-
Zionism
Theodore Herzl, the founder of Zionism, tried to find a political solution for the problem in his book he advocated the creation of a jewish state in Argentina or Palestine. -
The Balfour Decleration
the British Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour committed Britain to work towards “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people,” in a letter to leading Zionist Lord Rothschild. -
british rule
Britain occupied the region at the end of the World War I in 1918 -
british rule
Britain was assigned as the mandatory power by the League of Nations on 25 April 1920. -
UN parition plan
Britain, which had ruled Palestine since 1920, handed over responsibility for solving the Zionist-Arab problem to the UN in 1947. The UN recommended splitting the territory into separate Jewish and Palestinian states.
The partition plan gave:
56.47% of Palestine to the Jewish state
43.53% to the Arab state
An international enclave around Jerusalem. -
UN Partition Plan
On 29 November 1947, 33 countries of the UN General Assembly voted for partition, 13 voted against and 10 abstained. This led to the creation of Israel. -
Establishment of Israel
The State of Israel, the first Jewish state for nearly 2,000 years, was proclaimed on May 14, 1948 in Tel Aviv. The declaration came into effect the following day as the last British troops withdrew. -
Establishment of Israel
The day after the state of Israel was declared (May 15, 1948) five Arab armies from Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq immediately invaded Israel but were repulsed, and the Israeli army crushed pockets of resistance. Armistices established Israel's borders on the frontier of most of the earlier British Mandate Palestine. -
The Suez Campaign 1956
In 1956 Israel, France and Britain went to war against Egypt because:
Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal and closed it to Israel and Western Europe
Concern about Egypt's growing military purchases from the Russians
Raids on Israel by Egyptian units.
During the war, Israel captured the Sinai desert, but eventually withdrew in response to U.S. pressure and returned the territory it had gained to Egypt. -
Formation of the PLO
On May 28, 1964, the Palestinians created a genuinely independent organization when Yasser Arafat took over the chairmanship of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1969. His Fatah organization was gaining notoriety with its armed operations against Israel. -
The Six-Day War
On June 5, 1967:
Egypt blockaded Israeli shipping lanes in the Red Sea, expelled UN peacekeeping troops from the border of the Sinai and built up its own troops in the area.
Syria amassed large numbers of troops on the Golan Heights
Israel launched preemptive strikes against Egypt. Syria and Jordan joined the fight.
The war lasted only six days. Israel captured the Sinai and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria and the West Bank from Jordan including East Jerusalem. -
The formation of the PLO
Fatah fighters inflicted heavy casualties on Israeli troops at Karameh in Jordan in 1968. -
Period: to
Terrorism
In the 1970s, under Yasser Arafat's leadership, PLO factions and other militant Palestinian groups launched a series of attacks on Israeli and other targets. -
The Munich Olympics
Members of the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage and eventually killed by the Palestinian group Black September on September 5, 1972. -
The Yom Kippur War
On October 6, 1973, Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Jordan attacked Israel.
After initial Arab military successes, the Israelis managed to push back the attack although severely outnumbered. The U.S. convinced Israel to withdraw from the territories it had taken.
For many Israelis the 1973 war reinforced the strategic importance of buffer zones occupied in 1967. The heartland of Israel would have been overrun had it not been for the buffer zones of the -
Arafat at the United Nations
But while the PLO pursued the armed struggle to "liberate all of Palestine," Arafat made a dramatic first appearance at the United Nations in 1974 mooting a peaceful solution.
He condemned the Zionist project, but concluded:
The speech was a watershed in the Palestinians' search for international recognition of their cause.
"Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter's gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand." -
The Camp David Accords
In 1979, after intensive negotiations conducted by the U.S., Israel and Egypt signed the Camp David accords. A peace treaty was concluded and Israel returned the Sinai desert to the Egyptians. President Sadat of Egypt became the first Arab leader to visit the Jewish state and in a sign of the new relations between the two countries, he addressed the Israeli parliament, the Knesset. -
Sadat Assassinated
Sadat was assassinated in 1981 by Islamist elements in the Egyptian army, who opposed peace with Israel, during national celebrations to mark the anniversary of the October war. -
Period: to
The Oslo Peace Process
The election of the left-wing Labour government in June 1992, led by Yitzhak Rabin, triggered a period of frenetic Israeli-Arab peacemaking in the mid-1990s.
