by Henry Amon

Created on: February 12, 2009

Israel is a country like no other. Israel existed for centuries and then disappeared from the map only to resurface in 1948, after A U.N. mandate gave the Jewish people a homeland once again. Up until that time the Jewish people were constantly under attack worldwide and the worst of these attacks was culminated in Germany under Hitler who literally tried to destroy the Jews as a people.

The seventeenth of May in 1948 Israel was proclaimed as a nation, and less than one full day later she was under attack by Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. It took fifteen months, but the Israelis were resilient and won their war of independence.

The U.N. had negotiated a truce but it was consistently broken and again in 1956 Israel was forced to defend itself from destruction. Egypt, Jordan and Syria signed a military alliance and after continually attacking Israel and turning the Sinai peninsula into one huge military base Israel was threatened again. Israel responded with an eight-day campaign that captured the Gaza strip and the Sinai peninsula. After another negotiated peace that didn't last, Israel was once more forced to defend itself from its neighbors when Egypt threw out the peacekeeping force that was in place, entered into a military alliance with Jordan and started amassing troops along Israel's border. With the threat of being eliminated again, Israel preemptively attacked Egypt and Jordan and pushed Syrian forces back, to save their country and their citizens from being eliminated, in what would later be referred to as the Six-day War. Israel had hoped for peace after this, based on U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which called for "acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every state in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." But the Arab position, as formulated at the Khartoum Summit Conference called for "no peace with Israel, no negotiations with Israel and no recognition of Israel." The next several years were mixed with attacks and periods of calm. But in 1973 on Yom Kippur, Israel's holiest day of the year, Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack against Israel.

While there was no all out major wars after 1973 Israel has been constantly and consistently terrorized. The Palestinian Liberation Organization redeployed itself into Southern Lebanon and constantly attacked Northern Israel. So in 1982 Israel entered Lebanon

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