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Israel The Beginnings, The Tribe of Judah
13 Tribes
What happen to the
tribes, video by E. Raymond Capt.
Israel the Nation
This
Beginnings of a new state. In the mid-1800's,
Eastern European Jews began to develop a desire to live in the
Holy Land. By 1880, about 24,000 Jews were living in Palestine,
which was controlled by the Ottoman Empire. In the late 1800's,
oppression of Jews in eastern Europe triggered the Zionist
movement and eventually led to a mass emigration of Jews to
Palestine. By 1914, there were about 85,000 Jews in Palestine,
out of a total population of about 700,000.
In 1917,
during World War I (1914-1918), the United Kingdom issued the
Balfour Declaration, which expressed British support for a
national homeland for the Jews in Palestine. The United Kingdom
was fighting to win control of Palestine from the Ottoman Empire
as part of the war. The British hoped the declaration would
rally Jewish leaders in the United Kingdom and the United States
to support the British war efforts. At the same time, however,
the British promised independence to various Arab groups in the
Middle East, hoping to gain their support against the Ottomans.
The promises were vague, but Arab leaders assumed they included
Palestine.
Following the Ottoman defeat in World War I,
the League of Nations made Palestine a mandated territory of the
United Kingdom. According to the mandate, the British were to
help Palestinian Jews build a national home. Many Zionists
viewed the mandate as support for increased Jewish immigration
to Palestine. But the British, fearful of the hostility of the
large Arab population, proposed limits on Jewish immigration.
But these limitations were not fully enforced.
Large
numbers of European Jews came to Palestine in the 1930's to
escape persecution by the Nazis. Alarmed by the Jewish
immigration, the Palestinian Arabs revolted against British rule
during the late 1930's. In 1939, the United Kingdom began
attempting to limit Jewish immigration to Palestine. Jews
strongly opposed this policy.
During World War II
(1939-1945), the Nazis killed about 6 million European Jews.
This led to increased demands for a Jewish state, but the
British continued to limit Jewish immigration to Palestine. In
1947, the United Kingdom submitted the issue to the United
Nations (UN).
Independence and conflict. On Nov. 29, 1947, the
UN General Assembly agreed to divide Palestine into an Arab
state and a Jewish state and to place Jerusalem under
international control. The Jews in Palestine accepted this plan,
but the Arabs rejected it. Fighting broke out immediately.
Israel officially came
into existence on May 14, 1948, under the
leadership of David Ben-Gurion. On May 15, Arab armies, chiefly
from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Transjordan (which became
known as Jordan in 1949), attacked Israel, aiming to destroy the
new nation. By early 1949, Israel had defeated the Arabs and
gained control of about half the land planned for the new Arab
state. Egypt and Jordan held the rest of Palestine. Israel
controlled the western half of Jerusalem, and Jordan held the
eastern half. Israel incorporated the gained territory into the
new country, adding about 150,000 resentful Arabs to its
population. Hundreds of thousands of other Palestinian Arabs
settled as refugees in parts of Palestine not under Israeli
control and in Arab countries.
By mid-1949, Israel had
signed armistice agreements with Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and
Lebanon. But formal peace treaties were not signed because the
Arab nations refused to recognize the existence of Israel.
Israel held its first election in January 1949. In February,
the Knesset elected Chaim Weizmann president. He officially
appointed Ben-Gurion prime minister.
The Sinai
invasion. Border clashes between Arab and
Israeli troops occurred frequently in the early 1950's. In the
mid-1950's, Egypt began giving financial aid and military
supplies to Palestinian Arab fedayeen (commandos). The fedayeen
raided Israel from the Gaza Strip, the Egyptian-occupied part of
Palestine. The Israelis raided the Gaza Strip in return. Egypt
also blocked Israeli ships from using the Suez Canal and stopped
Israeli ships at the entrance to the Gulf of Aqaba. In July
1956, Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal, which at the time was
owned mainly by the United Kingdom and France.
