ABSTRACT
When I began this research frantic attempts were being made to rescue the Oslo Process from the al-Aqsa intifada which, by then, had raged for fi ve months and claimed 400 Palestinian and Israeli lives. As of July 2007 the provocations and responses, attacks and counter-attacks, bombings, curfews and house demolitions had resulted in more than 5600 Palestinians and Israelis dead and more than 38,000 Palestinians and Israelis injured; the overwhelming majority in both cases being Palestinian.1 This is the worst violence between Palestinians and Israel since Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967.2
The fi rst Palestinian intifada was an effect of the discourse of Palestinian-Israeli relations. Discursive silence regarding the fate of Palestinians transferred by Israel through Plan Dalet, and consequent political inaction regarding their condition, coupled with Israel’s practice of settlement and cultivating alternatives to the PLO produced a resistance in Palestinian civil society against the Israeli occupation. The fi rst intifada was relatively nonmilitarized; forms of resistance included inter alia boycotts of Israeli goods, civil disobedience and stone throwing. This intifada ended with the start of the Oslo Process.
