Israeli-Palestinian fighting

Israeli-Palestinian fighting

The Israeli peace movement was born in the late 1970s after Egyptian President Anwar Sadat signed a treaty that ended the state of hostility between Israel and Egypt and normalised their relations. In exchange for peace, Israel withdrew all its troops from the Sinai Peninsula, which it had captured during the 6-day war of 1967, and returned it to Egyptian sovereignty. In the 1980s and 1990s the idea of exchanging captured territory for peace gained momentum. Newly formed activist groups championed the cause under Labour governments, while conservative elements in Israeli society argued that the occupied lands rightly belonged to Israel.