A history of aggression

1917: Britain captured Palestine from Ottoman empire. Balfour Declaration commits the British government to an independent Jewish state in Palestine.

1936-39: Palestinian Arab uprising against British rule.

1947: UN voted to partition Palestine into separate states for Arabs and Jews.

1948: Independent state of Israel declared. Zionist terror campaign drives Palestinians out. 259 villagers from Deir Yassin slaughtered while they slept by the Irgun militia.

1953: Sixty-nine civilians slaughtered in Qibia village, Jordan, by a unit led by Ariel Sharon.

1955: Israel launched five major raids into Egypt, killing dozens.

1956: Israel, Britain and France invaded Egypt after nationalisation of Suez canal.

1967: Six Day War. Israel launched a massive attack against Syria, Egypt and Jordan, seizing the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria, and East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan.

1970: Black September. King Hussein of Jordan massacred tens of thousands of Palestinians and opponents of his regime. Israel and the US had troops on stand-by to assist Hussein, if needed.

1972-73: Israel conducts terrorist attacks against the Palestinian resistance in Syria and Lebanon.

1973: Yom Kippur War. Egypt unsuccessfully attacked Israel to regain its territory, the Sinai Peninsula.

1978: Israel invaded and occupied southern Lebanon, remaining until 2000.

1982: Israel invaded Lebanon and conducted a siege of Beirut. Israeli troops provided protection for fascist Phalange militia as it massacred almost every resident (more than 2000) in the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps.

1987: Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip began the intifada (uprising).

1993: Oslo peace accords signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

1996: Eighty Palestinians killed and more than 1200 injured by Israeli troops as students protest peacefully against the opening of a tunnel under the holy al-Aqsa mosque.

May 2000: Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon.

September 2000: Israel again launched a war on the Palestinians.

From GLW issue 425