Israel

Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. It is bordered by Lebanon to the north, Syria to the northeast, Jordan to the east, and Egypt to the southwest. Israel's western coast lies on the Mediterranean Sea, its southern tip reaches the Red Sea, and to the east is Earth's lowest point near the Dead Sea. Jerusalem is the government seat and proclaimed capital, while Tel Aviv is Israel's largest urban area and economic centre.

The Land of Israel, also called Palestine or the Holy Land, was home to the ancient Canaanites and later the kingdoms of Israel and Judah and Hasmonean Judea. Located near continental crossroads, its demographics shifted under various empires. 19th-century European antisemitism fuelled the Zionist movement for a Jewish homeland, which gained British support with the 1917 Balfour Declaration. After World War I, Britain occupied the region and established Mandatory Palestine. British rule and Jewish immigration in the leadup to the Holocaust intensified Arab-Jewish tensions, which escalated into a civil war after the 1947 United Nations (UN) Partition Plan.

Israel declared independence as the British Mandate ended on 14 May 1948, followed by an invasion by Arab states. The 1949 armistice expanded Israel beyond the UN plan, while no new Arab state was created, leaving Gaza under Egyptian control and the West Bank ruled by Jordan. Most Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled during the Nakba, while Israeli independence prompted antisemitism in the Arab world and Jewish exodus therefrom, mainly to Israel. After the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza and Egyptian Sinai, and annexed East Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights. Peace treaties were signed with Egypt in 1979 (the Sinai being returned in 1982) and Jordan in 1994. The 1993 Oslo Accords introduced limited Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza, while the 2020 Abraham Accords normalised ties with more Arab states, but the Israeli–Palestinian conflict persists. Israel's illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories has drawn international criticism, with experts calling its actions war crimes and crimes against humanity. After the Hamas-led October 7 attacks, Israel began committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Israel and its allies, including the United States, deny that Israel's actions constitute genocide.

The Basic Laws of Israel establish the Knesset as a proportionally elected parliament. It shapes the government, led by the prime minister, and elects the largely ceremonial president. Israel has one of the Middle East's largest economies, one of Asia's highest living standards, and globally ranks 25th in nominal GDP and 14th in nominal GDP per capita. One of the world's most technologically advanced countries, Israel allocates a larger share of its economy to research and development than any other state and is believed to possess nuclear weapons. The only country with a revived official language, Hebrew, the culture of Israel combines Jewish traditions with Arab influences.

Etymology

The names Land of Israel and Children of Israel have historically been used to refer to the biblical Kingdom of Israel and the entire Jewish people respectively. The name Israel (Hebrew: Yīsrāʾēl; Septuagint Ancient Greek: Ἰσραήλ, Israēl, "El (God) persists/rules") refers to the patriarch Jacob who, according to the Hebrew Bible, was given the name after he successfully wrestled with the Angel of the Lord. The earliest known archaeological artefact to mention the word Israel as a collective is the Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt (dated to the late-13th century BCE).

Under the British Mandate (1920–1948), the entire region was known as Palestine. Upon establishment in 1948, the country formally adopted the name State of Israel (Hebrew: מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, [mediˈnat jisʁaˈʔel]; Arabic: دَوْلَة إِسْرَائِيل, Dawlat Isrāʼīl, [dawlat ʔisraːˈʔiːl]) after other proposed names including Land of Israel (Eretz Israel), Ever (from ancestor Eber), Zion, and Judea, were considered but rejected. The name Israel was suggested by David Ben-Gurion and passed by a vote of 6–3. In the early weeks after establishment, the government chose the term Israeli to denote a citizen of the state.

History

Prehistory

The Ubeidiya prehistoric site in northern Israel shows the presence of archaic humans around 1.5 million years ago. The second-oldest evidence of anatomically modern humans outside Africa is a 200,000-year-old fossil from Misliya Cave on Mount Carmel. The Natufian culture (c. 10,000 BCE) may be linked to the Proto-Afroasiatic language and is notable for adopting sedentism before the advent of agriculture and the Neolithic Revolution.

