The Second Intifada

The unrest continues until this day. A second uprising, more bloody and violent than the last, has left thousands of combatants and civilians dead, wounded or fearful. The Palestinians see this uprising as a legitimate struggle to liberate themselves from the occupation of their country. However, the nature of the Palestinian struggle has led many Israelis to condemn the infatida as a terrorist campaign; attacks by Hamas on Israeli civilians have resulted in the Palestinian Authority loosing credibility as a peace partner. Such attacks have been used to justify regular raids and arrests by Israeli forces as well as the assassination of key actors within Hamas. Consequently, negotiations were halted until the intervention of the Arab League in 2002. It was at the Beirut summit that the Arab-league proposed an alternative political plan in which surrounding countries would bring Israeli-Arab conflict in the region to and end in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from West Bank, Golden Heights and the Gaza Strip and recognition of Palestine as an independent state with a "just solution" for the Palestinian refugees. However, the wording of the initiative was rejected by the Israeli authorities.

Despite a notable restraint from Israeli forces, a suicide bombing which killed 30 Jewish civilians triggered a large-scale military operation called Operative Defensive Shield in which Israeli troops invaded Palestinian territory, imposed curfews for civilians and restricted movement in and out of the region (this included international personnel such as journalist, those monitoring human rights abuses, those delivering aid and medical workers). Furthermore, the construction of the West Bank Fence along the Green Line Border (which marks Israeli territories agreed upon after the 6-day war); this became a major issue on contention between the two sides, but did result in a significant decrease in Palestinian terrorist attacks.

Despite this, the new Israeli government (although battling extreme economic issues) endorsed the "Road map for peace" set forth by the Quartet of the Middle East - which included representative from the EU, US, UN and Russia as well as Mahmoud Abbas who was appointed prime minister of Palestine by Yasser Arafat. However, in order to uphold the Palestinian side of the agreement, Abbas had to "crack down" on the rising level of terrorist activity amongst his people. This was made difficult by Arafats refusal to relinquish power over the security forces. Eventually, Abbas resigned.

With intra-party conflict on both sides (Sharon, the Israeli leader, also caused controversy amongst right-wing Israelis as a result of implementing the Road Map to Peace), the unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip (which aimed to resettle Israelis from the region) was unlikely to bring stability let alone contentment.