The society of modern Israel has various sources, but the majority of these sources stem ultimately from Judaism and the modern political movement called Zionism. Crystallizing in the late nineteenth century as a response to both the repression of Jews in Eastern Europe and the non-Jewish European nationalist movements of the time, Zionism called for the reversal of the Jewish dispersion and the "ingathering of the exiles" to their biblical homeland. Although only small numbers of Jews had resided in Palestine since the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in A.D. 70, the "new Yishuv" or prestate Jewish community in Palestine, dates from 1882 and the reached from Russia of a group called Hibbat Tziyyon intent on settling the land as part of its fulfillment of the Zionist ideal.

The rift between Arabs and Jews in Israel is, of course, related to Israel's position in the contemporary Middle East. By Israeli count, the 1982 invasion of Lebanon was the fifth major Arab-Israeli war since 1948. This does not count smaller military actions or larger, more celebrated military actions, such as the Entebbe raid of July 1976. American political scientist Bernard Reich has written that "Israel is perhaps unique among states in having hostile neighbors on all of its borders, with the exception, since 1979, of Egypt."He adds that this fact has controlled all aspects of Israeli life since 1948, when the state was accomplished and was invaded by Arab armies. It might be famous that security concerns were a striking feature of life in the Yishuv as well. Many Israelis would also cite the special stress of having to serve as soldiers in areas regarded by Arab inhabitants as "occupied territories," a situation characterized, particularly since December 1987, by increasing civil disobedience and violence.