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.
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…
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 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.
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…
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.
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…
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