Israelis - History

History

The first account of an Israeli nation is a state which dominated the modern land of Israel, the Kingdom of Israel; its latest capital was known as the Davidian city (Jerusalem). According to the biblical account, the United Monarchy was formed when there was a large popular expression in favour of introducing a monarchy to rule over the previously decentralised Israelite tribal confederacy. Increasing pressure from the Philistines (originally from Greece) and other neighboring tribes is said by the Bible to have forced the Israelites to unite as a more singular state.

Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire until it was taken by British forces in 1918. The British establishment of colonial political boundaries allowed the Jews to develop autonomous institutions such as the Histadrut and the Knesset. Since the late nineteenth century, the Zionist movement encouraged Jews to immigrate to Palestine and refurbish its land area, considerable but partially uninhabitable due to an abundance of swamps and desert. The resulting influx of Jewish immigrants, as well as the creation of many new settlements, was crucial for the functioning of these new institutions in what would, on May 14, 1948, become the State of Israel.