Israel and Lebanon

• March 1978 the PLO launched an attack against Israel from Lebanon and Israel responded with and invasion

• 3 years after the invasion Israel set up a 9 mile “safety zone” between the two nations.

• In June 1982 Israel attacks again in response to continuing attacks by PLO forces and occupy all the way up to Beirut. They scaled back shortly after but kept from troops in Southern Lebanon.

1st Intifada

• In 1987 Palestinians living under Israeli rule rebelled in places like Gaza, West Bank, and East Jerusalem

• Violent and Non-Violent resistance was common.• 1,100 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces • 164 Israelis were killed by Palestinians.• In addition, an estimated 1,000 Palestinians were killed

by other Palestinians because they were seen as collaborators with Israel

1991 Gulf War• Israel did not participate in the war, but Palestine sided with

Iraq as Hussein launched attacks into Israel.• Two Israeli civilians died from these attacks, and

approximately 230 were injured.• US convinced Israel not to retaliate against these attacks

Oslo Accords• 1993 agreement between Israel and PLO• Yasser Arafat: PLO• Yitzhak Rabin: Israel PM• The Palestinian Authority would administer the territory under its control. • Israel would withdraw from parts of the Gaza Strip and West Bank• A five-year interim period was established in which negotiations for a

permanent agreement would begin• Interim Palestinian self-government was to be granted by Israel in phases• Israeli government recognized the PLO as the legitimate representative of

the Palestinian people• PLO recognized the right of the state of Israel to exist• PLO renounced terrorism as well as other violence, and its desire for the

destruction of the Israeli state

Peace with Jordan

• Israel–Jordan peace treaty normalized relations between the two countries and resolved territorial disputes in 1994

Failure of Oslo

• Accords popularity were damaged by:• Continuation of Israeli settlements• Continuation of Israeli checkpoints• Deterioration of economic conditions in the

Palestinian areas• Israeli public support for the Accords waned as

Israel was struck by multiple suicide attacks• 1995, Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a far-

right-wing Jew who opposed the Accords

New Millennium

• Ehud Barak: Prime Minister of Israel authorized the withdrawal of troops from Southern Lebanon in 2000

• Camp David Summit was held with Arafat and Barak • Palestine wanted full Palestinian sovereignty over the

entire West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Cited SC Resolution 242 after 1967 War http://unispal.un.org/unispal.nsf/0/7D35E1F729DF491C85256EE700686136

• Israel was concerned that a complete return to the 1967 borders was dangerous to Israel's security.

• Heavy disputes over Holy Sites in Jerusalem• The Summit broke down and no agreement was formed

Second Intifada• Allegedly, Palestinian rioting erupted following Prime Minister Ariel

Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount• A Muslim mosque is constructed at the Temple Mount in the Old

City of Jerusalem a location considered the holiest site in Judaism and third holiest in Islam

• Palestinian tactics ranged from mass protests to armed attacks on Israeli soldiers, security forces, police, settlers, and civilians, suicide bombing attacks, and launching rockets into Israel

• Israel see it as terrorism. Palestine sees it as struggle for liberation• Thousands died in the intifada which culminated in 2004 with the

death of Arafat.

After Arafat• Israel removed all Israeli troops from Gaza in 2005• Hamas would win elections in 2006 for the PNA• After many clashes with Fatah (more moderate) Hamas was

removed from the PNA but retained control over Gaza

2nd Lebanon War• 34 day military conflict in Lebanon and northern Israel between

Israeli forces and Hezbullah• Hezbollah fired rockets at Israeli border towns as a diversion for

missile attacks on two armored trucks patrolling the Israeli side of the border.

• At least 3 soldiers were killed and some were believed to have been captured by Hezbullah

• Israel responded with airstrikes and on targets in Lebanon that damaged Lebanese civilian infrastructure

• Israel imposed an air and naval blockade• Israel also launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon. • Hezbollah responded by launching more rockets into northern Israel

2nd Lebanon War Continued

• The conflict killed at least 1,300 people, mostly Lebanese citizens

• Severely damaged Lebanese civil infrastructure• Displaced approximately one million Lebanese• 300,000–500,000 Israelis were also displaced.• In August 2006, the UNSC unanimously approved UN

Resolution 1701 to end the hostilities. • It was approved by both Lebanese and Israeli

governments• It called for disarmament of Hezbollah and for

withdrawal of Israel from Lebanon

Gaza War• A three-week armed conflict that took place in the Gaza Strip and

Southern Israel during 2008–2009. • Israel launched a military offensive with a surprise opening air strike

against the Gaza Strip • Israel's stated aim was to stop rocket fire which was being launched

from Hamas controlled locations in Gaza• The conflict resulted in 1,100 and1,400 Palestinian and 13 Israeli

deaths. Many civilians• In September 2009, a UN special mission produced a controversial

report accusing both Palestinian militants and Israelis of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity and recommended bringing those responsible to justice.

