Israel Timeline

Following the 1948 War, Arab nations refused to recognize or negotiate with Israel; many supported terrorist acts against Israel and called for its destruction. Because of this, many Israelis, both then and now, fear that creating a Palestinian state will threaten Israel’s security.

In 1956, Israel, Britain, and France attacked Egypt after Egypt tried to cut off Western access to the Suez Canal.

In 1964, Palestinian leaders formed the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO); its goal was to reclaim Palestine and destroy Israel.

In 1967, tensions were increasing and Arab nations threatened to attack Israel. Israel launched pre-emptive strikes against its neighbors in the Six-Day War. They won the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, & the West Bank.

Palestinians, who were not already living in refugee camps outside of Israel, now lived in occupied territories - the land seized by Israel in the 1967 war.

In 1973, Syria and Egypt attacked Israel to regain the land they had lost in the Six-Day War. This incident was the Yom Kippur War because Syria and Egypt attacked on the Jewish high holiday of Yom Kippur.

During the Cold War, the US backed Israel, so Arab nations got arms and help from the USSR. The US and USSR realized that Middle East violence could trigger a world war. They tried to negotiate peace many times, but Arabs refused to recognize Israel and the US was unwilling to push Israel to give back land to Palestinian refugees.

In the 1970’s, the PLO attacked the US and other nations that helped Israel with terrorist acts like bombings and hijackings.

The PLO attacks brought reprisals - forced acts in response to an injury. Usually, the reprisals were crack-downs on known radical groups and potential terrorists. The Israeli army would attack Palestinian neighborhoods that were thought to be areas where terrorists organized.

The first step to peace was in 1979 when Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat, signed a peace treaty with Israel. This was called the Camp David Accords. Camp David is the US Presidential retreat, and President Jimmy Carter played a huge role in getting the two sides to talk and make peace. Egypt became the 1^st Arab nation to recognize Israel, plus they had the land in the Sinai Peninsula returned to them.

After another series of suicide bombings and attacks on Israeli civilians, Israel attacked PLO camps in Jordan and Lebanon and invaded Lebanon in 1982. This war between Lebanon and Israel lasted several months.

In 1987, frustrated Palestinians led strikes against Israeli businesses and began attacking Israeli soldiers and citizens. This became known as the intifada, or the shaking. At the start of intifada, secret and usually violent resistance groups formed, like Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Israel’s responses to the intifada: to arrest, jail, or deport suspected Palestinian terrorists, to destroy rebel’s homes, and to assassinate potential terrorist leaders and suicide bombers.

In the early 1990’s a stronger effort was made to make peace. The hardest issues to resolve were:

1. Trying to figure out what to do with the 2 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

2. Deciding whether or not the Jewish settlers to the West Bank and Gaza should be removed, after they had previously been encouraged to move into and develop these occupied territories between 1967 and 1990.

3. Deciding what land would be used if a Palestinian homeland was created.

4. Trying to figure out how to carry out serious peace talks, while the PLO leader, Yassir Arafat, kept calling for Israel’s destruction.

5. Trying to discuss peace when Israel refused to negotiate with the PLO.

In 1993, the Oslo Accords made progress towards peace.

1. Israel and the PLO agreed to recognize each other as legitimate government leaders of their respective people.

2. The PLO promised to stop attacks on Israel.

3. Israel would withdraw forces from the occupied territories.

4. Palestinians would be given limited self-government in Gaza and in the city of Jericho on the West Bank.

5. When these went into effect, Yassir Arafat became leader of the Palestinian Authority which would be the government for the Palestinian lands.

In 1994, Israel made peace with Jordan, but still to this day hasn’t made an agreement with Syria to resolve Israel’s possession of Syria’s land in the Golan Heights.

In November of 1995, Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, was assassinated by an Israeli Jew. The extremist assassin thought Rabin betrayed his people when he promised to give Palestinians back their land.

Without Rabin’s leadership, talks with Palestine fell apart and Israelis and Palestinians both started to ignore the Oslo Accords Peace Plan, so attacks, usually suicide bombings, against Israelis continued.

President Clinton invited Yassir Arafat, head of the PLO and Ehud Barak, Israeli Prime Minister back to Camp David in 2000 to try to restart the peace talks. The summit ended without any progress made.

After more violence and terrorist attacks in 2002, the Israeli military invaded Palestinian-ruled areas of the West Bank to strike targets that were centers of terrorist activity. Many innocent Palestinians were killed in the fighting. The Israelis accused Arafat of encouraging terrorism, while Arafat accused Israel of violating Palestinian civil rights.

A major step was taken towards peace in the summer of 2005. Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, ordered Israeli settlers to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and out of four settlements in the West Bank. There was some rioting of the Israeli settlers who felt betrayed by being forced out of their homes by their own military. Sharon felt that by giving Palestinians some of the land that had been taken in 1967, he could help end the constant threats of terrorist attacks on Israelis.

In January 2006, Ariel Sharon suffers a massive stroke. Many world leaders, Israelis, and some Palestinians are worried about what the loss of his leadership will mean to the peace process. US leaders fear that Sharon’s replacement will not be willing to take the important steps and may not be willing to make the necessary compromises to achieve peace.

Bitterness over the Palestinian terrorist attacks has made peace difficult. Likewise, Palestinians are bitter about losing the land they had been promised to them in 1948. Also, many Palestinians are resentful of the strict security rules that Israel forces them to live under.

But other unresolved problems include . . .

1. The questions over possession of Jerusalem. It is already Israel’s capital, but in East Jerusalem, Palestinians outnumber Israelis. Many Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be given to the Palestinians, so that they can use it for a capital once their nation is formed.

2. Many Palestinian refugees want the right of return, which would give Palestinians who fled during the wars the right to return to Israel, Gaza, Golan Heights, or the West Bank. Israel says it would be overwhelmed with too many people trying to settle on a limited amount of land.

3. Many Jews are against the right of return, because the majority of the Palestinians who wish to return are too young to have been born in Israel and were born outside of the country, yet they still want to “return” to land where their parents once lived, but where they have never lived.

4. To create a Palestinian state, Israeli settlements would need to be removed from the rest of the West Bank and from East Jerusalem. Israeli settlers resent the idea that their own government could force them to give up their homes for Palestinians. Also if they move from these areas, they are moving into land that is already crowded with people and homes.

5. Any Jewish person of the world is allowed to come to Israel and become a citizen, so there are always huge numbers of new immigrants coming to Israel every year. This increases the demand for Israel to have more land for these people to settle on.