Deck 23: A Peace so Near, a Peace so Far: Israeli-Palestinian Relations Since the 1991 Gulf War

Question 1

What means did President George H.W. Bush use to push Israel to curb its settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip?

A) Negotiation. The United States and Israel came to an agreement regarding the settlement program
B) Financial leverage; The United States withheld loan guarantees to Israel in an attempt to freeze the settlement program
C) Military influence; The United States threatened to lessen military assistance to Israel
D) Goods embargo. The United States refused to trade with Israel until an agreement was met

Answer 1

B

Question 2

What is NOT true of the 1992 elections in Israel?

A) The necessity of absorbing the financial burden of a new wave of Jewish immigration from the former Soviet Union played a large role in the election
B) The election brought back to office Yitzhak Rabin, the first Israeli prime minister born in Palestine
C) Shamir was the Labor Party candidate
D) Israelis rejected Prime Minister Shamir's ideological hard line and gave an overwhelming victory to Yitzhak Rabin

Answer 2

C

Question 3

What did Yasir Arafat promise to the Israeli representatives gathered for a ceremony on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993?

A) The exercise of Palestinian sovereignty and the removal of Palestinian feelings of injustice would be the strongest guarantees of Israeli security
B) Palestinians would not permit the peace process to be drawn out; immediate Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories was mandatory
C) Any further settlements would be seen as a violation of the agreement and an invitation for war
D) Hamas-not the PLO-would constitute the leadership of the Palestinians

Answer 3

A

Question 4

Who did Arafat appoint to the top posts within the Palestinian Authority (PA)?

A) Local Palestinian elites who had lived through the intifada and were sensitive to the needs and aspirations of the Palestinian people
B) Arafat's own loyal associates and fellow exiled politicians
C) A mixture of the local Palestinian elites and foreign experts
D) Local Palestinian elites and a small minority of former Israeli Labor party liaisons

Question 5

What was the Netanyahu government's policy on settlements?

A) Netanyahu's government promoted settlement activities in the occupied territories
B) Netanyahu's government continued the partial freezing of settlement activities initiated by Prime Minister Rabin
C) Netanyahu's government implemented a complete freeze on settlement activities in an attempt to shore up relations with the United States
D) None of these answers are correct

Question 6

What was evident in Ehud Barak's victory over Benjamin Netanyahu in the 1999 election for Prime Minister?

A) Ehud Barak was the more conservative of the two candidates, and voters felt Netanyahu was growing soft
B) Ehud Barak handily won the vote of the religious right and ultra-Orthodox crowd; these groups were gaining traction in Israeli politics
C) Israelis had become disenchanted with Netanyahu's political machinations, divisiveness, and his failure to pursue a true peace agreement with the Palestinians
D) Both that Barak was more conservative and the voters felt Netanyahu was growing soft, and because the up and coming religious right and the ultra-Orthodox crowd went for Barak

Question 7

All of the following statements about the Oslo Peace Accords are true EXCEPT

A) The Accords were an agreement in which Israel agreed to return East Jerusalem to Palestinian ownership
B) The Accords were an agreement whereby Israeli troops were to withdraw from Gaza and the West Bank town of Jericho and the Palestinian authority would be established
C) The Accords were an agreement in which Israel agreed to withdraw from Palestinian land beyond the 1967 borders of Israel
D) It was a document of mutual recognition in which Israel recognized the PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and, in return the PLO recognized Israel's right to exist in peace and renounced the use of violence

Question 8

Why did the Oslo peace process fail?

A) Because Palestinians continued to carry out suicide bombings and the PLO was unable to stop Palestinian violence
B) Because Israeli settlers continued to move into the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and Palestinian land continued to be expropriated for exclusive Israeli use
C) Because the Palestinians believed the refugees of 1948 should have the right to return to their homes and Israelis did not
D) All of these answers are correct

Question 9

Which of the following is NOT true of Prime Minister Sharon's policy of "disengagement"?

A) The policy required the removal of all settlers from the Gaza Strip and from four settlements in the West Bank
B) To Sharon, the policy held the promise of eclipsing the international road map and putting the idea of a two-state solution on the back burner
C) It had the complete support of Sharon's own Likud Party
D) President George W. Bush endorsed Sharon's policy

Question 10

The network of walls in the West Bank and the elaborate and expensive system of bypass roads that enabled Israelis to commute from West Bank settlements to major cities without having to come in contact with Arab inhabitants were an effort to

A) modernize the roadways and most-used routes
B) isolate and fragment Palestinian villages in order to disrupt established networks as well as absorb large tracts of Palestinian agricultural land
C) disengage Israelis from Palestinians
D) make it so difficult for the Palestinians to travel that they did not engage in seeking work in the cities where their access was limited

Question 11

Which two leaders famously shook hands on the White House lawn in the US in September 1993?

A) Jimmy Carter and Anwar Sadat
B) Yasir Arafat and Yitzhak Shamir
C) Bill Clinton and Yasir Arafat
D) Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat

Question 12

Which of the following does NOT accurately characterize Oslo II?

A) The clauses and maps of Oslo II made it impossible to sustain the pretense that the PLO had done anything other than negotiate from a position of weakness
B) Oslo II can be identified as a key factor in solidifying opposition to the peace process
C) Oslo II divided the West Bank into three zones and specified a phased
Redeployment of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) from each zone.
D) Oslo II helped to further the voices of Palestinians who demanded change through peaceful means

Question 13

Which of the following best characterizes the origins of Hamas's popularity?

