April 2, 1947 The British government notifies the United Nations of its intent to bring the question of Palestine’s future before the next U.N. General Assembly. The United Kingdom also requests a special General Assembly…
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…
In his address, Abba Hillel Silver called upon UNSCOP to honor the 1917 Balfour Declaration.
December 11, 1948 The United Nations General Assembly passes Resolution 194, addressing “the situation in Palestine” amid the ongoing Israeli War of Independence, on a vote of 35-15 with eight abstentions. The resolution never references…
Judge Richard Goldstone, a South African Jew who had previously served as the chief UN prosecutor in both Yugoslavia and Rwanda, presents his UN-sponsored Report, “Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict.”
April 18, 1996 Israeli artillery fire strikes a U.N. compound where at least 800 Lebanese civilians are sheltering in the village of Qana in southern Lebanon. At least 13 shells hit the compound, killing 106…
After a distinguished career in the service of Zionism and Israel, Eliahu Eilat passes away in Jerusalem at the age of 86.
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 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.
May 16, 1967 Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser requests that the United Nations withdraw its peacekeeping troops from the Sinai, clearing an obstacle to war between Israel and its Arab neighbors. The Six-Day War begins…
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…
The Knesset debates Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion’s announcement that Israeli troops would withdraw from Sinai following the 1956 Suez War.
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.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the ninth and current Prime Minister of Israel, is born in Tel Aviv. Although he spends a good portion of his childhood in Philadelphia, Netanyahu returns to Israel in 1967 to fulfill his service in the IDF.
September 16, 1949 Israel becomes a member of UNESCO, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Based in Paris, UNESCO has the purpose of creating peace and security by encouraging international collaboration in education, natural…
The UN General Assembly votes 37 to 12, with 9 abstentions, to admit Israel as its 59th member.
September 17, 1948 Count Folke Bernadotte, a diplomat sent by the United Nations to mediate between Israel and the Arabs during the War of Independence, is assassinated in Jerusalem by members of Lehi (the Stern…
The US rejects a UN request that US Marines be temporarily stationed in Jerusalem to support an Israeli-Arab military truce agreement. The US continues its policy of supporting diplomacy in the region, while maintaining politically-strategic, military distance.
June 6, 1967 After leaving Jerusalem at the start of the Six-Day War the previous day, Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban speaks to the U.N. Security Council to explain the pre-emptive Israel Defense Forces attacks…
May 20, 1948 Count Folke Bernadotte is appointed by the U.N. Security Council as the mediator for Middle East peace efforts five days into the Israeli War of Independence. Bernadotte was born in Sweden in…
The United Nations General Assembly passes Resolution 181 by a vote of 33-13 with 10 abstentions. The Resolution recommended the creation of separate Arab and Jewish states in Palestine, linked by an economic union.
David Ben-Gurion, the chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency since 1935, formally accepts the partition plan proposed by the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP).
September 29, 1947 The Arab Higher Committee for Palestine formally rejects the U.N. Special Committee on Palestine’s partition plan, which advocates for the division of the land into a separate Jewish and Arab states and…
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