Israel, Land of the Chosen People1

8/3/2019 Israel, Land of the Chosen People1

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Flag of Israel

Emblem of Israel

ISRAEL:

Land

of

the

ChosenPeople


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LAND AND PEOPLE

ISRAEL was given toJacob, Isaacs son, afterhe received Gods

anointing. It means God reigns.

Thy name shall be calledno more Jacob, but

Israel: for as a princehast thou power with Godand with men

FACTS IN BRIEF

Total Land Area: 8,019 sq. mi.

Population: 7.7 million

Capital City: Jerusalem

System of Government:Parliamentary Democracy

Official languages: Hebrewand Arabic

National Currency: Shekel

President: Shimon Peres

Prime Minister: Benjamin

Netanyahu (2009)


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Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power

with God and with men

Jacob Wrestled with the Angel


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EARLY HISTORY

2,000 BC, the Hebrewsor Jews, a SemiticPeople, settled into the

Near East from thegreat grasslands ofNorthern Arabia.

Abraham, the Hebrew

patriarch and traditionalfounder of the Hebrewnation, once lived in Ur,a city in Sumer,

Mesopotamia.

1400 BC, he led hispeople across theSyrian Desert to

northern Palestine In the next 200 years,

they graduallyconquered the

Canaanites, whileadopting many of themore civilized customsand traditions of their

predecessors.


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EARLY HISTORY Intermittent wars

against the Philistines,rival Palestinian

tribesmen, had led tothe formation of theoriginal Twelve Tribesof Jacob (Israel) to

unite under asuccession of threegreat kings: Saul, Davidand Solomon.

King Saul


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Great kings of Israel

King David King Solomon


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The Jewish kingdom

The Jewish kingdomreached the peak ofits glory under KingSolomon, the wisestof all men.

He built the famoustemple of Jerusalem.

After his death, thekingdom was dividedinto two.

The northern partbecame thekingdom of Israel,

with its capital atSamaria, and thekingdom of Judah,the southern parthad its capital atJerusalem.


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The invaders of Israel

722 BC theAssyrians invadedIsrael and despoiled

the kingdom. Many Jews were

deported or slain.

586 BC the

Chaldeans led byNebuchadnezzarconquered Judah andcarried a large number

of Israelites of to exilein Babylon.

The Jews, however,

clung to their religion(Judaism) even incaptivity.

549 BC the Persians

overthrew theChaldean Empire.


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The invaders of Israel

Cyrus, the Persianking, allowed theJews to return to

their homeland. The Jews soon

established atheocratic state

until after thecoming of theRomans.

Nebuchadnezzar

Cyrus the Great


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The invaders of Israel 190 BC - Syria, Palestine,

Mesopotamia, and otherterritories in the MiddleEast became Romanprovinces.

AD 66 Rome sent thegreat Roman generalVespasian to Judea to putdown the Jewish revolt.

He returned to Rome and

left his son Titus tocontinue the war. AD 70 Titus captured

Jerusalem and theydestroyed Solomonstemple.

Thousands of Jewsescaped to Masada, amountain fortress, andfor two years theywithstood the Roma

siege. AD 73 Masada finally

fell to the Romans Rather than giving up to

the Romans, nearly allthe Jewish defenderscommitted suicide

Masada epitomizedJewish courage and

honor.


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ZIONISM

As a result of theDiaspora (dispersal ofthe Jews), the Jewswere a scattered

people living in Russia,Eastern Europe,Germany and the US.

The Jews around theworld hope to return toZion, their promisedland.

The persecution of Jewsthrough pogroms (racialpurges), racialsegregation (ghettos)and the imposition ofharsh anti-Jewish lawsagainst them, led to thebirth of Zionism at theend of the 19th century.

Zionism, the nationalmovement for the returnof the Jewish people totheir homeland and theresumption of Jewishsovereignty in the Landof Israel.


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ZIONISM Theodor Herzl, an Austrian Jew born to

a prosperous, emancipated Budapestfamily, is recognized as the founder ofthe Zionist ideology when he published

his book in 1896, "The Jewish State,where he declared that the cure forAnti-Semitism was the establishmentof a Jewish state. As he saw it, the best

place to establish this state was inPalestine.

In 1897, he launched the World ZionistMovement, with the financial support ofrich European and American Jews like

the Rothschild's.

Theodor Herzl


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British mandate In the peace

settlements after WW1,Great Britain hadreceived as a mandate

Palestine, formerly partof the defeatedOttoman Empire.Palestine was important

to the British becauseof its strategic locationand because of a vitalpipeline from Iraq up toHaifa in Palestine.

The British Mandate forPalestine, also known asthe PalestineMandate and The BritishMandate of Palestine,

was a legal commissionfor the administration ofPalestine, the draft ofwhich was formallyconfirmed by the Council

of the League ofNations on 24 July 1922and which came intoeffect on 26 September1923.


