September 17, 1970 King Hussein sends the Jordanian army to attack the headquarters of Palestinian militant groups in and around the capital, Amman, and the city of Irbid, where the militants, known as fedayeen, had…
Israel, Jordan and Egypt finally signed a ceasefire, ending the 1967-1970 War of Attrition.
Deputy Prime Minister Yigal Allon, a former IDF general, reveals in remarks to the Foreign Press Association of Israel his plan for “home rule” for Arabs living in the West Bank.
August 21, 1969 A new immigrant to Israel, Denis Michael Rohan, sets fire to Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. Born and raised in Australia, Rohan moved to Israel only a few months before the attack. He…
April 4, 1968 Moshe Levinger and several other Israeli Jews pretending to be Swiss tourists check into a Hebron hotel to establish the first permanent Jewish presence in the city in almost 40 years, taking…
In the wake of the June 1967 Six Day War, the United Nations Security Council adopts Resolution 242, a document which has served as a framework for all major Arab/Israel negotiations since.
September 1, 1967 The Arab League summit in Khartoum, Sudan, ends with the signing of the Khartoum Resolutions, best known for the conclusions that become known as the “Three Nos”: no recognition of Israel, no…
The Fourth Arab League Summit convenes in Khartoum, Sudan. Participants agree that all measures should be taken to regain lands controlled by Israel after the War, and that the oil-rich countries would finance an increased Arab military presence in the region.
Penned by Yigal Allon, the Plan is a strategic proposal for Israel’s retention of the Jordan Valley in the West Bank. It includes a series of Jewish settlements and military installations to act as buffers against potential Arab attacks from the east.
Following Israel’s victory and subsequent acquisition of Jordan’s territory along the West Bank of the Jordan River in the war, the Israeli government annexes roughly 70 square kilometers of land next to West Jerusalem.
November 4, 1966 Egypt and Syria sign a mutual defense treaty and create a joint military command. The move comes amid constant low-level violence on the Israeli-Syrian border, characterized by Syrian guerrilla raids and shelling…
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is established during a Palestinian National Council meeting of nearly 400 delegates convened by King Hussein of Jordan.
November 28, 1961 Israel launches Operation Yachin to enable members of the 2,000-year-old Moroccan Jewish community to make aliyah. By the time the operation ends in 1964, more than 97,000 Jews emigrate from Morocco via…
April 8, 1960 U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold for the first time publicly criticizes Egypt’s confiscation of Israeli cargo on ships going through the Suez Canal. The Egyptian closure of the Straits of Tiran and the…
May 26, 1958 Four Israeli police officers and the chairman of the United Nations’ Israel-Jordan Mixed Armistice Commission are fatally shot by Jordanian fire in the demilitarized zone on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem. Both Israel…
In a nationally televised address to the American people, President Dwight Eisenhower discusses the tense situation in the Middle East in the aftermath of the October 1956 Suez War.
August 26, 1955 Secretary of State John Foster Dulles delivers a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations that points to the Eisenhower administration’s new plan to launch covert discussions between Israeli Prime Minister David…
Two Israeli paratrooper platoons made up of approximately fifty IDF soldiers storm an Egyptian army camp in Gaza. The raid is a reprisal for continued fedayeen (Palestinian militants) attacks against Israeli civilians.
April 17, 1954 Gamal Abdel Nasser, 36, is appointed the prime minister of Egypt. Nasser’s interest in politics goes back to age 12 when he accidentally participated in an ultranationalist protest calling for the overthrow…
September 2, 1953 Israel starts work on a project to divert some of the water of the Jordan River at the B’not Yaakov (Daughters of Jacob) Bridge in the north of the state for use…
May 11, 1953 U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles arrives in Cairo at the start of a 2½-week fact-finding trip to Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, India, Pakistan, Turkey and Libya. Dulles emphasizes…
Created in 1920 to serve as a neutral, independent trade union representing all Jewish workers in Palestine, the Histadrut had grown to 503,000 members by 1953, representing approximately 75% of the country’s workers.
February 6, 1951 Israeli soldiers launch an overnight raid across the Green Line to Sharafat, an Arab waqf village of about 200 residents south of the portion of Jerusalem controlled by Israel at the end…
Shaikh Yusuf Yassin, Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Foreign Minister, states that “Arab states would never agree to any working relationship with Israel.”
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