Obama• On May 19, 2011, President Obama declared that the borders

demarcated before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war should be the basis of a Mideast peace deal between Israel and Palestine.

• He also said that the borders should be adjusted to account for Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

• The Israeli government protested immediately, saying that a return to the pre-1967 borders would leave Israel "indefensible,“

Palestine in UN• Israel vehemently opposed the effort begun in September 2011 by Mahmoud Abbas for full recognition by the

United Nations SC. • After failing to get full status recognition the Palestinians pursued “non-member” state status• On Thursday, 29 November 2012, In a 138-9 vote (with 41 abstaining) General Assembly resolution 67/19

adopted, upgrading Palestine to "non-member observer state" status in the United Nations.[• The vote was a historic benchmark for the sovereign State of Palestine and its citizens, whilst it was a diplomatic

setback for Israel and the United States. Status as an observer state in the UN will allow the State of Palestine to join treaties and specialized UN agencies

• It shall permit Palestine to claim legal rights over its territorial waters and air space as a sovereign state recognized by the UN.

• It shall also provide the citizens of Palestine with the right to sue for control of the territory that is rightfully theirs in the International Court of Justice and with the legal right to bring war-crimes charges, mainly those relating to Israel's illegal occupation of the State of Palestine, against Israel in the International Criminal Court.

• As of 27 September 2013, 134 (69.4%) of the 193 member states of the United Nations have recognized the State of Palestine as sovereign over both West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

• In November, to protest the Palestinians’ membership efforts at the United Nations and pursuit of power-sharing with Hamas, Israel carried out a threat to suspend the transfer of about $100 million in tax payments to the Palestinian Authority.

• On Nov. 30, under strong American and international pressure, Israel agreed to transfer the money.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkEz6WbYpB8

Syria• The downfall of President Bashar al-Assad would deal a major blow to Iran

and so would be welcome. • But without a central authority, Syria could descend into being a land of

chaos and terrorist bases on Israel’s northeast border.• Israeli officials and intelligence analysts say they also worry about an

increased presence by Al Qaeda and ISIS in Syria and the possibility that Syria’s large storehouse of arms could end up in the hands of Hezbollah and other anti-Israel groups.

Unilateral Action?• In May 2012, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that Israel should

consider imposing the borders of a future Palestinian state, bypassing a stagnant peace process.

• Mr. Barak called for “an interim agreement, maybe even unilateral action.” Referring to fears that Jews will become a minority in their own state, he added, “Inaction is not a possibility.”

• Calls for direct action are based on the arguments that negotiations are no longer feasible because of enduring political divisions on both sides

• The Palestinian Authority has opposed any effort by Israel to decree the contours of its territory.

• The Obama administration has strongly opposed unilateral action by either side, and some senior Israeli officials have worried that such a move by Israel could provoke an uprising by Palestinians.

West Bank land• In late June 2012, Jewish families moved quietly — but not willingly — from their

homes in Ulpana, which were declared illegal because they sit on private Palestinian land.

• Israel’s Supreme Court had ruled that five of Ulpana’s 14 multifamily buildings had to be removed by July 1

• Many experts and advocates said the handling of Ulpana — and two other settlements on private land, simply proved Netanyahu’s commitment to the settlement enterprise and made any future two-state solution less likely.

• Most of the international community considers all Jewish settlements in the West Bank territory that Israel captured in the 1967 war to be illegal

• Israel distinguishes between those built with permits on state land and those constructed on private plots or without government authorization.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j087SQ8Yhdk Netanyahu on settlements.• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlgBFewCwAU Palestine on settlements

Gaza Again• On Nov. 14, 2012, Israel launched one of its biggest attacks on Gaza since

the invasion four years ago and hit at least 20 targets. • One of those targets was Hamas military commander, Ahmed al-Jabari. Al-

Jabari was the most senior official killed by the Israelis since its invasion in 2008.

• The airstrikes were in response to recent repeated rocket attacks by Palestinian militants located in Gaza.

Moving Forward• By Nov. 16, 2012, according to officials in Gaza, 19 people had been killed from the Israeli

airstrikes. Heavy rocket fire continued from Gaza while the Israeli military called in 16,000 army reservists.

• Throughout mid-Nov. 2012, Israel continued to target members of Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza while Hamas launched several hundred rockets, some hitting Tel Aviv.

