Pushing Them Into The Sea

This is what Israel looked like

when given to the 12 tribes.

In 70 AD Jerusalem was burned and Israel was scattered.

In 135 AD the Jews (Israel) returned to Jerusalem and began to rebuild the temple under a false Messiah Barcocheba the Roman army under Hadrian stopped this and killed another 580,000 Jews.

The Emperor Hadrian determined to erase the Jews forever rebuilt the city and named it Aelia Capitolina; forbade the Jews to enter it; -desecrated the platform where the great Temple once stood, with a pagan shrine to Aphrodite, while the place where Jesus was buried was built temple and statue to Jupiter and on Calvary a statue of Venus.

In 335AD under Constantine, the desecrations were torn down and Jerusalem was turned into one of 5 world centers of Christendom. Initially the Byzantines treated the Jews with the same intolerance as the Romans had, forbidding them to take up residence in the city, allowed only to visit the Wailing Wall once a year. In the 5th century this ban was lifted.

In 614AD Jerusalem fell to the Persian Muslims and it remained in the hands of the Muslims (later under Egypt, and then the Turks) except for about a 100 yr period during the crusades when it was again returned to Christendom

1917 AD Jerusalem again fell, this time to Britain.

The Belfour Declaration named after Prime Minister

Balfour declared that Palestine become a homeland for

the Jews. Confirmed their Historical and religious

entitlement to the land of Palestine.

In 1920 The mandate system was established by Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations as formulated at the Paris Peace Conference (January-June 1919). Under this article it was stated that the territories inhabited by peoples unable to stand by themselves would be entrusted to advanced nations until such time as the local population could handle their own affairs. This concept was incorporated into the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919. The area of the Mandate was 118,000 square kilometers or 45,000 square miles. In the case of Palestine, the administrative control, in the form of a Mandate, was given to Britain. By naming this territory the "British Mandate for Palestine" the area that is today Israel and Jordan became the first and only geographic division with the name Palestine since before the Ottoman Empire controlled the area (beginning in 1517).

In July 1920 the Mandate civil administration took over from the military. For the first time since Crusader days Jerusalem was again a capital city.

The terms of the British Mandate incorporated the language of the Balfour Declaration and were approved by the League of Nations Council on July 24, 1922, although they were technically not official until September 29, 1923. The United States was not a member of the League of Nations, but a joint resolution of the United States Congress on June 30, 1922, endorsed the concept of the Jewish National Home.

THE ARABS RIOT

In March 1921, Winston Churchill, then British colonial secretary, convened a high-level conference in Cairo to consider Middle East policy. As a result of these deliberations, Britain subdivided the Palestine Mandate along the Jordan River-Gulf of Aqaba line. The eastern portion--called Transjordan--was to have a separate Arab administration operating under the general supervision of the commissioner for Palestine, with Abdullah appointed as emir giving all of Palestine east of the River Jordan [77% of Palestine] to Arab Moslems, forbidding Jews to live there. A violation of the 1917 Balfour declaration. In 1921, Britain separated 91,000 square kilometers of the Mandate from Palestine and created Trans-Jordan as a protectorate of Britain, which later became the Arab country of Jordan.

Then in 1922 the League of Nations gave Great Britain a Mandate to prepare the remaining 23 percent of Palestine (including Samaria, Judea, Gaza, Golan Heights and Eastern Jerusalem) for a Jewish National Home.

A British government memorandum in September 1922 ("The Churchill White Paper"), approved by the League of Nations Council, specifically excluded Jewish settlement from the Transjordan area of the Palestine Mandate. The whole process was aimed at satisfying wartime pledges made to the Arabs and at carrying out British responsibilities under the Mandate.

In 1923, Britain ceded the Golan Heights (1,176 square kilometers) to the French Mandate of Syria. Jews were also barred from living in these areas. Jewish settlers on the Golan Heights abandoned their homes and relocated inside the reduced area of the British Mandate.