In
response to the Egyptian actions, on Oct. 29, 1956, Israeli
forces invaded Egypt. The United Kingdom and France attacked
Egypt two days later. By November 5, the Israelis occupied the
Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula, and the British and French
controlled the northern entrance to the Suez Canal. The UN ended
the fighting and arranged the withdrawal of foreign troops from
Egyptian territory. The UN also set up a peacekeeping force in
the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula.
The Six-Day War.
In May 1967, the UN removed its peacekeeping force from the Gaza
Strip and Sinai Peninsula in response to demands by Egyptian
President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Nasser then sent large numbers of
troops into the Sinai. He also announced the closing of the
Strait of Tiran to Israeli ships, thus blocking the Israeli port
of Elat.
Fearing that Arabs would soon attack, Israel
launched a surprise air strike against Egypt on June 5, 1967.
Syria, Jordan, and Iraq, which had signed defense agreements
with Egypt, immediately joined in the fighting. In one day,
Israeli planes almost completely destroyed the Arab air forces.
Israel's ground forces then defeated those of the Arab states.
The UN arranged a cease-fire, ending the war after six days.
At the war's conclusion, Israel held the
Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip, as well as Syria's Golan
Heights. It also occupied the West Bank, which had been claimed
by Jordan. Israel vowed not to withdraw from these territories
until the Arab states recognized Israel's right to exist. In
June 1967, Israel officially made the eastern half of Jerusalem
part of Israel.
The
Six-Day War again proved the superiority of
Israel's military forces, but it also planted the seeds of
additional Arab-Israeli problems. The occupation of the Gaza
Strip and West Bank placed Israel in control of about 1 million
hostile Palestinian inhabitants.
The rise of the PLO.
Following the Six-Day War, the Palestine Liberation Organization
(PLO) became prominent in the Middle East. The PLO is a
confederation of Palestinian Arab groups that work to establish
an Arab state in Palestine. It adopted guerrilla tactics,
including terrorist attacks and commando raids against military
and civilian targets.
After the defeat of the regular
Arab armies in the 1967 war, Arab leaders began increasing their
support of the PLO's forces. These forces then stepped up
guerrilla activity against Israel. Israel retaliated with raids
against PLO bases in neighboring Arab countries.
The Yom
Kippur War. Israeli and Egyptian forces engaged
in intense border fighting along the Suez Canal between April
1969 and August 1970. The Soviet Union provided military
assistance to Egypt in the conflict, which was ended by a
U.S.-sponsored cease-fire. On October 6, 1973, full-scale war
broke out again when Egyptian and Syrian forces attacked Israeli
positions along the Suez Canal and in the Golan Heights. The
attack occurred on Yom Kippur, the most sacred Jewish holy day.
Israel pushed back the Arab forces. It recaptured the Golan
Heights and some additional Syrian territory. A cease-fire went
into effect on October 25.
The Yom Kippur War had
far-reaching effects. The Israeli economy suffered severely.
Although Israel won the war, it suffered heavy losses of men and
equipment. Many Israelis criticized the government's handling of
the conflict. As a result, Prime Minister Golda Meir resigned in
April 1974. Yitzhak Rabin succeeded her in June. The war also
greatly increased Israel's dependence on the United States,
which supplied Israel with arms.
The Camp David Accords.
The Labor Party and the party from which it developed, the
Mapai, controlled Israel's government from independence until
1977. Under Israel's political system of the time, the prime
minister was usually the leader of the party with the most seats
in the Knesset. In 1977, parliamentary elections transferred
control of the country to the Likud bloc. Menachem Begin, the
Likud leader, became prime minister.
Israeli-Egyptian
tensions eased after the Yom Kippur War. In November 1977,
Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat announced that he was ready to
negotiate a peace settlement with Israel. That month, he met
with Begin in Jerusalem. In September 1978, Begin, Sadat, and
U.S. President Jimmy Carter met at Camp David in the United
States for talks arranged by Carter. The talks resulted in the
Camp David Accords, which focused on achieving two objectives:
(1) peace between Egypt and Israel, and (2) a comprehensive
peace in the Middle East.
