Winter Patriot Community Blog

Occupation of Palestine
http://visualwikipedia.com/en/Occupation_of_Palestine

THE PALESTINIAN ISRAELI CONFLICT
A CHRONOLOGY (1947-2007)
http://web.mit.edu/cis/www/mitejmes/Chronology%20of%20a%20Conflict.pdf

The Long Road to Annapolis: Historical Timeline of Palestine from 1917-2007
By John Tarleton
From the December 8, 2007 issue
http://www.indypendent.org/2007/12/09/the-long-road-to-annapolis/

1917—Great Britain gains control of all of historic Palestine at the end of World War 1 and issues the Balfour Declaration committing the British government to supporting a “Jewish national home” in Palestine. At the time, Jews make up less than 10 percent of Palenstine’s population and own about 2 percent of its own land.

1948—A U.N. partition gives 57 percent of Palestine to the new state of Israel, which is immediately recognized by the United States. Fighting breaks out. When the smoke clears, Israel controls 78 percent of Palestine and 800,000 Palestinians have fled into exile. The myth of “a land without a people, for a people without a land” is turned into reality. In 1947, Jews made up a third of Palenstine’s total population and owned less than 7 percent of the land.

1964—The Palestine Liberation Organization is founded. The PLO Charter calls for Israel to be abolished and replaced by a single binational state where both Jews and Arabs could live.

1967—Israel seizes control of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem (the other 22 percent of Palestine) at the end of the Six-Day War and begins the military occupation and colonization of the Territories that continues to this day. U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338 are passed, calling for a permanent Middle East peace deal based on Israel returning to its pre-1967 borders for recognition of its right to exist.

1988—The PLO acknowledges Israel’s right to exist and signals support for a two-state solution.

1993-2000—The PLO and Israel sign the Oslo Accords in which the PLO again recognizes Israel’s right to exist while the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state is put off until “final status” negotiations are completed. The Palestinian Authority (PA) is established to carry out police functions that the Israelis are no longer willing to do.

2000-2003—Exasperated by the rapid buildup of Israeli settlements and Jewish-only roads since the signing of Oslo, Palestinian militants launch the second Intifada in September 2000. Eight-hundred and thirty-three Israelis and 2,239 Palestinians are killed over the next 39 months. Retired general Ariel Sharon becomes Israel’s prime minister and launches the construction of a 25-foot-high wall that will eventually extend 400 miles and cut deep into the West Bank, in some cases surrounding whole Palestinian villages.

2003—Mahmoud Abbas is installed as the Palestinian Prime Minister at the insistence of the United States and Israel. The Bush administration then launches a much-touted “Roadmap” to a Palestinian state by 2005 that requires Palestinians to make all the major concessions while Israel is allowed to continue the occupation and a policy of “targeted” assassinations.

2004—In a shift of longstanding U.S. policy, President Bush openly supports Sharon’s position that a final peace should not be based on pre-1967 borders. Bush’s stance delights not only the Israelis but millions of Christian Zionists ithat are an integral part of his electoral base.

2005—Israel hands over the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians but continues to exert complete control over its borders, airspace and economy.

2006—Riding a wave of resentment against corruption in the Palestinian Authority, the Islamic militant group Hamas wins Palestinian parliamentary elections. The United States and Israel reject any negotiations with Hamas and launch a punishing international embargo that cuts off most international funding for the Authority. Israel also kidnaps dozens of elected legislators and government officals, imprisoning them to this day.

2007—The United States and Israel throw their full support behind Abbas, who remains in control of the West Bank after his forces were routed from the Gaza Strip in June. Five months later the Annapolis conference is convened with the goal of reaching a final peace agreement by the end of 2008. The democratically elected Hamas government is not invited to the talks.

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Palestine Israel Conflict Timeline
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/palestine-israel-conflict-timeline.html

The Palestine-Israel conflict is one among the unresolved and bloodiest conflicts of the world. Several attempts were made to enforce peace but the conflict still festers. Read on to know about its history.
Palestine Israel Conflict Timeline
1920: The British started ruling Palestine.

1947: The British handed over the responsibility of solving the Zionist-Arab problem to the United Nations. The United Nations voted to divide Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. Jerusalem received an international status.

1948: Israel was declared as the first Jewish state on 14 May. The British left Palestine. Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Egypt declared war on Israel.

1949: Israel and the Arab states agreed to armistice. Israel gained about 50% more territory than was originally allotted to it by the United Nations Partition Plan.

1959: Yasser Arafat and Khalil al-Wazir established the Palestinian political party Fatah.

1964: The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was formed.

1965: First military operation of Fatah took place inside the armistice line.

