Originally posted by flyingaround
Would you maybe explain how Israel was created after WWII (the whole England gave the Arab's their heavy weapons and military bases), and why they now hold these settlements that are much disputed? (6 day war etc)
Lute, I don't claim to be an expert .... I just dislike people who condenscendingly tell others to read a history book when they, themselves, apparently have tunnel vision when it comes to history. In this case ... anyone with a rudimentary Christian education knows of the Roman occupation of Israel before and during the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Few seem to realize, however, that the Romans did indeed attempt to "eradicate Israel" in the first century.
As far as contemporary Israeli history is concerned - I hold with the following:
Modern Israeli History[/size]
Dr. Kenneth JohnsonAfter Germany started WWI the Ottoman Empire entered the war on Germany's side. At the end of the war Britain was given the mandate over the middle east. Britain took control of the territory of the Ottoman empire dividing it into small states. Jordan was artificially created by Britain in 1920. Iraq became independent in 1932, and Kuwait in 1961. On November 2, 1917, Lord James Balfour, Foreign Secretary of the British government, wrote to Lord Rothschild, chairman of the British Zionist Federation, stating:
"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a home for the Jewish people. And will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object. It being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine. Or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country. I should be greatful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation."
This document became known as "The Balfour Declaration" General Edmund Allenby was assigned commander in chief of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in 1917, he led an offensive against the Turkish armies in the Middle East, capturing Jerusalem without firing a shot on December 10, 1917. His crowning victory was at Megiddo (also called Armageddon) in September 1918. Shortly thereafter Turkey capitulated. In 1920 the Mandate over Palestine (both sides of the Jordan river) was given to England by the allied Council. In 1922 the British mandate over Palestine was ratified by the new League of Nations. England then divided Palestine (46,049 sq. miles) at the Jordan river. The eastern part was named Transjordan (77% of the land.) It was created to be a Palestinian Arab state. The western part retained the name of Palestine. (23% of the land.) It was created to be a home land for the Jews. In 1939-1945 Hitler, in his final solution to the world's problems, tried to destroy the Jewish people. By the end of the war over 6,000,000 Jews were dead. At the wars end Britain relinquishes the mandate to the United Nations. In 1948 the United Nations adopted a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. David Ben-Gurion became Israel's first prime minister who, eight hours before the formal end of the mandate, officially announced Israel's independence on May 14, 1948. Immediately the new state was attacked by Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. Saudi Arabia then joined the war and a few days later so did Yemen. When the War of Independence was over Israel was in control of over 8,000 sq. miles (17%) instead of the 6,200 (13%) that the United Nations planned. Jerusalem remained a divided city with the western wall under control of the Arabs. In 1950 Transjordan annexed the West Bank and East Jerusalem and in 1953 Transjordan changed its name to Jordan.
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In 1956 the Suez-Sinai War Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip, from which Arab guerrillas raided southern Israel and blockaded Israeli shipping in the Suez Canal and Gulf of Aqaba. Great Britain, France and Israel planned a joint military campaign against Egypt with the understanding that Israel would take the initiative by seizing the Sinai Peninsula. The war began on Oct. 29, after an announcement that the armies of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan were to be integrated under the Egyptian commander in chief. Israel's Operation Kadesh, commanded by Moshe Dayan, lasted less than a week; its forces reached the eastern bank of the Suez Canal in about 100 hours, seizing the Gaza Strip and nearly all the Sinai Peninsula. The Sinai operations were supplemented by an Anglo-French invasion of Egypt on November 5, giving the allies control of the northern sector of the Suez Canal. The war was halted by a UN General Assembly resolution calling for withdrawal from Egyptian territory. They also established a UNEF to replace the allied troops on the Egyptian side of the borders in Suez, Sinai, and Gaza.
