The small country of Israel is located in the Middle East, about the size of New Jersey, next to Egypt and Jordan. It has many religious sites that are sacred for both Jews as well Muslims who live there too.
Its borders also border Lebanon which means it shares its ethnic background with those three countries, but they’re not all the same when you look at their cultures compared together.
Israel’s origins can be traced back to Abraham, who is considered the father of both Judaism and Islam. The descendants of Abraham, including his grandson Jacob are thought to have been enslaved by Egyptians for hundreds or possibly thousands upon their exit from Egypt. They settled in what is now known as Canaan which would later become Israel.
King David ruled the region around 1000 B.C. King Solomon, son of King David who became king built the first holy temple in ancient jerulesam. In about 931 B.CThe area was divided into two kingdoms: Israel in the north and Judah in the south.
The land that is now called Israel has seen a lot of conquerors over the centuries. In 722 Bc, an Assyrian empire invaded and destroyed what used to be the northern kingdom in ancient times- before it was replaced with another temple about 500 years later! Later on down through all these other cultures which included Persians, Greeks Romans & Arabs among others but most importantly when Jerusalem fell under Babylonian rule around 568 BC where they destruction triggered by destroying the first holy place at long last after refurbishing later known second Jewish temples.
From 1517 to 1917 much of the Middle East, along with what is today Israel, was ruled by the Ottoman Empire.
World War I changed the geopolitical landscape in Middle East. In 1917, at height of war and just before British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour submitted his letter supporting establishment for Jewish homeland in Palastine known thereafter as “Balfours Declaration”, Ottoman empire dissolved leading up too modern Israel’s independence which eventually led on into forth conflicts such us second Holocaust.
Britain was given control of what became known as Palestine in 1920 by an Allied victory in World War I. The 400-year Ottoman Empire rule ended with this war. Great Britain took control over what became known as Palestine (modern-day Israel, Palestine and Jordan).
The League of Nations approved The Balfour Declaration and the British mandate over Palestine in 1922.
In 1947, after World War II had ended and Britain gave up its control over Palestine to Zionists. The Jewish people were finally able to announce their independence as an independent nation-state with Jerusalem.
Jewish settlement in what is now called Israel began following the announcement of its independence. But five Arab nations immediately invaded, beginning what became known as The 1948 Arab-Israeli War–a civil war that would last until 1949 when an armistice agreement was signed by all sides involved with borders being established according to their desires at that time which included West Bank territory going over into Jordanian hands while Gaza remained Egyptian property.
