Brief History Israel

Background: Israel's Pre-1967 Boundaries

The Green Line. It was the line of demarcation that more than 60 years ago formed the de facto border between the new state of Israel and its Arab neighbors — Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt, at the time all enemies of the Jewish state.

The line was in place for nearly two decades, until June 1967, when Israel and its Arab neighbors fought yet another war — for a brief but pivotal six days — in which Israel captured significant portions of Arab-held territory.

Those pre-1967 boundaries are a tripwire in the rhetoric and realpolitik over how to achieve peace between Israel, Palestinians and the wider Arab world. In his Thursday speech on the Middle East, President Obama included this statement: "The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states."

What Obama said wasn't particularly new in terms of U.S. policy. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out, saying Obama was seeking to determine Israel's borders in advance of peace negotiations. Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney accused Obama of "throwing Israel under the bus."

The Green Line was drawn as a result of the 1949 armistice agreements. Those lines changed in 1967 with Israel's capture of the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan; the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt; and the Golan Heights from Syria.

Suddenly, Israel occupied areas inhabited by hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs, including refugees of the 1947-49 war who had fled territory that became the state of Israel.

After the '67 war, Israel began building settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Palestinians mounted a campaign — violent and otherwise — for an end to occupation. And the status of Jerusalem became a major sticking point — Israel calling it the unified capital, while Palestinians claim it will one day be the capital of their independent state.

In its peace agreement with Egypt, Israel handed back the Sinai. Peace talks with the Palestinians led Israel to give up the Gaza Strip. Israel's construction of housing, settlements and roads has asserted its control over other lands it captured. Today, some 500,000 Jews live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Israel says its security is paramount in any peace deal. Palestinians want land and sovereignty. In negotiations over the past two decades, leaders from both sides have expressed a willingness to swap land to achieve piece.

1:24 AM - REAL ART (and politics and culture)

The formulation goes beyond principles outlined by President George W. Bush, who stated during his first term that “it is unrealistic to expect” Israel to pull back to the 1967 boundaries, which were based on cease-fire lines established in 1949. Obama said the negotiations about final borders, which he indicated may include land swaps to accommodate Israel’s large settlement blocs, should result in “a viable Palestine, a secure Israel.” When Israel emerged triumphant from 1967's Six Day War they ended up occupying land that had previously been controlled by the Palestinians, Arabs who had lived there for centuries before the Zionist movement brought hundreds of thousands of Jews to the region starting in the nineteenth century. The problem was that Israel's leaders didn't really intend to end up with all this new territory. They had no plans for dealing with it. It was nice to take more of what had historically been Jewish land in Biblical times, but there were already lots of people living there who were not friendly to the recently formed Jewish state. Israel had no idea what to do. They couldn't just expel the Palestinians. The world would freak out on it, and besides, Arab nations in the vicinity already had tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees from the previous conflict of the late 40s, and didn't really want any more. In short, there was no place for the Palestinians of the Occupied Territories to go, and it would be diplomatically unwise to force them out, anyway. So Israel settled on long term occupation and control of these newly conquered Arabs. The idea, however imperfect, was to make life for the Palestinians so insufferable that they would leave voluntarily, in spite of the fact that there wasn't really any place for them to go. As Israeli General and statesman Moshe Dayan once said, “You shall continue to live like dogs, and whoever wishes may leave.” But like I said, there was no place for them to go, so Israel just continued to treat the Palestinians like shit for decades, with no end in sight. That is essentially the Jewish state's official policy to this day, with a few variations here and there, such as Jewish settlements, or sending in the tanks from time to time.

A brief history of Israel

A brief history of ancient Israel

Energy Law in Israel

Introduction to the New Testament Christology

Frommer's Israel