Bronze and Iron Ages

Early references to "Canaan" and "Canaanites" appear in ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian texts (c. 2000 BCE); these populations were structured as politically independent city-states. During the Late Bronze Age (1550–1200 BCE), large parts of Canaan formed vassal states of the New Kingdom of Egypt. As a result of the Late Bronze Age collapse, Canaan fell into chaos, and Egyptian control over the region collapsed. Ancestors of the Israelites are thought to have included ancient Semitic-speaking peoples native to this area. Modern archaeological accounts suggest that the Israelites and their culture branched out of the Canaanite peoples through the settlement of the central highlands and the development of a distinct monolatristic—and later monotheistic—religion centered on Yahweh. They spoke an archaic form of Hebrew, known as Biblical Hebrew. Around the same time, the Philistines settled on the southern coastal plain.

Most modern scholars agree that the Exodus narrative in the Torah and Old Testament did not take place as depicted; however, some elements of these traditions do have historical roots. There is debate about the earliest existence of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah and their extent and power. While it is unclear if there was a United Kingdom of Israel, historians and archaeologists agree that the northern Kingdom of Israel existed by ca. 900 BCE and the Kingdom of Judah by ca. 850 BCE. The Kingdom of Israel was the more prosperous of the two and soon developed into a regional power, with a capital at Samaria; during the Omride dynasty, it controlled Samaria, Galilee, the upper Jordan Valley, the plain of Sharon and large parts of Transjordan. The Kingdom of Israel was conquered around 720 BCE by the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The Kingdom of Judah, under Davidic rule with its capital in Jerusalem, later became a client state of first the Neo-Assyrian Empire and then the Neo-Babylonian Empire. It is estimated that the region's population was around 400,000 in the Iron Age II. In 587/6 BCE, following a revolt in Judah, King Nebuchadnezzar II besieged and destroyed Jerusalem and Solomon's Temple, dissolved the kingdom and exiled much of the Judean elite to Babylon.

Classical antiquity

After capturing Babylon in 539 BCE, Cyrus the Great, founder of the Achaemenid Empire, issued a proclamation allowing the exiled Judean population to return. The construction of the Second Temple was completed c. 520 BCE. The Achaemenids ruled the region as the province of Yehud Medinata. In 332 BCE, Alexander the Great conquered the region as part of his campaign against the Achaemenid Empire. After his death, the area was controlled by the Ptolemaic and Seleucid empires as a part of Coele-Syria. Under the Hellenistic kingdoms, ongoing Hellenisation generated cultural tensions among the Jewish population that culminated under Antiochus IV, whose decrees outlawed Jewish practices and triggered the Maccabean Revolt in 167 BCE. The revolt weakened Seleucid control over Judea; by 142/141 BCE the Hasmoneans had secured autonomy and soon established an independent Jewish kingdom that, in the late 2nd–early 1st century BCE, expanded into neighbouring territories. The Hasmonean civil war ended with the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 63 BCE.

In 37 BCE, Herod the Great was installed as a dynastic vassal of Rome following the Roman–Parthian Wars. In 6 CE, the area was annexed as the Roman province of Judaea; tensions with Roman rule led to a series of Jewish–Roman wars, resulting in widespread destruction. The First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE) resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple and a sizable portion of the population being killed or displaced. A second uprising known as the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE) initially allowed the Jews to form an independent state, but the Romans brutally crushed the rebellion, devastating and depopulating Judea's countryside. Jerusalem was rebuilt as a Roman colony (Aelia Capitolina), and the province of Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina. Jews were expelled from the districts surrounding Jerusalem. Nevertheless, there was a continuous small Jewish presence, and Galilee became its religious center.

Late antiquity and the medieval period

During the Byzantine period, Early Christianity displaced Roman paganism in the 4th century CE, with Constantine embracing and promoting the Christian religion and Theodosius I making it the state religion. A series of laws were passed that discriminated against Jews and Judaism, and Jews were persecuted by both the church and the authorities. Many Jews had emigrated to flourishing diaspora communities, while locally there was both Christian immigration and local conversion. By the middle of the 5th century, there was a Christian majority. Towards the end of the 5th century, Samaritan revolts erupted, continuing until the late 6th century and resulting in a large decrease in the Samaritan population. After the Sasanian conquest of Jerusalem and the short-lived Jewish revolt against Heraclius in 614 CE, the Byzantine Empire reconsolidated control of the area in 628.

