MikeK
Gold Member
Some years ago I met an Arab woman at a seminar I attended at Princeton University. She told me she had lived on a small plot of land in Palestine which her family had inhabited for many generations. On that land was the house her great-grandparents built, a deep well they had dug and a small grove of fig trees.
One day a car drove up to her house followed by a jeep with four Israeli soldiers. An Hasidic Jew got out of the car and knocked on her door. Her father opened the door and was told by the Jew that the land belonged to him as a gift from god and that her family had ten days to vacate or they would be forcibly evicted. She later learned that the Jew, an Ashkenazi, had migrated to Israel from America just two years earlier,
The woman was in the U.S. on a student visa and was applying for citizenship. What she told me prompted me to spend time doing the following research. I welcome any questions or criticisms.
A Brief History of Palestine
1895 - 1917:
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1895:
The total population of Palestine was 500,000 of whom 47,000 were Jews who owned 0.5% of the land.
1896:
Following the appearance of anti-Semitism in Europe, Theodore Herzl, the founder of Zionism tried to find a political solution for the problem in his book, 'The Jewish State'. He advocated the creation of a Jewish state in Argentina or Palestine.
1897:
The first Zionist Congress was held in Switzerland, which issued the Basle Programme on the colonization of Palestine and the establishment of the World Zionist Organization (WZO).
1904:
The Fourth Zionist Congress decided to establish a national home for Jews in Argentina.
1906:
The Zionist congress decided the Jewish homeland should be Palestine.
1914:
With the outbreak of World War I, Britain promised the independence of Arab lands under Ottoman rule, including Palestine, in return for Arab support against Turkey which had entered the war on the side of Germany.
1916:
Britain and France signed the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which divided the Arab region into zones of influence. Lebanon and Syria were assigned to France, Jordan and Iraq to Britain and Palestine was to be internationalized.
1917:
Lord Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary sent a letter to the Zionist leader Lord Rothschild which later became known as "The Balfour declaration". He stated that Britain would use its best endeavors to facilitate the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. At that time the population of Palestine was 700,000 of which 574,000 were Muslims, 74,000 were Christian, and 56,000 were Jews.
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1919 - 1967
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1919:
The Palestinians convened their first National Conference and expressed their opposition to the Balfour Declaration.
1920:
The San Remo Conference granted Britain a mandate over Palestine and two years later Palestine was effectively under British administration, and Sir Herbert Samuel, a declared Zionist, was sent as Britain's first High Commissioner to Palestine.
1922:
The Council of the League of Nations issued a Mandate for Palestine. The Mandate was in favor of the establishment for the Jewish people a homeland in Palestine.
1936:
The Palestinians held a six-month General Strike to protest against the confiscation of land and Jewish immigration.
1939:
The British government published a new White Paper restricting Jewish immigration and offering independence for Palestine within ten years. This was rejected by the Zionists, who then organized terrorist groups and launched a bloody campaign against the British and the Palestinians. The aim was to drive them both out of Palestine and to pave the way for the establishment of the Zionist state.
1947:
The United Nations approved the partition under which the Palestinian Arabs, who accounted for 70% of the population and owned 92% of the land, were allocated 47% of the country. (UN resolution 181)
1948:
British forces withdrew from Palestine in May and the Zionists proclaimed the state of Israel without defining its borders. Arab armies moved to defend the Palestinians.
1949:
A cease fire was finally agreed. The Zionists controlled 77% of Palestinian land and over 1 million Palestinians were forced to leave their country. The West Bank was put under Jordanian control and the Gaza Strip under Egyptian control.
1964:
The Palestine Liberation Organization was established.
1965:
The Palestine 'Revolution' began on 1 January.
1967:
Israel launched a new war against the Arabs and seized the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the Syrian Golan Heights and the Egyptian Sinai peninsula.
1973 - 1988
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1973:
The October War between Israel and the Arab states broke out.
