Principal languages: Hebrew (official); Arabic used officially for Arab minority; English most commonly used foreign language
Principal religions: Judaism 82%, Islam (mostly Sunni Muslim) 14%, Christian 2%, Druze and other 2%
Rank of affluence among U.N. members: 26/183
The Biblical land of Canaan, the Roman province of Judaea, the repository of priceless artifacts and holy places for three of the world's great religions, the nation of Israel was born in turmoil after the Second World War. Its creation--by United Nations decree--as a homeland for Jews who had fled the Holocaust outraged Arabs in neighboring states, who felt that Israel had been imposed on them by outsiders.
Amid undiminished animosity, brief wars flared in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, and 1982; there have also been innumerable raids, sorties, and bombing runs. Aided by Western powers, Israel prevailed in all the major conflicts, seizing Arab territory in 1967 and 1973. The most recent round of peace negotiations, begun in 1992, led to an interim Israeli-Palestinian agreement a year later and the formation of an autonomous territory for the disenfranchised Palestinian refugees in the spring of 1994, a landmark event.
Even as it fought its neighbors, Israel has had to create an economy, more or less from scratch, that could absorb hundreds of thousands of immigrants from dozens of cultures--most recently, Ethiopia and the Soviet Union. It has also struggled to reconcile tensions between incoming Jews and resident Arabs, and among Jews from differing strains of Judaism--all the while managing the priceless archaeological and religious heritage of Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land.
Unsurprisingly, the nation has not completely succeeded at any of these tasks, though some aspects of Israeli life, such as its medical system, could be the envy of more comfortable nations.
