Yishuv in the context of State of Israel

During the British rule in Mandatory Palestine, there was civil, political and armed struggle between Palestinian Arabs and the Jewish Yishuv, beginning from the violent spillover of the Franco-Syrian War in 1920 and until the onset of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The conflict shifted from sectarian clashes in the 1920s and early 1930s to an armed Arab Revolt against British rule in 1936, armed Jewish Revolt primarily against the British in mid-1940s and finally open war in November 1947 between Arabs and Jews.

The 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine was the first phase of the 1948 Palestine war. It broke out after the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution on 29 November 1947 recommending the adoption of the Partition Plan for Palestine.

During the civil war, Palestine's Jewish and Arab communities clashed (the latter supported by the Arab Liberation Army) while the British, who had the obligation to maintain order, organized their withdrawal and intervened only occasionally.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; Hebrew: צבא הגנה לישראל, romanized: Tsva Hagana le-Yisra'el, lit. 'Army for the Defense of Israel'), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym Tzahal (צה״ל), is the national military of the State of Israel. It consists of three service branches: the Israeli Ground Forces, the Israeli Air Force, and the Israeli Navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security apparatus. The IDF is headed by the chief of the general staff, who is subordinate to the defense minister.

On the orders of first prime minister David Ben-Gurion, the IDF was formed on 26 May 1948 and began to operate as a conscript military, drawing its initial recruits from the already existing paramilitaries of the Yishuv—namely Haganah, the Irgun, and Lehi. It was formed shortly after the Israeli Declaration of Independence and has participated in every armed conflict involving Israel. In the wake of the 1979 Egypt–Israel peace treaty and the 1994 Israel–Jordan peace treaty, the IDF underwent a significant strategic realignment. Previously spread across various fronts—Lebanon and Syria in the north, Jordan and Iraq in the east, and Egypt in the south—the IDF redirected its focus towards southern Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. In 2000, the IDF withdrew from Southern Lebanon and in 2005 from Gaza. Conflict between Israel and Islamist groups based in Gaza, notably Hamas, has continued since then. Moreover, notable Israeli–Syrian border incidents have occurred frequently since 2011, due to regional instability caused by the Syrian civil war.

The Old Yishuv (Hebrew: היישוב הישן, haYishuv haYashan) were the Jewish communities of the region of Palestine during the Ottoman period, up to the onset of Zionist aliyah waves, and the consolidation of the new Yishuv by the end of World War I. Unlike the new Yishuv, characterized by secular and Zionist ideologies promoting labor and self-sufficiency, the Old Yishuv primarily consisted of religious Jews who relied on external donations (halukka) for support.

The Old Yishuv evolved following a significant decline in Jewish communities across the region during late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, and was composed of three clusters. Firstly, Ladino-speaking Sephardic Jewish communities settled in the region during the late Mamluk and early Ottoman periods, alongside Arabic-speaking Musta'arabi communities, who had already been living there since before the coming of Islam and had been culturally and linguistically Arabized. Secondly, Ashkenazi Jews emigrated from Europe in the 18th and early 19th centuries, forming another group. A third wave of Yishuv members arrived in the late 19th century, hailing from Europe, North Africa, Yemen, Persia, and the Caucasus. These migrations gave rise to two distinct communities within the Old Yishuv—the Sephardim (including Musta'arabim) and the Askhenazim.

A popular uprising by Palestinian Arabs in Mandatory Palestine against the British administration, known as the Great Revolt, and later the Great Palestinian Revolt or the Palestinian Revolution, lasted from 1936 until 1939. The movement sought independence from British colonial rule and the end of British support for Zionism, including Jewish immigration and land sales to Jews.

The uprising occurred during a peak in the influx of European Jewish immigrants, and with the growing plight of the rural fellahin rendered landless, who as they moved to metropolitan centres to escape their abject poverty found themselves socially marginalized. Since the Battle of Tel Hai in 1920, Jews and Arabs had been involved in a cycle of attacks and counter-attacks, and the immediate spark for the uprising was the murder of two Jews by a Qassamite band, and the retaliatory killing by Jewish gunmen of two Arab labourers, incidents which triggered a flare-up of violence across Palestine. A month into the disturbances, Amin al-Husseini, president of the Arab Higher Committee and Mufti of Jerusalem, declared 16 May 1936 as "Palestine Day" and called for a general strike. David Ben-Gurion, leader of the Yishuv, described Arab causes as fear of growing Jewish economic power, opposition to mass Jewish immigration and fear of the British identification with Zionism.

