Broken dreams in the promised land

On September 29, 2000, two months after Camp David, the second intifada began. Ostensibly sparked by then Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount, Palestinian leaders later made clear (in Arabic) that violence had been planned from the moment Arafat left Maryland.

Arafat instigated the violence for three reasons. First, Palestinians no longer liked the peace process. It hadn't delivered a state, returned the refugees or ended Israeli occupation. Instead, from the day of its creation, as a direct consequence of the peace process, the Palestinian Authority became synonymous with financial and political corruption.

Rather than the “fruits of peace” Palestinians were expecting, the peace process brought misery. Additionally, constant anti-Israel incitement in Palestinian government media had created the ironic situation where Palestinians were questioning why their government was in a peace process with an Israel it vilified. Instigating and supporting violence, thereby rejecting the peace process, created the impression the government was on the people's side.

Second, Arafat was relying on Israeli military responses to Palestinian violence to generate international sympathy for Palestinians, thus alleviating criticism for walking away from Camp David.

Third, in the past, violence against Israel had produced Israeli concessions. After all, the first intifada led to the Oslo agreements.

But in instigating the second intifada, Arafat didn't realise Israeli perceptions had changed. The first intifada made Israelis realise they didn't want to be occupiers, and that a political resolution to the conflict had to be found. But the second intifada saw Israel confronted with Palestinian violence after seven years of negotiations and offers of statehood.

Many Israelis came to the conclusion that Palestinian violence wasn't about Israel's occupation, but its existence.

Thus, rather than making Israelis more conciliatory, the second intifada drove Israel in the direction of unilateralism, and in 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip.

By disengaging from Gaza, Israelis thought they had left Palestinians bereft of excuses. Palestinian spokespeople blamed Palestinian corruption, economic stagnation and violence on the presence of settlements and checkpoints. Disengagement removed these from Gaza. (The blockade, of which we have read so much in recent weeks, was still years away; in the months after Israel's withdrawal, Gaza-Israel trade continued as it had before.)

Instead of excuses, what came out of Gaza in increasing numbers were rockets. The Qassam rockets weren't a new phenomenon, having been first fired in 2001. But after disengagement, their number quadrupled. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. In 2004, 281 rockets were fired from Gaza. In 2006, there were 946 rocket attacks.

The rockets brought Israel to a significant conclusion: no withdrawal from the West Bank would be possible until a credible Palestinian leadership could prove willing and able to prevent rejectionist groups firing rockets.

Unlike the West Bank, Gaza abuts a relatively unimportant corner of Israel. This doesn't reduce the terror the residents living adjacent to Gaza continue to face, but it does mean the Gazan rockets aren't a strategic threat.