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Balfour Declaration

1917 during WW1,Chaim Weizmann, aZionist and a Jewishchemist, had given aformula for making animportant ingredientof high explosives.

In gratitude, theSecretary told Zionistleaders of the Britishsupport for an Arabstate in Palestine.

The BalfourDeclaration, a letterfrom British Foreign

Secretary ArthurJames Balfour toLord Rothschild inwhich the British

made public theirsupport of a Jewishhomeland inPalestine.


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ADVOCATES OF ZIONISM

Dr. Chaim Weizmann Arthur James Balfour


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Palestine issue

Both Arabs and Jewsexpressed claim toPalestine.

Jews claimed it wastheir homeland due toBiblical tradition and theBalfour Declaration

The Arabs claimed itwas theirs havingsettled there forcenturies

Both Jews and Arabswanted the British tomake good thepromises they hadmade.

Conflicts had takenplace in variousplaces.

In 1921, the Britishpartitioned it into two:Palestine and Jordan


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The republic of Israel

As Zionism grewstronger after theWW1, many Jews

returned to theirhomeland.

Before WW2, Nazipersecution brought

thousands more toPalestine.

The returning Jews

brought with them

their modernknowledge inagriculture,commerce, industry,and science makingthem ahead of theirArab neighbors.

This caused envyfrom the Arabpopulation who didanything to stop theJews.


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After WW2, the Britishturned the Palestineproblem over to the UNGeneral Assembly ;

that they wouldwithdraw their mandateover Palestine.

November 29, 1947

the Assemblyrecommended thatPalestine be partitionedinto an Arab State anda Jewish State.

May 14, 1848 theJews proclaimedwestern as the

Republic of Israelwith ChaimWeizmann as its

first President andDavid Ben Gurionas its first PrimeMinister

.


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President Chaim Weizmann Prime Minister David Ben Gurion

THE 1ST


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THE 1ST

ARAB-ISRAELI WAR

(1948-49)

The Arab armies whichinclude Egypt, Syria,Lebanon, Jordan, SaudiArabia and Iraq attacked

Israel. Objective: To drive theIsraelites into the sea.

Result: Israelis madespectacular victories,though outnumbered bytheir enemies.

!959- UN Mediator RalphBunchemade the two sides

sign a truce.


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The 1st Arab-Israeli War

The 1948 ArabIsraeli War, knownto Israelis as the War

of Liberation wasthe first in a series ofwars fought betweenthe State of Israel and

its Arab neighbors inthe continuing Arab-Israeli conflict.

Strength

Israel: 29,677 initially rising to 115,000by March 1949. This includes theentire military personnel countbothcombat units and logistical units.

Egypt: 10,000 initially, rising to 20,000

Iraq: 3,000 initially, rising to 15,00018,000

Syria: 2,5005,000

Transjordan: 8,00012,000

Lebanon: 1,000

Saudi Arabia: 8001,200 Yemen: 300

Arab Liberation Army: 3,5006,000

These numbers include only thecombat units sent to the former BritishMandate of Palestine, not the entire

military strength


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The 1st Arab-Israeli War Millions of

Palestinian Arabsfled to refugee

camps in the: Gaza Strip

Lebanon

Syria Jordan

Retaliatory Actions:

Arabs - refused to grantlegal recognition to the

state of Israel; imposedeconomic boycott againstthe Israelites

Both sides tensions,

border incidents andterrorist attacks continued


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The Suez Crisis The Suez Crisis, also referred to as

the Tripartite Aggression was an offensive warfought by France, the United Kingdom,

and Israel against Egypt beginning on October29, 1956. Less than a day after Israel invadedEgypt, Britain and France issued a jointultimatum to Egypt and Israel, and then began to

bomb Cairo. The attack followed the President of

Egypt Gamal Abdel Nasser's decision of 26 July1956 to nationalize the Suez Canal.


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The Suez CrisisNassers seizure of theCanal alarmed Israel.

The Israelis, in a lightningattack, seized the Gaza

Strip- an Egyptian controlleddistrict adjoining Israelssouthern border.

Israelis then defeated theEgyptians in the Sinai

peninsula and advancedtowards the Canal.

The ceasefire was arrangedby the UN Secretary DagHammarskjold.

Gamal Abdel Nasser

Egyptian President


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Jewish culture

The GreatHebrew work of

Literature

The OldTestament

Contains 39 books

The New

Testament

Contains 27 books

The Holy Bible


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Jewish CultureEthical

monotheismmeans two things:

1. There is one God

from whomemanates onemorality for allhumanity.

2. God's primary

demand of peopleis that they actdecently towardone another.

Jewish Monotheism

The word monotheismcomesfrom the Greek mono, which

means one, andtheos

, whichmeans god. Thus, monotheism isa belief in the existence of a

single god. Monotheism is usuallycontrasted with polytheism, which

is the belief in many gods, andatheism, which is the absence of

any belief in gods.

Documents

Israel, Land of the Chosen People1