May 01, 2013
1882: First Aliyah, a mass immigration
of Jews from Europe, begins.
1896: Theodor Herzl, a Budapest-born Jew,
publishes Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), a pamphlet calling
for Jews to escape anti-Semitism and persecution by achieving “the restoration
of the Jewish state” in “a portion of the globe large enough to satisfy the
rightful requirements of a nation.”
1897: First Zionist congress adopts the Basel
Program, stating “Zionism seeks to secure for the Jewish people a publicly
recognized, legally secured home in Palestine for the Jewish people” and calling
for “the programmatic encouragement of the settlement of Palestine with Jewish
agricultural workers, laborers and those pursuing other trades.”
1909: Jewish city of Tel Aviv is
founded.
1915: Amid World War I, British High
Commissioner in Egypt Sir Henry McMahon promises Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of
Mecca, Britain’s backing for “independence of the Arabs” in return for a revolt
against the “Turkish yoke” of the Ottoman Empire.
1916: Secret Sykes-Picot Agreement aims
to divide parts of the Middle East into British and French protectorates
preceding Arab independence.
1917: British forces
capture Jerusalem from the Ottomans, beginning British control of Palestine
that will continue until 1948; the Balfour Declaration announces Britain's support for “the
establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” while assuring
that “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights
of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.”
1919: First
Palestinian congress rejects Balfour Declaration and demands independence;
King-Crane Commission appointed by President Woodrow Wilson recommends a Mandatory
administration for former Ottoman Arab territories in preparation for Arab
independence; the commission recommends “serious modification of the extreme Zionist
program for Palestine of unlimited immigration of Jews, looking finally to
making Palestine a distinctly Jewish State”; the commission adds that “the [Paris]
Peace Conference should not shut its eyes to the fact that the anti-Zionist
feeling in Palestine and Syria is intense and should not be lightly flouted. No
British officer, consulted by the Commissioners, believed that the Zionist
program could be carried out except by force of arms”; the commission concludes
that “Jewish immigration should definitely be limited, and that the project for
making Palestine a distinctly Jewish commonwealth should be given up.”
1920: Palestinian
Muslim festival of Nabi Musa evolves into three days of anti-Zionist rioting,
with six Jews killed;
British authorities dismiss Jerusalem Mayor Musa Kazem Al-Husseini for opposing
pro-Zionist policies; San Remo Conference confers on Britain a League of
Nations Mandate for Palestine; the Mandate text (approved in 1923) expressly
calls for “putting into effect” the Balfour Declaration, stipulating that the
Mandate administration “shall facilitate Jewish immigration [and] close
settlement by Jews on the land”; British administration is established, with Sir
Herbert Samuel as the first high commissioner for Palestine; first Immigration
Ordinance enacted for 16,500 immigrant Jews; third Palestinian congress elects
executive and demands national Palestinian government.
1921: Arab-Jewish
tensions erupt into rioting in Jaffa, resulting in the deaths of forty-seven
Jews and forty-eight Arabs; Haycraft Commission attributes conflict to Arab
fears of Zionist mass immigration.
1922: Churchill White Paper, addressing
Arab-Jewish tensions, states that the Balfour Declaration did “not contemplate that Palestine as a whole should be converted into a
Jewish National Home, but that such a Home should be founded in Palestine”; the White Paper further
states that “the Jewish community in Palestine should be able to increase its
numbers by immigration. This immigration cannot be so great in volume as to
exceed whatever may be the economic capacity of the country”; British census in Palestine shows
a population of 757,182; 78 percent Muslim, 11 percent Jewish, and 10 percent
Christian.
1929: Dispute
over Jewish access to the Western Wall (Wailing Wall) in Jerusalem escalates
into Jewish and Arab protests and widespread Arab rioting; 249 people are
killed.
1930: Shaw Commission calls 1929
disturbances “from the beginning an attack by Arabs on Jews”; fundamental cause
was that “the Arabs have come to see in the Jewish immigrant not only a menace
to their livelihood but a possible overlord of the future”; Hope Simpson Report
says no further land is available for Zionist agricultural settlement, and criticizes
Zionist policy of excluding Arab labor in Zionist enterprises; Passfield White
Paper restricts Jewish immigration and land transfers.
