WHII39



media type="custom" key="29541965" align="right" =Explain the background for the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948, and the subsequent military and political conflicts between Israel and the Arab world.=

Topics on the Page

 * A. the growth of Zionism, and 19th and early 20th century immigration by Eastern European Jews to Palestine **
 * ** The Balfour Declaration **
 * B. anti-Semitism and the Holocaust **
 * C. the UN vote in 1947 to partition the western part of the Palestine Mandate into two independent countries **
 * ** The Palestine Mandate **
 * D. the rejection of surrounding Arab countries of the UN decision and the invasion of Israel by Arab countries **
 * E. the 1967 and 1973 wars between Israel and neighboring Arab states **
 * F. the attempts to secure peace between Palestinians and Israelis **
 * T**he Oslo Accords**

//Focus Question: What led to the establishment of the modern state of Israel and what explains the subsequent military and political conflicts between Israel and the Arab World?//
Interactive Geography Game

The image to the right is the Balfour Declaration, written by United Kingdom's Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Baron Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community in 1917. It confirmed that the United Kingdom supported a separate state for the Jewish population.

**A. The growth of Zionism, the 19th and early 20th century immigration by Eastern European Jews to Palestine, and the impact of the Holocaust on the creation of the state of Israel.**

 * In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly in places like Russian and Poland, Jews looked to live elsewhere.
 * Many moved to England and the U.S.
 * In 1905, however, England passed laws that made it more difficult for people to immigrate there.
 * In 1924, the U.S. did the same.
 * While [|Zionism] (the idea that Jews should have their own homeland, their own country,) had already been gaining strength as a political movement since the mid 1900s, people began to consider it more seriously as they found it more difficult to live in safety.
 * In 1917, England began to make way for a Jewish state in the Middle East.
 * This new commitment can be seen in the Balfour Declaration.
 * After WWI, the British governed the area that is currently Israel and many Jews moved there.
 * The Zionist movement gained even more strength when the Jews were further persecuted in the Holocaust in the 1930s and 1940s.
 * In 1948, the state of Israel was made official with the help of England, the governor of the area.
 * Israel was established, however, in an area where Palestinians already lived, without regard for their established community.
 * Therefore, much tension, violence, and racism has ensued ever since.

[|The Balfour Declaration]

**B. anti-Semitism and the Holocaust** (for more see **WHII.26)**
>
 * After the Holocaust, Jewish people were seen as victims of Nazi Germany by many nations
 * especially the Allied powers.
 * The horrors of the Holocaust garnered more support for the creation of a Jewish state.
 * One of the reasons Hitler used to persecute the Jews was that they did not have a home nation and were therefore an inferior people.
 * The creation and recognition of a Jewish state was seen as a way to unite the Jewish people.[[image:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/15/Proposals_for_the_Mandate_of_Palestine_1916-19.svg/258px-Proposals_for_the_Mandate_of_Palestine_1916-19.svg.png width="336" height="607" align="right"]]
 * However, due to Israel's location, there is much unrest and violence towards the Jews.

**C. the UN vote in 1947 to partition the western part of** **The Mandate of Palestine into 2 independent countries**
Image to the right shows three proposals for the mandate of Palestine. The red line refers to the "International Administration proposed in the 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement, the dotted blue line is the 1919 Zionist Organization proposal at the Paris Peace Conference, and the blue line refers to the final borders of the 1923-48 British Mandate for Palestine. Credit: Oncenawhile on wikimedia commons


 * In 1947 the League of Nations voted to create the British Mandate of Palestine
 * a promise to create a Jewish state in Palestine.
 * With this mandate, Britain assumed the power to draw up the lines of the area that would become Israel.
 * They divided Palestine into two states
 * one for Arabs and one for Jews.
 * The Palestinians felt cheated when Israel was created
 * they were already living in that area and had no established nation.
 * This angered the Palestinians and led to hatred and violence towards the Jews.
 * Other Arab nations in the area united against the new Jewish state
 * also against the western nations that supported Israel such as the U.S. and England. [|1], [|2] [|3]
 * Soon after the partition, groups from Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen threatened violence against Palestinian Jews
 * a direct reaction to Palestinian Arabs not being considered in the Palestinian Mandate.
 * These countries sought to offer solidarity to Palestinian Arabs.
 * The Palestinian Arabs sought to be considered a state too.
 * They felt it was unfair that the Jews obtain a nation-state recognized by the world powers while the Palestinians received nothing.
 * The Mandate of Palestine was only the beginning of the many conflicts between the Middle East and Western world that would come to be.