In 634–641 CE, the Rashidun Caliphate conquered the Levant. Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab (r. 634–644) lifted the Christian ban on Jews entering Jerusalem and permitted them to worship there. Over the next six centuries, control of the region transferred between the Umayyad, Abbasid, and Fatimid caliphates, and subsequently the Seljuk and Ayyubid dynasties. The population drastically decreased during the following several centuries, dropping from an estimated 1 million during Roman and Byzantine periods to about 300,000 by the early Ottoman period, and there was steady Arabisation and Islamisation. The end of the 11th century brought the Crusades, papally-sanctioned incursions of Christian crusaders intent on wresting Jerusalem and the Holy Land from Muslim control and establishing crusader states. The Ayyubids pushed back the crusaders before Muslim rule was fully restored by the Mamluk sultans of Egypt in 1291.

Modern period and the emergence of Zionism

In 1516, the Ottoman Empire conquered the region and ruled it as part of Ottoman Syria. Two violent incidents took place against Jews, the 1517 Safed attacks and the 1517 Hebron attacks, after the Turkish Ottomans ousted the Mamluks during the Ottoman–Mamluk War. Under the Ottoman Empire, the Levant was fairly cosmopolitan, with religious freedoms for Christians, Muslims, and Jews. In 1561 the Ottoman sultan invited Sephardic Jews escaping the Spanish Inquisition to settle in and rebuild the city of Tiberias.

Under the Ottoman Empire's millet system, Christians and Jews were considered dhimmi ("protected") under Ottoman law in exchange for loyalty to the state and payment of the jizya tax. Non-Muslim Ottoman subjects faced geographic and lifestyle restrictions, though these were not always enforced. The millet system organised non-Muslims into autonomous communities on the basis of religion.

The concept of an eventual return to Zion remained a symbol within religious Jewish belief which emphasised that their return should be determined by Divine Providence rather than human action. The Jewish population of Palestine from the Ottoman rule to the beginning of the Zionist movement, known as the Old Yishuv, comprised a minority and fluctuated in size. During the 16th century, Jewish communities struck roots in the Four Holy Cities—Jerusalem, Tiberias, Hebron, and Safed—and in 1697, Rabbi Yehuda Hachasid led 1,500 Jews to Jerusalem. A 1660 Druze revolt against the Ottomans destroyed Safed and Tiberias. In the second half of the 18th century, Eastern European Jews who were opponents of Hasidism, known as the Perushim, settled in Palestine.

In the late 18th century, local Arab Sheikh Daher al-Umar created a de facto independent emirate in the Galilee. Ottoman attempts to subdue the sheikh failed. After Daher's death the Ottomans regained control of the area. In 1799, governor Jazzar Pasha repelled an assault on Acre by Napoleon's troops, prompting the French to abandon the Syrian campaign. In 1834, a revolt by Palestinian Arab peasants against Egyptian conscription and taxation policies under Muhammad Ali was suppressed; Muhammad Ali's army retreated and Ottoman rule was restored with British support in 1840. The Tanzimat reforms were implemented across the Ottoman Empire.

The first wave of modern Jewish migration to Ottoman-ruled Palestine, known as the First Aliyah, began in 1881, as Jews fled pogroms in Eastern Europe. The 1882 May Laws increased economic discrimination against Jews, and restricted where they could live. Antisemitism, pogroms and official policies in tsarist Russia led to the emigration of three million Jews in the years between 1882 and 1914, only 1% of whom went to Palestine. Those who went to Palestine were driven primarily by ideas of self-determination and Jewish identity, rather than as a response to pogroms or economic insecurity. Zionism emerged during this time as a political movement to reestablish a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The revival of the Hebrew language, during which Hebrew was adapted for modern use and gradually became the primary language of Jews in Palestine, also began.

