-
Balfour Declaration
The Balfour Declaration was issued on Nov. 2, 1917 by Great Britain. The Declarations gave international recognition to the Zionist movement (Zionists will support them), and promised the Jews control and a state in the land of Palestine. The Balfour Declaration led to mass emigration of Jews during the period between the world wars, thus resulting in the dispossession and exile of the Palestinian people from their own land -
Palestine Become British Mandate
Britian received the League of Nations mandate over Palestine. Britain promised to create a national homeland for Jewish people. Anti-semitism, persucution, & immigration began to increase in Europe. Tensions between Jews & Arabs started to grow rapidly and riots broke out. The United Nations adopted the Partition Plan which typically divided Palestine into an Arab & Jewish State. Jerusalem was under international control. This led to the ending of the mandate & Israel declaiming its indepedence -
Holocaust
The Holocaust was a tragic event that killed approximately 6 million Jewish people. Jews living in Eastern Europe were subject to anti-semitism. This hatred of the Jews led to Zionism. Due to the holocaust and harsh conditions that the Jews were faced with, it caused some European nations to be sympathetic to the Jews. The United Nations partitioned Palestine into Jews and Arab sectors. -
Six Day War
The Six Day War was a conflict between Israel and Egypt, Jordan and Syria. It was the third out of a series of four Arab-Israeli Wars. The Arab Muslims were upset with Israel, who continued to take land that had belonged to them. Israel (with U.S. support) launched surprise air strikes against Arab forces and rapidly began to seize more territory.Israel took the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula (Egypt); Golan Heights (Syria); and the West Bank and East Jerusalem (Jordan). -
Yom Kippur War
The Yom Kippur War began October 6th, 1973, on the most Holy Day of the Jewish Calendar, Yom Kippur. This was also the Holy month of Ramadan for the Muslim People. During the previous Six Days War, the Palestinian Arabs had lost a lot of land, The Yom Kippur War was an attempt to gain that land back for their people. Egypt and Syria attacked Israel, however, the United States help the Israelis who eventually won the war. -
Arab Oil Embargo
October 25th, 1973, marked the end of the Yom Kippur War started earlier that month. The Arab nations were angered at their fourth consecutive loss to Israel (who had the support of the U.S.) As a result, put a trade embargo on the U.S. Heavily dependant on oil, the embargo caused panic in the states. We were faced with the decision between changing how the American people do things and finding alternative sources of energy- and we chose both. The idea for the Alaskian Pipeline was born. -
Alaskan Pipeline
The Alaska Pipeline was built betweent the years 1974 and 1977, as a result of the Arab Oil Embargo in 1973. Americans began to realize their depence on Middle Eastern oil reserves and realized that they needed a source of oil that they had total of control of. -
Jimmy Carter Becomes President
In September 1978 Carter called a joint session of congress. He discussed his success at Camp David, Maryland. He also described the first peace treaty between Israel. He demanded economic sanctions and enforced diplomatic pressure to accelerate negotiations to free the hostages. He marked the beginning of the Iran Hostage Crisis. -
Camp David Accords
United States President, Jimmy Carter, invited the Israeli Prime Minister and Egyptian President to Camp David. As a result, the Camp David Accords was signed by Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin on September 17, 1978. Egypt recognizes Israel's right to exist as a free Sovereign nation, and Israel agreed to return the Sinai Peninsula to Egyptian control. Both promised peaceful relations. -
Iran Hostage Crisis
The Iran Hostage Crisis was a diplomatic crisis between Iran and the United States. 66 American diplomats and citizens were held hostage for 444 days (November 4, 1979, to January 20, 1981), after a group of Iranian students, belonging to the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line, took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. -
Soviets Invade Afghanistan
The Soviet–Afghan War lasted over nine years from December 1979 to February 1989. It was fought between Soviet-led Afghan forces against multi-national insurgent groups called the Mujahideen. The Soviets took control of Kabul in order to expand their influence to Asia, to pressure the Communist govt that was beginning to collapse, and to protect their interest in Western nations. -
Ronald Reagan becomes President
Ronald reagan believed the United States had grown weak militarily and had lost respect it once had in world affairs. He called for massive increases in the defense budget to expand and modernize our military. Against his publicly stated policy of refusing to negotiate to sell antitank and antiaircraft missiles to iran in exchange for their help in the release of Americans held hostage in Lebanon. A portion of the money earned from this sale was diverted to weapons and supplies for the Contras. -
Bill Clinton Becomes President
Clinton was involved with the Middle East peace process to negotiate peace agreements between Israel and the Palestinians. He was also involved with the governments of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Clinton held secret negotiations between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat. These led to the declaration of peace, the Oslo Accords. These agreements did not end conflicts in the Middle East. -
George H.W. Bush Becomes President