Click here for a PDF timeline of the [|Israeli-Palestinian Conflict] from the viewpoint of both sides.

Click here for the Palestine Mandate
[|A Historical Perspective of the Arab-Israeli Conflict and Peace Process]

Click here for a BBC overview of the conflict

**D. the rejection of surrounding Arab countries of the UN decision and the invasion of Israel by Arab countries**
Click here for a lesson plan from the National Archives "US Recognition of the State of Israel"
 * After Israel's creation as a state and they declared independence, Israel was attacked
 * by the combined forces of Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Iraq on May 15, 1948.
 * Arab leaders rejected the Mandate of Palestine and the existence of the Jewish state, and that rejection prompted the invasion.
 * Israel proved to be victorious at first, fighting off the neighboring attacks.
 * A three - phase conflict followed, ending in July of 1949
 * with the signing of armistice agreements with each of the attacking countries, and Lebanon as well.
 * Israel fought back victoriously, not only defending itself, but also successfully expanding its borders beyond the UN's initial [|Partition Plan.].
 * Despite this initial victory, decades of conflict would follow, continuing to this very day.

**E. the 1967 and 1973 wars between Israel and neighboring Arab states**

 * [|The 6 Day War]**
 * ** Israel built up a stronger military force with help from nations such as the U.S. **
 * In 1967, after years of Arab resistance against the state of Israel and Israel's building up military forces in reaction to Arabs, the 6 Day War broke out.
 * Israel attacked Egypt and Syria.
 * The attack was major and preemptive
 * meaning that they attacked even though those countries hadn’t attacked them first.
 * After 6 days, fighting stopped when the UN mandated a ceasefire.
 * As a result of this conflict, Israel occupied Sinai, East Jerusalem, Gaza, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights.
 * After the war the Arab nations in the region once again reaffirmed peace among themselves and united against Israel.
 * The war by no means influenced peaceful relations between Israel and its neighbors.
 * After the war, violent uprisings against Israeli civilians increased, forcing Israel to bolster security within the country.


 * [|The October War of 1973]**
 * In a continuation of this conflict, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel in the fall of 1973.\
 * Israel was surprised and suffered greatly from the attacks.
 * After the U.S. and the USSR urged peace negotiations and a ceasefire, fighting finally stopped after a month.
 * Six thousand Israelis died in the short war.
 * Unlike the 1967 war, Israel felt defeated as the result of the fighting
 * they were no longer able to hold up the image to Arabs or the world that they were the all-powerful in the Middle East conflict.
 * Ever since, Israel has depended more and more on the U.S. for support.


 * This war, often referred to as the **Yom Kippur War,** led to hostilities between the U.S. and Arab states[[image:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Yom_Kippur_War_map.svg width="448" height="482" align="right"]]
 * Israel suffered great losses at first and the attacking Arab nations were supported by Soviet airlifts.
 * The U.S. stepped in to support Israel using airlifts as well.
 * This led to an oil embargo on the U.S. from Arab nations
 * viewed the U.S. as evil for aiding Israel and saw the U.S. as an enemy too.
 * The global, community tried to get the combatants to reach a ceasefire agreement, but fighting still occurred on the Egyptian-Israeli front
 * that point of tension nearly drew the U.S. and Soviet Union into a superpower confrontation.


 * The UN Security Council passed Resolution 338 in October of 1973
 * insisted that peace talks and captured territories be returned through negotiations.
 * An agreement was finally met in 1974
 * prisoners of war were released and troops from Israel, Egypt, and Syria withdrew from captured territories.
 * The oil embargo on the U.S. was also lifted in this year.
 * This war and outcome only increased tensions between Israel and the rest of the Arab world.
 * Israel's enemies believed that they could not defeat Israel on the battlefield.
 * Instead they attempted to weaken Israel's international footing through a diplomatic war.

