Israel Palestine

Part A Before world war I there was Ottoman Empire which ruled the region for more than 400 years. The same empire rules Iraq, Iran etc as well . ntroduction of Israel Palestine Issue: The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the ongoing struggle between Israelis and Palestinians that began in the early 20th century. The conflict is wide-ranging, and the term is also used in reference to the earlier phases of the same conflict, between the Zionist yishuv and the Arab population living in Palestine under Ottoman and then British rule.The roots of the conflict can be traced to the late 19th century, with the rise of national movements, including Zionism and Arab nationalism. Though the Jewish aspiration to return to Zion had been part of Jewish religious thought for a millennia, the Jewish population of Europe and to some degree Middle East began to more actively discuss immigration back to the Land of Israel, and the re-establishment of the Jewish Nation in its national homeland, only during the 1870s and 1880s, largely as a solution to the widespread persecution of Jews due to anti-Semitism in Russia and Europe. As a result, the Zionist movement, the modern movement for the creation of a homeland for the Jewish people, was established as a political movement in 1897.ews in Britain were growing very fast and hence Britain decided to transfer the increasing Jews population. On the other hand, Jews were moving to the Palestine region, which once, they claim, was their land.. So, as we all know Jews are the reach people and hence they offered good amount for the land which belong to Arabs.. and gradually started settling in the Palestine region.And it has become too late to recover the losses when Arabs come to know about Jews intentions. Zionism as an organized movement is generally considered to have been fathered by Theodor Herzl in 1897;however the history of Zionism began earlier and related to Judaism and Jewish history. The Hovevei Zion, or the Lovers of Zion, were responsible for the creation of 20 new Jewish settlements in Palestine between 1870 and 1897. As a result of the extent of the various Zionist enterprises which started becoming apparent,the Arab population in the Palestine region began protesting against the acquisition of lands by the Jewish population.As a result, in 1892 the Ottoman authorities banned land sales to foreigners. By 1914 the Jewish population in Palestinehad risen to over 60,000, with around 33,000 of these being recent settlers.However, the Balfour Declaration in 1917 proposed to "favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, but that nothing should be done to prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine." In 1916, the Anglo-French Sykes-Picot Agreement allocated to the British Empire the area of present day Jordan,he Balfour Declaration was seen by Jewish nationalists as the cornerstone of a future Jewish homeland on both sides of the Jordan River, but increased the concerns of the Arab population in the Palestine region. the area of present day Israel and the West Bank, and the area of present day Iraq.Between 1919 and 1926, 90,000 immigrants arrived in Palestine because of the anti-Semitic manifestations, such as the pogroms in Ukraine in which 100,000 Jews were killed. The Arab population in Palestine opposed theincrease of the Jewish population because they perceived the massive influx of Jewish immigrants as a realthreat to their national identity and to their attribution to the surrounding Arabic countries.Peel Commission: The Peel Commission of 1937 was the first to propose a two-state solution to the conflict, whereby Palestine wouldbe divided into two states: one Arab state and one Jewish state. The Jewish state would include the coastal plain, Jezreel Valley, Beit She'an and the Galilee, while the and Arab state would include Transjordan, Judea and Samaria, the Jordan Valley, and the Negev. The Jewish leadership in Palestine had differences of opinion regarding the proposalof the Peel Commission. The Arab leadership in Palestine rejected the conclusions and refused to share any land in Palestine with the Jewish population. The rejection of the Peel Commission's proposal by both parties led to theestablishment of the Woodhead Commission, which rejected the non-applicable proposal of the Peel Commission.The newly formed United Nations recommended that Mandatory Palestine be split into three parts—a Jewish State witha majority Jewish population, an Arab State with a majority Arab population, and an International Zone comprisingJerusalem and the surrounding area where the Jewish and Arab populations would be roughly equal. Resolution 181 decided the size of land allotted to each party.The termination of the British mandate over Palestine and the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel sparked a full-scale war (1948 Arab–Israeli War) which erupted after May 14, 1948. On 15–16 May, the four armies of Jordan,Syria, Egypt and Iraq invaded the newly self-declared state followed not long after by units from Lebanon. While Arab commanders ordered villagers to evacuate for military purposes in isolated areas, there is no evidence that the Arab leadership made a blanket call for evacuation and in fact most urged Palestinians to stay in their homes.Due to the 1948 Arab–Israeli war, about 856,000 Jews fled or were expelled from their homes in Arab countries and mostwere forced to abandon their property. Jews from Libya, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and North Africa left due to physical and political insecurity, with the majority being forced to abandon their properties. 