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Israel

Country in Southwest Asia, bounded north by Lebanon, east by Syria and Jordan, south by the Gulf of Aqaba, and west by Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea.

Government

Israel has no written constitution. In 1950 the single-chamber legislature, the Knesset, voted to adopt a state constitution by evolution over an unspecified period of time. As in the UK, certain laws are considered to have particular constitutional significance and could, at some time, be codified into a single written document.

Supreme authority rests with the Knesset, whose 120 members are elected by universal suffrage, through a system of proportional representation, for a four-year term. It is subject to dissolution within that period. The president is constitutional head of state and is elected by the Knesset for a five-year term, renewable only once. The prime minister and cabinet are mostly drawn from, and collectively responsible to, the Knesset, but occasionally a cabinet member may be chosen from outside. Since 1996 the prime minister has been popularly elected for a four-year term.

History

For the history of ancient Israel see Israel (ancient kingdom).

Following the Jewish revolts against the Roman occupation of 66-73 and 135, many of the Jewish population of Palestine (broadly the area now covered by Israel, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank) were either killed or dispersed to other parts of the Mediterranean world (the diaspora). Palestine was further Hellenized, and when Christianity was adopted as the official religion of the Roman Empire in the 4th century, many churches were built around the sites holy to Christians, which became centres of pilgrimage.

Palestine under Muslim rule

With the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, Palestine remained under the rule of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, until Jerusalem was captured by the Persians in 614. This was followed in 637 by the conquest of the whole area by the Muslim Arabs. From the 11th to the 13th centuries, a number of European Crusades attempted to recover what Christians regarded as the Holy Land from the Muslims. The First Crusade was perhaps the most successful, capturing Jerusalem in 1099 and establishing a Christian kingdom that lasted a century before falling to the sultans of Egypt.

In 1517, Palestine was conquered by the Ottoman Turks, and became part of the Ottoman Empire for four centuries. At the end of the 19th century, the Zionist movement emerged, advocating the re-establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine as a refuge for the persecuted Jews of eastern Europe. In 1897, Theodor Herzl organized the First Zionist Congress in Basel to publicize Jewish claims to Palestine, where numbers of Jews began to settle.

The British mandate

In World War I, Britain and France were at war with Turkey, and made plans regarding the post-war division of the Ottoman Empire, by which Syria would be occupied by the French, while Palestine would fall to the British. In 1917, in order to encourage Jewish support for the war effort, the British foreign secretary A J Balfour wrote to Lord Rothschild, a leading British Zionist, stating that the British government ‘view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people’ - the so-called Balfour Declaration. In 1918 British forces expelled the Turks from Palestine, and in 1920, under a League of Nations mandate, Palestine came under British administration.

Jewish immigration continued in the 1920s, bringing about conflict with the resident Arabs. In 1929 there was severe communal violence around Jerusalem, and in 1933 there were Jewish riots in protest at British attempts to restrict Jewish immigration. Arab discontent culminated in an uprising in 1936. In an attempt to resolve the problem, the Peel Report of 1937 recommended partition of Palestine between Jews and Arabs, but with a British region that would include Jerusalem and the shrines sacred to the three major religions. This was accepted by most Jews, but rejected by the Arabs, and fighting ensued. With war looming in Europe the British government also decided not to accept the proposals, and with the outbreak of World War II in 1939, postponed plans for independence.

The formation of Israel and the First Arab-Israeli War

In Europe, the Nazi Holocaust had killed about 6 million Jews, and hundreds of thousands tried to get to Palestine before, during, and after World War II. Jewish-Arab violence increased after the war, and Zionist guerrilla groups such as Irgun and the Stern Gang attacked British forces. Britain announced that it would surrender its mandate to the United Nations, which in 1947 voted for the partition of Palestine.

Virtual war broke out in March 1948 between the unofficial Jewish forces (Haganah and Irgun) and local Arabs, including the Jordan Arab Legion. The main fighting was for control of the road between Tel Aviv-Yafo and Jerusalem, which the Jews managed to keep open, although a group of Jewish settlements south of the city was destroyed by the Legion. The Jewish forces gained complete control in Haifa, Jaffa, Safed, and Tiberias.

