Chronology of the Middle East conflict
By FT Reporters
Published: July 30 2004 16:02 Last updated: August 11 2006 16:40
The creation of Israel in 1948 has bought neither the peace nor security hoped for by the Jewish state’s founders, but a series of more or less bloody conflicts with the Palestinians, who claim the same land, and the country’s Arab neighbours. Read a chronology of the main developments in the conflict and see the territorial changes since 1947.
1947-1948
1947 Britain gives up its mandate over Palestine to the newly formed United Nations. The UN General Assembly approves a plan to divide Palestine into two states - one Arab and one Jewish.
The plan is accepted by the Jews but rejected by the Palestinians.
1948 David Ben-Gurion, head of the Jewish Agency, which had supervised mass Jewish immigration to Palestine, declares the foundation of the state of Israel on May 15.
On the same day the US recognises the new Jewish state, followed shortly by the USSR.
Map shows Israeli territory after the 1948-49 war
1948-49 The day after the state of Israel is declared, Arab armies from Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq invade Israel. In the ensuing war Israel seizes control of a larger area of Palestine than it had been allocated by the UN, including half the designated international zone of Jerusalem. Jordan takes control of the other half of Jerusalem and the West Bank.
January 5 1949 Israel holds first national elections. David Ben-Gurion confirmed as the new prime minister with his Labour Party winning 57 of the 120 seats in the Knesset or parliament.
December 26 1949 The Knesset unanimously adopts a resolution declaring Jerusalem to be an integral part of Israel.
1956 President Nasser of Egypt nationalises the European-owned Suez Canal. Britain and France (the main shareholders) act with Israel to try to restore ownership of the canal to the Suez Canal Company. Israel invades Egypt and almost reaches the canal. Britain and France move their forces into the canal zone to “keep the combatants apart”. Following US pressure all three countries withdraw.
1964 The Palestine Liberation Organisation formed. The PLO claims to be the sole representative of the Palestinian people and vows to reclaim their land and destroy the state of Israel. Yassir Arafat took over the chairmanship of the PLO in 1969.
1967-1977
Map shows Israeli controlled territory after the six day war
June 5 1967 - The six day war President Nasser orders the UN peace keeping force to leave Egypt’s border with Israel and closes the Strait of Tiran, blocking access to the Israeli port of Eilat. Israel sees this as an act of war and invades the Sinai desert, virtually wiping out the airforces of Egypt, Syria and Jordan.
Israel captures East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan, the Sinai from Egypt and the Golan Heights from Syria. About 389,000 Palestinians leave the West Bank for Jordan.
November 1967 The UN Security Council adopts Resolution 242 calling for the “withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied during the recent conflict” in return for peace, an end to frontier claims and recognition of the right of every state to “live in peace within secure and recognised boundaries. The resolution becomes the basis of international efforts to agree a settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
October 6 1973 On Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, Syria and Egypt begin an offensive against Israeli held territory. After initial losses Israel regains almost all the land taken during the six day war.
1977 Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian President, pays an historic visit to Jerusalem. Addressing the Knesset he accepts the existence of Israel but states that peace in the Middle East depended on Israel’s withdrawal from occupied Arab territory and on recognition of Palestinian rights.
1978-1995
Map shows territory Israel agrees to withdraw from after Camp David
September 1978 US President Jimmy Carter invites President Sadat and Menachem Begin, the Israeli prime minister, to Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland. The two sign a peace treaty in which Israel returns the Sinai desert to Egypt. Diplomatic relations between the two countries are established.
1982 Israel invades Lebanon. After the PLO launches terrorist attacks on towns in northern Israel from bases in Lebanon Israeli troops enter Lebanon and surround Muslim West Beirut forcing PLO fighters to leave after a siege.
Christian militia enter Palestinian refugee camps, Sabra and Chatila, in Lebanon and massacre the civilian inhabitants. An Israeli inquiry subsequently finds the government indirectly responsible for failing to react to reports the gunmen entering the camps.
1985 Israel withdraws from most of Lebanon but maintains a security zone along the border policed by Israeli soldiers.
1987 Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank launch an intifada (uprising) against Israel’s continuing occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
1991 The Madrid Conference establishes a framework for peace talks. Committees are formed to establish bilateral deals between Israel and its neighbours. The PLO is represented by Palestinians in a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation.
