Even saying the word "Israel" will ignite an onslaught of tense debates between multiple people groups.

No matter what I say in this video, somebody will get mad on either side of

the argument when it comes to Israel's current place held in today's world.

I am not Israeli, I am not Arab, and I am definitely not claiming to be

your go-to authority when it comes to Israel and Palestine issues. All I can say is,

I have contacted many of you guys, the Israeli and Palestinian subscribers, for help with this video.

I've conglomerated all the information I could based off of what you said and added it with my research.

I will try, try, TRY to make this video as plain and objective as I possibly can based off of the data,

but it's not easy and it won't be perfect but I will try, so without further ado...let's begin.

[theme song jingle]

It's time to learn Geography NOW!

Now, to most people today, the USA and China might be the giants of geopolitical impact, however

literally over half the world is keeping their eyes on this one small sliver of land straddling three continents

smaller than the size of El Salvador. Why is it that this one piece of land has such a powerful hold

on billions of people? How did it become the epicenter of world view tension?

The answer is incredibly complex and in no way could I possibly answer everything in this episode,

but what I can do is try to relay as much information as I can to give a platform for insight.

Man, it is going to be really hard to be, like, funny and quirky in this video.

At least the first part is gonna be kind of eas-

actually no it won't.

Aaaaand our first course of controversy! Woo-hoo!

I can already hear the keyboard warriors typing up paragraphs in Caps Lock!

Not much I can do, so let's just ride this pony into the sunset, shall we?

Today, the state of Israel is located in the Middle East, surrounded by Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon,

with the Mediterranean Sea to the west and a very narrow coast

along the Gulf of Aqaba in the south, which connects to the Red Sea.

The country is divided into six administrative districts, or “mehozot”,

as well as the claimed but not completely internationally recognized capital of Jerusalem near the center.

Aaaaand here's what you're all waiting for – the Palestine stuff.

These two areas right here are known as the West Bank (Israelis call them Judea and Samaria)

and the Gaza Strip. These are, according to Israelis, disputed territories, and according to the UN,

Israeli-occupied territories that are not recognized as part of Israel but make up the larger entity

commonly known as Palestine (or at least the Palestinian State). Parts of these two entities are

currently ruled by different Palestinian authorities – the West Bank under Fatah and Gaza under Hamas.

In addition, even though Ramallah acts as kind of like a capital to the West Bank Palestinian authority area,

the city of Jerusalem is kind of seen as the rightful capital of both entities.

However, it's one big confusing mess of semi and fully barricaded neighborhoods with walls and checkpoints

that extend all the way to the West Bank that would make your head spin if you even attempted to explain it

But I'll try! Basically, this right here known as the Armistice (or the Green Line)

was established shortly after the start of modern-day Israel. Now here's the thing –

although it looks like a concise division, the Green Line technically isn't a full nation-state border division,

as it was set up as a ceasefire line.

Aaaaand this is where legal semantics get really messy.

Israel has had a lot of conflicts since independence, but basically after the Six-Day War

in which pretty much everyone surrounding them attacked, Israel actually won and took over pretty much

the entire state, plus the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights which has the

UN Disengagement Observer Force zone that manages the border with Syria.

While everyone was taking forever to decide what to do with the newly-acquired land

(should they give it back for peace or should they partition it?)

Israelis just kinda moved in to the West Bank anyway since they figured the Armistice Line was

no longer under ceasefire status. Eventually they gave back the entire Sinai Peninsula to Egypt for peace,

but then by the time they addressed the West Bank there were already over 100,000 Israelis living there.

And that's kinda where things got really messy.

After all the settlements were set up in the West Bank,

it kind of chopped up the map into pockety Palestinian neighborhood islands.

These areas are divided into three separate types of divisions

established by the Oslo Accords in the 90's: Areas A, B, and C.

Type A makes up about 18% of the West Bank but with the largest populations,

classified as being under the full control of the Palestinian Authority.