On 14 May 1948, the day before the British mandate was due to end, the state of Israel was proclaimed, with David Ben-Gurion, of Mapai (the Israeli Workers' Party, forerunner of the Israeli Labour Party), as prime minister. The neighbouring Arab states (Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria) immediately sent forces to crush Israel but failed, and when a ceasefire agreement was reached in January 1949, Israel controlled more land than had been originally allocated to it (for more details of the fighting, see Egypt). Israel retained the western part of Jerusalem, Galilee, and the Negev Desert. Most of the remainder of Palestine, known as the West Bank (an area to the west of the River Jordan), was occupied by Jordan, while in the south Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip. The Arab states continued to refuse to recognize Israel, and imposed an economic boycott.

The creation of the state of Israel resulted in the displacement of much of the Arab population of the region. The war produced 700,000 Arab refugees from Israel and the war areas, many settling in refugee camps in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Jewish immigration on a large scale was encouraged, and Israel's population doubled within three years of independence. By 1962, about 2 million Jews had arrived from all over the world. In 1964, a number of Palestinian Arabs in exile founded the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), aiming to overthrow Israel.

The Suez Crisis and the Second Arab-Israeli War

The Arabs continued to regard Israel's existence as illegitimate, and raids across the border took place. From 1952, Egypt stepped up the blockade of Israeli ports and its support of Arab guerrillas based in the Gaza Strip, and in February 1955 Israel attacked the Egyptian garrison in Gaza.

The nationalization of the Suez Canal by the Egyptian leader Col Nasser, and the growing local tensions, contributed to the outbreak of the Suez Crisis and the Second Arab-Israeli War in 1956. Under a secret agreement with England and France, Israel invaded Egypt in October 1956, advancing into the Gaza Strip and Sinai with the avowed purpose of destroying Egyptian strong points and places from which cross-border raids were taking place. In November, French and British forces intervened in Egypt to reoccupy the Canal Zone. US pressure brought about an Anglo-French withdrawal in December, and Israeli forces withdrew in March 1957.

Israeli politics in the 1950s and 1960s

In its first two decades, Israel was sustained by a steady flow of funds from abroad, while the development of agriculture became a major and successful concern. Foreign relations were orientated generally towards the West, and the USA has continued to be Israel's closest ally. Relations were gradually improved with West Germany, which until 1966 paid reparations for the damage inflicted on its Jewish population during World War II. In 1960, a leading Nazi war criminal, Adolf Eichmann, was kidnapped in Argentina by Israeli agents. He was tried in Israel and executed in 1962.

Israel's system of proportional representation generally results in the formation of coalition governments, and in the early decades of Israel's existence these were all dominated by left-of-centre parties. Ben-Gurion, who was prime minister almost continuously from 1948, resigned in 1963, to be succeeded by Levi Eshkol. Eshkol's government lasted until 1967, forming a new coalition in the build-up towards a third Arab-Israeli war. The coalition included Moshe Dayan, a hero of the 1956 war, as defence minister.

The Six-Day War

Tensions between Israel and its Arab neighbours continued through the 1960s. In 1967 Egypt blockaded the Straits of Tiran (Israel's only means of access to the Red Sea), and introduced troops into Sinai. A third Arab-Israeli war broke out on three fronts, with Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, in June 1967, but within six days Israel's armed forces had defeated their Arab opponents. Israeli forces seized the Gaza Strip and Sinai from Egypt, the West Bank (including east Jerusalem, bringing all of Jerusalem under Israeli control) from Jordan, and part of the Golan Heights from Syria, and these occupied territories were placed under Israeli law.

This victory produced only a very limited degree of peace, even though the occupied territories greatly enhanced the Israelis' feelings of security. Palestinian fighters, such as the PLO, increased their activities, particularly from Jordan until King Hussein suppressed them in 1970-71.

Developments between 1968 and 1973

In 1968, three of the left-of-centre coalition parties combined to form the Israel Labour Party. The following year, Levi Eshkol died in February and was unexpectedly succeeded by Golda Meir, a former foreign minister. Her tenure of office was marked by a hardening of attitudes towards the Palestinians and the question of withdrawal from occupied territories. Public and government opinion was particularly divided on the latter subject, but as long as peace moves seemed remote and US pressure slight, Israel felt able to contain bouts of military tension and international criticism.

