Israel Abbreviations

IL is the abbreviation for Israel, the 150th largest country in the world. Officially the State of Israel, Israel is a country located in Middle East (Western Asia), bordering 6 countries – Egypt, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and West Bank. Jerusalem is the capital city of Israel. Top 10 biggest cities are Jerusalem (population: 801,011), Tel Aviv (population: 432,881), Haifa (population: 267,289), Ashdod (population: 224,645), Rishon LeZiyyon (population: 220,481), Petah Tikva (population: 200,011), Beersheba (population: 186,589), Netanya (population: 171,665), Holon (population: 165,776), and Bnei Brak (population: 154,389).

Country Profile

• Capital: Jerusalem
• Language: Hebrew
• Area: 20,770 km²
• Population: 9,072,109
• Currency: New shekel (ILS)
• Time zone: UTC+2
• Calling code: 972
• ISO 2-Letter Abbreviation: IL
• UN 3-Letter Abbreviation: ISR
• Internet TLD: .il
• State Government Website: http://pmo.gov.il

List of Israel Acronyms

The most commonly used abbreviations about Israel are IL which stands for Israel and ILS which means New shekel (Israel currency). In the following table, you can see all acronyms related to Israel, including abbreviations for airport, city, school, port, government, and etc.

Geography

The northern parts of Israel consist of hilly plains, with good water supply and fertile soil. Further south, elongated plains extend outward toward the low-lying coast. The farther south you come, the drier and colder the landscape becomes. In the border with Egypt there is more or less pure desert landscape. To the east, the Jordan River, which flows through a deep valley, forms a natural border with neighboring Jordan.

The climate in the northern and southern regions differs considerably – along the coast there is a temperate Mediterranean climate, while further south is a typical desert climate, with large temperature fluctuations and low rainfall throughout the year. The biggest environmental problem in the country is access to water. Forestry projects have helped stabilize water supply, and Israel has also experimented extensively with seawater desalination. So far, this technology has not come far enough to be profitable to use.

History

The area where today’s Israel is located has been populated for thousands of years. Jerusalem was the center of Jewish communities until the Jews were expelled in the year 70 AD. After being part of the Roman Empire, the area was invaded by Arab forces in the 600s. It remained under Arab/Turkish control until the Ottoman Empire fell after World War I. Then the province of Palestine (where today’s Israel is) became subject to British control.

In response to increased Jewish persecution in Europe in the late 1800s, a Jewish nationalist movement emerged: Zionism. The Zionists wanted to establish a Jewish state in Palestine through colonization, and worked for European Jews to move to the area. Soon, violent conflicts arose between the existing Palestinian population and the Jewish immigrants. After World War II, the United Nations proposed dividing the area into two: a Jewish section and a Palestinian section.

In 1948, Israel declared itself a state of its own. The Arab neighboring countries immediately went to war against the new state. Israel won the war, and at the same time occupied large parts of the land that was intended for the Palestinians. Over the next few decades, Israel fought several wars against its neighboring countries. After the 1967 Six Day War, Israel occupied the rest of the territories that should have constituted the Palestinian state. Occupation and conflict continues to this day.

Society and politics

The Knesset, elected for four years at a time, is Israel’s National Assembly. Knesset’s 120 members elect the government, which is headed by the prime minister. The President is also appointed by the Knesset, but has a symbolic role. Israel has no constitution yet – the design has been postponed since 1950.

Israel is a divided society. The Jewish population of the country consists of two main groups: the Ashkenazi Jews, who immigrated from Europe, and the Sephardic Jews who are of Asian and African origin. The Ashkenazi Jews dominated the Zionist movement that was central to the founding of Israel, and has later remained a political and cultural elite in the country. One of the major topics of discussion in the country is the role of Judaism in state agencies and in society. There are major disagreements between Orthodox and non-religious Israelis.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, over a million Jews moved from former Soviet states to Israel. The country’s largest minority are Palestinians who remained in Israel after the state was created, often called Arab Israelis. Human rights groups accuse Israel of treating Arabs worse than the Jewish population. Israel also receives strong criticism from the UN for the occupation of the Palestinian territories and the treatment of the Palestinians.

Economics and Commerce

Israel spends a lot of money on the military, and security has always been a top priority for the country’s authorities. There is general military duty for both men and women, three and two years respectively, and from time to time as much as 40 percent of the state budget has gone to the defense.

