Israel's National Flag

Map of Israel

Capital: Jerusalem

Official Languages: Hebrew and Arabic

Area: 7,992 sq. mi.; Greatest Distances - north-south, 256 mi.; east-west, 81 mi. Coastline - 143 mi.

Elevation: Highest - Mount Meron, 3,963 ft. above sea level. Lowest - Dead Sea, 1,299 ft. below sea level.

Population: - Estimated 1978 Population - 3,742,000; distribution, 82 per cent urban, 18 per cent rural; density, 469 persons per sq. mi. 1972 Census - 3,124,000. Estimated 1983 Population - 4,380,000.

Chief Products: Agriculture - citrus fruits, eggs, milk, poultry. Manufacturing: - chemicals, clothing and textiles, finished diamonds, machinery, metals, processed foods, transportation equipment, wood products. Mining: - chemical salts, copper, phosphates.

National Anthem: "Hatikva" ("The Hope").

Head of State: President, elected by the parliment (5 year term). Duties are largely ceremonial.

Head of Government: Prime minister, appointed by the president, forms and heads the cabinet, which runs the various government departments. The cabinet must resign if it loses the approval of the parliment.

Parliment: (called the Knesset): 129 members (4-year terms). Members are elected from the country as a whole by a system of proportional representation.

Local Government: Councils, elected by the voters (4-year terms). Each council elects a mayor or chairperson. Military governors head most of the territory occupied during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Courts: The 10-member Supreme Court is the highest court. Judges are appointed by the president for life. Religious courts handle some personal matters.

Voting Age: 18

Politics: Israel has many political parties, including several labor and religious parties. The Likud and Mapai parties are the two largest.

The land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and national identity was formed. Here they achieved independence and created a culture of national and universal significance. Here they wrote and gave the Bible to the world.

Exiled from Palestine, the Jewish people remained faithful to it in all the countries of their dispersion, never ceasing to pray and hope for their return and the restoration of their national freedom.

Impelled by this historic association, Jews strove throughout the centuries to go back to the land of their fathers and regain their statehood. In recent decades they returned in masses. They reclaimed the wilderness, revived their language, built cities and villages and established a vigorous and ever-growing community, with its own economic and cultural life. They sought peace yet were ever prepared to defend themselves. They brought the blessing of progress to all inhabitants of the country.

In the year 1897 the First Zionist Congress, inspired by Theodor Herzl's vision of the Jewish state, proclaimed the right of the jewish people to national revival in their own country.
This right was acknowledged by the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917, and re-affirmed by the Mandate of the League of Nations, which gave explicit international recognition to the historic connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and their right to reconstitute their National Home.

The Nazi holocaust, which engulfed millions of Jews in Europe, proved anew the urgency of the re-establishment of the Jewish state, which would solve the problem of Jewish homelessness by opening the gates to all Jews and lifting the Jewish people to equality in the family of nations.
The survivors of the European catastrophe, as well as Jews from other lands, proclaiming their right to a life of dignity, freedom and labor, and undeterred by hazards, hardships and obstacles, have tried unceasingly to enter Palestine.
In the Second World War the Jewish people in Palestine made a full contribution in the struggle of the freedom-loving nations against the Nazi evil. The sacrifices of their soldiers and the efforts of their workers gained them title to rank with the peoples who founded the United Nations.

On November 29, 1947, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a Resolution for the establishment of an independent Jewish State in Palestine, and called upon the inhabitants of the country to take such steps as may be necessary on their part to put the plan into effect.
This recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their independent State may not be revoked. It is, moreover, the self-evident right of the Jewish people to be a nation, as all other nations, in its own sovereign State.

ACCORDINGLY, WE, the members of the National Council, representing the Jewish people in Palestine and the Zionists movement of the world, met together in solemn assembly today, the day of termination of the British Mandate for Palestine, by virtue of the natural and historic right of the Jewish people and of the Resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations.

HEREBY PROCLAIM the establishment of the Jewish State in Palestine to be called ISRAEL.

WE HEREBY DECLARE that as from the termination of the Mandate at midnight, this night of the 14th to 15th May, 1948, and until the setting up of the duly elected bodies of the State in accordance with a Constitution, to be drawn up by a Constituent Assembly not later than the first day of October, 1948, the present National Council shall act as the provisional administration, shall constitute the Provisional Government of the State of Israel.

THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open to the immigration of Jews from all countries of the their dispersion; will promote the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; will be based on the precepts of liberty, justine and peace taught by the Hebrew Prophets; will uphold the full social and political equality of all its citizens, without distinction of race, creed or sex; will guarantee full freedom of conscience, worship, education and culture; will safeguard the sanctity and inviolability of the shrines and Holy Places of all religions; and will dedicate itself to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be ready to cooperate with the organs and representatives of the United Nations in the implementation of the Resolution of the Assembly of November 29, 1947, and will take steps to bring about the Economic Union over the whole of Palestine.
We appeal to the United Nations to assist the Jewish people in the building of its State and to admit Israel into the family of nations.
In the midst of wanton aggression, we yet call upon the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to return to the ways of peace and play their part in the development of the State, with full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its bodies and institutions - provisional or permanent.
We offer peace and unity to all the neighboring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all.

Our call goes out to the Jewish people all over the world to rally to our side in the task of immigration and development and to stand by us in the great struggle for the fulfillment of the dreams of generations - the redemption of Israel.

With trust in Almighty God, we set our hand to this Declaration , at this session of the Provisional State Council, in the city of Tel Aviv, on this Sabbath eve, the fifth of Iyar, 5708, the fourteenth day of May, 1948.

David Ben-Gurion	Daniel Auster	Mordechai Bentov
Isaac Ben-Zvi	Eliyahu Berligne	Fritz (Peretz) Bernstein
Rabbi Wolf Gold	Meir Grabovsky	Isaac Gruenbaum
Dr Abraham Granovsky (Granott)	Eliyahu Dobkin	Meir Wilner-Kovner
Zerach Wahrhaftig	Herzl Vardi	Rachel Cohen
Rabbi Kalman Kahana	Saadia Kobashi	Rabbi Isaac Meir Levin
Meir David Loewernstein	Zvi Luria	Golda Myerson (Meir)
Nachum Nir	Zvi Segal	Rabbi Yehuda Leib Fishman (Maimon)
David Zvi Pinkas	Aharon Zisling	Moshe Kolodny (Kol)
Eliezer Kaplan	Abraham Katznelson	Felix Rosenblueth (Rosen)
David Remez	Berl Repetur	Mordechai Shattner
Ben Zion Sternbery	Bechor Shitreet	Moshe Shertok (Sharett)