260,000 reached Israelin 1948-1951, 600,000 by 1972.Additionally, due to the war, between 700,000 and 750,000 Palestinian Arabsfled or were expelled from the area that became Israel and became what is known today as the Palestinian refugees. The Palestinian refugees were not allowed to return to Israel and most of the neighboring Arab states, with the exception of Transjordan, denied granting them - or their descendants - citizenship. In 1949, Israel offered to allow some members of families that had been separated during the war to return, to release refugee accounts frozen in Israeli banks, and torepatriate 100,000 refugees.The Arab states rejected this compromise, at least in part because they were unwilling to take any action that might be construed as recognition of Israel. As of today, most of them still live inrefugee camps and the question of how their situation should be resolved remains one of the main issues of theIsraeli-Palestinian conflict.Following years of attacks by the Palestinian Fedayeen, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was established in1964. Its goal was the liberation of Palestine through armed struggle. The original PLO Charter stated the desirefor a Palestinian state established within the entirety of the borders of the British mandate prior to the 1948 war (i.e. the current boundaries of the State of Israel) and said it is a "national duty ... to purge the Zionist presencefrom Palestine." It also called for a right of return and self-determination for Palestinians.Israel Won 6-days War--An Israeli raid on an Egyptian military outpost in Gaza in February 1955, resulted in 37 Egyptian soldiers killed.Soon after, the Egyptian government began to actively sponsor, train and arm the Palestinian volunteers from Gaza as Fedayeen units, which committed raids into Israel. In 1967, after years of Egyptian-aided Palestinian Fedayeenattacks stemming from the Gaza Strip, the Egyptian expulsion of UNEF, Egypt's amassing of an increased number of troopsin the Sinai Peninsula, and several other threatening gestures from other neighboring Arab nations, Israel launcheda preemptive strike against Egypt. The strike and the operations that followed became known as the Six-Day War.At the end of the Six-Day War, Israel had captured, among other territories, the Gaza Strip from Egypt and the West Bankfrom Jordan (including East Jerusalem). Shortly after Israel seized control over Jerusalem, Israel asserted sovereigntyover the entire city of Jerusalem and the Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem were given a permanent resident statusin Israel. The status of the city as Israel's capital and the disputed status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip created anew set of contentious issues in the conflict.Yaseer Arafat selected as a leader of PLOIn July 1968 armed, non-state actors such as Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine achieved themajority of the Palestinian National Council votes, and on February 3, 1969, at the Palestinian National Council in Cairo,the leader of the Fatah, Yasser Arafat was elected as the chairman of the PLO. From the start, the organization used armed violence against civilian and military targets in the conflict with Israel. The PLO tried to take over the populationof the West Bank, but the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) deported them into Jordan where they began to act against the Jordanian rule (Palestinians in Jordan comprised about 70% of the total population, which mostly consisted of refugees) and from there attacked Israel numerous times, using the infiltration of terrorists and shooting Katyusha rockets. This led to retaliation from Israel.Afterwards, numerous terrorist activities by PLO like hijacking planes, buses, Fidayeen attacks on civilians etc were observed.‎1982 - Lebanon WarIsrael ended the ceasefire after an assassination attempt on the Israeli Ambassador in the Britain, Shlomo Argov, in mid-1982 (which was made by Abu Nidal's organization that was ostracized from the PLO). This led Israel to invadeLebanon in the 1982 Lebanon War on June 6, 1982 with the aim to protect the North of Israel from terrorist attacks.IDF invaded Lebanon and even occupied Beirut.

