The U.N. partition

A British soldier guards a bus station in Tel Aviv during a curfew imposed under martial law in 1947.

After World War II, as Holocaust survivors and other Jewish displaced persons arrived in the region, the British suggestion of partitioning Palestine was revived, this time in the United Nations.

In November 1947, the United Nations voted to end the British Mandate over Palestine by May 15, 1948, and to partition it into Jewish and Arab states, with Jerusalem an international city. Jews in Palestine and elsewhere readily accepted the partition.

The response by Palestine's neighbors was overwhelmingly negative. Intent on preventing any Jewish entity in the region, they rejected the plan, and in what was to be a precursor to many more wars, the armies of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq invaded the new country with the declared intent of destroying it.

Against the odds, the Israelis held their ground. By July 1949, Israel had repulsed the invasion, joined the United Nations and been recognized by more than 50 governments around the world.

In a series of armistices with Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon in 1949, Israel established borders similar to those of Palestine during the British Mandate. Jordan retained the West Bank of the Jordan River, and Jerusalem was divided under Israeli and Jordanian rule.

Subsequent wars were launched by both sides over the next 35 years. The most dramatic of all was the Six-Day War, June 5-10, 1967.

In May 1967, Egypt closed the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli shipping and began mobilizing its forces to attack, followed by Syria and Jordan. In response, Israel launched a strike. Israel won stunning victories on all fronts, taking the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria and the West Bank from Jordan (including the Old City of Jerusalem).

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