Five Facts About Israel Everyone Needs to Know

By Joshua Hoffman, FutureOfJewish.com. April 2, 2025

Israel is one of the most talked-about nations in the world, yet also one of the most misunderstood.

The complexity of its history, politics, society, and geography can make it hard to follow current events or hold informed conversations. To understand Israel — and the debates surrounding it — it’s helpful to learn a few key facts that often come up in media, politics, and culture.

Here are five essential facts everyone should know:

1) Zionism

Zionism, in the simplest-possible terms, is a belief in Jewish self-determination, rooted in 3,000 years of Jewish connection to the land. That is the entire definition of Zionism. Anyone who tells you otherwise is uneducated, ignorant, naive, or consciously lying to advance their own perverted agenda.

Notice how there is no mention of Palestinians, Arabs, or Muslims in this definition. That is because there was never a mainstream Zionist masterplan to eradicate Palestinians or Arabs or Muslims from British-era Palestine, which preceded the State of Israel’s founding in 1948.

The Jews truly emigrated in peace from Europe, other parts of the Middle East, North and South America, and even places like India and Africa to take part in the Zionist dream: Jewish self-determination in our historically accurate indigenous homeland.

In other words, Zionism in every sense of the term is a liberal concept predominantly based on decolonization, or the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas.

Hence why, before the State of Israel was founded in 1948, the area was called “British-era Palestine” (also known as “British Mandatory Palestine”). Beginning in 1918, Brits managed the territory. Before then, the Ottomans ruled it. Unfortunately for all the “pro-Palestinians” and their revisionist history, the Palestinians in and of themselves never ruled “Palestine” — in large part because they never wanted to.

For instance, prior to 1948, many Palestinians wanted to be part of “Greater Syria.” And the name “Palestine” was created not by the Palestinians themselves; the term was first used to denote an official province around 135 CE, when the Roman authorities, following the suppression of a Jewish revolt against their antisemitic ways, renamed the province of Judaea to “Syria Palaestina” to spite the Jews living there.

Zionism emerged in the late 19th century as a response to centuries of Jewish persecution — including but not limited to devastating pogroms, second-class citizenships, and the rise of nationalist movements across Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.

The term was coined by Nathan Birnbaum in 1890, and the movement was later formalized by Theodor Herzl who is often considered the father of modern political Zionism. Herzl’s seminal work, Der Judenstaat (German for “The Jewish State”), published in 1896, argued for the establishment of a sovereign Jewish state as a solution to the endless antisemitism that Jews faced in countless countries during thousands of years, following our exile from the biblical Land of Israel.

2) Aliyah

Aliyah, meaning “ascent” in Hebrew, refers to Jewish immigration to Israel. It originally meant going up to Jerusalem to worship at the Temple. So technically, Jews have been making Aliyah for thousands of years — long before modern borders existed.

Millions of Jews from around the world have made Aliyah since the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, reshaping Israeli society into a mosaic of global Jewish cultures.

More precisely, Jews have made Aliyah from over 150 countries. From Ethiopia to France, Russia to Argentina, Yemen to the United States, Aliyah isn’t just an immigration policy; it’s a global homecoming. Spouses and children of Jews, even if not Jewish themselves, are eligible to make Aliyah under Israel’s Law of Return.

In 1909, a group of Jewish immigrants literally drew lots on sand dunes to divide land and establish what would become Tel Aviv. From sand to skyscrapers — Aliyah builds cities.

Between June 1949 and September 1950, Operation Magic Carpet (a widely known nickname for Operation On Wings of Eagles) brought 49,000 Yemenite Jews to the new State of Israel. In 1991, Israel airlifted over 14,000 Ethiopian Jews out of danger in a covert operation with 35 aircraft. One plane broke a world record by carrying 1,088 passengers — including babies born mid-flight.

Even during the global COVID pandemic, thousands of Jews made Aliyah. Why? Many felt a deep pull to be “home” when the world turned upside down. Crisis or calm, the dream of Israel stays strong.

3) The ‘West Bank’

Historically, the West Bank is not the West Bank; it is Judea and Samaria, the cradle of Jewish civilization. The names Judea and Samaria are found throughout the Bible and Jewish history, referring to the ancient kingdoms and regions where Jewish life, culture, and nationhood first flourished.

In 1950, after Jordan (then known as Transjordan) illegally occupied the area during Israel’s War of Independence, it annexed Judea and Samaria and rebranded the land as “the West Bank” to disconnect it from its Jewish heritage. This annexation was recognized by virtually no one in the international community — not even by other Arab states.

