IGCSE History

• Home
• Introduction to IGCSE
• The Road to Affluence: USA 1917 - 1941 (A9)
  • 1917 - 1929
    • The impact of the First World War
    • Immigration
    • Henry Ford and mass production
    • Farming in the 1920s
    • The Stock Market Boom
  • 1929 - 1941
    • The Wall Street Crash
    • The Depression
    • The policies of Hoover
    • Roosevelt and the New Deal
    • Reactions to the New Deal
• International Relations 1919-1939 (A8)
  • Collective Security
    • The Versailles Settlement
    • The Foundation of the League of Nations
    • Strengths and weaknesses of the League of Nations
    • Successes and failures of the League of Nations
    • Locarno and the Kellogg-Briand Pact
  • Appeasement
    • Manchuria
    • The Disarmament Conference
    • Abyssinia
    • Hitler and the League
    • Appeasement in action
• Revolution in China 1949 - 1996 (A14)
  • 1949 - 1976
    • China under Mao
    • Reform under Liu and Deng
    • The reasons for the Cultural Revolution
    • The impact of the Cultural Revolution
    • China 1971 - 1976
  • 1976 - 1996
    • The defeat of the Gang of Four
    • China under Deng Xiaoping
    • Reforms of the economy
    • The Democracy Movement
    • China in the 1990s
• South-East Asia 1945 - 1900 (A15)
  • Indo-China
    • The end of the French Empire
    • Vietnam 1954 - 1965
    • US involvement in Vietnam
    • The unification of Vietnam
    • Laos and Cambodia
  • South-East Asia
    • The struggle for control of Malaya
    • The creation of Malaysia
    • Singapore
    • Suharto and Indonesia
    • Sukarno and Pancasila
• Conflict and Crisis is the Middle East 1946 - 1996 (A16)
  • Unit overview
  • 1946 - 1967
    • The creation of Israel
    • The impact of the war of 1948 - 1949
    • The Suez Crisis
    • Superpower involvement in the Middle East
    • The Six Day War
  • 1967 - 1996
    • International terrorism
    • The war of Yom Kippur
    • The Palestinian Liberation Organisation
    • Lebanon and the occupied territories
    • Successes and failures from Camp David to Oslo
• The First World War (B4)
  • The Schlieffen Plan
  • Deadlock on the Western Front
  • Gallipoli
  • The Somme and Passchendaele
  • The War at Sea
  • The defeat of Germany
• The USA 1917-1929 (B7)
  • The Roaring Twenties
  • Advertising and consumerism
  • New forms of entertainment
  • Prohibition
  • Gangsterism
  • Hollywood
• China under Mao Zedong 1949 - 1959 (B10)
  • The creation of the Communist State
  • Land Reform
  • Communist society
  • The First Five Year Pan
  • The 100 Flowers
  • The Great Leap Forward
• The Changing Nature of Warfare (C3)
  • Unit overview
  • Warfare at the beginning of the 20th Century
  • Land warfare
  • Sea and aerial warfare
  • Atomic and nuclear weapons
  • Warfare at the end of the 20th Century
• Links

Lebanon and the occupied territories

Lebanon had a mixed population of Christians and Muslims. It was the only Middle Eastern country with a large Christian population. However, both groups had split into smaller and smaller factions and formed militias that fought against each other. In 1975 civil war broke out between Muslims and Christians. In all 40,000 people were killed in the fighting. Israel was drawn into the conflict in Lebanon in 1978, partly in attempts to destroy PLO bases, but also in support of Christian militias, whom the Israelis came to see as their allies. A UN peacekeeping force was installed, but failed to keep the two sides apart.

The Israelis invaded for a second time in 1982 and drove the PLO out of the country. Israeli warships bombarded PLO positions and the army surrounded the main PLO base. However, the attack on the base failed and a multi-national force was sent in to escort the PLO fighters to safety. Yasser Arafat and the PLO fled to Tunisia. The Israelis occupied part of southern Lebanon to protect Israel from attacks by guerrillas.

Less than a month after the PLO withdrawal, a massacre took place of 2,000 Palestinians in refugee camps under Israeli control. The Lebanese-Christian militias were responsible, but the Israelis got the blame. The massacres had a dramatic impact upon international opinion, which had hitherto tended to back Israel. Inside Israel, an effective Peace Movement emerged for the first time.

In response to the Israeli actions some PLO guerrillas returned from Tunisia and set up Hizbollah, a new and more violent terrorist organisation. This reduced the authority of Yasser Arafat, the leader of the PLO. He was in turn forced to make a choice between the more violent elements, such as Hizbollah, and a peaceful solution.

In December 1987 the Intifada began. The Intifada was the period of non-co-operation between the Palestinian Arabs and the Jewish authorities in the Gaza Strip. It began after the shooting of an Arab youth by Israeli soldiers, and ended with the agreement between Yitzhak Shamir and Yasser Arafat in 1993.

In the 1980s many Arab states paid less attention to Israel. Egypt had reached agreements with Israel and the Iraq-Iran War broke out in 1980 and lasted until 1988. The PLO was relatively inactive because of its break up in 1983 and because of power struggles between different groups within it. Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, therefore, began to take matters into their own hands in the mid-1980s as more and more settlements were built on the West Bank. The Israeli police and army became increasingly active.

The Intifada began with protests, strikes non-payment of taxes and refusal to use identity documents. Then came stone-throwing at Israeli police and army patrols by youths. After a year the PLO moved in and took over the direction and the Intifada became more serious and soon developed into incidents involving firearms. The Israelis retaliated mostly with curfews and tear gas, but some soldiers used their firearms and by 1991 697 Palestinians had been killed, 78 of whom were under fourteen years of age.

The most significant result was that it helped to create a new sense of unity amongst many Palestinians. They came to believe for almost the first time that their destiny was in their own hands and not in that of the Arab states.

Israeli opinion was also affected. Some politicians saw the futility of attempting to retain control of areas, which were valueless and which were costing Israeli lives. International opinion also swung against Israeli tactics in Gaza and the West Bank and this encouraged some Israeli politicians to consider negotiations with the PLO.

Yasser Arafat also decided that a change of tactics was required. At the Palestine National Council in November 1988, he announced that the PLO was renouncing violence and that he believed that independent Palestine could co-exist with an independent Israel.

Successes and failures from Camp David to Oslo

Links