Middle East Geography

Map of the Region

History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

• 1880–1914 – The Zionist movement was founded in response to

the worsening persecution of European Jews.– Thousands of Jews began immigrating to

Palestine, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire.

1918

• As a result of World War I, Britain wins control over the area of Palestine from the Ottoman Empire. The area becomes known as British-mandate Palestine.

November 1947

• The General Assembly of the United Nations recommended the partition of British-mandate.

• Separate Palestine into two separate states, one for Jews and one for Arabs. Fighting breaks out soon thereafter, as all the surrounding Arab states rejected the partition plan.

1948

• In May, Zionist leaders proclaimed the state of Israel. Fighting breaks out between the newly declared state of Israel and its Arab neighbors as British troops are leaving the country.

1948–1967

• Ongoing skirmishes between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

1956 Suez Crisis

• An invasion of Egypt in late 1956 by Israel, by Britain and France. The aims were to regain Western control of the Suez Canal and to remove Egyptian President Nasser from power.

• After the fighting had started, the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Nations forced the three invaders to withdraw. The episode humiliated Great Britain and France and strengthened Nasser.

1967 Six Day’s War• The mobilization of Egyptian forces along the Israeli

border in the Sinai Peninsula, Israel launched a series of preemptive airstrikes against Egyptian airfields on June 5.

• The Egyptians were caught by surprise, and nearly the entire Egyptian air force was destroyed with few Israeli losses, giving the Israelis air superiority.

• Simultaneously, the Israelis launched a ground offensive into the Gaza Strip and through the northern and central routes of the Sinai, which again caught the Egyptians by surprise.

1967 Six Day’s War

• Israel seized control of the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula (from Egypt), the West Bank and East Jerusalem (from Jordan), and the Golan Heights (from Syria). The area under Israeli control tripled, increasing the nation's ability to defend its borders, as would be shown in the subsequent Yom Kippur War.

• Across the Arab world, Jewish minority communities were expelled, with refugees going to Israel or Europe.

Yom Kippur War

• October 6, 1973– Egypt and Syria organize a surprise attack on

Israeli forces in the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights on the day of the Jewish fast of Yom Kippur and the Muslim month of Ramadan, in which the annual fast is performed.

– The war lasted for 3 weeks, ending on October 22 on the Syrian front and October 26 on the Egyptian front.

1973 Oil Crisis

• Page 23 timeline book.• OAPEC= Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting

Countries. OPEC plus Egypt and Syria.• The embargo was a response to American involvement

in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Six days after Egypt and Syria launched a surprise military campaign against Israel to regain territories lost in the June 1967 Six-Day War, the US supplied Israel with arms. In response to this, OAPEC announced an oil embargo against Canada, Japan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the US

1973 Oil Crisis

Camp David Accords

• Page 54 timeline book.• The leaders of Egypt and Israel accepted

Carter’s invitation, and the summit began on September 5, 1978, and lasted for 13 days. It was extremely unusual for heads of state to engage in a summit meeting at which the outcome was so much in doubt.

Camp David Accords

• This led to the return of the Sinai to Egypt and normalized relations—the first peaceful recognition of Israel by an Arab country.

Iranian Revolution

1953 coup d'état

• A nationalist prime minister, Mossadegh, was elected in 1950. He nationalized much of the industry in the country, including the oil fields.

• A CIA-sponsored coup soon thereafter ousted Mossadegh and his nationalist supporters and returned the Shah to power as an absolute monarch. The previously oil companies were returned to their foreign owners

Resistance to the Shah

• Open resistance began in 1977, when exiled opposition leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called for strikes, boycotts, tax refusal and other forms of noncooperation with the Shah’s regime. Such resistance was met with brutal repression by the government, but still the protests grew.

• The Shah fled on January 16, 1979, and Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile two weeks later.

One Result: Iranian Hostage Crisis

• In late October 1979, the exiled and dying Shah was admitted into the United States for cancer treatment.

• In Iran there was an immediate outcry and both Khomeini and leftist groups demanding the Shah's return to Iran for trial and execution. On November 4, 1979 youthful Islamists, calling themselves Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line, invaded the U.S. embassy compound and seized its staff.