1974:
The Arab Summit in Rabat recognized the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. At the United Nations General Assembly, the UN reaffirmed its commitment to an independent sovereign state in Palestine and gave the PLO observer status at the United Nations. Yasser Arafat, chairman of the PLO, addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations.
1978:
Egypt and Israel signed the Camp David Agreement under the auspices of the United States.
1982:
Israel invaded Lebanon with the aim of destroying the PLO. Tens of thousands were killed and made homeless in the wake of the invasion which culminated in the massacres of Sabra and Shatilla.
1983:
The United Nations called for the convening of a Peace Conference with the participation of the PLO on an equal footing with the other delegates as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.
1987:
The 18th Session of the Palestine National Council (PNC) supported the convening of a UN- sponsored conference. In December the Intifada-the Palestine Uprising - in the Occupied Territories began.
1988:
Abu Jihad, Palestinian leader, was gunned down in his home in Tunis on 14April by the Israeli Mossad.
July 31:
Jordanian disengagement - King Hussein of Jordan said he no longer considered the West Bank as part of his kingdom.
November 15:
The PNC meeting in Algiers declared the State of Palestine as outlined in the UN Partition Plan 181.
December 9:
British Junior Foreign Minister William Waldegrave met with Bassam Abu Sharif President Arafat's adviser, thus upgrading Britain's relations with the PLO.
Following the US government refusing President Arafat a visa to enter the US, the UN General Assembly held a special session on the question of Palestine in Geneva.
US/PLO dialogue began
1989 - 1996
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1989:
June 28: EEC Madrid Conference issued a new declaration calling for the PLO to be involved in any peace negotiations.
August 3: Fateh, the mainstream PLO organization, at their 5th Conference endorsed the PLO strategy
adopted at the PNC in Algiers in November 1988.
1990:
May 20: Seven Palestinian workers from Gaza were massacred by an Israeli gunman near Tel Aviv.
Yasser Arafat addressed the UN Security Council In Geneva after the massacre in which he called for the deployment of a UN emergency force to provide international protection for the Palestinian people to safeguard their lives, properties and holy places.
The US vetoed a motion which called for the Security Council to send a fact finding mission to the area. At the end of their hunger strike, Palestinian leaders in the Occupied Territories decided to boycott the US.
The Arab Summit in Baghdad pledged support fort he Palestinian Intifada and strongly denounced the settlement of Soviet Jews within the Occupied Territories.
June 20: The US suspended its dialogue with the PLO after the PLO refused to denounce a military operation in the sea by the PLF.
June 26: The EEC in Dublin issued a new declaration on the Middle East which condemned Israeli human rights violations and the settlement of Soviet Jews in the Occupied Territories. It also doubled its economic aid programme to the Occupied Territories.
August 2: The Gulf Crisis erupted.
December 20: UN Security Council adopted Resolution 681.
1991:
January 16: War in the Gulf started.
February 17: Cease fire agreed in War in the Gulf. - 23 September: The PNC met in Algiers and paved the way for the Palestinian delegation to participate in the Middle East Peace Conference.
October 30: The Middle East Peace Conference convened in Madrid.
December 3: The bi-lateral talks between Israel and the Palestinians, Syrians, Jordanians and Lebanese started in Washington.
1992:
June 23: Israeli Labor Party won the election in Israel and formed a Labor coalition government.
August 24: The sixth round of the bi-lateral talks ,W.
1993:
September 9-10: PLO Israeli recognition.
September 13: Palestinian-Israeli Declaration of Principle.
1994 :
May 4: Gaza strip and Jericho Agreement in Cairo.
August 29: Transfer of the power Agreement.
1995:
September 28: Palestinian Israeli Interim Agreement signed in Washington.
1996:
January: Election in Palestine. Israeli soldiers re deployed from major cities in the West Bank, yet Hebron is still controlled by Israeli soldiers
1997:
January: Agreement of the redeployment from Hebron.
February: Release of the women prisoners.
March: The construction of the new Israeli settlement of Jabal Abu Ghneim (Har Homa) started.
March: Cease of the peace talks because of continuation of the settlements policy of the Netanyahu Government.
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