Declaration of Palestine by Arafat

On November 15, 1988, a year after the outbreak of the first intifada, the PLO declared the establishment of the Palestinian state in Algiers. The proclaimed "State of Palestine" is not and has never actually been an independent state,as it has never had sovereignty over any territory in history. The declaration is generally interpreted to have recognizedIsrael within its pre-1967 boundaries, and its right to exist. Following this declaration, the United States and many other countries recognized the PLO.Prior to the Gulf War in 1990-91, Arafat supported Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait and opposed the US-led coalition attack on Iraq. Arafat's decision also severed relations with Egypt and many of the oil-producing Arab states that supported the US-led coalition. Many in the US also used Arafat's position as a reason to disregard his claims to beinga partner for peace. After the end of hostilities, many Arab states that backed the coalition cut off funds to the PLOand bringing the PLO to the brink of crisis.

Oslo Peace ProcessIn January 1993, Israeli and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) negotiators began secret negotiations in Oslo, Norway.On September 9, 1993, Yasser Arafat sent a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, stating that the PLO officiallyrecognized Israel's right to exist and officially renouncing terrorism. On September 13, Arafat and Rabin signed a Declaration of Principles in Washington, D.C., on the basis of the negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian teams inOslo, Norway.

On September 28, 1995, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat signed the Israeli-Palestinian InterimAgreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in Washington. the agreement marked the conclusion of the first stage of negotiations between Israel and the PLO. The agreement allowed the PLO leadership to relocate to the occupied territories and granted autonomy to the Palestinians with talks to follow regarding final status. In return the Palestinians recognized Israel's right to exist and promised to abstain from use of terror. However the agreement was opposed by the Hamas and other Palestinian factions, whom at this point were already committing suicide bomber attacks throughout Israel.

In 1994, Rabin won the Nobel Peace Prize together with Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat. He was assassinated by right-wingIsraeli radical Yigal Amir, who was opposed to Rabin's signing of the Oslo Accords.Hamas became an active radical group in Israel and indulged itself in several bombings and terrorist activitiesPart B

For centuries there was no such conflict. In the 19th century the land of Palestine was inhabited by a multicultural population – approximately 86 percent Muslim, 10 percent Christian, and 4 percent Jewish – living in peace.

 Zionism

 In the late 1800s a group in Europe decided to colonize this land. Known as Zionists, they represented an extremist minority of the Jewish population. Their goal was to create a Jewish homeland, and they considered locations in Africa and the Americas, before settling on Palestine.

At first, this immigration created no problems. However, as more and more Zionists immigrated to Palestine – many with the express wish of taking over the land for a Jewish state – the indigenous population became increasingly alarmed. Eventually, fighting broke out, with escalating waves of violence. Hitler's rise to power, combined with Zionist activities to sabotage efforts to place Jewish refugees in western countries, led to increased Jewish immigration to Palestine, and conflict grew.

UN Partition Plan

 Finally, in 1947 the United Nations decided to intervene. However, rather than adhering to the principle of “self-determination of peoples,” in which the people themselves create their own state and system of government, the UN chose to revert to the medieval strategy whereby an outside power divides up other people’s land.

Under considerable Zionist pressure, the UN recommended giving away 55% of Palestine to a Jewish state – despite the fact that this group represented only about 30% of the total population, and owned under 7% of the land.

947-1949 War

While it is widely reported that the resulting war eventually included five Arab armies, less well known is the fact that throughout this war Zionist forces outnumbered all Arab and Palestinian combatants combined – often by a factor of two to three. Moreover, Arab armies did not invade Israel – virtually all battles were fought on land that was to have been the Palestinian state.

Finally, it is significant to note that Arab armies entered the conflict only after Zionist forces had committed 16 massacres, including the grisly massacre of over 100 men, women, and children at Deir Yassin. Future Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, head of one of the Jewish terrorist groups, described this as “splendid,” and stated: “As in Deir Yassin, so everywhere, we will attack and smite the enemy. God, God, Thou has chosen us for conquest.” Zionist forces committed 33 massacres altogether.

By the end of the war, Israel had conquered 78 percent of Palestine; three-quarters of a million Palestinians had been made refugees; over 500 towns and villages had been obliterated; and a new map was drawn up, in which every city, river and hillock received a new, Hebrew name, as all vestiges of the Palestinian culture were to be erased. For decades Israel denied the existence of this population, former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir once saying: “There is no such thing as a Palestinian.”

1967 War & USS Liberty

In 1967, Israel conquered still more land. Following the Six Day War, in which Israeli forces launched a highly successful surprise attack on Egypt, Israel occupied the final 22% of Palestine that had eluded it in 1948 – the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Since, according to international law it is inadmissible to acquire territory by war, these are occupied territories and do not belong to Israel. It also occupied parts of Egypt (since returned) and Syria (which remain under occupation).

