Babak Khalatbari, M.A., Konrad-Adenauer-Scholar, University of Münster, Germany

Attack helicopters and suicide bombers -- a modern tale of an Arab David and a Jewish Goliath

The founding of Fatah (Harakat al-Tahrir al-Filastin) in 1959 and its choice of a strategy of armed conflict can be described as a Palestinian reaction to the failure of Arab governments to take action on the Palestine question. Five years later, the Palestine Liberation Organization (Munazzamat al-Tahrir al-Filastiniyya) was founded in Jerusalem at the request of the Arab League to represent Palestinian rights and interests, since 1969 under Arafat's leadership.

Utopianism versus realism

During the first Intifada that erupted in 1987, first secret negotiations began. Following the Madrid conference in 1991, the so called Oslo process was established in late 1993. The resulting joint statement and common insight of both parties paved the way for peace and won the Nobel Peace Prize for Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat in 1994. The most important element of the compromise was the two-state model, with step-by-step implementation of Palestinian authority. Utopianism seemed to have trumped realism, but problematical topics such as the Jerusalem question, the status of refugees and the issue of Jewish settlements had been pushed aside.

Traps and gaps of the peace process

The Arab-Israeli peace process stalled with the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, the ascendancy of a new Likud government in Israel and the increasing ineffectiveness of Yasser Arafat. The aftermath of these events has brought daunting years for Israel and Palestine. The Camp David conference in June 2000 ended without result, and all new initiatives, such as the Taba conference, came too late because the Middle Eastern helix of violence was revived in late 2000 in the form of the second Intifada.

The year 2002 began with the most violent confrontation between Jews and Arabs in Palestine since the territory west of the Jordan River was partitioned in 1947. Indeed, the collapse of the peace process and the outbreak of the second Intifada have caused the Jewish-Israeli population to shift sharply to the right. 98 percent of Israelis supported the reoccupation of parts of the West Bank in Operation Defensive Shield in late March 2002. Many Israelis now believe that the majority of Palestinians do not anymore want a state of their own next to Israel, but rather one state in historical Palestine that includes Israel. The Palestinians have contributed to Israel's strong degree of suspicion and deep mistrust, particularly with regard to the separation fence. The escalating conflict has taken a heavy toll on lives, with more than 900 Israeli and about 2700 Palestinian victims of armed hostilities by late 2003.

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