The Second Aliyah (1904–1914) began after the Kishinev pogrom; some 40,000 Jews settled in Palestine, although nearly half left eventually. Both the first and second waves of migrants were mainly Orthodox Jews. The Second Aliyah included Zionist socialist groups who established the kibbutz movement based on the idea of establishing a separate Jewish economy based exclusively on Jewish labour. Those of the Second Aliyah who became leaders of the Yishuv in the coming decades believed that the Jewish settler economy should not depend on Arab labour. This would be a dominant source of antagonism with the Arab population, with the new Yishuv's nationalist ideology overpowering its socialist one. Though the immigrants of the Second Aliyah largely sought to create communal Jewish agricultural settlements, Tel Aviv was established as the first planned Jewish town in 1909. Jewish armed militias emerged during this period, the first being Bar-Giora in 1907. Two years later, the larger Hashomer organisation was founded as its replacement.

British Mandate for Palestine

Chaim Weizmann's efforts to garner British support for the Zionist movement eventually secured the Balfour Declaration of 1917, stating Britain's support for the creation of a Jewish "national home" in Palestine. Weizmann's interpretation of the declaration was that negotiations on the future of the country were to happen directly between Britain and the Jews, excluding Arabs. Jewish-Arab relations in Palestine deteriorated dramatically in the following years.

In 1918, the Jewish Legion, primarily Zionist volunteers, assisted in the British conquest of Palestine. In 1920, the territory was divided between Britain and France under the mandate system, and the British-administered area (including modern Israel) was named Mandatory Palestine. Arab opposition to British rule and Jewish immigration led to the 1920 Palestine riots and the formation of a Jewish militia known as the Haganah as an outgrowth of Hashomer, from which the Irgun and Lehi paramilitaries later split. In 1922, the League of Nations granted Britain the Mandate for Palestine under terms which included the Balfour Declaration with its promise to the Jews and with similar provisions regarding the Arab Palestinians. The population of the area was predominantly Arab and Muslim, with Jews accounting for about 11% and Arab Christians about 9.5% of the population.

The Third (1919–1923) and Fourth Aliyahs (1924–1929) brought an additional 100,000 Jews to Palestine. The rise of Nazism and the increasing persecution of Jews in 1930s Europe led to the Fifth Aliyah, with an influx of a quarter of a million Jews. This was a major cause of the Arab revolt of 1936–39, which was suppressed by British security forces and Zionist militias. Several hundred British security personnel and Jews were killed; 5,032 Arabs were killed, 14,760 wounded, and 12,622 detained. An estimated ten per cent of the adult male Palestinian Arab population was killed, wounded, imprisoned, or exiled.

The British introduced restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine with the White Paper of 1939. With countries around the world turning away Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust, a clandestine movement known as Aliyah Bet was organised to bring Jews to Palestine. During World War II, Palestine was repeatedly bombed by Axis aircraft, causing casualties among both Jews and Arabs. About 30,000 Jews from Palestine served in the British military during the war, of whom around 700 were killed. Some 12,000 Palestinian Arabs also served in the British military during the war. At the end of the war, about 31% of the population of Palestine was Jewish. The UK found itself facing a Jewish insurgency over immigration restrictions from 1944, which intensified following the end of the war, and continued conflict with the Arab community over limit levels. The Haganah joined Irgun and Lehi in an armed struggle against British rule. The Haganah attempted to bring tens of thousands of Jewish refugees and Holocaust survivors to Palestine by ship. Most of the ships were intercepted by the Royal Navy and the refugees placed in detention camps in Atlit and Cyprus.

On 22 July 1946, Irgun bombed the British administrative headquarters for Palestine, killing 91. The attack was a response to Operation Agatha (a series of raids, including one on the Jewish Agency, by the British) and was the deadliest directed at the British during the Mandate era. The Jewish insurgency continued throughout 1946 and 1947 despite concerted efforts by the British military and Palestine Police Force to suppress it.