David Ben-Gurion (/bɛn ˈɡʊəriən/ ben GOOR-ee-ən; Hebrew: דָּוִד בֶּן־גּוּרִיּוֹן [daˈvid ben ɡuʁˈjon] ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary national founder and first prime minister of the State of Israel. As head of the Jewish Agency from 1935, and later president of the Jewish Agency Executive, he was the de facto leader of the Jewish community in Palestine, and largely led the movement for an independent Jewish state in Mandatory Palestine.

Born in Płońsk, then part of Congress Poland, to Polish Jewish parents, he immigrated to the Palestine region of the Ottoman Empire in 1906. Adopting the name of Ben-Gurion in 1909, he rose to become the preeminent leader of the Jewish community in British-ruled Mandatory Palestine from 1935 until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, which he led until 1963 with a short break in 1954–55. Ben-Gurion's interest for Zionism developed early in his life, leading him to become a major Zionist leader, and the executive head of the World Zionist Organization in 1946.

Haganah (Hebrew: הַהֲגָנָה ha-Haganah, lit. 'The Defense') was the main Zionist paramilitary organization that operated for the Yishuv in the British Mandate for Palestine. It was founded in 1920 to defend the Yishuv's presence in the region, and was formally disbanded in 1948, when it became the core force integrated into the Israel Defense Forces shortly after the Israeli Declaration of Independence.

Formed out of previous existing militias, Haganah's original purpose was to defend Jewish settlements against Arab attacks; this was the case during the 1921 Jaffa riots, the 1929 Palestine riots, the 1936 Jaffa riots, and the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine, among others. The paramilitary was under the control of the Jewish Agency, the official governmental body in charge of Palestine's Jewish community during the British era. Until the end of World War II, Haganah's activities were moderate, in accordance with the strategic policy of havlagah (lit. 'self-restraint'), which caused the breakaway of the more radical paramilitaries: Irgun and Lehi. Haganah militants received clandestine military support from Poland and sought cooperation with the United Kingdom in the event of an Axis-led invasion of Palestine through North Africa, prompting the creation of the Palmach, their elite fighting force, in 1941.

Yitzhak Rabin (/ˈrɑːbɪn/; Hebrew: יִצְחָק רַבִּין, IPA: [itsˈχak ˈʁabin]; 1 March 1922 – 4 November 1995) was an Israeli statesman and general who was the prime minister of Israel, having served two terms in office, 1974–1977, and from 1992 until his assassination in 1995. He was the first prime minister to have been born in Mandatory Palestine.

Rabin was born in Jerusalem to Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe and was raised in a Labor Zionist household. He learned agriculture in school and excelled as a student. As a teenager, he joined the Palmach, the commando force of the Yishuv. He eventually rose through its ranks to become its chief of operations during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. In late 1948, he joined the newly formed Israel Defense Forces and continued to rise as a promising officer, with a 27-year career as a professional soldier. He ultimately attained the rank of Rav Aluf, the most senior rank in the Israeli Defense Force (often translated as lieutenant general). In the 1950s, Rabin helped shape the training doctrine of the IDF and he led its Operations Directorate from 1959 to 1963. He was appointed chief of the general staff in 1964 and oversaw Israel's victory in the 1967 Six-Day War.

NILI (Hebrew: נִילי) was a Jewish espionage network which assisted the United Kingdom in its fight against the Ottoman Empire in the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem between 1915 and 1917, during World War I. NILI was centered in Zikhron Ya'akov, with branches in Hadera and other Moshavot. Nili is an acronym which stands for the Hebrew phrase: "Netzah Yisrael Lo Yeshaker" (1 Samuel 15:29), which translates as "the Eternal One of Israel will not lie". The British government code-named NILI the "A Organization", according to a 1920 misfiled memorandum in the British National Archives, as described in the book Spies in Palestine by James Srodes.

In choosing to side with the British Empire, the members of Nili went against the majority view of their fellow Jews from the Yishuv. Thus, during the Armenian genocide, the group opposed the Yishuv leadership at the time, and tried to intervene on behalf of the Armenians.

Operation Cast Thy Bread was a top-secret biological warfare operation conducted by the Haganah and later the Israel Defense Forces which began in April 1948, during the 1948 Palestine war. The Haganah used typhoid bacteria to contaminate drinking water wells in violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol. Its objective was to frighten and prevent Palestinian Arabs from returning to villages captured by the Yishuv and make conditions difficult for Arab armies attempting to retake territories. The operation resulted in severe illness among local Palestinian citizens. In the final months of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Israel gave orders to expand the biological warfare campaign into neighboring Arab states such as Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria, but they were not carried out. Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion and IDF chief of general staff Yigael Yadin oversaw and approved the use of biological warfare.

