The 50-year conflict between Palestinians and Israel inadvertently jarred the world as Sept. 11 highlighted simmering tensions between Islam and the West.
The year began inauspiciously for the region with former US president Bill Clinton walking away from failed peace negotiations between then Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
The ensuing US administration headed by US President George W. Bush demonstrated its lack of concern by ignoring the conflict altogether.
In February, Ehud Barak conceded defeat to Ariel Sharon in the election for prime minister. Sharon's leadership would prove to be decisively more militant.
On Aug. 9, a suicide bomber entered an Israeli pizza restaurant killing 15 people and wounding 90. Arafat condemned the bombing, offering to sit down with the Israelis to iron out a joint ceasefire after 10 months of violence.
The next day Israeli planes destroyed Palestinian police headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah. Later in the month, Israeli tanks rolled into Jenin in the West Bank, marking the largest incursion to Palestinian controlled territory since 1994.
The Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington by Saudi militant Osama bin Laden brought the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into the living rooms of the world. Bin Laden cited American and Israeli intransigence on the Palestinian issue as one of his reasons for the violent attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Israel decided near the end of the year that they should break all contact with Arafat, claiming that he is not doing everything in his power to crack down on militant groups in Palestinian territories.
At the end of the year Israel denied Arafat the right to travel and worship in Palestinian-controlled Bethlehem on Christmas Eve, cementing the year's end with an ever increasing cycle of revenge and retaliation that looks set to continue in the coming months.
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