From 1922 through 1928 the relationship between Jews and Arabs in Palestine was relatively peaceful. However, in late 1928 a new phase of violence began with minor disputes between Jews and Arabs about the right of Jews to pray at the Western Wall (Kotel) in Jerusalem.

THE ARABS RIOT

On Friday, August 23, 1929 Arab mobs attacked

Jews in Jerusalem, Motza, Hebron, Safed, Jaffa,

and other parts of the country. The Old City of

Jerusalem was hit particularly hard. By the next

day, the Haganah was able to mount a defense and

further attacks in Jerusalem were repulsed. But,

the violence in Jerusalem generated rumors

throughout the country; many carrying fabricated

accounts of Jewish attempts to defile Muslim holy places, all to inflame the Arab residents. Villages were plundered and destroyed by Arab mobs. While attacks on Jews in Tel Aviv and Haifa were thwarted by Jewish defenses, there were Jewish deaths in Hebron, where 67 Jewish men and women were slaughtered and Safed, where 18 Jews were killed, as well as scattered other losses totaling 133 Jewish deaths, with more than 300 wounded. The Arab violence in Hebron was one of the worst atrocities in the modern history of Israel. On the afternoon of Friday, August 23, 1929 Jerusalem Arabs came to Hebron with false reports of Jews murdering Arabs during the rioting there, even saying thousands of Arabs had been killed. Despite the fact that Jews and Arabs in Hebron had been on good terms, a mass of frenzied Arab rioters formed and proceeded to the Hebron Yeshiva where a lone student was murdered. The next day, the Jewish Sabbath, the killing continued as an Arab mob of hundreds surrounded homes where Jews sought refuge, broke in and murdered scores of Jews in a bloody rampage.

The dead Jews that day included Eliezer Dan Slonim, a man highly esteemed by the Arabs. He was the director of the local English-Palestine bank whose many clients were Arabs, and was the sole Jewish member of the Hebron Municipal Council. He had many friends among the Arab elders, who had promised to protect him. Twenty-two people died in Slonim's house that day including his wife and two young children.

By the end of the riot, during which the British police did nothing to protect the Jews or stop the violence, sixty-seven Jews were dead and hundreds wounded. The survivors were isolated in a police station for three days while the Arabs rampaged through their houses, stealing and destroying Jewish property, unmolested by the British authorities. At the end of the three days the Jews were sent to Jerusalem, exiled from their homes for the crime of being a victim of the Arab riot. Hebron's ancient Jewish quarter was Empty and destroyed. For the next 39 years no Jew lived in Hebron, not until after it was liberated by the Israeli military during the Six Day War in 1967.

1930 - Britain severely limits the immigration of Jews to Palestine

NOT GOOD ENOUGH

THE ARABS RIOT

In April 1936, riots broke out in Jaffa commencing a three-year period of violence and civil strife in Palestine that is known as the Arab Revolt. The Arab Higher Committee, headed by the Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, led the campaign of terrorism against Jewish and British targets. The Arabs began by proclaiming an Arab general strike and boycott of Jewish enterprises and products. They made demands on the British Mandate administration, principally:

¨ An end to Jewish immigration

¨ An end to transfers of land to Jewish owners

¨ A new "general representative government"

By August 1936 Britain in an effort to protect her interests from the rioters used military force to end the rioting.

THE ARABS RIOT

1937 - In their Report of July of 1937, the Peel Commission attributed the underlying cause of the Arab revolt to the desire of the Arabs for national independence and their hatred and fear of the establishment of a National Jewish Home. The Commission recommended freezing Jewish immigration at 12,000 per year for five years and that a plan for partition of the land be developed.

Then, in September 1937, following the July report by the Peel Commission, the violent tactics resumed. Armed Arab terrorism, under the direction of the Higher Committee, was used to attack the Jews and to suppress Arab opponents. This campaign of violence continued through 1938 and then tapered off, ending in early 1939. The toll was terrible: Eighty Jews were murdered by terrorist acts during the labor strike, and a total of 415 Jewish deaths were recorded during the whole 1936-1939 Arab Revolt period.

