Israel: The Middle East powerhouse

JERUSALEM: Israel, which holds legislative elections on March 2, has become the Middle East’s military powerhouse since its creation seven decades ago after the UN adopted a partition plan for then Britishrun Palestine. Here are some facts about the country.

Military power

Israel is considered the leading military power in the Middle East and is widely believed to possess its sole, if undeclared, nuclear arsenal. It receives nearly $4 billion a year in military aid from the United States. It has had a series of wars with its Arab neighbors, the first of which broke out on May 15, 1948, a day after Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the country’s creation.

Officially Israel has been through eight conflicts, including the Six-Day War of June 1967 in which it seized the West Bank-and east Jerusalem-from Jordan, the Gaza Strip and Egypt’s Sinai and the strategic Golan Heights from Syria. It later annexed east Jerusalem and the Golan, decisions denounced by the international community. Its last major military operation was in 2014 in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, from which Israel unilaterally withdrew in 2005. It has signed peace treaties with just two Arab governments-Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994.

Settlements, intifadas Israel’s population has increased tenfold since 1948, reaching nearly nine million, according to official statistics. More than 600,000 Israeli settlers have an often tense co-habitation with the around three million Palestinians living in the West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem. The international community regards the settlements illegal and an obstacle to peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Israel considers Jerusalem to be its “indivisible” capital, while the Palestinians want to make the east of the city the capital of their future state. There have been two Palestinian uprisings or intifadas — 19871993 and 2000-2005. The first ended with the signing in Washington of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. They granted the Palestinians limited autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as an interim step towards a comprehensive peace deal, which has never been agreed.

Regional tensions Officially in a state of war with Syria, Israel has sought to avoid direct involvement in the raging conflict in its neighbor that began in 2011.But it has routinely fired missiles at what it says are Iranian targets in Syria, where elite Iranian forces and allied militia support President Bashar Al-Assad. Israel has diplomatic relations only with Egypt and Jordan, but is has been trying to develop relations with other countries in the Arab region, including the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Support from Trump

Israel has won the staunch support of US President Donald Trump, since he came to office in January 2017. After unilaterally recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2017 and its annexation of the Golan from Syria in March 2019, Trump in late January 2020 unveiled a peace plan for the Middle East that included many concessions to Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been in power since 2009, formed the a new government in 2015 that is widely regarded as the most right-wing in Israel’s history. High-tech and natural gas Israel’s high-tech sector represents more than 40 percent of its exports, giving the country the nickname the “start-up nation”. In recent years, Israel which has limited natural resources discovered major offshore gas reserves. Tourism is also a source of revenue. Israel has very low unemployment, and growth of nearly three percent but more than one-fifth of the population lives below the poverty line.