• Both sides agreed to end hostilities toward each other and Israel said it would open Gaza border crossings, allowing the flow of products and people into Gaza, potentially lifting the 5-year blockade that has caused much hardship to those living in the region.

Reelection• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was elected to a third

term in January 2013

Peace Talks• On Aug. 14, 2013, Israelis and Palestinians began peace talks in Jerusalem, the third attempt to negotiate since

2000. The talks began just hours after Israel released 26 Palestinian prisoners.• Palestinian officials expressed concern about Israel's ongoing settlement building in the West Bank and east

Jerusalem, land that would be part of an official Palestinian state.• Israel freed another 26 Palestinian prisoners as part of the current U.S.-brokered peace talks in October. • Soon after the prisoners were released, the Israeli government reported it planned to build 1,500 new homes in

east Jerusalem, an area claimed by the Palestinians. • The settlement announcement was seen as a concession to the right after the prisoner release.• When Israel failed to release the promised last batch of prisoners in late March 2014, U.S. Secretary John Kerry

headed there in an attempt to rescue the peace talks. Israel had promised to release Palestinian prisoners in four groups and released the first three groups.

• But Israel's failure to release the last group of 26 prisoners as well as their continued settlement expansion in the West Bank threatened to derail a peace agreement that was supposed to be reached by the end of April 2014.

• Palestine said that the peace talks would end on April 29 if Israel did not release the 26 prisoners.

Hamas and Fatah at Peace• In April 2014, the troubled peace talks hit another snag when Palestinian leadership

and Hamas forged a new reconciliation agreement. • The new unity deal angered the Israeli government. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin

Netanyahu reacted by saying that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was choosing "Hamas, not peace."

• On April 24, 2014, the day after the Palestinian leadership announced its new unity deal with Hamas, Israel responded by halting the peace talks. The deadline for this latest round of peace talks passed without an agreement a week later.

Tensions beginning

•Later in June, three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and killed while hiking in the occupied West Bank. Their bodies were recovered days later and a burial was held in early July. •The day after their burial, the burned body of a missing Palestinian teenager was found in a forest near Jerusalem. •The incidents increased tension between Israelis and Palestinians, including riots in East Jerusalem and an exchange of rocket fire in Southern Israel and Gaza, where Israel targeted Hamas. •Within a week, several Israeli Jewish suspects were arrested in connection with the killing of the Palestinian teen.

War with Gaza• The situation continued to escalate throughout July. Hundreds of rockets were launched into Israel by militant

groups in Gaza. The rockets reached areas in Israel that previous rocket attacks could not, such as outskirts of Jerusalem.

• In response, Israel launched an aerial offensive in Gaza, killing dozens of Palestinians, and called up thousands of reservists for a potential ground operation.

• On July 17, Israel launched a ground offensive into Gaza. • Israeli officials said that the mission's main focus was tunnels near Gaza's borders that were being used by Hamas

to enter Israel. • As the violence continued and the casualties mounted on both sides, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry pressed

Egyptian, Israeli, and Palestinian leaders to negotiate a cease-fire. • In the midst of his urgent diplomatic outreach, 16 Palestinians were killed and more than 100 wounded in an

attack on a UN elementary school in Gaza on July 24. • Israel denied launching the attack, saying Hamas militants were responsible, missing their target. Demonstrations

followed the attack, and Palestinians in the West Bank protested to show unity with Gazans. At least five protesters were killed by Israeli fire.

• http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/11000191/Gaza-conflict-Israel-announces-ceasefire-after-shelling-UN-school-in-pictures.html?frame=2991019

End of Another war• After fighting for seven weeks and attempting several short-term cease-

fires, Israel and Hamas agreed to an open-ended cease-fire on Aug. 26. • The agreement was mediated by Egypt. The interim agreement still had

Hamas in control of Gaza while Israel and Egypt still controlled access to Gaza, leaving no clear winner in this latest conflict.

• However, Hamas declared victory. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was criticized in Israel for how costly the conflict has been. Since the conflict began in early July, 2,143 Palestinians were killed, mostly civilians, with more than 11,000 wounded and 100,000 left homeless. On Israel's side, 64 soldiers and six civilians were killed.

Tensions Rise again• Two Palestinians, armed with knives, meat cleavers, and a handgun, entered a

synagogue in Jerusalem during morning prayers and killed five people on Nov. 18. Four of the people killed were rabbis; the other was a police officer who died hours after the incident.

• The two attackers were shot and killed by police.• Hamas praised the synagogue attack, claiming it was in response to the recent

death of a Palestinian bus driver.• Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack. In a televised

address, Netanyahu said that Abbas' condemnation wasn't enough. The incident increased tension in Israel, which was already on high alert after a recent rise in religious violence.