The first objective of the Camp David
Accords was met when Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty in
March 1979. In February 1980, they exchanged diplomats for the
first time. Israel withdrew from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula in
1982. No immediate progress was made in efforts to meet the
second objective.
Invasion of Lebanon. Tensions between
Israel and the PLO escalated in the late 1970's and early
1980's. In 1978, Israel invaded southern Lebanon in an attempt
to drive out Palestinian terrorists who had been attacking
Israel for several years. In June 1982, a large Israeli force
attacked southern and central Lebanon in retaliation for PLO
attacks on northern Israel. The PLO withdrew most of its forces
from Lebanon in August 1982. In 1985, Israel withdrew its forces
from all of Lebanon except a security zone along the
Lebanon-Israeli border.
Unity government. Begin resigned
as prime minister in September 1983. Yitzhak Shamir of the Likud
bloc succeeded him. Parliamentary elections were held in July
1984. The Labor Party won more seats than the Likud bloc, but
neither party won a majority and neither was able to form a
coalition government. In September, Labor and Likud agreed to
form a unity government for 50 months. Under the agreement,
Shimon Peres, leader of the Labor Party, served as prime
minister for a term of 25 months. Shamir served as vice prime
minister and foreign minister. The roles of Peres and Shamir
were reversed after 25 months, in October 1986.
The
unity government included Cabinet members of both parties. It
succeeded in reducing a high inflation rate in Israel. But the
government was divided on how to attain peace with the Arabs.
The Labor camp favored giving up portions of the occupied
territories in return for peace agreements. The Likud bloc,
however, supported the establishment of Jewish settlements in
the territories and their retention by Israel.
In late
1987, Arab residents of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank began
staging widespread-often violent-demonstrations against Israel's
occupation. Israeli troops killed a number of protesters during
these demonstrations, which became known as the first intifada
(an Arabic word for uprising). A few Israelis were also killed,
and hundreds of Palestinians and Israelis were injured.
In November 1988, new parliamentary
elections were held. The Likud bloc won one more seat than the
Labor Party, but again neither party won a majority. In
December, Likud and Labor formed a new coalition government with
Shamir continuing as prime minister. In 1990, Shamir refused to
compromise on peace plans for the occupied territories. The
Labor Party then left the coalition, and the government fell in
March. In June 1990, Likud and small conservative parties formed
a new coalition government with Shamir as prime minister.
Recent developments. From the mid-1980's to the early
1990's, thousands of Ethiopian Jews moved to Israel. Also,
hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews moved there. The influx of
newcomers led to problems in housing and employment. Israel
continued to build new settlements in occupied territories, in
part to accommodate the immigrants. Despite protests from
Palestinians, Shamir and Likud backed these construction
projects.
In August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. In early
1991, the United States and other countries defeated Iraq in the
Persian Gulf War. During the war, Iraq fired missiles at Israel.
In October 1991, peace talks began between Israel,
Syria, Lebanon, and a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation.
Israel's Labor Party gained control of the government in June
1992 parliamentary elections. In July, Labor Party leader
Yitzhak Rabin replaced Shamir as prime minister. Rabin agreed to
limit construction of new Jewish settlements in the occupied
territories as a step toward a peace agreement.
The PLO was not a participant in the peace
talks that began in October 1991. But in September 1993,
following secret talks in Oslo, Norway, Israel and the PLO
recognized each other and signed an agreement that included
steps to end their conflicts. As a result of this agreement and
later ones, Israel withdrew its troops from most of the Gaza
Strip and portions of the West Bank. Palestinians took control
of these areas. In October 1994, Israel and Jordan signed a
peace treaty that formally ended the state of war that had
technically existed between the countries since 1948.
