Carefully sandwiched between Jimmy Carter’s high-risk visit to Egypt and Israel and the signing of those countries’ peace treaty, the Carter administration allows the U.N. Security Council to deplore Israeli settlement building and demographic changes in Jerusalem.
Led by USSR and Arab states, Zionism is labeled as racist; the resolution is revoked in 1991.
Cairo and Jerusalem agree to additional Sinai withdrawals, demilitarized zones, limited force zones and, importantly, placement of US civilians in Sinai to monitor observance of agreement.
On the Golan Heights, Israel agrees to a limited withdrawal, and the United Nations places forces between the Syrian and Israeli armies. With few exceptions this border remains quiet for more than 40 years.
The October 1973 war broke the logjam over whether diplomacy could unfold to kick off Arab-Israeli negotiations. Sadat used the 1973 war as an engine to harness American horsepower. In that he succeeded because U.S. Secretary of State Kissinger saw Sadat’s leaning to Washington not only as a chance to begin useful negotiations, but also of great significance to weaning the Egyptian president away from Moscow.
Egyptian President Sadat colluded with Syrian President Assad to attack Israel on October 6, 1973. Sadat’s objective was not to seek Israel’s destruction but to gain a limited success by crossing the canal. He also sought to engage American diplomacy to generate talks with Israel that would see Israeli withdrawal from Egyptian land Israel secured in the June 1967 War. Sadat took a large gamble by attacking Israel yet he unfolded a negotiating process with Israel that lasted through 1979. He achieved his overarching long-term priority of having Egyptian Sinai returned to Egyptian sovereignty.
Bunche, an American diplomat, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950 for brokering the armistice agreements between Israel and four Arab neighbors in 1949. He served in 1947 with the U.N. Special Committee on Palestine,…
Resolution 242 calls for Israeli withdrawal from unspecified captured territories in return for the right of all states to live in peace. It does not call for a full withdrawal. It is the basis for treaties with Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994) and for PLO recognition of Israel (1993).
Following the conclusion of the June 1967 War, the Israeli government sent word to Egypt and Syria seeking peace plan that was intended to jumpstart a peace process with Israel’s belligerent neighbors, Egypt and Syria. The messages were sent through the US, but no response was apparently received.
The Israeli ambassador to the United Nations delivers a detailed outline of events that will lead to war two days later.
Golda Meir tells the U.N. General Assembly that Israel will comply with demands that it withdraw to the 1949 armistice lines with Egypt, but it expects U.N. support to keep the Straits of Tiran open.
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.
Musa Alami, “The Lesson of Palestine,” Middle East Journal, Volume 3, No. 4, October 1949, pp. 373-405 Reprinted with permission of the Middle East Institute, October 2021 In this 1949 article published in Middle East…
Upon admission to the U.N., Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett said, “It was
the consummation of a people’s transition from political anonymity to clear identity, from inferiority to equal status, from mere passive protest to active responsibility, from exclusion to membership in the family of nations.”
In the aftermath of the 1948 War of Independence, Israel signed armistice agreements with Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. These armistice lines lasted until the immediate aftermath of the June 1967 War. Israel has 1068 kilometers in land borders. Egypt 208 km, Gaza Strip 59 km, Jordan 307 km, Lebanon 81 km, Syria 83 km, and the West Bank 330 km; its Mediterranean coastline 273 km. CIA The World Factbook – Israel
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…
Otherwise known as Israel’s War of Independence, or, “the nakbah” or disaster to the Arab world because a Jewish state was established, the war was fought between the newly established Jewish state of Israel opposed by Palestinian irregulars, and armies from five Arab states. Official beginning of the war is usually given as May 14, 1948, the date Israel declared itself an independent Jewish state, but the war’s first of four phases began in November 1947. Lasting for two years, the war ended with armistice agreements signed in 1949 between Israel and four Arab states.
One of four agreements Israel signed in 1949 with Arab neighbors, it does not end the state of war between Israel and Egypt. They do not sign a treaty until 1979.
The resolution states that refugees “wishing to return to their homes and live at peace (with Israel) should do so or compensation be paid.” Israel opposes the idea because it jeopardizes Israel as a majority-Jewish state.
Subsequent to Israel’s territorial successes from May 1948 forward, U.N. mediator Bernadotte is assassinated after suggesting smaller borders for Israel. He does not mention Palestinian Arabs in his interim report.
This 10-page report, written by the British Colonial and Foreign Office, along with the 1937 Peel (Royal) Commission Report, is one of the two best summaries of the British presence in Palestine. Both are substantial in terms of content, detail and analyses; both were written from Britain’s perspective. Read these along with 1931 Census for Palestine to have a fuller grasp of the politics and the populations that shaped Britain’s Palestine’s administration from 1918-1948
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Israel’s Declaration of Independence which was issued by David Ben-Gurion in Tel-Aviv on May 14, 1948 was drafted by a small committee. This video highlights the similarities and differences between the Israeli and American declarations of independence and outlines the Israeli Declaration’s contents including the state’s intentions towards its citizens, the historical connection of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, and the right of the Jewish people to determination.
In March 1948, two months before Israel’s establishment, the US State Department sought to reverse the US vote in favor of partition for the creation of Arab and Jewish states in Palestine.
November 29, 1947 Official Records of the General Assembly, Second Session Supplement No. 11,Volumes l-lV. Deteriorating Relationship Between Britain and Palestine The British intention (Peel Report in 1937) to partition Palestine into Arab and…