1993 After secret meetings the Oslo accords are agreed in Norway. They provide for mutual recognition between the PLO and the state of Israel and limited Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
1994 Israel and the PLO sign an agreement to grant Palestinian self-rule in the Gaza Strip and Jericho.
May 13 1994 Israeli forces complete withdrawal from Gaza Strip.
July 25 1994 Israel and Jordan sign a joint declaration formally ending the state of war between them.
September 28 1995. Israeli-Palestinian Interim Peace Agreement signed. (Known informally as the Taba agreement or Oslo II.) The agreement provided for elections to an 82-member Palestinian Council and for a Palestinian Executive President, as well as the progressive withdrawal of Israeli forces from West Bank towns and the release of Palestinian prisoners.
October 25 1995 The PNA takes control of the West Bank town of Jenin.
1998-2000
Map shows proposed Camp David II settlement
October 23 1998 After nine days of talks in the US Yassir Arafat and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, sign the Wye River Memorandum in the presence of President Clinton. The agreement outlined a three-month timetable for the implementation of the 1995 Interim Agreement and facilitated the beginning of the final status talks.
September 4 1999 Israel and the Palestinian National Authority sign the Wye Two agreement in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, detailing a revised timetable for outstanding provisions of the Wye River Memorandum.July 20 1999 Syria declares a ceasefire with Israel.
April 2000 Palestinian negotatiors withraw from ‘Final Status’ negotiations in Eilat, in protest at Israel’s proposals to expand the Israeli settlement of Ma’aleh Edomin in the West Bank.
May 2000 Israel completes withdrawal from Lebanon. The withdrawal descends into chaos as the retreating Israeli forces are attacked by Hizbollah guerillas.
July 25 2000 The Camp David summit between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, hosted by President Clinton, collapses with no prospect of convening another summit in the near future. Despite progress on many issues, the disputed status of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees prove to be the sticking points.
September 28 2000 Palestinian frustrations over continued Israeli settlement building, which accelerated after the Oslo accords and the slow pace of negotiations erupt into a second uprising, or intifada, which is to prove much bloodier than the first.
The violence follows a visit by Ariel Sharon, the Likud leader (later to become Israel’s prime minister), to the sacred site in Jersualem known as Temple Mount to Jews and Haram al Sharif to Muslims. Several Palestinians are shot and killed in the ensuing protests, which then escalate throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip, sparking the second Palestinian intifada.
2000-2004
Many of the areas granted autonomy under the Oslo accords are re-invaded and there is a dramatic deterioration in the living conditions of the 3.5m Palestinians who live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as Israel seals off the Palestinian territories. The second intifada is marked by a series of suicide bombings against Israeli civilians carried out by militant Palestinian groups - hardening the attitude of the Israeli public towards the possibility of peaceful coexistence with their Arab neighbours.
Relations between the two sides are further soured by Israel’s targetted killings of Palestinian militant leaders and by tank and helicopter raids into Palestinian towns and refugee camps, in which houses are bulldozed and civilians killed.
Despite international protests, Israel begins the construction of a wall to seal off the West Bank from Israel. It is proposed that large swathes of Palestinian land be confiscated so that the wall can be routed around Israeli settlements.
Several initiatives aimed at re-starting the peace talks, including Clinton-sponsored talks on the eve of the Israeli election that brought Ariel Sharon to power in early 2001, the Tenet plan of June the same year, which focused on security co-operation, and, more recently, the ‘road map’ drawn up by a quartet including the US, the European Union, Russia and the UN, fail to end the violence or rekindle the hopes of Oslo.
Map shows route of Israel’s West Bank security barrier
2004-2005
In early 2004, Ariel Sharon presents a plan for unilateral disengagement from the Palestinians, involving the removal of all Israeli settlements in the Gaza strip and four settlements from the West Bank. Mr Sharon pushes his plan through the Knesset in the teeth of fierce opposition from Israel’s settler movement.
November 2004 Yassir Arafat dies after a mystery illness, clearing the way for Mahmoud Abbas - a staunch opponent of the intifada - to be elected president of the Palestinian Authority two months later. Mr Abbas’s election is followed swiftly by talks with militant Palestinian factions to secure a temporary cease-fire and by the deployment of Palestinian forces in the Gaza strip to prevent attacks on Israel.