Not all Israelis agreed with the peace process, and some
protested it. Some opponents argued, for example, that Israel
was giving away land that should historically belong to it. On
Nov. 4, 1995, Rabin was assassinated in Tel Aviv by a right-wing
Israeli university student who was opposed to his policies.
Following Rabin's death, Peres, who had been foreign minister,
became prime minister.
In May 1996, Benjamin Netanyahu,
the Likud leader and a critic of the Israeli-PLO peace
agreements, defeated Peres in an election for prime minister.
Netanyahu claimed that the peace agreements did not include
enough provisions for Israel, such as guaranteed security and
allowance for its population growth.
Tensions between
Israel and the Palestinians grew after the 1996 elections, and
the peace process slowed. In 1996 and 1997, Israel announced
plans to expand Israeli settlements in the West Bank and to
build new Israeli housing in East Jerusalem. Both decisions met
with angry and violent protests from the Palestinians. Also in
1997, however, Israel completed an agreement with the PLO over
the withdrawal of Israeli troops from most of the West Bank city
of Hebron.
In October 1998, Israel and the
Palestinians signed another agreement, called the Wye River
Memorandum. The accord called for Israel to turn over more land
in the West Bank to Palestinian control, and it allowed a
Palestinian airport in the Gaza Strip to open. Also as a result
of the agreement, the PLO revised its charter to remove language
calling for the destruction of Israel. Many conservative members
of the Israeli parliament and in Netanyahu's Cabinet opposed the
accord. In December 1998, Netanyahu, claiming that the PLO was
not fulfilling its security commitments, suspended Israeli troop
withdrawals. That same month, the Israeli parliament voted to
dissolve itself and scheduled new elections.
In May
1999, Ehud Barak, leader of the Labor Party, was elected prime
minister of Israel. Barak favored renewing the peace process
with the Palestinians. In September, Barak and Palestinian
leader Yasir Arafat signed a new agreement that revived and
expanded on the previous Wye River Memorandum. Israel resumed
its troop withdrawals from the West Bank shortly after the
agreement was signed.
In May 2000, Israel withdrew its
troops from the security zone it had established in southern
Lebanon. Hezbollah guerrillas immediately took control of the
area. Hezbollah, also spelled Hizbollah, is a movement that
opposed the Israeli occupation of Lebanon. Guerrillas from the
group had often clashed with the Israelis and the Israeli-backed
South Lebanon Army. By September, UN peacekeepers and Lebanese
security forces had moved into most of southern Lebanon. But
Hezbollah remained in control of the area near the
Israel-Lebanon border. Violence has continued between Hezbollah
and Israeli forces in the border region.
The peace
process between Israeli and Palestinian leaders continued in
2000. In July, Barak and Arafat met at Camp David in the United
States for peace talks hosted by U.S. President Bill Clinton.
However, the two sides were unable to agree on key issues,
especially those involving Jerusalem. One point of dispute was
how much control Palestinians should have over East Jerusalem.
The two sides also disagreed about who should govern the Temple
Mount in Jerusalem. Temple Mount, known to Arabs as Haram
al-Sharif, is a holy site for both Muslims and Jews.
In September 2000, Ariel Sharon, the leader
of the right-wing Likud party and a controversial critic of the
Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements, visited Temple Mount. This
visit angered Palestinians, who began riots and demonstrations
against Israeli security forces in Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip,
and the West Bank. This violence came to be known as the second
Palestinian intifada. Israel responded to the intifada with
police crackdowns and military attacks in Palestinian areas.
Hundreds of Palestinians and Israelis have died in the violence.
After the intifada began, Barak faced mounting pressure
from opposition parties to hold new elections. In late November,
he agreed to hold a new election for prime minister. In the
vote, which was held in February 2001, Sharon defeated Barak.
Sharon formed a coalition government that included the Labor
Party and several other parties.
Israel History Top
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