Today's History Lesson: Isreal

On May 14, 1948, the State of Isreal was proclaimed.

For those of us who have always lived in a world that contained Isreal, the origins of the country are often unknown or misunderstood. So on the anniversay of the creation of this State, here's a brief chronology:

Modern Israel has its origins in the Zionism movement, established in the late 19th century by Jews in the Russian Empire who called for the establishment of a Jewish state after enduring centuries of persecution.

Ottoman-controlled Palestine, the original home of the Jews, was chosen as the most desirable location for a Jewish state, and Herzl unsuccessfully petitioned the Ottoman government for a charter.

After the failed Russian Revolution of 1905, growing numbers of Eastern European and Russian Jews began to immigrate to Palestine, joining the few thousand Jews who had arrived earlier.

With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire during World War I, Britain took over Palestine.

In 1917, Britain issued the "Balfour Declaration," which declared its intent to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine. This didn't go over so well with the neighbouring Arab states. Nevertheless, the Declaration was ultimately authorized by the League of Nations (the precursor to the United Nations) in 1922.

Because of Arab opposition to the establishment of any Jewish state in Palestine, British rule continued throughout the 1920s and '30s. Arabs and Jews openly fought in Palestine, and Britain attempted to limit Jewish immigration as a means of appeasing the Arabs.

Then the second world war came along and, as a result of the Holocaust, thousands of Jews headed to Palestine during World War II. At the end of World War II, the United States opendly supported the Zionist cause for the first time.

Britain, unable to find a practical solution, referred the problem to the United Nations, which in November 1947 voted to partition Palestine.

The result of this partition was that Jews now had more than half of Palestine, although they remained outnumbered by Palestine's arab population. The Palestinian Arabs, aided by volunteers from other countries, continued to fight against the Zionist forces

On May 14, 1948, Britain withdrew its forces from the area and religuished control and with that the State of Israel was proclaimed.

Not the end of the story however. The next day, the new State was attacked by Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq invaded.

Equipped with less military hardware that the attackers, the Israelis managed to fight off the Arabs and even went on to expand its territory, now covering Galilee, the Palestinian coast, and a strip of territory connecting the coastal region to the western section of Jerusalem.

By 1949, a U.N.-brokered cease-fires left the State of Israel in permanent control of this conquered territory. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs left Israel during this war, tipping the remaining population to a substantial Jewish majority.

During the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel once again defended its State and after this mini-war, it managed to increase its borders again to include Jordan, Egypt, and Syria the Old City of Jerusalem, the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights.

In 1979, Israel and Egypt finally signed a peace agreement in which Israel returned the Sinai in exchange for Egyptian recognition and peace.

For much of the past 20 years, Israel and the Palestinians (mainly represented by the PLO) have struggled to find a sustainable peace in the land now home to two peoples who lay claim to the area.