In the atmosphere of comparative peace, the disparities between Jews of North African and Middle Eastern origins and those of European and American origins showed themselves in social unrest. The 1967 victory attracted immigration, and an unexpected increase came after the USSR relaxed its emigration restrictions in 1971. By 1972, the 3 million Jewish immigrants had arrived.

In spite of efforts by the Israeli armed forces, Palestinian guerrillas managed to enter the country, and in one of the worst attacks at the time, 28 people were killed at Lod airport in May 1972. Such attacks became an international phenomenon, and Israeli aircraft and personnel were frequent targets; 11 Israeli athletes were killed at the Olympic Games in Munich in September 1972.

The Fourth Arab-Israeli War

However, the euphoria following the 1967 victory bred a sense of over-confidence in Israel, which led to the belief that Arab forces would not mount a major attack, having insufficient airpower. Thus Israeli forces were badly surprised by the simultaneous attacks on Yom Kippur (the Jewish Day of Atonement), 6 October 1973, by Egyptian forces across the Suez Canal and by the Syrians in the Golan Heights. Within a few days, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco announced varying degrees of military support for Egypt and Syria. There followed over two weeks of hard fighting, in which Israeli casualties were very high - about 3,000 killed or missing. The USA and USSR, who supplied Israel and its enemies respectively with military equipment, were instrumental in effecting a ceasefire through the UN, on 22 October 1973.

The effects of the war

The war had a deep effect on Israeli society. International opinion at the UN, in part under the influence of the Arab oil-producers' embargo, shifted against Israel. Internally the government was discredited, and the right-wing Likud group, formed in 1973, made electoral gains. Meir announced her resignation in April 1974, and in June was succeeded by Gen Yitzhak Rabin, heading another Labour-led coalition. Concessions imposed by the USA led to interim agreements with Egypt (involving staged Israeli withdrawals from Sinai) and Syria. In November 1973 the PLO was recognized, at the Arab Summit in Algiers, as the ‘sole representative of the Palestinian people.’ In November 1974 the UN granted the PLO observer status and recognized Palestinian rights to independence and self-determination. The PLO was promoted as a negotiating partner, something that the Israeli government found abhorrent.

In 1975, immigration fell to 20,000, the lowest figure for a decade and about equalling the number that emigrated. Inflation was high, and the Israeli pound was repeatedly devalued. Expenditure on the armed forces took about 40% of the national budget, and Israelis were one of the most highly taxed people in the world.

The Camp David Agreements

The 1977 election resulted in a first victory for the right-wing Likud, which formed a coalition government with the religious parties, with Menachem Begin as prime minister. Although Likud claimed indivisible sovereignty over the whole of the biblical Land of Israel (including Gaza and the West Bank), within five months relations between Egypt and Israel changed dramatically, mainly owing to peace initiatives by President Sadat of Egypt, encouraged by US president Jimmy Carter. Setting a historical precedent for an Arab leader, Sadat visited Israel to address the Knesset in November 1977, and the following year the Egyptian and Israeli leaders met at Camp David, Maryland, to sign agreements for peace in the Middle East. A treaty was signed in 1979, and in 1980 Egypt and Israel exchanged ambassadors, to the dismay of most of the Arab world. Israel had totally withdrawn from Sinai by 1982, but continued to occupy the Golan Heights.

The Fifth Arab-Israeli War

In March 1978, in reprisal for a PLO raid, Israeli troops entered Lebanon, destroying Palestinian guerrilla bases, and engaging with Syrian forces stationed in Lebanon. UN troops were then sent to police the area as Israeli soldiers withdrew. In June 1982, Israeli forces launched a full-scale invasion of Lebanon and surrounded West Beirut, in pursuit of 6,000 PLO fighters who were trapped there. A split between Egypt and Israel was avoided by the efforts of the US special negotiator Philip Habib, who secured the evacuation from Beirut to other Arab countries of about 15,000 PLO and Syrian fighters in August. However, massacres in two Palestinian refugee camps at Sabra-Shatila by Lebanese Christian militias with Israel's alleged complicity increased Arab hostility.

Talks between Israel and Lebanon, between December 1982 and May 1983, resulted in an agreement, drawn up by US Secretary of State George Shultz, calling for the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Lebanon within three months. Syria refused to acknowledge the agreement, and left some 30,000 troops, with about 7,000 PLO members, in the northeast; Israel retaliated by refusing to withdraw its forces from the south, but did make a phased withdrawal from elsewhere in the country.

