Explainer: Turkey-Israel Relations
Turkish-Israeli relations have swung between friendship and hostility since Turkey became the first Muslim-majority country to recognize Israel in 1949.
Articles ranging from 250 to 1,500 words that provide a brief overview of a topic or answer a basic question related to the modern State of Israel.
Explainer: A Short History of Hamas
Updated January 5, 2026; originally posted October 2023. By Ken Stein Hamas’ Origins The 1988 Hamas Charter and remarks by its leaders and other publications express hatred of Zionism, Israel and Jews. It is thus unmistakable that Hamas…
Explainer: Three Jewish States or Commonwealths, 1030 B.C.E.-Present
The First Commonwealth: Kingdom of Israel/the United Monarchy (circa 1030-930 B.C.E.) under Kings Saul, David and Solomon. The monarchy split into two kingdoms in 930 B.C.E. The northern Kingdom of Israel endured until 722 B.C.E., when…
Explainer: UN General Assembly Resolution 181 — Partition Plan to Create Arab and Jewish States With an Economic Union and Special Regime for Jerusalem
November 29, 1947 Official Records of the General Assembly, Second Session Supplement No. 11,Volumes l-lV. Deteriorating Relationship Between Britain and Palestine The British intention (Peel Report in 1937) to partition Palestine into Arab and…
Explainer: Oslo II Agreement Between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, September 1995
September 28, 1995 After signing the Declaration of Principles (DOP) on Interim Self-Government Arrangements, commonly known as the Oslo Accords, on September 13, 1993, Israel and the PLO reached three additional interim agreements before Oslo…
Explainer: Balfour Declaration, November 1917
November 2, 1917 The Balfour Declaration was the Jewish charter that Herzl failed to obtain from the Ottoman sultan 20 years earlier. The terms were included in the preamble of the Palestine Mandate’s Articles in…
Explainer: Zionist/Israeli Music
April 15, 2025 Dr. Eli Sperling © Center for Israel Education, 2025 Israeli music offers a powerful lens through which we can understand the country’s cultural and political evolution, serving as both a unifying force…
Explainer: Land in Palestine and Land in Israel
When the British and the French decided on the borders of some modern Middle Eastern states in the Levant in the 1915-1922 period, no Palestinian, Syrian, Iraqi, Jewish, Lebanese or Jordanian state existed. Before the…
Explainer: Historical and Evolving Israel-Diaspora Relationship
From Ancient Times to the 19th Century The bond between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel is one of the most enduring in human history. Since the Roman destruction of the Second Temple…
Explainer: Israel-Lebanon-Syria Triangle
Before Israel’s establishment, Zionists in Palestine had contacts with Lebanese and Syrian officials, seeking information about anti-Zionist attitudes and understanding of these Arab states’ military capabilities against Israel’s establishment and survival. Since 1949 and the…
Explainer: Israeli Leadership
Jews always have bound themselves together by committing to Torah values, taking care of one another, adapting to new settings, coping with persistently precarious living environments, and finding leaders who looked past immediate obstacles to…
Explainer: Israel’s Foreign Relations
A major objective of Zionism and Israel remains the “normalization” of the Jewish people in a secure territory of their own. As a worldwide minority through the ages, Jews have lobbied and negotiated with stronger…
Explainer: Israel’s Ecology Creates Diverse Tapestry
Diversity is one of Israel’s most distinctive features. Finding common ground on sacred ground, Israeli Jews have returned to their homeland from more than 100 countries, forming a population of diverse culture, religious observance and…
Explainer: Israeli Government and Politics
Jewish-majority self-rule existed in Eretz Yisrael during the First and Second Jewish Commonwealths, 1020 to 586 B.C.E. and 538 B.C.E. to 70 C.E., respectively. Then living for centuries as minorities throughout Europe, the Middle East…
Explainer: The United Nations and Israel
The U.N. partition resolution in 1947 cleared the way for Israel to declare independence six months later, but since then the United Nations has largely been antagonistic and condemnatory toward Israel and a tool for the Palestinians and Israel’s enemies.
Explainer: The Economy of the Yishuv and the State of Israel
By Ken Stein and Scott Abramson, March 23, 2025 Zionist/Jewish Economic Development in Palestine Before 1948 Jewish physical growth in Mandatory Palestine in the period known as the New Yishuv was sufficient through land acquired…
Explainer: Jewish Immigration to the Land of Israel (Zion) to 1949
By Scott Abramson and Ken Stein In his famous 2004 essay “Between Right and Right,” Israel’s most celebrated novelist, Amos Oz, reflects on Israeli society, summing up his fellow citizens with this appraisal: “What we,…
Explainer: Europe and Israel
Historical Background Unlike any other region of the world, Europe has had the most intimate, impactful and longest-lasting relationship with contemporary Israel and its origins. As the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity and with the…
Explainer: Arabs of Palestine/Israel
Some ancestors of modern Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, like those of Israeli Jews, lived in the Land of Israel millennia ago, but most came to the area when Muhammad’s successors took Jerusalem and settled there…
Explainer: Egyptian-Israeli Negotiations, 1977-1981
By Ken Stein, October 28, 2024 When Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter became the 39th President of the United States in 1977, he had little foreign policy experience, particularly regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict. Despite this, he…
Explainer: The New Yishuv, an Introduction
April 14, 2025 The period of the New Yishuv lasted from the last 40 years of Ottoman rule in Palestine through the British Mandate until the establishment of Israel in 1948. It saw the growth…
Explainer: What Is Zionism?
From biblical times to the present, Jews and Judaism have had an unbroken connection to Zion, a reference to Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel, derived from the hill at the heart of Jerusalem. Zionism…
Explainer: Minorities in Israel
Scott Abramson, November 2023 Throughout the history of their diaspora, the Jewish people had represented the definitive nation-in-exile and the quintessential minority, “the minority par excellence,” as philosopher Hannah Arendt described them. Jews had even…
Explainer: 1973 October War — A Short History
Egyptian President Sadat colluded with Syrian President Assad to attack Israel on October 6, 1973. Sadat’s objective was not to seek Israel’s destruction but to gain a limited success by crossing the canal. He also sought to engage American diplomacy to generate talks with Israel that would see Israeli withdrawal from Egyptian land Israel secured in the June 1967 War. Sadat took a large gamble by attacking Israel yet he unfolded a negotiating process with Israel that lasted through 1979. He achieved his overarching long-term priority of having Egyptian Sinai returned to Egyptian sovereignty.
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