Frequently Asked Questions About Israel
(November 2001)
 What is Zionism?
Why is Israel a Jewish state?
Is Jerusalem Israel's capital?
What is the Law of Return and why does it exist?
Who is responsible for the Palestinian refugee problem?
What is the Holocaust?
What is antisemitism?
Is anti-Zionism different from antisemitism?
Why does Israel generally find itself outvoted in international forums?
How does Israel's legal system protect human rights and basic freedoms?
Where are Ron Arad and the other missing Israelis?
What is Zionism?
Zionism is the movement for the re-establishment of the Jewish people's self-determination in their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in Eretz Israel (the Land of Israel).
In 70 CE, the Romans destroyed the Temple and razed the city of Jerusalem, the religious and administrative capital of the Jewish people. Jewish independence came to an end, and in the decades that followed, most of the Jews in Eretz Israel were exiled. They never stopped hoping to return home, and expressed these yearnings in prayer and literature. At the end of the annual Passover meal, Jews all over the world repeat the vow Next year in Jerusalem, and at Jewish weddings the groom recites If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its cunning (Psalm 137).
The Jewish connection with Eretz Israel is not manifested in prayer alone. In fact, throughout history, there has always been a Jewish presence in Eretz Israel.
In the late nineteenth century, as national movements took shape in Europe and as antisemitism on that continent grew, an Austrian Jewish journalist, Theodor Herzl, began to organize the national movement of the Jewish people - the Zionist movement.. The goal of this movement was a political solution: an independent state for the Jewish people. The most natural place for this state was Zion, or Eretz Israel, the homeland of the Jewish people.
Herzl elaborated this vision in his book The Jewish State. He envisioned a developed, thriving country in which all inhabitants, Jews and non-Jews, would live in peace and tranquility. This vision and its fulfillment are Zionism.
Why is Israel a Jewish state?
Israel is a Jewish state with a large Arab minority. This minority, some 20 percent of the population, has equal rights under the law and enjoys all personal freedoms, including freedom of religion and worship.
However, the State of Israel is a Jewish state, established as the independent state of the Jewish people exercising the right of self-determination in the Land of Israel, its ancestral homeland.
Israel is also a Jewish state according to international undertakings and resolutions, including the Balfour Declaration, in which the British Government undertook to establish a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine; and UN Resolution 181 of November 29, 1947, in which the General Assembly resolved to terminate the British Mandate over Palestine (Eretz Israel) and to establish two states there, one Jewish and one Arab. The Jews accepted the resolution joyfully and, when the Mandate lapsed, David Ben-Gurion declared "the establishment of the Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel".
Israel's Declaration of Independence pledged to maintain a democratic Jewish state that would ensure equality irrespective of religion, race, sex, or nationality. This pledge has withstood the test of reality to this day.
Is Jerusalem Israel's capital?
Jerusalem is Israel's capital in every historical and practical sense.
King David made Jerusalem the capital of his Kingdom some three thousand years ago; and since then, Jerusalem has been the capital of every Jewish entity, until its destruction by the Romans in 70 CE.
Jewish independence was restored in 1948 with the establishment of the State of Israel, and Jerusalem was declared once more the capital of Israel. This decision, enshrined in a Basic Law (1980), has practical implications. Jerusalem is the seat of all the symbols of Israeli sovereignty: the President of the State, the Knesset, the Government, and the Supreme Court.
Most countries do not recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital; the reasons for this are political, and they ignore the basic right of every state to determine its capital. The State of Israel has exercised that right and determined, very naturally, that its capital is Jerusalem.
What is the Law of Return and why does it exist?
The Balfour Declaration of 1917 states that His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. On the basis of this statement, the League of Nations gave Britain a Mandate for Palestine in 1922.
The British Mandate was terminated pursuant to UN General Assembly Resolution 181, adopted in November 1947. This resolution also stipulated the establishment of two states, one Jewish and the other Arab, in the territory of the Mandate. The Arabs rejected the resolution, attempted to prevent its implementation, and launched a war, in the course of which David Ben-Gurion declared "the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel".
