1947: Britain gives up control of the Palestine Mandate The United Nations approves a plan to divide the region into two states, with Jerusalem designated a special international zone. • The land division was somewhat unequal (with the Jewish State getting 56% of the territory and the Arab State getting 43%), but the bigger problem was the population within the divided territory. Jewish settlements would fall in newly Arab territory, and hundreds of thousands of Arabs would be zoned in Jewish areas. Zionist Jewish leaders accepted the terms; Palestinian Arabs rejected the plan, arguing that the proposal gave away land that rightfully belonged to Palestinians.


1948: Despite pushback from Palestinian Arabs, Zionist forces act on the UN plan. They take forcible control over most of their UN-allotted territory and then begin to push the borders outward, into Palestinian land.


1948-1949: Arab-Israeli War. Israel comes out victorious and now controls some 77% of the territory, including the western half of Jerusalem. When the war ends in 1949, an armistice is signed. The former Palestine Mandate is divided into three parts: East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.


1964: The Palestinian Liberation Organization is established as a governing body for Palestinian statehood. Israel considers the PLO a terrorist organization and refuses to participate in any sort of negotiations with its leadership.


1967: The Six Days War. Israel seizes Golan Heights, the West Bank, Gaza, and the Sinai Peninsula. Israel now occupies all of the Palestinian territories, including Jerusalem. Tasked with governing the Palestinians living in its newly occupied States, Israel creates a military administration to rule. The administration quickly implements severe restrictions on Palestinian freedoms.


1978: US President Jimmy Carter invites Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to Camp David to begin peace talks. The talks result in the Camp David Accords, which establish two agreements: • The first establishes a future Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. (Israel gives the Sinai Peninsula back to Egypt as a result of this treaty, signed in 1979.)


• The second grants autonomy to Palestinians living in


the West Bank and Gaza for a five year period, with the intention to negotiate a final solution at the end of five years. Palestine and other Arab States reject the second agreement, as it guarantees neither Israeli withdrawals nor permanent Palestinian statehood. Meanwhile, Jewish settlers (often accompanied by Israeli soldiers) continue to move into Israeli-occupied territory in the West Bank and Gaza. The arrival of additional Jewish immigrants infuriates Palestinians, as Jewish settlements divide their land and further complicate the possibility of an independent Palestinian state.


1987-1993: First intifada (which means uprising or “shaking off” in Arabic). Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza lead mass uprisings against the Israeli occupation. At first, action is relatively non-violent, but when Israelis respond with force, violence takes over. The Israeli military is far better equipped than the Palestinians, and the death tolls reflect the disparity. By the end of the intifada, close to 1,500 Palestinians and nearly 200 Israelis have been killed.


1987: Frustrated by the PLO’s secularism and moderation, a group of Palestinians in Gaza found Hamas, an extremist group dedicated to destroying—rather than compromising with—Israel.


1993: The decades-long silence between the Israelis and the PLO is broken. Secret talks between the two organizations begin in Norway, in part because Israelis realize they have a better chance of negotiating with the PLO than with radical Islamist factions.


1993-1995: The Oslo Declaration of Principles (the Oslo Accords) are established. Through the Accords, Israel agrees to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and Jericho (with additional withdrawals to come over next five years). The PLO forms the Palestinian Authority (PA) to govern Palestinian areas as Israel withdraws. Significantly, the talks again defer the point of Palestinian statehood—and fail to articulate an end goal of the Israeli withdrawals. On both sides, hard-line nationalists disapprove.


2000: Final negotiations between Israel and Palestine are set to begin at Camp David. At this point, the Palestinian Authority has some control of 40% of the West Bank and 65% of the Gaza Strip, though Palestinian areas are still surrounded by Israeli forces and all entry and exit from Palestinian territory remains under Israeli control. Before the


IF I FORGET UPSTAGE GUIDE 15


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