Yahuda101 History of the Modern state of Israel
History of the Modern state of Israel
Timeline
Key moments in the Jewish state's history.
1882-1903: First Aliyah
The First Aliyah brings an estimated 25,000-35,000 immigrants to Palestine, the majority of them fleeing anti-Jewish pogroms in Eastern Europe.
The influx of immigrants into the Land of Israel during the years 1882-1903 is known as “The First Aliyah.” This was the first large wave of immigrants that were motivated by nationalism. During these years some 25,000 Jews emigrated from Russia and Rumania, and 2,500 arrived from Yemen.
Primary Motivations
Immigrants of the First Aliyah arrived in two waves, stimulated by pogroms and violence against the Jews. The first influx followed pogroms in Russia in 1881-1882, and the second mass influx from Russia took place during 1890-1891 as a result of anti-Jewish legislation and the expulsion of Jews from Moscow. Immigration from Yemen was primarily motivated by messianic expectations.
The Immigrants
The majority of Jews that left Russia and Rumania during this period chose to immigrate to the United States. Those that came to the Land of Israel were mainly middle class people with families. Among them were also emissaries from different cities, organizations, and communities, who came to investigate the possibilities for settlement on behalf of their constituents. Because of their middle-class backgrounds and lack of familiarity with rural life, most of these immigrants chose to settle in cities, primarily Jaffa and Jerusalem. Only one quarter chose agricultural settlements. Despite their small numbers, these original farmers became the foundation of the later pioneering agricultural settlements.
During the First Aliyah period some 2500 Jews also emigrated from Yemen. The majority settled in Jerusalem, where many of them encountered economic difficulties as well as a lack of housing, and unfriendly treatment by other residents of the city. As a result, they created separate housing, community, and financial organizations for themselves.
1894: Dreyfus Affair
French Jewish army officer Alfred Dreyfus is wrongly convicted of espionage. The case has a galvanizing effect on the development of Zionism by underscoring the precariousness of Jewish life in Europe.
emancipation, an espionage scandal erupted involving an assimilated Jewish army captain and questions about his “loyalty” to the state. The anti-Semitism that characterized the arrest, trial, and retrial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus shocked world Jewry.
1896: Herzl’s “The Jewish State”
Theodor Herzl, an Austro-Hungarian journalist who covered the Dreyfus trial as a correspondent, publishes Der Judenstaat (“The Jewish State”), in which he proposes the creation of a Jewish state as the solution to anti-Semitism.
Der Judenstaat (German, literally The State of the Jews, commonly rendered as The Jewish State) is a pamphlet written by Theodor Herzl and published in February 1896 in Leipzig and Vienna by M. Breitenstein's Verlags-Buchhandlung. It is subtitled with "Versuch einer modernen Lösung der Judenfrage" ("Proposal of a modern solution for the Jewish question") and was originally called "Address to the Rothschilds", referring to the Rothschild family banking dynasty, as Herzl planned to deliver it as a speech to the Rothschild family. Baron Edmond de Rothschild rejected Herzl's plan, feeling that it threatened Jews in the Diaspora. He also thought it would put his own settlements at risk.
It is considered one of the most important texts of modern Zionism. As expressed in this book, Herzl envisioned the founding of a future independent Jewish state during the 20th century. He argued that the best way to avoid antisemitism in Europe was to create this independent Jewish state. The book encouraged Jews to purchase land in Palestine, although the possibility of a Jewish state in Argentina is also considered.
Herzl popularized the term "Zionism", which was coined by Nathan Birnbaum. The nationalist movement
April 19, 1903: Kishinev Pogrom
The Kishinev Pogrom in the Russian Empire, in what is now Moldova, kills dozens of Jews and results in the destruction of hundreds of homes and business, prompting tens of thousands of Russian Jews to flee to Palestine.
The Kishinev Pogrom in the Russian Empire, in what is now Moldova, kills dozens of Jews and results in the destruction of hundreds of homes and business, prompting tens of thousands of Russian Jews to flee to Palestine.
How a small pogrom in Russia changed the course of history
Until the Holocaust, the Kishinev pogrom of 1903 was the archetype for anti-Jewish persecution, according to a new book about the massacre’s long afterlife
The terror lasted for less than three days, and “only” 49 Jews were killed, but the Kishinev pogrom of 1903 had surprisingly far-reaching ramifications. Within weeks of the pre-Easter massacre, the town’s name became synonymous with the worst horrors of Diaspora persecution, and political movements around the world took notice.
The Pale of Settlement
Decided to add this because my great grandparents immigrated to the US from Belarus to escape the Russian pogroms
Short film "The Pale of Settlement" 2013
Drama from the history of Imperial Russia.
Director Jacob Sillman.
Cast Kyle Catlett, Leya Catlett, Brandon deSpain and others.
Kyle Catlett received a prize as best actor on Greenville International Film Festival.
The Pale of Settlement (Russian: Черта́ осе́длости, chertá osédlosti; Yiddish: דער תּחום-המושבֿ, der tkhum hamóyshev; Hebrew: תְּחוּם הַמּוֹשָב, t'ẖum hammosháv) was a western region of the Russian Empire with varying borders that existed from 1791 to 1917 in which permanent residency by Jews was allowed and beyond which Jewish residency, permanent or temporary, was mostly forbidden. Most Jews were still excluded from residency in a number of cities within the Pale as well. A few Jews were allowed to live outside the area, including those with university education, the ennobled, members of the most affluent of the merchant guilds and particular artisans, some military personnel and some services associated with them, including their families, and sometimes their servants. The archaic English term pale is derived from the Latin word palus, a stake, extended to mean the area enclosed by a fence or boundary.
The Pale of Settlement included all of modern-day Belarus, Lithuania and Moldova, much of Ukraine and east-central Poland, and relatively small parts of Latvia and what is now the western Russian Federation. It extended from the eastern pale, or demarcation line inside the country, westwards to the Imperial Russian border with the Kingdom of Prussia (later the German Empire) and Austria-Hungary. Furthermore, it comprised about 20% of the territory of European Russia and largely corresponded to historical lands of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Cossack Hetmanate, the Ottoman Empire (with Yedisan), Crimean Khanate, and eastern Principality of Moldavia (Bessarabia).
Life in the Pale for many was economically bleak. Most people relied on small service or artisan work that could not support the number of inhabitants, which resulted in emigration, especially in the late 19th century. Even so, Jewish culture, especially in Yiddish, developed in the shtetls (small towns), and intellectual culture developed in the yeshivot (religious schools) and was also carried abroad.
The Russian Empire during the existence of the Pale was predominantly Orthodox Christian, in contrast to the area included in the Pale with its large minorities of Jewish, Roman Catholic and until mid-19th century Eastern Catholic population (although much of modern Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova are predominantly Eastern Orthodox). While the religious nature of the edicts creating the Pale is clear (conversion to Russian Orthodoxy, the state religion, released individuals from the strictures), historians argue that the motivations for its creation and maintenance were primarily economic and nationalist in nature.
The end of the enforcement and formal demarcation of the Pale coincided with the beginning of World War I in 1914 and then ultimately, the fall of the Russian Empire in the February and October Revolutions of 1917.
April 11, 1909: Tel Aviv Founded
Tel Aviv, the first modern Jewish city, is founded on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea.
Tel Aviv was founded on April 11, 1909. On that day, several dozen families gathered on the sand dunes on the beach outside Yafo to allocate plots of land for a new neighborhood they called Ahuzat Bayit, later known as Tel Aviv
1910: First Modern Hebrew Dictionary Published
Nov. 2, 1917: Balfour Declaration
Britain issues the Balfour Declaration, endorsing the establishment of a national home in Palestine for the Jewish people.
The Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the British government in 1917 during the First World War announcing its support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, then an Ottoman region with a small minority Jewish population. The declaration was contained in a letter dated 2 November 1917 from the United Kingdom's Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland. The text of the declaration was published in the press on 9 November 1917.
Oct. 30, 1918: World War I Ends
The Armistice of Mudros ends World War I in the Middle East and begins the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, which had occupied Palestine since the 16th century
June 1920: Haganah Founded
The Haganah is founded as an independent defense force for Jews in Palestine.
Haganah (Hebrew: הַהֲגָנָה, lit. The Defence) was the main Zionist paramilitary organization of the Jewish population ("Yishuv") in Mandatory Palestine between 1920 and its disestablishment in 1948, when it became the core of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
Formed out of previous existing militias, its original purpose was to defend Jewish settlements from Arab attacks, such as the riots of 1920, 1921, 1929 and during the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. It was under the control of the Jewish Agency, the official governmental body in charge of Palestine's Jewish community during the British Mandate. Until the end of the Second World War, Haganah's activities were moderate, in accordance with the policy of havlaga ("self-restraint"), which caused the splitting of the more radical Irgun and Lehi. The group received clandestine military support from Poland. Haganah sought cooperation with the British in the event of an Axis invasion of Palestine through North Africa, prompting the creation of the Palmach task force in 1941.
With the end of World War II and British refusal to cancel the 1939 White Paper's restrictions on Jewish immigration, the Haganah turned to sabotage activities against the British authorities, including bombing bridges, rail lines, and ships used to deport illegal Jewish immigrants, as well as assisting in bringing Jews to Palestine in defiance of British policy. After the United Nations adopted a partition plan for Palestine in 1947, the Haganah came into the open as the biggest fighting force among Palestinian Jews, successfully overcoming Arab forces during the civil war. Shortly after Israel's independence declaration and the beginning of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the Haganah was merged with other groups and reorganized into the official army of the state.
July 24, 1922:
British Mandate Starts
The League of Nations adopts the Mandate for Palestine, granting Britain temporary authority over the territory.
On April 25, 1920, the Supreme Council of the League of Nations allocated the Palestine Mandate to Great Britain. On July 24, 1922, The League of Nations adopted the articles for Palestine's administrative and political management, the Articles of the Mandate.
Aug. 24, 1929: Hebron Massacre
Hebron Massacre, the first documented massacre in the holyland
The Arabs want to convince the world the Israelis and Jews are the aggressors and killers, while at the same time trying to cause the world to forget the first massacre, a massacre they committed against Jews, while trying to make people forget that over one million Jews were forced to flee Arab and Muslim lands to save themselves....many died but thanks to G-d many fled and survived.
For many years, the small community of 800 Jews in the ancient city of Hebron lived in peace with their tens of thousands of Arab neighbors. But, on the night of August 23, 1929, the tension simmering within this cauldron of nationalities bubbled over, and for a period of three days, Hebron turned into a city of terror and murder as the Arab residents led a rampaging massacre against the bewildered and helpless Jewish community.
By the time the massacre ended, 67 Jews lay dead – their homes and synagogues destroyed – and the few hundred survivors were relocated to Jerusalem. The aftermath left Hebron barren of Jews for the first time in hundreds of years.
The summer of 1929 was one of unrest in Palestine as Jewish immigrants were arriving in increasing numbers and the agitations of the mufti in Jerusalem spurred on Jewish-Arab tensions. Just one day prior to the start of the Hebron massacre, three Jews and three Arabs were killed in Jerusalem when fighting broke out after a Muslim prayer service on the Temple Mount. Arabs spread false rumors and libels throughout their communities, saying that Jews were carrying out “wholesale killings of Arabs.”
Hebron had up until this time been outwardly peaceful, although tensions hid below the surface. The Sephardi Jewish community (Jews who were originally from Spain, North Africa and Arab countries) in Hebron had lived quietly with its Arab neighbors for centuries. Theses Sephardi Jews spoke Arabic and had a cultural connection with the Arabs of Hebron.
In the mid-1800s, Ashkenazi (native European) Jews started moving to Hebron and, in 1925, the Slobodka Yeshiva – officially called the Yeshiva of Hebron Knesset Yisrael-Slobodka – was opened. Yeshiva students lived separately from both the Sephardi Jewish community and from the Arab population. This isolation fed the Arab view that these “Zionist immigrants” were suspicious. Still, one yeshiva student, Dov Cohen, recalled being on “very good” terms with the Arab neighbors. He remembered yeshiva boys taking long walks late at night on the outskirts of the city and not feeling afraid, even though only one British policeman guarded the entire city.
On Friday, August 23, 1929, that tranquility was lost.
Arab youths began the riots by hurling rocks at the yeshiva students as they walked by. That afternoon, student Shmuel Rosenholtz went to the yeshiva alone. Arab rioters broke into the building and killed him. Rosenholtz’s was but the first of dozens of murders.
On Friday night, Rabbi Ya’acov Slonim’s son invited any Jews fearful of the worsening situation to stay in their family house. The rabbi was highly regarded in the community, and he kept a gun. Many of the Jews in the community took this offer for shelter. Unfortunately, many of these people were eventually murdered there.
As early as 8:00 a.m. on Saturday morning - the Jewish Sabbath - Arabs began to gather en masse around the Jewish community. They came in mobs, armed with clubs, knives and axes. While the women and children threw stones, the men ransacked Jewish houses and destroyed Jewish property. With only a single police officer in all of Hebron, the Arabs were able to enter Jewish courtyards with literally no opposition.
Rabbi Slonim, who had tried to shelter the Jews, was approached by the rioters and offered a deal. If all the Ashkenazi yeshiva students were given over to the Arabs, the rioters would spare the lives of the Sephardi community.
Rabbi Slonim refused to turn over the students. The Arabs killed him on the spot.
By the end of the massacre, 12 Sephardi Jews and 55 Ashkenazi Jews were murdered.
A few Arabs did try to help the Jews. Nineteen Arab families saved dozens if not hundreds of Hebron’s Jews. Zmira Mani wrote about an Arab named Abu Id Zaitoun who brought his brother and son to rescue her family. The Arab family protected the Manis with their swords, hid them in a cellar along with other Jews they had saved, and eventually found a policeman to escort them safely to the police station at Beit Romano.
The Beit Romano police station turned into a shelter for the Jews on the morning of Saturday, August 24. It also became a synagogue when the Orthodox Jews gathered there said their morning prayers. As they finished praying, they began to hear noises outside the building. Thousands of Arabs descended from Har Hebron, shouting “Kill the Jews!” in Arabic. They even tried to break down the doors of the station.
For three days, the Jews were besieged in Beit Romano by the rampaging Arabs. Each night, ten men were allowed to leave the building and go to Hebron’s ancient Jewish cemetery to conduct a funeral for any Jews murdered that day.
Violence throughout Palestine instigated by the Arabs resulted in the death of 133 Jews and 110 Arabs (most killed by British security forces).
Three days after the massacre, the British evacuated the 484 survivors, including 153 children, to Jerusalem. More than 200 Arabs and 15 Jews were tried and sentenced for their role in the unrest in 1929. Out of 27 capital cases involving Arabs, only three of the death sentences were carried out, the others were granted “mercy” and their sentences were commuted to life in prison. Muhammad Jamjoum, Fuad Hijazi, and Ataa Al-Zir were put to death on June 17, 1930, because they were convicted of particularly brutal murders in Safad and Hebron.
On July 14, 1930, the Palestine Bulletin reported that Arab leaders wanted to honor the men and planned to discuss whether to erect a statue in their memory. The British, however, banned all public assemblies and political speeches to commemorate their death. Today, there is a memorial to the men in Acre and, every year, the Palestinian Authority commemorates the execution of these “heroes.”
A number of Jewish families tried to move back to Hebron, but were removed by the British authorities in 1936 at the start of the Arab revolt.
In 1948, Israel gained its independence from Britain, but Hebron was captured by King Abdullah’s Arab Legion during the War of Independence and ultimately annexed to Jordan.
When Israel finally regained control of the city in 1967, a small number of survivors from the massacre again tried to reclaim their old houses. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan supposedly told the survivors that if they returned, they would be arrested, and that they should be patient while the government worked out a solution to get their houses back.
Years later, settlers moved to parts of Hebron without the permission of the government, but for those massacre survivors still seeking their original homes, that solution never came.
1929: Fifth Aliyah Begins
The Fifth Aliyah begins, bringing over 200,000 Jews mainly from central and eastern Europe to pre-state Israel over the course of the decade leading up to World War II. Driven in large part by the Nazi rise to power in Germany in the early 1930s, the large numbers of new arrivals exacerbate tensions between Jews and Arabs.
The signal event of this aliyah wave was the Nazi accession to power in Germany (1933). Persecution and the Jews' worsening situation caused aliyah from Germany to increase, and aliyah from Eastern Europe to resume. Many of the immigrants from Germany were professionals; their impact was to be felt in many fields of endeavor. Within a four-year period (1933-1936), 174,000 Jews settled in the country. The towns flourished as new industrial enterprises were founded and construction of the Haifa port and the oil refineries was completed. Throughout the country, "stockade and tower" settlements were established. During this period in 1929 and again in 1936-39 violent Arab attacks on the Jewish population took place, called "disturbances" by the British. The British government imposed restrictions on immigration, resulting in Aliyah Bet — clandestine, illegal immigration.
By 1940, nearly 250,000 Jews had arrived during the Fifth Aliyah (20,000 of them left later) and the yishuv's population reached 450,000. From this time on, the practice of "numbering" the waves of immigration was discontinued which is not to say that aliyah had exhausted itself.
1936: Arab Revolt
Palestinian Arabs revolt against British rule, demanding Arab independence and the end of Jewish immigration
The 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine, later known as The Great Revolt (al-Thawra al- Kubra) or The Great Palestinian Revolt (Thawrat Filastin al-Kubra), was a popular nationalist uprising by Palestinian Arabs in Mandatory Palestine against the British administration of the Palestine Mandate, demanding Arab independence and the end of the policy of open-ended Jewish immigration and land purchases with the stated goal of establishing a "Jewish National Home". The uprising coincided with a peak in the influx of immigrant Jews, some 60,000 that year –the Jewish population having grown under British auspices from 57,000 to 320,000 in 1935 – and with the growing plight of the rural fellahin rendered landless, who as they moved to metropolitan centers to escape their abject poverty found themselves socially marginalized. Since 1920 Jews and Arabs had been involved in a cycle of attacks and counter-attacks, and the immediate spark for the uprising was the murder of two Jews by a Qassamite band, and the retaliatory killing by Jewish gunmen of two Arab laborers, incidents which triggered a flare-up of violence across Palestine. A month into the disturbances Amin al-Husseini, president of the Arab Higher Committee and Mufti of Jerusalem, declared 16 May 1936 as 'Palestine Day' and called for a General Strike. The revolt was branded by many in the Jewish Yishuv as "immoral and terroristic", often compared to fascism and Nazism. Ben Gurion, however, described Arab causes as fear of growing Jewish economic power, opposition to mass Jewish immigration and fear of the English identification with Zionism.
The general strike lasted from April to October 1936. The revolt is often analysed in terms of two distinct phases. The first phase was one of spontaneous popular resistance which was only, in a second moment, seized on by the urban and elitist Arab Higher Committee, which gave the movement an organized shape and was focused mainly on strikes and other forms of political protest, in order to secure a political result. By October 1936, this phase had been defeated by the British civil administration using a combination of political concessions, international diplomacy (involving the rulers of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Transjordan and Yemen) and the threat of martial law. The second phase, which began late in 1937, was a peasant-led resistance movement provoked by British repression in 1936 in which increasingly British forces were targeted as the army itself increasingly targeted the villages it thought supportive of the revolt. During this phase, the rebellion was brutally suppressed by the British Army and the Palestine Police Force using repressive measures that were intended to intimidate the whole population and undermine popular support for the revolt. A more dominant role on the Arab side was taken by the Nashashibi clan, whose NDP party quickly withdrew from the rebel Arab Higher Committee, led by the radical faction of Amin al-Husseini, and instead sided with the British – dispatching "Fasail al-Salam" (the "Peace Bands") in coordination with the British Army against nationalist and Jihadist Arab "Fasail" units (literally "bands").
