History of Israel

[37][38][39] 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.

In 167 BCE, the Maccabean revolt erupted after Mattathias, a Jewish priest of the Hasmonean lineage, killed a Hellenized Jew and a Seleucid official who participated in sacrifice to the Greek gods in Modi'in.

[98][99] After Judas' death, his brothers Jonathan Apphus and Simon Thassi were able to establish and consolidate a vassal Hasmonean state in Judea, capitalizing on the Seleucid Empire's decline as a result of internal instability and wars with the Parthians, and by forging ties with the rising Roman Republic.

There was a small revolt against Roman taxation led by Judas of Galilee and over the next decades tensions grew between the Greco-Roman and Judean population centered on attempts to place effigies of emperor Caligula in synagogues and in the Jewish temple.

[109][110][non-primary source needed] In 64 CE, the Temple High Priest Joshua ben Gamla introduced a religious requirement for Jewish boys to learn to read from the age of six.

[125] Following the revolt, Judea's countryside was penetrated by pagan populations,[126] including migrants from the nearby provinces of Syria, Phoenicia, and Arabia,[127][128] whereas Aelia Capitolina, its immediate vicinity, and administrative centers were now inhabited by Roman veterans and settlers from the western parts of the empire.

[141] 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.

[157] 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.

[122] 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.

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.

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.

[168] In 1558, Selim II (1566–1574), successor to Suleiman, whose wife Nurbanu Sultan was Jewish,[169] gave control of Tiberias to Doña Gracia Mendes Nasi, one of the richest women in Europe and an escapee from the Inquisition.

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.

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.

In response to Cypriot fears that the Jews would never leave (since they lacked a state or documentation) and because the 75,000 quota established by the 1939 White Paper had never been filled, the British allowed the refugees to enter Palestine at a rate of 750 per month.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[336] 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.

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.

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.

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.

[370] 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.

[376][377] 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.

[378][379] 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.

[381] 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.

[386] Following an escalation of rocket attacks by Hamas, Israel started Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza Strip on 8 July 2014,[387] which included a ground incursion aimed at destroying the cross-border tunnels.

[408] 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.

[411] On 1 April 2024, Israel's air strike on an Iranian consulate building in the Syrian capital Damascus killed an important senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Brig Gen Mohammad Reza Zahedi.