Type B, about 22% of the land, is under Palestinian civil authority but under Israeli security control.

Finally, Area C, which makes up about 60% of the land, is the mostly-uninhabited area of the West Bank

which is pretty much under Israeli control and Palestinians must obtain a permit to build there

(although getting a permit is pretty difficult). This is where most of the Israeli settlements are and

about 5% of Israel's population lives, with about half a million Israeli citizens.

But the biggest issue, finally – Jerusalem. Why is Jerusalem so important?

First of all, Jerusalem was completely annexed after the Six-Day War even though it was split previously

by the Green Line. They tried to establish a very carefully structured, religiously sensitive format that

allowed the three major religions to each grab at Jerusalem, giving pre-1967 Arab residents in

East Jerusalem and their descendants permanent residency status and the ability to apply for citizenship.

However, to this day, the move is still not well-received

and the majority of UN member states do not exactly recognize the annexation as most of them

believe that Jerusalem should be under international status.

And in terms of why everyone makes such a huge fuss over Jerusalem,

well, in the shortest way I can answer this, it contains

the holiest site to Jews and the third-holiest in Islam, the Temple Mount.

What is the Temple Mount? Well, according to what we know from ancient recorded history

from both internal and external sources, this place was the claimed site of

the First and Second Jewish Temples thousands of years ago until it was destroyed by

the Babylonians first and then rebuilt only to be again destroyed by the Romans.

Then it was made into a temple for the god Jupiter until the Umayyads came in the 7th Century AD

and built the Dome of the Rock (which is a shrine, not a mosque),

the Dome of the Chains (which is a prayer house, not a shrine),

and the Al-Aqsa Mosque (which is…a…mosque).

To the Jewish community, the dream is to one day rebuild the Jewish temple

a third time on the Temple Mount, but, yeah, unless something absolutely insane and

globally unprecedented happens, the Muslims will probably never let that happen.

And then you get into the Bible and the prophecies – it's very complicated.

UGH, this episode is so complex! What have I gotten myself into?

OK, so that kinda covers most of the administrative confusion I think. But honestly,

one thing you have to understand is that outside of Jerusalem, the country is actually pretty chill.

It's weird, but Israel is a place where everyone can be friends if you just don't talk about that one thing.

Otherwise, the largest cities outside of Jerusalem are Haifa and Tel-Aviv on the coast.

And the busiest airports are Tel-Aviv (Ben Gurion) International,

Eliat-Ramon, and Haifa Michaeli International.

As a holy site for the three Abrahamic religions there are too many places to list

in terms of notable sites and landmarks, but some of the top ones

in both Israeli and West Bank Palestinian areas might include places like:

the Rosh Hanikra grottoes, the ruins of Caesaria,

Masada, the Shrine of St. George,

the Church of the Holy Sepulcher,

the Shrine of the Book, Ades Synagogue,

Zedekiah's Cave, the Honey Bee Hive House,

the Tomb of the Prophet Samuel,

Bethlehem and Galilee, the areas where Jesus was born and lived,

the Mount of Olives, garden of Gethsemane,

the ruins of Jericho, and Mount Carmel.

And of course pretty much everything in Jerusalem is a historically significant landmark.

Oh, and there's that weird micronation, Akhzivland – just look it up, I don't have time to teach you about it.

Alright, well that was pretty intense. Luckily, this next segment will be pretty easy –

not much to argue about when it comes to dirt and plants, right?

Former Prime Minister Golda Meir once jokingly said,

First of all, Israel is located in the region of the Middle East known as the Levant,

or a strip of land bordering the coast of the Mediterranean known for having its unique

semiarid lush zones that harbors various types of flora and fauna.

The country is divided into four main physical geographic regions:

the Coastal Plains where about 3/4 of the country lives,

the central or Judean hills mostly located in the north and West Bank Palestinian regions,

then there's the Negev Desert in the south,

and the Jordan Rift Valley which surrounds the longest river in the country,

the Jordan, that pretty much makes up Israel's entire eastern border.