Shamir and Peres share power

During this time, Begin faced growing domestic problems, including rapidly rising inflation and opposition to his foreign policies. In 1983 he resigned, and Likud's Yitzhak Shamir formed a shaky coalition. Elections in July 1984 proved inconclusive, with the Labour Alignment, led by Shimon Peres, winning 44 seats in the Knesset, and Likud, led by Shamir, 41. Neither leader was able to form a viable coalition, and it was eventually agreed that a ‘government of national unity’ would be formed, with Peres as prime minister and Shamir as his deputy for the first 25 months, then a reversal of the positions in October 1986. By this time, the government had successfully brought inflation to within manageable levels.

Israeli forces withdraw from Lebanon

Meanwhile, the problems in Lebanon continued. In 1984, under pressure from Syria, President Gemayel of Lebanon declared the 1983 treaty with Israel to be void. In February 1985, Israel stepped up its withdrawal of troops in Lebanon, despite the possibility of this leading to civil war in southern Lebanon. The Shiite guerrilla group Hezbollah took advantage of the situation by attacking the departing Israeli troops. Israel retaliated by attacking Shiite villages. The withdrawal was virtually complete by June 1985, though Israel maintained a ‘security zone’ in southern Lebanon, supporting the South Lebanese Army militia as a buffer against PLO and Hezbollah guerrilla incursions into Israel.

The Palestinian question and the Intifada

By 1984, the Arab world was split into two camps, with the moderates represented by Egypt, Jordan, and Yassir Arafat's PLO, with whom King Hussein of Jordan had established a relationship. The more militant radicals included Syria, Libya, and the rebel wing of the PLO. In 1985, Hussein and Arafat put together a framework for a Middle East peace settlement, to involve bringing together all interested parties. Israel objected to the involvement of the PLO, though Peres met Hussein secretly in the south of France, and later, in a speech to the UN, said he would not rule out the possibility of an international conference on the Middle East. Shamir, however, was not as welcoming towards the idea. Arafat also had talks with Hussein and later, in Cairo, Egypt, renounced PLO guerrilla activity outside Israeli-occupied territory.

In December 1987, an organized Palestinian uprising in the occupied territories, the Intifada, began. It continued sporadically until September 1993, with Palestinians demanding self-government and the establishment of a state of Palestine. In April 1988, the military commander of the PLO, Abu Jihad, was assassinated in Tunis, allegedly by the Israeli secret service. This triggered further violence in the occupied territories. In July, Hussein transferred responsibility for the West Bank to the PLO. Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak proposed a ten-point programme for elections in the occupied territories leading towards an unspecified form of autonomous self-rule. Labour, but not Likud, quickly agreed to the provisions, and the USA approved the plan.

The November 1988 general election resulted in a hung parliament, and Shamir formed another coalition with Peres and the Labour Party after lengthy negotiations. In December, Arafat repudiated terrorism and recognized Israel's right to exist. In 1989, Likud accepted some of the provisions of Mubarak's ten-point plan, but Shamir continued to take a hard line with both the Palestinian protests and the PLO, while Peres was more conciliatory. These differences broke the coalition partnership in March 1990. After a three-month political crisis, Shamir succeeded in forming a new coalition government, including members of Likud and far-right nationalist and religious parties. Israel's crackdown on Palestinians in the occupied territories drew widespread international condemnation.

In search of peace

In January 1991, the Gulf War erupted with UN-coalition air raids against Iraq. In retaliation, Scud missiles were launched against Israel and Israel's nonretaliation was widely praised. Shamir agreed to an amended Middle East peace plan in August 1991, and in September released a number of Palestinian prisoners as part of a hostage exchange. Negotiations with Jordan and Syria began in October in Madrid, Spain. However, progress was slow due to Shamir's intransigence and the continuing policy of establishing Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories. But Israel's participation in the peace process was too much for fundamentalists in Shamir's coalition, who withdrew their support in January 1992. Shamir had to call a general election to try to restore his majority in the Knesset.

In June 1992, the Labour Party, now led by former premier Yitzhak Rabin, defeated Likud in the general election, and a month later Rabin was confirmed as prime minister, heading the first Labour-dominated government since 1977. In August 1992, US-Israeli relations improved when US president George Bush and Rabin agreed a loan pact to aid Israel's absorption of several hundreds of thousands of Jewish émigrés from the former USSR. The move solved an issue considered to be a major obstacle in the Middle East peace talks.

