The Birth of Israel
The Palestinian Arabs regarded the UN action as illegitimate and rejected the state offered to them. Conflicting claims to the land led to repeated violence. After the 1948 war that followed Israel’s founding, Israel and its Arab neighbors fought three more wars (1948, 1967, and 1973). Israelcontinued to expand its size and diminish the territory held by Egypt, Jordan and Syria. Between the wars, Israel faced guerrilla and terrorist attacks.
The day after the establishing of Israel (May 14th, 1948), five Arab armies (Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq) attacked. The Israeli army had 18.000 soldiers, with a total of 13.000 guns. After 15 months and over 6,000 Israeli deaths, the UN helped negotiate armistice agreements.
The war, forced upon Israel, caused thousands of Arabs living in battle zones to abandon their homes as refugees - which continues to increase international sympathy for the Palestinian cause.
Timeline of the History of Israel
1937: British propose ending their Mandate and partitioning the remainder of Palestinethe 30% left after the splitting off of Jordan) into separate Jewish and Arab states. The partition is accepted by the Jews but rejected by the Arabs.
1939: In an attempt to win Arab support for the impending war with Germany, British issue "White Paper" cutting off Jewish immigration to Palestine.
1944: under pressure from the British, the United States accepts 982 Jewish refugees from liberated Italy and inters them in a concentration camp in Oswego, New York for eventual deportation back to Europe; these are the only Jews allowed into the U.S. during World War II.
November 29, 1947: United Nations votes for the partition of the remainder of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states, with Jerusalem a neutral international city. The United States embargoes arms sales to the Jews while the British sell arms freely to the Arabs; with support from Stalin, the Jews are ultimately able to purchase $12 million of rifles from Czechoslovakia.
May 14, 1948: State of Israel declared. British withdraw. New state attacked simultaneously by Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Egypt. Palestinian Arabs were encouraged by the invading armies to vacate their homes to facilitate a quick war and complete victory.
July 1949: The fighting is over but the Israelis refuse to let the Palestinian Arabs who fled to return to their homes. Meanwhile, Jews living in Arab countries jump or are pushed into emigrating to Israel. There are more than 500,000 refugees on each side of the conflict. The Arabs leave the Palestinians in makeshift tent camps. The Israelis begin to build cheap concrete apartment blocks for all the Jews from Arab countries.
1956: Egyptian Colonel Nasser seizes Suez Canal from Anglo-French stockholders. The Canal and Straits of Tiran are closed to Israeli or Israel-bound ships. This prompts an invasion of the Sinai by French, British, and Israeli forces. The armies are forced to retreat under pressure from the Soviet Union and United States. This underscores a humiliating loss of influence and power for the English.
1967: Six Day War. Israel and the Arab countries have been in an official state of war since 1948. However, the first five months of 1967 brought an intensification of hostilities with the Egyptians moving troops into the Sinai and closing the shipping lanes, the Syrians shelling farms in the north, and terrorist attacks coming through all the borders. On June 5, 1967 Israel launched a preemptive strike on all fronts. After six days, the Israelis had conquered the Sinai, the Golan Heights, the West Bank, and Jerusalem.
September 1970: Palestinians hijack four commercial airplanes, fly them to Jordan, and blow them up. This was the last straw for King Hussein. Hussein launches massive military campaign to expel all the armed Palestinians from Jordan. More than 5000 Palestinians are killed and this leads to the formation of the Black September terrorist group. Most of the best-armed Palestinians wind up in Lebanon, destabilizing the government there.
1973: Yom Kippur War. The Arabs struck back, easily rolling over Israel's Maginot-style line in the Sinai. After three weeks or so, with heavy American support, the Israelis managed to cross the Suez into Egypt proper and were within 20 miles of Damascus before the US puts a halt to the war.
November 1977: Anwar Sadat visits Menachem Begin in Jerusalem for peace negotiations.
September 1978: Camp David Accords.
March 1979: Israel and Egypt sign a peace treaty, ending more than 30 years of war.
June 7, 1981: Israel bombing raid destroys Iraqi nuclear reactor; the United Nations responds by urging all Member States to provide necessary technical assistance to Iraq to restore its peaceful nuclear program
October 6, 1981: Anwar Sadat assassinated by Islamic fundamentalists.
1982: Israel invades Lebanon and destroys PLO infrastructure there.
July 1994: Israel and Jordan sign a peace treaty, ending 46 years of war.
November 4, 1995: Pro-compromise Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin killed at a peace rally by a Jewish right-wing assassin.