Abstract
SUMMARY The Palestine confliet is one of the prolonged conflicts that poses threat to regional and international security. Our thesis investigates why it has not been resolved by focusing on the role of the extreme nationalist and religious groups in both Palestine and Israel from the 1987 intifada onwards. The conceptual framework incorporates one of the proponents of the theory of realism that that the the system's distribution of power determines the likelybehaviour of states at any given time. It attempts to detect and understand the forces that determine political relations relations between Palestine and Israel, and comprehend the ways in which the extreme nationalist and religious forces act upon each other and upon international political relations and institutions. In more concrete terms, the thesis investigares the ways in which the extreme religious and nationalist groups act upon each other and upon their governments, consequently and influence the domestic political process and the political decision making of the conflicting state. We hypotheses that the extreme nationalist and religious groups escalate the conflict by driving each side to retaliate and resort to violence. On the other hand, the use of violence. On the other hand, the use of violence is more likely to force the conflicting party to negotiate. For example, the intifada, began in 1987, was more likely force Israel to negotiate peace with Palestine. The Oslo Agreement was one of the achievements in the resolution of the conflict. Yet it did not proceed smoothly when the leaders with extreme ideological tendencies fuelled conflict with their gestures. This particularly applies to Israel where the extremist groups in Israel are more likely to force governments to reject negotiation and making concessions. However, the Palestine extremist groups force their own governments and Israel to go to negotiation table. Nevertheless, the zero-sum-reasoning on each side, rather than win-win solution often complicates the situation and blocks conflict resolution. in
