Arab Crisis - Collapse of the Soviet Union

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)

• Organization created in 1964 to represent Palestinians

• Wanted an independent Palestinian state

Six-Day War

• War in 1967 between Israel and Arab countries

• Israel won quickly and captured territories like the West Bank and Gaza

Resolution 242

• UN resolution after the Six-Day War

• Called for Israel to withdraw from occupied territories and for peace in the Middle East

Yom Kippur War

• War in 1973 when Egypt and Syria attacked Israel

• Led to peace negotiations later on

Camp David Accords

• Peace agreement between Egypt and Israel in 1978

• Helped improve relations between the two countries

Balfour Declaration

• British statement in 1917 supporting a Jewish homeland in Palestine

• Increased tensions between Jews and Arabs in the region.

Prague Spring

• Reform movement in Czechoslovakia in 1968

• Soviet forces stopped it to keep communist control

Ronald Reagan

• US president during the 1980s

• Strong opponent of communism and the Soviet Union

Glasnost

• Policy introduced by Gorbachev meaning “openness”

• Allowed more freedom of speech and less censorship in the USSR

Perestroika

• Gorbachev’s policy of restructuring the Soviet economy and government

• Tried to improve the failing Soviet system

Mikhail Gorbachev

• Last leader of the Soviet Union

• Introduced Glasnost and Perestroika and helped end the Cold War