The Levant
Where the Ottoman provinces ended, two European mandates began. The Council of the League of Nations confirmed the French mandate over Syria and Lebanon and the British mandate over Palestine on the same day, 24 July 1922. The states filed here were all constituted inside one of those two territories. Arabic is official in all but Israel, and one member holds no seat at the United Nations.
Common questions
Questions about Levant
Which countries does the catalogue file in the Levant?
Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria. Wider readings are in print: Britannica's Levant takes in Cyprus and the Hatay province of Türkiye as well, and older usage ran the term along the whole eastern shore of the Mediterranean, following the trade it was coined for. The catalogue files Cyprus under the Eastern Mediterranean and Türkiye under Anatolia, records that the wider readings exist, and chooses between none of them.
Where does the name Levant come from?
From the French lever, to rise, meaning the quarter of the sunrise as seen from western Europe, and it was fixed in that sense by the trade Venetian and other European merchants opened with Tyre, Sidon and the other eastern Mediterranean ports in the wake of the Crusades. Arabic names much the same ground Bilad al-Sham, which is not a translation of it. A word that describes a bearing has no edge built into it, and that is a large part of why the region's edges are argued rather than drawn, and why the roster filed here is one reading among several that are all in print.
Is Palestine a member of the United Nations?
No. The General Assembly accorded Palestine non-member observer State status on 29 November 2012 by resolution 67/19, carried by 138 votes to 9 with 41 abstentions, and admission as a member state would require a recommendation from the Security Council as well as a vote of the Assembly. The catalogue records the status and the vote and goes no further. The other four countries filed here hold seats, the earliest of them from 24 October 1945.
Why is Jordan not recorded as landlocked?
Because of Aqaba. The frontage is confined to the head of the Gulf of Aqaba, which opens into the Red Sea, and a short coastline is still a coastline as the record keeps it. Every other member here fronts the Mediterranean instead.