Israel has an efficient agricultural production and a versatile industry, but neither agriculture nor industry generates large revenue. By contrast, the country has a significant tourism industry as a result of all the historically important sites within Israel’s borders. However, the country has traditionally relied on financial assistance and gifts from abroad to raise its budget. The United States is among Israel’s most important supporters.

UN RPGs

The UN Association is offering a role-playing game for the 2019-20 school year in which students will try to resolve a conflict within the UN Security Council (Iran and the nuclear issue). Israel is not a member of the Security Council, but has been invited to the debate because it plays a key role in the issue of peace and security in the Middle East.

Relations with other countries in the Security Council

Israel has a very close relationship with the United States and several other Western countries. Relations with Russia are also relatively good, and the country has extensive trade with China on, among other things. high-tech products. In Africa, there was previously a particularly close collaboration with South Africa (during the apartheid era).

Tips

Iran and Israel had some trade political and military cooperation with Iran in the 1950s and 1960s, but this came to an abrupt end as a result of the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979. From that time, Iran has emerged as the greatest regional threat to Israel’s security.

Israel has for many years warned that Iran is developing nuclear weapons through a secret program that avoids inspections by the Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). According to Israel, Iran has a civilian nuclear program controlled by the IAEA, as well as covert activities that will soon allow nuclear weapons to be completed if the international community does not intervene. Israel has repeatedly pointed to the need for military action to knock out the most important nuclear facilities in Iran, and has wanted the United States and others to join.

When Israel hesitates to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities alone, it may be because several of the facilities are located below the ground and protected by a strong rocket defense (purchased from Russia, among others). It will require a massive attack in several places at the same time if one is to hope to destroy them. Israel also has negative memories from 1981, when it landed Iraq’s nuclear plant on its own in a purported war of war, and experienced massive criticism from the international community afterwards.

Israel believes that the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran is a major mistake, and supports the US withdrawal from the agreement. They claim the seizure of the so-called Amad Archive in Tehran at the beginning of 2018 fully confirms that Iran has continued its illegal nuclear activities long after they assured the IAEA and the world community that they did not. When it comes to EU countries’ efforts to create an alternative trade mechanism (INSTEX) to mitigate the consequences of the US sanctions against Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has compared these with the unforgivingly relaxed relationship of Europeans with Nazi Germany’s development in the 1930s.

For Israel, an Iran with nuclear weapons is an existential threat. Israel fears that Iran, as a nuclear weapons state, will play a more aggressive political role in the Middle East, while inspiring anti-Israeli groups to take on more extreme positions. An Iranian nuclear bomb could also launch a regional arms race in which countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates consider it necessary to become nuclear weapons states. Israel also fears that Iran’s nuclear weapons will have a negative effect on its own population in the form of increased emigration – this is because people will not be able to live in the shadow of what they perceive as the threat of a new Holocaust.

Israel’s nuclear weapons and the issue of a nuclear-free zone

Israel secretly started its own nuclear weapons development in the late 1950s, and today it is believed to have around 80 nuclear warheads in its arsenal. Israel has never officially admitted to having nuclear weapons, although many politicians over the years have neglected and referred to the existence of such weapons. Israel has not conducted nuclear tests on its own territory, but much indicates that it conducted such a test together with South Africa in the Indian Ocean in 1979. Atomic technician Mordechai Vanunu became world famous when he revealed details of the Israeli nuclear weapons program in 1986, and then was abducted and imprisoned.

Israel is not a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, so not all nuclear plants in the country are fully inspected by the Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Israel is strongly criticized for its nuclear policy by other countries in the Middle East. Several Arab countries and Iran have used this as a starting point to push for the establishment of a separate nuclear-free zone in the region. Israel believes it is out of date to support this until Iran’s nuclear program is credibly demilitarized, and other threats to Israel as a result of Iran’s interference in regional conflicts have been resolved. Israel demands that Iran must stop supporting Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and President Assad in Syria. In the Syrian civil war, Israel has carried out many bombings in Syrian territory in recent years against Iranian military who are participating in the war on Assad’s side, and may also be involved in Iranian weapons deliveries to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Israel also wants neighboring countries that have not signed a peace agreement with Israel (Lebanon and Syria) to do so as a first step towards a more positive climate for peace and relaxation. The Palestinian refugee issue must also be resolved before one can sit down and talk about a nuclear weapons-free zone. Israel strongly opposes that in the near future the United Nations will organize its own conference to create the zone only because it was promised that this would happen when the Non-Proliferation Treaty was extended indefinitely in 1995. All countries affected by the nuclear-free zone must agree before starting the process.

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