Abba Eban, representative of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, strongly denied the operation and sought to block further investigations by accusing the Arab states of engaging in "antisemitic incitement". Operation Cast Thy Bread did not achieve the crippling effects its advocates had hoped for, and was discontinued by December 1948. In July 1948, the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee reported to the United Nations several war crimes committed by Zionist forces, including the use of "bacteriological warfare".

Zionist political violence refers to acts of political violence committed by Zionists in support of establishing and maintaining a Jewish state in Palestine. These actions have been carried out by individuals, paramilitary groups, and the State of Israel and its military forces since the early 20th century as part of the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

In the pre-state period (1920s–1940s), Zionist paramilitaries such as the Irgun, Lehi, Haganah and Palmach engaged in violent campaigns against British authorities, Palestinian Arabs, and more moderate Jews to advance their political goals. Targets included security personnel, government figures, civilians, and infrastructure. After Israel's establishment in 1948, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and other state security forces continued to employ violence against Palestinian and neighboring Arab populations during the 1948 war (known by Palestinians as the Nakba, catastrophe), subsequent Arab-Israeli wars, and the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Palestinian Jews or Jewish Palestinians (Hebrew: יְהוּדִים פָלַסְטִינִים; Arabic: اليهود الفلسطينيون) were the Jews who inhabited Palestine (alternatively the Land of Israel) prior to the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel on 14 May 1948.

Beginning in the 19th century, the collective Jewish communities of Ottoman Syria and then of Mandatory Palestine were commonly referred to as the Yishuv (ישוב, lit. 'settlement'). A distinction is drawn between the New Yishuv and the Old Yishuv: the New Yishuv was largely composed of and descended from Jews who had immigrated to the Levant during the First Aliyah (1881–1903); while the Old Yishuv comprised the Palestinian Jewish community that had already existed in the region before the consolidation of Zionism and the First Aliyah.

The Hebraization of surnames (also Hebraicization; Hebrew: עברות Ivrut) is the act of amending one's Jewish surname, so that it is tied to the Hebrew language, which was natively spoken by Jews and Samaritans until it died out of everyday use by around 200 CE. For many Jews of diaspora and Palestinian origin, immigration to the land of Israel and taking up a Hebrew surname has long been conceptualized as a way to erase remnants of their diaspora oppression, particularly since the inception of Zionism in the 19th century. This notion, which was part of what drove the revival of the Hebrew language, was further consolidated after the founding of Israel in 1948.

Hebraizing surnames has been an especially common practice among Ashkenazi Jews; many Ashkenazi families had acquired permanent surnames (rather than patronyms) only when surnames were forced upon them by Emperor Joseph II of the Holy Roman Empire following an official decree on 12 November 1787. Sephardic Jews often had hereditary family names (e.g., Cordovero, Abrabanel, Shaltiel, de Leon, Alcalai, Toledano, Lopez) since well before the Spanish expulsion of Jews near the end of the Reconquista, which had begun after the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula in the 8th century.

Israel is one of only a few countries where military service is compulsory for many able-bodied female citizens. Under Israeli conscription laws, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) may draft recruits from three communities: the Jews, the Druze, and the Circassians. As the latter two communities are less populous, their women are not required to serve. Women from the Jewish majority are not exempted from the conscription laws, but serve for slightly shorter terms than male conscripts. All women who are exempted from the conscription laws may still enlist voluntarily. Jewish women who are called up for military service may apply for an exemption on humanitarian, religious, or certain legal grounds. Those who claim such an exemption will typically be redirected to Sherut Leumi, the alternative means of national service.

According to Israeli military statistics, 535 female soldiers had been killed while serving between the years of 1962 and 2016. The IDF's regulated integration of women is rooted in the days of the Yishuv, when Jewish women served in the ranks of various Zionist paramilitaries during the 1947–1949 Palestine War. In 1999–2000, an amendment was made to the Women's Equal Rights Law of Israel by which men and women became fully equalized — although separately — in the Israeli military apparatus.

Ezriel Carlebach (also Azriel; born Esriel Gotthelf Carlebach, Hebrew: עזריאל קרליבך, Yiddish: עזריאל קארלעבאך; November 7, 1908 – February 12, 1956) was a leading journalist and editorial writer during the period of Jewish settlement in Palestine and during the early days of the state of Israel. He was the first editor-in-chief of Israel's two largest newspapers, Yediot Ahronot, and then Ma'ariv.