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The State of Israel

Independence Day (Yom Ha'atzmaut)
May 14, 1948 (5 Iyar, 5708)
Yom Ha'atzmaut is the day when all Israeli celebrate their national independence, declared on May 14, 1948.
In the Hebrew calendar this is the 5th day of Iyar. In 2009, the 5th day of Iyar falls on April 29.

The modern State of Israel has its roots in the Biblical Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael). The Jews saw it as the Promised Land which God bequeathed their patriarch, Abraham. Around the 11 century bc the first of a series of Israelite kingdoms and states was established in the region. The Israelite kingdoms and states lasted about one thousand years. They were followed by other rulers: the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Sassanians, and the Byzantine Empire. Around 636 ad the Muslims defeated the Byzantine rulers of the region and the Land of Israel remained under Muslim control (except between 1098-1291 when the Crusaders held it) until the 20th century.

In November 1917 the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, (named after Arthur James Balfour, Prime Minister David Lloyd George foreign secretary). The declaration approved of Zionism -- the 1897 Jewish movement toward the re-establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine -- and advocated the "establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

In November 1947 Zionists accepted a United Nations partition of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. The Arabs rejected the partition plan. Civil war ensued in Palestine with Arabs attacking Jews. A day before the British Mandate was to end in Palestine, on May 14, 1948, Ben-Gurion declared the independence of the State of Israel. He became the first prime minister. The next day Arab nations declared war. The first Arab-Israeli war lasted for a year 1948-1949. The second Arab-Israeli took place in 1967 and lasted for six days. It is also called the Six-Day War.