The Contribution of Women to Peace and Reconciliation

of the Golan Heights, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula,
more than one million Palestinian citizens were brought under Israeli
rule. After this war, the religious Jewish settler movement began to grow.
“The remarkable victory of Israel gave rise, or more precisely, encouraged
the existing messianic and religious sentiments. These elements, which
had been ‘tamed’ or ‘monitored’ by the more secular and socialist leadership
of the Zionist movement and the state of Israel, began to flourish,
and, from now on, to dictate to the mainstream of Israeli politics and
its decision-makers.” (Report, p. 175). After 1977, settlement-building
became official Israeli policy after the takeover of power by the Likud
government. However, the settlement strategy should not be seen only
as a political problem, but also as a massive social and economic problem
within Israel, for the economic and social structure that had existed up to
that time, which had been more or less socialist, was massively trans -
formed into the support of settlement activities in the occupied territories.
The government offered huge subsidies and benefits to the Israeli-Jew -
ish citizens who moved to build their centre of life in the occupied territories.
The huge allocation in the national budget for the settlements and
the settlers, at the expense of the citizens living within the Green Line –
Israel prior to 1967 – was an incentive to the less privileged elements of
society and to those living in poor development towns and the periphery.
(Report, p. 175). The incentive was not just economic. Building and living
in these settlements provided to the citizens of the periphery the selfimage
of patriots, of “new pioneers” following the legacy of the pioneers
who had built the country.
The first major uprising of the Palestinians in the occupied territories –
the First Intifada – began in 1987. The weapons of the rebels consisted
largely of leaflets and stones. Given the popular nature of the Palestinian
uprising, the Israeli reaction is totally inexplicable. Israel killed a large
number of Palestinians in the initial part of the Intifada, and most of them
were apparently killed in demonstrations and riots. (Report, p. 176). The
Israeli society has gone through an identity crisis – the common concept
known as the “enlightened occupation” collapsed. The UN reacted and
condemned Israel’s military action, and thus contributed to the events’
reaching an international audience.
51