The struggle over control of Palestine quickly resumed in 1945. The horrors of the Holocaust produced world sympathy for European Jews and for Zionism, the movement to reinstate a Jewish nation in Palestine. Britain gave up its failing attempts to mediate in April 1947 and turned the problem over to the UN. Although the Palestinians outnumbered the Jews (1,300,000 to 600,000), the latter were better prepared for the impending showdown. They had a semiautonomous government, led by David Ben-Gurion, and their military was well trained and experienced. The Palestinians, on the other hand, hadn't recovered from the Arab revolt, and most of their leaders were in exile. The Mufti of Jerusalem, their main spokesman, wouldn't accept Jewish statehood. When the UN proposed partition in November 1947, he rejected the plan while the Jews accepted it. In the military struggle that followed, the Palestinians were badly beaten.

This was followed by an Israeli peace agreement with Egypt in 1979, and despite complications, Israel completed a withdrawal from the Sinai in April 1982. Two months later Israel launched an invasion of Lebanon aimed at wiping out the PLO presence there. By mid-August, after intensive fighting in and around Beirut, the PLO agreed to withdraw from the city. Israeli troops remained in southern Lebanon, however, and the cost of the occupation drained the already troubled Israeli economy.

The first comprehensive peace talks between Israel and delegations representing the Palestinians and neighboring Arab states began in October 1991. After Likud lost the Knesset elections of June 1992, Labor party leader Yitzhak Rabin formed a new government. Rabin imposed strict limits on new Jewish settlements in the occupied territories and initially took a more conciliatory line toward the Palestinians. In December, however, after an upsurge in attacks on Israeli soldiers, Israel deported more than 400 Palestinians to southern Lebanon.

Relations between Israel and the Palestinians entered a new phase in the late 1980s with the intifada, a series of uprisings in the occupied territories that included demonstrations, strikes, and rock-throwing attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians. The harsh response by the Israeli government drew criticism from both the U.S. and the UN. During 1989 and '90 more than 200,000 Soviet Jews settled in Israel. This wave of immigration - encouraged by the Israeli government but resented by many Palestinians and Israeli Arabs - severely strained the nation's economy. During the Persian Gulf War, in which many Palestinians openly favored Iraq, Scud missiles repeatedly struck Israel, wounding more than 200 people and damaging nearly 9000 homes in the Tel Aviv area. Contrary to its usual policy, Israel did not retaliate, in part because the U.S. sent antimissile missiles to aid in Israel's defense.

An ending to the conflict over Israel lies through the settlement of issues over the control of lands and structures deemed holy by both sides. The major conflict here is over the ownership of the holy city of Jerusalem, originally part of the "international" territory declared by the UN during the creation of Israel. There are many temples and hallowed grounds that have attained divine importance for both Israelites and Palestinians, and unfortunately cannot be shared. The constraints of the two religions disallow any possible dual ownership of the disputed consecrations, so they've remained

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