ABSTRACT
The intifada is a stage in the Palestinian struggle against Israel. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict took on a new dimension after Israel conquered Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip in the Six-Day War. In the Palestinian and PLO view, it is imperative that Israel be weak and under pressure — both direct internal pressure in the Territories, and external political pressure — for it to feel obliged to offer political concessions to the Palestinians. Israel became the ruler of the largest concentration of Palestinians, and of all of the Land of Israel west of the Jordan River. Critical and even dramatic external political events have taken place in and around Israel that redound inevitably upon the Palestinian struggle. Since the signing of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel in 1979, a schism has developed in the Arab stand toward Israel, leaving two pressing conflict systems: the Israeli-Palestinian, and the Syrian-Israeli.