A) Hamas grew in popularity because it was firmly rooted in the shared hardships and poverty that Palestinians had experienced under Israeli occupation and it was more directly involved in grassroots social welfare activities than the Palestinian Authority
B) Hamas became popular because Palestinians disliked how friendly Yasir Arafat was with foreign leaders, and they thought the Hamas were more humble
C) Hamas grew in popularity because it had closer ties to Israel, and thus more clout in negotiating a peace settlement with Israel
D) Hamas began in the Palestinian territories and spread throughout the Arab world, including into Tunisia, as it attempted to obliterate non-Muslim populations throughout the region

Question 14

Which of the following most accurately defines the Israeli intensification of its blockade of Gaza in 2007?

A) Israel sought to weaken Hamas's credibility as the government of Gaza through exacerbating conditions of poverty in Gaza
B) Israel sought to discredit the newly elected unity government of al-Fatah and Hamas
C) Israel was trying to quash the second intifada, which threatened Israel's very existence
D) Israel was trying to protect civilians-both Israeli citizens and Palestinian-in Gaza

Question 15

Which of the following is NOT a reason why Palestinians became alienated from the peace accords?

A) The selection of PLO outsiders rather than local Palestinian elites to the PA
B) The deteriorating economic conditions, in part due to corruption in Arafat's inner circle
C) Arafat's authoritarian tendencies as he ignored the Palestinian Council set up in 1996
D) The secular ideology espoused by the PLO

Question 16

Which of the following groups was Netanyahu torn between satisfying during the Wye Accords?

A) The US and Israeli moderates
B) the US and Israeli moderates on one side and the ultra-religious right of Israel on the other
C) Hamas and the Israeli moderates
D) Hamas and the ultra-religious right of Israel

Question 17

Which of the following was NOT a longstanding key issue addressed during Camp David II?

A) Sovereignty over East Jerusalem
B) The future of Jewish settlements
C) The right of return for Palestinian refugees
D) Israeli retreat from Lebanon

Question 18

Which of the following best explains the formation of Kadima ("Forward")?

A) Sharon faced criticism from Likud after announcing his own plan to unilaterally separate Israelis from Palestinians and thus formed his own party
B) Palestinians angry with the PLO but averse to the Islamism of Hamas created Kadima
C) Netanyahu created Kadima after disagreements with the religious right of Likud
D) Kadima surpassed Hizbullah as the predominate anti-Israeli political force in Lebanon after the Israeli withdrawal

Question 19

Which of the following is NOT an accurate characterization of Ehud Olmert?

A) His party lost power after he stepped down in 2008 amid a corruption scandal
B) With Mahmoud Abbas, Olmert came closer to reaching an agreement than had any previous two leaders regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
C) Olmert held talks with al-Fatah despite the wariness of Israelis in the wake of the war with Hizbullah
D) Olmert avidly disagreed with the policies of his predecessor, Ariel Sharon

Question 20

Which of the following is accurate regarding the use of the phrase "mowing the lawn" in Gaza?

A) It is prosaically used to refer to the Israeli military operations launched against Gaza every few years, involving an overwhelming use of force to combat Hamas rockets
B) This phrase is used in the context of Israelis being increasingly disillusioned with the conflict with Palestinians, instead focusing greater attention on their own separate economic concerns
C) It is used within the context of Netanyahu's leadership choosing to manage rather than resolve the conflict with Palestine
D) All of these are accurate regarding the use of the phrase "mowing the lawn" in Gaza

Question 21

Immediately after forming a government, Prime Minister Rabin complied with US demands and announced a complete freeze on Israeli settlement construction.

Question 22

A UN report published in 2015 warned that the successive military operations and decade-long blockade could render the Gaza Strip "uninhabitable" by 2020.

Question 23

In the years following the second intifada divisions between Hamas and al-Fatah have become manifest geographically, with Hamas in control of Gaza and al-Fatah much stronger in the West Bank.

Question 24

President George H.W. Bush was the first US president to make US financial aid to Israel contingent upon Israel's willingness to curb its settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Question 25

Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated by a Hamas militant on November 4, 1995.

Question 26

Although implicit in the two 1993 documents, neither of the Oslo agreements made explicit mention of a______________

Question 27

During the Oslo process, local Palestinian leadership encountered increased tensions with outsiders, referred to as ___________

Question 28

With the signing of the __________________, Netanyahu reluctantly accepted the principle of exchanging occupied land for peace and security, though this was contrary to his party platform.

Question 29

In 2004, Arafat's successor as president of the Palestinian Authority was __________________.

Question 30

The ____________ was an international peace conference jointly sponsored by the US and the Soviet Union in 1991.

Question 31

How did the Hamas bombings of 1994-1995 impact both sides of the peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority?

Question 32

What were the factors that prompted the second intifada in 2000?

Question 33

How was Israel's use of lethal force on Palestinian demonstrators viewed by both sides of the conflict?

Question 34

Describe the relationship between Hamas and the United States following the 2006 election.

Question 35

Briefly contrast the growing international views of Israel with the on-the-ground situation for Palestinians and Israelis alike, over the past several years.

Question 36

Briefly compare the tactics and immediate effects of Israeli nationalist militants with Hamas.

Question 37

Briefly describe the lead up to Ehud Barak's resignation.

Question 38

Briefly explain the statement: "If Camp David was too little, Taba was too late."

Question 39

Briefly explain how the second intifada differed from the first.

Question 40

Briefly explain the dilemma Israel faces with the prospectus of a one-state solution.

Question 41

Should Hamas's electoral victory in 2006 be seen as a triumph of democracy or a failure for moderates-or, are the two mutually exclusive?

Question 42

Is a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine still viable, or even desirable?