Текст 1.

In April 2012, Israel celebrated its 64th Independence Day. According to the country’s Central Bureau of Statistics, 7.9 million people live in Israel, 10 times the number at the country’s founding, with 14 big cities; and 70 percent of the inhabitants are native-born, compared with 35 percent in 1948. Israel’s gross domestic product per capita would fit well into Western Europe.

But Israel has rarely felt more uncomfortable in its more immediate neighborhood. Since early 2011, the winds unleashed by the Arab Spring have cast a chill over the Middle East, leaving Israel confronting a radically transformed region where it believes its choices are limited and poor. By the fall of 2011, with its Cairo embassy rоbbed, its ambassador to Turkey expelled and the Palestiniansseeking statehood recognition at the United Nations, Israel found itself increasingly isolated.

In November, Israel engaged in an eight-day conflict with Hamas, the militant group that rules the Gaza Strip. Israeli officials said they accomplished their main military goals of reducing the stock of rockets that could be fired across the border, but Hamas celebrated the cease-fire, negotiated by the United States and Egypt, as a victory.

Later in the month, Israel was dismayed to see the extent of its isolation when the United Nations General Assembly granted observer status to the Palestinian Authority. Within hours, Israeli officials took steps toward building housing in a controversial area of East Jerusalem, where Jewish settlements have long been seen as the death knell for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.What is worse, the troubles of a long-standing enemy, Syria, posed threat for Israel, as a deepening civil war raised worries about regional instability.

In addition to its longstanding conflicts with its neighbors, Israel has been disturbed by protest movements focusing on domestic matters, like a housing shortage and rising inequality.

TsafrirAbayov/Associated PressUpdated: Dec. 14, 2012

Вправа 1. Дайте тлумачення:

- культурно-маркованих поняттям: ArabSpring, Hamas, GazaStrip;

- економічному терміну: grossdomesticproduct;

- запозиченому виразу: percapita

Вправа 2. Прокоментуйте переклад багатозначних слів:

to seek: to seek shelter, to seek help, to seek fortune, to seek permission, to seek the death penalty, to seek professional advice;

to raise: to raise voice, to raise worries, to raise from dead, to raise a student, to raise children, to raise taxes;

civil: civil aviation, civil war, civil manners, civil marriage, civil justice.

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