The First Palestinian Intifada1987-90

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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 Arab-Israeli 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 Banktown of Beit Sahour,entire citizenry refused to pay taxes. Became a symbol of peaceful opposition to the occupation.

• 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 self-organization grew, galvanized the community. Pivotal point in the movement for self-rule despite ultimate failure.

Consequences

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 long-term 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 Israeli-Palestinian 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.)