1931: Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald
reaffirms Britain’s “obligation to facilitate Jewish immigration and to
encourage close settlement by Jews on the land”; British census in Palestine
shows a population of 1,035,821; 73 percent Muslim, 17 percent Jewish, and 9
percent Christian.
1935: Sheikh Izzeddin Al-Qassam is killed
in a battle with British forces after launching the first Palestinian guerrilla
campaign against Zionism and the British Mandate; his death inspires popular
Arab resistance; Palestinian parties petition British high commissioner
demanding democratic government and end to Jewish immigration and land
transfers; Britain rejects demands, proposes a limited legislative council.
1936: Strikes and protests led by
Palestinian political parties spiral into the Great Revolt against Britain’s
Mandate; Arab Higher Committee is
formed under chairmanship of Hajj Amin Al-Husseini, mufti of Jerusalem; Fawzi
Al-Qawukji of Lebanon leads guerrilla band against British; Mandate authorities deport Palestinian
leaders to Seychelles; Amin Al-Husseini flees to Lebanon; death toll in three
years of violence includes an estimated 5,000 Arabs, and 300 Jews; Britain
increases the number of troops in Palestine to 20,000.
1937: Britain’s Lord Peel conducts a
fact-finding mission into the causes of unrest; Peel Commission report proposes
the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states; representatives from
Arab states meeting in Bloudan reject partition proposal, call for a halt to
Jewish immigration and end of Palestine Mandate.
1939: Britain quells the Great Revolt
with the MacDonald White Paper, which reverses the Peel Commission
recommendation for partition; calls for an independent Palestinian state within
ten years, adding that the British authorities “now declare unequivocally that
it is not part of their policy that Palestine should become a Jewish state.”
1942: Zionist
congress meeting in New York adopts the Biltmore Program, urging establishment
of a Jewish commonwealth in Palestine and calling for the Jewish Agency to be given
control of immigration; the congress rejects the White Paper of 1939 as “cruel
and indefensible in its denial of sanctuary to Jews feeling from Nazi
persecution.”
1944: Radical
Zionists launch a violent campaign against Britain’s Mandate; Lehi (Fighters
for the Freedom of Israel), also known as the Stern Gang, assassinates Lord
Moyne, British minister of state for the Middle East, in Cairo.
1945: President
Franklin Roosevelt tells Saudi Arabian King Abdul Aziz (Ibn Saud) that he would
“never do anything which might prove hostile to the Arabs”; defeat of Nazi
Germany in World War II reveals extent of genocide of Jews; an estimated six
million Jews perished in the Holocaust; President Harry Truman asks Britain to
allow 100,000 European Jews to immigrate into Palestine.
1946: Radical Zionist group, Irgun
Zvai Leumi (National Military Organization), bombs the King David Hotel, the
British administrative headquarters, in Jerusalem, killing ninety-one people;
Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry recommends a United Nations trusteeship
leading to a bi-national state, and calls for the immediate admission of
100,000 Europeans Jews.
February
1947: Britain declares the Palestine Mandate “unworkable” and asks the United
Nations to determine Palestine’s future.
August
31, 1947: Eleven-nation United Nations Special Committee on
Palestine (UNSCOP) recommends the partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish
states with economic union, with Jerusalem under international trusteeship; a minority
report recommends establishment of a bi-national federal state.
September
29, 1947: Arab Higher Committee rejects partition proposal.
October
2, 1947: Jewish Agency announces acceptance of partition
proposal.
November 29, 1947: United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) adopts Resolution
181 (Partition Plan) calling for Arab
and Jewish states with economic union, with Jerusalem under international
trusteeship.
December
1947: Arab-Jewish
violence erupts, with armed clashes, indiscriminate bombings, attacks on
population centers, and ambushes; Arab
Higher Committee leads general strike; Arabs riot in Jerusalem, attacking
Jewish properties; two Irgun bombings in Old City of Jerusalem kill thirty-seven;
Irgun attack at Haifa refinery kills six; Arabs massacre thirty-nine Jewish
workers in retaliation; Haganah (The Defense), the military arm of the
Jewish Agency, launches Plan May (also known as Plan C, or Plan Gimel) for an
offensive campaign of violence; Haganah attacks villages of Balad Al-Sheikh and
Hawassa near Haifa, killing seventy-six;
Arab League declares UN partition of Palestine illegal.
