Israel's Foreign Policy

HOODSTAR Original

John and Daniel

History

• 1948 the nation of Israel was born. The State of Israel (Hebrew: Medinat Yisrael) was established in 1948 after thousands of years of Jewish dispersal. The Zionist enterprise, with its goal of creating a Jewish national home in Eretz Yisrael, was set in motion by Theodor Herzl in 1897, at the First Zionist Congress in Basle, Switzerland.

FTA

• Free Trade Agreement signed by the US and Israel in 1985

• The FTA also includes a Declaration on Trade

United States, Egypt and Israel to Launch Historic Trade Partnership USTR Zoellick to

Participate in Signing in Cairo • United States Trade Representative Robert B.

Zoellick will travel to Cairo, Egypt, on December 13-14, 2004, to participate in the signing of an historic trade partnership involving Egypt, Israel, and the United States. The agreement, to be signed by Egyptian Minister of Foreign Trade and Industry Rachid Mohamed Rachid and Israeli Vice Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, will create Qualified Industrial Zones (QIZs) in Egypt, allowing for duty-free export to the U.S. of certain Egyptian goods that contain Israeli inputs.

Nuclear Power

• Israel is widely believed to possess a substantial arsenal of nuclear weapons, and maintains intercontinental-range ballistic missiles to deliver them. Officially Israel neither confirms nor denies possessing nuclear weapons. The U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment has recorded Israel as a country generally reported as having undeclared chemical warfare capabilities, and an offensive biological warfare program.

Supportersof AIPAC

• President George W. Bush, addressing AIPAC members in Washington on May 18, 2004, stated: "AIPAC is doing important work.... In Washington and beyond, AIPAC is calling attention to the great security challenges of our time. You're educating Congress and the American people on the growing dangers of proliferation. You've spoken out on the threat posed by Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons. You've always understood and warned against the evil ambition of terrorism and their networks. In a dangerous new century, your work is more vital than ever.... These ties have made us natural allies, and these ties will never be broken.

Camp David Accords

• Signed by Egyptian President Anwar Al Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin on September 17, 1978

• The Accords led directly to the 1979 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty.

Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty

• The main features of the treaty were the mutual recognition of each country by the other, the cessation of the state of war that had existed since the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and the withdrawal by Israel of its armed forces and civilians from the Sinai Peninsula which Israel had captured during the 1967 Six-Day War. The agreement also provided for the free passage of Israeli ships through the Suez Canal and recognition of the Strait of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba as international waterways.

What were the 1978 Camp David peace accords?

• Egypt maintained a state of war with Israel since Israel's founding in 1948, a strategy that did not bring any benefit to Egypt. In the course of the Six-Day War of 1967 Israel occupied Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. After losing badly to Israel again in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Egypt finally saw that they could not eliminate Israel through outright war. Egypt's President Anwar Sadat turned to diplomacy, unlike other Arab states that continued their state of war with Israel.

• The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is a controversial[1][2][3] American advocacy group that lobbies the United States Congress and White House in favor of maintaining a close U.S.-Israel relationship. Describing itself as "America's Pro-Israel Lobby," it is a not-for-profit, mass-membership organization including Democrats, Republicans, and independents. AIPAC is funded through contributions from its members.

AIPAIC Details

• AIPAC was formed during the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration, and since then has helped secure American aid and support to Israel. In 1997, Fortune magazine asked Congressmen to rank the "25 most powerful" lobbying organizations in DC. In 2005, the National Journal did the same. Both times, AIPAC came in 2nd - ahead of, for instance, the AFL-CIO and the National Rifle Association (NRA), but behind the AARP[4]. In 2001, it came in 4th on the Fortune

U.S. President Bill Clinton looks on as Yitzhak Rabin (left) shakes hands with Yasir 'Arafat after signing the Israel-PLO

accords in September 1993.

I didn’t do it.

Israeli War of Independence

• (1948-1949)--Upon independence, Israel was invaded by the armies of six Arab nations: Egypt, Syria, Transjordan (later Jordan), Lebanon, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. In addition, local Arab Palestinian forces also fought the Jewish Israelis.

Middle Eastern Wars• Israeli War of Independence (1948-1949)

• Suez War (1956)-Also involved Britain and France.

• Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (1964-Present)

• Six-Day War (1967)

• Yom Kippur [or Ramadan] War (1973)

• Israeli Invasion of Lebanon (1982-1984)-Also involved Syria and the PLO.

• Israeli-Lebanese Border War (1984-2000)-Also involved Syria , the PLO and Lebanese militia's such as Hezbollah.

• The First Intifada (Dec. 1987-1993)-An uprising by the Palestinians in the territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 War. This conflict concluded with the Oslo Accords, which set up a timetable for Palestinian nationhood and called for the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, with PLO Chairman Yassir Arafat as President.

• The Gulf War (1990-1991)-Iraq attacked Israel with Scud Missiles.

• The Second Intifada (Sept. 2000-Present)-An urban guerrilla/terrorist conflict between the Palestinians and Israel. Marked by suicide bombings, recurring Israeli invasions of Palestinian cities and Palestinian guerrilla attacks on Isreaeli settlements and military targets.

• Israel-Lebanon/Hezbollah War (2006)

• Hamas-Fatah Palestinian Civil War (2006-2007)--Fighting between the two main political factions in the Palestinian lands of Gaza and the West Bank.

• North Lebanon Conflict (2007)--Fighting between the Lebanese government and a Jihadist Palestinian militia calling itself Fatah al-Islam.

•