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In May 1967, when Egyptian forces massed in Sinai, the UN ordered the UNEF to leave Sinai and Gaza. The Gulf of Aqaba was closed again to Israeli shipping. At the end of May, Egypt and Jordan signed a new defense pact placing Jordan's armed forces under Egyptian command. With war inevitable, Israeli Premier Levi ESHKOL, Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan, and Army Chief of Staff Yitzhak RABIN approved preemptive Israeli strikes at Egyptian, Syrian, Jordanian, and Iraqi airfields on June 5, 1967. This began "the Six Day War." By the evening of June 6, Israel had destroyed the combat effectiveness of the major Arab air forces. Israel also swept into Sinai, reaching the Suez Canal and occupying most of the peninsula in less than four days. King Hussein of Jordan rejected an offer of neutrality and opened fire on Israeli forces in Jerusalem on June 5. But a lightning Israeli campaign placed all of Arab Jerusalem and the Jordanian West Bank in Israeli hands by June 8. As the war ended on the Jordanian and Egyptian fronts, Israel opened an attack on Syria in the north. In a little more than two days of fierce fighting, Syrian forces were driven from the Golan Heights, from which they had shelled Jewish settlements across the border. The Six-Day War ended on June 10. Jerusalem, no longer a divided city, was now under complete Jewish control for the first time since the Bar-Kochba rebellion in 127 AD. Israel now had control of another 2,700 sq. miles of Israel and 23,500 sq. miles of Sinai. Now Israel defensively reoccupied the Sinai, the Gaza Strip, Arab Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Golan heights. But the addition of more than 1,500,000 Palestinian Arabs to areas under Israeli control threatened internal security.
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1969 Yasir Arafat became head of the PLO, a terrorist group using guerrilla warfare attacks on Israeli settlements in Galilee, and by Israeli retaliatory raids into Lebanon. Egypt and Syria attacked on Oct. 6, 1973, pushing Israeli forces several miles behind the 1967 cease-fire lines. Known as the Yom Kipur War, Israel was thrown off guard, partly because the attack came on the high holy day. Although Israel recovered from the initial setback, it failed to regain all the territory lost in the first days of fighting. In counterattacks on the Egyptian front, Israel seized a major bridgehead behind the Egyptian lines on the west bank of the canal. In the north, Israel drove a wedge into the Syrian lines. After 18 days of fighting in the longest Arab-Israeli war since 1948, hostilities were again halted by the UN. The political phase of the 1973 war ended with disengagement agreements accepted by Israel, Egypt, and Syria. The agreements provided for Egyptian reoccupation of a strip of land in Sinai along the east bank of the Suez Canal and for Syrian control of a small area around the Golan Heights town of Kuneitra. UN forces were stationed on both fronts to oversee observance of the agreements.
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Under an Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty signed on Mar. 26, 1979, Israel returned the Sinai peninsula to Egypt. Also in 1979 Saddam Hussein took control of the Iraqi government. In 1981 Israel bombs an Iraqi nuclear plant to stop the development of nuclear weapons. In April 1982 Israel returned the last part of Sinai to Egypt.
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On June 6, 1982, Israel launched a full-scale invasion of Lebanon, "the Lebanese War," to destroy PLO bases there and to end the attacks across its borders. Meeting little resistance, Israeli commanders pushed northward, reaching the outskirts of Beirut within a week. Fighting with Syrian forces also erupted; nearly 80 Syrian MiGs and 19 missile batteries in the Bekaa Valley were destroyed without loss of a single Israeli plane. By the end of June, Israel had captured most of southern Lebanon and besieged PLO and Syrian forces in West Beirut. The siege ended through U.S. mediation in August, when Israel agreed to leave Beirut provided Syrian and PLO forces also withdrew. A multinational force from the United States and Western Europe supervised the Syrian and PLO evacuation. On September 15, after the assassination of Lebanese president-elect Bashir Gemayel, Israel reoccupied Beirut. Israel signed an agreement with Lebanon ending the state of war in May 1983, but Lebanon renounced the pact under Syrian pressure in March 1984. Public pressures in Israel led to the withdrawal of Israeli troops by June 1994.