January
1948: Haganah,
Irgun, and Lehi attacks fuel Arab exodus from Haifa, Jaffa, and Jerusalem; Haganah
bombs Semiramis hotel in Jerusalem, killing twenty-six; Irgun bombs Jaffa Gate
in Jerusalem, killing twenty-five; Irgun bombs government center in Jaffa,
killing twenty-six; Arab Liberation Army (ALA), organized by Arab League, led
by Fawzi Al-Qawukji and comprised of 5,000 volunteers from Arab states, arrives
to defend Palestinians.
February 1948: Arabs bomb Palestine Post newspaper in Jerusalem, killing twenty Jewish
civilians; Ben Yehuda Street bombings in Jerusalem result in deaths of fifty-seven
Jewish civilians.
March 1948: Jewish attacks on villages speed
Arab flight from countryside.
March 10, 1948: British
House of Commons votes to terminate Palestine Mandate as of May 15, 1948; Haganah
adopts Plan Dalet (or Plan D) for systematic conquest and permanent occupation
of Arab areas— including the destruction and depopulation of villages—within
the future State of Israel.
March 11, 1948: Arabs bomb Jewish Agency
headquarters in Jerusalem, killing twelve.
March 27, 1948: ALA ambushes Haganah forces, in
Galilee and near Hebron, killing 115.
April 1, 1948: United Nations Security Council
(UNSC) adopts U.S.-proposed resolution calling for truce.
April 2, 1948: Haganah launches Plan Dalet;
Operation Nachshon results in the capture of strategic Arab villages, including
Castel, west of Jerusalem.
April 9, 1948: Irgun
and Lehi massacre between 100-350 Arabs in the Arab village of Deir Yassin,
spreading wide terror among Palestinian Arabs; leading Palestinian commander Abdul
Qader Al-Husseini of the Army of Holy War is killed in Castel counterattack.
April
13, 1948: Palestinian militants attack a convoy of Jewish
medical workers near Jerusalem, killing seventy-seven people.
April
18, 1948: Haganah captures Tiberias; most of 5,000 Arab
inhabitants become refugees.
April
23, 1948: Haganah captures Haifa; an estimated 95 percent of 70,000 Arab inhabitants
become refugees.
May 9,
1948: Haganah launches Operation Barak to occupy Arab villages in the gateway
to the Negev desert and Gulf of Aqaba.
May
10: Haganah captures Jaffa; an estimated 94 percent of 80,000 Arab inhabitants become refugees.
May
11, 1948: Haganah captures Safad; most of the 12,000 Arab
inhabitants become refugees.
May 13,
1948: Haganah launches Operation Ben Ami to occupy Arab towns in western
Galilee.
May 14, 1948: State
of Israel is proclaimed in Jerusalem by Jewish Agency Chairman David Ben-Gurion; United States is the first
nation to grant recognition to the State of Israel; United Nations appoints Count Folke Bernadotte of Sweden as the mediator for
the Palestine conflict.
May
15, 1948: Britain’s Palestine Mandate ends; troops from Iraq, Egypt, Jordan,
Syria, and Lebanon invade Israel,
beginning the first Arab-Israeli War.
May
16, 1948: Haganah captures Acre; 60 percent of 15,000 Arab
inhabitants become refugees.
June
8, 1948: First
Arab-Israeli truce takes effect.
September
17, 1948: Lehi assassinates Bernadotte in Jerusalem.
December 11, 1948: UNGA adopts
Resolution 194, stating, “refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at
peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so” and “compensation
should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return.”
1949: Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon
sign armistices with Israel; United
Nations Economic Survey Mission for the Middle East estimates the
maximum number of Palestinian refugees at 774,000; including 200,000 in Gaza,
350,000 in West Bank and Jordan, 97,000 in Lebanon, and 75,000 in Syria; Israel
tells United Nations Conciliation Commission that it will accept 100,000
returning refugees if Arab states resettle the remainder and conclude a peace agreement;
Jordanian forces remain in control of the West Bank; Egyptian forces occupy Gaza,
which is run by an Egyptian military governor until 1967.
