The First Palestinian Intifada
1987-90
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Should the first Palestinian Intifada be
presented as an example of a nonviolent
resistance movement?
• In the Middle East, and specifically the ArabIsraeli conflict ‘force credited for everything’?
• ‘Intifada’ = ‘to shake off’ denotes sustained
campaign, shaking off one’s laziness,
submission to the occupiers, not just ‘revolt’…
Violence: largely symbolic?
An Intifada poster from 1990, intended
to represent Palestinian resistance
against Israeli military occupation.
Stone Throwing…
• Defining act of the campaign ‘not
nonviolence, simply low technology’ ?
(Kurlansky)
OR
• Symbolic action with strategic
significance.
But there was clear
aggressive intent...
- Towards the opponent.
- Towards fellow Palestinians who were
classed as ‘traitors’.
But these acts alone did not define the
movement, other characteristics dominated
the Intifada’s character….
Nonviolent Tactics
‘Weapons’ of nonviolent resistance (Gene Sharp):
- Protests, mass demonstrations, symbolic acts
(eg.hanging Palestinian flags)
- Social and political noncooperation.
- Economic noncooperation.
- Economic boycotts (of Israeli goods)
- Labour strikes
Social and Political Noncooperation:
• Local Popular Committees: establish parallel
institutions to create an alternative governing
structure. Functions not just direct action (protest
marches etc.) but community services such as
health, food, and education. Branched out into
specific functions (eg.organised agricultural
cooperatives,medical relief committees taught in
underground schools.)
• UNLU (Unified Leadership of the Uprising) formed
in January 1988. June 1988 issue 19th leaflet
(bayanat) instructing citizens to consider the
popular committees the government of the people
in place of the Civil Administration.
• Economic noncooperation: use of strikes
against tax policies imposed to quell the
uprising economically
• 1989 West Bank
town of Beit Sahour,
entire citizenry refused
to pay taxes. Became
a symbol of peaceful
opposition to the
occupation.
Consequences
• Psychological effect:
- Power changes, empowerment.
‘The very act of resistance transformed the resistors’
(Zunes, Kurtz, Asher).
Practice of ‘politics by other means’ rather than armed
insurrection maximized the potential for popular
participation = climate of self-reliance and selforganization grew, galvanized the community. Pivotal
point in the movement for self-rule despite ultimate
failure.
International awareness, altered previous perceptions of the Palestinian plight…
• Political Jujitsu: process by which the repression of nonviolent resistors
can rebound against the opponents.
• Escalated use of collective punishment by Israel – ironically coalesced the
resistance movement.
• Media: Israel’s repressive violence made to appear increasingly gratuitous
and unwarranted. Clear gap emerged between ‘oppressor’ and ‘oppressed’.
‘David and Goliath’ images in the international press. Images of youths,
women and children facing a highly sophisticated army.
• Imagery helped to challenge previous perceptions of Palestinians and
generate sympathy for their cause. Externally, nonviolence as highlighted by
the press undermined the idea that Palestinians were fanatics and terrorists.
The idea that they were fighting a civilians ‘shepherd’s war’ meant that they
coule be understood as a marginalized people in pursuit of a worthy national
cause
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYsd_2pr7tk
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsX_NPi9u30&NR=1
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klMXpvOFuOQ&feature=related
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Effect on Israel…
Society: yes intially succeed in tactics aimed at polariazing israel inwardly over issue of
occupation. Overturned prevailing notions of security in israel-exposed occupied territories as
force in thier own right, not merely physical and political buffer between the Arab world and
Israel.Had to reassess assumptions about security of their own state, threat from within not
external. Polarised opinion, made more extreme. Some drew the conclusion supression not
guarentee peace/security, others grew more convinced everything(including force) should be
done to prevent emergence of Palestinian state. External: Gulf war strenthed perception that
‘costs’ of keeping territorial depth were acceptable, + reinforced position of the right.
