A whole generation of Palestinian youth has…

A whole generation of Palestinian youth has grown up under Israeli occupation (more accurately described as military rule after 1978) by the late 1980s.

More than seventy percent of Palestinians are younger than twenty-five years of age.

Their political status is uncertain, their civil rights diminished, and their economic status low and dependent upon Israel's economy.

Between one hundred thousand and one hundred and twenty thousand Palestinians cross daily from the occupied territories into Israel to work.

They do not have much faith in Arab governments, nor do they place strong trust in the PLO, which, although still a powerful symbol of Palestinian aspirations, has not succeeded by either diplomatic or military efforts to win Palestinian self-determination.

Remittances to family members left behind from those hundreds of thousands who had migrated to Jordan and the Persian Gulf states for work in the 1960s and '70s dry up drastically as the Middle Eastern economies respond to falling oil prices.

Increasingly Palestinians come to rely on their own efforts.

Hamas's armed wing, the 'Izz al-Din al-Qassam Forces, begin a campaign of terrorism against Israel.