According to official British figures covering the whole revolt, the army and police killed more than 2,000 Arabs in combat, 108 were hanged, and 961 died because of what they described as "gang and terrorist activities". In an analysis of the British statistics, Walid Khalidi estimates 19,792 casualties for the Arabs, with 5,032 dead 3,832 killed by the British and 1,200 dead due to intracommunal terrorism, and 14,760 wounded. By one estimate, ten percent of the adult male Palestinian Arab population between 20 and 60 was killed, wounded, imprisoned or exiled. Estimates of the number of Palestinian Jews killed are up to several hundred.
The Arab revolt in Mandatory Palestine was unsuccessful, and its consequences affected the outcome of the 1948 Palestine war. It caused the British Mandate to give crucial support to pre-state Zionist militias like the Haganah, whereas on the Palestinian Arab side, the revolt forced the flight into exile of the main Palestinian Arab leader of the period, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini.
May 23, 1939: The White Paper
Jews demonstrating against the White Paper
in Jerusalem, May 18, 1939.
The British House of Commons approves the White Paper of 1939, which severely restricts Jewish immigration to Palestine at precisely the moment when the Nazi rise to power is prompting growing numbers of European Jews to seek refuge there.
The 1939 White Paper and its Tragic Consequences
Whose Land is a documentary, produced and directed by Hugh Kitson and narrated by Colonel Richard Kemp, which examines the claims to the Land of Israel, through the eyes of historians and international lawyers.
Episode 8 covers the 1939 White Paper and its Tragic Consequences.
Early on, the British Mandate over Palestine had started to run into serious trouble with a series of Muslim-Arab uprisings – under the leadership of Haj Amin Al-Husseini. The British had appointed this radical Islamist as Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. His appointment was an act of appeasement – a policy that the British authorities thought would restore calm. A pattern had been set that would haunt the rest of British rule over Palestine.
Mufti planned to kill Jews in Arab world and Palestine
The mufti lived in Germany until May 1945, when the Second World War came to an end. Throughout this entire period, the mufti was involved in espionage, sabotage, terrorist activity against the British and the Jews, as well as anti-Semitic propaganda.
As part of his alleged struggle for independence for the Palestinian people, the mufti attempted to prevent the arrival of European Jews to Palestine, as well as the establishment of a national Jewish homeland in the Land of Israel. At least that’s what he claimed in his memoirs.
But this is far from the truth. In actuality, the mufti was constantly engaged in the deportation and extermination of Jews from Arab countries and from Palestine.
Recently documents have been discovered that attest to the depth of the Arab world’s animosity toward the Jews and how the Arabs incited against the Jews and spread propaganda. Many people have asked just how closely the mufti identified conceptually and practically to the Nazi approach regarding the extermination of the Jewish people.
There are recordings of the mufti broadcasting from Berlin to the Arab world in Arabic, in which he says, “Kill the Jews wherever you find them – this is God’s will.”
On November 2, 1943 – the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration – the mufti organized a protest in Berlin in which thousands of Muslim immigrants to Germany participated. The following is an excerpt from the speech the mufti gave at the protest: “26 years ago the Jews received the Balfour Declaration so they could build a national Jewish homeland. The British betrayed the Arabs and Islam by supporting the Jews. Jews are selfish.
They think they are the chosen people and that all the other people of the world are meant to serve them. The Jews are the enemy of Islam – they are the ones killed the prophet Mohammad!” The Mufti continues, “The Jewish British minister [Benjamin] Disraeli bought the Suez Canal, thus paving the way for the British to conquer Egypt. And Algerian Jews helped France occupy Algeria. ...The Arabs – and especially the Muslims – must expel the Jews from Arab countries.
This is the ultimate solution.
The prophet Mohammad used this solution 1,300 years ago.
“The Treaty of Versailles was a disaster for Germany and for the Arabs, but the Germans know how to get rid of the Jews, and this is why the Arab world has such close relations with Germany.
Germany never harmed the Muslims and is fighting against our common enemy – the Jews.
The most important thing is that they have found the final solution to the Jewish problem. Time is working against the Jews even though the Allies are helping them.”
According to the mufti’s memoirs, he was aware of the Final Solution already in the summer of 1943.
On March 19, 1943, the mufti made a speech from the Islamic Mosque in Berlin in honor of the prophet Mohammad’s birthday, during which he said, “The Jews have managed to use their influence to control the British and the Americans. This is proven by the recent passing of a bill in Congress allowing the Jews to build a national homeland in Palestine.
“The Jews took advantage of the previous war to settle in the Holy Land. The Jews are a threat not just in Palestine, but in every Arab country, since this is where the Allies plan to resettle the millions of Jews who were expelled from Europe. The Arabs must fight with all their strength to put an end to this plot.”
From the above, we can clearly conclude that the mufti was aware of the Final Solution and the plan to exterminate the Jewish people in Europe from the beginning of the war. There is also documentation showing that the mufti toured concentration camps in Poland with Heinrich Himmler. Killing European Jews was not good enough for the mufti, though, and so he planned to kill all the Jews in the Arab world and in Palestine. While the mufti publicly called for Arab countries to expel Jews living in them, he secretly planned to build extermination camps for Jews from Arab countries and Palestine, so that he could implement the Final Solution in the Middle East.
Female members of the Palmach in Ein Gedi,1942
May 15, 1941 : Palmach Created
The Haganah creates an elite fighting force called the Palmach to protect the local Jewish community.
Eli Eli - Hannah Szenes Senesh - Sang in Hebrew & English - Holocaust Remembrance
Eli Eli - Poem by Hannah Szenes (Chanah Senesh) - Vocals Carli Golbin Nemany - Piano, Bruce Skolnick. Sang in Hebrew & English.
Correction to text in video: She immigrated to Israel in 1939; she joined the agriculture school in1941.The text currently reads 1941 for both. Sorry for the error.
No One Wanted Us - The Tragic Voyage of the SS St. Louis
Exodus 1947: 70 Years Later (Curators Corner #46) In this episode of Curators Corner, Judy Cohen and Teresa Pollin talk about Exodus 1947, which sailed for Palestine from France in July 1947. Photographs from the Museum's collection illustrate the experiences of the passengers and crew as they sailed for Palestine, when they were attacked by the British in Palestine's territorial waters, and when they were forcibly returned to Europe.
I think this is a fitting end to this episode of the Exodus of Europe to Israel. To see the homeland of your dreams, and be turned around, a sad ending.
It’s 1945 and a ship called the "Unafraid," full of Holocaust survivors from Buchenwald, have just been informed that they are going to be arrested for trying to get into Israel. The passengers comes out of hiding, raise the Israeli flag, and sing Hatikva, the future national anthem of the Jewish state.
In this episode of Curators Corner, Judy Cohen and Teresa Pollin talk about Exodus 1947, which sailed for Palestine from France in July 1947. Photographs from the Museum's collection illustrate the experiences of the passengers and crew as they sailed for Palestine, when they were attacked by the British in Palestine's territorial waters, and when they were forcibly returned to Europe.
I think this is a fitting end to this episode of the Exodus of Europe to Israel. To see the homeland of your dreams, and be turned around, a sad ending.
It’s 1945 and a ship called the "Unafraid," full of Holocaust survivors from Buchenwald, have just been informed that they are going to be arrested for trying to get into Israel. The passengers comes out of hiding, raise the Israeli flag, and sing Hatikva, the future national anthem of the Jewish state.
Nov. 29, 1947: UN Partition Plan
The United Nations votes to partition Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. Zionist leaders agree to the plan, but the leaders of several Arab countries and of the Palestinian Arab community reject it, leading to intercommunal clashes that ultimately develop into a full-blown civil war.
December 1947: Arab Siege of Jerusalem Begins
Anger over the partition vote prompts rioting in Jerusalem that claims more than a dozen lives. The fighting marks the beginning of the Arab siege of Jerusalem, which seeks to cut off the 100,000 Jewish residents of the city from the rest of the country.
The Arabs Declare Holy War (1947)
Anger over the partition vote prompts rioting in Jerusalem that claims more than a dozen lives. The fighting marks the beginning of the Arab siege of Jerusalem, which seeks to cut off the 100,000 Jewish residents of the city from the rest of the country.
April 9, 1948: Deir Yassin
More than 100 Arabs, including women and children, are killed by Jewish fighters in the village of Deir Yassin.
May 14, 1948:
State of Israel Established
David Ben-Gurion proclaims the establishment of Israel in a ceremony in Tel Aviv on the day the British officially end their rule in Palestine. The following day, Israel is invaded by the armies of five Arab states, beginning the War of Independence.
The Spielberg Jewish Film Archive - Israel Reborn
On November 29, 1947, the UN voted into existence two new states: one called Israel for the Jews, and one for the Arabs, which never came into existence and never received a name. What happened?
Why was Israel born while its partition counterpart was aborted?
This is a crucial question because of the Palestinians’ success in propounding the notion that there was no state for the Arabs of British Mandatory Palestine in 1948 solely because of the animosity of the Jews, who heartlessly stole their land in war.
When the fighting was over, approximately 700,000 Arabs had fled. The question is “why”!!
The assertion that Israel caused the refugees to flee is a favourite hymn of most who flood the social media pages with opinions formed in basements and kitchens.
The facts, of course, are quite different and saying otherwise is nothing but a malicious myth successfully foisted upon the world for political gain by the very Arab states and leaders who were instrumental in causing the refugee problem in the first place……
Read on.
When the Arabs rejected the Peel commission’s recommendation for partition and the subsequent UN endorsement of that recommendation, between August-October of 1947, months before the UN partition plan would come into effect, it was clear that there would be war no matter what course of action the UN took.
In anticipation of this war, many of the well-to-do Arabs (about 85,000 of them) of the Western Galilee, from Haifa to Acco and villages in between, closed down their houses and went to Beirut or Damascus, where, with their wealth and connections, they could wait for the end of hostilities in safety. This happened between August-October 1947. They thought that once the war was over (no one imagined that Israel could win), they would come back to their homes.
In the Galilee, around November 1947, some 100,000 of the Arab peasantry fled as well, following their leaders’ example. Lacking the effendis’ money and connections, many of the fellahin simply walked with whatever they could carry to Lebanon or Syria.
At this point, neither Israel nor the Arab states were encouraging, frightening, or ordering these masses to flee. The war had not yet even begun.
From December 1947 full hostilities between the Jews and the Arabs erupted even though the Mandate was still in effect.
Anyway, with the termination of British control and the declaration of the State of Israel (14th May 1948), and freed from British obstruction, seven Arab armies (Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco) invaded at once.
When the war ended, some 700, 000 Arabs had fled.
Some anecdotal Arab accounts offered a candid explanation as to why they fled: “We feared that they would do to us what we would have done to them had we won.”
Considering the massacres of Jews by Arabs in Hebron, Gush Etzion, and the Jerusalem Jewish Quarter, it is understandable that the Arabs would project their own bloody fantasies onto Israel.
To the best of my knowledge, it was only in Ramle and Lod that Arab residents were forced to leave because
1. They opened a hot war against the Hagana and
2. They actively threatened strategically important sites and roads, particularly the approach to Jerusalem.
In other areas such as Yafo, kibbutzim in parts of the Galil and the hill country, and parts of West Jerusalem, in large part, the Jews adopted scare tactics in these areas because the Arab press and political elite were persistent in their messaging that this was to be a war of annihilation.
Thus, Israel was fighting not a war of independence, but one of survival.
However, lest the haters claim otherwise, in Haifa for example, the senior Jewish official there as well as the Hagana’s high command, drove through the Arab section of the city with a loudspeaker on April 26, 1948 (the State of Israel had STILL not been declared!!!), calling out in Arabic to the residents of his city to remain on their land and in their homes. A communique issued by the Haifa headquarters of the British police noted, “Every effort is being made by the Jews to persuade the Arab populace to stay and carry on with their normal lives, to get their shops and businesses open and to be assured that their lives and interests will be safe.” (see point 4 below)
For their part, Arab leaders of the paramilitary forces, and the forces of Syria, were blunt in their announcements that they wanted Arabs to leave these areas so that the Arab armies would have a clear field in which to initiate their genocide of the Jews.
In the words of the Nuri Said, Iraqi Prime Minister, “We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in (he estimated it would take 6-8 weeks to wipe out the Jews). The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down.”
In 1953, the Jordanian newspaper Al Urdun wrote, “For the flight and fall of the other villages it is our leaders who are responsible because of their dissemination of rumors exaggerating Jewish crimes and describing them as atrocities in order to inflame the Arabs…. By spreading rumours of Jewish atrocities, killings of women and children etc., they instilled fear and terror in the hearts of the Arabs in Palestine, until they fled leaving their homes and properties to the enemy.”
Nothing like hearing it from the horse’s mouth…….
Other than that:
1. Israel employed defensive actions to hold the territory assigned to it by the United Nations. Against 7 Arab armies explicitly promising a genocide.
2. As mentioned above, part of that defensive action included driving Arab civilians from their homes in a few Arab villages located at strategically important sites or sitting upon major arteries, especially the road to Jerusalem.
3. The above Hagana actions were both legal and commonplace in war since time immemorial (Muhammad is praised for doing the same thing to Jewish villages near Mecca before he besieged it).
4. The REAL cause of the refugees’ flight was the Arab invasion. Had there been no war, there would have been no refugees. This is evidenced by peaceful Arabs who stayed in Israel and became citizens of Israel and who prospered (approximately 170,000 in 1949, now in excess of 2,000,000).
Today, Arab Israelis serve as members of parliament (the Knesset), faculty in universities, highly educated professionals in just about every field of endeavour, and enjoy a standard of living, political and personal freedom, and economic opportunity unparalleled anywhere in the Arab world.
Arab “Palestine” and the notion of “palestinianism” and its (now) 7 million “refugees” is nowt but the Arab-Israeli conflict by its current name and a rallying call to closet non-Muslim and/or Arab anti-semites to profess public hatred of Jews and Israel which 21st century mores generally proscribe.
As Isa Blagden (The Crown of Life, 1869) stated, ” If a lie is only printed often enough it becomes a quasi-truth and if such a truth is repeated often enough, it becomes an article of belief, a dogma and men will die for it.”
The Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue destruction by Jordanian army in 1948 war
Jordan underwent systematic destruction of the Jewish Quarter including many synagogues. Under Jordanian rule of East Jerusalem, all Israelis (irrespective of their religion) were forbidden from entering the Old City and other holy sites. Between 40 000 and 50 000 tombstones from ancient Mount of Olives Jewish Cemetery were desecrated. In the Old City of Jerusalem, the Jewish Quarter was destroyed after the end of fighting. The Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue was destroyed first, which was followed by the destruction of famous Hurva Synagogue built in 1701, first time destroyed by its Arab creditors in 1721 and rebuilt in 1864.
Between 1948 and 1974, 1 million Jews were expelled from Arab nations across the Middle East. This is their story from Pierre Rehov's documentary "Silent Exodus."
Feb. 24, 1949:
Armistice with Egypt
An armistice agreement is signed between Israel and Egypt, formally ending hostilities. Israel signs similar agreements with Jordan, Lebanon and Syria in the months to come.
May 11, 1949:
Israel Admitted to UN
Israel is admitted as a member state of the United Nations following a vote of the General Assembly.
June 1949:
Major Immigration Waves Begin
A Day of Deliverance
Aden (Excerpt) 1949
Operation Magic Carpet: Yemenite Jews, having crossed deserts, mountains and borders, often on foot, arrive at Aden airport to be flown to the newly formed State of Israel.
Oct. 29, 1956: Suez Crisis
Israel invades Egypt as part of a secret pact with France and Britain, prompting intense international criticism that eventually leads the three nations to withdraw.
Here's Why the Suez Crisis Almost Led to Nuclear War History
Discover the history of the Suez Canal and how Egypt's President Nasser, with the support of the Soviet Union, seized the canal from the British in 1956, causing an international crisis. See how President Eisenhower intervened to help restore order.
1962: Dimona Nuclear Reactor
Israel’s nuclear reactor at Dimona begins operations. Israel has never formally acknowledged that the reactor produces weapons materials, but the country is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons capacity.
June 1, 1962:
Eichmann Execution
Adolf Eichmann is executed after having been found guilty by an Israeli court of crimes against humanity. The trial marks a turning point in Israeli discussion of the Holocaust and prompts many Holocaust survivors to speak of their wartime experiences for the first time.
June 5, 1967: Six Day War
An era of relative calm prevailed in the Middle East during the late 1950s and early 1960s, but the political situation continued to rest on a knife edge. Arab leaders were aggrieved by their military losses and the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees created by Israel’s victory in the 1948 war.
Many Israelis, meanwhile, continued to believe they faced an existential threat from Egypt and other Arab nations.
ORIGINS OF THE SIX-DAY WAR
A series of border disputes were the major spark for the Six-Day War. By the mid-1960s, Syrian-backed Palestinian guerillas had begun staging attacks across the Israeli border, provoking reprisal raids from the Israel Defense Forces.
In April 1967, the skirmishes worsened after Israel and Syria fought a ferocious air and artillery engagement in which six Syrian fighter jets were destroyed.
In the wake of the April air battle, the Soviet Union provided Egypt with intelligence that Israel was moving troops to its northern border with Syria in preparation for a full-scale invasion. The information was inaccurate, but it nevertheless stirred Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser into action.
In a show of support for his Syrian allies, he ordered Egyptian forces to advance into the Sinai Peninsula, where they expelled a United Nations peacekeeping force that had been guarding the border with Israel for over a decade.
MIDEAST TENSIONS ESCALATE
In the days that followed, Nasser continued to rattle the saber: On May 22, he banned Israeli shipping from the Straits of Tiran, the sea passage connecting the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba. A week later, he sealed a defense pact with King Hussein of Jordan.
As the situation in the Middle East deteriorated, American President Lyndon B. Johnson cautioned both sides against firing the first shot and attempted to garner support for an international maritime operation to reopen the Straits of Tiran.
The plan never materialized, however, and by early June 1967, Israeli leaders had voted to counter the Arab military buildup by launching a preemptive strike.
Arms to Israel
A lot of people are of the belief that the United States was the major military arms supplier to Israel. NOT TRUE!
In December 1947, in deference to the U.N.’s appeal to avoid inflaming the Palestine situation still further, Washington imposed an arms embargo on the Middle East. The United States continued its arms embargo, despite persistent pressure from Israel and her supporters, until the Kennedy Administration.
United States policy for denying American arms to Israel was based on the following arguments: 1) the country was strong enough to defend itself without U.S. arms; this belief was reinforced by Israel’s success during the Suez campaign; 2) Israel had access to arms from other sources; 3) the United States did not want to appear to be starting an arms race in the Middle East; 4) the U.S. sales of arms to Israel would lead the Arabs to ask the Russians and Chinese for arms; 5) the U.S. did not want to risk a Middle East confrontation with the Soviet Union; and 6) U.S. military aid to Israel would alienate the Arabs.
Not until 1962 did Israel receive its first major weapons system from the United States when Kennedy agreed to sell HAWK anti-aircraft missiles to Israel.