Also during the Six Day War, Israel attacked a US Navy ship, the USS Liberty, killing and injuring over 200 American servicemen. President Lyndon Johnson recalled rescue flights, saying that he did not want to "embarrass an ally." (In 2004 a high-level commission chaired by Admiral Thomas Moorer, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, found this attack to be “an act of war against the United States,” a fact few news media have reported.)

Current Conflict

There are two primary issues at the core of this continuing conflict. First, there is the inevitably destabilizing effect of trying to maintain an ethnically preferential state, particularly when it is largely of foreign origin. The original population of what is now Israel was 96 percent Muslim and Christian, yet, these refugees are prohibited from returning to their homes in the self-described Jewish state (and those within Israel are subjected to systematic discrimination).

Second, Israel's continued military occupation and confiscation of privately owned land in the West Bank, and control over Gaza, are extremely oppressive, with Palestinians having minimal control over their lives. Over 10,000 Palestinian men, women, and children are held in Israeli prisons. Few of them have had a legitimate trial; Physical abuse and torture are frequent. Palestinian borders (even internal ones) are controlled by Israeli forces. Periodically men, women, and children are strip searched; people are beaten; women in labor are prevented from reaching hospitals (at times resulting in death); food and medicine are blocked from entering Gaza, producing an escalating humanitarian crisis. Israeli forces invade almost daily, injuring, kidnapping, and sometimes killing inhabitants.

According to the Oslo peace accords of 1993, these territories were supposed to finally become a Palestinian state. However, after years of Israel continuing to confiscate land and conditions steadily worsening, the Palestinian population rebelled. (The Barak offer, widely reputed to be generous, was anything but.) This uprising, called the "Intifada" (Arabic for "shaking off") began at the end of September 2000.Part C

Ancient history of Israel and Palestine

The ancient Jewish kingdoms of Israel and Judea had been successively conquered and subjugated by several foreign empires, when in 135 CE the Roman Empire defeated the third revolt against its rule and consequently expelled the surviving Jews from Jerusalem and its surroundings, selling many of them into slavery. The Roman province was then renamed "Palestine". After the Arab conquest of Palestine in the 7th century the remaining inhabitants were mostly assimilated into Arab culture and Muslim religion, though Palestine retained Christian and Jewish minorities, the latter especially living in Jerusalem. Apart from two brief periods in which the Crusaders conquered and ruled Palestine (and expelled the Jews and Muslims from Jerusalem), it was ruled by several Arab empires, and it became part of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire in 1516.

The rise of Zionism

In the late 19th century Zionism arose as a nationalist and political movement aimed at restoring the land of Israel as a national home for the Jewish people. Tens of thousands of Jews, mostly from Eastern Europe but also from Yemen, started migrating to Palestine (called Aliyah, "going up"). Zionism saw national independence as the only answer to anti-Semitism and to the centuries of persecution and oppression of Jews in the Diaspora. The first Zionist congress took place in 1897 in Basel under the guidance of Austrian journalist Theodor Herzl, who in his book "The Jewish State" had painted a vision of a state for the Jewish people, in which they would be a light unto the nations. Zionism basically was a secular movement, but it referred to the religious and cultural ties with Jerusalem and ancient Israel, which most Jews had maintained throughout the ages. Most orthodox Jews initially believed that only the Messiah could lead them back to the 'promised land', but ongoing pogroms and the Holocaust made many of them change their minds. Today there are still some anti-Zionist orthodox Jews, like the Satmar and Naturei Karteh groups.

• The British Mandate for Palestine
  
  
  During World War I Great Britain captured part of the Middle East, including Palestine, from the Ottoman Empire. In 1917 the British had promised the Zionists a 'Jewish national home' in the Balfour Declaration, and on this basis they later were assigned a mandate over Palestine from the League of Nations. The mandate of Palestine initially included the area of Transjordan, which was split off in 1922 (see map).
  