The Declaration of Independence states explicitly that the State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles."
The Law of Return established the right of every Jew to settle in Israel, and therefore every Jew in exile is entitled to return to his/her historical homeland and be naturalized in it. The law does not discriminate against non-Jewish citizens of Israel because it does not deal with citizens of Israel. The law also does not prevent persons of non-Jewish origin from being naturalized in Israel; this possibility is available under other laws.
Who is responsible for the Palestinian refugee problem?
The Palestinian refugee problem has been a difficult social and humanitarian issue in the Middle East for over 50 years. The immediate cause of the problem was the Arabs' rejection in 1947 of UN General Assembly Resolution 181 - which would have partitioned the British Mandate area into an Arab state and a Jewish state - and the resulting war started by the Arabs in the hope of destroying the nascent Israeli state. Many Palestinian Arabs who lived in areas where the fighting took place abandoned their homes, either at the request of Arab leaders, or due to fear of the fighting or the uncertainty of living under Jewish rule. A refugee problem would not have been created had this war not been forced upon Israel by the Arab countries and the local Arab leadership.
The Arab countries, with the sole exception of Jordan, have perpetuated the refugee problem to serve as a weapon in their struggle against Israel. The refugees continue to live in crowded camps, in poverty and despair. No attempt was made to integrate them into the various countries and communities in the region. Hundreds of thousands of refugees remain today in a number of Arab countries with no political, economic or social rights.
The fate of the Palestinian refugees stands in sharp contrast to that of the many Jews who were forced to flee Arab countries in the wake of the establishment of the State of Israel, leaving behind a great deal of property for which they were not compensated. It should be remembered there was at least an equal number of Jewish refugees who left Arab countries as Palestinian refugees who fled Israel. These refugees were absorbed and rehabilitated as citizens with full rights within the State of Israel.
Sadly, during this period there were innumerable refugees fleeing wars and conflict in many parts of the world. Almost all of these were resettled and their lives rehabilitated. The sole exception remains the Palestinians, deliberately kept as refugees for political aims.
Israel does not bear responsibility for the creation or the perpetuation of the Palestinian refugee problem. Thus it cannot declare, even as a gesture, responsibility for the problem.
Although the Arab states originally rejected UN General Assembly Resolution 194 of December 1948, they now claim that this resolution offers the refugees a "right of return" to Israel. However, the relevant section of the resolution (paragraph 11) clearly does not recognize a right of return, but merely recommends that refugees should be permitted to return. Moreover, when referring to this resolution, a number of points should be remembered:
The resolution does not state that there is an unconditional "right" of return. On the contrary, it sets certain preconditions and limits for return, foremost among them that the refugees must be willing to live in peace with their neighbors.
The resolution specifically uses the general term "refugees" and not "Arab refugees", thereby indicating that the resolution is aimed at all refugees, both Jewish and Arab. It should be remembered that following the establishment of Israel in 1948, at least an equal number of Jewish residents of Arab states were forced to become refugees.
The resolution stipulates that compensation for refugees who chose not to return, or whose property was damaged or destroyed, should be provided "by the governments or authorities responsible". The demand for compensation does not specify Israel by name, and it is clear that the use of the plural (governments) precludes any Palestinian claim that implementation of the resolution should fall exclusively on Israel.
Resolution 194 aims at the achievement of a "final settlement of all questions outstanding" between the sides. Paragraph 11, which discusses the issue of return and compensation, is just one of 15 paragraphs in the resolution, and therefore cannot be implemented independently of the rest of the resolution, as the Arab states have always demanded.
General Assembly resolutions on political matters are not legally binding on the sides.
In summary, the Palestinians have selectively used elements of Resolution 194 that offer political and rhetorical benefits. At the same time, other material aspects of the issues involved have been ignored.
Under present demographic-geographic conditions, the influx of a large number of refugees into Israel is most certainly not practicable. Given that the present population of Israel is only 6.5 million (of whom approximately 20 percent are Arab Israelis), the influx of millions of Palestinians into the State of Israel would threaten the existence of Israel as a Jewish state.