The tallest mountain is located in the disputed Golan Heights area, Mt. Hermon;

otherwise, within the Green Line, Mt. Meron in the Northern District would be the tallest.

The interesting thing is that the entire Jordan River pretty much is a by-product of being located on

the Dead Sea Transform Fault system, which lies right where the African and Arabian tectonic plates meet.

This means that Israel sometimes is subject to earthquakes,

potentially destructive ones, on average about every eighty years.

Right at the end of the Jordan River lies the Dead Sea, the lowest point on Earth

at over 430 meters below sea level.

Rainfall is rare between May and September, which means water can be scarce.

To combat this, Israel created a unique drip irrigation system in which

water directly goes to the roots of plants with little evaporation.

To this day, Israel has the highest percentage of recycled water usage, solar power per capita,

and the highest density of ecofriendly companies. Hmm!

It came with a lot of difficulties, though. They had to drain the swamps and replace them with citrus trees,

terrace and spray the land, and change the irrigation canal flows to disrupt mosquito breeding patterns –

after twenty years, the country officially became malaria-free.

Even animals have seen a breeding resurgence, such as

the Nubian ibex, oryxes, green toads,

and the national animal the hoopoe bird.

Israelis might say that much of this agricultural innovation is attributed to the kibbutz program.

It's hard to explain exactly what a “kibbutz” is –

it's like a program that pulls all labor and resources together for sake of social and economic flourishing.

It's kinda like a hippie commune, but without the hippies or drum circles and crystals

and it has like actual government-funded motivation.

Actually, now that I think about it, it's kinda like the anti-hippie commune.

Anyway! Not all Jews are kosher, but the ones that are avoid anything with pork and

Israel actually has the highest percentage of vegans per capita at around 5%.

Nonetheless, Israel's economy is more heavily based on free enterprise and entrepreneurship

as well as the science and medical sectors. To this day, over 4000 tech companies

and over 80 of the 500 largest tech companies in the world have subsidiaries in Israel.

With limited space for agriculture and industry jobs, they realized,

“Oh shoot, we kinda have to, like, make money off of ideas.”

But what's a great way to grow revenue without having to take up much space?

Research and programming! Today, Israel has one of the best environments for

entrepreneurial capital in the world, since venture capital investments rose from 20 to over 500 in the 90's.

Tel Aviv ranks as the second-most important technological center in the world after Silicon Valley

and has the third-most companies listed on the NASDAQ after the US and China.

Your iPhone hardware, Google's innovations, Intel microchips –

all these things have some correlation to Israel's tech sector. In addition,

they are the 34th-largest economy in the world by nominal Gross Domestic Product as of 2016.

This means amidst the controversy Israel kind of moves forward in tech innovation.

And that brings us to the climax of this entire episode:

who are the people living here and what is the story behind them?

*exhales* Here we go.

Now, here's the thing:

in many ways, yes, there is a perpetual lingering ambiance of tension that hovers above Israel.

However, the people living here today are now third-, fourth-, and even fifth-generation citizens

that still might carry the strife of their ancestors to some extent,

but, like we studied in the Iran episode, kids are more interested in

entertainment and money than they are with ideological disputes.

That being said, Israel has about 9 million people

(and if you include the West Bank Palestinian populace, the number swells up to about 13 million altogether)

and Israel is the only Jewish-run state in the world with about half of the entire world's Jewish population.

Of the country, about 75% identify as ethnically Jewish, of which

the majority (at about 75%) being Mizrahi Jews that originally came from the Middle East and North Africa.

Then you have the Ashkanazis at about 17%,

whereas the Sephardic and African and Asian Jews round out the rest.

Whereas the non-Jewish citizens number at about a quarter of the population, identifying mostly as Arabs.

They also use the Israeli shekel as their currency,

they use the Type C, D, and H plug outlets,

and they drive on the right side of the road.

Now here's where things get pretty intense, because Israel has a very unique system of