Israel - Territorial development
Physical map and the formation of Israel
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Overview
In Palestine, which had been placed under British mandate after the First World War, a Jewish and an Arab state as well as an internationally administered area around Greater Jerusalem were to be created according to the partition plan of the newly founded United Nations. On the basis of this partition plan of 1947, the State of Israel was founded on 14 May 1948 but was immediately attacked by its neighbours. The attempts of the Arab states to prevent the founding of the state by military means ended in an Israeli victory after months of fighting (ceasefire line of 1949).
The Middle East after 1949
Israel had conquered significant areas that were supposed to belong to an Arab state according to the partition plan. Many Arab Palestinians fled or were expelled. They fled to Jordan - which had taken the Arab territories west of the Jordan River (and annexed them in 1950) - or to Egypt, which administered the Gaza Strip. Arab guerrilla forces fighting against their expulsion joined together in 1964, on Egypt's initiative, to form the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) and carried out acts of sabotage and raids on Israeli territory from Jordan and Lebanon.
As a result of these attacks, the Israeli retaliatory strikes and the interference of neighbouring Arab countries, the Middle East conflict came to such a head that Israel decided to launch a pre-emptive strike in June 1967. In the Six-Day War (June War), it occupied eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula. When the weapons rested on all fronts after six days, the Arab armies had suffered a heavy defeat (including the PLF, which reorganised under Jasir Arafat in 1968). The UN reacted to the Israeli conquests, which triggered protests worldwide, by demanding Israel's withdrawal from the occupied territories and linking this demand to Israel's right to exist.
Israel's refusal to withdraw from the occupied territories triggered the 1973 Yom Kippur War, named after the Jewish Day of Atonement Yom Kippur (6/10/1973), on which Egyptian and Syrian troops launched a surprise attack on Israel. The fighting ended on 24 October with a ceasefire monitored by UN peacekeepers. Under the mediation of US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Israel negotiated an agreement with Egypt and Syria that led to the establishment of a UN buffer zone between the parties of the conflict. It was not until 1979 that US President Jimmy Carter secured the signing of an Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty that guaranteed the gradual evacuation of the Sinai.