From 1948 until the 1962 HAWK sale, the Israeli lobby (consisting of those individuals and organizations which attempt directly and indirectly to influence American policy to support Israel) was largely unaware of any U.S. military aid to Israel. In 1956, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, Abba Eban, told the president of the American Jewish Committee, Irving Engel, that the main source of weapons was France. In fact, it was U.S. encouragement of third-party arms suppliers which had enabled Israel to meet its defense needs.
The French-Israeli relationship began in the mid-1950s, when Israel became a major customer for the French arms industry. But the bond was not merely commercial: at the time France was trying to quash a rebellion in Algeria, and it shared with Israel a strategic interest in combating radical Arab nationalism. In 1956, France and Israel even fought together against Egypt in the Suez crisis.
The tacit alliance, championed by Israel’s deputy defense minister, Shimon Peres, deepened during the late ’50s and early ’60s through military cooperation and cultural exchanges. French technical assistance helped Israel get nuclear weapons, and France supplied the advanced military aircraft that became the backbone of the Israeli Air Force.
The relationship only grew warmer when Charles de Gaulle, the World War II hero, took over as French president in 1959. He recognized the historic justice of a Jewish “national home,” which he saw “as some compensation for suffering endured through long ages,” and he heaped praise on David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding prime minister, as one of the “greatest leaders in the West.”
The bilateral bonds ran outside the government, too, with strongly pro-Israel public opinion, both among French Jews and non-Jews. But with the end of the Algerian war in 1962, de Gaulle began mending France’s ties to the Arab world and the relationship came under strain. Eventually France and Germany imposed a total weapons embargo on Israel.
Israel was now facing a dilemma!
The geopolitical drama of the Middle East is acutely linked to the Cold War because the Soviet Union was arming and funding Middle East regimes, notably Egypt and Syria. The Middle East was a pawn on the chessboard of America vs. the Soviets during the Cold War because influential dominance of the region was a key goal of both nations. Of course, the obviously oily nature of Middle East natural resources was considered a prize, not only to the United States, but to France and Germany.
When Lyndon Johnson became President, the Israeli lobby was encouraged not only by the fact that he had pledged to carry on the work of John Kennedy but also by Johnson’s own record of support for Israel which dated back to his leadership in the Senate during the Eisenhower Administration.
Like most U.S. presidents, Johnson’s support for Israel was based on a combination of realism, romanticism, and cold political calculation. Viewed realistically, Israel was a relatively powerful, pro-Western democratic nation in a region of strategic importance where Communism and Pan-Arabism were seen as serious threats to U.S. interests. Although the United States did not yet perceive Israel as a strategic ally, it recognized that a strong Israel was a deterrent to the forces of radicalism in the Middle East.
Johnson’s dependability was tested immediately when the Israelis began to pressure the Administration to sell them tanks and planes. As early as January 1964, Deputy Secretary of State Robert Komer was complaining that Myer Feldman was badgering him about supplying Israel with tanks. Feldman, the holder of the “Jewish portfolio” as an aide in the Administration, meanwhile wrote to the President in May that he had “rarely been exposed to as much pressure as I have had recently on the question of tanks for Israel.” In the same memo, however, Feldman reveals how the White House successfully exerted its own pressure: “It has only been after considerable effort that members of Congress have been restrained against making speeches on the question, the Anglo-Jewish press has killed several articles and responsible leaders of the Jewish community have demonstrated their confidence in the Administration by keeping silent.”
The U.S. unsuccessfully pursued diplomatic efforts to recruit Israel government support for its Vietnam policy. At the same time, it mounted a similar effort at home to make Johnson’s support for the Israel lobby’s objectives conditional upon that lobby’s support on Vietnam. On September 9, 1966, for example, the National Commander of the Jewish War Veterans, Malcolm A. Tarlov, paying his annual courtesy call to the President, was told that “Jews who seek U.S. support for coreligionists in Russia and for Israel should vigorously identify with Administration actions in Vietnam.” The President could not understand why the American Jewish community was not supporting his Vietnam policy when he was improving U.S.-Israel relations.
Although Administration officials denied that Johnson had made support for his Vietnam policy a condition for U.S. support for Israel, the President’s obsession with protecting his own credibility led him to suspect Israel lobby demands were somehow responsible for the opposition to Vietnam. When it comes to Israel, he told Israeli Minister Evron, American Jews are interventionists, but when it comes to Vietnam, they want the United States to be a pacifist. Johnson could not understand the contradiction and believed that the Jewish community was too selective. Abba Eban recalled being told by Johnson how a group of rabbis who had come to visit him in May 1967, asked him to put the whole American fleet in the Gulf of Aqaba to show the U.S. flag in the Straits of Tiran. In the meantime, Johnson asserted, they didn’t think he should send a screwdriver to Vietnam.
The rise of Arab nationalism was also heating up as Egyptian President Gamal Nasser and the Marxist styled Baathist movements were flourishing. Syria and Iraq had shed western imposed monarchs and were raising their own brand of dictators. Israel was becoming America’s unofficial 51st state as the Evangelical movement was rising in anticipation of fulfilling Biblical prophecy now that Israel existed for the first time since Biblical times.
The bellicose rhetoric blossomed as Arab leaders publicly vowed to destroy Israel. This was nothing new and even the Israelis perceived that such utterances were an appeasement to the neurotic Arab Street rather than an actual threat.
The Middle East was a pawn on the chessboard of America vs. the Soviets during the Cold War because influential dominance of the region was a key goal of both nations. Of course, the obviously oily nature of Middle East natural resources was considered a prize.
SIX-DAY WAR ERUPTS
On June 5, 1967, the Israel Defense Forces initiated Operation Focus, a coordinated aerial attack on Egypt. That morning, some 200 aircraft took off from Israel and swooped west over the Mediterranean before converging on Egypt from the north.
After catching the Egyptians by surprise, they assaulted 18 different airfields and eliminated roughly 90 percent of the Egyptian air force as it sat on the ground. Israel then expanded the range of its attack and decimated the air forces of Jordan, Syria and Iraq.
By the end of the day on June 5, Israeli pilots had won full control of the skies over the Middle East.
Israel all but secured victory by establishing air superiority, but fierce fighting continued for several more days. The ground war in Egypt began on June 5. In concert with the air strikes, Israeli tanks and infantry stormed across the border and into the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip.
Egyptian forces put up a spirited resistance, but later fell into disarray after Field Marshal Abdel Hakim Amer ordered a general retreat. Over the next several days, Israeli forces pursued the routed Egyptians across the Sinai, inflicting severe casualties.
A second front in the Six-Day War opened on June 5, when Jordan – reacting to false reports of an Egyptian victory – began shelling Israeli positions in Jerusalem. Israel responded with a devastating counterattack on East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
On June 7, Israeli troops captured the Old City of Jerusalem and celebrated by praying at the Western Wall.
The Miraculous Victory of Israel's 1967 - 6 Day War
ISRAEL CELEBRATES VICTORY
The last phase of the fighting took place along Israel’s northeastern border with Syria. On June 9, following an intense aerial bombardment, Israeli tanks and infantry advanced on a heavily
fortified region of Syria called the Golan Heights. They successfully captured the Golan the next day.
On June 10, 1967, a United Nations-brokered ceasefire took effect and the Six-Day War came to an abrupt end. It was later estimated that some 20,000 Arabs and 800 Israelis had died in just 132 hours of fighting.
The leaders of the Arab states were left shocked by the severity of their defeat. Egyptian President Nasser even resigned in disgrace, only to promptly return to office after Egyptian citizens showed their support with massive street demonstrations.
In Israel, the national mood was jubilant. In less than a week, the young nation had captured the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria.
Six-Day War song
"For the Victor, song of Praise"
Who was behind the Six Day War and why?
It’s highly unlikely that Israel unilaterally initiated the Six Day War without specific instructions and support from the U.S. and continued source of weapons by the U.S. Some observers believe that the US and LBJ engineered the Six Day War as part of America’s Cold War strategy to humiliate the Soviet Union and advance U.S. hegemony in the Middle East.
I think that Israel was an unwilling partner, but the U.S. had an ace that was used to get Israel to go along with this plan.
U.S. policy changed markedly after the Six-Day War of 1967, in response to a perception that many Arab states (notably Egypt) had permanently drifted toward the Soviet Union. In 1968, with strong support from Congress, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson approved the sale of F-4 Phantom II fighters to Israel, establishing the precedent for U.S. support for Israel’s qualitative military edge over its neighbors. The U.S., however, would continue to supply arms to Israel’s neighbors, particularly Lebanon, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, in order to counter Soviet arms sales and influence in the region.”)
USS Liberty
The attack on the Liberty was pre-planned, perhaps from at least a year beforehand,” Journalist Peter Hounam in his 2003 book “Operation Cyanide”.
However, the USS Liberty incident was far more sinister. Nasser, other Arab leaders and Arab journalists tended to believe that the U.S. and Britain were behind the Six Day War and actually participated. The consensus in the Arab world was that the entire Israeli Air Force wasn’t sufficient in numerical strength to accomplish the now infamous Israeli aerial armada that struck the Egyptian Air Force with such a devastating force that the entire Egyptian Air Force was demolished. Moreover, it appears that the Arab world was clueless about US plans to start a war with Egypt through its proxy Israel and/or that the nuclear bombing of Cairo was on the table. Hounam writes:
1967 USS Liberty attacked by submarine USS Amberjack — Crew member blows whistle
“The Liberty was sent into a very dangerous situation, where it was, in my view, placed in a position to be attacked.”
Mr Hounam says the intention was to sink the ship and kill everyone on board, but as the Liberty remained afloat the plan was aborted and has been hushed up ever since.
Before Day Four of the war, Nasser had been accusing the US and Britain of directly assisting Israel. After the hot-line exchange about the Liberty, he was convinced of it. Of course, he was not aware that the ‘reconnaissance planes’ had in fact been on their way to bomb Cairo or…..that an atomic device could have been detonated.
Hounam interviewed a guy named Joe Sorrels who back in the 1960′s was doing freelance special operations and intelligence work for the U.S. and Britain. Sorrels was no ordinary technician with skills; his function was sufficiently important that he personally met Meir Amit, head of the Mossad, the Israeli secret service. Hounam writes:
From his viewpoint, it seemed the Israelis were responding to pressure from the United States to eradicate Nasser; Israel was not the prime mover….
According to Sorrels the war plans went well, the driving force being the US…
Sorrels described as ‘horse shit’ the commonly-held notion that Israel fought this war on its own: ‘Anybody working around intelligence knows it isn’t true’. He repeated that Operation Cyanide was a secret plan to start a war against Egypt….and it was elements in the United States who were pushing them to invade Egypt…”
At a 5/4/2002 gathering, Hounam met with Moe Schafer and shared his recollection of two important USS Liberty events.
Moe said he was hurt by shrapnel during the assault….Unlike most of the injured who had already been taken away to the USS America, he was loaded into a helicopter and flown to the USS Davis, the flagship of Sixth Fleet commander Admiral Martin. The next morning, he was sitting on his bunk with two or three other injured men when Martin came in to see them.
Shafer said he seemed to want to tell someone about what had happened before he would be obliged through pressure from above to clam up: ‘Not only did Admiral Martin tell me that four jets were on their way to the Liberty with conventional weapons [and were recalled]; he stated that four were on their way to Cairo loaded with nuclear weapons. He stated they were three minutes from bombing them [the Egyptians]. He also said that the jets could not land back on the carrier with nuclear arms and they had had to land in Athens. He stated this from my bedside while on the Little Rock [the codename of the flagship] after the attack.
The story told by Moe Schafer about Admiral Martin confirming that the US planned to nuke Cairo is also a story that is validated by Air Force pilot Jim Nanjo in California and a member of the H-bomb attack force. Nanjo didn’t know that Cairo was the target, only that he and other crews were on standby to take-off and drop nuclear bombs. Nanjo could never understand why he was called out of bed in the middle of the night on June 8, 1967 (California time) BEFORE the USS Liberty was attacked by Israel. Nanjo also confirmed that he knew that other nuclear bomb units were on under the same alert in Guam, Britain, Moron, Spain as well as in the US.
Lyndon Johnson and the USS Liberty Murders of 1967
By Roger Stone
on June 08 ‘15
Operation Cyanide: How the Bombing of the USS Liberty Nearly Caused World War Three (2003) for greater detail.
The reason LBJ ordered the USS Liberty destroyed and all 294 crew members murdered was because he was going to blame the massacre of the USS Liberty on Egypt so that the United States would have a pretext to attack, bomb and take out Nasser of Egypt who, as author Barry Chamish points out, had drifted into the Soviet camp over the previous ten years.
LBJ as the mastermind behind murdering JFK, in the spring of 1962, he and the full Joint Chiefs of Staff were proposing Operation Northwoods. Operation Northwoods was a Pentagon proposed Fake Terror Attacks on Citizens to Create Support for Cuban War.
The argument has been made that Operation Northwoods was a diabolical U.S. military proposal that was never carried out. The counter reply to that is the JFK assassination itself was the expression of Operation Northwoods by Lyndon Johnson and his Texas in the Morning: The Love Story of Madeleine Brown and President Lyndon Baines Johnson.
The Nazi-like crime against the men of the USS Liberty comes out of the precise playbook of Operation Northwoods and the JFK assassination.
Author Peter Hounam discovered the smoking gun on LBJ’s participation in the USS Liberty murders when he interviewed former SAC (Strategic Air Command, i.e., nuclear) B-52 pilot Jim Nanjo who told him his nuclear SAC unit in San Diego went on high alert 1–2 hours before the Liberty was attacked on June 8, 1967. Only President Johnson could have given the grave order to go on nuclear high alert, which implies LBJ knew about Israeli attack on the Liberty in advance.
So here we have a sitting US President not only proposing a false flag military attack by Israeli aircraft and patrol boats against a non-combatant US naval electronic surveillance vessel in international waters, but going so far as to have a US submarine fire a torpedo on a US naval vessel, and then stop a US aircraft carrier from launching a rescue within 10 minutes of the attack.
One US officer, the captain of the USS Amberjack, dismissed his oath to defend the Constitution of the USA, and fired on shipmates instead of refusing what was clearly an illegal order and high treason on the part of the sitting president, LBJ. Admiral Lawrence Geis, betrayed his oath as well, in obeying an illegal order to stand down any rescue of the USS Liberty as was well within his power as the senior flag officer aboard the aircraft carrier USS America. So also did Admiral John McCain, in willfully covering up this atrocity and failing to hold his own President culpable, betray his oath to defend and support the Constitution against all enemies, domestic as well as foreign.
In 1979 Liberty survivor James M. Ennes Jr. wrote the first full treatment concerning the Israeli assault on the unarmed U.S. naval ship. After the release of his book, Ennes pursued further research at the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas. Within that research, Ennes found a misfiled document that detailed the minutes of a meeting held by a “303 Committee” in April 1967. The 303 Committee was responsible for all covert CIA operations within the Johnson administration.
The 303 Committee consisted of CIA director Richard Helms, former ambassador to the Soviet Union Foy Kohler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Earle Wheeler, Deputy Secretary of Defense Cyrus Vance, and National Security Adviser Walt Rostow. Rostow.
McNamara was often used by LBJ as the key liaison of the covert operations birthed by the 303 Committee and the other groups.
The minutes of the 303 Committee meeting — held two months before the attack on the Liberty — referenced an operation called “Frontlet 615.” Operation Cyanide was found within the subparts of Frontlet 615. The 303 Committee used Frontlet 615 as a code name for the pending Six-Day War between Israel and Egypt. As planned, the war was scheduled to begin on June 15. The Americans had agreed to provide equipment, officer training, and the limited use of aircraft to the Israelis.
Operation Cyanide was a provocative false flag that called for an Israel Defense Force attack on a U.S. ship. The assault on the unarmed ship would use unmarked fighter jets so that the destruction could then be blamed on the Egyptians, and the Americans could enter the war on the side of Israel.
It was not the first time Johnson had dabbled in false-flag operations. Years earlier, he had tasked National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy with “Plan 34A” in Vietnam. Buddy was charged with constructing a series of provocations that would cause the North Vietnamese to attack American destroyers (i.e., Gulf of Tonkin). Some historians cite Tonkin as the primary reason for Johnson’s 1964 win over Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.).
In a decision that confounded LBJ, Israel began its war with Egypt 10 days early. The USS Liberty was rushed from its position off the horn of Africa to the Mediterranean Sea. The Liberty had been chosen as the victim of Operation Cyanide.
In Remember the Liberty! Nelson recalls the tense confusion and abandonment Admiral Lawrence Geis experienced as the Liberty was being attacked. Geis later relayed the tale to Chief Intelligence Officer David Lewis, who agreed not to reveal the information until Geis had died, which he did in 1987.
Geis explained to Lewis that Johnson had ordered two sorties of fighter jets recalled — one that had been en-route to the Liberty ten minutes after the attack. Johnson had also recalled two A-4s, launched from the USS America within minutes, armed with nuclear weapons and headed for Cairo, Egypt.
McNamara called Geis and instructed him to recall the aircraft. “We’re not going to war over a few dead soldiers,” McNamara told Geis. McNamara, expecting the Liberty to sink within the hour, told Geis that he could order another sortie of fighter jets in 90 minutes. When the hour-and-a-half had passed, Geis prepared to order assistance. McNamara again instructed him to recall the order.
Geis demanded to speak to the president, who was standing next to McNamara. Johnson confirmed to Geis that he should “recall the wings.” He told Geis that he didn’t care if the Liberty sunk to the bottom of the Mediterranean.
Upon assuming the presidency after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Johnson had told Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Golda Meir in 1963, “You’ve lost a great friend, but you’ve found a better one.”
In Remember the Liberty! Nelson further details the political maneuverings that make Johnson, McNamara, and LBJ’s administration culpable in the 1967 attack on American sailors off the coast of Egypt and Israel. A part of the proceeds from Nelson’s work are donated to the Liberty Veterans Association.
Edited and shortened version of USS Liberty Dead In The Water (BBC Documentary 2002)
LEGACY OF THE SIX-DAY WAR
The Six-Day War had momentous geopolitical consequences in the Middle East. Victory in the war led to a surge of national pride in Israel, which had tripled in size, but it also fanned the flames of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Still wounded by their defeat in the Six-Day War, Arab leaders met in Khartoum, Sudan, in August 1967, and signed a resolution that promised “no peace, no recognition and no negotiation” with Israel.
By claiming the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the state of Israel also absorbed over one million Palestinian Arabs. Several hundred thousand Palestinians later fled Israeli rule, worsening a refugee crisis that had begun during the First Arab-Israeli War in 1948 and laying the groundwork for ongoing political turmoil and violence.
Since 1967, the lands Israel seized in the Six-Day War have been at the center of efforts to end the Arab-Israeli conflict.
‘Land for peace’
United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, passed in the aftermath of the Six-Day War in 1967, laid out the concept of Israel relinquishing land it captured during its defensive war in return for recognition, an end of conflict and peaceful relations with its neighbors.
While Jordan gave up its illegal claims to sovereignty over Judea and Samaria (aka “the West Bank”) after the 1967 war, its later treaty with Israel did not formalize trading this land for peace.
As it is, Israel remains at war—in an active and daily sense—with many of its direct neighbors, who do not seek peace, but rather Israel’s ultimate destruction. No amount of land will quench this bloody thirst.
Sept. 1, 1967: Khartoum Resolution
The Arab League issues the Khartoum Resolution with its famous “three no’s”: no peace with Israel, no negotiations with Israel and no recognition of Israel.
