Assembled here are key sources that have shaped the modern Middle East, Zionism and Israel. We have included items that give texture, perspective and opinion to historical context. Many of these sources are mentioned in the Era summaries and contain explanatory introductions.
With the British spending local revenue on strategic needs — ports, roads and communication systems — scant funds were devoted to education in the Mandate. Already baked into diasporic habits, the Jewish community raced forward in educating its own in Palestine to inculcate penetrating attachments to Palestine as the Jewish national home. Arab youth literacy ran in place, with separatist education contributing mightily to communal divisions, as occurred simultaneously in the economic and geospatial spheres.
The Declaration recounts the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel, the birth of Zionism and U.N. recognition of a Jewish state’s legitimacy. It also promises that the state will be a democracy for all its citizens.
With no constitution, citizen rights and government responsibilities are stated in 14 laws. The Judiciary is covered in the Seventh Basic Law, February 1984.
The findings of the Or Commission on the October 2000 clashes between Arab and Jewish Israelis provide context to the response of Arab citizens to the May 2021 Israeli-Palestinian fighting.
The most recent of Israel’s Basic Laws, the statutes enacted in place of a formal constitution, controversially asserts the Jewish nature of the state, even though almost a quarter of its citizens are not Jewish.