British efforts to mediate with Jewish and Arab representatives were not successful as the Jews were unwilling to accept any solution that did not involve a Jewish state and suggested a partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, while the Arabs were adamant that a Jewish state in any part of Palestine was unacceptable and that the only solution was a unified Palestine under Arab rule. In February 1947, the British referred the Palestine issue to the newly formed United Nations. On 15 May 1947, the UN General Assembly resolved that a Special Committee be created "to prepare ... a report on the question of Palestine". The Report of the Committee proposed a plan to replace the British Mandate with "an independent Arab State, an independent Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem [...] the last to be under an International Trusteeship System".

Meanwhile, the Jewish insurgency continued and peaked in July 1947, with a series of widespread guerrilla raids culminating in the Sergeants affair, in which the Irgun took two British sergeants hostage as attempted leverage against the planned execution of three Irgun operatives. After the executions were carried out, the Irgun killed the two British soldiers, hanged their bodies from trees, and left a booby trap at the scene which injured a British soldier. The incident caused widespread outrage in the UK. In September 1947, the British cabinet decided to evacuate Palestine as the Mandate was no longer tenable.

On 29 November 1947, the General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 (II). The plan attached to the resolution was essentially that proposed in the report of 3 September. The Jewish Agency, the recognised representative of the Jewish community, accepted the plan, which assigned 55–56% of Mandatory Palestine to the Jews. At the time, the Jews were about a third of the population and owned around 6–7% of the land. Arabs constituted the majority and owned about 20% of the land, with the remainder held by the Mandate authorities or foreign landowners.

The Arab League and Arab Higher Committee of Palestine rejected the partition plan on the basis that the partition plan privileged European interests over those of the Palestinians, and indicated that they would reject any other plan of partition. On 1 December 1947, the Arab Higher Committee proclaimed a three-day strike, and riots broke out in Jerusalem. The situation spiralled into a civil war. Colonial Secretary Arthur Creech Jones announced that the British Mandate would end on 15 May 1948, at which point the British would evacuate. As Arab militias and gangs attacked Jewish areas, they were faced mainly by the Haganah as well as the smaller Irgun and Lehi. In April 1948, the Haganah moved onto the offensive.

Independence and early years

On 14 May 1948, the day before the expiration of the British Mandate, David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, declared "the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel". The following day, the armies of four Arab countries—Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, and Iraq—entered what had been Mandatory Palestine, launching the 1948 Arab–Israeli War; contingents from Yemen, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan joined the war. The purpose of the invasion was to prevent the establishment of the Jewish state. The Arab League stated the invasion was to restore order and prevent further bloodshed.

After a year of fighting, a ceasefire was declared and temporary borders, known as the Green Line, were established. Jordan annexed what became known as the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip. Over 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled by Zionist militias and the Israeli military—what would become known in Arabic as the Nakba ('catastrophe'). The events also led to the destruction of most of Palestine's Arab culture, identity, and national aspirations. Some 156,000 Arabs remained and became Arab citizens of Israel.

By United Nations General Assembly Resolution 273, Israel was admitted as a member of the UN on 11 May 1949. In the early years of the state, the Labour Zionist movement led by Prime Minister Ben-Gurion dominated Israeli politics. Immigration to Israel during the late 1940s and early 1950s was aided by the Israeli Immigration Department and the non-government sponsored Mossad LeAliyah Bet (lit. "Institute for Immigration B"). The latter engaged in clandestine operations in countries, particularly in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, where the lives of Jews were in danger and exit was difficult. Mossad LeAliyah Bet was disbanded in 1953. The immigration was in accordance with the One Million Plan. Some immigrants held Zionist beliefs or came for the promise of a better life, while others moved to escape persecution or were expelled from their homes.

An influx of Holocaust survivors and Jews from Arab and Muslim countries to Israel during the first three years increased the number of Jews from 700,000 to 1,400,000. By 1958, the population had risen to two million. Between 1948 and 1970, approximately 1,150,000 Jewish refugees relocated to Israel. Some immigrants arrived as refugees and were housed in temporary camps known as ma'abarot; by 1952, over 200,000 people were living in these tent cities. Jews of European background were often treated more favourably than Jews from Middle Eastern and North African countries—housing units reserved for the latter were often re-designated for the former, so Jews newly arrived from Arab lands generally ended up staying longer in transit camps. During this period, food, clothes and furniture were rationed in what became known as the austerity period. The need to solve the crisis led Ben-Gurion to sign a reparations agreement with West Germany that triggered mass protests by Jews angered at the idea that Israel could accept monetary compensation for the Holocaust.

