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In 1957 Yasser Arafat, among others, founds the Palestine
Liberation Movement, whose name becomes Fateh, which means
opening. In 1964 this becomes the PLO. Egypt and other Arab
states
threatened Israel and an oil boycott and Israel launches a
preemptiveattack in June 1967 -- the Six Day War -- and captures
East Jerusalem
and the West Bank from Jordan and the Gaza Strip from Egypt.
Israel
annexes East Jerusalem and begins construction of Jewish
settlements in
East Jerusalem and the West Bank. In November the United
Nations
Security Council adopts Resolution 242, which states that Israel
must
withdraw from the territories occupied during the Six Day War of
1967 in
return for peace and secure borders.
Conflict continues throughout the region, drawing in different
factions
of Arabs and the Lebanon and Syria. Israel wins another war in
1973 (Yom
Kippur). A UN ceasefire is agreed in 1974. The US broker a
peace
agreement between Egypt and Israel in 1978, but other Arab
states do not
accept it. The PLO accepts the idea of limited territory for its
new goal as
early as 1974 and makes explicit its acceptance of the Israeli
state in 1988.
Throughout this period Israel ignores UN resolutions. The US
begins its
attempt at a negotiated settlement from 1988 to 2000 other
countries are
also involved in peace negotiations and the most promising was
the Oslo
Accord of 1993. More recently the Camp David 2000 protocol looks
to be
succeeding but a new President in the White House (Bush)
encourages
Israeli militarists such as Sharon to walk away from a deal.
Sharon is
elected leader of Israel in 2001.
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Throughout this whole period the US came to side more and
more
with Israel, providing them arms and economic aid but at the
same time
the US wants good relations with Arab states because of US
dependency
on oil. Some US commentators (such as Noam Chomsky,
GuardianWeekly May 16-22 p.13) now believe that US involvement is
part of the
problem not the solution.
