Israel was founded in May 1948 to be a place for the Jews to live in after the holocaust. In November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly voted to split Israel between a Jewish and an Arab state, with Jerusalem under an international regime which is the partition plan. The Jews agreed but the Arabs did not. The Balfour Declaration was established in 1917 said that a "national home for the Jewish people" would be founded in Israel, while preserving the "civil and religious" rights of non-Jewish communities there. The UN decided on the partition plan because they wanted a safe haven for all the Jews who survived the Holocaust. The Arabs did not want to share land with anybody else and they were making a big deal about it. Their resentment was not justified because the Jews had nowhere to go after a devistation amongst their religion.
Sinai Campaign: In the 1950s, Egypt blocked off many vital ports and waterways from Israel. They blocked the access to and from the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. At the same time, Palestine Arab Fedayeen launched land assaults at Israel. Arab attacks and Israeli retaliation became normal in Arab and Israeli relations throughout the years. France and Britain joined into the fighting and U.S was taken by surprise. They asked Isral to back out of the fighting.
October War- In October 1973, Egypt and Syria teamed up and launched coordinated attacks on Israel in the Sinai and Golan Heights. This was the war that the United States was the most involved in because there was a treat of national security and an energy crisis. The war is another blow from the Sinai Campaign between Egypt and Israel. When Egypt and Syria attacked, Israel was taken completely by surprise because they had nothing and had not prepared for war at all.
Six Day War- The six day war was mainly a run off of the wars before it. Egypt was the main attacker; they wanted to expel United Nations troops from the Sinai Peninsula and block Israel’s port of Elita. In addition to all of that, Arab forces threatened to destroy Israel. Egypt put most of their troops on its border with Israel and began a naval blockade of Israel’s southern port. After about three days of intense fighting, Israel defeated the Jordanians and gained control of all Jerusalem. On the fifth day of the war Israel defeated the Syrians by blowing out their air force which was enough force to take them out and bring an end to the war the next day.
At the Munich Olympics, Palestinian terrorist broke into the Olympic village and killed two people from the Israeli team and took nine hostages. In a small battle, all nine hostages were killed with the terrorists and one policemen. Adolf Hitler wanted the games to be in Germany so he can show off his superior race to the world and escalate his Nazi regime.
From 1977-1979 Israel and Egypt signed a peace agreement to end a 30 year war. The Palestinians were not happy with the agreement and they did not agree with it. The PLO was created and led by Yassir Arafat in order to give a voice to Palestinians living in refugee camps in Lebanon. By 1976 they decided that their main goal was to destroy the State of Israel. The OSLO Accord occurred in 1993 and was an attempt to resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict. It called for a five year conditional period where Israel forces would withdraw from occupied territories and Palestinian authority would be set up. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed the agreement.
Peace Agreements: The Egypt-Israel peace agreement was signed in 1979. The treaty was signed by the Egyptain president, the Israeli Prime Minister, and by United States President Jimmy Carter. There was also a peace agreement between Israel and Palestine in 1976 that also led to agreements between the two nations.
PLO: The PLO is the Palestine Liberation Organization. It was formed to independently fight for Palestinian people. The Palestinians did not have a home so the PLO was formed to get back the land Israel took from them. It was also formed because of their mistrust of the other Arab nations protecting them.
Oslo Accords: The Oslo Accord was an attempt in 1993 to resolve the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It was the first face-to-face agreement between the government of Israel and the Palestinian Liberatino Organization, the PLO. Negotiations of the agreement were conducted secretly in Oslo, Norway, hosted by the Fafo Institute.
