The "Greater Israel" adherents place the emphasis on the geographic issue and believe - privately or publicly - that it is possible to expel the nonJewish population from the country (code name: "Transfer").
54 The General Staff of the Israeli army played an important role in the planning and building of the settlements. It drew the map of the settlements (identified with Ariel Sharon): blocs of settlements and bypass roads along lateral and longitudinal axes, chopping the West Bank and the Gaza Strip into pieces and imprisoning the Palestinians in isolated enclaves, each of which is surrounded by settlements and the occupation forces.
Photo: Ya'akov Sa'ar, GPO
Historic handshake: Mutual recognition
55 The Palestinians employed several methods of resistance, mainly raids across the Jordanian and Lebanese borders and attacks inside Israel and throughout the world. These acts are considered "terror" by Israelis, while the Palestinians see them as the legitimate resistance of an occupied people. While the Israelis considered the PLO leadership, headed by Yasser Arafat, as a terrorist headquarters, it gradually came to be internationally recognized as the "sole legitimate representative" of the Palestinian people.
56 At the end of 1987, when the Palestinians realized that these actions were not putting an end to the settlement momentum, which was gradually pulling the land out from under their feet, they launched the Intifada - a spontaneous grassroots uprising of all sectors of the population. In this ("first") Intifida, 1500 Palestinians were killed, among them hundreds of children;