Israel is a Middle East country

Israel officially known as the State of Israel is a country in the Middle East on the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the northern shore of the Red Sea. It has land borders with Lebanon to the north Syria to the northeast Jordan on the east the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the east and west, respectively and Egypt to the southwest. The country contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area. Israel's financial and technology center is Tel Aviv and Jerusalem is the proclaimed capital, although Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem is internationally unrecognized. On 29 November 1947 the United Nations General Assembly adopted a Partition Plan for Mandatory Palestine. Israel has since fought several wars with neighboring Arab states in the course of which it has occupied the West Bank Sinai Peninsula 1956–57, 1967–82 part of Southern Lebanon 1982–2000 Gaza Strip 1967–2005 still considered occupied after 2005 disengagement and the Golan Heights. It extended its laws to the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem but not the West Bank. Efforts to resolve the Israeli Palestinian conflict have not resulted in peace. However, peace treaties between Israel and both Egypt and Jordan have successfully been signed. Israel's occupation of Gaza the West Bank and East Jerusalem is the world's longest military occupation in modern times. The names Land of Israel and Children of Israel have historically been used to refer to the biblical Kingdom of Israel and the entire Jewish people respectively. Villages had populations of up to 300 or 400 which lived by farming and herding and were largely self-sufficient economic interchange was prevalent. Writing was known and available for recording even in small sites. The archaeological evidence indicates a society of village like centres but with more limited resources and a small population. Modern scholars see Israel arising peacefully and internally from existing people in the highlands of Canaan. The Jewish community in the country was strengthened by the arrival of a group headed by over 300 rabbis from France and England among them Rabbi Samson ben Abraham of Sens. Nachmanides the 13^th century Spanish rabbi and recognised leader of Jewry greatly praised the land of Israel and viewed its settlement as a positive commandment incumbent on all Jews. He wrote if the gentiles wish to make peace we shall make peace and leave them on clear terms but as for the land we shall not leave it in their hands nor in the hands of any nation not in any generation. The first wave of modern Jewish migration to Ottoman-ruled Palestine known as the First Aliyah, began in 1881 as Jews fled pogroms in Eastern Europe. Although the Zionist movement already existed in practice Austro-Hungarian journalist Theodor Herzl is credited with founding political Zionism a movement which sought to establish a Jewish state in the Land of Israel thus offering a solution to the so called Jewish Question of the European states in conformity with the goals and achievements of other national projects of the time. In 1896 Herzl published Der Judenstaat the State of the Jews offering his vision of a future Jewish state. The Second Aliyah 1904–14 began after the Kishinev pogrom some 40,000 Jews settled in Palestine although nearly half of them left eventually. The Third 1919–23 and Fourth Aliyahs 1924–29 brought an additional 100,000 Jews to Palestine. The rise of Nazism and the increasing persecution of Jews in 1930 Europe led to the Fifth Aliyah with an influx of a quarter of a million Jews. This was a major cause of the Arab revolt of 1936–39 during which the British Mandate authorities alongside the Zionist militias of Haganah and Irgun killed 5,032 Arabs and wounded 14,760 resulting in over ten percent of the adult male Palestinian Arab population killed wounded imprisoned or exiled. On 14 May 1948, the day before the expiration of the British Mandate David Ben Gurion the head of the Jewish Agency, declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel to be known as the State of Israel. On 6 October 1973 as Jews were observing Yom Kippur the Egyptian and Syrian armies launched a surprise attack against Israeli forces in the Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights that opened the Yom Kippur War. On 6 September 2007 the Israeli Air Force destroyed a nuclear reactor in Syria. In May 2008 Israel confirmed it had been discussing a peace treaty with Syria for a year with Turkey as a go-between. At the end of the year Israel entered another conflict as a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel collapsed. The Gaza War lasted three weeks and ended after Israel announced a unilateral ceasefire. Hamas announced its own ceasefire, with its own conditions of complete withdrawal and opening of border crossings. Despite neither the rocket launchings nor Israeli retaliatory strikes having completely stopped, the fragile ceasefire remained in order. In what Israel described as a response to more than a hundred Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israeli cities Israel began an operation in Gaza on 14 November 2012 lasting eight days. Israel started another operation in Gaza following an escalation of rocket attacks by Hamas in July 2014. Israel has embraced solar energy its engineers are on the cutting edge of solar energy technology and its solar companies work on projects around the world. Over 90% of Israeli homes use solar energy for hot water, the highest per capita in the world. According to government figures the country saves 8% of its electricity consumption per year because of its solar energy use in heating. The high annual incident solar irradiance at its geographic latitude creates ideal conditions for what is an internationally renowned solar research and development industry in the Negev Desert. Israel had a modern electric car infrastructure involving a countrywide network of recharging stations to facilitate the charging and exchange of car batteries. It was thought that this would have lowered Israel's oil dependency and lowered the fuel costs of hundreds of Israel's motorists that use cars powered only by electric batteries. The Israeli model was being studied by several countries and being implemented in Denmark and Australia. Israel's trailblazing electric car company Better Place shut down in 2013. Israel is home to many Palestinian musicians, including internationally acclaimed oud and violin virtuoso Taiseer Elias singer Amal Murkus and brothers Samir and Wissam Joubran. Israeli Arab musicians have achieved fame beyond Israel's borders Elias and Murkus frequently play to audiences in Europe and America and oud player Darwish Prof. Elias's student was awarded first prize in the all Arab oud contest in Egypt in 2003. The Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance has an advanced degree program, headed by Taiseer Elias, in Arabic music. In 2014 Israel proper was ranked 96th of 180 according to Reporters without Borders Press Freedom Index 2nd below Kuwait in the Middle East and North Africa region. The 2013 Freedom in the World annual survey and report by U.S.-based Freedom House which attempts to measure the degree of democracy and political freedom in every nation, ranked Israel as the Middle East and North Africa's only free country.