Chronology: Key Events in Crisis in the Middle East 1948–2003

November 1917 The Balfour Declaration (1).

1945 End of the Second World War.

May 1948 The outbreak of the first Arab–Israeli war and the start of the Palestinian refugee issue.

1954 Gamal Abdel Nasser becomes president of Egypt.

October 1954 Suez Crisis (2).

1964 Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) is founded.

June 1967 Six Day War.

1968 Fatah is formed, led by Yasser Arafat.

1970 President Nasser dies and is replaced by Anwar Sadat.

October 1973 Yom Kippur War (3).

November 1977 President Sadat makes historic visit to Jerusalem.

1979 Treaty of Washington is signed: Revolution occurs in Iran and Ayatollah Khomeini returns from exile (4).

September 1980 Start of the Iran-Iraq War.

October 1981 President Sadat is assassinated by Islamic militants.

June 1982 Israel invades Lebanon.

January 1985 Israel withdraws some troops from Lebanon.

April 1986 US air strike on Libyan capital of Tripoli (5).

August 1988 Ceasefire between Iran and Iraq.

1990 Saddam Hussein orders Iraqi troops to invade Kuwait.

1991 Iraqi occupation is ended by coalition led by the USA.

September 1993 Israel and PLO sign the Oslo accords (6).

1995 Palestinian self-rule is established.

March 1996 Palestinian Islamists launch suicide bombings against Israel.

2000 Camp David accords are announced (7).

September 2001 Al-Qaeda (8) launches attacks on New York and Washington.

March 2003 Coalition led by USA launches war against Iraq.

(1) The declaration was a written statement issued on 2 November 1917 by the British foreign secretary A.J. Balfour which said that Britain agreed to ‘the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object’ as long as the rights of non-Jewish people in the area were upheld.

(2) A conflict between President Nasser’s Egypt and an Anglo–French alliance over the nationalisation of the Suez Canal by Nasser in July 1956.

(3) Yom Kippur is the Jewish period of religious observance and fasting. On 6 October 1973, as Israelis were celebrating Yom Kippur, Egyptian forces moved 15 miles (24 km) inside Israeli territory and Syrian troops went into the Golan Heights. This led to Israeli retaliation and a mini-war that lasted until a ceasefire was agreed to on 24 October.

(4) Khomeini had been a staunch critic of the Shah and had been imprisoned and then forced into exile. He wandered from Turkey to Iraq, on to Paris and France before being ‘recalled’ as a result of the peaceful ‘revolution’ of 1979.

(5) The US air strike was retaliation for the bombing of a West Berlin nightclub that US servicemen frequented. US  intelligence services suspected that the Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi was involved.

(6) Under this agreement the Palestinians recognised Israel’s right to exist and Israel recognised the PLO as the only true representatives of the Palestinian people. Also, the Palestinians claimed they would not revert to terrorism again to achieve their aims.

(7) Camp David, a retreat of the US president situated in Maryland, had long been the ‘neutral’ location for Middle East peace talks to take place. On this occasion the talks broke down over the ownership of holy places (the ‘bones in the throat dispute’).

(8) Al-Qaeda (‘the base’) is an extremist Islamic terrorist group, led by Osama Bin Laden who claimed responsibility for the attacks on the USA on 11 September 2001.