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75th anniversary of the State of Israel

Wednesday, 10 May 2023 - 11:00 am (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination: Levant / Levante
Category/Kategorie: General, Union for the Mediterranean Reading Time:  5 minutes

🔊 Listen to this Post In 1948 the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel sparked the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, which resulted in the 1948 Palestinian exodus (Nakba) from the land that the State of Israel came to control and subsequently led to waves of Jewish immigration from other parts of the Middle East. The latter half of the 20th century saw a series of further conflicts between Israel and its neighbouring Arab nations, most notably the Six-day War, which resulted in further expulsions and subsequent waves of inward migration, and the occupation and settlements of the West Bank, Golan Heights and East Jerusalem.

In 1979 the Egypt–Israel peace treaty was signed, based on the Camp David Accords. In 1993, Israel signed the Oslo I Accord with the Palestine Liberation Organization, which was followed by the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority. In 1994, the Israel–Jordan peace treaty was signed. Despite efforts to finalize the peace agreement, the conflict continues to play a major role in Israeli and international political, social, and economic life.

On 14 May 1948—the day the last British forces left 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.

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 and Hamas traded blows in Gaza for eleven days.

The 2019–2022 political crisis featured political instability in Israel leading to five elections to the Knesset over four years. 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.

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. Unlike when it was founded, by far the greatest threat to Israel’s continued existence today comes from internal threats and enemies, largely from Netanyahu and his right-wing extremists/terrorists. This is favored by the fact that the founders of the state “forgot” to give the country a constitution, which makes it much easier for internal enemies of democracy and the state to carry out their destructive activities.

Read more on Arab–Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 2023 Israeli “judicial reform”, 2023 Israeli “judicial reform” protests, Reactions to the 2023 Israeli “judicial reform” and Wikipedia History of Israel (Smart Traveler App by U.S. Department of State - Weather report by weather.com - Global Passport Power Rank - Travel Risk Map - Democracy Index - GDP according to IMF, UN, and World Bank - Global Competitiveness Report - Corruption Perceptions Index - Press Freedom Index - World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index - UN Human Development Index - Global Peace Index - Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index). Photos by Wikimedia Commons. If you have a suggestion, critique, review or comment to this blog entry, we are looking forward to receive your e-mail at comment@wingsch.net. Please name the headline of the blog post to which your e-mail refers to in the subject line.