  
  Jewish immigration and land purchases met with increasing resistance from the Arab inhabitants of Palestine, who started several violent insurrections against the Jews and against British rule in the 1920s and 1930s. During the Great Revolt of 1936-1939 the followers of the radical Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini (a Nazi collaborator who later fled the Nurnberg Tribunal) not only killed hundreds of Jews, but an even larger number of Palestinian Arabs from competing groups. The Zionists in Palestine (called the Yishuv) established self-defense organizations like the Haganah and the (more radical) Irgun. The latter carried out reprisal attacks on Arabs from 1936 on. Under Arab pressure the British severely limited Jewish immigration to Palestine, after proposals to divide the area had been rejected by the Palestinian Arabs in 1937. Jewish refugees from countries controlled by Nazi Germany now had no place to flee to, since nearly all other countries refused to let them in. In response Jewish organizations organized illegal immigration (Aliya Beth), the Zionist leadership in 1942 demanded an independent state in Palestine to gain control of immigration (the Biltmore conference), and the Irgun committed assaults on British institutions in Palestine. 
  
  
  Despite pressure from the USA, Great Britain refused to let in Jewish immigrants - mostly Holocaust survivors - even after World War II, and sent back illegal immigrants who were caught or detained them on Cyprus. Increasing protests against this policy, incompatible demands and violence by both the Arabs and the Zionists made the situation untenable for the British. They returned the mandate to the United Nations (successor to the League of Nations), who hoped to solve the conflict with a partition plan for Palestine, which was accepted by the Jews but rejected by the Palestinians and the Arab countries. The plan proposed a division of the area in seven parts with complicated borders and corridors, and Jerusalem and Bethlehem to be internationalized (see map). The relatively large number of Jews living in Jerusalem would be cut off from the rest of the Jewish state by a large Arab corridor. The Jewish state would have 56% of the territory, with over half comprising of the Negev desert, and the Arabs 43%. There would be an economic union between both states. It soon became clear that the plan could not work due to the mutual antagonism between the two peoples.
   History of the establishment of the State of Israel
• After the proposal was adopted by the UN General Assembly in November 1947, the conflict escalated and Palestinian Arabs started attacking Jewish convoys and communities throughout Palestine and blocked Jerusalem, whereupon the Zionists attacked and destroyed several Palestinian villages. The Arab League had openly declared that it aimed to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state by force, and Al Husseini told the British that he wanted to implement the same 'solution to the Jewish problem' as Hitler had carried out in Europe.
  
  
  A day after the declaration of the state of Israel (May 14, 1948) Arab troops from the neighboring countries invaded the area. At first they made some advances and conquered parts of the territory allotted to the Jews. Initially they had better weaponry and more troops, but that changed after the first cease-fire, which was used by the Zionists to organize and train their newly established army, the Israeli Defense Forces. Due to better organization, intelligence and motivation the Jews ultimately won their War of Independence.
  
  
  After the armistice agreements in 1949, Israel controlled 78% of the area between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean Sea (see map below), whereas Jordan had conquered the West Bank (until then generally referred to as Judea and Samaria) and East Jerusalem and Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip. Jerusalem now was divided, with the Old City under Jordanian control and a tiny Jewish enclave (Mount Scopus) in the Jordanian part. In breach of the armistice agreement Jews were not allowed to enter the Old City and go to the Wailing Wall. In 1950 Jordan annexed the West Bank and East Jerusalem, a move that was only recognized by Great Britain and Pakistan. A majority of the Palestinian Arabs in the area now under Israeli control had fled or were expelled (estimated by the UN about 711,000) and over 400 of their villages had been destroyed. The Jewish communities in the area under Arab control (i.a. East Jerusalem, Hebron, Gush Etzion) had all been expelled. In the years and decades after the founding of Israel the Jewish minorities in all Arab countries fled or were expelled (approximately 900,000), most of whom went to Israel, the US and France. These Jewish refugees all were relocated in their new home countries. In contrast, the Arab countries refused to permanently house the Palestinian Arab refugees, because they - as well as most of the refugees themselves - maintained that they had the right to return to Israel. About a million Palestinian refugees still live in refugee camps in miserable circumstances. Israel rejected the Palestinian 'right of return' as it would lead to an Arab majority in Israel, and said that the Arab states were responsible for the Palestinian refugees. Many Palestinian groups, including Fatah, have admitted that granting the right of return would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state. The question of the Palestinian right of return is the first mayor obstacle for solving the Arab-Israeli conflict
  The Six Day War and Arab rejectionism
• The Arab-Israeli conflict persisted as Arab countries refused to accept the existence of Israel and instigated a boycott of Israel, while they continued to threaten with a war of destruction. (There were some talks, but the Arab states all demanded both the return of the refugees and also parts of Israel in return for just non belligerence). They also founded Palestinian resistance groups which carried out terrorist attacks in Israel, like Fatah in Syria in 1959 (under the guidance of Yasser Arafat), and the PLO in Egypt in 1964.In May of 1967, the conflict escalated as Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran for Israeli shipping, sent home the UN peace keeping force stationed in the Sinai, and issued bellicose statements against Israel. It formed a defense union with Syria, Jordan and Iraq and stationed a large number of troops along the Israeli border. After diplomatic efforts to solve the crisis failed, Israel attacked in June 1967 and conquered the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Desert from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria and the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan (see map below). Initially Israel was willing to return most of these territories in exchange for peace, but the Arab countries refused to negotiate peace and repeated their goal of destroying Israel at the Khartoum conference.
  
