Listen to the complete series (47:32 mp3)
(series aired in May 2002)

The current crisis in the Middle East is the continuation of decades of conflict. Several major wars between Israel and its Arab neighbors left tens of thousands dead, and drove hundreds of thousands of people from their homes. In an effort to understand how the Middle East got to be the cauldron of tension and conflict that it is, The World broadcast a series on the history of the region in 2002. The Reporter is Patrick Cox.

Part 1: Zionism and the Birth of Israel
In the first part of the series, The World's Patrick Cox recounts the establishment of the first Jewish state in nearly 2,000 years, when the state of Israel was proclaimed on May 14th, 1948. The declaration came into effect the following day as the British mandate ended. The United Kingdom had ruled Palestine since 1920. Palestinians remember May 15th as "al-Nakba", or the Catastrophe.

Part 2: The Arab-Israeli wars
Mounting tensions between Israel and its Arab neighbors culminated in six days of hostilities in June 1967. Israel seized Gaza and the Sinai from Egypt in the south and the Golan Heights from Syria in the north. It also pushed Jordanian forces out of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Egypt's powerful air force was destroyed on the ground in a pre-emptive strike by the Israeli air force.

Unable to regain the territory they had lost in 1967 by diplomatic means, Egypt and Syria launched major offensives against Israel on the Jewish festival of Yom Kippur in 1973. Initially, Egypt and Syria made advances, but these were reversed after three weeks of fighting. The United States, the Soviet Union and the United Nations all made diplomatic interventions to bring about ceasefire agreements between the combatants.

Part 3: The Road to Camp David
In 1977 Egyptian President Anwar Sadat stunned the world by making a speech to the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem. Sadat became the first Arab leader to recognize Israel, only four years after launching the Yom Kippur war against Israel. Egypt and Israel signed the Camp David accords in September 1978 outlining "the framework for peace in the Middle East" which included limited autonomy for Palestinians. Hosted by President Jimmy Carter, Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed a bilateral Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty in March 1979 in Washington.

Part 4: The Palestinian Intifada and Oslo
In 1987 a mass uprising - or Intifada - by Palestinians against the Israeli occupation began in Gaza and quickly spread to the West Bank. Protest took the form of civil disobedience, general strikes, and barricades, but it was the stone-throwing demonstrations against the heavily-armed occupation troops that captured international attention. Nevertheless secret negotiations in Norway eventually led to the Oslo accords between Israel and the PLO in 1993.

Part 5: The Aftermath of the Rabin assassination
In 1995, the killing of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish religious extremist put the peace process into a deep freeze. In the final part of our series Patrick Cox looks at the peace process in the aftermath of Rabin's murder.