Finally, in the course of the peace process, the Israelis and Palestinians themselves have agreed that the question of refugees, along with other issues, could be considered as part of a permanent settlement between the sides. Israel stands by this commitment. It is, thus, inappropriate for this issue to be raised in other forums.
What is the Holocaust?
In 1933, Adolf Hitler acceded to power in Germany and established a racist National Socialist regime. This regime was based on the Nazi racial doctrine, according to which "Aryan" Germans belong to the master race', while Jews are deemed to be Untermenschen - sub-humans, not part of the human race.
In 1939, the German army invaded Poland and thereby instigated World War II. A series of easy victories at the beginning of the war gave Hitler the opportunity to implement his ideas. He began the annihilation of the Jewish people, mainly on Polish soil, where the largest concentration of Jews in Europe lived. Documents uncovered after the war show that his aim was to exterminate every Jew in the world. To carry out his plan, his forces concentrated the Jews in ghettos; established labor, concentration, and extermination camps and transported Jews to these facilities; those deemed unfit for labor were exterminated; most of the others died of starvation and disease.
During the six years of the war, some 6,000,000 Jews - including 1,500,000 children - were murdered by the Nazis, about one-third of the Jewish people at the time. This deliberate annihilation of the Jews, carried out with chilling efficiency, was much more than an act of genocide. It was unique in scale, management and implementation. It attempted to destroy an entire people wherever they could be found. For these reasons it was given a name of its own: the Holocaust.
Less than fifty years later, racist neo-Nazi and antisemitic groups have been attempting to deny that the Holocaust took place, or to claim that its scale was much smaller. There are various reasons for this, mainly political and antisemitic. Some wish to cleanse Nazism of its blight; others believe the State of Israel was established to compensate the Jews for the Holocaust and by denying that it took place, seek to deprive Israel of its right to exist. This is why Holocaust deniers have much support in Arab countries.
But the Holocaust did happen, and by remembering, documenting and commemorating it we ensure that the world will not allow anything like it ever to happen again to Jews or any other people on earth.
Holocaust denial is a moral abomination and an existential threat to the whole world.
What is antisemitism?
"Antisemitism" is the name given to the form of racism practiced against the Jewish people. Though the literal interpretation of antisemitism would appear to denote hostility to all Semitic peoples, this is a fallacy. The term was originally coined in Germany in 1879 to describe the European anti-Jewish campaigns of that era, and it soon came to define the persecution or discrimination against Jews throughout the ages.
Hatred of the Jewish people is an age-old phenomenon, traditionally associated with expressions of xenophobia and religious intolerance. A different type of antisemitism can characterize each period of history. In modern times the roots of the problem can be found in the development of nationalistic, economic, social and racial ideologies combined with the completion of the emancipation process of the Jews in Western and Central Europe.
Antisemitism precipitated the Holocaust; during World War II over 6 million Jews, one third of the world Jewish population, were brutally murdered.
Modern antisemitism in Europe, after being repressed for decades, has erupted with greater fury in recent years in a new form: "anti-Zionism", or hatred of the State of Israel. This hatred is also a major factor in the severe antisemitism that exists in Arab countries today.
Is anti-Zionism different from antisemitism?
Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people - an expression of their legitimate aspiration to self-determination and national independence. The Zionist movement was founded to provide an ancient people with a sovereign state of its own in its ancestral homeland. Israel is the modern political embodiment of this age-old dream.
The goal of anti-Zionism is to undermine the legitimacy of Israel, thereby denying the Jewish people their place in the community of nations. Denigration of Zionism is therefore an attack on Israel's basic right to exist as a nation equal to all other nations, in violation of one of the fundamental principles of international law.
Just as antisemitism denies Jews their rights as individuals in society, anti-Zionism attacks the Jewish people as a nation, on the international level. Similar to the use of "the Jew" as a scapegoat for many a society's problems, Israel has been singled out for special condemnation in the international arena.
Moreover, it is no coincidence that the recent censure of Israel in international forums and the media has been accompanied by a sharp increase in antisemitic incidents in many parts of the world.
