Untitled Document

territorial/environmental	economic	religious	political	colonial
migratory/herding lifeways, environment drying-out for last 10,000 years -- this shift leads to the agricultural revolution as grasslands expand and agricultural production becomes more important water rights issues are underlying many of the religious/border disputes and joint Palestinian/Israeli water projects will be essential to all.	Crossroads Mesopotamia/Egypt and wider connections during Persian/Greco-Roman/Abbassid/Ottoman periods. Current oil-based economy has changed economic dynamics significantly	9,000 BCE Jericho, neolithic non-Judaic (female diety/queen) Judeo settlement (out of Egypt) Egyptian control 1500; Largely multi-religious except during Jewish controlled periods	successive empires throughout Judeo-Christian-Islamic times Egyptian/Babylonian/Persian/Roman/Abbassid/Ottoman (Islamic for last 1100 years) Palestine name for the region since 1200 BCE Phillistine settlement; Jewish King David control from 950, but continued reference to Palestine; Judea during Roman times after Cyrus the Great (Persian Empire) frees Jews in Babylon	Britain controlls Palestine from 1918 using the Balfour Declaration to protect local interests; Creation of Israel in 1947; many Arab states argue that this has been a continuation of colonia policies in the region that began with the Mandate system

10,000 BC: first permanent settlements in Israel
7,000 BC: walls of Jericho built
1486 BC: Canaanite army defeated at Megiddo by Egyptian pharoah Thutmose, consolidating Egyptian rule over Canaan
1300 BC: Moses leads the Jews out of Egypt
circa 1200 BC: Philistines arrive by ship and give the name "Palestine" to the area; Jews start to arrive in Land of Israel
990 BC: Jerusalem captured by King David and Israel unified as one nation
950 BC: First Temple built by King Solomon
928 BC: After a fight over taxation, Israel splits into two nations: "Judah" in the south and "Israel" in the north
597 BC: Babylonians send army to put down a rebellion and take prominent Jews into exile
586 BC: Babylonians arrive to put down another rebellion, destroy the First Temple, and remove more Jews into exile
539 BC: Babylonians defeated by Persians
538 BC: Cyrus the Great of Persia allows the Jews to return to Israel and rebuild temple in return for loyalty oath to Persia
515 BC: Second Temple built
332 BC: Alexander the Great of Macedonia conquers Persia and takes over their empire, including Palestine; Hellenization of Israel begins
170-164 BC: Maccabee revolt against forced Hellenization; Jewish independence
63 BC: Roman legions, under General Pompey, conquer Jerusalem
37 BC: Herod the Great installed by Romans as vassal king
4 BC: Jesus born
circa AD 30: Jesus crucified by Romans
AD 66-70: Jewish revolt, war with Romans, destruction of Jerusalem and Second Temple
AD 73: Masada falls
AD 130-2: Hadrian outlaws circumcision and plans to rebuild Jerusalem as a pagan city
AD 132-135. Bar Kochba rebellion. Jews crushed by Romans, sold into slavery, and driven into exile (the Diaspora). Jerusalem is rebuilt as Aelia Capitolina.
AD 200-215: Mishnah edited in Israel by Rabbi Ha Nasi
AD 313: Roman emperor Constantine converts to Christianity, grants freedom of worship to Christians throughout Empire
AD 395: Rome splits into western and eastern (Byzantium) empires
AD 638: Omar defeats the Byzantine army at the Yarmuk River (in Syria); Muslims rule Palestine
AD 1009: Caliph El-Hakim destroys Holy Sepulchre
AD 1071: Seljuk Turks forbid Christians to enter Jerusalem
AD 1095: Pope Urban II launches Crusades
AD 1099: Crusaders take Jerusalem after a five-week siege; more than 20,000 Jews and Muslims inside are murdered or sold into slavery
AD 1144: Jews in Norwich, England accused of torturing and killing a Christian boy to use his blood in a ritual. This was the first of the "blood libels" that led to mob violence against Jews throughout Europe.
AD 1187: Saladin retakes Jerusalem
AD 1188-92: Third Crusade under Richard I the Lionheart fails to retake Jerusalem but wins access for pilgrims.
AD 1400: Israel under Mameluke rule from Egypt; Jews begin emigrating to Palestine to escape persecution in Europe
AD 1492: Jews expelled from Spain
AD 1516: Mamelukes defeated by Ottoman empire
AD 1537: Suleyman the Magnificent orders new walls and gates built around Jerusalem
AD 1839: Sir Moses Montefiore, a British jew, calls for creation of a Jewish state
AD 1896: Theodor Herzl publishes Der Judenstat , which leads to formation of the World Zionist Congress
1903: Herzl presents a plan to create a Jewish homeland in Uganda to the Sixth Zionist Congress
1917: British General Allenby captures Jerusalem from the Turks. Balfour declaration issued: "His Majesty's government favourable views the creation of a national Jewish home in Palestine."
