that is invalid because both of its premises are negative.
• Fallacy of four terms (quaternio terminorum) – a categorical syllogism that has four terms.
• Illicit major – a categorical syllogism that is invalid because its major term is not distributed in the major premise but distributed in the conclusion.
• Illicit minor – a categorical syllogism that is invalid because its minor term is not distributed in the minor premise but distributed in the conclusion.
• Negative conclusion from affirmative premises (illicit affirmative) – a categorical syllogism has a negative conclusion but affirmative premises.
• Fallacy of the undistributed middle – the middle term in a categorical syllogism is not distributed.
• Modal fallacy – confusing possibility with necessity.
• Modal scope fallacy – a degree of unwarranted necessity is placed in the conclusion.

Cytochrome c and b

Main article: Cytochrome c

A classic example of biochemical evidence for evolution is the variance of the ubiquitous (i.e. all living organisms have it, because it performs very basic life functions) protein Cytochrome c in living cells. The variance of cytochrome c of different organisms is measured in the number of differing amino acids, each differing amino acid being a result of a base pair substitution, a mutation. If each differing amino acid is assumed the result of one base pair substitution, it can be calculated how long ago the two species diverged by multiplying the number of base pair substitutions by the estimated time it takes for a substituted base pair of the cytochrome c gene to be successfully passed on. For example, if the average time it takes for a base pair of the cytochrome c gene to mutate is N years, the number of amino acids making up the cytochrome c protein in monkeys differ by one from that of humans, this leads to the conclusion that the two species diverged N years ago.

The primary structure of cytochrome c consists of a chain of about 100 amino acids. Many higher order organisms possess a chain of 104 amino acids.

The cytochrome c molecule has been extensively studied for the glimpse it gives into evolutionary biology. Both chicken and turkeys have identical sequence homology (amino acid for amino acid), as do pigs, cows and sheep. Both humans and chimpanzees share the identical molecule, while rhesus monkeys share all but one of the amino acids: the 66th amino acid is isoleucine in the former and threonine in the latter.

What makes these homologous similarities particularly suggestive of common ancestry in the case of cytochrome c, in addition to the fact that the phylogenies derived from them match other phylogenies very well, is the high degree of functional redundancy of the cytochrome c molecule. The different existing configurations of amino acids do not significantly affect the functionality of the protein, which indicates that the base pair substitutions are not part of a directed design, but the result of random mutations that aren't subject to selection.

In addition, Cytochrome b is commonly used as a region of mitochondrial DNA to determine phylogenetic relationships between organisms due to its sequence variability. It is considered most useful in determining relationships within families and genera. Comparative studies involving cytochrome b have resulted in new classification schemes and have been used to assign newly described species to a genus, as well as deepen the understanding of evolutionary relationships.

Reaction

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina expressed deep shock at the death of the veteran communist leader.

In a condolence message, the prime minister recalled his role in the anti-British movement as well as in the anti-Ayub movement during the Pakistan rule. She prayed for eternal peace of the departed soul and conveyed profound sympathy to the bereaved family.

CPB President Mujahidul Islam Selim and General Secretary Shah Alam also issued separate condolence messages.