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Essay on Jewish Arab Conflict World Civilization - 1981- Present
The first uprising or intifada began in December 1987 and lasted, in various forms, until 1993. That rebellion forced Israel to realize that its vision of a "Greater Israel," increasingly popular since the late 1970s, was likely to be unattainable. As political scientist Ian Lustick has documented in great detail, Jewish social movements such as Gush Emunim, supported by successive Israeli governments and state bureaucracies, persuaded many Israelis during the 1980s that military rule over Palestine was a viable, long-term strategy. By demonstrating the depth of Palestinian resistance, the first intifada raised the costs of occupation, paved the way for Israel's recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and pushed Israel into the 1993 Oslo Declaration of Principles.
Yet while the first intifada served as a vital reality check on Israeli territorial ambitions, the subsequent seven years witnessed continued Israeli attempts to dictate the contours of the emerging Palestinian entity. Israel did make some important concessions, including piecemeal military withdrawals from select areas, but it continued to insist on managing the West Bank and Gaza's political transition with a heavy hand. Its goal was the creation of a final product that would not challenge Israeli hegemony and would not provoke too severe a domestic political crisis. Although most Israelis had come to realize they could not indefinitely exert direct rule over all of Palestine, many still thought they could maintain indirect control while avoiding overly painful concessions.
Israelis believed they could continue to rule over East Jerusalem, preserve Jewish settlements, annex key portions of the West Bank, and control Palestine's borders, water supply, economy, internal transportation arteries and immigration policies. As a result, Israel continued to expand its settlements throughout the 1990s and continued to float peace deals that left the settlers in place, sliced the West Bank into three enclaves, and denied the right of Palestinian refugee return......
