The event that entered history as the "May War," and that the Palestinians refer to as the "Harb El Istiklal," began on May 14, 1999 -- 51 years to the day after Ben-Gurion declared the founding of the State of Israel.

In the Al-Shawah hall in Gaza, Yasser Arafat declared the establishment of the State of Palestine. The declaration, very similar to Israel's Declaration of Independence, was based on history as well as on U.N. Resolutions, and included the promise of democracy, equal rights for all "without regard to race, religion or language," and "extending its hand in peace to Israel."

Arafat announced that the Palestinian police forces have become the "National Palestinian Army" and declared a general mobilization of Fatah members..

Within 24 hours, 121 countries granted the Palestinian state "de jure" recognition. 61 countries, among them the majority of European states, granted it "de facto" recognition. Only Micronesia, the U.S. and Israel refrained from recognizing the new state.

24 hours later, the Netanyahu government announced the annexation of 51% of the West Bank, 31% of the Gaza Strip, as well as all of the settlements currently existing as enclaves within Palestinian territory, to israel.

All of the Palestinian opposition factions declared their unequivocal support for Arafat, with Hamas and Islamic Jihad forces submitting to the Palestinian Armed Forces' command.

Opinions regarding the causes of the war are contradictory. The Palestinian version claims that residents of Kiryat Arba settlement opened fire on the Palestinian army near the Baruch Goldstein tomb. According to Netanyahu's version, it was the Palestinians who opened fire on the Hebron settlers. Predictably, fighting broke out in short order across the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Palestinian army conquered Kfar Darom and Netzarim settlements, while heavy fighting raged around Kedumim and Efrat. Casualties on both sides mounted, reaching the hundreds.

At an emergency meeting, hastily convened by Netanyahu, Ariel Sharon pushed for the immediate recapture of the entire Palestinian territory. All of the heads of the IDF and Intelligence branches warned against such a move, but Netanyahu had no alternative but to give the orders. A quick poll assured him that fully 83% of public opinion supported such a measure.

The capture of Hebron, Ramallah and Nablus was executed with relative ease. The organized opposition of the Palestinian army was crushed by IDF tanks and artillery operating on a massive scale, demolishing entire neighborhoods. But then the direst predictions of the Intelligence agencies proved true.

Vicious guerilla warfare broke out throughout Palestinian towns. IDF soldiers were shot down on the streets and in alleys. Dozens of tanks deployed in the cities were destroyed by anti-tank weapons, secretly hoarded in advance in massive quantities. Some tanks were set on fire by Moslem suicide fighters with Molotov coctails.

On the third day of the war, when IDF casualties approached a thousand, ten Israeli peace groups, under the initiative of the GGush Shalom (Peace Bloc), conducted a protest rally in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv. 15,000 people came. A spokesman for "Yesh Gvul" declared that more than 100 army officers and soldiers had refused orders to serve in the territories and that a brigade Commander had been dismissed as a direct result. Peace Now, initially hesitant, hastily convened a mass rally three days later with 120,000 participants, many of whom showed up in military uniform.

On the fourth day of the war, Yasser Arafat was killed. In spite of the urging of all of his advisers on the day of the declaration to set up an emergency headquarters in Tunisia, he chose to remain at his command post in Gaza. According to one story he was killed by an Israeli undercover commando unit; in another version, he perished in an air raid. Two Fatah leaders, Jibril Rajub in the West Bank and Mohammed Dakhlan in the Gaza Strip, took over joint army command, while the political leadership was turned over to the trio of Abu-Mazen, Abu-Ala and Abu-Lutuf (Farouk Kadoumi).

The call for an Arab summit was not heeded in the first days, but as soon as word of Arafat's martyrdom came, bloody riots broke out by outraged crowds in Amman, Cairo and Riyadh. The leaders hastily convened in Alexandria and declared general mobilization of all Arab armed forces. They secretly sent an S.O.S. to President Clinton, informing him that there was an imminent danger to the continuation of their regimes in the absence of immediate intervention.

On the seventh day of the war, the U.N. Security Council convened, agreeing unanimously to (a) call on both sides to stop all hostilities immediately; (b) call on Israeli forces to pull back from all of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip territories (with the exception of of three settlement blocks); (c) immediately accept the State of Palestine as a U.N. member; (d) open immediate negotiations for a permanent settlement of the dispute, under the leadership of the U.N. Secretary General; and (e) dispatch U.N. forces to ensure compliance with the resolution. President Clinton decided not to veto the resolution when a secret poll confirmed that the vast majority of American Jews also supported it.

Hours later, Binyamin Netanyahu declared the establishment of a "national unity" government, which, after much agonizing, decided to abide by the U.N. Resolution. The war was over.