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First Zionist Congress
Zionism, a form of nationalism of Jews and Jewish culture, was organized by Theodore Herzl. Congress, under Herzl’s leadership, announced zionism’s goal of of establishing a legally assured home for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel and created an umbrella organization to promote this goal. Hoping that the history of Jewish repression and discrimination wouldn’t stop until they safely resided in a place where they could both live on their own and also return to their own homeland -
McMahon-Hussein Correspondence
British High Commissioner Henry McMahon promised Sharif Husein, the ruler of the Muslim holy city, that Britain would grant independence to most Arab areas in the Ottoman Empire. However after the war, Arab and British representatives disagreed over the borders that were promised. -
Balfour Declaration
The British Balfour Declaration promised to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine and/or the region comprising the ancient Land of Israel. -
British Mandate Established
After WWI, the League of Nations divided the Ottoman lands between the British (given the Palestine Mandate on Israel, the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jordan) and the French -
World War II and the Holocaust
Attacked and conquered by Nazi Germany, Europe’s genocide of the Jews became known as the Holocaust. This resulted in the murdering of 6 million Jews. And even though the Jews had given military support during the war, the British refused to allow the Jews to flee from Nazi persecution. -
U.N. Partition Plan
In 1947, Britain announced its plan to pull out of the region and turned the question of sovereignty over to the United Nations. On November 29, 1947 the U.N. General Assembly voted to strike a compromise by partitioning the Palestine Mandate into an Arab state and a Jewish state and to internationalize the city of Jerusalem. The Jews accepted the partition, but the Arabs in the Palestine Mandate and the Arab states rejected it and sought out to attack the jews -
1948 War
Israel was attacked on the same day it gained its independence -May 14th. The armies of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq attacked Israel and with such a combined force attacking Israel, few would have given the new country any chance of survival. As a result of the 1948 war, “approximately 700,000 Arabs fled or were displaced and became refugees from the areas over which Israel obtained jurisdiction. The Arabs who remained became Israeli citizens and now comprise approximately 20% of Israel’s popu -
The Six-Day War / The 1967 Arab-Israeli War
In this war, Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq all moved their armies to Israel’s borders. Egypt closed the international water way, the Straits of Tiran, to all Israeli shipping, an act of war according to international law. These actions were also reinstated by publicly declared intentions by Arab leaders to destroy Israel. -
Attrition Battles/ The War of Attrition
The UN attempted to negotiate a peace agreement between Arab countries and Israel over the territories annexed by Israel. Israel fought to keep Jerusalem as a “unified city, with all religions having access to their holy sites, and offered to return other territories in exchange for peace and recognition.” However, the Arabs did not want to comply -
The October War / Yom Kippur War / 1973 Arab-Israeli War
Egypt and Syria launched a preemptive strike against Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year. However Israel was able to defend against the Arabs in their initial military attacks.