Arab–Israeli conflict

There were further expulsions of Palestinians after the establishment of Israel. During the 1950s, Israel was frequently attacked by Palestinian fedayeen, nearly always against civilians, mainly from the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip, leading to several Israeli reprisal operations. In 1956, the UK and France aimed at regaining control of the Suez Canal, which Egypt had nationalised. The continued blockade of the Suez Canal and Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, together with increasing fedayeen attacks against Israel's southern population and recent Arab threatening statements, prompted Israel to attack Egypt. Israel joined a secret alliance with the UK and France and overran the Sinai Peninsula in the Suez Crisis but was pressured to withdraw by the UN in return for guarantees of Israeli shipping rights. The war resulted in significant reduction of Israeli border infiltration.

In the early 1960s, Israel captured Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Argentina and brought him to Israel for trial. Eichmann remains the only person executed in Israel by conviction in an Israeli civilian court. In 1963, Israel was engaged in a diplomatic standoff with the United States in relation to the Israeli nuclear programme.

Since 1964 Arab countries, concerned over Israeli plans to divert waters of the Jordan River into the coastal plain, had been trying to divert the headwaters to deprive Israel of water resources, provoking tensions between Israel on the one hand, and Syria and Lebanon on the other. Arab nationalists led by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser refused to recognise Israel and called for its destruction. By 1966, Israeli-Arab relations had deteriorated to the point of battles taking place between Israeli and Arab forces.

In May 1967, Egypt massed its army near the border with Israel, expelled UN peacekeepers stationed in the Sinai Peninsula since 1957, and blocked Israel's access to the Red Sea. Other Arab states mobilised their forces. Israel reiterated that these actions were a casus belli and launched a pre-emptive strike (Operation Focus) against Egypt in June. Jordan, Syria and Iraq attacked Israel.

In the ensuing Six-Day War, Israel captured and occupied the West Bank from Jordan, the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria. Israeli forces expelled ~300,000 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Jerusalem's boundaries were enlarged, incorporating East Jerusalem. The 1949 Green Line became the administrative boundary between Israel and the occupied territories.

Following the 1967 war and the "Three Nos" resolution of the Arab League, Israel faced attacks from the Egyptians in the Sinai Peninsula during the 1967–1970 War of Attrition, and from Palestinian groups targeting Israelis in the occupied territories, globally, and in Israel. Most important among the Palestinian and Arab groups was the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), established in 1964, which initially committed itself to "armed struggle as the only way to liberate the homeland". In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Palestinian groups launched attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets around the world, including a massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. The Israeli government responded with an assassination campaign against the organisers of the massacre, a bombing and a raid on the PLO headquarters in Lebanon.

On 6 October 1973, the Egyptian and Syrian armies launched a surprise attack against Israeli forces in the Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights, opening the Yom Kippur War. The war ended on 25 October with Israel repelling Egyptian and Syrian forces but suffering great losses. An internal inquiry exonerated the government of responsibility for failures before and during the war, but public anger forced Prime Minister Golda Meir to resign. On 27 June 1976, Air France Flight 139 was hijacked in flight from Israel to France by Palestinian guerrillas; Israeli commandos rescued 102 of 106 Israeli hostages days later.

Peace process

The 1977 Knesset elections marked a major turning point in Israeli political history as Menachem Begin's Likud party took control from the Labor Party. Later that year, Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat made a trip to Israel and spoke before the Knesset in what was the first recognition of Israel by an Arab head of state. Sadat and Begin signed the Camp David Accords (1978) and the Egypt–Israel peace treaty (1979). In return, Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula and agreed to enter negotiations over autonomy for Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

On 11 March 1978, a PLO guerilla raid from Lebanon led to the Coastal Road massacre. Israel responded by launching an invasion of southern Lebanon to destroy PLO bases. Begin's government meanwhile provided incentives for Israelis to settle in the occupied West Bank, increasing friction with the Palestinians there.