December 1949: UNGA
adopts Resolution 302 establishing the United Nations Relief and Works Agency
for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA); as of 2013, UNRWA provides
assistance, protection and advocacy for some five million registered
Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the occupied Palestinian
territory; more than 1.4 million refugees live in fifty-eight recognized camps.
1950: Israeli
Knesset adopts Law of Return, stating: “Every Jew has the right to come to this
country as an oleh [immigrant into
Israel]”; Jordan
annexes the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and grants citizenship to the
population.
1951: Palestinian militants assassinate
King Abdullah of Jordan in Jerusalem.
1952: Israeli Nationality Law grants citizenship
to Arabs living within Israel but denies naturalization to those who have “ceased
to be an inhabitant of Israel.”
1956: Israel,
France, and Britain invade Egypt after President Gamal Abdel Nasser
nationalizes the Suez Canal; pressure from the U.S. and Soviet Union is
followed by a withdrawal of foreign forces; “Suez Crisis” signals the decline
of Britain’s influence.
1959: Meeting
in Kuwait, young Palestinian refugees who fled to Gaza secretly establish the
Palestinian National Liberation Movement, known as Fatah, for a guerrilla war
against Israel; Fatah anonymously begins publication of monthly magazine Our Palestine–the Call to Life in
Beirut.
1964: Arab League
initiates creation of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO); PLO Chairman
Ahmad Shukeiry proclaims the establishment of the group “to wage the battle of
liberation.”
January
1, 1965: Fatah launches its first publicly announced
guerrilla operation; attack on Israeli national water carrier is unsuccessful.
June 1967: In the
Six-Day War, Israel seizes Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West
Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria; some
300,000 Palestinians flee West Bank and Gaza.
July 1967: Yigal Allon, head of the Israeli
Committee on Settlements, develops a policy for creation of secure borders by establishing Israeli settlements in the West Bank;
as of 2010, 512,761 settlers reside in the West Bank and East Jerusalem,
according to Foundation for Middle East Peace.
November
22, 1967: UNSC
unanimously adopts Resolution 242 calling for “withdrawal of Israel armed
forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict”; “termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and
acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political
independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within
secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force”; and a “just settlement of the refugee
problem.”
1968: Fatah
guerrillas repulse an Israeli military assault near the Jordanian town of Karameh,
boosting the group’s prestige in refugee camps and throughout the Arab world;
rival Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacks an Israeli airliner;
amended Palestine National Charter is adopted by the fourth Palestinian
National Council (PNC); it states: “Palestine
is the homeland of the Palestinian Arab people”; “the Zionist occupation and
the dispersal of the Palestinian Arab people, through the disasters which
befell them, do not make them lose their Palestinian identity and their
membership in the Palestinian community, nor do they negate them”; “Armed
struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine.”
1969: Fatah
leader Yasser
Arafat is elected chairman of the PLO; Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir says
in an interview with the Sunday Times
(London): “It was not as though there was a Palestinian people considering
itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their
country away from them. They did not exist.”
1970: PFLP
hijacks five passenger airliners and lands three of them in Jordan; Jordanian
forces loyal to King Hussein crush Palestinian fighters in what becomes known
to Palestinians as “Black September.”
1971: Secret Palestinian group with links
to Fatah calling itself Black September assassinates Jordanian Prime Minister
Wasfi Tal.
1972: PFLP-allied
Japanese Red Army group massacres 24 people at Israel’s Lod (later Ben-Gurion)
Airport; Black
September abducts Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich,
resulting in the deaths of eleven Israeli hostages; Israel bombs PLO bases in
Lebanon, where Palestinian guerrillas regrouped after their expulsion from
Jordan.
