With tensions on its borders, Eshkol tries to reassure Israeli public. Instead he gives a “painfully faltering” speech. Popular and party disgruntlement follow, opening the way for Eshkol to turn over the Defense Ministry two days later to General Moshe Dayan.
Further reinforcing the Truman Doctrine, the US President promises military or economic aid to any Middle Eastern country resisting Communist aggression.
With crisp analysis, Haganah Commander Yigal Allon, later a Prime Minister of Israel attributes Israel’s successes to multiple factors including the absence of a centralized Arab command, limited Arab military training, underestimating the potential fighting capabilities of local Arabs, and Israel’s success in integrating its citizens into the war effort.
This report submitted to the United Nations at the end of 1951 notes that “some one million Jews have become the victims of accelerated antiSemitism” since 1948 in the Muslim countries of the Arab League and North Africa, “communities which have existed for thousands of years.” The report analyzes the situation for Jews overall and explains restrictions and oppressive measures country by country.
Sharett gives an overview of Israeli foreign policy, key issues, and relationships with UN and Arab states.
The area of Israel expanded and the potential area for a Palestinian Arab state decreased because of the 1948-49 war, Israel’s War of Independence. The Arab rejection of the 1947 U.N. partition plan thus hurt…
One of four agreements Israel signed in 1949 with Arab neighbors, it does not end “state of war,” between Israel and Arab states. No treaty is signed until 1979.
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…
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…
December 5, 1949 Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion declares in a Knesset speech that “Jewish Jerusalem is an organic, inseparable part of the state of Israel” and that Israel rejects any attempt by the United Nations…
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…
March 6, 1975 An eight-man Palestine Liberation Organization raid planned by Abu Nidal hits the beach in Tel Aviv around 11 p.m. and, after being spotted by police, attacks the Savoy Hotel. The terrorists kill…
Yigal Alon, born in 1918 in Kfar Tabor, begins his career in the Haganah. Later elected to the Knesset in 1954, he remains a parliament member until his death.
The United Nations passes UN Resolution 3379, which defines Zionism as a form of racism and racial discrimination. It passes with a vote of 72 in favor, 35 against, and 32 abstentions.
In Geneva, Switzerland, Israel and Egypt sign their Second Disengagement Agreement (Sinai II) following the October 1973 War.
After a breakdown in diplomatic talks between Gerald Ford and PM Yitzhak Rabin, seventy-six Senators sign a letter to the President stressing the importance of both military and economic assistance to Israel.
The US undertakes a “reassessment” of the Washington-Israel relationship, creating enormous tension between the US executive branch and the Israeli government.
June 3, 1974 Having defeated Shimon Peres in an election for Labor Party leader, Yitzhak Rabin formally succeeds Golda Meir as prime minister when he presents his coalition government to the Knesset for approval. He…
February 27, 1974 U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger arrives in Tel Aviv from Damascus with a list of 65 Israeli prisoners held by Syria since the Yom Kippur War in October 1973, along with…
Convened under the co-chairmanship of the United States and Soviet Union, the Geneva Middle East Conference is “aimed at establishing a just and durable peace in the Middle East.”
Israel, Jordan and Egypt finally signed a ceasefire, ending the 1967-1970 War of Attrition.
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.
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is established during a Palestinian National Council meeting of nearly 400 delegates convened by King Hussein of Jordan.
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…
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