September, 1967:
First West Bank Settlement
Kfar Etzion, a religious kibbutz located in Gush Etzion, fifteen minutes from Jerusalem and less than an hour from Tel Aviv. Destroyed in the 1948 war and re-established following the Six Day War. The construction sets off decades of Israeli settlement building in the territory that most of the world considers illegal.
The story of Kibbutz Kfar Etzion – the first settlement in 1943, the fall of the bloc with the establishment of the State of Israel, the many settlers who died and the orphans who returned to establish the kibbutz after the Six Day War – all fill many pages of history and literature.
The Hebron hills are the cradle of the Jewish people- the fathers of the nation, kings and prophets, vine growers, farmers, and shepherds, fighters and rebels all of them passed this way. They form the backdrop to the story of Gush Etzion, nestled between Jerusalem, the Holy City, and Hebron, the City of the Fathers. They are the unbroken Jewish chain from father to son.
The heritage of Gush Etzion symbolizes the history of the Jewish people and its attachment to its homeland. Four waves of Jewish settlement came to Gush Etzion. Three of them shattered against its hostile, stony hills. The fourth is thriving and prospering. In the words of the prophet Haggai: "The glory of this latter house shall be greater than that of the former one. And in this place, I will grant peace (2:9).
In 1947-1948 Gush Etzion was the site of blood-drenched battles when a small number of fighters and settlers took a heroic stand in the defense of Gush Etzion and Jerusalem. The four settlements were under siege. Convoys attempting to relieve the blockade were ambushed, and many fighters were killed. Between the 12th and 14th of May 1948, on the eve of the establishment of the State of Israel, Gush Etzion fell. Some 240 fighters died in battle and the rest were taken captive.
For 19 years the survivors could only look towards Gush Etzion from afar, but in 5727 (1967) the children of Kfar Etzion were able to return to their ruined home, redeem it from the wilderness, and rebuild it.
"…I do not know of a more glorious, tragic and heroic struggle in all the valiant battles of the Israel Defense Forces than that of Gush Etzion...Their sacrifice, more than any other war effort, saved Jerusalem... The Gush Etzion campaign is the great and terrible epic of the Jewish war... If a Hebrew Jerusalem exists... the gratitude of Jewish history goes first and foremost to the fighters of Gush Etzion."
David Ben-Gurion, Prime Minister and Minister of Defense
Gush Etzion Heritage Memorial Site
"If you wish to know the source of all settlement in the Land of Israel, come to the Gush Etzion Visitors Center in the heart of the hills and the heart of the nation. There you will see the return to Zion in all its glory the heroic battles, working the land, and the remarkable homecoming. An exciting journey in time and place for all the family. Very highly recommended!"
Gen. (Res.) Uzi Dayan
"The story of Gush Etzion mirrors the history of modern-day Israel It is the story of the Jewish people and our long connection to the land and its people. It is the story of bravery, sacrifice and hope It is our past, our present and our future and upon us lays the responsibility to cherish and to preserve this site Jewish National Fund will always honor and remember those who gave their all to call this place home".
Russell F. Robinson, CEO, Jewish National Fund-USA
"l am excited to visit Kfar Etzion's innovative and fascinating sound and light show It relates the story of Gush Etzion from the War of Independence to the homecoming in the Six Day War This journey empowers the Jewish people in this place and holds great symbolism for the settlement of the land"
Danny Atar, former MK and KKL World Chairman
"The film is a masterpiece from every aspect, both cinematically and in terms of writing. Well done"
Dr. Avshalom Kor
Sept. 5, 1972:
Terror at Munich Olympics
During the Summer Olympics in Munich, Palestinian gunmen sneak into apartments housing 11 members of the Israeli team, taking them hostage and eventually killing them during a failed rescue operation.
Oct. 6, 1973:
Yom Kippur War Begins
The Yom Kippur War begins when a coalition of Arab states launches a surprise attack on Israel on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.
The Israeli Tank Troops Who Destroyed an Egyptian Brigade in the Yom Kippur War
They were badly outnumbered and caught by surprise, but used their far better skills to block the Egyptians' progress in the Sinai Peninsula
Early in the morning of October 14, 1973, Ira Efron, a company commander of the Armored Division’s 46th Battalion, was in the middle of a shower. As panic ensued, he was called to get on top of a tank.
“I was naked. I put on overalls and ran barefoot to the tank,” “The map flew away from me, but I didn’t stop.”
When he approached Wadi Mabouk in the Sinai Peninsula, he didn’t believe his eyes. “I saw in the valley below many Egyptian tanks in a completely static position,” he recalled. “We fired wildly at them from a very short distance. We finally behaved like real tank crewmen. It was over very quickly.”
Despite this clash’s overwhelming success for the Israel Defense Forces, the IDF has yet to document the battle sufficiently. Thus the story of the tank crews’ heroism has been absent from the discussion both inside and outside the army.
Brig. Gen. (ret.) Gideon Avidor was the intelligence officer of the 252nd Division, which commanded Dan Shomron’s 401st Brigade, within which the battalion operated.
A few years ago, Avidor decided to thoroughly research the fighting “in order to present the full battle picture,” as he put it. He spent months in the archives and met with veterans of the clash in the desert. He also reviewed the division’s record of operations, transcripts of communications recordings, and Egyptian archival material.
That produced a booklet called “From Surprise to Knockout,” which notes how the fighters of the 46th Battalion “managed a firing range and destroyed dozens of targets” – Egyptian tanks, armored personnel carriers and trucks.
The Israeli tank battalion, which fought alongside the 202nd paratrooper battalion, the 89th Battalion and air and artillery support, destroyed most of the 60 Egyptian tanks that were taken out that day. The Egyptians thus failed in their bid to capture a key pass in the Sinai.
“At around 6:30 we started to hear on the communications about clouds of dust. We realized that something was happening,” said David Shoval, the battalion’s commander. Shoval later became a brigadier general.
Attorney Gilead Sher, a chief of staff under Prime Minister Ehud Barak and today chairman of Sapir Academic College, was then a gunner in a tank led by Yaron Ram.
“I fired the first shell while madly charging,” he said. “We caught a large part of the tanks from fairly close range of a few hundred meters. We fired continuously until the ammunition ran out. We realized that the attack was halted, so we then went from target to target.”
As Itay Margalit, a company commander in the 89th Battalion, put it, "Yaron's tanks hit all the positions; those guys lit up tank after tank. You don’t even see such a thing in the movies.”
“We were in ideal firing positions,” Shoval added. The Egyptians “looked like a dream target a turkey shoot. They were spread across the Wadi.”
Within a few hours, the Egyptians were routed. “The Egyptian armored brigade was caught in a fatal trap,” according to the book “The Story of a Battalion” about the 46th Battalion.
The Egyptian brigade commander was killed, and the brigade’s soldiers abandoned their tanks, jumped from the trucks and armored personnel carriers, and “everyone tried to save himself,” Avidor wrote. “What started as potential chaos ended in total victory.”
The Israeli success wasn’t a given because the Egyptian attack caught the division by surprise. The division was expecting an Egyptian attack elsewhere.
For this reason, as Avidor writes, “the battle was improvised according to the procedure of a hasty battle while staying on the move.”
Avidor concluded that a number of factors contributed to the victory, including quick, correct responses and the high professionalism of the fighters and commanders. But he admits that there were two more key factors: “a lot of luck and the schlemiel-like character and low professionalism of the Egyptians.”
Nov. 10, 1975:
UN Resolution 3379
The United Nations General Assembly adopts resolution 3379 declaring that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.”
The racist are the ones screaming racism
Kaddish for the UN
In an emotionally charged session, the 3000 Reform delegates to the 53rd biennial assembly to the Union of American Hebrew Congregations uttered a prayer for the dead (Kaddish), pronouncing the “moral collapse of the United Nations” as a result of the international body’s approval of the resolution equating Zionism with racism.
Led by youth delegates, the representatives of 715 Reform congregations signed their names to a 100 foot-long petition to be sent to UN Secretary General Waldheim. The petition said. “We stand shoulder to shoulder with our brethren in Israel. We are Americans, we are Jews, we are Zionists.”
Upon receiving the UAHC’s award as an out standing American and Jew, Philip M. Klutznick, former UN Ambassador to the Economic Committee, and chairman of the governing council of the World Jewish Congress, called the action “a plain lie, clumsy, and a stupid act.” He asserted that this doctrine adopted by the UN “could only harm the welfare and movement of International peace.”
He indicated that this step represents “a very tough question for the American people and Congress regarding our relationship to the United Nations.” He added: “This may be one of the saddest days for the entire world. I hope it does not precipitate the kind of chain reaction that may bring us back to the days of what occurred to the League of Nations, If that were to happen, then we are on the brink of something much bigger than what a General Assembly resolution could mean.”
The United States should withdraw membership from the UN taking their money with them, kick all UN members out of New York, and put a lock on the building!
July 4, 1976:
Entebbe Rescue Operation
Details of the spectacular rescue of 102 hijack victims from their terrorist captors at Entebbe Airport in Uganda were unfolded at a press conference by the officer who commanded the operation, Brig. Gen. Dan Shomron.
Flanked by Defense Minister Shimon Peres and Chief of Staff Gen. Mordechai Gur, the youngish tough-looking soldier wearing a paratrooper’s beret, said the fighting to extricate the hostages–passengers and crew members of the Air France air bus–was easier than the decision by the Cabinet to mount the rescue mission against a target in a hostile country 2,500 miles distant and with very little time for advance planning.
Addressing the Knesset Premier Yitzhak Rabin officially confirmed that three of the hostages and one Israeli army officer had lost their lives in the rescue operation. Only two of the civilians were immediately identified. They were Ida Borowitz, 56, who was going to Paris to visit her son, and Jean Jacques Maimoni, 19, en route to Paris to continue his studies. there. The third civilian succumbed to wounds at a Nairobi hospital.
The officer killed in the Entebbe Airport action as Lt, Col. Jonathan Nethanyahu, 30, who was born in the United States and brought to Israel at age two. He was the commander of the strike force that freed the hostages. Funeral services were held at the military cemetery on Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem. Rabin expressed his grief to the families of the victims and the Knesset rose for one minute’s silence. Ten wounded persons were returned to Israel and transferred to Tel Hashomer Sheba Hospital.
ONE HOSTAGE STILL IN UGANDA
One hostage, Mrs. Dora Bloch, 75, a holder of both a British and an Israeli passport, was left behind in Uganda when the rest of the hostages were freed because she had been taken earlier to a hospital in Kampala. Mrs. Bloch, an Israeli resident, was travelling with her son. He was among those rescued. It is understood that Israel and Britain are working closely together to try to ensure her release from Uganda. She is reportedly now well enough to be moved from the hospital.
Shomron estimated that there were fewer than 20 casualties among the Ugandan troops at the airport. He confirmed reports by the returned hostages that the Ugandans were actually helping the hijackers to guard the hostages while Ugandan President Idi Amin was posing in the role of a neutral mediator. Shomron also disclosed that seven terrorists were killed. Only four terrorists actually participated in the hijack of the Air France “air bus” after it left Athens Airport June 27. Several more were apparently brought in with the consent of Ugandan authorities to reenforce the original hijackers.
Gur said the Ugandans were guarding the entrance to the hangar where the hostages were held. They had watch posts on the gallery that overlooked the hangar, they were on the roof of the hangar, and they were around the hanger, he said.
MOST DARING OPERATION EVER
The hijackers released 148 hostages, most of them Jews of various nationalities. They held 102 persons–about 80 of them Israelis and a number of suspected Israelis plus the flight crew of the seized French airliner. The hijackers demanded the release of 53 Palestinian or pro-Palestinian terrorists–40 of them serving prison sentences in Israel and 13 imprisoned in West Germany. Switzerland, France and Kenya.
Israel agreed to negotiate for their release and asked the French government to conduct the negotiations. The hijackers set a deadline at which time they threatened to kill the hostages if their demands were not met.
Peres told the press conference that it became apparent that the negotiations were getting nowhere and that the possibility existed to rescue the hostages. The decision to carry out this action was taken in view of the grave danger to their lives, he said. He noted that the operation was the most daring one ever undertaken by the Israeli army because of the distance involved and the short time left for planning. He said that to the best of his knowledge, the Israeli rescue party did not request permission to land at Entebbe Airport.
The rescue was carried out with giant American-built Hercules transports. Some foreign press reports said there was one Hercules and two Boeing 707 military cargo jets.
Peres had high praise for the behavior of the Air France flight crew. He said they treated the other hostages as their passengers throughout the ordeal. He reiterated that Israel had consulted with no other government before it undertook the operation and bore sole responsibility.
According to the accounts of Shomrom, Gur and Peres, the soldiers in the rescue party shouted to the hostages to keep their heads down as they ran to the rescue plane but some of the civilians did not hear or could not obey that order. The Israeli soldiers were ordered to fire on anyone who fired on them. They were fired on by Ugandan troops, some of whom were in the airport control tower. They fired back and some of their bullets hit and damaged 6-10 Soviet-made MIG planes of various types belonging to the Ugandan Air Force. Gur said the airport was not put out of operation by the battle.
May 17, 1977: Likud “Upheaval”
The right-wing Likud party, led by Menachem Begin, wins parliamentary elections in a landslide, ending decades of left-wing domination of Israeli politics in an event that comes to be known as “the upheaval.”
Nov. 19, 1977:
Sadat Addresses Knesset
Egypt’s Anwar Sadat becomes the first Arab leader to visit Israel, meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and addressing lawmakers in the Knesset.
The Topic Was Peace
The main message was peace in the speech by President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and the response by Premier Menachem Begin of Israel before a packed Knesset this afternoon. Both leaders refrained from emphasizing those points of disagreement most painful to the other.
The core of Sadat’s hour-long address in Arabic was Egypt’s readiness for full recognition of Israel as a legitimate sovereign state in the Middle East. Begin, who spoke for 45 minutes in Hebrew, called for a peace treaty, normal diplomatic relations and open frontiers between Israel and Egypt allowing their peoples to move freely between the two counties.
Although Sadat reiterated his oft-repeated call for complete withdrawal by Israel from the occupied Arab territories including “Arab Jerusalem” and its recognition of the right of the Palestinians to establish their own state, he did not mention the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Begin, while affirming Israel’s “eternal undisputed rights, “did not refer to any areas that Israel would never give up, not even East Jerusalem, but emphasized Israel’s commitment to free access to the holy places.
The unprecedented appearance by the Egyptian leader before Israel’s parliament and all the pomp and ceremony occasioned by such a momentous event was broadcast and televised world-wide via satellite. When Sadat arrived at the Knesset he laid a wreath at the eternal light memorial to fallen Jewish soldiers everywhere. His entry into the chamber was greeted by a trumpet fanfare and a warm standing ovation by the assembled Knesset members and guests. “Today I announce and declare that we welcome you, we are ready to accept you and live with you under a permanent peace,” Sadat proclaimed from the Knesset podium.
SEPARATE PEACE PACT NOT OBJECT OF VISIT
Early in his address, the Egyptian leader stressed that he did not come to Jerusalem to negotiate a separate peace between Israel and Egypt because a separate peace would not lead to permanent peace in the area. He said he did not come to achieve an agreement to terminate the state of war between the two nations nor does he seek disengagement either in the Sinai the Golan Heights, or the West Bank. “I came to you today on solid ground to shape a new life and to establish peace. I came here so that we together can build a durable peace in the region, “Sadat declared.
He insisted that there can be no peace without the Palestinians, that the Palestinian issue was the crux of the Middle East conflict and noted pointedly that the United States, Israel’s area test friend and ally, the provider of military economic and moral support to Israel “has accepted the fact that Palestinians are entitled to get their legitimate rights.”
Urging Israel’s acceptance of the right of the Palestinians to establish their own state, Sadat declared that Israel had nothing to fear from “a newly born state” which would need world assistance and would not be a threat to anyone.
WHAT ISRAEL WOULD RECEIVE
Sadat declared that for ending the occupation of Arab territory and acknowledging the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people, Israel would receive a peace agreement recognizing its secure boundaries and any international guarantees it chooses to accept. The relations between Israel and the Arab countries should be based on the principle of no resort to force, he said. “Israel must live within its own borders, with its Arab neighbors, with all the international guarantees afforded to it and the other parties, “Sadat asserted.
He deplored that “many months in which peace could have been brought have been wasted over differences and fruitless discussions on the procedures to be followed at a reconvened Geneva peace conference.”
“If God Almighty has made it my fate to assume the responsibility on behalf of the Egyptian people and to share in the fate-determining possibility of the Arab nation, the main duty dictated by this responsibility is to try by every means to save my Egyptian people and the entire Arab nation from the horrors of new, shocking and destructive wars,” Sadat declared. He said to accomplish that, he became convinced that he must “go to the farthest corners of the world, even to Jerusalem, to address the Knesset, the representatives of the people, to acquaint them with all the facts.”
Sadat acknowledged that there were many in the Arab world and some in Israel who looked upon his trip to Jerusalem with anger and suspicion. He said he forgave them. He referred indirectly to a charge by Israel’s Chief of Staff, Gen. Mordechai Gur, that his trip was a cover for war preparations. He said that was not the case. “We must all rise above all forms of fanaticism, above all forms of self-deception and above all, forms of obsolete theories of superiority. The most important thing is never to forget that infallibility is the prerogative of God, “Sadat said.
He said that he has been asked, ever since arriving in Israel, what he intends to achieve by his visit. “I came here without the intention to achieve something but to start a new rood, ” Sadat said.
ISRAEL HAS ONE HOPE: PEACE
Begin, who followed Sadat at the podium, had warm words for Sadat’s trip. “The distance between Cairo and Jerusalem is almost infinite but President Sadat has crossed that distance graciously, ” he said. He said the trip required courage and “We, the Jewish people, know how to appreciate such cour-
“We ask for a complete and true peace, a total appeasement between the Jewish people and the Arabs, “the Israeli leader said. He recalled that at its birth Israel was attacked on three fronts by its neighbors and that the hand of peace it extended then and over the years that followed was rejected. But, he declared, “We should not drown ourselves in past memories of the wars between us. We have to overcome those memories and care for the future, ” he said.
Begin observed to Sadat that “we did not invite you and you did not come to form a barrier between Egypt and the other Arab countries. “But, he said, Egypt and Israel must recognize that they have to live together forever and should freely negotiate a peace treaty. “War is avoidable but peace is unavoidable, ” he said. He proposed that the first clause of a peace treaty should deal with the termination of all states of war.
“Let our frontiers be open for free movement. Let your people come here and our people go to you. Our country is open to the people of Egypt without conditions, ” Begin said. He also reiterated his invitations to President Hafez Assad of Syria and King Hussein of Jordan to open negotiations for peace with Israel. Begin said that he himself was ready to travel to any Arab capital to promote good relations and peace
Begin’s speech was interrupted twice by Communist MK Meir Wilner. Begin sighed, lapsed into English and told Sadat, “The Communist member here disturbs me but this is the price I had to pay to convince him not to disturb you,”
MUTUAL CONCESSIONS URGED
Labor Alignment leader Shimon Peres, who followed Begin to the Knesset rostrum, declared that “peace cannot be achieved without mutual concessions. We will have to concede things dear to us and the Egyptians will have to do the same.”
The Israeli opposition leader said that “some sort of formula will have to be found to the problem of Palestinian identity, but not at the cost of national security to Israel and Jordan.” Peres suggested “a Kind of federation between the Palestinians and Jordanians.” He stressed that “a momentous opportunity is here and we must all practice patience and mutual trust.”
