ABSTRACT
Mandate, were legally resident in Israel, and that their names were included in the population register on 1 March 1952. early 1954: The Jordanian Government rejected a US-sponsored scheme for the distribution of water taken from the River Jordan among Iraq, Israel, Jordan and Syria because it necessitated co-operation with, and therefore recognition of, the state of Israel. 10 July 1953: Israel announced that its Ministry of Foreign Affairs would be relocated from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem. 14-15 October 1953: Israeli armed forces launched an attack on the Jordanian village of Qibya in retaliation for recent Jordanian raids on Israeli villages in the area. 2 December 1953: The USSR recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, despite Arab protests. 17 March 1954: An Israeli bus was ambushed by unidentified Arab assailants at Scorpion’s Pass in the Negev desert; 11 civilians were killed. Israel accused Jordan of responsibility for the attack. Despite Jordan’s denial, Israel subsequently withdrew from the Israeli-Jordanian Mixed Armistice Commission. 25 September 1954: Israel appealed to the Arab states for a peaceful settlement of their disputes. 28 September 1954: An Israeli freighter, the Bat Galim, was seized by Egyptian authorities when it attempted to pass through the Suez Canal. 28 February 1955: Egyptian and Israeli armed forces engaged in hostilities near Gaza. 29 March 1955: The UN Security Council unanimously adopted a Resolution in which it described the fighting in Gaza on 28 February as a violation by Israel of its obligations under the general armistice agreement and the UN Charter. 18 September 1955: The Israeli Prime Minister, Moshe Sharett, urged the Western powers to supply arms to Israel. 11-12 December 1955: Israeli armed forces attacked Syrian positions north of Lake Tiberias. 29 December 1955: Israel announced its intention to propose that a peace conference with Egypt should be held under the terms of the Egyptian-Israeli armistice agreement. 5 April 1956: Exchanges of artillery fire took place between Egyptian and Israeli armed forces in the Gaza area. 12 April 1956: The Israeli Government gave an assurance to the UN Secretary General that Israel fully and unconditionally accepted the armistice agreement previously concluded with Egypt. 3 May 1956: The Israeli Prime Minister, Ben-Gurion, gave assurances regarding Israel’s observation of the armistice agreements with Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. 26 July 1956: The Egyptian President, Col Gamel Abd an-Nasser, announced that the Suez Canal Company had been nationalized; British and French forces subsequently began to plan military action, with the assent of Israel, aimed at preventing the nationalization. 29 October 1956: Israeli armed forces attacked Egyptian positions in the Sinai peninsula. 30 October 1956: France and the United Kingdom issued 12-hour ultimatums to Egypt and Israel to cease hostilities and withdraw their forces from the immediate vicinity of the Suez Canal and requested the Egyptian Government to allow Anglo-French forces to occupy positions at three points on the canal. Following Egypt’s refusal to accept this
condition, the two European states began military action the following day. 1 November 1956: The Egyptian garrison in Gaza surrendered to Israeli armed forces. 2 November 1956: Israel took control of almost all of the Sinai peninsula. 6 November 1956: A cease-fire halted an advance by British, French and Israeli armed forces on Egypt. The Suez Canal was eventually reopened, under Egyptian state control, in March 1957. 9 November 1956: The Israeli Prime Minister announced that Israel would withdraw its forces from the Sinai peninsula after an international force had taken up positions in the Suez Canal area. 19 January 1957: The UN General Assembly adopted a Resolution expressing its concern at Israel’s failure to comply with Resolutions adopted in November 1956 regarding its withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines in respect of the Gaza Strip and the Gulf of Aqaba. 22 January 1957: Israeli armed forces completed their withdrawal from most of the Sinai peninsula. 23 January 1957: Ben-Gurion stated that Israel required UN guarantees regarding freedom of navigation in the Gulf of Aqaba and the non-resumption of Palestinian guerrilla raids in the Gaza Strip before it would withdraw its armed forces from those areas. 2-3 February 1957: The UN General Assembly deplored Israel’s failure to withdraw its armed forces (in the Gulf of Aqaba and the Gaza Strip) behind the armistice demarcation lines of 1949, and recognized that the ‘scrupulous maintenance of the armistice agreement requires the placing of the UN Emergency Force on the Egyptian-Israeli armistice demarcation line’. 3 February 1957: Israel reiterated its refusal to comply with UN General Assembly Reolutions of November 1956 in respect of the Gaza Strip and the Gulf of Aqaba without UN guarantees, as detailed above. 6-8 March 1957: Israeli armed forces withdrew from the Gaza Strip and the west coast of the Gulf of Aqaba. November 1957: Egypt and Syria condemned Jordan’s relations with the USA and accused it of entering into covert negotiations with Israel. 13 July 1958: An agreement on compensation for parties adversely affected by the nationalization of the Suez Canal was signed. 19 July 1958: A defence pact between Iraq and the United Arabic Republic was announced. 21 May 1959: The UAR and Syria (UAR-formed by the union of Egypt) prevented a Danish freighter from carrying Israeli cargo through the Suez Canal. 24 July 1960: The UAR suspended diplomatic relations with Iran in response to that country’s recognition of Israel. 28 September 1960: Following a coup d’état in Syria, the new regime announced the country’s withdrawal from the UAR, an action accepted by President Nasser some days later 1964: The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was formed to co-ordinate the activities of various Palestinian political and military groups; its activities were initially concentrated in southern Lebanon, where many displaced Palestinians lived in refugee
