In November of 1947, the United Nations Special Commission on Palestine recomended that Palestine be divided into an Arab state and a Jewish state with Jerusalem to be placed under international control.
The state of Israel was established as of May 14, 1948. Immediately after the establishment of the state, the first of a series of Arab-Israeli wars took place. At the end of this war, Israel conquered more than two thirds of Palestine and annexed "West Jerusalem." As a result, 780,000 Palestinians were displaced from their homes creating a major refugee crisis.
After decades of conflict, a conference on the Middle East held in Madrid led to ground-breaking peace negotiations between Israel and the PLO. Out of these negotiations came the Oslo Accords which were signed by PLO leader, Yasser Arafat, and the Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin on September 13, 1993 in Washington DC. These accords were the first phase in the ongoing peace process. They established the fundamental principles and guidelines upon which further talks were to be based. Among these were the equation of "land for peace" and UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338.