Massive land confiscation, settlement expansion, house demolition, by-pass road construction, arrests, torture and administrative detention, closure and the continued control of Jerusalem reflect the various methods the Israeli government continues to use to maintain permanent control over the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Indeed, the Israeli government, under first the Labor and then Likud administrations, used the signing of the Oslo Accords in September 1993 as a kind of smoke-screen to pursue policies which unalterably change the situation on the ground in the Occupied Territories, and make permanent Israeli control an historical inevitability.

The recent election of Benyamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister accelerated government approved or mandated action against Arab residents of Jerusalem and in the West Bank. Indeed, the guidelines for the government of Israel, approved in June 1996 by all the constituent parties of the Cabinet headed by Benyamin Netanyahu, stated openly that the Netanyahu government would break from the basic understanding of Oslo, that of land for peace, and would set its own principles.