Israel

Israel (the State of Israel) is a country in the Middle East. It shares land borders with the following states: Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt and with the Palestinian Authority. In April 2015, Israel had a population of 8.345 million people, of whom about 75% are Jewish, 21% are Arab or Druze (including 17% Muslims, 2% Christians, and 1.5% Druze), and about 4% are classified as other. Israel declared independence in 1948 and has since been almost continuously engaged in numerous military confrontations with its neighbors. Belligerence has thus become pivotal to the formation of the collective identity of the Israeli population. Wars and conflicts have changed the Israeli geographical boundaries as well as its ethnonational composition and have had a tremendous social and cultural ...