Click here to read Resolution 338
 * In 1975, the Soviet-Arab-Third World bloc at the United Nations succeeded in passing the infamous [|"Zionism equals racism"] General Assembly resolution
 * This was an attempt to delegitimize the right of the Jewish people to return to their ancestral homeland.
 * These nations banded together to get this assembly passed
 * It stood until December of 1991.

**F. attempts to secure peace between Palestinians and Israelis**
Image shows Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, U.S. president Bill Clinton, and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, Oslo Accords, September 13, 1993



[|President Clinton's remarks about the Oslo Accords.]


 * There have been many attempts at securing peace between Israel and the Arab world.
 * The United States and the Soviet Union had a hand in encouraging several ceasefire agreements over the years
 * despite the two superpowers' Cold War differences.


 * A significant step toward peace came as a result of the Camp David peace conference
 * held between the 4th and 17th of September, 1978.
 * It was at this conference that Egypt and Israel signed the Camp David Accords in the presence of President Carter
 * in the hopes of securing a lasting peace between their two nations.


 * The treaty was finally signed on March 26, 1979.
 * This put Egypt at odds with other Arab nations at the time, particularly Syria
 * but it held to the agreement and has since reconnected with Syria diplomatically.
 * Israel has fought many times in the years since, but this fighting has been principally directed at operatives from the Hezbollah and Hamas organizations.
 * The Summer of 1982 saw a significant Israeli invasion of Lebanon targeting the PLO, but it was unsuccessful.


 * On September 13, 1993, President Clinton presided over the signing of the Oslo Accords
 * between Israeli Prime Minister Rabin, and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat.
 * This looked like a landmark achievement, but has done little in reality to change the mood.


 * Violence has never really ceased to erupt, and a particular point of tension between all parties involved has been continued Israeli settlement on the West Bank.
 * The fighting became relatively intense again shortly after the year 2000
 * renewed attacks against the PLO. 2006 saw the Israel - Hezbollah War, which took place between July 12 and August 14
 * ended in a ceasefire after the deaths of 1300 Lebanese and 150 Israelis.
 * The concept of peace in this continuing conflict unfortunately seems to be a frequently discussed but briefly implemented (with any confidence) hope of most of the individuals involved.

Click here for a collection of resources on the Middle East and Islamic Studies from Columbia University

[|Israel and the Arab World - From Conflict to Coexistence]



=Women in the Middle East=

[|What Factors Determine the Changing Roles of Women in the Middle East?]

[|Womens Role in Israeli]  [|Golda Meir, the woman who became the fourth Israeli Prime Minister.]

What event precipitated the 1973 oil crisis in which Arab members of OPEC as well as Egypt and Sudan refused to sell oil to the United States and numerous other western nations?
 * [[image:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Test_hq3x.png width="111" height="52"]]TEST QUESTION**
 * Yom Kippur War
 * U. S. military forces shot down Libyan fighter jets
 * Suez War
 * U. S. invasion of Grenada

ANSWER: A (AP World History exam, 2010).

http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/histmod.htm#Israel-Arab
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/palmanda.htm http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_ww1_british_mandate.php http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/mideast/cuvlm/peace.html BBC, (Updated 2006-07-20). Religion and Ethics--Judaism--the twentieth century. Retrieved March 15, 2007, from BBC Web site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/judaism/history/history_5.shtml Palestinefacts.org, (2007). British Mandate. Retrieved March 15, 2007, from Palestine Facts Web site: http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_overview.php BBC, (Date Unknown). On This Day. Retrieved March 29, 2007, from BBC Web site: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/10/newsid_3047000/3047177.stm Library of Congress, (Date Unknown). Library of Congress Country Studies. Retrieved March 29, 2007, from The Library of Congress Web site: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+il0036) Global Policy Forum, (Date Unknown). Israel, Palestine and the Occupied Territories:. Retrieved March 29, 2007, from The Global Policy Forum Web site: [] [] []