Peres, who was the former Defense Minister , said he felt peace settlements could also be reached with Jordan and Syria as well as Egypt. At the outset, Peres said he was not speaking in the name of the opposition but for the united people to Israel who wants peace.
BEGIN, SADAT EXPRESS OPTIMISM
Sadat and Begin expressed optimism today following the special Knesset session, during an inter view by the correspondent of Israel Radio.
Asked to describe the talks with Begin, Sadat said, shortly after he came out of Begin’s work room in the Knesset, that the real negotiations haven’t started yet. He said the negotiations would start tonight.
Sadat was then asked whether the negotiations would lead to peace. He responded, “I am always optimistic.” Begin then joined him and said: “I share the President’s optimism.” The two leaders were then interviewed by ABC-TV newscaster Barbara Walters–the first ever interview held with an Israeli and an Arab statesman sitting side by side.
Tonight, Begin and Sadat held a working dinner at the King David Hotel where the Egyptian President and his entourage are staying, Tomorrow, Sadat is scheduled to meet with leaders of Israeli political parties and lunch with Begin and his aides. In the afternoon, prior to his return home, Sadat and Begin will hold a news conference at the Jerusalem Theater.
Sept. 17, 1978:
Camp David Accords
The Edith Wolfson
Medical Center
Wolfson Medical Center 1980 (Hebrew: מרכז רפואי וולפסון) (transliteration: Merkaz Refui Wolfson) is a hospital in the Tel Aviv District city of Holon, Israel. Wolfson Hospital is located in southern Tel Aviv Metropolitan Area in a vicinity abounded by a population of nearly half a million inhabitants. It ranks as the ninth largest hospital in Israel. The medical center was founded with the assistance of the Wolfson Foundation and named after Lady Edith Specterman Wolfson, Sir Isaac Wolfson's wife.
Edith Wolfson Wife of Sir Isaac Wolfson, 1st Baronet, Who was a businessman and philanthropist and one of my relatives.
Sir Isaac and Lady Edith Wolfson were extraordinary people - who exemplified the values of generosity and commitment in all of their endeavors.
The Edith Wolfson Medical Center is a fitting tribute to the caring and compassion exhibited by this remarkable couple, whose benevolence made the founding of this hospital possible.
Sir Isaac dedicated himself to philanthropy and established the Wolfson Foundation to support worthy causes in health, education and science in Britain, the Commonwealth and Israel.
He was knighted in 1962 by the Queen of England in recognition of his contribution.
Lady Edith Specterman Wolfson was raised with a strong tradition of communal service.
She served as president of Emunah and Vice President of the Jewish Welfare Board, as well as co-chairman and President of the Youth Aliyah Aid Society.
The memory of Lady Edith Wolfson has been immortalized in this medical center which bears her name.
The ideals and spirit of service which she and her husband epitomized have become the creed of this institution and have been adopted by all its staff: to fulfill the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of every patient.
Operation Opera - Israel's Raid on the Iraqi Reactor 1981
Operation Opera (Hebrew: מבצע אופרה), also known as Operation Babylon, was a surprise airstrike conducted by the Israeli Air Force on 7 June 1981, which destroyed an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor located 17 kilometres (11 miles) southeast of Baghdad, Iraq. The Israeli operation came after Iran's partially successful Operation Scorch Sword had caused minor damage to the same nuclear facility a year prior, with the damage having been subsequently repaired by French technicians. Operation Opera, and related Israeli government statements following it, established the Begin Doctrine, which explicitly stated the strike was not an anomaly, but instead "a precedent for every future government in Israel". Israel's counter-proliferation preventive strike added another dimension to its existing policy of deliberate ambiguity, as it related to the nuclear weapons capability of other states in the region.
In 1976, Iraq purchased an Osiris-class nuclear reactor from France. While Iraq and France maintained that the reactor, named Osirak by the French, was intended for peaceful scientific research, the Israelis viewed the reactor with suspicion, believing it was designed to make nuclear weapons that could escalate the ongoing Arab–Israeli conflict. On 7 June 1981, a flight of Israeli Air Force F-16A fighter aircraft, with an escort of F-15As, bombed the Osirak reactor deep inside Iraq. Israel called the operation an act of self-defense, saying that the reactor had "less than a month to go" before "it might have become critical." The airstrike reportedly killed ten Iraqi soldiers and one French civilian. The attack took place about three weeks before the 1981 Israeli legislative elections for the Knesset.
At the time of its occurrence, the attack was met with sharp international criticism, including in the United States, and Israel was rebuked by the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly in two separate resolutions.[14][15] Media reactions were also negative: "Israel's sneak attack ... was an act of inexcusable and short-sighted aggression", wrote the New York Times, while the Los Angeles Times called it "state-sponsored terrorism". The destruction of Iraq's Osirak reactor has been cited as an example of a preventive strike in contemporary scholarship on international law. The efficacy of the attack is debated by historians, who acknowledge that it brought Iraq back from the brink of nuclear capability but drove its weapons program underground and cemented Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's future ambitions for acquiring nuclear weapons.
June 6, 1982 —
Lebanon War Begins
Israel invades southern Lebanon in an effort to stop attacks on civilians in northern Israel, resulting in the expulsion of the Palestinian Liberation Organization from Lebanon.
Sept. 16, 1982 —
Sabra and Shatila Massacre
Christian Phalangists begin massacring hundreds of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon in what becomes known as the Sabra and Shatila massacre. An Israeli governmental commission will later find Defense Minister Ariel Sharon indirectly responsible for the killings.
Cabinet Rejects All Accusations That Israel Was Responsible for Massacre of Palestinians in Beirut
The Cabinet has angrily rejected “all director implicit accusations” that Israel was in any way responsible for the massacre of civilians in the Shatila and Sabra refugee camps in west Beirut Friday, reportedly by elements of the Christian Phalangists and Maj. Saad Haddad’s Christian militia, private military forces armed and supported by Israel.
A communique bristling with anger was issued after a three-hour emergency meeting of the Cabinet late last night denouncing such accusations as a “blood libel” against Israel, its government and its army.
The communique was in response to a flood of criticism abroad alleging that Israel had acquiesced in and may even have facilitated the slaughter of at least 300 Palestinian men, women and children by allowing the armed Christian forces into the camps and doing nothing to halt the carnage.
The Cabinet communique also reacted to mounting criticism at Home of Israel’s deepening involvement in strife-torn Lebanon by calling on all Israelis to “rally round their democratically elected government.”
Anti-government criticism boiled over at home. Demonstrators outside Begin’s Jerusalem residence and elsewhere in Israel demanded that Israel pull out of west Beirut and out of Lebanon. Labor Party leaders called for the prompt resignation of Begin and Defense Minister Ariel Sharon. Begin declared today that he would not resign. At the Cabinet session last night he accused the Laborites of “degenerate galutism” and of “kneeling before the goy.”
RELATED EVENTS CITED
Other developments, related to the events which began with Israel’s occupation of west Beirut and climaxed by the discovery of hundreds of murdered civilians in the refugee camps included:
Acknowledgement by Cabinet ministers that Israel was in grave crisis with the U.S.; the Cabinets agreement to increase the number of United Nations observers in Beirut but its flat rejection of the dispatch of an international force to the Lebanese capital or the transfer there of elements of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), now confined to south Lebanon; Egypt’s recall of its Ambassador to Israel, Saad Mortada, conflicting reports of events in west Beirut by Israeli military sources which seemed to cast doubt on the government’s version of what transpired.
Foreign Ministry sources in Cairo said that Ambassador Mortada was instructed to take the first available plane to Cairo for consultations arising from events in Beirut which have been strongly condemned by the Egyptian government. But this fell far short of a rupture of diplomatic relations with Israel.
Foreign Minister Kamal Hassan Ali dispatched a note to UN Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar calling Israel solely to blame for the massacre of civilians in the Palestinian refugee camps in west Beirut “because of its occupation of the Lebanese capital.” The note referred to “the bestial acts of Israel in Lebanon.”
8 ISRAELI SOLDIERS KILLED, 100 WOUNDED
The army, meanwhile, acknowledged that eight Israeli soldiers have been killed and about 100 wounded — a dozen seriously — since Israeli forces occupied west Beirut last Wednesday following the assassination of President-elect Bashir Gemayel, leader of the Phalangist party. Three of the dead were killed when their tank was blown up, apparently by a rocket launched grenade.
STATEMENT BY THE CABINET
The escalating crisis caused Begin to summon his Cabinet into extra ordinary session immediately after the conclusion of the Rash Hashanah to holiday. The government communique, read to reporters by Cabinet Secretary Dan Meridor, referred to only one of the refugee camps, Shatila, which is adjacent to the Sabra camp. It said:
“In a place where there was no position of the Israeli army, a Lebanese unit entered a refugee center where terrorists were hiding in order to apprehend them. This unit caused many casualties to innocent civilians. We state this fact with deep grief and regret.
“The IDF (Israel Defense Force), as soon as it learned of the tragic events in the Shatila camp, put an end to the slaughter of the innocent civilian population and forced the Lebanese units to evacuate the camp. The civilian population itself gave clear expression to is gratitude to the act of salvation by the IDF.
“All the director the implicit accusations that the IDF bears any blame whatsoever for this human tragedy in the Shatila camp are entirely baseless and without any foundation. The Government of Israel rejects them with the contempt they deserve. The fact remains that without the intervention of the IDF, there would have been much greater loss of life.
“Despite the internal incitement, we call upon the people of Israel to unite around its democratically elected government in its struggle for security and peace for Israel and all her citizens. No one would preach to us ethics and respect for human lives, values on which we have dedicated–and we will continue to dedicate–generations of Israeli fighters.”
ISRAEL’S EXPLANATION OF THE EVENTS
Israeli officials said that the Phalangists entered the refugee camps to search for terrorists and arms supplies. They encountered resistance in the camps and that was when the killings started, the officials said. They claimed that Israeli forces in the vicinity heard the shooting but believed it was an encounter with the terrorists.
No one could think or know that the Phalangists would carry out a massacre inasmuch as Israel believed tempers had cooled in the days following Gemayel’s assassination officials said.
Ironically, Israel had justified its occupation of west Beirut, in face of strong remonstrations from Washington, in part on grounds that it sought to prevent Phalangists from wreaking bloody revenge for the assassination of their leader. Israel also claimed it had been hoodwinked by the Palestine Liberation Organization and that at least 2,000 armed PLO terrorists remained in west Beirut after their main body evacuated the city.
Although the Cabinet accepted the UN Security Council’s call to station UN observers in west Beirut, it rejected an American demand that two or three UNIFIL battalions from south Lebanon be transferred there. Israel is insisting that the Lebanese army take over the positions presently held by Israeli forces.
Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir sent U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz a cable expressing Israel’s readiness to allow some 40 UN observers into west Beirut, in accordance with the Security Council resolution. Shamir reportedly received a strongly worded message from Shultz demanding Israel’s immediate withdrawal from west Beirut.
CONTRADICTORY REPORTS CITED
Meanwhile, an analysis of army and other official statements and pronouncements over the holiday weekend revealed many contradictions and inconsistencies. Defense Minister Sharon claimed that Israeli forces “surrounded the (refugee) camps.” Chief of Staff Gen. Rafael Eitan said Israeli forces were positioned only at the western periphery of the camps, leaving their eastern approaches open for the Phalangist forces.
While some Israeli reports said Phalangist elements who entered the camp did so on their own authority, other official reports stated that they were sent in by the Israeli army on orders of higher civilian authorities, to help, or to carry out alone the search for PLO terrorists believed hiding in the camps.
Galei Zahal, the Israel armed forces radio, reported from Beirut, that the IDF had “decided to leave the cleansing of the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps to the Phalange force.”
Zeev Schiff, the respected military correspondent of the independent daily Haaretz, reported that he had learned that a slaughter had occurred in the refugee camps during the night.
Schiff is understood to have passed his information on to Communications Minister Mordechai Zipori who, in turn, conveyed it to Shamir.
When reminded by Zipori that he had given him the information, Shamir reportedly told aides that he “treated Zipori’s statement like he treated many other reports by him — with suspicion.” He added that he had checked with the army which told him it knew nothing of a massacre. But this apparently was hours after the massacre occurred and hours after the army had intervened to get the Phalangists out of the camp area.
LONG HISTORY OF BLOOD FEUDS
Hirsh Goodman, military correspondent of the Jerusalem Post, reported that Israeli intelligence services had warned Begin and Sharon of the danger of a blood feud between the unarmed Palestinians in the camps and the armed Phalangists groups. Observers here noted that the Middle East in general and Lebanon in particular, have a long history of blood feuds, something Israeli leaders could not have been unaware of.
Christians and Druze clashed in Lebanon until Israeli soldiers intervened. Maj. Haddad’s forces have been accused of murdering many women and children in south Lebanon after Israel invaded that region in the Litani River campaign of 1978.
While refugee camp survivors were claiming that Haddad’s men took part in the massacre, this was denied by Haddad and by Israeli officers. Haddad claimed that the Israeli forces had prevented his men from advancing beyond the Awali River, just north of Sidon in south Lebanon. But Israeli officers reported that “at least one” of Haddad’s militiamen was shot when Israeli troops acted to oust the Phalangists from the area.
Reports from Beirut today said surviving refugees were fleeing the camps in panic when rumors spread that Haddad’s men were returning. The refugees tried to rush past an Israel army roadblock but were turned back when Israeli troops fired into the air. Israeli sources said the panic ended when Lebanese security forces persuaded the refugees that the reports of Haddad’s return were baseless.
BEGIN LINKS CRISIS WITH REAGAN’S PLAN
During the Cabinet session, Begin reportedly linked the west Beirut crisis with President Reagan’s plan for the West Bank and Palestinian autonomy, announced by the President September I and immediately and categorically rejected by the Begin government. He reportedly accused the Reagan Administration of using the west Beirut crisis to force Israel to accept the Reagan plan.
One senior political source was quoted as saying, “west Beirut is the turning point in relations between the two countries” (Israel and the U.S.). Although there was criticism in the Cabinet against the decision to occupy west Beirut — taken by Begin and Sharon without consulting their fellow ministers — objections, if any, by the ministers attending the meeting were kept off the record.
Begin rejected all criticism of Israel. He said the Cabinet ministers knew of the plan to allow the Phalangists to enter the Palestinian camps to get rid of the remaining terrorists. Nobody could have surmised the results, Begin said. He dismissed criticism around the Cabinet table as “wisdom after the event.”
CRITICIZES THE LABOR PARTY
He lashed out against the Labor Party. “That party suffers from degenerate galutism,” he said, meaning a diaspora mentality. “This is their way of shaking off responsibility, of kneeling before the goy, even if it’s libel.” He charged that it always had been the practice of Labor to say: “It is not us, it is the separationists, (Herut). That’s the way they escaped responsibility in the bombing of the King David Hotel.”
He was referring to the bombing of the Jerusalem hotel in 1947 where the British Mandate authorities maintained offices. The underground Irgun Zvai Leumi, then headed by Begin, claimed responsibility. About 90 lives were lost.
PERES: BEGIN, SHARON SHOULD RESIGN
The Labor Alignment did not respond directly to Begin’s remarks but demanded that he and Sharon “resign because of their responsibility in ordering the IDF to enter west Beirut and thus indirectly created the conditions for the massacre.”
Labor Party chairman Shimon Peres stressed that the Premier’s and the Defense Minister’s responsibility, though “indirect,” was sufficient to justify their resignation because they ignored the Labor Alignments repeated warnings to stay out of west Beirut.
Labor also demanded the immediate creation of a state commission of inquiry — similar to the one established to investigate Israel’s lack of preparedness when the Yom Kippur War broke out in October, 1973 — to study the massacre. Peres insisted today that Israel leave west Beirut immediately “even if it means leaving behind stocks of weapons.”
Nov. 21, 1984: Operation Moses
Israel launches Operation Moses, the covert evacuation of thousands of Ethiopian Jewish refugees from Sudan.
Dec. 9, 1987: Intifada Begins
Protests erupt in a Palestinian refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, setting off the violent uprising that comes to be known as the First Palestinian Intifada.
The 1st Intifada: When Non-Violent Protests Turned Violent | History of Israel Explained | Unpacked
Jan. 18, 1991:
Scud Missile Attacks
Iraq launches the first of dozens of missiles at Israeli in response to U.S. bombardment during the Persian Gulf War. Several dozen Israelis die in the attacks, the majority from heart attacks and suffocation due to difficulties managing gas masks.
Why Did Israel Refrain from Retaliating against Iraq in 1991?
Operation Solomon
Ethiopian Jews, their flight to Israel with Ambassador Asher Naim.
The rescue of Ethiopian Jews began in the 1980s, and reached its peak in 1991 in the dramatic airlift of more than 14,000 in the course of a single day.
Oct. 30, 1991:
Madrid Peace Conference
The Madrid conference opens in an effort to kickstart Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.
The United States and the Soviet Union brought Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and the Palestinians, along with Egypt, the Gulf Arab states, the Arab League, the European Community and the United Nations, together in a palace in Madrid for a Middle East peace conference from Oct. 30 to Nov. 1, 1991. It was the first time in modern Israel's history that it met publicly with all of its immediate neighbors to talk about peace.
Getting to Madrid required a dedicated U.S. administration, a dying Soviet empire, the conquest and liberation of Kuwait, Israeli willingness not to respond to Iraqi Scud missiles and its need for financial support to absorb 1 million Soviet Jews, and plenty of gentle and not-so-gentle persuasion.
Dec. 16, 1991 —
UN Rescinds Resolution 3379
The United Nations rescinds its 1975 declaration equating Zionism with racism.
Sept. 13, 1993: Oslo Accords
Israel and the Palestinians sign the first Oslo Accord at the White House, creating a framework for the peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The agreement provides for the creation of an interim Palestinian self-governing authority and for the withdrawal of Israeli soldiers from certain Palestinian territories.
Feb. 25, 1994: Baruch Goldstein Massacre
In a rare act of Jewish terrorism aimed at Arab civilians, Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein opens fire at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, killing 29 Muslims at prayer. Goldstein is beaten to death at the scene by survivors.
Oct. 14, 1994: Peres-Rabin-Arafat Nobel Peace Prize
Oct. 26, 1994:
Jordan Peace Treaty
Israel and Jordan sign historic peace treaty
Israel and Jordan ended 46 years of hostility by signing a peace treaty witnessed by US President Bill Clinton at the Arava desert border crossing south of the Dead Sea. The prime ministers of both countries signed the historic document to the applause of nearly 5,000 guests. Yitzhak Rabin signed for Israel while King Hussein looked on as his prime minister Abdul-Salam al-Majali signed for Jordan. Clinton welcomed the treaty, saying it had broken the chains of the past in the Middle East. Israel signed its first and only other treaty with an Arab state in 1979 with Egypt. Last year it signed an interim peace deal with the Palestine Liberation Organisation. The treaty, backed by all Israelis except the extreme rightwing, ended a 46-year-old state of war between Jordan and Israel. However, it was condemned by the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Muslim militants on both sides of the border. The signing ended with the release of 10,000 balloons in the colours of the Israeli and Jordanian flags.
Nov. 4, 1995:
Rabin Assassination
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated in Tel Aviv by an Israeli ultra-nationalist following an address at a peace rally. Shimon Peres takes over as prime minister and calls for early elections.
Rabin's widow blamed Netanyahu, then the leader of the conservative Likud party, for contributing to the atmosphere that led to her husband’s death. Netanyahu's close advisor at the time vehemently disagrees.