1923: British split off 70% of Palestine and hand it over to Emir Abdullah as "Jordan"
1929: Arab pogroms against Jews in Jerusalem, Hebron, and Safed
1934: Stalin creates Jewish Autonomous Region in the eastern Siberian region of Birobidzhan, a frigid alternative to Zionism
1937: British propose ending their Mandate and partioning the remainder of Palestine (the 30% left after the splitting off of Jordan) into separate Jewish and Arab states. The partition is accepted by the Jews but rejected by the Arabas.
1939: In an attempt to win Arab support for the impending war with Germany, British issue "White Paper" cutting off Jewish immigration to Palestine.
1944: under pressure from the British, the United States accepts 982 Jewish refugees from liberated Italy and inters them in a concentration camp in Oswego, New York for eventual deportation back to Europe; these are the only Jews allowed into the U.S. during World War II ( more );
1945: U.S. President Roosevelt promises King Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia that he will not support a Jewish state in Palestine ( more )
November 29, 1947: United Nations votes for the partition of the remainder of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states, with Jerusalem a neutral international city. The United States embargoes arms sales to the Jews while the British sell arms freely to the Arabs; with support from Stalin, the Jews are ultimately able to purchase $12 million of rifles from Czechoslovakia.
May 14, 1948: State of Israel declared. British withdraw. New state attacked simultaneously by Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Egypt. Palestinian Arabs were encouraged by the invading armies to vacate their homes to facilitate a quick war and complete victory.
July 1949: The fighting is over but the Israelis refuse to let the Palestinian Arabs who fled to return to their homes. Meanwhile, Jews living in Arab countries jump or are pushed into emigrating to Israel. There are more than 500,000 refugees on each side of the conflict. The Arabs leave the Palestinians in makeshift tent camps. The Israelis begin to build cheap ugly concrete apartment blocks for all the Jews from Arab countries.
1956: Egyptian Colonel Nasser seizes Suez Canal from Anglo-French stockholders. The Canal and Straits of Tiran are closed to Israeli or Israel-bound ships. This prompts an invasion of the Sinai by French, British, and Israeli forces. The armies are forced to retreat under pressure from the Soviet Union and United States. This underscores a humiliating loss of influence and power for the English.
1967: Six Day War. Israel and the Arab countries have been in an The official state of war since 1948. However, the first five months of 1967 brought an intensification of hostilities with the Egyptians moving troops into the Sinai and closing the shippping lanes, the Syrians shelling farms in the north, and terrorist attacks coming through all the borders. On June 5, 1967 Israel launched a preemptive strike on all fronts. After six days, the Israelis had conquered the Sinai, the Golan Heights, the West Bank, and Jerusalem.
September 1970: Palestinians hijack four commercial airplanes, fly them to Jordan, and blow them up. This was the last straw for King Hussein, whose minority Hashemite rule had been threatened by the Palestinian Arab military force for some time. Hussein launches massive military campaign to expel all the armed Palestinians from Jordan. More than 5000 Palestinians are killed and this leads to the formation of the Black September terrorist group. Most of the best-armed Palestinians wind up in Lebanon, destabilizing the government there.
1973: Yom Kippur War. The Arabs struck back, easily rolling over Israel's Maginot-style line in the Sinai. After three weeks or so, with heavy American support, the Israelis managed to cross the Suez into Egypt proper and were within 20 miles of Damascus before the US put a halt to the war.
November 1977: Anwar Sadat visits Menachem Begin in Jerusalem for peace negotiations.
September 1978: Camp David Accords.
March 1979: Israel and Egypt sign a peace treaty, ending more than 30 years of war.
June 7, 1981: Israel bombing raid destroys Iraqi nuclear reactor; the United Nations responds by "Urg[ing] all Member States to provide necessary technical assistance to Iraq to restore its peaceful nuclear programme" ( Resolution 40/6 )
October 6, 1981: Anwar Sadat assassinated by Islamic fundamentalists.
1982: Israel invades Lebanon and destroys PLO infrastructure there.
July 1994: Israel and Jordan sign a peace treaty, ending 46 years of war.
November 4, 1995: Pro-compromise Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin killed at a peace rally by a Jewish right-wing assassin.