Events of 1993 and the Israeli-PLO peace accord

In December 1992, 415 Palestinians, alleged to be members of the outlawed Hamas Islamic Resistance Movement, were expelled from Israel and the occupied territories. They were refused asylum in Lebanon and so forced to set up camp in ‘no man's land’ on the Lebanese border. Despite UN condemnation of the expulsion, the Israeli government initially refused to reconsider its decision. Although 100 of the deportees were allowed to return in February 1993, the vast majority remained in exile until December.

The Israel-Palestine peace process, discussions regarding the status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip that continued throughout the 1990s and into the new millennium, began in earnest in January 1993, when the ban on contacts with the PLO was formally lifted. In March 1993, Binyamin Netanyahu succeeded Yitzhak Shamir as leader of Likud. Face-to-face talks between Palestinians and Israelis began in Washington in April.

Israel renewed attacks against southern Lebanon in July in an attempt to force the Lebanese government to take action against Hezbollah units based there, which had been attacking Israeli targets, and had killed seven Israeli soldiers. The scale and ferocity of the Israeli action brought widespread international criticism. A peace deal, brokered by the USA and Syria, stipulated that neither side would attack unless the other did so first, and both sides also pledged to avoid hitting civilian targets.

In September 1993, Israel officially recognized the right of the PLO to participate in the peace process, and Rabin and Arafat reached a preliminary peace agreement in Washington, providing for limited autonomy in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho, and a phased withdrawal of Israeli troops from the occupied territories.

Advancements in peace

In July 1994, the 46-year-old ‘state of war’ with Jordan was formally ended and a future peace with Syria seemed credible. In October 1994, Rabin, Arafat, and foreign minister Shimon Peres were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In September 1995, agreement was finally reached on the second phase of the 1993 peace agreement - the transfer of control of Palestinian areas in the West Bank to the PLO and the holding of elections to a Palestinian council. Six weeks later, in November, Rabin was assassinated by a young Jewish extremist on leaving a peace rally. Peres took over as prime minister, and launched into negotiations with Syria. Progress was made, but the talks suspended after Hamas bombings in February and March 1996.

The first free elections to an 88-member Palestine National Council (PNC), held in January 1996, were won by the PLO. Concurrently, Yassir Arafat was elected PNC president.

Further unrest in Lebanon

By mid-April 1996, the number of Hezbollah attacks on Israel had risen to more than a hundred since the beginning of the year, and Israel began a 17-day campaign in southern Lebanon in which Israeli helicopter gunships rocketed Beirut for the first time since 1982. In less than a week, 26 deaths were recorded in Israel's attacks, 23 of which were civilians. The raid came a day after Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel (injuring 36 people), and in the wake of an escalating cycle of violence that had gripped Lebanon in preceding weeks. The Israeli campaign was linked to the Israeli election scheduled for May; by launching the air attack on Beirut, Peres hoped to convince the Israeli electorate that Hezbollah was being punished. A ceasefire was negotiated by the USA, Syria, Israel, and Lebanon.

Netanyahu becomes premier

In May 1996, Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu became the first directly elected prime minister. In the concurrent Knesset elections, Labour won 34 of the 120 seats, and Likud 32, forcing Netanyahu to rely on support from other, mainly religious, parties. The more conservative government stalled on peace negotiations and continued to establish new Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.

Israeli police began inquiries into allegations of corruption in Netanyahu's government that were completed in April 1997. The police later announced that they had insufficient evidence to indict Netanyahu on corruption charges, but doubts about his probity remained and opposition politicians demanded his resignation.

In September 1997, Israeli agents attempted, but failed, to assassinate Hamas leader Khalid Mashaal, living in Jordan, leading to a crisis in relations between Israel and Jordan. Criticism of Netanyahu's government inside and outside the country grew, and in January 1998 he survived a no-confidence vote in the Knesset. In April 1998, Israel celebrated its 50th anniversary.

A new Middle East peace deal was produced after US-brokered talks at Wye Plantation, Maryland, in September 1998. However, Netanyahu failed to win the support of the Knesset, forcing him to call an early 1999 election, scheduled for May. In January 1999, he suspended the Wye accord timetable.

