People forget how small Israel is. Its entire population is a little over 7 million -- smaller than Lima, Peru. Its land area is about 8,000 square miles, smaller than New Jersey. By comparison, Jordan, its neighbor to the east, occupies 35,000 square miles; Egypt, to the West, covers 386,000 square miles.
There are more than 20 Arab states with a combined population of 325 million, and more than 50 majority-Muslim states with a combined population of well over a billion. By contrast, Israel is the world's only Jewish-majority state -- and 20 percent of its population is Arab, most of them Muslim.
May: How one small endangered nation prospered