Dissent• On Dec. 2, Netanyahu fired Finance Minister Yair Lapid

and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni in a statement. The statement also called for dissolving the parliament as soon as possible and quoted Netanyahu as saying, "I will not tolerate an opposition within the government any more.

• I will not tolerate ministers attacking government policy from within the government." The dismissals showed a deep divide in the current government. Both leaders of separate centrist parties, Livni and Lapid had been Netanyahu's most vocal critics in recent weeks. The current government has only been in office since early 2013. An early election was set for March 17, 2015, two years ahead of schedule.

Issues with Lebanon• On Jan. 18, 2015, one Iranian general and six Hezbollah fighters were killed during an

Israeli air strike on the Syrian section of Golan Heights.

• After the attack, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah threatened retaliation. Ten days later Hezbollah fired anti-tank missiles into an Israeli-occupied area along the Lebanon border, killing two Israeli soldiers.

• Israeli forces responded with ground and air strikes on several villages in southern Lebanon. While there were no reports of Lebanese casualties, a Spanish peacekeeper working with UNIFIL was killed.

• The exchange was the worst fighting between Hezbollah and Israel since their 2006 month long war.

• Despite the attacks, both sides quickly sent messages that they were not interested in an ongoing conflict. On Jan. 29, an Israel official said that UNIFIL, a U.N. peacekeeping force located in Lebanon, had passed on a message that Hezbollah was not interested in escalating the conflict. Israel responded, via UNIFIL, "that it will make do with what happened yesterday and it does not want the battle to expand."

Iranian deal• On March 3, 2015, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin

Netanyahu addressed Congress in an effort to sway the Obama administration against continuing negotiations with Iran over nuclear weapons. Netanyahu called the negotiations to get Iran to freeze its nuclear program "a bad deal."

• In his speech, he said the deal that the Obama administration wanted "could well threaten the survival of my country" because it would not prevent Iran from having and using nuclear weapons. To the contrary, he said, the deal "will all but guarantee" nuclear arms in Iran.

Reelection• After polls leading up to the election had him behind, Israeli Prime Minister

Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party won the March 17 election. • Netanyahu's Likud Party took 30 out of 120 seats. Likud's main rival, Zionist

Union alliance, led by Isaac Herzog, won 24 seats. • The win for Likud meant that odds were highly in favor of Netanyahu serving a

fourth term as prime minister. Netanyahu must form a government, a task which could be harder after he vowed leading up to the election that no Palestinian state would be established while he was in office, a vow that insulted Arab citizens and alienated some political allies.

• However, after a backlash, Netanyahu backtracked from the statements against the establishment of a Palestinian state that he made leading up to the election. In a March 19 TV interview, he said that he remained committed to a two-state vision and Palestinian statehood if conditions in the region improved. "I don't want a one-state solution, I want a sustainable, peaceful two-state solution, but for that circumstances have to change," Netanyahu said in the interview two days after the election.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6aG1LG0Jps

3rd Intifada?• During the first two weeks of Oct. 2015, 32 Palestinians and

seven Israelis were killed in what was the biggest spike in violence the area has seen in recent years.

• The violence broke out in part over what the Palestinians saw as increased encroachment by Israelis on the al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, a site important to both Muslims and Jews. However, the violence quickly spread beyond Jerusalem. On Oct. 16, at the request of council member Jordan, the United Nations Security Council held a meeting to discuss the area's increasing unrest.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQp8XZc8bv0• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YF2OakZNOkQ (12 min)• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWKk7a_zGU4

Videos• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2fzgYrkQlg • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=573rxA6EVnw (Abbas)• http://www.c-span.org/video/?321761-2/israeli-prime-

minister-benjamin-netanyahu-addresses-un-general-assembly• (Netanyahu 2014)• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zh2KnEldmDY (Netanyahu

with Andrea Mitchell

Editorials• http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/16/opinion/how-

palestinian-hate-prevents-peace.html?_r=0&adxnnl=1&ref=israel&adxnnlx=1382063251-92h28b/3/HwWwBsocdML0A Pro-Israel op-ed

• http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/opinion/sunday/two-state-illusion.html?ref=israel 2 state solution op-ed

• http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/13/opinion/global/one-state-dream-one-state-nightmare.html?ref=israel Op-ed 1 state

• http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/09/opinion/rosner-israel-and-a-hostile-world.html?_r=0 (Op-Ed Israel Dangerous)

• http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/07/opinion/palestines-nuclear-option.html (Palestine should back up threats)