  
•  History of the struggle for a Palestinian state and the peace process
  In 1974 the PLO was granted observer status in the UN as the representative of the Palestinian Arabs. Beside the UNRWA (set up in 1949 for relief of the Palestinian refugees) several new UN institutions were established to support the Palestinians and their struggle for their own state. In 1975 the UN General Assembly adopted resolution 3379, declaring Zionism to be a form of racism, which caused the UN to lose its last bit of credibility as a neutral mediator in the eyes of Israel, although that resolution was ultimately revoked in 1991. Former UN actions perceived as bias by Israel included the establishment of UNRWA as a separate organization aimed at assisting but not repatriating the Palestinian refugees and the easy acceptance of Egypt's decision to dismiss the UN peacekeeping force from the Sinai. The 'Zionism is racism' resolution gave a strong boost to the settlers' movement and helped bring the rightwing Likud party to power in 1977.
  
  
  In 1979, under Likud prime minister Menachem Begin, Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty after American mediation, for which Israel returned the Sinai Desert to Egypt. Subsequent negotiations regarding autonomy for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank failed because the Palestinians didn't accept Israel's limited autonomy proposal for these areas, and Israel refused to accept the PLO as a negotiation partner. This changed in the early 1990s after the PLO had renounced violence, recognized the legitimacy of Israel, and declared to only strive for a Palestinian state in the 1967 occupied areas. Moreover a major uprising of the Palestinians in the occupied territories from 1987 on (the first Intifadah) convinced the Israeli government that they could not continue to rule over the Arab population. Partly secret negotiations in Oslo led to an agreement under which in 1994 a Palestinian National Authority was established under the leadership of Arafat and the PLO, to which Israel would gradually transfer land. Elections were held for the presidency of the PNA and the Palestinian Legislative Assembly, from which violent or racist parties were excluded. After a 5 year transition period the most difficult matters would be settled in final status negotiations, such as the status of Jerusalem, the Palestinian refugees, the Jewish settlements and the definite borders. Eventually 97% of the Palestinians came under PA control, including all of the Gaza Strip and approximately 40% of the West Bank land.
  
  
  Since 1967 Israel has been establishing Jewish settlements in these areas, at first mostly small ones in unpopulated areas and under the Likud governments from the late 1970s on all over the area and large settlement blocs. Although the Oslo agreements did not require removal of the settlements, it was clear that they would constitute an obstacle to a definite peace agreement. The rapid growth of the settlements undermined Palestinian confidence in the peace process. The Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, who partially froze settlement construction, was assassinated by a Jewish extremist in 1995.On the Palestinian side, Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian territory led to the construction of a terror network by the extremist Hamas and other groups, who from the mid 1990s on were able to carry out an unprecedented number of suicide attacks inside Israel. Under Arafat the PA took limited action against the terror groups and even funded them, and Arafat gave the green light for attacks when that suited his strategy. The continuing violence by Palestinian extremists constitutes the fourth obstacle for peace. 
  
