Sinai and the Years Between

TIMELINE 12B

Sinai and the Years Between

1956 to 1966

The Sinai Campaign opens a decade of quiet borders. Israel builds its water carrier and its institutions, tries Eichmann and makes peace with Germany.

TURNING POINTS

1956 Oct 29 to Nov 7 The Sinai War. After Egypt nationalizes the Suez Canal, Israel, Britain and France plan the attack in secret at Sèvres. Israel takes Sinai in days. The United States and the Soviet Union force a withdrawal, completed in March 1957.

1960 to 1962 Eichmann captured and tried. Israeli agents seize Adolf Eichmann in Argentina in 1960. He is tried in Jerusalem in 1961 and executed in 1962, the only death sentence Israel has carried out in a civil court.

1961 to 1964 Operation Yakhin. A secret Mossad operation brings about 100,000 Jews from Morocco to Israel.

1963 Jun 26 Eshkol succeeds Ben-Gurion. Levi Eshkol becomes prime minister as the founding generation begins to hand over power.

1964 The National Water Carrier. It brings water from the Sea of Galilee to the farms and towns of the south.

1965 Relations with West Germany. Twenty years after the Holocaust, the two countries exchange ambassadors.

1966 Agnon wins the Nobel Prize. S. Y. Agnon is the first Hebrew writer to receive the prize for literature.

ALSO IN THIS PERIOD

1956 Jul Nasser nationalizes the Suez Canal.

1956 Oct Border police kill 48 Arab citizens at Kafr Qasim.

1956 Nov A UN emergency force deploys in Sinai and Gaza.

1956 Nov Thousands of Jews leave Egypt after the Sinai War.

1957 Mar Territory: Israel completes its withdrawal from Sinai and Gaza.

1957 France agrees to help build the Dimona reactor.

1958 Feb Egypt and Syria merge into the United Arab Republic.

1958 The Hebrew University opens its new campus at Givat Ram in Jerusalem.

1958 Israel begins building the Dimona reactor.

1958 Jul A coup in Iraq and a crisis in Lebanon alarm Israel’s neighbors and its allies.

1959 Jul Riots break out in Haifa’s Wadi Salib over discrimination against Jews from North Africa.

1959 Nov 3 Election: Mapai wins 47 seats.

1961 Aug 15 Election: Mapai wins 42 seats.

1962 Marc Chagall’s windows are dedicated at the Hadassah synagogue in Jerusalem.

1964 Jan Pope Paul VI makes the first papal visit to the Holy Land in modern times.

1964 The Arab League founds the PLO.

1964 Ephraim Kishon’s film Sallah Shabati is the first Israeli film nominated for an Academy Award.

1965 May Israeli spy Eli Cohen is hanged in Damascus.

1965 The Israel Museum opens in Jerusalem, with the Shrine of the Book.

1965 Nov 2 Election: Alignment wins 45 seats.

1966 Dec Military rule over Arab citizens of Israel ends.