1/ Today marks 1 year since I began this Twitter feed, and this marks my last formal tweet in the year of learning all about Israeli and Zionist history. I've certainly learned a lot through this endeavour, and hope everyone who has been following along has learned something too. 2/ Given the oversized role that Israel and its history plays in the geopolitical dialogue today, it has always been my belief that the world is better served knowing more about the intricacies of Israeli history.

@IsraeliPM @netanyahu @PresidentRuvi

October 29, 1956: The start of the Suez Campaign (also called the Second Arab-Israeli War, or the "Tripartite Aggression" in the Arab world).

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@UnpackedED 1/ The War of Independence ended in 1949 with Israel signing a series of Armistice Agreements with Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria. Nevertheless, the countries maintained a state of belligerency against Israel after the agreements were signed.

September 6, 2007: Israel launched Operation Orchard, a secret military operation designed to destroy a Syrian nuclear reactor in the Deir ez-Zor region of Syria, the 2nd known time Israel acted unilaterally to destroy an Arab nuclear reactor.

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@yaakovkatz 1/ In March 2007, the Mossad undertook a secret raid in Vienna, which targeted the head of Syria's Atomic energy Commission. With the information gleaned from the operation, the Israelis discovered that Syria had been working with North Korea to build a nuclear reactor.

September 5, 1972: The massacre of the Israeli Olympic team at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

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#OTD 1/ During the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich Germany, Israel was participating with a delegation of 15 athletes.

On the morning of Sept 5, 1972, members of the Palestinian terror group Black September, scaled the wall of the Olympic compound, and made their way to the Israelis.

September 4, 1997: Israel's Shayetet 13, a special operations unit, was ambushed by Hezbollah in Lebanon, losing 12 @IDF soldiers. It was the worst single-day casualty toll for Israel in Lebanon since 1985.

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@ronenbergman 1/ On Aug 3, 1997, a unit from Israel's Golani Brigade was taken by helicopter near Nabatiya in Lebanon. They went to the village of Kfour and planted explosives in a wall outside the house of Hussein Qassir, an Islamic Resistance Commander.

May 19, 1950: Operation Ezra and Nehemia, a plan to bring Iraqi Jews to Israel, is launched with the first airlift of 175 Jews.

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@MattiFriedman 1/ Antisemitism in the Arab world was rife during and immediately after World War Two. Egyptian society became enamoured with the Nazi war against the Jews, and this spread to Iraq - which had a significant Jewish population.

April 8, 1959: Israel's Knesset officially establishes Yom Hashoa when it passed the Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day Law.

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@yadvashem
@WorldJewishCong
@knessetisrael 1/ By the time the State of Israel was established in May 1948, 3 years had passed since the end of the WW2 and the Holocaust. Given the enormity of the crime, it became difficult to choose a single day as the most appropriate to commemorate this dark time in recent history.

March 9, 1992: Israel's Sixth Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, dies at the age of 78.

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#OTD 1/ Menachem Begin was one of the giants of Israeli history. Born in the city of Brest, then in the Russian Empire in 1913, he saw first-hand the ravages of antisemitism. Raised in a traditional Jewish house, he was raised a fervent Zionist, when he joined Betar at age 16.

January 31, 1961: Ben Gurion resigned as Prime Minister, collapsing Israel's 9th govt, when a motion of no-confidence was brought following the publication of the findings of an investigation into the Lavon Affair.

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#Israel 1/ In the summer of 1954, Israel embarked on an ambitious covert operation in Egypt called Operation Susannah. The Defense Minister at the time was Pinchas Lavon.

November 29, 1947: UN Partition of Palestine - the birth of the Jewish State.

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@DannyAyalon @IsraeliPM @PresidentRuvi @dannydanon 1/ Throughout the 1940s in British Mandatory Palestine, tensions were high. After the war, the Jewish militias launched full-throated attacks against the British to get them to evacuate Palestine. The Jews were ready for a state of their own.

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November 9, 1977: Egyptian President Anwar Sadat announces in the Egyptian Parliament that he is willing to go to Israel to speak to the Knesset, in search of peace.

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#Peace 1/ The Yom Kippur War broke the “conception” (hakontseptzia) that Israel had of it being invincible to local challenges from its neighbours. Though Israel ultimately succeeded in its efforts during the YK War, the early Egyptian gains restored morale throughout the Arab world.