Palestinian Society and Economy: The Continued Denial of Possibility

This article explores the economic, political, and social changes in the West Bank and Gaza that have occurred since the beginning of the Oslo process in 1993. It argues that Oslo enabled Israel to control the Palestinian territories through the Palestinian Authority with damaging results that built up into collective disillusionment and rage that finally exploded in the al-Aqsa intifada.

Sara Roy is a research associate at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University. This article emanates from a project supported by a grant from the Research and Writing Initiative of the Program on Global Security and Sustainability of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.