Bush launched Operation Desert Shield. In this operation he deployed U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia to defend against a possible invasion by Iraq. Towards the last year of his presidency, Bush launched a military operation in Somalia along with a humanitarian operation by the United Nations. Operation Restore Hope was designed to help stop the spread of famine caused by the Somali civil war. This operation had little success. An attempt to arrest Mohamed Farah Aidid was unsuccessful as well. -
Desert Storm
Desert Storm was one of many facets of the Gulf War, Iraqi Dictator, Suddam Hussein wanted to overtake the small country of Kuwait. The United States feared that control of Kuwait would lead to control of Saudi Arabia- this would mean that Iraq would be in control of 1/5 of the world's oil. President Bush could not allow this to occur, and the U.S. led it's allies in a retaliation to stop Iraq from gaining control. This attempt by the Iraqi government was therefore rendered unsucessful. -
World Trade Center 1993
February 26th, 1993, a truck bomb exploded under the North Building of the World Trade Center. There were six fatalities and over 1,000 injuries. Ramzi Yousef, who organized the bombing later explained that the organization's motivation for the bombing was the U.S. involvement in in the Israeli-Arab Wars. The U.S. helped Israel because they were sympathetic to the hardship they faced and was blamed for the suffering of the Palestinian People, after aiding Israel in the capture of Arab land. -
Centrazbat 1997
Centrazbat was formed by Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan in December 1995 as a peacekeeping unit to provide peace and stability in Central Asia. Centrazbat has held multinational exercises in Central Asia to learn other nations' tactics in hopes of becoming a full-fledged participant in UN peacekeeping operations. It was the longest airborne operation in history, and took place because the U.S. wanted to ensure that the newly found oil and gas will flow to the West. -
Embassy Bombing in Kenya
The United States embassy bombings were a series of simultaneous attacks in which hundreds of people were killed in truck bomb explosions at the embassies of the United States in the East African cities of Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. These attacks resulted in the deaths of 224 people, and more than 5,000 wounded. 12 of those killed in Kenya were U.S. citizens. -
Embassy Bombing in Tanzania
August 7th, 1998, in several bombings of United States embassies occurred in East Africa. One of the cities targeted was the largest in Tanzania- Dar es Salaam. The attacks were planned by a terrorist group, called Al-Qaeda, that was brand new to the American People. It is believed that the motivation for these attacks (dreamt up by the group's leaders, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri) was the American holding and supposed torture of four Islamic Egyptian Jihad. -
ISIS
ISIS is a group of radical Muslim terrorists, whose goal is to restore and Islamic State in much of the Middle East. The acronym "ISIS" stands for "Islamic State in Iraq and Syria". However, they desire to make an Islamic State encompasses Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Palestinian Territories and South East Turkey. ISIS members from an extremist Sunni Muslim sect and use brutal methods in an effort to realize their goals. -
U.S.S. Cole
The U.S.S. Cole was a Navy Destroyer from Norfolk, Virginia. It was sent to the Persian Gulf to help enforce United Nations sanctions against Iraq. It anchored in Anden, a Yemini port, where a small ship, packed with explosives, hit the U.S.S. Cole and ripped a massive hole into the side of the ship. It resulted in the death of 17 U.S. sailors and the wounding of 39 more. This illustrates the tension present between Arab nations and the U -
Iraq-Present
Iraq's Kuwait 1990 invasion ended in their defeat by a US-led coalition in the Persian Gulf War. Suddam Hussein managed to retain power by harshly suppressing uprisings. Iraq's continued violaion of the US weapons ban and interference with inspections, led Pres. Clinton to bomb several Iraqi military installations. After the bombings, Iraq refused entry to inspectors. After 9/11, Pres. George W. Bush felt our vulnerability made disarming Iraq a priority. This led to the Persian Gulf War. -
George W. Bush Becomes President
George W. Bush is the first president to call for a Pelestinian state. In response to the 9?11 attacks, he reshaped our aproach to the Middle east due to the realization we were dealing with fanatics pledged to our destruction. While Suddam Hussein wasnt connected to 9?11, we could not risk an enemy having weapons of mass destruction. He confronted Liya over its WMD program. Working with international partners, the US supported multiple UN resolutions against Iran for its failure to stop it. -
World Trade Center 2001
Nineteen militants associated with the Islamic extremist group Al-Queda hijacked 4 airlines and carried out suicide attacks against targets in the United States. Two of the planes were crashed into the North and South towers, respectively, of the World Trade Center complex in New York City. These terrorist attacks were orchestrated by Osama Bin Laden. -
Barak Obama becomes President
Obama made achieving a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians a major goal. He pressured Netanyahu into accepting a Palestinian state. Negotiations were tense and progress suffered setbacks. Under the April 2 agreement, Iran agreed to scale back its nuclear program and submit to inspections. -
U.S. relations with Israel - Present
Our relations with Israel are increasinly strained. The US has been part of a coalition discussing reducing sanctions on Iran in return for a delay in a nuclear program. Netanyahu addressed Congress pleading to stop these talks. There is concern that Israel has been spying on the US as a way to undermine our stance on the Iranian Nuclear debate.