Israel regained control of Judea and Samaria in 1967 during the Six-Day War, a defensive war after surrounding Arab nations threatened to annihilate it. Since then, the area has been at the heart of discussions about Israel’s future borders and security. While many refer to the region as “occupied,” it’s important to understand that this land was never part of a sovereign Palestinian state. Israel has deep historical, religious, and legal claims to it. If anything, it is disputed land, not occupied.

For Israelis, Judea and Samaria are not distant territories; they are home to cities like Hebron, Beth El, and Shiloh, which are as significant to Jewish identity as Jerusalem itself. Security-wise, the high ground of Judea and Samaria overlooks Israel’s narrow central corridor — home to nearly 70 percent of its population. Control of this area isn’t just a political question; it’s a matter of survival.

4) Israeli Settlements

From one of our guest writers, Nachum Kaplan:

If you follow media coverage of Israel’s settlements in Judea and Samaria (also known as the West Bank), then I have some bad news: You probably have no idea what is going on.

Lies, distortions, propaganda, and false premises are endemic. It is time to marshal the facts.

Simply, to declare Jewish settlements illegal is tantamount to tearing up what remains of the Oslo Accords1. Surely, the Palestinian Authority would not want to do that since it is these accords that created and gave legitimacy to the Palestinian Authority itself. Before these accords, the Palestinian Authority was just the murderous Palestine Liberation Organization terror group.

While every new Jewish settlement gets lambasted, the Palestinian Authority has built illegal settlements and infrastructure on about 250 sites, covering more than 2,000 acres, with no objection.

In fact, there are vastly more illegal Palestinian buildings than Israeli ones. There are 81,317 illegal Palestinian structures in Area C, compared with 4,111 illegal Israeli structures (which includes bizarre things such as bathroom extensions built while there was a settlement freeze).

5) Judea

Judea isn’t just a name; it’s the root of the word “Jew” and the heart of the Jewish story.

It’s where Jewish nationhood was born, where King David ruled, and where prophets, priests, and patriots shaped the moral and spiritual legacy that still defines Judaism today. When people speak of Judea and Samaria as “the West Bank,” they’re using a label imposed by Jordan in 1950 — an attempt to strip the land of its Jewish character. But the truth remains: this is Judea. It always has been.

And history bears that out. Around the time of the Bar Kokhba Revolt (circa 132 CE), when the Jews of Judea staged a fierce rebellion against the Roman Empire, the Romans retaliated not just with force, but with erasure. They renamed the province Syria Palaestina, merging Judea, Samaria, Galilee, and other nearby regions into a broader administrative unit.

Many historians believe this was a deliberate move to sever the Jewish people’s historical bond to their homeland. “Judea” literally means “land of the Jews.” Replacing it with “Palestina” was a calculated insult.

Some have suggested the Romans chose “Palestine” because of its association with the Philistines — ancient enemies of the Jews — though there’s no direct evidence for this. What is certain is that by this point, the Philistines had vanished from the world stage.

The term “Palestine” itself had been used earlier by the Greek historian Herodotus to describe a region that possibly stretched along the Mediterranean coast and into the Sinai. But by the time Rome adopted it, it had no ethnic meaning — just vague geographical associations.

Scholars like David Jacobson have even proposed that the word “Palestine” may have resonated with the Greeks because of its similarity to palaistes, the Greek word for “wrestler.” That’s especially fascinating, considering the name Israel comes from the Biblical episode in which Jacob “wrestled with God.” In that light, “Palestine” may have struck Greek ears as a poetic, punning tribute to the people of Israel: the divine wrestlers.

Whatever the origins of the term, it’s important to remember that “Palestine” was not used in the ancient world to refer to a distinct ethnic or national group, and Jews themselves often used it casually in later centuries — just as people said “India” instead of “Bharat.” The Jerusalem Talmud was even called the Palestinian Talmud in English translations. It wasn’t a political statement; it was a product of the linguistic norms of the time.

What is political is the way the term “Palestine” has been weaponized today to undermine Jewish claims to their historic homeland. That’s why reclaiming the name Judea is so powerful. It’s not about semantics; it’s about history, identity, and truth. Judea is not a foreign colony or an occupation. It’s the soil from which Jewish civilization first sprang.

And in any honest conversation about Israel, that fact must be front and center.