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Palestine,
Israel and the Arab-Israeli Conflict
A Primer
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The
Intifada
Palestinians
in Ramallah demonstrating against Israeli ocuppation forces.
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In
December 1987, the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza
started a mass uprising against the Israeli occupation. This uprising,
or intifada (which means "shaking off" in Arabic), was
not started or orchestrated by the PLO leadership in Tunis. Rather,
it was a popular mobilization that drew on the organizations and
institutions that had developed under occupation. The intifada involved
hundreds of thousands of people, many with no previous resistance
experience, including children, teenagers and women. For the first
few years, it involved many forms of civil disobedience, including
massive demonstrations, general strikes, refusal to pay taxes, boycotts
of Israeli products, political graffiti and the establishment of
underground schools (since regular schools were closed by the military
as reprisals for the uprising). It also included stone throwing,
Molotov cocktails and the erection of barricades to impede the movement
of Israeli military forces.
Intifada
activism was organized through popular committees under the umbrella
of the United National Leadership of the Uprising. The UNLU was
a coalition of the four PLO parties active in the occupied territories:
Fatah, the PFLP, the DFLP and the PPP. This broad-based resistance
drew unprecedented international attention to the situation facing
Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, and challenged the occupation
as never before.
Under
the leadership of Minister of Defense Yitzhak Rabin, Israel tried
to smash the intifada with "force, power and blows." Army
commanders instructed troops to break the bones of demonstrators.
From 1987 to 1991 Israeli forces killed over 1,000 Palestinians,
including over 200 under the age of sixteen. By 1990, most of the
UNLU leaders had been arrested and the intifada lost its cohesive
force, although it continued for several more years. Political divisions
and violence within the Palestinian community escalated, especially
the growing rivalry between the various PLO factions and Islamist
organizations (HAMAS and Islamic Jihad). Palestinian militants killed
over 250 Palestinians suspected of collaborating with the occupation
authorities and about 100 Israelis during this period.
| The
intifada shifted the center of gravity of Palestinian political
initiative from the PLO leadership in Tunis to the occupied
territories.
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Although
the intifada did not bring an end to the occupation, it made clear
that the status quo was untenable. The intifada shifted the center
of gravity of Palestinian political initiative from the PLO leadership
in Tunis to the occupied territories. Palestinian activists in the
occupied territories demanded that the PLO adopt a clear political
program to guide the struggle for independence. In response, the
Palestine National Council (a Palestinian government-in-exile),
convened in Algeria in November 1988, recognized the state of Israel,
proclaimed an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and
the Gaza Strip, and renounced terrorism. The Israeli government
did not respond to these gestures, claiming that nothing had changed
and that the PLO was a terrorist organization with which it would
never negotiate. The US did acknowledge that the PLO's policies
had changed, but did little to encourage Israel to abandon its intransigent
stand.
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11 | The
Madrid Conference
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