Peace Movement. more cooperation with Isr. Peace movements and more active, key sectors of
population, professional classes. Defence of Palestinian issue linked with issues of democractic
principles in israel itself. Over 50 Israeli peace groups created or reemerged and mobilized. Eg.
Rally June ’88 10,000 people coaltion of 20 groups. ‘New genre’ of peace activism, focusing on
the army.
But not result in policy change or triumph of progressive groups. Reduce effect over years. Relied
on indirect pressure generated by intifada not any specific strategy to aim directly at this level.
Response:
• Declare organisations illegal. March-Aug 1988 committees outlawed, members
detained/imprisoned tax raids, indivduals or communities, curfews, travel bans, closing off of
whole communities designed to put obstacles in the way of collective action isolate palestininan
communities from each other = participation reduced, loose momentum
• Collaborators- individuals paid/armed to infiltrate community and idnetitfy nationalists
• Violence: Death squads,undercover units, ‘break their bones’ policy Rabin, defence minsiter.
But never a understood as a longterm specifically nonviolent
struggle
• Strategy underdeveloped and not Ideologically underpinned?
-
Leadership: Mubarak Awad and other key activists. ‘it was not a revolt
it was a way of life’, ‘the point is power’.
Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO)
-
Ordinary Palestinians: Pragmatic, opportunism. Lack of available guns
primary motivation to embrace nonviolence? Nonviolence never widely
understood as an independent phenomenon, but one that could be
supplemented or supplanted by other techniques. Militarizing the Intifada
seen by some as a progression from initial nonviolent tactics. When
nonviolent action met with increasing repression, and goals not achieved,
violence escalate. Peculiarity, discipline required, uncompromising nature
of nonviolent struggle not articulated.
Rigby the Intifada ‘was not nonviolent enough’.
-
Oslo Accords 1993
(Clinton presides over ceremonies marking the signing of the
accord with Israeli primeminister Yitzhak Rabin, left, Arafat, right)
Successes and Failures…
• The Palestinians established the legitimacy of their aspirations in the minds
of people around the world.
• Peace process pushed onto International agenda: Impetus for 1991 Madrid
Conference
• Achieved recognition of their political leaders.
• Built internal commitment and solidarity.
• Created social structures.
• Significantly affected Israel’s economy
BUT
• Ensuing political process that led to the Oslo Accords in 1993 did not result
in the end of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Agreed to
allow for semi-autonomous rule in parts of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank
under the Palestinian Authority, but ‘Peace Myth’…
• Moreover, some argue the accord actually helped to entrench the conflict by
deflecting international awareness away from the reality of Israel's ongoing
illegal expansion of settlements.
At the time of the first
Intifada in 1988 NKI
(an anti-zionist
Jewish group) joined
Palestinian protests
in front of the United
Nations and the
White House.
‘Women in Black’, a
nonviolent action group
of Israeli women, protest
in Jersulam 1988.
Bibliography
•
Ackerman, Peter and Jack DuVall, A Force More Powerful: A Century of
Nonviolent Conflict (New York, 2000.)
•
Ackerman, Peter and Christopher Kruegler, Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: The
Dynamics of People Power in the Twentieth Century, (Praeger, Westport,
Connecticut, 1994) pp. 345-46.
•
Augustin, Ebba, Palestinian Women; identity and experience (London, New
jersey,1993.)
Kurlansky Mark, Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea, (London, 2006.)
•
•
Rigby, Andrew, ‘Unofficial Nonviolent Intervention: Examples from the IsraeliPalestinian Conflict’, Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 32, No. 4 (Nov., 1995), pp.
453-467.
•
Mayer, Tamar, ed., Women and the Israeli occupation; the politics of change
(London, New york 1994.)
•
Zunes S., Kurtz L, and.Asher S., Nonviolent Social Movements: a geographical
perspective (Malden, Mass., 1999.)