Blake Maines

Israel 

The State of Israel was proclaimed on 14 May 1948, the culmination of nearly 2,000 years of hopes by Jewish people that they would one day return to the land from which the Romans expelled them. The Balfour Declaration by the British government in 1917, enshrined in a League of Nations mandate in 1920, had said that a "national home for the Jewish people" would be founded in Palestine, while preserving the "civil and religious" rights of non-Jewish communities there. On 29 November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly voted (resolution 181) to partition Palestine between a Jewish and an Arab state, with Jerusalem under an international regime. Inter-communal fighting had preceded the declaration and after it, five Arab armies invaded. By the time of an armistice in 1949, the Israelis had extended their territory, leaving Jordan with the West Bank, Egypt with Gaza and Jerusalem divided. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had fled. But the Arabs have every righ to me mad the jewish took the land from them.

Isreal Peace Agreements.

The Camp David Accords was signed by Egypt and Israel, on September 17, 1978.  The negotiations occurred at Camp David.  The agreement was signed at the White House and witnessed by Jimmy Carter. The  Egypt- Israel Treaty was signed in 1979.  The treaty ended hostilities between the 2 nations.  The Israelis agreed to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula.  Egypt gave Israeli ships free passage through the Suez Canal.

The PLO is the Palestine Liberation Organization.  The PLO is a paramilitary group that was created 1964.  The UN recognizes the PLO as the "sole legitimate representation of the Palestinian people."  The stated goal of the PLO is the liberation of Palestine through armed struggle.  The 1st Chairman of the PLO was Yasser Arafat. The PLO recognized the existence of the State of Israel and Israel recognized the PLO.  Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip and the West  Bank.  The Israeli Prime Minister was assassinated by a right wing Israeli radical.

In 2000, Israel put trade restrictions on the Gaza Strip and closed the Gaza International Airport.  IN 2001, Israel initiated a blockade of the Gaza Strip.Gaza began to get desperate and started retaliating against Israel using rockets. 

Israel destroyed the HQ of Hamas' prime minister.  A Hamas broadcast building was also destroyed.  Israel also targeted smuggling tunnels in southern Gaza Strip.  The strike was an effort to end months of rocket fire out of the Gaza Strip.  Rocket launchers and storage sites were the initial targets.  Hamas was founded in 1987 with the aim of establishing an Islamic state in Palestine.