Israel

Abstract

Before exploring the higher education system of Israel, it is first necessary to understand the unique geographic and demographic context of this country. The area of Israel within its 1949 armistice borders is 20,700 square kilometers. In addition, Israel controls “administered territories” of about 7,500 square kilometers (occupied since the 1967 war) from Syria, Jordan, and Egypt, part of which are also administered by the Palestinian Authority following the Oslo accords of the 1990s. (These territories are not dealt with here.) The state is bounded on the north by Lebanon, on the northeast by Syria, on the east by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and on the southwest by the Gulf of Aqaba/Eilat and the Egyptian Sinai Desert (Israel Central Bureau of Statistics [CBS], Statistical Abstract of Israel no. 55, 246/2004b).