Paletinian Hisotry: A Chronology
The promise given by the British prime minister Lord Arthur Balfour to the Zionist movement on November 2, 1917 to establish a Jewish national homeland in Palestine is considered the first formal step towards the Nakba (the catastrophe) which befell the Palestinians on May 15, 1948.
This step was preceded by intensive activity by the Zionist movement, beginning in the 19th century, and reaching its peak with the first Zionist convention convened in Basel, Switzerland. There it was decided to establish some of the first Zionist institutions which later offered to buy Palestine which was then under the Othmanic empire from the Othmanic Sultan in 1902.
At the time Balfour promised a Jewish homeland, there was not one British soldier in Palestine. The Palestinians constituted nine-tenths of the population who, it was assumed, would be transferred to the British mandate according to the Sykes-Picot agreements signed between France and Britain in 1916.
Following are the main events throughout almost a century of Palestinian history:
December 29, 1917: During WWII, the commander of the British forces, General Allenby, entered Jerusalem and then occupied all of Palestine, which was then placed under the British mandate, after the San Remo conference of April 25, 1920 approved the mandate charter and granted Britain the authority to impose its guardianship over Palestine and prepare it for independence and self-determination.
March, 1921: First confrontation between Palestinians and Jewish settlers over the Petah Tikva settlement. Thousands of Palestinians assembled in order to regain their lands which had been stolen from. British forces confronted them, the result being 60 dead and many more injured.
1922-1927: Influx of Jewish immigrants into Palestine. This was met with strong protest from the Arabs.
August 23, 1929: After the arrival of a large crowd of Jews for prayer at al-Buraq wall in al-Aqsa mosque, called the Wailing Wall by the Jews, and their provocation of Palestinians, the Buraq clashes took place, which then spread to a large number of Palestinian cities.
February 20, 1935: The killing of Sheikh Izzedin al-Qassam in a battle with the British army in the fields of Yabad after his decision to go out into the mountains and begin an armed revolution against the British mandate and the Zionist gangs. Al-Qassam, a Syrian Azhari sheikh had worked since his arrival in Palestine in the 1920's to establish a revolutionary organization to expel the English. It was the first movement of its kind in Palestine.
May 14, 1948: David Ben Gurion declares the establishment of the state of Israel eight hours before the end of the British mandate at zero hours on May 15, 1948. Palestinians consider this day al-Nakba and the first Arab-Israeli war broke out immediately after.
January 13, 1949: The end of the first Arab-Israeli war and the destruction of more than 400 Palestinian villages on land on which the state of Israel was established, and the displacement of more than 800,000 Palestinians to the West Bank, Gaza Strip and the Arab countries.
April, 1951: Jordan declared the annexation of the West Bank including East Jerusalem, and the Arab League places the Gaza Strip in the custody of Egypt.
May 28, 1964: After the Arab League approved, during its first summit (January 1964) in Cairo, establishment of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the Palestine National Council convenes in East Jerusalem with the participation of 350 Palestinian representatives from Jordan, Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, Algeria and Bahrain. At this session, they ratified Palestine National Charter.
January 1, 1965: The Fateh movement, established at the end of the 1950s, executed one of its first military operations against Israel. This day went down in history as the day in which Palestinians celebrate the beginning of the Palestinian revolution.
June 6, 1967: The Six-Day War. In a fleeting war, Israel occupies East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Syrian Golan Heights.
March 21, 1968: The Israeli army experiences its first defeat in the battle of al-Karameh in the Jordan Valley where they attacked a Palestinian base whose fighters then retaliated with the support of the Jordanian army. According to Palestinian sources, the losses totaled 70 Israelis dead and 100 injured whereas the losses among Palestinian fighters and Jordanian soldiers was 38 dead and approximately 100 injured.
September 16-22,1970: Bloody confrontations between Palestinian fighters and the Jordanian army in Jordan, which led to thousands of casualties and the transfer of the armed Palestinian resistance organizations from Jordan to Lebanon.
June 12, 1974: The Palestine National Council ratified the phased plan for the Palestinian struggle which includes the establishment of a Palestinian authority on any land of Palestine which is liberated from the Israeli enemy.
October 26, 1974: The Arab summit convened in Rabat, Morocco, and recognizes the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. This recognition is followed by similar recognition from more than 100 countries.
November 22, 1974: PLO chairman Yasser Arafat gives a speech before the United Nations, which granted the PLO observer status as the representative of the Palestinian people.
June 6, 1982: Israeli forces invaded Lebanon and reached the outskirts of Beirut where they beseiged the Palestinian and Lebanese forces defending the capital for approximately 80 days. The invasion resulted in the exit of the PLO and its forces from Lebanon and their transfer to Tunisia.
December 9, 1987: The outbreak of the Palestinian Intifada (uprising) after an incident in which Palestinian workers in Gaza were hit and killed by an Israeli truck. The Intifada spread to include all the Palestinian areas and lasted until the signing of the Oslo Accords.
November 15, 1988: The PNC in a session convened in Algeria, almost a year after the start of the intifada, the establishment of the Palestinian state with Jerusalem it capital, on the basis of the UN partition resolution 181 and the Palestinian acceptance of UN resolutions 242 and 338.
September 13, 1993: Israel and the PLO sign the Declaration of Principles in the White House, an agreement reached through secret negotiations in Oslo which lasted for several months.
June 1, 1993: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat returned to Gaza and formed the first Palestinian Authority for the Palestinian people on its land.
January 20, 1997: Elections were held to choose the president of the Palestinian Authority and the members of the Palestinian Legislative Council; Arafat won the presidency and 88 members of the council were elected.
This piece first appeared in al-Quds on May 12, 1998. Trans. by J. Baker