  
  The Oslo peace process got bogged down because both the Palestinians and the Israelis did not stick to agreements they made and the leadership on both sides did little to build confidence and to prepare their own people for the necessary compromises. Large groups on both sides protested against the concessions required by the agreements made. The peace process slowly dragged on towards the negotiations on Camp David in the summer of 2000. After the failure of Camp David a provocative visit to the holy Jerusalem Temple Mount by Likud leader Ariel Sharon sparked the second Intifada, which the Palestinian Authority had been preparing for. Palestinian leaders like Marwan Barghouti later admitted to having planned the second Intifada in the hope that it would press Israel into more concessions. However, the opposite happened, as the Israeli peace camp collapsed under the violence of Palestinian suicide attacks.
  
  
  In December 2000 US president Bill Clinton presented "bridging proposals" suggesting the parameters for a final compromise, including a Palestinian state on all of the Gaza Strip and about 97% of the West Bank, division of Jerusalem and no right of return to Israel for Palestinian refugees. While Israel in principle accepted this proposal, no clear answer came from the Palestinian side. In last minute negotiations at Taba in January 2001, under European and Egyptian patronage, the sides failed to reach a settlement despite further Israeli concessions. Both sides agreed to a joint communiqué saying they had never been so close to an agreement, but substantive disagreements remained about i.a. the refugee issue. 
  
  
  Shortly after that Sharon's Likud party won the Israeli elections, and in the US democratic president Bill Clinton was replaced by George W. Bush. Following the terrorist attacks from Al Qaida inside America on September 11, 2001, Bush permitted Sharon to strike back hard against the second Intifada. After suicide attacks had killed over a hundred Israelis in March 2002, Israel re-occupied the areas earlier transferred to the Palestinian Authority and set up a series of checkpoints, which severely limited the freedom of movement for the Palestinians. In 2003 Israel started the construction of a very controversial separation barrier along the Green Line and partly on Palestinian land. These measures led to a strong decline of Palestinian suicide attacks in Israel, but also to international condemnations. Especially the dismissal of Palestinian workers in Israel led to increasing poverty in the territories. 
  
  
  Although both parties accepted the 'Road Map to Peace', launched by the Quartet of US, UN, EU and Russia in 2003, no serious peace negotiations have taken place in recent years between Israel and the Palestinians. Israeli PM Ariel Sharon did take unilateral measures such as the disengagement from the Gaza Strip in 2005, but he demanded an end to Palestinian terrorism before he would engage in negotiations with Arafat's successor Abbas concerning final status issues. Plans for further unilateral withdrawals from the West Bank were put on ice after Hamas won the PA elections in early 2006, thousands of rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel, and border attacks took place from both the Gaza Strip and south Lebanon (which Israel had unilaterally withdrawn from in 2000). The latter had spurred the disastrous Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006.
   Obstacles to peace
• The primary cause for the Arab-Israeli conflict lies in the claim of two national movements on the same land, and particularly the Arab refusal to accept Jewish self-determination in a part of that land. Furthermore fundamentalist religious concepts regarding the right of either side to the entire land have played an increasing role, on the Jewish side particularly in the religious settler movement, on the Palestinian side in the Hamas and similar groups. But whereas the settlers received a blow when they failed to prevent the disengagement from the Gaza Strip, Hamas won the Palestinian elections, and after their breakup with Fatah and their take-over of the Gaza Strip, they remain a dominant force capable of blocking any peace agreement. 
  
  
  The Arab-Israeli conflict is further complicated by preconceptions and demonizing of the other by both sides. The Israelis see around them mostly undemocratic Arab states with underdeveloped economies, backward cultural and social standards and an aggressive religion inciting to hatred and terrorism. The Arabs consider the Israelis colonial invaders and conquerors, who are aiming to control the entire Middle East. There is resentment concerning Israeli success and Arab failure, and Israel is viewed as a beachhead for Western interference in the Middle East. In Arab media, schools and mosques anti-Semitic stereotypes are promoted, based on a mixture of anti-Jewish passages in the Quran and European anti-Semitism, including numerous conspiracy theories regarding the power of world Zionism.
  
  
  Since the Oslo peace process however, a broad consensus has been formed that an independent Palestinian Arab state should be established within the areas occupied in 1967. Polls on both sides show that majorities among Israelis and Palestinians accept a two state solution, but Palestinians almost unanimously stick to right of return of the refugees to Israel, and most Israelis oppose a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem.