Intifada

The word intifada is Arabic for “shaking off,” but in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it has come to mean “uprising.” Between 1987 and 2005, two intifadas aimed to create a Palestinian state. The first began in December 1987 and ended with the September 1993 signing of the Oslo Accords, which provided a framework for peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. The second (“al-Aqsa”) intifada began in September 2000. Although no single event signaled its end, most analysts agree that it had run its course by late 2005.

The proximate causes of the first intifada were intensified Israeli land expropriation and settlement construction in the West Bank and Gaza after the electoral victory of the right-wing Likud party in 1977; increasing Israeli repression in response to heightened Palestinian protests since 1982; the emergence of a new cadre of local Palestinian activists who challenged the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)—a process aided by Israel's stepped-up attempts to repress political activism and break the PLO's ties to the occupied territories in the early 1980s; and, in reaction to the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the emergence of a strong peace camp on the Israeli side, which many Palestinians thought provided a basis for change in Israeli policy. With motivation, means, and perceived opportunity in place, only a precipitant was required for collective action. This took the form of a fatality involving a military vehicle that was rumored to be an act of Israeli revenge for a stabbing a few days earlier.

Most of the Palestinian rioting took place during the intifada's first year, after which a shift occurred, from throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails to attacking with rifles, hand grenades, and explosives. The shift occurred mainly because of the severity of Israeli military and police repression, which intensified after Palestinian attacks became more violent. According to data from B'Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, 1,265 deaths due to collective violence occurred during the 69 months of the first intifada, nearly 90 percent of them Palestinian.

Pragmatism crystallized alongside the violence. In 1988 the PLO accepted American conditions for opening a dialogue: the rejection of terrorism, recognition of Israel's right to exist, and the acceptance of UN Security Council Resolution 242, calling for Israel's withdrawal to its pre-1967 borders. With the intifada proving to be politically and economically damaging to Israel, a new Israeli government was elected in 1992 with a mandate to sue for peace. The United States pressured both sides to come to the bargaining table, and negotiations resulted in the signing of the Oslo Accords in [Page 293]1993. The accords reiterated the PLO's 1988 commitments, while Israel recognized the PLO as the Palestinian people's legitimate representative, agreed to withdraw in stages from the West Bank and Gaza, and allowed the creation of a Palestinian Authority (PA) to govern those areas. Outstanding matters were to be settled over the next five years.

Just as the PLO turned to pragmatism, however, a new organization, Hamas, turned in the opposite direction, articulating a vision of an Islamic state in all of historic Palestine. In 1993, Hamas rejected the Oslo Accords and, in a move to scuttle peace talks, initiated a series of suicide attacks against Israeli targets. Twenty such bombings occurred between 1993 and 1997, killing 175 Israelis and their attackers. Israel retaliated, but in a focused way. Some 635 fatalities due to collective violence were recorded in the 84 months between the signing of the Oslo Accords and the beginning of the second intifada, just 40 percent of the monthly fatality rate during the first intifada. The ratio of Palestinian to Israeli deaths was a relatively low 1.6 to 1, and talks continued.

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