Intifada
A Crisis of Confidence
Background
• It was a Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank
and Gaza, which lasted from December 1987 until 1991 (Madrid Conference).
Some date its conclusion to 1993, with the signing of the Oslo Accords
• Intifada: The Palestinian Uprising Against Israeli Occupation by Zachary
Lockmann; Joel Beinin eds. 1989
• Nami Nasrallah, 'The First and Second Palestinian intifadas,' in David
Newman, Joel Peters (eds.) Routledge, 2013, pp.56–67, p.56
• Economic integration and increasing Israeli settlements such that the Jewish
settler population in the West Bank alone nearly doubled from 35,000 in 1984
to 64,000 in 1988, reaching 130,000 by the mid nineties
• Benny Morris (2001). Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict,
1881-2001. Vintage. p. 567.
Background
• Palestinian rage with many dimensions
• Worsening economic recession (unemployment)
• Arab summit (Amman) PLO not invite or
discussed (November 1987).
• Labor or Likud took serious Palestinian self-rule in
the territories.
• "Reagan and the World" by David Kyvig (pg.84)
Background
• The uprising began on 9 December, 1987 in the Jabalia refugee camp after an
Israeli Defense Forces' (IDF) truck collided with a civilian car, killing four
Palestinians. In the wake of the incident, a (organic) protest movement arose,
involving a two-fold strategy of resistance and civil disobedience, consisting of:
• General strikes
• Boycotts in Gaza Strip and West Bank
• an economic boycott of refusal to work in Israeli settlements on Israeli products,
refusal to pay taxes,
• Also, refusal to drive Palestinian cars with Israeli licenses, graffitti, barricading and
widespread throwing of stones and Molotov cocktails at the IDF and its
infrastructure within the Palestinian territories.
• Israel, deploying some 80,000 soldiers and initially firing live rounds, killed a large
number of Palestinians.
• The Intifada was not initiated by any single individual or
organization. Local leadership came from groups and
organizations affiliated with the PLO that operated within the
Occupied Territories; such as Fatah, the Popular Front, the
Democratic Front.
• Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin added deportations in August
1985 to Israel's "Iron Fist" policy of cracking down on
Palestinian nationalism. This was used in 1987.
• Helena Cobbban'The PLO and the Intifada', in Robert Owen
Freedman, (ed.) The Intifada: its impact on Israel, the Arab
World, and the superpowers, University Press of Florida, 1991
pp.70-106, pp.94-5.'must be considered as an essential part
of the backdrop against which the intifada germinated'.(p.95)
Israeli Policy
• Iron Fist policy cruel and harsh or a proportional response?
• Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin said: "We will fight with all our power against any element that tries
by violence to upset our full control over Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip. I know the
descriptions of what is going on in the territories, the way it is interpreted in the media, is not
helping the image of Israel in the world. But I am convinced that above and beyond the temporary
problem of an image, the supreme responsibility of our government is to fight the violence in the
territories and to use all the means at our disposal to do that. We will do that, and we will succeed."
• Rabin added, in defense of the army's use of marksmen and high-powered sniping rifles against
rioters: "They can shoot to hit leaders of disorder, throwers of firebombs, as much as possible at the
legs after firing in the air fails to disperse the riot.
• John Kifner, New York Times, 12/24/87. Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times, 12/25/87 and
12/31/87, had particularly insightful pieces on how Israel regarded the riots as a public relations
problem and how the Palestinians failed to offer a political solution. Also, Glenn Frankel, Washington
Post, 12/24/87. Frankel's reporting from Gaza is particularly descriptive.
• Accusations of excessive force (UN)
• Shadow of British Army during Mandate
Crisis
• International condemnation
• December 22, U.N. Security Council voted 14-0-1 to "strongly
deplore [Israel's] policies and practices which violate the human
rights of the Palestinian people in the occupied territories." The
United States was the lone abstainer. It was the 58th time the
Security Council had passed a resolution critical of Israel since 1948
• Israel ‘lost’ the moral high ground.
• no longer the victim
• nazi-comparison begins
• anti-Israeli sentiment spreads
US response
• George Schultz after Lebanon disaster of 1983-84 had been timid.
But by early 1988 pursued shuttle diplomacy similar to Kissinger.
Very active.
• By July 1988, King Hussein of Jordan agreed that Palestinians
needed own voice aka PLO. This 'reset' the calculus of who the
administration could speak too. Similar with the unity govt. in Israel.
• Split within Reagan administration in wake of Iran-Contra delayed
peace efforts, sent mixed signals, and confused allies including
Israel.
• Arafat gave UN speech in Geneva in December 1988 where he
recognized Israel and offered peace.
US Response
• The emotional impact of Israel's violent suppression of the
Palestinians caused the Reagan administration, on the same day
that it abstained in the Security Council, to scold Israel for its
"harsh security measures and excessive use of live
ammunition."The next day Washington urged Israel to use
nonlethal riot control methods.
• New York Times, 12/23/87, Resolution No. 605. For earlier
abstentions see entries above and Michael Simpson, George J.
Tomeh and Regina S. Sherif (eds.). United Nations Resolutions
on Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, three volumes.
Washington, DC, Institute for Palestine Studies, 1988.
• New York Times, 12/23/87.
Outcomes
• The Intifada was recognized as an occasion where the
Palestinians acted cohesively and independently of their
leadership or assistance of neighboring Arab states
• The Intifada broke the image of Jerusalem as a united Israeli city.
• The success of the Intifada gave Arafat and his followers the
confidence they needed to moderate their political programme:
At the meeting of the Palestine National Council in Algiers in midNovember
1988, Arafat won a majority for the historic decision to
recognise Israel's legitimacy; to accept all the relevant UN
resolutions going back to 29 November 1947; and to adopt the
principle of a two-state solution.
Outcomes
• Jordan severed its residual administrative and
financial ties to the West Bank in the face of
sweeping popular support for the PLO
• "Iron Fist" policy, Israel's deteriorating international
image, Jordan cutting legal and administrative ties
to the West Bank, and the U.S.'s recognition of the
PLO as the representative of the Palestinian
people forced Rabin to seek an end to the
violence though negotiation and dialogue with the
PLO