July 17:In Afghanistan, King Zahir Shah is overthrown by his cousin, Prime Minis-
ter Mohammad Daoud.
October 6:Egypt and Syria attack Israel.
October 15:In the midst of the Middle East war, the United States announces that it
is providing large quantities of military supplies and weapons to Israel in response
to resumed Soviet aid to Egypt.
October 17:The Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries announces that
it will cease deliveries to the United States, the Netherlands, and South Africa
because of their support for Israel and cut back shipments to other countries. The
embargo will continue until March 1974 and contribute to a major international
economic downturn.
October 22:The UN Security Council adopts Resolution 338, demanding a cease-fire
in the Arab-Israeli war and reaffirming the “land for peace” concept of its Resolu-
tion 242 from November 1967.
October 25: A cease-fire takes effect in the Arab-Israeli war. The Arabs fail to
achieve their goal of winning back territory captured by Israel in 1967, but they
do achieve a psychological victory. President Nixon orders a worldwide alert of
the U.S. military because of concerns that the Soviet Union might intervene in
the Middle East war.
November 11:Egypt and Israel sign a cease-fire providing for prisoner exchanges and
negotiations on returning to the battle lines in effect when the Security Council
adopted Resolution 338 on October 22.
December 21:Representatives from Egypt, Israel, and Jordan meet in Geneva with offi-
cials from the Soviet Union, the United Nations, and the United States. Syria boy-
cotts the sessions, which make no progress. For the next several years, resuming the
“Geneva talks” is a main goal of international diplomacy.
1974
January 18:After rounds of “shuttle diplomacy” mediated by U.S. secretary of state
Henry Kissinger, Egypt and Israel sign Sinai I, a disengagement agreement calling
for Israel to pull back from the eastern bank of the Suez Canal and for a UN force
to patrol a buffer zone between Egyptian and Israeli forces in the Sinai.
March 18:Most Arab oil-producing countries—Libya is the major exception—agree to
lift the oil embargo imposed against the United States during the October 1973 war.
April 10:After a political dispute over assigning blame for Israel’s failure to anticipate
the Arab attack the previous October, Prime Minister Golda Meir resigns. Yitzhak
Rabin, a former general, succeeds her.
May 29:Israel and Syria agree on a Kissinger-negotiated plan to disengage their armies.
June 9:The Palestine National Council resolves to “employ all means, and first and
foremost armed struggle, to liberate Palestinian territory and to establish the inde-
pendent combatant national authority for the people over every part of Palestinian
territory that is liberated.”
July 31:Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, following a decision by the Israeli cab-
inet on July 26, announces that only the government can determine whether and
when Jewish settlements will be established in the West Bank. This is in response
to an attempt by members of the Gush Emunim movement to move into Sebastia,
an abandoned railway station near the city of Nablus on the West Bank.
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