Feb. 25, 1996:
Suicide Bombing Wave Begins
A Palestinian suicide bomber blows up the Number 18 bus in central Jerusalem, killing 26 people. The same bus line is attacked again on March 3, resulting in 19 deaths. Combined with a third suicide attack in central Tel Aviv, the bombings prompt a severe military crackdown by Israel and erode public faith in the peace process.
(25 Feb 1996)
Blasts apparently set off by suicide bombers ripped through a city bus in downtown Jerusalem and a soldier's hitchhiking post in the coastal city of Ashkelon on Sunday, killing at least 25 people and wounding more than 80 others.
Early morning commuters were greeted with scenes of carnage and twisted metal as emergency services and the military isolated the bomb site in central Jerusalem.
The back-to-back attacks, claimed by an anonymous caller in the name of the Muslim militant group Hamas, were the most devastating to hit Israel since the signing of the first peace agreement with the Palestine Liberation Organization in September 1993.
A bomb exploded on a bus in downtown Jerusalem on Sunday in the middle of morning rush hour.
The blast ripped off the top of the red city bus, and reduced the back to a twisted ball of charred metal. Splattered oil and bits of clothing littered the street.
Police kept onlookers away for fear of a second explosion.
Military sources said several soldiers had been aboard the bus.
The explosion came only two days after Israel lifted an 11-day closure of the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Strip that had been imposed to prevent attacks by Muslim militants.
Israeli officials had received warnings that the militants were planning suicide attacks to avenge the death of their chief bomb-maker, Yehiye Ayyash, who was assassinated Jan. 5 in an operation widely attributed to Israel.
After the blasts a caller to Israel Radio's Arabic service claimed responsibility in the name of the militant Islamic group Hamas.
He said two Hamas followers, one with 22 pounds of TNT and another with 11 pounds of TNT, had carried out the attacks in Jerusalem and Ashkelon to avenge toe death of Ayyash and to mark the second anniversary of the Hebron mosque massacre.
May 29, 1996: Netanyahu Victory
Benjamin Netanyahu narrowly wins the premiership over Shimon Peres, who held a commanding lead in the polls prior to a spate of deadly terrorist attacks in February and March.
Feb. 4, 1997:
IDF Helicopter Disaster
Two Israeli helicopters collide in the air over southern Lebanon, killing 73 Israeli soldiers in the worst air disaster in the country’s history.
May 25, 2000:
Lebanon Withdrawal
Israel completes the withdrawal of its troops from southern Lebanon, where it had maintained a security zone since 1985.
Looking Back at Israel's Withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000
Mar 5, 2019
It's been almost 40 years since Israel entered Lebanon and almost 20 years since it pulled out. Looking back at the situation and where Israel stand now, was it the right move to pull out after so many years in the country? Was it right to go in in the first place? How has it affected Israel today? Jacques Neriah, Yossi Beilin and our Daniel Tsemach discuss with host Tracy Alexander.
July 25, 2000:
Barak-Arafat Peace Talks End
Two weeks of negotiations between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat at Camp David end without a peace agreement.
(11 Jul 1999) Arabic/Eng/Nat
Israel's new Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat have promised to move forward in peace.
They met on Sunday for their first summit at the Erez border crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip lasted a little over an hour.
Just days in office, new Prime Minister Ehud Barak said both sides were waiting for their leaders to work out a safe future for both Israelis and Palestinians.
Arafat said it was time to put an end to the cycle of violence and confrontation.
The two leaders - Barak in a dark suit, Arafat in his trademark military fatigues - shook hands and waved to onlookers as they entered the meeting room.
It was the first face-to-face talk by Israeli and Palestinian leaders since December, and Barak's first meeting with Arafat since the Israeli leader was sworn in five days ago.
Sept. 28, 2000:
Second Intifada Begins
Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon visits the Temple Mount in Jerusalem amid heavy security, sparking riots and protests that will eventually become known as the Second Intifada.
Violence broke out in September 2000. The next four-and-a-half years were some of the bloodiest in Israel’s history and have become known as the Second Intifada, the Al-Aqsa Intifada, the Oslo War and Arafat’s War.
No matter what name you give to this period, nothing can take away from the horror and bloodshed that assailed Israel on an almost daily basis. And nothing more clearly symbolizes the violent and volatile nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But how did the Intifada or uprising begin? What does Oslo have to do with Middle East peace (or the lack of it)? And why did a politician’s visit to the Temple Mount spark enough outrage to set the Palestinian people aflame?
In one of the toughest stories we’ve covered in this series, we take a painful look at the key incidents and occurrences of the early 2000s as we unpack the origins of the Second Intifada.
The Second Intifada: When Hope for Peace Died | History of Israel Explained | Unpacked
Oct. 17, 2001:
Tourism Minister Assassinated
Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze’evi is assassinated by Palestinian terrorists at a Jerusalem hotel.
March 28, 2002:
Arab League Peace Proposal
The Arab League, meeting in Beirut, unanimously adopts a peace initiative calling for Israeli withdrawal from Arab territories, a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem and the establishment of a Palestinian state in exchange for recognition of Israel and full normalization of relations.
March 29, 2002 :
Operation Defensive Shield
Israel launches Operation Defensive Shield, a large-scale military incursion into the West Bank, and places Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat under siege in his compound in Ramallah.
Operation Defensive Shield (Hebrew: מִבְצָע חוֹמַת מָגֵן Mītzvāh Ḥōmat Māgēn) was a 2002 Israeli military operation in the West Bank, carried out amidst the Second Intifada. Lasting for just over a month, it was the largest combat operation in the West Bank since the 1967 Arab–Israeli War, when Israel seized the territory from Jordan. Israel's stated goal for the escalation was to stop Palestinian terrorist attacks; the operation was launched two days after the Passover massacre, in which a Palestinian suicide bomber attacked the Park Hotel in Netanya, killing 30 civilians while injuring 140 more.
The operation began with an Israeli incursion into Ramallah, where Yasser Arafat was placed under siege at his compound. This was followed by successive incursions into the six largest cities in the West Bank and their surrounding localities. Israel's military moved into Tulkarm and Qalqilya on April 1, into Bethlehem on April 2, and into Jenin and Nablus on April 3. From April 3–21, strict curfews were enforced on civilian populations in the West Bank, and international personnel had their movement restricted — including, at times, prohibition of entry to humanitarian and medical personnel as well as human rights monitors and journalists.
In May 2002, Israeli troops withdrew from Palestinian cities in the West Bank while maintaining cordons of troops around certain towns and villages, and also continued carrying out raids on Palestinian-populated areas.
Background
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict escalated during the Second Intifada. In January and February 2002, 71 people were killed on all sides during attacks from Palestinian terrorists and the Israeli army. March and April 2002 saw a dramatic increase in attacks against Israelis by Palestinian militants such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Fatah-affiliated Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. In addition to numerous shooting and grenade attacks, fifteen suicide bombings were carried out in March, an average of one suicide bombing every two days. March 2002 became known in Israel as "Black March". The large number of attacks severely disrupted daily life in Israel.
The first wave of Israeli incursions took place between 27 February and 14 March. Following nine attacks by Palestinian militants between March 2–5, the Israeli cabinet decided to massively expand its military activity against these groups. On March 5, while talking with reporters in the Knesset cafeteria, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, pointing to the bloodiest week against Israelis since the start of the Second Intifada, explained the cabinet's decision: "The Palestinians must be hit, and it must be very painful. ... We must cause them losses, victims, so that they feel a heavy price."
Palestinian attacks continued, with suicide bombings on 9 March (see Café Moment bombing), 20 March, and 21 March. Shooting and grenade attacks also continued to occur in Israel and Israeli settlements. On 27 March, a suicide attack occurred in Netanya, where 30 people were killed in the Park Hotel while celebrating Passover. The event became known as the Passover massacre. The following day, a Palestinian gunman infiltrated the Israeli settlement of Elon Moreh and killed four members of the same family.
On March 29, the Israeli government announced Operation Defensive Shield, terming it a large-scale counter-terrorist offensive. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued emergency call-up notices for 30,000 reserve soldiers, the largest call-up since the 1982 Lebanon War. The same day, two Israelis were stabbed in the Gaza settlement of Netzarim. Two suicide bombings occurred the next day, and another one took place the day after that.
Overall, in March 2002, some 130 Israelis including approximately 100 noncombatants were killed in Palestinian attacks, while a total of 238 Palestinians including at least 83 noncombatants were killed in the same month by the IDF.
Stated goals
The stated goals of the operation (as conveyed to the Israeli Knesset by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on April 8, 2002) were "to catch and arrest terrorists and, primarily, their dispatchers and those who finance and support them; to confiscate weapons intended to be used against Israeli citizens; to expose and destroy facilities and explosives, laboratories, weapons production factories and secret installations. The orders are clear: target and paralyze anyone who takes up weapons and tries to oppose our troops, resists them or endangers them—and to avoid harming the civilian population." IDF officers also noted that incursions would force Palestinian militants "to exert their energy by defending their homes in the camps instead of by plotting attacks on Israelis."
The Palestinian attachment to the UN report on Operation Defensive Shield challenged the validity of the Israeli claim that it was targeting "terrorists," noting that, " the record shows clearly that the nature of the actions taken, the amount of harm inflicted on the population and the practical results prove completely different political goals the Israeli occupying forces have consistently targeted the Palestinian police and security forces, instead of 'terrorists', and have consistently tried to destroy the Palestinian Authority and declared it an 'enemy', instead of groups hostile to peace in the Middle East."
June 23, 2002:
Security Barrier Planned
Israel approves the first phase of a West Bank security barrier. Palestinians describe it as an “apartheid wall” and a land grab, but Israel insists it’s a necessary and effective counterterrorism measure.
‘Land for peace’
In June 2004, Israel set a new course in its approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict when the Israeli government approved Ariel Sharon’s plan for disengagement from Gaza. The plan was carried out in the summer of 2005 and had a lasting impact on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, as well as on the State of Israel as a whole. To understand the decision to disengage from Gaza and its implications, we must first understand how we arrived at that point.
A friend said
Hashem gave the Israeli government in 1967 on a ‘silver-plate’ the full responsibility over all areas West of the Jordan River.
The war in 1967 was nothing more than a defensive war….. Please read, click: Six-Day War in 1967 Reshaped the Middle East
But look what the Israeli government did from that time…….?
They are only busy to fight for the creation of a Palestinian state, under guidance of the P.A., in Judea and Samaria since 1967!
The P.A., from the time of Mr. Arafat, are ONLY busy to murder, annihilate and raping the Jewish people!
Even recently, last Friday afternoon, the Israeli government denounced the call from Itamar Ben Gvir: ‘Ben Gvir’s statement was denounced by senior government officials, as it was issued on his own initiative, without consultation with other elements in the defense establishment.
“Decisions about an 'Operation Defensive Shield' are not made on a sidewalk at a bus stop when there is an attack," said a senior political source on Friday afternoon.
"A decision on such an operation will at least be made after consultation with the entire defense establishment, it will certainly be brought to the cabinet if required. The Prime Minister can make any decision - and he will do it after an orderly discussion, the cabinet will be convened - there are ways in which a country conducts itself," the official said.
A defense official stressed that Ben Gvir’s words "were not coordinated with the Prime Minister or the Minister of Defense". See: Ben Gvir after attack: I ordered Operation Defensive Shield 2 in eastern Jerusalem | ערוץ 7 (israelnationalnews.com)
Decisions about an 'Operation Defensive Shield' are made immediately after the murdering of innocent Jewish people! The Israeli government has to take responsibility, bringing safety to the Jewish people!
No more murdering, raping of Jewish people!
In other words the Jewish people has since 1967 ONLY most terrible governments in Israel! How hard they fight to stop the development of Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria!
Look what they have done for the Har HaBait see, ‘Hasata’ on Har HaBayit
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If the Jordanians hold a “special role” on the Temple Mount, supposedly meaning they help keep the peace, why have they allowed it to become ground zero for antisemitic incitement and violence? Where does King Abdullah’s well-massaged image as a “moderate” find expression in management of the Temple Mount?
click: ‘Hasata’ on Har HaBayit (davidmweinberg.com
Cannot win friendship of the people who freely advocate your destruction with appeasement!
How Israel Got Into Gaza
In June 1967, after less than 20 years of existence, Israel faced its greatest existential threat since its War of Independence. It was clear that Egypt, Jordan and Syria were planning a joint attack on Israel. The potential repercussions of defeat were enormous. The anticipated losses were feared so great that plans were made to convert public parks into cemeteries. The threat of imminent destruction, compounded by a dire economic climate, created a feeling of malaise that permeated Israeli society.
Facing over 465,000 mobilized troops, over 2,800 tanks, and 800 aircraft, Israel’s only potential advantage was the element of surprise. On June 5th, 1967, Israel launched an early-morning preemptive attack against the Egyptian air force. By the end of the day, they had completely neutralized the Egyptian and Jordanian air forces, and destroyed half of the Syrian planes. Six days later the war was over.
Israel had achieved one of the greatest military victories of modern times. Not only had it defeated its enemies, but, for the first time, the Jewish State had substantial strategic geographic advantages. In the north, the Golan had been captured from the Syrians, enabling Israel to protect its most important water resource, the Kineret, and giving it the commanding heights of the Golan. In the east, Israel was able to return to East Jerusalem and other territories it had been forced to vacate in 1948, and gain enough territory in the West Bank to alleviate a previously vulnerable center that could easily lead to the country being cut in two. Finally, in the south, Israel was able to conquer the entire Sinai. This gave Israel a strategic depth it could never have imagined before. With conquest, however, came new populations, and Gaza, the most populated area of the Sinai, would also become the most troublesome.
The Israeli public rejoiced. Only six days earlier they had been facing their doom. Now, spectacularly, they found themselves in possession of the Temple Mount, Hebron, the Gush Etzion bloc, the Golan and the Sinai. Almost overnight, their country had doubled in size. This development would have great impact on two major movements — the Greater Israel movement (Revisionists in the tradition of Zev Jabotinsky) and the Religious Zionist movement — as impossible rhetoric became the reality on the ground.
The religious Zionist movement began to make the idea of Eretz Yisrael (the biblical land of Israel as opposed to the state of Israel) much more of a central focus of its mainstream ideology. With the energy of the traditional kibbutz movement fading, the religious Zionist movement emerged as the new face of settlement. The ascension of Likud, a party with deep Revisionist roots, launched this ideology into the general mainstream. The popularity of the idea of settling the land, coupled with the strategic desire to be able to control and defend it, led to the increased creation of settlements in these new areas that had been started by Labor. While not all settlers were from the Religious Zionist movement, this group certainly made up the greatest number.
Getting Out of Gaza
When the Israeli government made its decision to disengage from Gaza in 2005, Gaza was home to over 1,324,991 people. Roughly 99.4 percent of the population was Palestinian and 0.06 percent was Jewish. Forty-nine percent of the population there was age 14 and under. The birth rate was 40.62 births/1,000 population with a fertility rate of 6.04 children born/woman. Demographically, Gaza was a challenging place for any authority to administer.
Immediately after the capture of Gaza in 1967, Israel took over administration of the territory. During the 1978 Camp David negotiations with Egypt, there was an attempt to come to terms with the needs of the Palestinians in Gaza and establish some form of Palestinian self-rule. However, this aspect of the Camp David Accords was never implemented. Under the Oslo Accords, agreed upon in 1993, the newly established Palestinian Authority was granted a considerable degree of autonomy. Oslo provisions fell far short of complete disengagement, however, and were largely ineffective as Oslo slowly and painfully deteriorated.
The precedent for withdrawal came several years after Oslo. In 1999, Prime Minister Ehud Barak promised to withdraw from Lebanon within a year. Though Barak favored a “Land for Peace” policy, he was unable to find a partner for peace and opted, instead, for a unilateral withdrawal. Though this move was not coordinated with the United Nations, the international body eventually declared that Israel had fulfilled its U.N. commitment to leave Lebanon. Aside from Hezbollah claims that Shebaa Farms in the Golan Heights is Lebanese territory, most of the world agrees that Israel has completely withdrawn from Lebanon, a reality that has weakened Hezbollah’s political strength locally and abroad.
Ironically, Sharon’s implementation of the disengagement looked quite similar to what was proposed by his opponent, Amram Mitzna, who led Labor in an unsuccessful bid against Sharon in January 2003. Mitzna stated “…separation, separating ourselves from the Palestinians is the key to understanding my approach. Either it will be by an agreement that will lead to political borders between the two entities or by a unilateral approach. Without an agreement Israel is ready to withdraw to the 1967 borders, leaving some blocs of heavily populated Jewish settlements.” Mitzna even went as far as saying there was a need “…to make very deep and very painful concessions…” Sharon marshaled opposition to this platform and crushed the Labor party in national elections.
On December 18, 2003 over three years after the second Intifada began, Sharon unveiled the first pieces of his disengagement plan. While there had been hints at “painful concessions” earlier, only now were they coming into full view. Sharon declared that he was committed to the Road Map, a plan developed by the U.S., Russia, the E.U. and the U.N. (known as The Quartet), but that Israel would not be held hostage to Palestinian intransigence. If the Palestinians would not hold up their end of the Road Map, Israel would act in its own interest and withdraw unilaterally.
This sent ripples through the Likud party, which had traditionally represented the Greater Israel movement and the Religious Zionist camp. The Religious Zionist camp was extremely invested in the settlement projects — both physically and ideologically — and for them, disengagement posed difficulties on many levels. They made up a large percentage of those who were actively opposed to disengagement, and of those who were eventually removed from Gaza.
While Sharon was open to the possibility of coordination with the Palestinians, he made a commitment to stick to his schedule regardless of the outcome of coordination talks. Furthermore, he warned that Israel would use great force against any Palestinians interfering with the withdrawal — both to limit casualties and to prevent the appearance of “withdrawing under fire.”
In the months leading up to disengagement, Israel was also occupied with the removal and resistance of its own people from Gaza. Steps were taken to stop new protestors from getting into Gaza. In addition, there was considerable debate on how to use the police and the army. There was also serious concern that Israeli soldiers would resist the orders to evacuate the settlers, refusing to implement them on religious or moral grounds.
Aug. 15, 2005: Gaza Withdrawal
Israel commences the evacuation of all Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip and the unilateral withdrawal from the coastal enclave.
August 17, 2005
Israeli settlers cry as soldiers arrive to evacuate the Jewish settlement of Morag, part of the Gush Katif settlement bloc, August 17, 2005. Israeli troops began the forced evacuation on Wednesday of thousands of Jewish settlers gripped by rage and anguish over their expulsion from the Gaza Strip after nearly four decades.
Israeli settlers cry as soldiers arrive to evacuate the Jewish settlement of Morag, part of the Gush Katif settlement bloc, August 17, 2005. Israeli troops began the forced evacuation on Wednesday of thousands of Jewish settlers gripped by rage and anguish over their expulsion from the Gaza Strip after nearly four decades.
What did Israel get in return for LAND FOR PEACE? ROCKETS FROM HAMAS IN GAZA AND FROM HEZBOLLAH IN LEBANON!
July 12, 2006:
Second Lebanon War Begins
The Second Lebanon War begins after Hezbollah operatives launch a cross-border attack, killing three Israeli soldiers and abducting two others.
INSIGHT - THE SECOND LEBANON WAR - 2006
A report by Tami Harel and Liran Musly. July 2006: The second Lebanon war breaks out. Under a rain of missiles, Israel fights Hezbollah. A return to the conflict through 5 symbolic pictures and outstanding testimonies. i24news is an international 24-hour news and current affairs television channel based in Jaffa Port.