1967: There was a six-day war between Israel and its Arab neighbors from June 5 to June 11. Israel destroyed the Egyptian air force on the ground, conquered and occupied Sinai and Gaza. It then conquered the West Bank from Jordan and Golan Heights from Syria. U.N. Security Resolution 242 called on Israel to withdraw from territories it occupied in the war. Israel refused, but the U.N. Security Council did not take any action. Instead, Arab states refused to recognize Israel as a state, and Arab terrorist organizations were formed to fight against the Israeli occupation.

1972: A Palestinian militant faction known as Black September killed 11 Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games in Munich, Germany.

1973: Since they were unable to regain the territory they had lost in 1967 by diplomatic means, Egypt and Syria launched major offensives against Israel on the Jewish festival of the Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur. The clashes are also called as the Ramadan war. Initially, Egypt and Syria made significant advances in Sinai and the Golan Heights. These were reversed by Israel after three weeks of fighting. U.N. Security Council Resolution 338 called for a ceasefire and for the implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242. Israel pushed on into Syria beyond the Golan Heights, although they later gave up some of these gains. In Egypt, Israel regained territory and advanced to the western side of the Suez Canal. The United States, the Soviet Union and the United Nations all made diplomatic interventions to bring about ceasefire agreements between the combatants and Israel withdrew its forces back across the Suez Canal into Sinai.

1974: The Rabat Arab League Summit recognized the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people

1979: Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed a bilateral Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty at Camp David. Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt. Arab states boycotted Egypt for negotiating a peace treaty with Israel.

1982: Israel invaded Lebanon to fight PLO. Operation "Peace for Galilee" had the objective of wiping out Palestinian guerrilla bases near Israel's northern border, although Defense Minister Ariel Sharon pushed all the way to Beirut and expelled the PLO from the country. After ten weeks of intense shelling by the Israeli forces, the PLO agreed to leave Beirut under the protection of a multinational force to relocate to other Arab countries.

1987: A mass uprising or intifada by the Palestinians against the Israeli occupation began in Gaza and quickly spread to the West Bank. Protest took the form of general strikes, boycott of Israeli products, civil disobedience, graffiti, and barricades, but it was the stone-throwing demonstrations against the heavily armed occupation troops that captured international attention. The Israeli defense forces responded brutally and there was heavy loss of life among Palestinian civilians. More than 1,000 Palestinians died in clashes, which lasted until 1993. The Palestinian organization, ‘Hamas’ was formed by Sheikh Ahmad Yassin of the Gaza wing of the Muslim Brothers in the Occupied Territories.

1988: Palestinian Independence Declaration took place at the 19th Palestinian National Council, Algiers. PLO leader, Yasser Arafat, denounced terrorism in the UN General Assembly.

1993: There were secret negotiations held near Oslo, Norway, between Israel and the PLO which resulted in a treaty that included mutual recognition, limited self-rule for Palestinians in Jericho and Gaza, and provisions for a permanent treaty that would resolve the status of Gaza and the West Bank The Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles (DOP) was signed at a White House ceremony by PLO official Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.

1994: Yasser Arafat, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres won the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts.

1995: Yitzhak Rabin and Peres signed an agreement expanding Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and giving the Palestinian Authority control over six large West Bank towns.

1996: Yasser Arafat won the first-ever elections held by Palestinians.

1997: Israel and the Palestinians reached an agreement on Israeli redeployment in the West Bank city of Hebron.

1998: The Wye River Plantation talks resulted in an agreement for Israeli redeployment and release of political prisoners and renewed Palestinian commitment to correct its violations of the Oslo Accords including excess police force, illegal arms and incitement in public media and education.

2000: The Al-Aqsa Intifada started. There were mass protests and general strikes. There were also suicide bomb attacks and rockets were fired into Israeli residential area.

2002: After a series of suicide attacks early in 2002, Israel re-occupied almost all of the West Bank in March and again in June. Palestinian cities were regularly raided and remained cut off from each other, under seige and curfew for very long periods of time. In April, Israeli forces entered and captured the refugee camp in the northern West Bank city of Jenin.

2004: PLO leader Yasser Arafat died on November 11.

2005: Yaseer was succeeded by Mahmoud Abbas as President of the Palestinian Authority in January, 2005. The Israeli Disengagement Plan took effect. This involved dismantling settlements in Gaza and four settlements in the northern part of the West Bank, but expanding the remaining settlements in the West Bank.

2006: ‘Hamas’ won parliamentary elections in the West Bank and Gaza and was democratically elected as the government of the Palestinian Authority.

2007: Trilateral Israeli-Palestinian-American summit with US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Abbas ended with no progress.