The following is a chronology of nearly a century of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
1913 – First Arab Nationalist Congress meets in Paris demanding autonomy for Arab provinces of Palestine, Syria and Lebanon within
the Ottoman Empire.
November 2, 1917 – British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour issues
declaration promising Zionist leaders ”a Jewish national home” in mandated Palestine.
August 23, 1929 – Riots between Arabs and Jews in Jerusalem spread
over most West Bank towns, killing hundreds.
November 27, 1947 – United Nations approves Resolution 181 for the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states.
May 14, 1948 – Declaration of the creation of the state of Israel provokes eight-month war with Arab states. By the end more than 400 Palestinian villages in what became Israel have been destroyed and 700 000-900 000 refugees fled to the West Bank, Gaza Strip and neighbouring Arab countries.
April 1951 – Jordan’s King Abdullah annexes the West Bank. Gaza is put under Egyptian military rule.
May 28, 1964 – After first Arab summit in Cairo creates the Palestine Liberation Organisation, the Palestine National Council (PNC), or parliament, holds its first meeting in east Jerusalem, approving a charter calling for an armed struggle to liberate Palestine.
June 5-10, 1967 – The Six-Day War. Israel occupies east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
March 21, 1968 – Some 400 PLO fighters, backed by Jordanian artillery, hold off an attack by the Israeli army on their base at Karameh, Jordan. Around 30 Israeli soldiers and 98 Palestinians are killed. The battle, in which PLO fighters refused Israeli calls to retreat, becomes enshrined as the first Palestinian victory over Israeli forces.
September16-22, 1970 – Tensions between the PLO and Jordan erupt
into bloody battles that leave at least 3 000 dead and end with ejection of the PLO base from Jordan to Lebanon.
June 12, 1974 – PNC approves the principle of creating a state in ”any part of Palestine which is liberated,” as a first step to establishing a state in all of Palestine.
November 22, 1974 – Arafat tells the United Nations he carries ”both an olive branch and a gun.” UN gives PLO an observer seat in the General Assembly.
June 1982 – Israel invades Lebanon, besieging Beirut and PLO adquarters there for some 80 days. PLO moves to Tunis.
December 9, 1987 – The first intifada, or uprising, against Israeli occupation breaks out after Palestinians are run over by a car driven by Israelis in the Gaza Strip. It spreads throughout the West Bank and Gaza.
November 15, 1988 – The PNC meets in Algiers and declares the creation of a Palestinian state and its acceptance of the partition of mandate Palestine.
September 13, 1993 – Israel and the PLO sign the Declaration of Principles after months of secret negotiations in Oslo, launching the peace process that Palestinians hope will lead to a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
June 1, 1994 – Yasser Arafat returns to Gaza to create the Palestinian Authority as self-rule is established for the first time in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho.
November 3, 1995 – Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated by a Jewish extremist.
January 20, 1996 – After Israel hands over the main towns of the West Bank to Palestinian rule, Arafat is voted president of the Palestinian Authority and a legislative council is created in the first-ever Palestinian elections.
May 5, 1996 – Negotiations for a final peace settlement begin in Taba, Egypt.
October 23, 1998 – The Wye interim agreement outlines the practicalities of an Israeli withdrawal from 13% of the West Bank and the release of 750 Palestinian prisoners.
February 3, 2000 – Summit to restart negotiations fails and the PLO says it will declare an independent state by September.
July 11- 25, 2000 – US President Bill Clinton brings Israeli premier Ehud Barak and Arafat to his Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland. The talks, aimed at a final peace settlement, fall apart, paving the way for the eruption of the second intifada two months later.
September 28, 2000 – The head of the right-wing Likud party and now Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ignores warnings and visits the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, a site holy to Islam and Judaism, sparking the first clashes of the intifada.
October 16-17, 2000 – Peace summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. The first
international effort to halt the violence brings together Arafat, Barak, Clinton, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana. Clinton announces a three-point accord, notably the creation of a commission of inquiry into the clashes,
eventually led by former US senator George Mitchell.
December 19-23, 2000 – Separate Israeli-Palestinian talks at an air force base near Washington. Clinton proposes a peace plan including conditional Palestinian sovereignty over the holy sites in Jerusalem as well as 95% of the West Bank. Israel accepts the following month with conditions. The Palestinians follow belatedly with their own reservations.
January 21-28, 2001 – Marathon talks are held in Taba, Egypt, between Israel and the Palestinians to achieve a peace accord ahead of February Israeli elections for premier, which Sharon wins. The talks are also unsuccessful.
March 8, 2001 – Arafat sends a letter to new Prime Minister Sharon asking to restart peace talks on the basis of accords that have already been signed.
May 4, 2001 – The Mitchell Commission issues a report to Israel and the Palestinians. It recommends a six-week cooling-off period, followed by confidence-building measures, a freeze on developing Jewish settlements and, ultimately, a return to political negotiations.
June 13, 2001 – A ceasefire is brokered by US Central Intelligence Agency chief George Tenet, but fails to take hold on the ground.
June 24, 2002 – Israel demands 10 days of total calm before entering into the Mitchell report’s cooling-off period. Sharon later agrees to reduce the Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdil Aziz’s initiative offering Israel a full peace with the Arab world in return for lands captured in the 1967 Middle East War.
March 29, 2002 – Responding to a wave of suicide bombings, Israel invades the West Bank in Operation Defensive Wall, its largest operation there since the 1967 war. Its pulls some of its troops back in early May.
June 16, 2002 – Israel starts to build a wall sealing the West Bank off from Israel in an attempt to block militants from attacking the Jewish state. The move comes a few days before Israel again reoccupies areas in the West Bank.
June 24, 2002 – US President George Bush pledges his support for a Palestinian state alongside Israel, but calls on the Palestinians to choose new leaders, an implicit call for them to dump Arafat.
September 17, 2002 – Washington, Moscow, the European Union and the United Nations adopt a roadmap for peace, calling for the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005. The plan also calls for Palestinians to elect a prime minister and crack down on militant groups.
April 29, 2003 – The Palestinian parliament elects Mahmud Abbas,
considered a moderate, as prime minister.
April 30 – Washington publishes the roadmap.
June 3 – Bush meets leaders of moderate Arab states and Abbas in Aqaba, Jordan, to secure their support for the roadmap.
June 4 – Bush holds a summit with Sharon and Abbas to kickstart implementation of the roadmap. – Sapa-AFP