June 10, 2007: Hamas Controls Gaza
The long-simmering power struggle between the militant group Hamas and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction breaks out into open battle in Gaza. The five days of fighting end with Abbas dissolving the Palestinian unity government and Hamas assuming total control of Gaza.
Hamas's Control Over Gaza | History of Israel Explained | Unpacked
6 September 2007:
Operation Outside the Box
Operation Outside the Box (Hebrew: מבצע מחוץ לקופסה,[7] Mivtza MiHutz LaKufsa), also known as Operation Orchard (Hebrew: מבצע בוסתן, Mivtza Bustan), was an Israeli airstrike on a suspected nuclear reactor, referred to as the Al Kibar site (also referred to in IAEA documents as Dair Alzour), in the Deir ez-Zor region of Syria, which occurred just after midnight (local time) on 6 September 2007. The Israeli and U.S. governments did not announce the secret raids for seven months. The White House and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) subsequently confirmed that American intelligence had also indicated the site was a nuclear facility with a military purpose, though Syria denies this. A 2009 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) investigation reported evidence of uranium and graphite and concluded that the site bore features resembling an undeclared nuclear reactor. IAEA was initially unable to confirm or deny the nature of the site because, according to IAEA, Syria failed to provide necessary cooperation with the IAEA investigation. Syria has disputed these claims. Nearly four years later, in April 2011 during the Syrian Civil War, the IAEA officially confirmed that the site was a nuclear reactor. Israel did not acknowledge the attack until 2018.
The attack reportedly followed Israeli top-level consultations with the Bush Administration. After realizing that the US was not willing to bomb the site after being told so by U.S. President George W. Bush, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert decided to adhere to the 1981 Begin Doctrine and unilaterally strike to prevent a Syrian nuclear weapons capability, despite serious concerns about Syrian retaliation. In stark contrast to the doctrine's prior usage against Iraq, the airstrike against Syria did not elicit international outcry. A main reason is that Israel maintained total and complete silence regarding the attack, and Syria covered up its activities at the site and did not cooperate fully with the IAEA. The international silence may have been a tacit recognition of the inevitability of preemptive attacks on "clandestine nuclear programs in their early stages." If true, the Begin Doctrine has undoubtedly played a role in shaping this global perception.
According to official government confirmation on 21 March 2018, the raid was carried out by Israeli Air Force (IAF) 69 Squadron F-15Is, and 119 Squadron and 253 Squadron F-16Is, and an ELINT aircraft; as many as eight aircraft participated and at least four of these crossed into Syrian airspace. The fighters were equipped with AGM-65 Maverick missiles, 500-pound (230 kg) bombs, and external fuel tanks.[5][22] One report stated that a team of elite Israeli Shaldag special-forces commandos arrived at the site the day before so that they could highlight the target with laser designators, while a later report identified Sayeret Matkal special-forces commandos as involved.
The Israeli attack used sophisticated electronic warfare capabilities, as IAF electronic warfare (EW) systems took over Syria's air defense systems, feeding them a false sky-picture for the entire period of time that the Israeli fighter jets needed to cross Syria, bomb their target and return.
On 6 March 2017, the Kibar nuclear site was captured by the Syrian Democratic Forces – a U.S.-backed coalition of Kurdish and Arab militia fighters – from a retreating ISIL force in northern Deir Ezzor province.
Dec. 27, 2008:
Operation Cast Lead
Israel launches Operation Cast Lead, a three-week military campaign aimed at stopping Palestinian rocket fire from Gaza.
In response to a sharp increase in the number and frequency of rocket attacks into Israel prior to and following the expiration of Hamas' agreed period of "calm" on December 19, 2008, the Israeli Air Force launched Operation Cast Lead, consisting initially of airstrikes on December 27 against Hamas security installations, personnel, and other facilities in the Gaza Strip, followed on January 3 by ground operations. Hostilities between Israeli forces and Hamas fighters continued through January 18, and the Israeli withdrawal of troops was completed on 21 January 2009.
Gad Elbaz new music video children's world
Gad in Sderot with the children where every day the children have to hide from rockets attacks from Gaza that we gave back for peace!
Fogel family murders - Itamar 11/3/2011
In a small Jewish settlement a beautiful Jewish family was exterminated, massacred by Palestinian terrorists. In fact, the Palestinians are believed to be from the Palestinian neighborhood just next to the Jewish settlement of Itamar. The lives that were snuffed out by these Palestinian terrorists were the parents Udi and Ruth Fogel and three of their children, 11 year old Yoav, 4 year old Elad and a three month old infant girl, Hadas. The terrorists slit their throats one by one. This heinous act was not an act of nature but an evil act intentionally perpetrated by Palestinian terrorists. ‘Intentionally’ knowing that children were part of this barbaric ritual.
July 2011: Cost-Of-Living Protests
I was in Israel during these protests. But I didn't know what was happening until several years later.
Demonstrations begin against the rising cost of living in Israel. The protests spread over the course of the summer, leading hundreds of thousands of Israelis into the streets in opposition to rising housing costs and growing economic inequality.
Jul 24, 2011
Tens of thousands of Israelis poured onto the streets in Tel Aviv to protest rising commodity, housing prices and stagnation in salaries
Nov. 14, 2012:
Operation Pillar of Defense
Israel launches Operation Pillar of Defense, an eight-day military campaign sparked by an intense round of rocket fire from Gaza aimed at Israeli civilians.
OPERATION PILLAR OF DEFENSE: Israelis defiant in face of Gaza rocket attacks
Nov 18, 2012
Wailing air raid sirens have become a common occurrence across Israel over the past week and it might be surprising to see some Israelis looking as if they've heard it all before. The IDF has reported that over that past 12 years, some 12,000 rockets have been fired from the Palestinian enclave at the Jewish State. That's about a thousand rockets every year, or approximately 3 rockets each day. Over 500 rockets have fallen on the Jewish state since Israel began Operation Pillar of Defense last Wednesday in an last-resort effort to stop ongoing rocket attacks from militants in the Gaza Strip.
Pillar of Defense started when Israel targeted and killed the head of Hamas's military wing Ahmed Abu Jabari. It was a response to unrelenting and indiscriminate rocket fire from the Gaza Strip on Israel's south.
Gaza militants immediately responded with a barrage of rockets sending Israelis scrambling for bomb shelters and closing schools across the region. Many rockets have hit residential homes, demolished cars parked on the side of roads and one rocket hit a four-storey apartment building in the town of Kiryat Malachi, killing three civilians, all married with children.
For more than a decade, Gaza militants have been firing rockets into Israel's south. Short range Kassam and Grad style rockets with little more than a range of 50 km have caused about 1 million Israelis tolive with the daily possibility of a rocket attack. In the past few days, Gaza militants have revealed that they have long-range rockets as Tel Aviv has come under fire and so has Israel's holy city.
De-escalation of the conflict is what Israel has promised, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that will only happen, once calm is restored to Israel's south and rockets stop falling. Until then, IDF continues to build up along the border with Gaza in what may be the next phase of Operation Pillar of Defense.
June 12, 2014:
3 Teens Kidnapped
Three Israeli teenagers are kidnapped in the West Bank, sparking a massive military operation to locate them. The remains of the three are located on June 30 in a field near Hebron.
Missing Israeli Teenagers Found Dead In The West Bank
Jun 30, 2014
One of the teens had American ties. CBS 2's Dick Brennan has the latest details.
July 17, 2014:
Operation Protective Edge
Israel launches Operation Protective Edge, a military campaign that includes a ground invasion aimed at destroying Palestinian tunnels used to smuggle weapons into the coastal enclave and launch attacks against Israel.
Operation Protective Edge
Operation ‘Protective Edge’ (Hebrew: מבצע צוק איתן - Mivtsa Tzuk Eitan) was launched on July 8, 2014, with the aim of restoring security to the south of the country after numerous rocket attacks. After nearly 50 days of fighting, on land and in the air, a ceasefire was established
Context
In June of 2014, the IDF was in the middle of Operation ‘Brother’s Keeper’ in Judea and Samaria. Hamas and other terrorist organizations significantly increased rocket fire at civilian areas in southern Israel. Within three weeks, nearly 250 rockets were fired at Israeli civilian areas. The IDF was forced to respond.
Start of the Operation
On July 7th, the IDF carried out numerous air strikes aimed at Hamas weapons caches, rocket launch sites, and terror infrastructure. Sirens were heard throughout most of the cities in Israel, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. On average, one rocket was fired every ten minutes from the Gaza Strip to Israel. One rocket from Gaza, in the South of Israel, even reached the city of Haifa in northern Israel, demonstrating the reach of Hamas’ rockets. Over the course of the operation, the Iron Dome intercepted hundreds of rockets.
On July 14, Hamas rockets injured two Israeli girls, ages 11 and 13. While the IDF was doing everything in its power to protect Israeli citizens, Hamas used Gazans as human shields, and often used mosques, clinics and even UN schools to fire rockets at Israel.
On July 15, as a result of ceasefire initiatives on the political level, the IDF suspended its activity, but Hamas ignored it and fired nearly 50 rockets at Israel. That evening, an Israeli civilian was killed by rocket fire near the Erez Crossing, near the Gazan border. During the operation, Hamas violated eight ceasefires, which were all respected by the IDF.
On July 14th, Hamas rockets injured two Israeli girls, ages 11 and 13. While the IDF was doing everything in its power to protect Israeli civilians, Hamas used Gazans as human shields, and often used mosques, clinics and even United Nations schools as launch sites to fire rockets at Israel.
On July 15th, as a result of ceasefire efforts on the political level, the IDF paused its operational activity, but Hamas ignored the ceasefire and continued to launch nearly 50 rockets at Israel. That evening, one Israeli civilian was killed by rocket fire close to the Erez Crossing, near the Gazan border. During the operation, Hamas violated eight ceasefire agreements, all of which were respected by the IDF.
Ground Operation
On July 17th, Hamas violated the humanitarian truce that began that afternoon. A dozen Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israel via underground tunnels dug from Gaza into Israel, with the aim to attack a kibbutz near the border. That evening, the IDF launched the ground phase of the operation, with the goal of destroying the tunnel network leading from Gaza to Israel. The IDF began destroying the terror tunnels within 24 hours.
The Battle of Shuja'iyya is one of the most memorable battles from Operation ‘Protective Edge’, mainly because of an incident involving an armored personnel carrier (APC). On July 20th, the IDF entered the Shuja'iyya district, after a battle which left 13 Israeli soldiers dead, and Hamas had taken one of the fallen Israeli soldiers’ bodies captive.
IDF soldiers first entered the area with five tanks and two APC’s. Due to technical difficulties, the first APC stopped on the side of the road. Its officer, along with his deputy, went to speak to the second APC’s officer. While the discussion took place, Oron Shaul, a soldier from the malfunctioning APC, stood guard. A few minutes later, the decision was made to unload the vehicle and to continue on foot. Before the soldiers had time to unload, the APC was hit by an Anti-Tank missile, killing Shaul and all 6 soldiers inside. The officer and his deputy were far enough from the missile and survived the attack. They managed to get away and hide in a nearby orchard until help arrived. To this day, in 2021, Hamas is still holding Oron Shaul’s body hostage, denying his family the comfort of properly burying their loved one.
The IDF later discovered many weapons within Gaza, and proceeded to neutralize booby-trapped houses. As the rocket fire continued from Gaza to Israel, the IDF decided to establish a field hospital at the Erez Crossing to treat wounded Palestinians.
Underground terror tunnel leading into Israel discovered in the Gaza Strip On July 23rd, Hamas used the Al-Wafa hospital in Gaza to fire rockets at Israel. After taking measures to ensure the hospital was evacuated, the IDF targeted the terrorists who were hiding in the hospital. This is one of many examples of how Hamas used civilian infrastructure to fire rockets at Israel. By the end of July, more than 3,000 rockets had been fired at Israeli civilian areas.
On August 1st, Hamas violated the fifth ceasefire by attacking soldiers in the southern Gaza Strip. It was later discovered that an Israeli soldier had been kidnapped and killed in a shootout.
On August 5th, a 72-hour ceasefire was honored by both sides. After destroying the majority of the underground terrorist infiltration tunnels, ground forces withdrew from the Gaza Strip. After two days, Hamas resumed its rocket fire, re-escalating the situation. After three days of Israeli airstrikes, a new ceasefire was made. This ceasefire, like the previous ones, was almost instantly violated by Hamas and the rocket fire aimed at Israeli civilians continued.
Airstrikes continue
On August 21st, the IDF and the Israeli security forces eliminated three senior Hamas terrorists in Gaza: Raed Attar, Mohammed Abu Shamlah, and Muhamad Barhum.
These three terrorists were responsible for numerous terror attacks, including involvement in the abduction of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit in 2006. Following the IDF strike, a four-year-old Israeli child was killed by Hamas rocket fire in one of the israeli villages near the Gaza Strip. A few days later, three Israelis were wounded by rocket attacks on the Erez kibbutz, and another Israeli civilian was killed by Hamas aerial attacks in the Eshkol Regional Council.
Towards the end of August, a final ceasefire was agreed upon. The IDF lost 68 soldiers in Operation Protective Edge.
Operation ‘Protective Edge’ in numbers:
4500 Rockets: Over 4500 rockets fired at Israel
32 Terror Tunnels: The IDF destroyed 32 terror tunnels in Hamas, 14 of which infiltrated into Israeli territory
5 Infiltrations: Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israeli territory 5 times during the operation
692 Interceptions: The Iron Dome Aerial Defense System intercepted 692 rockets fired from Hamas at Israeli civilians
Hundreds of Hamas terrorists were injured and eliminated
A Look Back at Israel's Operation Protective Edge in Gaza
Muslim Woman From Gaza Brings Child To Israeli Hospital. Hopes He Grows Up To Be Suicide Bomber
July 23rd 2014 - Arab Muslim woman from Gaza takes her ill son to "evil" Zionist doctors in Israel. Tells Israeli reporter that she hopes her child will grow up to become a martyr for Islam and die for Allah. Vile grinning woman explains how in Islam, life is worthless and death is desirable. Thanks to David Ania for the subtitles.
July 2014:
“Stabbing Intifada”
A wave of Palestinian firebombing, car-ramming and stabbing attacks breaks out, mostly in the Jerusalem area, leading some to raise concerns that a Third Intifada, sometimes referred to as a “stabbing intifada,” is underway.
'Knife Intifada' Incited to 'Clean Jerusalem of Jews'
July 31, 2015:
Duma Firebombing
Jewish extremists firebomb a Palestinian home in the village of Duma, killing 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh and his parents. An Israeli Jew, Amiram Ben-Uliel, is later indicted for the murder, and an unnamed teenager is charged as an accomplice.
2016 June -
Israel and Turkey reach agreement over 2010 Gaza flotilla raid and normalise relations.
Jun 27, 2016
Turkey and Israel have agreed to normalize diplomatic relations six years after an Israeli raid in 2010 killed 10 Turks on the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish-flagged ship aiming to break Israel's Gaza blockade. The agreement was announced by the prime ministers of both nations and is expected to be signed on Tuesday. However, it may take some time to elevate their relations to the level in the 1990s when the two countries shared a close alliance.
Diplomatic ties between Turkey and Israel to be normalized after six years
2016 September -
US agrees military aid package
US agrees military aid package worth $38bn (£28bn) over next 10 years for Israel, largest such deal in US history. Previous pact, set to expire in 2018, saw Israel get $3.1bn annually.
Sep 17, 2016
The United States has inked an agreement to provide its biggest ever military aid package to Israel, promising to give support worth billions of dollars over the next ten years. The move signifies the US’ alignment of its strategic goals and continued cooperation with Israel in the Middle East. Israel, however, reportedly accepted the deal with a number of concessions. CCTV's Stephanie Freid has more.
2016 December -
Israel suspends working ties with 12 countries
Israel suspends working ties with 12 countries that voted for a Security Council resolution condemning settlement building, after the US for the first time abstained from the vote rather than using its veto.
Dec 26, 2016
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has temporarily scaled back relations with the nations who voted for the UN resolution to end construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. CNN's Elise Labott reports.
Trump thaw
2017 February - Parliament passes a law which retroactively legalises dozens of Jewish settlements built on private Palestinian land in the West Bank.
Israel, Settlements and Trump Explained
Feb 8, 2017
Israel’s government has made a string of controversial moves since U.S. President Donald Trump took office, including passing a contentious law legalizing Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. WSJ's Niki Blasina explains why this is important and what Mr. Trump has to do with it. Photo: Getty/Getty.
2017 June - Work begins on the first new Jewish settlement
Work begins on the first new Jewish settlement in the West Bank for 25 years.
UNESCO votes to declare the Old City of Hebron a Palestinian World Heritage site, a move that Israel complains ignores the city's Jewish heritage.
2017 December:
Jerusalem is Israel's capital: Donald Trump's
2017 December - US President Donald Trump recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, upsetting the Arab world and some Western allies.
The following March, he recognizes Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 war and later annexed. The international community does not recognize Israeli sovereignty.
Dec 6, 2017
President Trump has announced that the US now recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
Mr Trump described the move as "a long overdue step" to advance the Middle East peace process.
The president said the US would support a two-state solution, if approved by both the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Ahead of the decision, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned it would have "dangerous consequences" for the region.
2018 July-November - UN and Egypt attempt
UN and Egypt attempt to broker a long-term ceasefire between Israel and Hamas amid an upsurge in violence on the Gaza border from March.
2019 April - 2020 March - Three sets of parliamentary elections
Three sets of parliamentary elections pit Mr Netanyahu against a centrist alliance led by former armed forces chief of staff Benny Gantz, but do not produce a clear majority.
'Trump Heights': Israeli settlement in Golan named after US president 17 June 2019
‘It will mean something for him, that there is a place in the world, far away from the States, with his name,’ says resident in community
It is a world away from the grandiose high-rises that bear his name.
A sleepy, crumbling hamlet of fewer than a dozen Israeli residents surrounded by sun-parched fields of crisp hay. Weeds punctuate the cracked asphalt of a basketball court, its rusted hoops leaning at angles.
This hinterland settlement in the Golan Heights has become the next recipient of the Trump brand empire. Built on land captured from Syria in a war fought half a century ago, it is some of the most contentious real estate on the planet.
Israel’s claim to the strategic volcanic plateau that overlooks Lebanon, Jordan and the Sea of Galilee has been rebuked by the UN and never internationally recognised. For decades, Israeli settlement in the Golan Heights had been globally shunned.
That was until Trump heard about it and recognised Israel’s claim with a tweet. To thank his benefactor, Benjamin Netanyahu said he would name a settlement after the US president.
On Sunday, the Israeli prime minister and his cabinet convened in the tiny outpost for the inauguration of its new title, emblazoned on a giant billboard: “Ramat Trump” – or Trump Heights.
The US president thanked Netanyahu with another tweet:
Plans have begun to extend the hamlet of Bruchim, first established in 1991 but almost forgotten until now. Haim Rokach, head of the Israeli Golan regional council, hopes that it will eventually comprise 400 houses, with construction of a first phase of 100 homes set to begin later this year.
“The prime minister’s decision to build a new place in the Golan Heights is a revolution. We were thirsty for that,” said the mayor.
A range of name suggestions were submitted to a government committee for approval. Other possibilities had included Neve Trump (Trump’s Oasis) and Ruakh Trump (Trump’s Soul).