The 1980 Jerusalem Law was believed by some to reaffirm Israel's 1967 annexation of Jerusalem by government decree and reignited international controversy over the status of the city. No Israeli legislation has defined the territory of Israel, and no act specifically included East Jerusalem therein. In 1981 Israel effectively annexed the Golan Heights. The international community largely rejected these moves, with the UN Security Council declaring both the Jerusalem Law and the Golan Heights Law null and void. Several waves of Ethiopian Jews immigrated to Israel since the 1980s, while between 1990 and 1994, immigration from the post-Soviet states increased Israel's population by twelve per cent.

On 7 June 1981, during the Iran–Iraq War, the Israeli air force destroyed Iraq's sole nuclear reactor, then under construction, in order to impede the Iraqi nuclear weapons programme. Following a series of PLO attacks in 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon to destroy the PLO bases. In the first six days, Israel destroyed the military forces of the PLO in Lebanon and decisively defeated the Syrians. An Israeli government inquiry (the Kahan Commission) held Begin and several Israeli generals indirectly responsible for the Sabra and Shatila massacre and held defence minister Ariel Sharon as bearing "personal responsibility". Sharon was forced to resign.

In 1985, Israel responded to a Palestinian terrorist attack in Cyprus by bombing the PLO headquarters in Tunisia. Israel withdrew from most of Lebanon in 1986 but continued to occupy a borderland buffer zone in southern Lebanon until 2000, from where Israeli forces engaged in conflict with Hezbollah. The First Intifada, a Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule, broke out in 1987, with waves of uncoordinated demonstrations and violence in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. Over the following six years, the intifada became more organised and included economic and cultural measures aimed at disrupting the Israeli occupation. Over 1,000 people were killed. During the 1991 Gulf War, the PLO supported Saddam Hussein and Iraqi missile attacks against Israel. Despite public outrage, Israel heeded American calls to refrain from hitting back.

In 1992, Yitzhak Rabin became prime minister following an election in which his party called for compromise with Israel's neighbours. The following year, Shimon Peres on behalf of Israel and Yasser Arafat for the PLO signed the Oslo Accords, which gave the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) the right to govern parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The PLO also recognised Israel's right to exist and pledged an end to terrorism. In 1994, the Israel–Jordan peace treaty was signed, making Jordan the second Arab country to normalise relations with Israel. Arab public support for the Accords was damaged by the continuation of Israeli settlements and checkpoints, and the deterioration of economic conditions. Israeli public support for the Accords waned after Palestinian suicide attacks. In November 1995, Rabin was assassinated by Yigal Amir, a far-right Jew who opposed the Accords.

During Benjamin Netanyahu's premiership at the end of the 1990s, Israel agreed to withdraw from Hebron, though this was never ratified or implemented, and he signed the Wye River Memorandum. The agreement dealt with further redeployments in the West Bank and security issues. The memorandum was criticised by major international human rights organisations for its "encouragement" of human rights abuses.

Ehud Barak, elected prime minister in 1999, withdrew forces from southern Lebanon and conducted negotiations with PNA Chairman Yasser Arafat and U.S. President Bill Clinton at the 2000 Camp David Summit. Barak offered a plan for the establishment of a Palestinian state, including the entirety of the Gaza Strip and over 90% of the West Bank with Jerusalem as a shared capital. Each side blamed the other for the failure of the talks.

21st century

In late 2000, after a controversial visit by Sharon to the Temple Mount, the Second Intifada began. The popular uprising faced disproportionate repression from the Israeli state. Palestinian suicide bombings eventually developed into a recurrent feature of the intifada. Some commentators contend that the intifada was pre-planned by Arafat after the collapse of peace talks. Sharon became prime minister in a 2001 election; he carried out his plan to unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip and spearheaded the construction of the West Bank barrier, ending the intifada. Between 2000 and 2008, 1,063 Israelis, 5,517 Palestinians and 64 foreign citizens were killed.