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.
June 3, 2018 As of December 2024, Amos Oz’s last speech, “The Whole Reckoning Is Not Over Yet,” has been translated from Hebrew into Spanish, French, Italian, German, and Dutch and published as a book…
During the May 2021 Israeli-Palestinian clashes, Arab citizens of Israel clashed with Jewish Israelis. By comparison in October 2000, similar clashes were longer, more intense with similar underlying causation. Read the context with the findings of the Or Commission that investigated them.
Passed on December 30, 1968, Israeli state commissions of inquiry are panels appointed to investigate matters of public concern and state interest. These independent bodies are among Israeli democracy’s most trusted institutions. However, there is no requirement on the part of any sitting government to appoint a commission of inquiry.
This draft spoke eloquently about protecting individual, religious, and civil rights for all. Instead individual civil rights in Israel were protected by a series of Basic Laws.
This four-page assessment notes multiple Jewish contributions to Palestine’s development: expansion of health care, advancement of agricultural methods, government revenue, industrial growth and Jewish building expansion. It notes that the Jewish economy has attracted Arab immigration to Palestine for jobs and the mushrooming of the Jewish education system from Jewish sources. Without saying so directly, its contents tout Jewish state building.
Zionists decide to hold the first international sports games in Tel Aviv bringing 400 Jewish athletes from 18 countries. The games open on March 28, 1932. Zionists value the games as a “possible awakening of youth in the Diaspora” to Zionism and the positive economic outcome for the Jewish community in Palestine.