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Israel
Israel
Timeline
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1800-1500
BC Abraham, the father of the Jewish People, lived during this era
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63
BC The Romans conquered the region
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66-70
AD the Jews stage a rebellion against the Roman rule
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132-135
AD The Romans forced the Jews to leave the region of Israel when it then
became known as Palestine
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600s
The Arabs conquered the region
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1000s
-1200s The Crusades when Christians tried to claim the area and particularly
Jerusalem
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1800s
The Zionists start a movement to set up a Jewish state in Palestine
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1900s
Conflict between the Jewish and Arab populations
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1914
- 1918 WW1
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1917
The Balfour Declaration issued by Great Britain supporting the idea of a
Jewish homeland in Palestine
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1939-1945
World War II and the Holocaust when approximately 6 million Jews were killed
by the Nazis
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1947
The United Nations divided the region into an Arab and a Jewish state
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17
May 1948 The Nation of Israel was established
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1950
The Law of Return was passed allowing any Jew, with just a few exceptions,
to settle in Israel
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1967
Israel occupies the Gaza Strip and the West bank at the end of one of the
Israeli-Arab conflicts
Following World War
II, the British withdrew from their mandate of
Palestine.
On 29 November 1947
the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine
or United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181, a plan to resolve the
Arab-Israeli conflict in the British Mandate of Palestine, was approved by the
United Nations General Assembly, at the UN World Headquarters in New York.
The
UN partitioned the area into Arab and Jewish states, an arrangement rejected
by the Arabs. Subsequently, the Israelis defeated the Arabs in a series of
wars without ending the deep tensions between the two sides.
- 1948 War of Independence-The
1948 Arab-Israeli War, referred to as the "War of Independence or as
the "War of Liberation by Israelis, is the first in a series of armed
conflicts fought between Israel and its Arab neighbors in the ongoing
Arab-Israeli conflict.

Department
of History, U.S. Military Academy
After the United Nations
proposed to partition the territory of the British Mandate of Palestine into
two states, Jewish and Arab, the Arabs refused to accept it and the armies of
Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon and Iraq, supported by others, attacked the
newly established State of Israel which they refused to recognize. As a
result, the region was divided between Israel, Egypt and Transjordan.
- 1956 Sinai War-The Suez
Crisis was a war fought on Egyptian territory in 1956. The conflict pitted
Egypt against Israel, the United Kingdom and the Fourth French
Republic.Eventually, pressure from the United States forced Britain, France,
and Israel to withdraw.

Department
of History, U.S. Military Academy
- 1967 Six Day War-The
Six-Day War was fought between Israel and the Arab states of Egypt, Jordan,
Iraq, and Syria. When Egypt expelled the United Nations Emergency Force from
the Sinai Peninsula, increased its military activity near the border, and
blockaded the Straits of Tiran to Israeli ships, Israel launched a
pre-emptive attack on Egypt's air force fearing an imminent attack by Egypt.
Jordan in turn attacked the Israeli cities of Jerusalem and Netanya. At the
war's end, Israel had gained control of the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula,
the West Bank, and the Golan Heights.

- 1973 Yom Kippur War-The Yom
Kippur War was fought from October 6 to October 26, 1973, between Israel and
a coalition of Arab nations led by Egypt and Syria. The war began on the
Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur with a surprise joint attack by Egypt and Syria
crossing the cease-fire lines in the Sinai and Golan Heights, respectively,
which had been captured by Israel in 1967 during the Six-Day War.The
Egyptians and Syrians advanced during the first 24–48 hours, after which
momentum began to swing in Israel's favor. By the second week of the war,
the Syrians had been pushed entirely out of the Golan Heights. In the Sinai
to the south, the Israelis had struck at the "seam" between two
invading Egyptian armies, crossed the Suez Canal (where the old ceasefire
line had been), and cut off an entire Egyptian army just as a United Nations
cease-fire came into effect.


