When the Jewish State of Israel was formed in 1948, it was carved out of a historic region in the Middle East known as Palestine. Arabs and Jews had been fighting over territory in the Middle East for decades before the establishment of Israel. After World War II, the United Nations proposed a plan to partition Palestine into Arab and Jewish states. Even though the Palestinians rejected the partition, the United Nations created a Jewish homeland known as the State of Israel. Soon after, thousands of Arab Palestinians fled to neighboring Islamic countries rather than live in a Jewish state. Israel was immediately attacked by its Islamic neighbors (Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq), but was able to repel the invaders. The clashes between Israelis and Palestinians continued into the twenty-first century in a never-ending spiral of violence and retaliation. During Israel's first and...