Barak comes to power

In the most divisive election campaign in the country's history, Ehud Barak, leader of the Labour Party from June 1997, defeated Netanyahu in May 1999 to become Israel's prime minister. Since Barak's Labour Party did less well, he was forced to put together a coalition government including all three ultra-Orthodox parties, but excluding Likud. As he was sworn in, he pledged to achieve peace with Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestinians.

In early June, the Israeli-supported South Lebanon Army withdrew from the Jezzine area of southern Lebanon, badly harassed by Hezbollah guerrillas. The Lebanese government declined to send its army to control the area, despite its assurance under the Wye agreement to afford Israel protection from Hezbollah guerrillas. To Barak's anger, before leaving office, Netanyahu ordered Israeli warplanes to make raids on various targets in Lebanon in retaliation to Hezbollah guerrilla rocket-attacks on Israel.

Golan Heights discussions

Talks between Syria and Israel resumed in the USA in December 1999 after a four-year break. The main issue for discussion was Israel's withdrawal from the Golan Heights, but Barak wished to negotiate concurrently over Syria's relationship with Lebanon, the disarmament of Hezbollah, and an end to Israel's occupation of the Golan Heights. Syria accused Israel of a lack of good faith. In January 2000, the talks were postponed indefinitely by Israel. No reason was given, although Israel rejected Syria's demand to commit to a full Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, and said that negotiations would not be resumed until Syria was seen to control the Hezbollah.

Political corruption allegations in 2000

President Weizman, who had been elected in 1993 and again in 1998, became the first head of state in the nation's history to become the subject of a criminal inquiry when, in January 2000, he admitted that he had accepted large sums of money from a French millionaire while serving in parliament and as a minister. Despite calls for his resignation, he made it clear that he would not be giving up his office, protesting that he had done nothing illegal. Investigations had also begun on Binyamin Netanyahu in September 1999, who was accused of misusing public funds when in office. Charges were dropped in September 2000 for lack of evidence. Other investigations condemned Barak's election team for grave financial irregularities in the campaign of 1999.

Renewed fighting in Lebanon

In February 2000, six Israeli soldiers in Lebanon were killed after the breakdown of talks with Syria. In response, Israel withdrew from the 1996 ceasefire agreement, and began a bombing campaign, first targeting three power transformers providing power to Lebanese cities. Syria refused to negotiate until Israel committed to withdrawing from the Golan Heights, while the Israeli government voted for tougher rules in any deal with Syria.

Barak defeated a motion of no confidence and insisted that, before Israel pulled out from Lebanon, he would exhaust all chances of a deal with Syria and Lebanon. Meanwhile, the UN threatened to withdraw some of its frontline outposts in southern Lebanon if the battles between Israeli occupying troops and Hezbollah guerrillas continued. At a meeting of the 22-nation Arab League, there was universal condemnation of Israel's actions. In March, the bombing campaign intensified, but Arab-Israeli peace talks reopened, and Israel's cabinet confirmed Barak's commitment to withdraw Israeli troops from southern Lebanon by July.

Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon

Ordered by the Supreme Court, Israel released 13 Lebanese detainees in April 2000, who had been held without trial for more than ten years. While this was a conciliatory move, the following month Israel bombed two more Lebanese power stations after Lebanese rockets were shot into northern Israel. Israel's bombing had cost Lebanon dearly in terms of power and finance, and appeared to push a peaceful withdrawal further away. But popular Israeli demands for a withdrawal grew, and morale in the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army was diminishing. Fears grew that if Israel withdrew from Lebanon without reaching an agreement with Syria, the Middle East would become a war zone. However, the UN Middle East representative confirmed that peacekeepers would be deployed on the border between Lebanon and Israel after Israel's withdrawal.

In late May, the Israeli army staged a hasty withdrawal from the region. It was a risky step towards peace for Barak, as the Hezbollah and Israelis were left without a buffer zone on the border, and the retreat seemed to represent an embarrassment to Israel as a military superpower. However, within two months, Hezbollah forces in the frontier area were replaced with Lebanese government troops, joining almost 400 UN soldiers on the border.