Anti-Zionism is often manifested as attacks on Israel in the United Nations and other international forums. Over the years, almost every meeting and every event of the international community has been exploited as an opportunity to condemn Israel - no matter what the subject matter, no matter how tenuous the tie to the conflict in the Middle East.
As a nation dedicated to the principles of democracy, Israel believes that criticism, whether by other nations or our own people, is a powerful force for positive change. However, there is a clear distinction between legitimate calls for improvement and the attempt to delegitimize Israel by consistently singling it out and holding it up to standards not applied to other states - all this while ignoring the context in which Israel must strive to survive in the face of violent attacks against its citizens and, all too often, against its very existence.
Why does Israel generally find itself outvoted in international forums?
The State of Israel is part of the family of nations and an active participant in international organizations.
Israel joined the United Nations (UN) as its 59th member on 11 May 1949. Since then, it has participated in a wide range of UN activities and has endeavored to make its full contribution to UN organs and international agencies devoted to health, development, labor, food and agriculture, education and science. Israel plays an active role in the work of non-governmental organizations conducted under UN auspices, which deal with issues ranging from aviation to immigration, from communications to meteorology, from trade to the status of women.
Some UN resolutions have been of crucial significance for Israel, among them Security Council Resolutions 242 (22 November 1967) and 338 (22 October 1973), providing an agreed framework for settling the Arab-Israel conflict.
Over the years, the UN has been active in bringing about a cessation of hostilities between Israel and its Arab neighbors by appointing mediators, extending UN auspices to cease-fire and armistice agreements, and stationing UN forces between the adversaries.
At the same time, however, the UN has been turned into a partisan battleground in the ongoing political campaign carried out against Israel by its adversaries in the region. The 21 Arab states, with the aid of Islamic countries and the non-aligned camp, constitute a sympathetic automatic majority' for these hostile initiatives, assuring the adoption of anti-Israel resolutions in the General Assembly and other UN forums.
Since the end of the Cold War and with the momentum gained in the Middle East peace process, a somewhat more balanced approach began to be felt in General Assembly resolutions regarding the Middle East. The General Assembly's 1991 repudiation of the infamous Zionism is Racism' resolution is one such example. Israel has also been allowed to increase its involvement in United Nations activities, due to its recent limited, though long-denied, acceptance into a regional group. The current outbreak of Palestinian violence has, however, threatened to reverse this trend, as the Palestinian leadership seeks to exploit the politically motivated unrest for its own advantage in the international arena.
How does Israel's legal system protect human rights and basic freedoms?
The Declaration of Independence (May 1948) states that the State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
Though the Declaration is not legally binding, it is expressed in the Supreme Court's interpretation of laws. It is a task of this court, the watchdog of Israeli democracy, to safeguard human and civil rights.
On attaining independence (1948), the Knesset (Israel's parliament) passed the Law and Administration Ordinance, which stipulates that the laws prevailing in the country prior to statehood would remain in force, insofar as they did not contradict the principles embodied in the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, or would not conflict with laws to be enacted by the Knesset. Thus the legal system includes remnants of Ottoman law (in force until 1917), British Mandate laws, which incorporate a large body of English common law, elements of Jewish religious law and some aspects of other systems. However, the dominant characteristic of the legal system is the large body of the uniquely Israeli independent statutory and case law that has been evolving since 1948.
Israel's constitutional system is based on two fundamental tenets: that the State is democratic and that it is also Jewish. These principles are rooted in the 1948 Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, which also established Israel's commitment to guarantee equal social and political rights to all its citizens, irrespective of religion, race or ethnic background. Although the Declaration is not a binding constitutional document, the 1992 Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty explicitly provides that the human rights it articulates shall be interpreted "in the spirit of the principles in the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel" and that the purpose of the Basic Law is to establish "the values of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state".
Following the establishment of the State, the Knesset was empowered to enact a series of basic laws relating to all aspects of life, which would eventually be brought together to form a formal written constitution. Most chapters have already been passed as Basic Laws outlining the fundamental features of government such as the President, the Knesset, the Government, the Judicature, the Israel Defense Forces, the State Comptroller, Freedom of Occupation (dealing with the right to follow the vocation of one's choosing) and Human Dignity and Liberty, which addresses protections against violation of a person's life, body or dignity. The normative superiority of Basic Laws over ordinary legislation was confirmed in 1995, when the Supreme Court assumed the power of judicial review of Knesset legislation violating a Basic Law.
