Israel History and Overview

Area: 22,145 sq km (8550 sq miles; includes East Jerusalem and the Golan sub-district)

Population – Population Density: 7,821,850 (estimate 2014) – 353.2 per sq km.

Capital: Jerusalem (well the Israeli Prime Minister and Knesset are in Jerusalem, but, when Israel was established, it was agreed upon that Jerusalem and Bethlehem would be neutral cities so international countries and the UN don’t accept Jerusalem as the capital and have their embassies in Tel Aviv… just the beginning of the complexity of Israel and the lands of Palestine).

Population: 8 million.

Currency
New Shekel (IS) = 100 agorot (singular, agora). Notes are in denominations of IS200, 100, 50, and 20. Coins are in denominations of IS10, 5 and 1, and 50 and 10 agorot.
1 ILS  = 0.259 USD

$1 USD = 3.85 ILS

Geography:
Israel is on the eastern Mediterranean, bordered by Lebanon and the Syrian Arab Republic to the north, Jordan to the east, and Egypt to the south. The autonomous Palestinian Authority Region lies mostly on the west bank of the River Jordan (or eastern part of Jerusalem). The Palestinians also administer part of the Gaza strip, in the south of the country (I believe there are two main Palestinian parties: the PLO, or Fatah, which controls the West Bank; and Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip).

The country stretches southwards through the Negev Desert to Eilat, a resort town on the Red Sea. The fertile Plain of Sharon runs along the coast, while inland, parallel to the coast, is a range of hills and uplands with fertile valleys to the west and arid desert to the east. The Great Rift Valley begins beyond the sources of the River Jordan and extends south through the Dead Sea (the lowest point in the world), into the Red Sea, continuing on into Eastern Africa.

Government:
Republic. The state of Israel was founded in 1948 in a very controversial division of the lands of Palestine known as the “Partition” where the UN divided up the lands after the conclusion of the British mandate (ok, even more complex is that after WWI the western powers divided up Anatolia {Turkey}, the Arabian peninsula {see our blogs on Jordan and what was TransJordan}, and Palestine – granting Syria to France, Palestine to the British, and the the western world essentially doled out land and named kings to local leaders loyal to their needs… see any modern newspaper for how well drawing arbitrary country borders across cultures, tribes and religious factions has worked out).

Language:
Hebrew is the official language, spoken by about two-thirds of the population. Arabic is spoken by around 15 percent of the population. English is spoken in most places and other languages, including French, German, Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Spanish and Yiddish are widely used. So, “shalom!”

Religion
75 percent Jewish, 17 percent Muslim, with Christian, Druze and other minorities.

History of Israel:

Honestly, you don’t really expect me to make an attempt at summarizing the several thousand year history of the land of Canaan (55,000, if you consider that hominids first migrated up from the Great Rift Valley in Africa to the Jordan Valley and human remains have been found that date back 55,000 years in Israel) ?

Just read the Bible.  Seriously.

Ok, I know that’s not enough, so I’ll do an outrageously abridged history with egregious errors to just give approximate ages of historical episodes.  No, I do not want to get into a debate about who has the right to occupy and rule the holy lands between Israelis and Palestinians. No, I don’t want to get into a debate about Biblical interpretations. Yes, the whole thing is confusing. Yes, it’s strange that compromise is bad and a sign of weakness in the Middle East. Yes, we should all just get along. Yes, I am incredibly intrigued by the complicated history of Israel.

If you are interested in really learning more, I am reading a fascinating study of the mistreatment of man by his fellow man (always the ‘other’ that suffers) that examines the complicated history of Jerusalem, named “Jerusalem: The Biography” by Simon Sebag Montefiore.  The take-away: religions predicated on love and compassion can be ruthless when you associate with a different group… even when they all start from the same kernel, which is Abraham – so here we go:

• 2,000 BC:  Abraham (the founder of pretty much everything, including Israel, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Jerusalem’s significance in the world… and all of the wonder and turmoil that ensues over the next 3,000 years) hears from God that there is only one single true god, that pagan religions and idolatry are not the path to heaven, and that the land of Israel will all be his and his children’s.  Unfortunately, he has to trek across the desert from Mesopotamia and sacrifice his favorite son Isaac to prove his belief. If he had ignored the call, the world would be a very different place.
• 2,000 BC, less a few days:  Surprise, I was just joking about sacrificing Isaac, when you bound Isaac and got ready to kill him you proved that you really did fear God.  Instead just sacrifice a goat (or ram); but this place where you were willing to sacrifice your son will become pretty much the most hotly contested pieces of earth on the whole planet (where the Dome of the Rock now resides, in the heart of the old city of Jerusalem).  Abraham’s descendants become the 12 tribes of Israel.
• Before 1,500 BC (we are now moving in 500 year increments, or neither of us will ever finish this blog): Well, there was a massive drought in Israel, so all of the Jewish people moved down to the fertile land of the Nile. It was all good, Joseph was interpreting dreams for the Pharaoh, and everything is great until a new Pharaoh forgets about Joseph and enslaves the Jews. Uh-oh, how do we get out of this suddenly inhospitable place?
• 1,500 BC: Moses leads the Jews out of Egypt, across the Sinai Peninsula, up through Jordan, to Mt. Nebo where he overlooks the Dead Sea and the ‘promised land’ (Israel). He dies there on Mt. Nebo (see our Jordan blog on this one, it was amazing). Along the journey, Moses picked up the 10 Commandments on Mt. Sinai, lived 120 years and freed the Jews. His story takes up the most of the Torah, and we were told 65% of the Koran is about Moses.  After his death on Mt. Nebo, his son leads somewhere between 4,000 and 400,000 Jews (debated, as there was no wikipedia back at the time) down to Jericho, into the promised land… and the story continues.
• 1,000 BC: David is chosen as king of the Israelites; he is the second king after Saul who was a little jealous and crazy. David is a remarkable king, warrior, strategist leader and king. He defeats the Philistines, and yes, he defeated Goliath with his sling. He unites the lands and people of Israel, builds a small palace in Jerusalem and paves the way for his son, Solomon, to build the first great temple in Jerusalem. The stories of the temples never have a good ending.
• ~500 BC: Nebuchadnezzar and the Assyrians conquer Jerusalem, destroy Solomon’s Temple and enslave the Jews.  This repeats often throughout history.  This is also the approximate era of the founding of the Roman Empire, which eventually conquers the entire middle east and rules over Israel for centuries, creating the Roman province of Judea which lasts through the Roman and Byzantine empires.  This is also the approximate time that the “Second Temple” was completed.  The Torah, or Laws of Moses, is documented.
• 0: Jesus. Literally.  Also when the Romans ran the land, which was not good for Jesus or anyone who was called “King of the Jews.”
• 312 AD: OK, so it’s not a 500 year increment, but this is when Emperor Constantine converts Rome to Christianity in the Edict of Milan… so it has to fit in here.
• 600 AD: Muhammad lived. He dreamed that he ascended to heaven in the farthest away temple, which was eventually interpreted to mean Jerusalem.  He creates Islam. Honestly, if the farthest away temple had been Damascus or even San Francisco, there might be world peace (at least in Israel, but unlikely).
• 637 AD: Jerusalem falls, one more time, this time in the Muslim conquests of Caliph Omar. Muslim rule would last, with lots of fits and starts, until WWI.
• 1,000 AD: The first Crusade. This begins a crazy period where, in the name of religion, really bad stuff happens like killing Jews, the Spanish Inquisition, the Pope authorizes torture, Catholics have to buy indulgences to get to heaven. Weird.  Not a nice time to live, unless you were in power… which typically was a fickle thing anyway.
• 1,500 AD: I’ll just lump a bunch of stuff in here, including the King James Bible, Protestant Reformation, the European Age of Discovery. What is germane to Israel is the conquest of Palestine (and the entire middle east, as we learned while in Turkey and Jordan) by the Ottoman Turks. They ruled right up until WWI, when the Ottomans chose the wrong side, and the entire middle east was divided in a way that guaranteed future regional instability.
• 1918 AD: World War I ends, and the entire middle east is divided up among the western powers. Palestine is controlled by the British.
• 1948 AD: At the end of the British Mandate, the UN establishes the modern Jewish state of Israel in the ‘partition.’
• 1967 AD: (I keep writing AD, since Brayden insists that, even thought it is obviously AD, it is illogical to suddenly stop putting AD) Six Day War, when several Arab countries attack (we heard different stories in Jordan, but we are in Israel so we are going with it) and Israel defends itself. The borders of Israel are significantly expanded and the West Bank is taken from Jordan, Gaza and Sinai from Egypt, and the Golen Heights from Syria.
• 1973: Yom Kipper War, when several Arab countries attack Israel to try to regain lost territory in the 1967 war. Israel wins again.
• 2105: I am writing this in a month when there have been multiple killings, stabbings and protests between Palestinians and Jews.  It’s a complicated thing when one narrow strip of land is the holiest place on the planet for three religions that really should get along, but spend too much time finding differences between themselves instead of all of the shared history, experience, beliefs… and God.

I believe that Jerusalem has been conquered at least 32 times, razed (destroyed) several of those times, and controlled by many, many different civilizations. The history is complicated, tumultuous and incredibly interesting. I think, as you witness from this particular historical overview, that what you believe and what you think really happened in any civilization’s history largely depends upon whose perspective you listen to and what you believe.

In this case, let’s just simply say that it’s an amazing place that could use more tolerance and understanding… but even after a lifetime of study I could never totally comprehend the true history of Israel.

Off to the old city!