On 25 April 1982, Israel withdrew from the
Sinai pursuant to the 1979 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty.
Israel and Palestinian
officials signed on 13 September 1993 a Declaration of Principles (also
known as the "Oslo Accords") guiding an interim period of
Palestinian self-rule. Outstanding territorial and other disputes with
Jordan were resolved in the 26 October 1994 Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace.
In addition, on 25 May 2000, Israel withdrew unilaterally from southern
Lebanon, which it had occupied since 1982. In keeping with the framework
established at the Madrid Conference in October 1991, bilateral negotiations
were conducted between Israel and Palestinian representatives and Syria to
achieve a permanent settlement.
In April 2003, US President
Bush, working in
conjunction with the EU, UN, and Russia - the "Quartet" - took the
lead in laying out a roadmap to a final settlement of the conflict by 2005,
based on reciprocal steps by the two parties leading to two states, Israel
and a democratic Palestine. However, progress toward a permanent status
agreement was undermined by Palestinian-Israeli violence between September
2000 and February 2005. An agreement reached at Sharm al-Sheikh in February
2005 significantly reduced the violence.
The election in January 2005 of
Mahmud Abbas as the new Palestinian leader following the November 2004 death
of Yasir Arafat, the formation of a Likud-Labor-United Torah Judaism
coalition government in January 2005, and the successful Israeli
disengagement from the Gaza Strip (August-September 2005), presented an
opportunity for a renewed peace effort.
However, internal Israeli political
events between October and December 2005 have destabilized the political
situation and forced early elections.
Population:
6,352,117
Religions:
Jewish 76.5%, Muslim 15.9%, Arab Christians 1.7%, other Christian 0.4%,
Druze 1.6%, unspecified 3.9% (2003)
Ehud
Olmert
Since
January 4, 2006, Ariel Sharon has been totally incapacitated by the effects
of a massive hemorrhagic stroke, and day-to-day governance of Israel is now Prime Minister Ehud Olmert .
Olmert
was the Deputy Prime Minister of Israel, the Finance minister, and Minister
of Industry, Trade and Labor, as well as being the Minister responsible for
the Israel Lands Administration. He is currently a member of Ariel Sharon's
Kadima party.

Ariel
Sharon
Ariel
Sharon was born at Kfar Malal in 1928. He joined the Haganah at the age of 14 in
1942. During the 1948 War of Independence, he commanded an infantry company in
the Alexandroni Brigade. In 1953, he founded and led the "101" special
commando unit which carried out retaliatory operations. Sharon was appointed
commander of a Paratroop Corps in 1956 and fought in the Sinai Campaign. In 1957
he attended the Camberley Staff College in Great Britain.
During
1958-62, Sharon served as Infantry Brigade Commander and then Infantry School
Commander, and attended Law School at Tel Aviv University. He was appointed Head
of the Northern Command Staff in 1964 and Head of the Army Training Department
in 1966. He participated in the 1967 Six Day War as commander of an armored
division. In 1969 he was appointed Head of the Southern Command Staff. Sharon
resigned from the army in June 1972, but was recalled to active military service
in the 1973 Yom Kippur War to command an armored division that crossed the Suez
Canal.
Ariel
Sharon was elected to the Knesset in December 1973, but resigned a year later,
serving as Security Adviser to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (1975). He was
elected to the Knesset in 1977 on the Shlomzion ticket. Following the elections,
he joined the Herut party and was appointed Minister of Agriculture.
Sharon
served as Minister of Defense from 1981-83, which position he held during the
War in Lebanon. He resigned after a government commission found him indirectly
responsible for the September 1992 massacre of Palestinians at the Sabra and
Shatila refugee camps by Lebanese Christians.
Sharon
remained in the government as a minister without portfolio and then served as
Minister of Industry and Trade from 1984-90 and as Minister of Housing and
Construction from 1990-92. In the 13th Knesset, he served on the Foreign Affairs
and Defense Committee.
Sharon
served as Minister of National Infrastructure from July 1996-July 1999, and as
Minister of Foreign Affairs from October 1998-July 1999.
Re-elected
to the 15th Knesset in May 1999, he served as chairman of the Likud following
the resignation of Benjamin Netanyahu.
In
a special election for Prime Minister in February 2001, Sharon defeated
incumbent Ehud Barak to become the 11th person to hold that position.
Sharon
is widowed and has two sons.
Israel’s
Prime Ministers
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David
Ben-Gurion
(1948-54)(1955-63)
|

Moshe
Sharett
(1954-55) |

Levi
Eshkol
(1963-69) |

Golda
Meir
(1969-74)
|
|

Yitzhak
Rabin
(1974-77) (1992-95) |

Menachem
Begin
(1977-83) |

Yitzhak
Shamir
(1983-84) (1986-92) |

Shimon
Peres
(1984-86) (1995-96) |
|

Benjamin
Netanyahu
(1996-99) |

Ehud
Barak
(1999-01) |

Ariel
Sharon
(2001-06) |

Ehud
Olmert
(2006- ) |
Source: Wikepedia,
United States Department of State, CIA Factbook, Yale Law School, Jewish Virtual
Library
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