Plans have begun to extend the hamlet of Bruchim, first established in 1991 but almost forgotten until now. Haim Rokach, head of the Israeli Golan regional council, hopes that it will eventually comprise 400 houses, with construction of a first phase of 100 homes set to begin later this year.
“The prime minister’s decision to build a new place in the Golan Heights is a revolution. We were thirsty for that,” said the mayor.
A range of name suggestions were submitted to a government committee for approval. Other possibilities had included Neve Trump (Trump’s Oasis) and Ruakh Trump (Trump’s Soul).
Israel’s government offered citizenship to the few thousand remaining Syrians, mostly Druze Arabs, but most reject it, opting instead for resident status. To entrench itself, Israel has built military bases and established a civilian foothold of about 20,000 settlers, who have wineries, cattle farms and a small tourism industry.
Trump’s recognition takes away the fear of handing the Golan Heights back to Damascus, said Rokach, who has lived there for 35 years. “All the Golan residents, all of them, they have a feeling of release.”
The US decision has led to a wave of donations and investment from sympathetic Americans, he added. Republican party megadonors Miriam and Sheldon Adelson – known for financial support for Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank – have plans to build a 200-room hotel, he said.
It does not bother Rokach that Trump is a controversial figure. “For that, there is the American legal system. I judge president Trump on what he does for Israel. And I think we have a great friend,” he said.
The local mayor is thinking in terms of decades and centuries, not presidential terms. People only remember one thing about Arthur Balfour, he said of the British foreign secretary who signed the famous 1917 Balfour Declaration that gave UK backing to establishing a Jewish homeland in mandate Palestine. “Does anyone remember his past? If he was drinking? Nobody remembers,” said Rokach. “If Theresa May will build me a village, I will call it Theresa May.”
Residents of Bruchim and the village of Kela next door also appear optimistic.
Menachem Ender, a tour guide from Kela, said Trump is “a personality in doubt” but he added, “I don’t give a shit. I’m not objective … I care about my country, about my future.”
In Bruchim, one of the few residents, an organic farmer, is excited about the potential influx of people. “What we dream for, is for it to become a special place,” said Naomi Ish Shalom, talking in her small plot where she grows olives, apples, and peaches.
She has lived here since 1992 among the eucalyptus trees, and now with goats, chickens and a couple of dogs. But as the Golan was never fully developed, her three sons left. “They have nothing here to really come back to,” she said.
The remnants of Syria and wars fill the hamlet. The path that leads to Bruchim has minefield warnings on both sides – the land has been demined but the paperwork to have it approved for use is pending. In the middle of the community, a Syrian army bunker remains standing.
Israel’s hold on the Golan has had domestic opposition too, from those who feel it has created further antagonism in the region. In 1973, Syria fought to retake it but failed and remains in a frozen state of conflict with Israel.
Ish Shalom hopes Trump’s recognition will end the debate. “It’s deciding. And that, in a way, stops all the talking,” she said.
Along with his Golan decision, Trump has acceded to a list of Israel’s longstanding demands regarding the Palestinians and its Arab neighbours that were long considered one-sided, politically detrimental and potentially explosive by previous administrations.
He has cut US aid to Palestinians, cut diplomatic ties and declared the city of Jerusalem – part of which Palestinians claim – as Israel’s capital. In gratitude, the city’s mayor named a roundabout in Trump’s honour.
The US president said he made the Golan decision after getting a quick history lesson from Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, and David Friedman, the pro-settlement ambassador to Israel and former Trump bankruptcy lawyer. Friedman, who attended the inauguration on Sunday, reacted like a “wonderful, beautiful baby” getting what he wanted, Trump said.
Ish Shalom hopes Trump will visit his namesake soon. “I think it will mean something for him, that there is a place in the world, far away from the States, with his name,” she said.
2019 November - US says it no longer considers Israeli settlements on the West Bank to be illegal.
Benjamin Netanyahu is charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust in connection with three separate cases.
2020 April - Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz agree to form a national unity government to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic.
2020 August - The United Arab Emirates become the first Gulf state to establish diplomatic relations with Israel.
September 15, 2020:
The Abraham Accords
The Abraham Accords are a series of joint normalization statements initially between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, effective since September 15, 2020. Mediated by the United States, the initial announcement of August 13, 2020, concerned only Israel and the United Arab Emirates before the announcement of a follow-up agreement between Israel and Bahrain on September 11, 2020. On September 15, 2020, the official signing ceremony for the Abraham Accords was hosted by the United States at the White House. As part of the dual agreements, both the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain recognized Israel's sovereignty, enabling the establishment of full diplomatic relations.
Israel's establishment of diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain marked the first instance of Arab–Israeli normalization since 1994, when the Israel–Jordan peace treaty came into effect. The Abraham Accords were signed by Bahraini foreign minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani and Emirati foreign minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan vis-à-vis Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with American president Donald Trump as witness. They were negotiated by Trump's son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner and Kushner's assistant Avi Berkowitz.
The official document titles of the separate agreements for the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain were, respectively: Abraham Accords Peace Agreement: Treaty of Peace, Diplomatic Relations and Full Normalization Between the United Arab Emirates and the State of Israel and Abraham Accords: Declaration of Peace, Cooperation, and Constructive Diplomatic and Friendly Relations. The name of the Abraham Accords is rooted in the common belief of the Abrahamic religions—particularly Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—regarding the role of Abraham as a patriarch.
In December 2020, Morocco joined the accords and normalized relations with Israel after the Trump administration recognized Moroccan control over the disputed Western Sahara region.[9] In January 2021, Sudan joined the Abraham Accords and normalized relations with Israel after the Trump administration agreed to remove Sudan from the State Department list of "state sponsors of terrorism" and provide a $1.2 billion dollar loan to help Sudan clear its debts to the World Bank. On January 6, 2021, Sudan officially signed the Abraham Accords Declaration. The signing took place in the Sudanese capital Khartoum, in the presence of US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. While Sudan signed the declarative section of the agreement, it did not sign the corresponding document with Israel, unlike the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. As of February 2023, negotiations continue towards normalization. Meanwhile, the ongoing efforts have been condemned by the Sudanese opposition and civil society groups.
Background and negotiations
On January 28, 2020, the Trump administration unveiled its Israeli–Palestinian peace proposal in a ceremony at the White House. A component of the plan envisioned applying Israeli law to, or annexation of, roughly 30% of the West Bank. On June 12, 2020, Emirati ambassador to the U.S. Yousef Al-Otaiba authored an op-ed in an effort to halt Israel's planned annexation of West Bank territory. Otaiba's op-ed was addressed to the Israeli public and published on the front page of Yedioth Ahronoth. The White House had reservations about annexation, as well, which Berkowitz discussed with Netanyahu in meetings in Israel over three days in late June 2020. Berkowitz proposed an alternative to annexation in the meetings: normalization with the United Arab Emirates.
On July 2, 2020, Otaiba met with Berkowitz to further discuss an alternative plan to annexation. Along with a mutual opposition to Iran, the concerns detailed by Otaiba's op-ed and planning with Kushner and Berkowitz helped bring vested parties to the negotiating table to identify an alternative solution that ultimately resulted in a normalization agreement reached in August 2020. As a result of the deal, annexation was postponed. Hours after the August 13 announcement of the U.S.-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, senior Bahraini officials called President Trump's senior adviser, Jared Kushner, and his assistant, Avi Berkowitz, with a message: "We want to be next.”
Over the next 29 days, Kushner and Berkowitz negotiated with and traveled to Bahrain before closing the deal on September 11, 2020, in a call between Trump, Netanyahu, and the king of Bahrain. All three countries officially committed to the deals on September 15, 2020, with the signing of the Abraham Accords on the South Lawn of the White House.
On October 23, 2020, Israel and Sudan agreed to normalize ties, making Sudan the third Arab country to set aside hostilities in two months. The agreement was negotiated on the U.S. side by Trump senior adviser Jared Kushner, Middle East envoy Avi Berkowitz, national security adviser Robert O’Brien, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security official Miguel Correa.
On December 10, 2020, President Trump announced that Israel and the Kingdom of Morocco agreed to establish full diplomatic relations. The agreement was negotiated by Trump senior adviser Jared Kushner and Middle East envoy Avi Berkowitz and marked Kushner and Berkowitz's fourth normalization agreement in as many months. As a component of the deal, the United States agreed to recognize Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara.
On March 1, 2021, former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo credited the 2019 Warsaw Conference with providing the breakthrough that paved the way.] A goal of the two-day conference was to focus on countering Iran, although the host nation tried to play down that theme and the closing Polish-US statement did not mention Iran.
Among the representatives of the 70 nations in attendance were a number of Arab officials, creating the first situation since the Madrid Peace Conference in 1991 where an Israeli leader and senior Arab officials were all in attendance at the same international conference focused on the Middle East. The Madrid Conference at the time set the stage for the Oslo Accords. Among those with whom Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met was the Omani Foreign Minister Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah—whose country he had visited in October 2018. Two days after Netanyahu's visit at the time, bin Alawi suggested while at a conference in Bahrain that it was time for Israel to be treated like the other states in the Middle East, and the officials of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia did not disagree.
2021 May - Unrest over forced evictions of Palestinians in east Jerusalem leads to conflict with Hamas and communal violence in Israeli cities.
2021 June - Naftali Bennett of the Jewish nationalist Yamina party forms a broad coalition to oust Benjamin Netanyahu.
APRIL 10, 2022:
Palestinian rioters vandalize Joseph's Tomb amid clashes with IDF
Gantz calls vandalism ‘a grave event and a serious violation of freedom of worship in one of the holiest places for every Jew’
Palestinian rioters vandalized Joseph’s Tomb in the West Bank city of Nablus on Saturday night amid clashes with the IDF, setting fire to the site, damaging the gravestone, a chandelier hanging above it, a water tank and an electricity closet.
The vandalism came amid the second night of arrest raids made by Israeli security forces in the West Bank, following a deadly terrorist attack on Thursday night on Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv that claimed three lives.
The terrorist, Raad Hazem, 28, was from the nearby Palestinian city of Jenin.
August 8, 2022
Israel and Palestinian militants declare Gaza truce
Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group declared a truce late on Sunday, raising hopes of an end to the most serious flare-up on the Gaza frontier in more than a year.
Israeli forces pounded Palestinian targets through the weekend, triggering rocket attacks against its cities, which largely tapered off by the time the truce came into effect at 23:30 (20:30 GMT).
It was announced in separate statements by Islamic Jihad and then Israel, who both thanked Egypt for mediating the ceasefire.
The Egypt-brokered truce followed three days of violence with Israel targeting the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and militants firing rockets into Israel.
The latest violence began with attacks by Israel on sites in the Gaza Strip, which its military said was in response to threats from a militant group. It followed days of tensions after Israel arrested a senior PIJ member in the occupied West Bank.
Israel, for its part, says it hit 170 PIJ targets during the operation, codenamed Breaking Dawn, killing several high-ranking PIJ members and destroying tunnels and weapon storage sites.
29 December 2022:
Netanyahu returns as PM, wins Knesset support for Israel’s most hardline government
Incoming coalition, approved by 63-54 votes, has pledged to hobble the High Court, consider West Bank annexation, and further centralize Orthodox control over state Jewish services
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu swore in Israel’s 37th government on Thursday, promising that his right-religious coalition will deliver political stability after five bumpy back-to-back elections since 2019.
Confidence in the government was confirmed by 63 of the 64 coalition members, constituting a relatively solid and cohesive majority in the 120-seat Knesset. Fifty-four MKs voted against.
With a total of 15 years in two stints in the country’s top seat — he is now beginning his third — Netanyahu is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister. This will be his sixth government, and by allying far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties to his right-wing Likud, it will be his and the country’s most hardline to date.
According to coalition agreements signed between Likud and each of its five partner parties, as well as its published guiding principles, the incoming government will prioritize comprehensive judicial reform, including a commitment to pass a High Court override law designed to reduce judicial checks on executive and legislative power, expand settlement and consider West Bank annexation policy, combat the cost of living, and further centralize ultra-Orthodox control over state Jewish services.
Speaking to the Knesset plenum before the vote of confidence, Netanyahu presented three top priorities for his new government: stopping Iran’s nuclear program, developing state infrastructure — with an emphasis on connecting the so-called periphery to the center of the country — and restoring internal security and governance.
Many ministries have been split or repackaged. Others are scheduled for ministerial rotation, had pieces cleaved off or appended, or have more than one minister. Only five of the 31 ministers are women, and one, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Galit Distal Atbaryan, has yet to have a clear role delineated. Another, Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel, was appointed in the hours between when Netanyahu presented his government to the Knesset and the swearing-in. Cabinet posts are among the key resources allocated by would-be prime ministers in their quest to cobble together parties into a coalition, along with budgets and policy points. Netanyahu has been criticized within his own party for making far-reaching concessions to allied parties.
One of those allied parties is the far-right Religious Zionism, which has pushed for settlement expansion, reform that would subjugate the judiciary to the Knesset, and the bolstering of Orthodox Judaism.
Party leader Bezalel Smotrich — who in addition to once describing himself as a “proud homophobe” and advocating for Arab-Jewish segregated maternity wards, was arrested by the Shin Bet in 2005 on suspicion of a planning a violent pro-settlement demonstration — will be an independent minister in the Defense Ministry overseeing Jewish and Palestinian construction the West Bank’s Area C.
Home to about 500,000 Jewish settlers and 300,000 Palestinians, Area C is the only part of the West Bank in which Jews live, and it is under Israeli civil and military control.
Other members of his party will receive appointments touching on settlements, Israel’s Jewish character and Diaspora relations, namely the newly formed National Missions Ministry and the Aliyah and Absorption Ministry. Smotrich will also start the term in the Finance Ministry, and is slated to rotate into a different ministry midterm.
Other policy goals secured by Religious Zionism include a declarative, if somewhat vague, commitment to annexing the West Bank to Israel, legalization of dozens of unauthorized settlement outposts, and the provision of large funds for road building and public transportation in the West Bank.
The party also obtained commitments to restrict immigration under the Law of Return, delegitimize non-Orthodox conversions to Judaism, and change discrimination laws to allow goods and service providers to refuse service based on religious belief.
Fellow far-right party Otzma Yehudit campaigned on a promise to restore internal security and governance to Israel, amid an ongoing wave of terror attacks and alleged under-policing in parts of the country.
The party’s firebrand leader, Itamar Ben Gvir, secured unprecedented control over law enforcement as part of his newly formed National Security Ministry. Repackaging it from the existing Public Security Ministry, Ben Gvir drew additional powers to himself in both passed and planned legislation, and has secured a staggering coalition promise to be given control of the Border Police.
The ultra-nationalist party also obtained commitments to advance legislation to change the legal liability of soldiers and security personnel for actions they take in the line of duty, institute a death penalty for convicted terrorists, strip other attackers of their nationality and deport them, review the possibility of downgrading prison conditions for Palestinian terror inmates, and ban the Palestinian flag from state-funded institutions and local municipal authorities.
A third far-right coalition partner, Noam, secured dramatic promises for its small, one-lawmaker faction. Newly installed Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Avi Maoz will head a well-funded Jewish National Identity office, through which he will take control of Israel’s program for processing Jewish immigration from former Soviet states — Nativ — as well as an Education Ministry unit overseeing extracurricular programming in public schools.
Maoz will also helm a newly announced Department for Jewish State Consciousness, which despite being funded and staffed in the coalition agreement, has yet to reveal its responsibilities and mandate.
Maoz and his Noam party hold anti-LGBTQ, misogynist, and anti-Jewish pluralist views. He, along with other religious parties, has pushed to tighten Jewish immigration criteria under the Law of Return, removing eligibility from many who are not considered Jews by Orthodox Jewish law.
Likud’s ultra-Orthodox partners, Shas and United Torah Judaism, again found success in their demands on welfare and strengthening the standing of and funding for Orthodox Jewish religion.
Shas in particular secured billions of shekels in promises to advance its core agendas, including support for disadvantaged ctizens, benefits to the religious community and its institutions, and improved healthcare, especially in the so-called periphery.
On Tuesday, the incoming coalition passed legislation to clear Shas leader Aryeh Deri’s path to lead the interior and health ministries, despite his recent suspended sentence for tax fraud.
In the Interior Ministry, Deri has secured a promise to distribute NIS 1 billion in direct food assistance to needy families. He also has a NIS 5.85 budgetary promise to improve healthcare service and access, especially in underserved periphery communities.
The party will also have ministers in the welfare, religious services, and education ministries, where it will increase funding for non-official religious schools, without requiring them to study core curricular subjects.
UTJ and Shas also clinched a commitment to further reduce ultra-Orthodox military enlistment quotas. The majority of ultra-Orthodox men choose to pursue full-time religious study in lieu of military service, and a decade-long battle to integrate their communities into the military was a contributing factor to kicking off years of political instability at the end of 2018.
UTJ’s coalition agreement, which like all coalition agreements is not legally binding, contains additional far-reaching policy changes on religion and state, including enabling gender-segregated public events, narrowing the standards for Jewish immigration under the Law of Return, and nixing a plan to phase out old 2G and 3G cellular networks to protect so-called kosher phone lines.
Signing all coalition parties onto a clause to support Likud-led judicial reform, the ruling party has announced its intention to not only pass an override clause to let the Knesset reinstate any law invalidated by the Supreme Court, but also to convert government legal advisers to positions of trust, to change judicial appointment processes and terms, to raise the bar for the court to invalidate laws, and to split the attorney general’s role.
Shortly before the confidence vote on the 37th government, the plenum elected Likud MK Amir Ohana to be its next speaker.
A former minister of justice and of public security in past governments, Ohana is the Knesset’s first openly gay speaker.
In his first remarks as speaker, Ohana insisted that the incoming coalition won’t infringe upon LGBT rights. Directing the comments to his family, Ohana said, “this Knesset, under the leadership of this speaker, won’t hurt them or any other family, period.”
Ohana’s election was clinched on Wednesday, when Likud faction members chose him in an internal vote to succeed outgoing speaker Yariv Levin, who held the post for two weeks.
A former speaker and trusted Netanyahu ally, Levin took up the post briefly to oversee a three-part legislative blitz preceding Thursday’s swearing-in, and vacated the role on Thursday morning to become justice minister.
Netanyahu once again prime minister with most far-right government in Israel's history
Now to address the issue of rights for Arab citizens of Israel
The Arab citizens of Israel Under Israeli law, Arab residents of East Jerusalem and Druze residents of the Golan Heights (both Israeli-occupied territories) have the right to apply for Israeli citizenship, are entitled to municipal services, and have voting rights; this status is upheld due to Israel's effective annexation of the former through the Jerusalem Law of 1980 and of the latter through the Golan Heights Law of 1981. Both groups have largely foregone applying for Israeli citizenship, with the Palestinians of East Jerusalem and the Syrians of the Golan Heights mostly holding residency status.
During the early years of Israel’s existence, voter turnout among the country’s Arab citizens was often higher than that of the general population, attributed by most researchers to the military rule that was in place for Arab communities until 1966. Ever since, and particularly over the course of the last decade, Arab disillusionment with the Israeli political system has risen and political participation has declined, to the point where only 53 per cent of eligible Arab citizens voted in the last election (compared to 65 per cent of the general population), down from 75 per cent a decade earlier.
Under Israeli law, only men are drafted from the less numerous Druze and Circassians, whereas Jewish women are also required to serve alongside Jewish men. Muslim and Christian Arab citizens of Israel (both genders) may enlist voluntarily, but they have never been conscripted by law.
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