The PLO, meanwhile, wanted to make peace talks work because of the weakness of its position due to the Gulf War in 1991.
The Palestinians consented to recognize Israel in return for the beginning of phased dismantling of Israel's occupation.
Negotiations culminated in the Declaration of Principles, signed on the White -
Palestinian Intifada
A mass uprising - or intifada against the Israeli occupation began in Gaza and quickly spread to the West Bank.
Protest took the form of civil disobedience, general strikes, boycotts on Israeli products, graffiti, and barricades, but it was the stone-throwing demonstrations against the heavily-armed occupation troops that captured international attention.
The Israeli Defense Forces responded and there was heavy loss of life among Palestinian civilians.
More than 1,000 died in -
Jordan-Israeli Peace
In July 1994 Prime Minister Mr. Rabin and King Hussein of Jordan signed a peace agreement ending 46 years of war and strained relations.
The agreement, which was signed at the White House in the presence of U.S. President Bill Clinton, laid the groundwork for a full peace treaty -
Arafat Returns!
Many critics of the peace process were silenced on 1 July as jubilant crowds lined the streets of Gaza to cheer Yasser Arafat on his triumphal return to Palestinian territory.
The returning Palestinian Liberation Army deployed in areas vacated by Israeli troops and Arafat became head of the new Palestinian National Authority (PA) in the autonomous areas. He was elected president of the Authority in January 1996. -
Rabin Assassinated
Oslo II was greeted with little enthusiasm by Palestinians, while Israel's religious right was furious at the "surrender of Jewish land".
Amid an incitement campaign against Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, a Jewish religious extremist assassinated him on 4 November, sending shock waves around the world.
The dovish Shimon Peres, architect of the faltering peace process, became prime minister. -
Talks Fail, New Intifada Starts!
After the withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000, attention turned back to Yasser Arafat, who was under pressure from Barak and US President Bill Clinton to abandon gradual negotiations and launch an all-out push for a final settlement at the presidential retreat at Camp David. Two weeks of talks failed to come up with acceptable solutions to the status of Jerusalem and the right of return of Palestinian refugees. -
Talks Fail, New Intifada Starts!
In the uncertainty of the ensuing impasse, Ariel Sharon, the veteran right-winger who succeeded Binyamin Netanyahu as Likud leader, toured the al-Aqsa/Temple Mount complex in Jerusalem on 28 September. Sharon's critics saw it as a highly provocative move. Palestinian demonstrations followed, quickly developing into what became known as the al-Aqsa intifada, or uprising. -
Death Toll Increases
With his coalition collapsing around him, Barak resigned as prime minister to "seek a new mandate" to deal with the crisis. However in elections, Ariel Sharon was swept to power by an Israeli electorate that had overwhelmingly turned its back on the land-for-peace formulas of the 1990s and now favored a tougher approach to Israel's "Palestinian problem". -
Death Toll Increases
The death toll soared as Sharon intensified existing policies such as assassinating Palestinian militants, air strikes and incursions into Palestinian self-rule areas. Palestinian militants, meanwhile, stepped up suicide bomb attacks in Israeli cities. -
“Road Map to Peace”
The "road map" for peace is a plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict proposed by the United States, the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations.
The principles of the plan calls for an independent Palestinian state living side by side with the Israeli state in peace. Bush was the first U.S. President to explicitly call for such a Palestinian state.
The first step on the road map was the appointment of the first-ever Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (also known as Abu -
Arafat Dies!
Yasser Arafat, the champion of Palestinian statehood, died on Thursday 11th November, 2004 at age 75 in a military hospital in France. -
New President
Hamas wins the Palestinian legislative elections on January 25, 2006. The US, Israel and several European countries cut off aid to the Palestinians as the Islamist movement rejects Israel's right to exist -
New Hope?
During his acceptance speech in Ramallah, Abbas said that "there is a difficult mission ahead to build our state, to achieve security for our people ... to give our prisoners freedom, our fugitives a life in dignity, to reach our goal of an independent state."
