the founding Israel and Zionism itself. A lively internal debate commenced, following the Six-Day War. The American Jewish community was divided over whether or not they agreed with the Israeli response; the great majority came to accept the war as necessary. A tension existed especially for leftist Jews, between their liberal ideology and (rightist) Zionist backing in the midst of this conflict. This deliberation about the Six-Day War showed the depth and complexity of Jewish responses to the varied events of the 1960s. Similar tensions were aroused by the 1977 election of Begin and the rise of revisionist policies, the 1982 Lebanon War, and the continuing occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Disagreement over Israel's 1993 acceptance of the Oslo Accords caused a further split among American Jews;<ref>Danny Ben-Moshe, Zohar Segev, Israel, the Diaspora, and Jewish Identity, Published by Sussex Academic Press, 2007, , Chapter 7, The Changing Identity of American Jews, Israel and the Peace Process, by Ofira Seliktar, p. 126 . <blockquote> The 1993 Oslo Agreement made this split in the Jewish community official. Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin's handshake with Yasir Arafat during the 13 September White House ceremony elicited dramatically opposed reactions among American Jews. To the liberal universalists, the accord was highly welcome news. As one commentator put it, after a year of tension between Israel and the United States, "there was an audible sigh of relief from American and Jewish liberals. Once again, they could support Israel as good Jews, committed liberals, and loyal Americans." The community "could embrace the Jewish state, without compromising either its liberalism or its patriotism". Hidden deeper in this collective sense of relief was the hope that, following the peace with the Palestinians, Israel would transform itself into a Western-style liberal democracy, featuring a full separation between the state and religion. Not accidentally, many of the leading advocates of Oslo, including Yossi Beilin, the then-Deputy Foreign Minister, cherish the belief that a "normalized" Israel would become less Jewish and more democratic. However, to the hard-core Zionists - the Orthodox community and right-wing Jews - the peace treaty amounted to what some dubbed the "handshake earthquake". From the perspective of the Orthodox, Oslo was not just an affront to the sanctity of Eretz Yisrael, but also a personal threat to the Orthodox settlers - often kin or former congregants - in the West Bank and Gaza. For Jewish nationalists such