The decades-old conflict between Israel and Palestinian Arabs has deteriorated in recent years into a seemingly endless cycle of violence. Radical Palestinian groups such as Hamas and the Islamic Jihad have stepped up suicide bombing campaigns against Israelis, while the Israeli government has periodically raided Palestinian-controlled land.

With each attack, reprisal, and counter-reprisal, the deadly cycle continues. This special topic guide offers background information on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict--its history (below), geography, and the main political entities and leaders involved.

In the late 19th century European Jews began to organize a political movement, known as Zionism, that promoted the creation of a Jewish state in historic Palestine. Many Zionists considered Palestine the Land of Israel, or the biblical homeland of the Jews. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, however, Palestine was populated mainly by Arab Muslims, and the Zionists who moved into the area were a small minority living in relatively isolated communities.

In 1917, during World War I, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, which expressed Britain's support for the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. Encouraged by British support of the Zionist cause, waves of Jewish immigrants arrived in Palestine between 1919 and 1939, establishing strong communities especially in the urban areas of Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem.

By the end of World War II (1939-1945), outrage at the atrocities of the Holocaust lent further international support for the creation of a Jewish state. When the United Nations passed a resolution in November 1947 dividing Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states, Jews accepted the plan, but Arabs rejected it. Immediately after Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948, neighboring Arab states invaded Israel, leading to the Arab-Israeli War of 1948-1949. Israel defeated the Arab forces and expanded its territory beyond the initial UN partition plan. The war produced hundreds of thousands of Arab refugees, who fled Israel for the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and neighboring Arab states.

Since then, Israel and its Arab neighbors have engaged in three other major military conflicts: the Suez Crisis (1956), the Six-Day War (1967), and the Arab-Israeli War of 1973. Despite the optimism generated by peace talks during the 1980s and early 1990s, Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip have been rocked by increasing violence since late 2000. The history of these conflicts is detailed in the articles below.

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• Arab-Israeli Conflict--a comprehensive overview of conflicts between Arabs and Israelis.
• Six-Day War--a history of the 1967 war between Israel and the Arab nations of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. When the war ended, Israel had gained control of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula, and the Golan Heights--the areas that came to be known collectively as the Occupied Territories.
• Arab-Israeli War of 1973--a history of the war fought between Israel and the Arab countries of Egypt and Syria over control of the Occupied Territories.
• Intifada--an overview of the Palestinian resistance movement directed against the rule of Israel in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
• Suez Crisis*--a history of the 1956 international confrontation that pitted Egypt against the combined forces of Israel, Britain, and France, and triggered the diplomatic intervention of both the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
• Camp David Accords--an overview of the historic 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, and facilitated by U.S. president Jimmy Carter.