Al-Fatah and other Palestinian political and guerrilla organizations tried to initiate popular resistance and guerrilla warfare within the occupied territories, but with limited success. Increasing numbers of Palestinian workers began to search for work inside Israel, and within about sixteen years, they became the major source of labor in areas such as construction, agriculture, sanitation, and other blue-collar jobs. Israeli products also inundated the Palestinian consumer market. Even the all-encompassing Arab economic boycott of Israeli products was bypassed by disguising Israeli products as Arab and exporting them to the Arab states by way of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The economic dependence on Israel of the population of the occupied territories was established in the post-1967 period and has continued to deepen.
In the post-1967 period, two informal models were simultaneously employed by the Israelis. One was the so-called “[Yigal] Allon Plan,” which envisioned reshaping Israel's boundaries by establishing frontier settlements on sparsely populated lands in the Jordan Valley. The other model reasoned that the Jewish presence must be strengthened in densely populated Palestinian areas in order to avoid any future possibility of giving up part of the Holy Land. This strategy implied that Jewish settlements could not be “uprooted,” and that the land on which they were built would became part of the eternal inheritance of the Jewish collectivity. This latter assumption was shown to be completely baseless following the Camp David Peace Accords between Egypt and Israel, in which it was agreed that the exchange of territories for peace was a valid principle.
With the change of government in 1977, and the victory of the right-wing Likud party, the territories of the Sinai Peninsula were returned to Egypt. At the same time, however, colonization of the core territories of the biblical “Land of Israel”—the West Bank (renamed “Judea and Samaria”)—was made a top priority on the national agenda. The major engine behind this colonization effort was the development of a settler sociopolitical religious movement called Gush Emunim (Bloc of the Faithful) and its settlement branch, Ammana. The rise of Gush Emunim was one ramification of the mass protest movement born from growing discontent in the aftermath of the 1973 war, a war in which Israel was strategically surprised by a coordinated attack of Syrian and Egyptian troops, which inflicted heavy causalities. The 1973 war called into question Israeli military superiority in the region and reemphasized the Israeli state's vulnerability.
Different Israeli political groups deduced different “lessons” from the 1973 war (see also chapter 3). From one angle, the logical conclusion of the war was the necessity of peace and readiness to pay territorial prices for such peace (this line of logic is best represented by the “Peace Now” movement). Holding three million Palestinians without any citizens' rights was considered morally evil and dangerous for the ethnic composition and security of the Jewish nation-state. The conclusions and interpretations of the situation from the other end of the political spectrum were that there is no chance of a Jewish polity being accepted in the region, and that only its military and political might, including control of as much territory as possible, can ensure its very existence.
By 2000, about 180,000 Jews, spread over 140 settlements, had colonized the West Bank and Gaza Strip, totaling about 12 percent of the total population of these areas. Sixty-five percent of these Jews lived in several large town settlements, and most residents were employed inside the Israeli border (or the 1949 ceasefire “Green Line”). All in all, this colonization drive did not achieve its basic aim of building such a massive Jewish presence in the occupied territories that any possibility of withdrawal would be impossible. This failure seems to stem from the fact that, unlike the early Zionist colonization efforts, this time around, the effort did not enjoy broad consensus among the Jewish citizens of Israel. There was, however, enough Jewish settlement to threaten control of limited land and water resources.
Making a rather rough division of the settler population, we can say that they are of two types. About half are ideologically or religiously committed to settle the “Land of Israel,” producing a territorial and political fait accompli. The other half are Israeli Jews in search of cheaper housing and a higher quality of life (the settlements are heavily subsidized by the government). Although the settlement process was not carried out under the umbrella of a nationwide ideological consensus and was, in fact, the subject of grave controversy within the Jewish polity, causing a major societal and political cleavage between so-called hawks and doves, no settlements would have been established had the Israeli state not considered these territories a frontier zone. The former of the two groups believes that Israel must adopt an active, “strong” policy toward the Arabs in general and the Palestinians in particular. This includes the annexation de facto or even de jure of the lands of Greater Israel, as justified by security, nationalist, and religious concerns. A minority of the hawks has even advocated the partial or total expulsion of Arabs from the “Land of Israel.” In the opposing camp are those Israelis with “dovish” orientations, who believe that a peaceful solution between Arabs and Jews is still possible in the region (see chapter 7). The preconditions for peace and reconciliation, they argue, are a much “softer” and less aggressive policy on the part of the Israeli state, as well as a readiness to exchange land and dismantle settlements in return for peace.
THE INTIFADA AND THE OSLO ACCORDS
Up to the present, the main controversy within the Jewish polity has centered on the question, “Has the state of Jewish colonization of the occupied territories reached the ‘point of no return'?” Several years of mass immigration, at first from the Soviet Union and later from the former Soviet republics, have brought about one million immigrants, increasing the number of Jewish citizens in the state by about 20 percent (see chapter 5).
On December 9, 1987, a general popular uprising broke out in the Gaza Strip and spread to the West Bank. A unified leadership of the uprising formed inside the occupied territories, with its directives ratified by the “outside” leadership of the PLO. The Israelis were helpless and unable to repress the rebellion, which was carried out by young men and women throwing stones at Israeli troops. The Israelis reacted by using excessive force, breaking bones and giving beatings, shooting live ammunition and later rubber bullets, imposing curfews and other collective punishments, demolishing houses, and holding thousands in administrative detention and prison. As a symbolic act, the 19th session of the PNC declared an independent Palestinian state in November 1988.
The Palestinian popular uprising was complemented by escalation of guerrilla activities inside Israel, including the stabbing of civilians and the use of firearms to target private and public transportation. The cost/ benefit equation of the “colonial situation” began to change, with the costs becoming obviously higher for the Israeli state. The ultranationalist Likud government did not provide any real answers to this new situation, with the exception of increasing its aggressive rhetoric, which simply widened the gap between the ideology of “Greater Israel” and the reality of a feeling of precarious personal security among the Israeli people.
Another major concern of the Israeli public and its leadership was that, despite its formidable military strength, the