1939 -In the 1939 White Paper, the limitation on Jewish immigration was made permanent. Seventy-five thousand Jewish immigrants would be allowed to enter Palestine over a five-year period and any subsequent increase would require the acquiescence of the Arabs. The British repudiated the Balfour Declaration and their commitments under the League of Nations just at the time of greatest need for a sanctuary for Jewish refugees. The issue was no longer merely an opportunity for Jewish immigration and national aspirations. The Jews were desperate. The British denied the Jews a haven from Nazi atrocities they so desperately needed at the time, though Britain did not endorse the principle of self-determination of the majority.

The provisions of the White Paper clearly put Britain in violation of the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine. However, the League of Nations made no real effort to withdraw the legal Mandate from Britain or even to suggest a moral censure. Nor could such be expected to have been made given the depths to which the League had sunk by 1939.

With the outbreak of World War II, the report and the League itself became irrelevant and the White Paper remained the basis of British policy until the end of the Mandate. The White Paper decrees were rescinded by the first action of the Provisional Council of State on May 15, 1948, when the State of Israel was established.

Throughout WWII Britain's interference on the immigration of Jews to Palestine, made it all but impossible for the Jews to escape the horrors of the Nazi's. In February 1942 in the case of the Romanian ship 'Struma' which anchored in Turkey awaiting permission to land 747 Romanian Jews in Palestine. The British not only refused to let the refugees continue to Palestine, they encouraged Turkish authorities to tow the ship into the Black Sea and cast it adrift, an inhuman act given that the passengers had been on board for 74 days, overcrowded with inadequate supplies. A Russian submarine with the loss of 796 people then sank the ship. This tragic incident was the final blow to support of Britain among the Jews of Palestine.

1946 - Britain unilaterally granted Transjordan its independence. (2) With Transjordan's independence, the British had partitioned Palestine and created an independent Palestine-Arab state.

Britain subsequently turned the issue over to the UN in February 1947. The UN established a Special Commission on Palestine (UNSCOP) to devise a solution. Delegates from 11 nations went there and found what had long been apparent: The conflicting national aspirations of Jews and Arabs could not be reconciled.

In November 1947, the United Nations voted to end the British Mandate over Palestine by May 15, 1948, and to partition it into Jewish and Arab states, with Jerusalem an international city. Jews in Palestine and elsewhere readily accepted the partition in spite of the fact that the proposed division left the Jewish state surrounded by hostile Arabs on all sides and relatively indefensible. It was the Arabs that rejected the UN proposal!

Remember - what is being divided now is the remaining 23% of the original Balfour Mandate. The Transjordan area is already in the control of Jordan and Syria! Jews are not permitted in that area. Now the United Nations purposes to divide the remaining 23%, bit this is not good enough.

The UN resolution passes anyway. But the Palestinian Arabs do not want independence they just do not want an Israeli State established.

Violence in the Holy Land broke out almost immediately after the UN announced partition on November 29, 1947. Jamal Husseini, the Arab Higher Committee's spokesman, had told the UN prior to the partition vote the Arabs would drench "the soil of our beloved country with the last drop of our blood . . ..”

On Friday May 14, 1948 (the day in which the British Mandate over Palestine expired) the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel was signed by members of the National Council gathered at the Tel Aviv Museum, representing the Jewish community in the country and the Zionist movement abroad. It went into effect at midnight, Tel Aviv time.

Immediately following the declaration of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948 and the departure of the British the next day, the five Arab armies invaded Israel.

The Arabs had no difficulty obtaining all the arms they needed. In fact, Jordan's Arab Legion was armed and trained by the British, and led by a British officer. At the end of 1948 and beginning of 1949, British RAF planes flew with Egyptian squadrons over the Israel-Egypt border. On January 7, 1949, Israeli planes shot down four of the British aircraft.16

The Jews, on the other hand, were forced to smuggle weapons, principally from Czechoslovakia. When Israel declared its independence in May 1948, the army did not have a single cannon or tank. Its air force consisted of nine obsolete planes. Although the Haganah had 60,000 trained fighters, only 18,900 were fully mobilized, armed and prepared for war.17 On the eve of the war, chief of operations Yigael Yadin told David Ben-Gurion: "The best we can tell you is that we have a 5050 chance."

The Arab war to destroy Israel failed. Indeed, because of their aggression, the Arabs wound up with less territory than they would have had if they had accepted partition.

The cost to Israel, however, was enormous. "Many of its most productive fields lay gutted and mined. Its citrus groves, for decades the basis of the Yishuv's [Jewish community] economy, were largely destroyed."19 Military expenditures totaled approximately $500 million. Worse yet, 6,373 Israelis were killed, nearly one percent of the Jewish population of 650,000.

The War of Independence was formally terminated on July 20, 1949 with the signing of the Israel-Syria armistice agreement. Only Iraq did not sign an armistice agreement with Israel. It preferred to withdraw its troops and hand over its sector to the Arab Legion of Jordan.

Throughout the latter phases of the war, Israel gained strength, fought successfully and not only ejected the invading Arab forces, but also captured and held some 5,000 sq. km. over and above the areas allocated to it by the United Nations in the original partition plan, with a considerable improvement in defensible borders.

At the end of the War of Independence in 1949, Jerusalem was left divided, with a border running through the city and cutting neighborhoods, streets, even houses. East Jerusalem was held by TransJordan and would remain so until June 1967, after the 1967 War.

Economically, at the end of the War of Independence in 1948 the new, reborn State of Israel was in a state of exhaustion. Holocaust survivors from Europe and other displaced persons from Arab countries in the Middle East and North Africa flooded into Israel by the tens of thousands. Its treasury was empty, its economy was in danger of collapse and its already meager resources were drained.

Following the 1948 war, in which Jordan captured and later annexed East Jerusalem, Israel and Jordan engaged in extensive negotiations. The Armistice Agreement was signed on 3 April 1949, and in Article VIII, the parties agreed to establish a Committee "for the purpose of formulating agreed plans." including "free access to the Holy Places and cultural institutions and use of the cemetery on the Mount of Olives".

The Palestinian Arabs were encouraged to leave by Palestine by Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. However, they were not welcomed into these countries and assimilated into society. They were kept in refugee camps under deplorable conditions and told they would return to Palestine when Israel was pushed into the sea.

Israel encouraged the Palestinian Arabs to remain in Israel and offered them full Israeli citizenship.

For the next 18 years, the Jordanians refused to create this committee, and Article VIII remained a dead letter. On Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Trisha B'av, and other holidays, instead of the traditional prayers at the Western Wall and in the synagogues of the Jewish Quarter, Jews gathered at Mount Zion, on the other side of the barbed wire. While Christians, including Paul VI, were escorted across the divide into East Jerusalem, the Jews and Israelis were always left behind, attempting to snatch glimpses across the divide.

At the same time, the barren debates on the "internationalization of Jerusalem" continued in the United Nations, and the Vatican also pressed its claims. On occasion, Abba Eban and other Israeli officials reminded the representatives that although the Christian and Moslem sacred sites were freely accessible, "the Wailing Wall, the most hallowed sanctuary of Judaism and the most ancient shrine in the entire city is barred to all access by worshippers despite solemn agreements and undertakings." As soon as the Israeli speech ended, the subject changed.

Without access to the Old City, the Jewish Quarter, the Mount of Olives, and other areas, Israel and the Jewish people were also unable to prevent the destruction and desecration of the sacred sites that remained intact after the war in 1948.

In the course of the occupation, 57 synagogues, libraries and centers of religious study were ransacked and 12 were totally destroyed. The structures that remained standing were used for housing of both people and animals, for latrines, and desecrated in other ways.

The Western Wall (the Jewish parallel to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher or the Al Aksa Mosque) was turned into a garbage dump.

In addition, thousands of tombstones from the cemetery on the Mount of Olives - in use for 3000 years -- were used as paving stones for roads and as construction material in Jordanian army camps. Graves were broken and used as steps and for building materials in army camps, walkways and other structures. Parts of the cemetery were used as parking lots and a filling station. The Intercontinental Hotel was built at the top of the cemetery.

Throughout this period of the occupation and desecration of Jewish Jerusalem, appeals to the United Nations and the international community were ignored. The meetings of the Mixed Armistice Commission continued, but Article VIII was never implemented. Such international agreements are not self-enforcing, and unless the party whose rights are violated, or an outside power, is willing to use force to insure implementation, there is no assurance that the terms will be honored.

In 1956 Egypt sealed off the Israeli port of Eilat, haulting Israel's sea trade with Africa and the Far East. Israel responded militarially on October 29, 1956. Britain and France, launched their own campaign in order to reverse Egypt's nationalization of the Suez canal. In March 1957, Israel withdrew her troops from the Sinai and Gaza strip. These troops were replaced with 3300 United Nations troops. The Egyptians still refused to open the Suez Canal to Israeli shipping.

In 1966 Israel's neighbors were escalating activities against her. Israeli civilians were killed in the Syrian and Jordanian borders. The Syrians continually shelled Israeli towns from the Golan Heights. In May 1967 in a matter of days Eqypt moved into the Sinai and expelled the UN Peacekeepers from Israel’s border, and closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping. Encouraged by Egypt - Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia moved their troops to Israel's borders.

On June 5th, 1967 Israel pre-empted the attack and advanced on Egypt. Israel appeal ed to Jordan to stay out of the war. Jordan refused and opened a heavy artillery barrage on both west Jerusalem and the Tel-Aviv. Israel responded and three days later Israel had defeated the Jordan and captured the whole of Judea and Samaria. On the morning of June 9th, Israel attacked the Syrians on the Golan Heights

By the Grace of God alone, In 6 short days, Israel who was out gunned, out tanked, surrounded on three sides by a well equipped enemy, and the sea on the fourth side, managed to capture the entire Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza strip, Judea and Samaria, and the Golan Heights .

Israel really never wanted the land gained in the 1967 six-day war. It wanted peace in its homeland. Israel was willing to give back all land taken in the six-day war and return to her pre 1967 borders if the surrounding Arab nations would only cease there continual terrorist advances against her.

This however was not acceptable to the surrounding efforts whose agenda from the beginning had been to push her into the sea.

1967-1970

The Arab’s refused dialog with Israel and as early as July 1, 1967, Egypt began shelling Israeli positions near the Suez Canal. On October 21, 1967, Egypt sank the Israeli destroyer Eilat, killing 47.

In 1968 Egypt began what would become known as the 2- year war of attrition when they began to shell Israeli positions along the entire length of Suez Canal.

Nasser was banking on the fact that Israel's army consisted of reserves, it could not withstand a lengthy war of attrition. He believed Israel would be unable to endure the economic burden, and the constant casualties would undermine Israeli morale.

Nasser hoped to exploit Israel’s weakness (a small population) through a strategy of attrition. This on again/off again battle drew international attention in 1970 when the soviet union began to install SA-3 missile batteries manned by soviet personnel in Egypt. In April soviet pilots were flying operational missions from air bases in Egypt . Israel continued to enlarge its operations against Egypt until the Egyptian military came close to collapse. The bloody War of Attrition lasted nearly two years. Israel lost 15 combat aircraft, most shot down by antiaircraft guns and missiles. The Israeli death toll between June 15, 1967, and August 8, 1970, was 1,424 soldiers and more than 100 civilians. Another 2,000 soldiers and 700 civilians were wounded.

The war of attrition ended when the United States brokered a cease-fire. In 1971, Egypt sent a letter to the UN stating that it was interested in a peace agreement with Israel. The Egyptian people were kept in the dark about this letter and almost immediately after it was sent Anwar Sadat, the new Egyptian president, speaking in Cairo, pledged support to the PLO until they achieved victory. Throughout 1971 and 1972, Sadat threatened attack and tried to force Israel to sign a peace treaty agreeing to relinquish the territory gained in the 6-day war but Israel refused. These pre-1967 borders had left Israel virtually indefensible and the UN resolution 242, that ended the 6-day war did not call for Israel to retreat back to these borders.

In 1973- At noon on Israel’s most holy day ,Yom Kippur, Israel was simultaneously attacked on two fronts by Egypt and Syria. After 2 years of Egypt and Syria moving equipment near the cease fire lines and not attacking Israel had become complacent and was unprepared for this attack. At 4 a.m. on Yom Kippur, a Saturday, Israeli Intelligence learned from an unimpeachable source that it would face war on two fronts that day before the sun set. They called for mobilization and a preemptive strike. But the Israeli leaders knew the world would not accept a preemptive strike. The signs of an impending attack were not taken seriously by Defense Minster, Moshe Dyan who nixed a large mobilization. By 9 AM Prime Minster, Golda Meir gave the command to gear up with 100,000 troops but agreed with Dyan against a preemptive attack. At noon. the Soviet backed Egyptian military quickly advanced with more than 70,000 infantrymen on the unsuspecting 500 IDF soldiers stationed along the canal.

At the same time Egypt was advancing across the Suez Canal, Syria was attacking the Golan heights from the air and was advancing with tanks toward Lake Kinneret, Israel’s main water supply. Syrian tanks outnumbered Israel’s tank power in the area by more than 800 armored units. Yet over the next two days, Israel managed to push Syria back to the 1967 cease-fire lines. By October 14, the IDF had penetrated Syrian territory. By the end of the war 16 days later, Israel had pushed Syria back to within 40 miles of its capitol city of Damascus.

By Oct. 13, peacekeeping initiatives had failed, the Soviet Union began airlifting supplies to Egypt and Syria, and Jordan and Iraq had troops en route to reinforce the Syrians. US president Nixon was torn with the threat of an Arab oil embargo if he supplied military aid to Israel, and the fear that Israel would have no choice to respond with nuclear weaponry if he didn’t; So, October 14, 1973 American planes landed in Israel with more than 97 tons of ammunition. The oil embargo came two days later and US planes carrying ammunition and supplies to Israel were denied landing everywhere in Europe except Portugal, nonetheless, the shipments to Israel continued for 31 days and more than 500 missions.

Now supplied with tanks and ammunition from the US, Israel attacked the Egyptian forces with a vengence, by October 19^th the Israelis had built a bridge over the canal and were now established on the West bank. They had wiped out the Egyptian surface to air misels and were well on their way to Cairo.

Now that it appeared that neither Egypt nor Syria were going to win this war the UN ordered a cease fire. The war ended just sixteen days after it began with a cease-fire. Israel had come within 42 miles of Egypt’s capitol of Cairo, but she lost more than 2,700 troops in the battle. It is estimated that Egypt lost 15,000 troops and Syria suffered casualties of 3,500 troops in the fray.

1974- Was a year of change in the climate of the world for the worse and the burdensome stone, which is Israel, became heavier. It would be January of 1974, before an Egyptian-Israeli disengagement agreement would be reached. And not until May before an agreement would be reached with the Syrians. Frustrated by the losses in the last two wars, angered at Jordan for not supporting them in the Yom Kippur war, and more determined than ever to push Israel into the sea, the PLO under the leadership of Yassar Arafat decides to change their stratagey.

On June 9, 1974 - the PLO adopted was is known as the Phase Plan. This plan was basically a changed of stratagy in the Arab efforts to rid the middle east of an Israeli state. The plan included an effort to remove the leadership of Jordan, who had sat out the Yom Kippur war and replace Jordan’s leadership with one that would unite with them in the effort to push Israel into the sea.

Here are the major tenants of the PLO Phase Plan:

1. Terrorism - The Liberation Organization will employ all means, and first and foremost armed struggle, to liberate Palestinian territory and to establish the independent combatant national authority for the people over every part of Palestinian territory that is liberated.

2. Removal of the state of Israel - Once it is estabished, the Palestinian national authority will strive to achieve a union of the confrontation countries, with the aim of completing the liberation of all Palestinian territory, and as a step along the road to comprehensive Arab unity.

3. Removal of Jordan’s leadership - Struggle along with the Jordanian national forces to establish a Jordanian-Palestinian national front whose aim will be to set up in Jordan a democratic national authority in close contact with the Palestinian entity that is established through the struggle.

The PLO also gained observer rights in the UN assemblies and in spite of their well published commitment to the destruction of Israel at all costs and the acts of terrorism against Israeli children and civillians like the bombing of a school in may of 1974 and death of 23 children at their hands.

In November 1975 – the UN passed a resolution declaring Zionism as a racist movement comparing it to

JULY 1976 Israel rescues hostages at Entebbe Airport in Uganda

MAY 1977 Likud comes to power led by Menachem Begin

NOVEMBER 1977 Anwar Sadat visits Jerusalem and addresses Israeli Parliament

SEPTEMBER 1978 Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt

MARCH 1979 Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty

JULY 1980 Basic Law on Jerusalem passed

JUNE 1981 Israel disables Iraqi nuclear reactor in Osiraq

OCTOBER 1981 Anwar Sadat assassinated by Islamic extremists

DECEMBER 1981 Israel officially extends Israeli law to Golan Heights

APRIL 1982 Israel completes withdrawal from Sinai

JUNE 1982 Attempted assassination of Israeli Ambassador to London; Israel invades Lebanon in Operation Peace for Galilee

SEPTEMBER 1982 PLO completes evacuation from Lebanon

JUNE 1985 Israeli troops withdraw from Lebanon; creation of security zone in southern Lebanon

DECEMBER 1987 Start of Palestinian intifada

DECEMBER 1988 Arafat begins process of renouncing terrorism and recognizing Israel

AUGUST 1990 Iraq invades Kuwait

JAN-FEB 1991 Gulf war; Scud missiles fall in Israel

OCTOBER 1991 Arab-Israeli peace conference opens in Madrid

DECEMBER 1991 UN repeals "Zionism equals Racism" resolution

JUNE 1992 Labor Party leader Yitzhak Rabin elected Prime Minister

JANUARY 1993 Israel repeals ban on contacts with the PLO

AUGUST 1993 Announcement of secret agreement reached in Oslo between Israel and the PLO

SEPTEMBER 1993 Signing of Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles on White House Lawn

DECEMBER 1993 Israel and the Vatican establish diplomatic relations

FEBRUARY 1994 Jewish extremist kills 29 Muslim worshippers in Hebron

APRIL 1994 Hamas suicide bus bombings in Afula and Hadera

MAY 1994 Israel withdraws its forces from Jericho and Gaza

OCTOBER 1994 Kidnapping and murder of Israeli soldier Nachshon Waxman; Bombing of bus in Tel Aviv; Signing of Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty

DECEMBER 1994 Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yasir Arafat awarded Nobel Peace Prize

SEPTEMBER 1995 The Interim, or "Oslo II," Agreement signed in Washington between Israel and the Palestinians

NOVEMBER 1995 Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin assassinated by a Jewish extremist

FEB-MARCH 1996 Islamic extremist suicide bombings in Jerusalem, Afula and Tel Aviv kill 59.

MAY 1996 Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu elected Prime Minister

SEPTEMBER 1996 Palestinian violence erupts in response to Israeli opening of an exit to the Western Wall tunnel

JANUARY 1997 Hebron Redeployment Agreement signed