The Mideast Crisis

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The Mideast Crisis

Instructions: As you read, create a table listing the year and events in the history Arab-Israeli conflicts. Draw the map in your notebook.

What events led to the dispute between Israel and its Arab neighbors?

In the Middle East, as in Asia and Africa, a number of nations emerged after World War II. Syria and Lebanon gained their Independence just before the end of the war. Jordan achieved complete self-rule soon afterward. These new states in the Middle East were predominantly Muslim.

The Questions of Palestine

In the years between the two world wars, many Jews had immigrated to the Palestine Mandate, which they considered their historic homeland and religious center. Tensions between Jews and Arabs had intensified during the 1930s. Great Britain, which governed Palestine under a League of Nations mandate, had limited Jewish immigration into the área and had rejected proposals for an independent Jewish state. The Muslim states agreed with Great Britain's position.

The Zionists wanted the land of ancient Israel to be a home for the Jewish people. Many people had been shocked at the end of World War II when they learned about the deliberate killing of 6 million European Jews in Nazi death camps. As a result, sympathy for the Jewish cause grew. In 1947 a United Nations (UN) resolution proposed that the Palestine Mandate should be divided into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews then proclaimed the State of Israel on May 14, 1948.

Its Arab neighbors saw the creation of Israel as a betrayal of the Paletinian people, a majority of whom were Muslim. Outraged, several Arab countries invaded Israel. The invasión failed, but the Arab states refused to recognize the state of Israel. As a result of these events, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled to neighboring Arab countries, where they lived in refugee camps. Other Palestinians remained as residents of Israel. Creating a Palestinian state remains an important issue in the Middle East today.

issue a vital or unsettled matter