Problems with the coalition

Barak's coalition government was unsettled in June 2000 when the ultra-Orthodox Shah party said it would pull out of the coalition over a disagreement regarding funding for its religious schools. The left-wing secular Meretz party then resigned from the coalition in a move designed to palliate the Shah party. The row was just one in a series of setbacks that Barak had suffered as a result of the uneasy alliance formed by having several parties represented in his government. In July, the Knesset elected Moshe Katsav, a right-wing Iranian-born member of the Likud party who opposed Barak's peace initiative, to replace Ezer Weizman as president. On the eve of Barak's departure for the Camp David talks in July 2000, the prime minister narrowly survived a no-confidence vote in parliament, and entered the summit with only a minority of supporters in government. There were further no-confidence votes following Barak's return from Camp David, which he again survived, but his foreign minister, David Levy, resigned in protest at the concessions that Barak had made during the talks. Under severe political pressure, Barak's cabinet voted in September to abolish the Religious Affairs Ministry, representing a first step towards Barak's promised secularization. Barak also planned to give Israel a written constitution that would loosen the grip of the Orthodox establishment on citizens, proposing to introduce civil marriage and to consolidate women's rights.

Renewed violence

In September 2000, following a controversial visit by the Likud leader, Ariel Sharon, to the holy site of Haram al-Sharif (Temple Mount), clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces spread to other disputed areas including the West Bank and Gaza, leading to over 300 deaths by December. An Arab summit in October, the first for four years, condemned Israel's part in the violence, but did not lead to a break in diplomatic relations with Israel. The conflict intensified in late November.

Barak resigns

On 9 December, Barak suddenly announced his immediate resignation, calling a special election for prime minister, in which he would stand, for February 2001. Both former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon announced their intention to stand. However, Netanyahu linked his candidacy to a call for fresh general elections, and had to withdraw from the race in January 2001 when Shas, the Knesset's third-biggest party, decided to oppose this call.

A US-led commission of inquiry into the violence, headed by former US senator George Mitchell, agreed at a summit held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on 17 October, made its first visit to the region on 11 December.

Sharon becomes premier

In February 2001, Sharon won the special elections called by Barak, a result that many felt would damage the peace process. Turnout was at a record low (62%), especially among Arab Israelis (18%). Sharon formed a broad-based coalition government that included the Labour party, with Shimon Peres as foreign secretary. Labour had previously voted to join the government, after Ehud Barak resigned as leader. Violence in the Palestinian territories escalated in the following months. In April 2001, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader of Israel's influential Shas party, preached a sermon calling for God's annihilation of Arabs. He was heavily criticized by many Israeli politicians. Days later, Sharon repudiated every concession considered by Barak, and the Israeli army launched an attack on Syrian radar targets in eastern Lebanon, killing at least three soldiers, in retaliation for the killing of an Israeli soldier by Hezbollah guerrillas.

In May 2001 the Mitchell commission called for an end to Palestinian terrorism, a freeze on Israeli settlement building, a lifting of the Israeli blockade of Palestinian self-rule territories, and a ceasefire. In June 2001 the Israelis showed restraint after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 20 young Israelis at a Tel Aviv-Yafo beach-front discotheque. In response Arafat committed his forces to an unconditional ceasefire, and on 13 June Israel joined in accepting a ceasefire brokered by US Central Intelligence Agency director George Tenet. The Palestinian ceasefire largely held in areas controlled by the Palestine National Authority, but not in occupied parts of the West Bank or Gaza. There were demonstrations against the ceasefire in Gaza city and Ramallah by Palestinians who had been radicalized by the conflict, and Arafat was unable to control Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists.

In August 2001, following further suicide bombing attacks on Israelis, Sharon ordered the closure of the Palestinians' political headquarters in Orient House, Jerusalem. He backed efforts by foreign minister Shimon Peres to hold ceasefire talks with Arafat, but the ceasefire was effectively over, with violence mounting again. Israel launched an assassination policy of ‘targeted killings’ in an effort to combat the threat of suicide bombers and to stop attacks on soldiers and settlers in Palestinian areas. Several prominent Palestinian political and military leaders were eliminated, but at the cost of further retaliation by suicide bombers. By August 2001 the death toll since the Intifada had begun in September 2000 had reached more than 500 Palestinians and 150 Israelis.

New prime minister

In January 2006, Sharon suffered a stroke, and his deputy Ehud Olmert stood in as prime minister. His position was confirmed in elections of March 2006.

Balfour Declaration

Holy Land

Israel-Palestine peace process

Judaism

Yom Kippur War