The Basic Laws so far enacted are:
The Knesset (1958)
State Lands (1960)
The President (1964)
The Government (1968)
The State Economy (1975)
Israel Defense Forces (1976)
Jerusalem (1980)
The Judiciary (1984)
The State Comptroller (1988)
Human Dignity and Liberty (1992)
Freedom of Occupation (1992)
At present, the drafts of three additional basic laws - namely, Due Process Rights, Social Rights and Freedom of Expression and Association - are being circulated prior to submission to the Ministerial Committee on Legislation.
In the absence of a formal Bill of Rights, the Supreme Court has largely contributed to the protection of civil liberties and the rule of law. In addition to the Basic Laws, a body of case law has developed over the years, through Supreme Court rulings which protect civil liberties, including freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, and equality as fundamental values of Israel's legal system. In its capacity as a High Court of Justice and acting as the court of first and last instance, the Supreme Court also hears petitions brought by individuals appealing for redress against any government body or agent. These petitions play an important role in guaranteeing individual human rights for both Israeli citizens and Palestinians.
The Supreme Court developed a principle according to which statutes should be interpreted in a manner which presumes that the legislature has, generally speaking, no intention to curtail liberties or to empower other public authorities to do so. In practice this is a very strong presumption which enables the court to modify the ordinary meaning of statutory provisions and to make them consistent with the concept of civil liberties. As a result, Israelis enjoy the same civil liberties as citizens of other Western democracies.
Where are Ron Arad and the other missing Israelis?
According to Laws of War, the Red Cross is to be given access to prisoners of war. This principle is violated when it comes to the Israeli soldiers held in captivity in Lebanon.
There are at present four Israeli soldiers missing in action: Staff Sgt. Zecharya Baumel, Staff Sgt. Zvi Feldman and Staff Sgt. Yehuda Katz, missing since 11 June 1982, in a battle at Sultan Ya`qub, in Lebanon; and Major Ron Arad, who was captured on 16 October 1986, after his aircraft was shot down near Sidon, Lebanon. He was initially held by Amal (a Shi'ite terrorist organization); however his subsequent fate is still unknown.
There are also four Israelis held in captivity by the Hizbullah: on Saturday, 7 October 2000, three IDF Soldiers - Staff Sgt. Omar Souad, (from the village of Salama, in northern Israel), Staff Sgt. Binyamin Avraham (of Bnei Brak), and Staff Sgt. Adi Avital (of Tiberias) - were abducted by Hizbullah terrorists while on patrol along the UN-recognized Israeli-Lebanese border. On October 16, 2000, the Hizbullah announced that they were holding an Israeli citizen, Elhanan Tenenboim. As far as we know, Tenenboim (a businessman) was abducted while on a private business trip to Europe.
Over a year after the kidnapping of Tenenboim, Souad, Avraham and Avital, 15 years after Ron Arad was captured and over 19 years after the disappearance of Baumel, Feldman and Katz, they are all still held in captivity or missing. Their captors have denied the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and other parties permission to visit them and to learn at first hand about their state of health and the conditions in which they are held - a gross violation of international law, and contravening the most basic humanitarian principles. This despite the Government of Lebanon's responsibility for maintaining the rule of law within its borders. Israel appeals to the international community, the UN, the International Committee of the Red Cross and all those that respect and cherish basic principles of human rights to support the humanitarian efforts to obtain information about the missing and captive abducted Israelis, and to apply maximum pressure on the relevant governments, so that the ICRC representatives will be able to visit the Israelis held by the Hizbullah.
On 29 October 2001, the IDF announced that there is a high probability that the three soldiers who were abducted by the Hizbullah in October 2000 - St-Sgt. Adi Avitan, St-Sgt. Binyamin Avraham and St-Sgt. Omar Souad - are no longer alive.
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