Israel

Overview

Israel is a beautiful country and a great place to visit. The country has marvelous old cities, good beaches and plenty of culture, history and holy places... and really good food.  

Israel is bordered by Egypt in the south, Lebanon in the North and Jordan and Syria in the East.

Jerusalem will be high on any list of favourite destinations and with good reason: in the old city there are many places of worship and other holy places. Be sure to go to Mount Scopus (the original campus location for Hebrew University) and get an incredible view of the Old City. While there, go to the other side of the university campus (near the amphitheater) and look out over the Judean Desert towards Jordan. On good visibility days you can see the Dead Sea in the distance and the Moab mountains of Jordan just beyond.

Tel Aviv is the place to party. It has good beaches, top cuisine restaurants and excellent nightlife, probably the best to be found within a circle of a few thousand kilometers.

The north of Israel is worth exploring: the Sea of Galilee, Nazareth, the Golan Heights and the towns of  Tiberias, Acre (aka Akko), and Haifa are the most important stops on your itinerary to the North.

The south offers the enormous Negev desert and the Dead Sea. In the southernmost point of Israel, the Red Sea beach resort of Eilat is a tourist hot spot. Located at the very bottom tip of Israel, this is a popular fun-in-the-sun vacation spot. Not to...more

History

Following World War II, the British withdrew from their mandate of Palestine, and the UN partitioned the area into Arab and Jewish states, an arrangement rejected by the Arabs. Subsequently, the Israelis defeated the Arabs in a series of wars without ending the deep tensions between the two sides. The territories occupied by Israel since the 1967 war are not included in the Israel country profile, unless otherwise noted. On 25 April 1982, Israel withdrew from the Sinai pursuant to the 1979 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty. Israel and Palestinian officials signed on 13 September 1993 a Declaration of Principles (also known as the 'Oslo accords') guiding an interim period of Palestinian self-rule. Outstanding territorial and other disputes with Jordan were resolved in the 26 October 1994 Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace. In addition, on 25 May 2000, Israel withdrew unilaterally from southern Lebanon, which it had occupied since 1982. In keeping with the framework established at the Madrid Conference in October 1991, bilateral negotiations were conducted between Israel and Palestinian representatives and Syria to achieve a permanent settlement. On 24 June 2002, US President BUSH laid out a 'road map' for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which envisions a two-state solution. However, progress toward a permanent status agreement has been undermined by Palestinian-Israeli violence ongoing since September 2000. The conflict may have reached a turning point with the election in January 2005 of Mahmud ABBAS as the new Palestinian leader following the November 2004 death of Yasir ARAFAT.