camps and sites for the training of guerrillas had been established. 13-16 January 1964: An Arab League conference was held in Cairo to discuss Israeli plans for the diversion of the River Jordan. 6 March 1965: President Bourguiba of Tunisia proposed the Arab recognition of Israel, on the terms of the 1947 UN Resolution. 4 November 1966: A mutual-defence agreement was signed by Syria and the UAR. 13 November 1966: Israeli forces raided the Jordanian village of Samu; attacks on Israel by groups based in its neighbouring Arab states had increased in frequency throughout the mid-1960s. The raid, which was subsequently condemned by the UN Security Council, increased pressure on King Hussein to resume his support for the PLO, withdrawn in July; when the king refused, the PLO urged Arabs to overthrow him. 7 April 1961: Fighting occurred between Israeli and Syrian forces on the countries’ border. 14 May 1967: The Israeli Prime Minister, Levi Eshkol, stated that Israeli-Syrian war was inevitable if incursions into Israel by Syrian guerrillas continued. 18 May 1967: The UAR officially requested that the UN force be withdrawn from the area of its border with Israel. 23 May 1967: The UAR imposed a blockade on Israeli shipping in the Straits of Tiran. 30 May 1967: Jordan and the UAR signed a mutual-defence pact. 5 June 1967: A period of military tensions between Israel and its neighbouring Arab countries was ended when Israel attacked the air bases of Jordan, Syria and the UAR. The Arab countries’ air forces were severely damaged, and Israel was swiftly able to capture territory from each of the Arab combatants (notably the West Bank and Old Jerusalem from Jordan, the Golan Heights from Syria and the Sinai peninsula from the UAR). 6 June 1967: The United Kingdom and the USA were accused by President Nasser of the UAR and King Hussein of Jordan of military collusion with Israel; 10 Arab states imposed an embargo on petroleum supplies to the two countries. Diplomatic relations with the USA were suspended by Algeria, Iraq, Sudan, Syria, the UAR and Yemen; Iraq, Syria and the UAR terminated relations with the United Kingdom. 10 June 1967: Syria and the UAR signed a cease-fire with Israel, as Jordan had done some days earlier, thus concluding the conflict, which came to be known as the ‘Six-Day War’; Israel retained the territories it had gained in the conflict. 29-31 August 1967: At a conference of Arab heads of state in Khartoum (Sudan), the petroleum-producing states agreed a substantial aid programme for Jordan and the UAR; Syria, which did not send a delegation to the conference, was excluded from the agreement. 21 October 1967: The Israeli destroyer Eilat was sunk off Sinai, with many casualties, by UAR warships. 25 October 1967: Israeli shelling at Suez succeeded in disabling the UAR’s principal petroleum refineries for several months. 22 November 1967: The UN Security Council adopted Resolution 242, which urged the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Occupied Territories, the acknowledgement by all countries in the region of the others’ sovereignty, a solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees and advocated a negotiated settlement to the region’s disputes. The Resolution became the basis of international efforts to agree a settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian
question. 22 November 1967: Gunnar Jarring was appointed UN Special Representative to mediate between Israel and the Arab states. 1968: Yasser Arafat, the leader of the al-Fatah movement, became Chairman of the PLO. 21 March 1968: Israeli forces attacked the Jordanian village of Karameh, claimed to be the headquarters of the al-Fatah guerrilla organization. 5 June 1968: Israeli forces bombarded the Jordanian village of Irbid as a reprisal for what it termed an ‘incessant artillery barrage’ by groups based in the area against Israeli settlements. 4 November 1968: Extensive fighting took place between the Jordanian army and Palestinian guerrilla forces. 22 November 1968: A car filled with explosives by Arab guerrillas exploded in a Jerusalem market, killing 13. 26 December 1968: An Israeli passenger aircraft was the subject of a machine-gun attack by Arab guerrillas at an airport in Greece. 28 December 1968: Israeli commandos raided the airport of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, destroying 13 Arab aircraft. 31 December 1968: The UN Security Council unanimously condemned the Israeli raid on Beirut. April 1969: Fierce fighting between Israeli and UAR forces occurred throughout the month in the Suez Canal area. 21 August 1969: Fire caused severe damage to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. 9 September 1969: The Israeli army launched a major raid on the UAR. 9 December 1969: The USA’s ten-point peace plan for the Middle East was publicly announced. January 1970: Israeli aircraft bombarded a number of targets in the UAR, including some in the Cairo area. 12 February 1970: An Israeli air raid on a scrap-metal processing plant in Egypt killed a reported 70 civilians. 1 May 1970: Israel claimed that Soviet pilots were flying operational missions based in the UAR. 23 July 1970: President Nasser unconditionally accepted US proposals for a cease-fire with Israel. 8 August 1970: A cease-fire between Israel and its Arab neighbours came into effect, on Israel’s post-1967 frontiers. 9 August 1970: The Central Committee for Palestinian Resistance announced its rejection of American peace proposals for the Middle East. 31 August 1970: The Arab ‘Eastern Front’ against Israel was split into separate national fronts. 6-13 September 1970: Arab-Israeli peace talks were held in New York (USA); Israel withdrew. 16-27 September 1970: Exceptionally fierce fighting between the army and Palestinian commandos led to an agreement being signed by King Hussein and the leader of the PLO, Yasser Arafat; despite the signature of a further accord in October, the Civil War in Jordan continued.