1973: In the
October War (Yom Kippur War), Egypt and Syria launch a surprise attack on
Israel, temporarily recapturing parts of territories lost in the 1967 conflict;
UNSC adopts Resolution 338, calling for a cease-fire and for negotiations between the parties “aimed at establishing a just and durable
peace in the Middle East”; U.S. and Soviet Union sponsor Geneva peace
conference, attended by Egypt, Jordan and Israel; U.S. rejects participation by
PLO.
1974: Arab League designates the PLO as
the “sole, legitimate representative of the Palestinian people”; UNGA adopts Resolution 3236 “recognizing
that the Palestinian people is entitled to self-determination” and reaffirming
“the inalienable right of the Palestinians to return to their homes and
property from which they have been displaced and uprooted”; Arafat
addresses the UNGA, calling for a democratic, secular state in Palestine.
1975: Muslim-Christian
tensions, exacerbated by presence of armed Palestinian factions, erupt into
Lebanese Civil War (1975-1991).
1976: Lebanese
Maronite forces besiege
Tal Al-Zaatar refugee camp in Beirut, killing an estimated 2,000 Palestinians; Syrian
forces enter Lebanon, beginning an occupation that will last until 2005.
1977: Menachem Begin of the Likud party
(and former Irgun leader) is elected prime minister of Israel; begins expansion
of Jewish settlements in occupied territories on basis of election platform that declared “the entire
historic Land of Israel is the inalienable heritage of the Jewish people, and
that no part of Judea and Samaria [West Bank] should be handed over to foreign
rule”; Egyptian
President Anwar Sadat makes historic trip to Jerusalem, addressing the Knesset
“with an open mind and an open heart, and with a
conscious determination, so that we might establish permanent peace based on
justice”; PLO
condemns Sadat’s “treacherous visit to the Zionist entity.”
1978: Fatah attacks a bus near Haifa,
killing thirty-eight Israelis; Israel invades Lebanon in Operation Litani; United
Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) establishes a security zone on the
Israel-Lebanon border; Israel and Egypt sign Camp David Accords, including a Framework for Peace in the Middle East aimed
at ending the
Arab-Israeli conflict and providing for “full autonomy” in the West Bank and
Gaza.
1979: Egypt and Israel sign a peace
agreement leading to the withdrawal of Israeli troops and settlers from the
Sinai Peninsula.
October
6, 1981: Islamic militants assassinate Sadat during military
parade in Cairo on the anniversary of the October War.
June 1982: Israeli
forces invade Lebanon and besiege Beirut in a military campaign to expel the
PLO from the country; 17,825 (combatants and civilians) are killed, according
to Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar; Israel’s
occupation of southern Lebanon lasts until 2000.
September
1982: President Ronald Reagan, as U.S. Marines complete supervision of the PLO
evacuation from Lebanon, proposes new American peace initiative; declares that
“self-government by the Palestinians of the West
Bank and Gaza in association with Jordan offers the best chance for a durable,
just and lasting peace”; says the U.S. will not support annexation or permanent
control by Israel, and “will not support the establishment of an independent
Palestinian state”; Lebanese Marontite militants enter the
Israeli-controlled Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps and massacre as
many as 3,500 civilians.
1983: Syria,
maneuvering to control the PLO, launches a military assault and drives remaining
Arafat loyalists out of Lebanon; PLO establishes new headquarters in Tunis.
1985: In the
War of the Camps, the Syrian-backed Shiite Amal militia in Lebanon fights PLO
remnants; thousands of Palestinians are killed.
1987: Palestinian
youths in Gaza clash with Israeli troops, beginning a popular uprising, known
as the First Intifada (1987–1990).
1988: Jordan severs legal and administrative ties to the West
Bank; PLO adopts the Palestinian
Declaration of Independence, and accepts UN Resolution 181 calling for two
states in Palestine; PLO issues Stockholm Declaration acknowledging
Israel's right to exist and renouncing terrorism; Arafat announces the PLO’s
acceptance of Resolutions 242 and 338; U.S. ends diplomatic boycott of the PLO.
1990: Iraq
invades Kuwait.
February 1991: U.S.-led
coalition including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, and Gulf states expel Saddam
Hussein’s forces from Kuwait; Saudi Arabia and Kuwait halt aid to the PLO due
to the group’s support for Iraq; 350,000 Palestinians are expelled from Kuwait.