February 2005 Mahmoud Abbas and Ariel Sharon announce a bilateral cease-fire at a summit in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, paving the way for the formal resumption of peace talks based on the ‘road map’ and for Israel to co-ordinate its planned withdrawal from the Gaza strip with the new Palestinian leadership.
March 16- 17 2005 The Israeli army begins to pull back from the West Bank town of Jericho, the first area to be returned to Palestinian Authority control since Israel reoccupied the territory in 2002. The next day thirteen Palestinian militant groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, issue a statement agreeing to a conditional truce, after meeting in Egypt.
May 2005 George W. Bush welcomes Mahmoud Abbas to the White House for the first time with a promise of $50 m in direct aid to develop Gaza after Israel’s planned withdrawal and a renewed commitment to an independent Palestinian state. George W. Bush had refused to deal with Yassir Arafat.
August/September 2005 Benjamin Netanyahu, standard-bearer of the Israeli right, resigns as finance minister, a week before the start of the evacuation of Jewish settlements in Gaza and part of the West Bank. Israel completes its unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and Mr Sharon fends off a challenge to unseat him as leader of the ruling Likud party.
November 2005 Ariel Sharon quits the Likud party to form a new party called Kadima, campaigning on a platform of establishing permanent borders for Israel for the first time since its foundation in 1948.
2006
January 2006 Ariel Sharon suffers a catastrophic stroke and his deputy Ehud Olmert, steps in as acting prime minister and leader of the Kadima party.
The militant Islamist movement Hamas, which has carried out dozens of suicide bombings inside Israel, sweeps to power in Palestinian legislative elections in a massive popular rejection of the ruling Fatah party, led by Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas. The incoming Palestinian government faces international isolation and a financial crisis as a result of a cut-off in external funding.
March 2006 Ehud Olmert is confirmed as prime minister after the victory of his party, Kadima, in Israeli parliamentary elections. Pledging to fix the country’s borders unilaterally by 2010 after strategic withdrawals from the West Bank, Kadima campaigned on a platform of completing Mr Sharon’s vision for unilateral disengagement from the Palestinians.
Mr Olmert says he will retain the large settlement blocs close to the pre-1967 border where most of the 250,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank live. Israel will keep Maale Adumim, Ariel and Gush Etzion as well as some smaller settlements in the Jordan valley. Mr Olmert also states that Israel will complete the construction of its West Bank barrier by the end of 2006. The barrier will enclose more than 250,000 Palestinians on the Israeli side, including those living in predominantly Arab east Jerusalem. Palestinians see the barrier as a grave violation of international law that will kill off the prospect of a two-state solution by removing the viability of a future Palestinian state.
April 2006 The US and EU suspend direct aid to the Palestinian Authority.
Jun 2006 Israeli shells kill at least seven Palestinian civilians, sparking fresh violence in the Gaza Strip. Hamas militants attack an Israeli border post, killing two soldiers and capturing Corporal GIlad Shalit. Hamas demands the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for information on Israel’s kidnapped soldier. Israel responds by launching an assault to force the release of Corporal Shalit. Israeli forces detain at least 64 Hamas representatives, including 38 MPs, in the West Bank.
July/August 2006 Hizbollah militants launch an attack on Israeli forces near the Lebanese border, capturing two soldiers and killing seven. Israel imposes a naval blockade of Lebanon and begins airstrikes against Hizbollah strongholds. Hizbollah responds by launching rocket attacks on Israel. Conflict between Israel and Hizbollah escalates, as thousands of Lebanese civilians and foreign nationals flee the country. Hundreds of Lebanese civilians, as well as dozens of Israelis, are killed in the course of the violence.
International leaders push for an end to hostilities, but they repeatedly fail to reach consensus on a lasting ceasefire plan. As Israel calls up thousands of reservists and prepares to expand its offensive, Mr Olmert warns that the Israeli military campaign will not end until an international peacekeeping force is deployed into Lebanon. Hizbollah threatens to begin rocket attacks on Tel Aviv if Israel does not halt its push deeper into Lebanon, but also declares that it will abandon its rocket attacks if Israel abandons its offensive.
The Financial Times Limited 2006
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