October
1991: United States and Soviet Union co-sponsor the Madrid Peace Conference
aimed at resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict; PLO is excluded, but Palestinians
are represented in a joint delegation with Jordan.
1993: Arafat
and Labor party Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel sign the Oslo Accord,
providing for mutual recognition, Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and
Gaza, and a framework of negotiations toward a final comprehensive agreement
including borders, refugees, settlements and status of Jerusalem to be reached
within five years.
1994: Arafat arrives in Gaza and
convenes the Palestinian National Authority (PNA); Israel and Jordan sign a
peace agreement.
1995: Attacks by Hamas (Islamic
Resistance Movement) and Islamic Jihad factions opposed to peace with Israel
kill dozens of Israelis; Rabin is assassinated by a Jewish militant.
1996: Hamas carries out a wave of
suicide bombings in Israel in run-up to Israeli elections, killing more than fifty; PNC votes to annul sections of
Palestine National Charter that contradict PLO peace undertakings in Oslo
agreements including recognition of Israel;
Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud party is elected prime minister of Israel
with an implicit mandate to expand settlements and slow implementation of the
Oslo agreements.
1999: Ehud
Barak of the Labor party is elected prime minister of Israel, reviving hope in
negotiations.
2000:
President Bill Clinton convenes talks at Camp David aimed at reaching a final
settlement; Clinton and Barak blame Arafat for failure of negotiations;
Palestinians begin Second Intifada (2000-2005).
December 23, 2000: Clinton issues Parameters for a
peace settlement to Israeli and Palestinian negotiators; calls for implementation
of UN Resolution 194 with refugees returning to “historic Palestine” or “their
homeland” but no specific right of return to Israel; five “possible homes”
include State of Palestine, areas in Israel being transferred to Palestine in
land swap, rehabilitation in host country, resettlement in third country, and
admission to Israel for “some of the refugees.”
September 11, 2001: Al-Qaeda group led by Islamic
militant Osama bin Laden of Saudi Arabia destroys World Trade Center in New
York and part of the Pentagon near Washington, DC, killing nearly 3,000.
November 10, 2001: In speech to UNGA calling on
nations to defeat terrorism, President George W. Bush affirms that U.S. policy
seeks the establishment of a Palestinian state.
March
2002: Arab League
adopts Saudi initiative calling for peace between all Arab countries and Israel
in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from Arab lands; after a suicide bombing in
Netanya kills thirty Israelis, Israel launches Operation Defensive Shield and besieges
Arafat in his headquarters in Ramallah.
June
2002: Israel
begins construction of a “security fence” to extend more than 400 miles separating
Israel from the West Bank.
2003: United
States leads invasion of Iraq and topples Saddam Hussein regime; 34,000
Palestinian refugees in Iraq flee conflict; U.S., Russia, UN, European Union (the Quartet on the
Middle East) propose a Road Map to Peace that would establish a Palestinian
state by 2005.
March 2004: Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin is assassinated by Israeli forces.
November
2004: Arafat
dies; Mahmoud Abbas becomes chairman of the PLO; in 2005, Abbas is elected
president of the PNA.
2005: Israeli
forces unilaterally withdraw from Gaza, ending a thirty-eight-year occupation.
2006: Hamas upsets Fatah in Palestinian
legislative elections.
2007: Hamas seizes Gaza from Fatah; Egypt
and Israel close land borders with Gaza.
2008: Israeli forces launch assault on
Gaza, Operation Cast Lead, in response to Hamas attacks on Israel; 1,400
Palestinians are killed.
2009: In a Cairo address, President Barack Obama calls on
Israelis and Palestinians to reach a peace agreement on two states; says “the Palestinian people—Muslims and Christians—have
suffered in pursuit of a homeland… Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank,
Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security…America will not
turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity,
opportunity, and a state of their own.
2011: Arab Spring uprisings topple
authoritarian rulers in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, and in Yemen in 2012.
2012: Anti-regime uprising in Syria spills into the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee
camp in Damascus; Syrian forces attack the camp, killing dozens and forcing
thousands to flee; UNGA recognizes
Palestine as a non-member state by a vote of 138–9.