The First Intifada: Palestinian Nonviolent Resistance and its Outcomes

In December 1987, a traffic collision in the Jabalya refugee camp sparked what would become one of the most significant nonviolent uprisings of the late 20th century. When an Israeli truck crashed into vehicles carrying Palestinian workers, killing four people, Palestinians rose up against two decades of military occupation. This uprising, known as the First Intifada-Arabic for “shaking off”-would challenge conventional wisdom about resistance movements and demonstrate the potential power of organized civil disobedience.

A grassroots revolt emerges
Limiting violence to gain moral authority
Organizing systematic noncooperation
Israel’s iron fist response
Growing dissent within Israel
Outcomes and lasting impact
The price of partial success

A grassroots revolt emerges

The accident that triggered the uprising was not an isolated incident but the breaking point after years of accumulated frustration. By 1987, Palestinians had endured twenty years of Israeli military occupation following the 1967 Six-Day War. Economic hardship, expanding Israeli settlements, home demolitions, and daily humiliations had created conditions ripe for resistance.

What made this uprising different from previous episodes of unrest was its spontaneous, grassroots character. Unlike earlier Palestinian resistance movements directed by external leadership, the First Intifada emerged from local communities organizing themselves through neighborhood committees. Tens of thousands of Palestinians-including women, children, and the elderly-participated in demonstrations, strikes, and acts of civil disobedience throughout the occupied territories.

Limiting violence to gain moral authority

One of the most strategic decisions made by Palestinian leaders was to deliberately restrict the forms of violence used during the uprising. While protesters did throw stones and Molotov cocktails at Israeli soldiers, they consciously avoided using firearms. This decision reflected careful calculation rather than mere principle.

Palestinian organizers understood that resorting to armed resistance would invite devastating Israeli military retaliation and undermine international sympathy for their cause. The formation of the Unified National Leadership of the Uprising helped coordinate this strategic restraint, issuing leaflets that specifically called on Palestinians not to employ arms since such tactics would only provoke overwhelming Israeli force.

The image of Palestinian youth confronting fully-armed Israeli soldiers with stones became the iconic symbol of the Intifada. These clashes generated unprecedented international media coverage, with the three major American television networks dedicating more time to the Intifada than to any other story during that period. The asymmetry between unarmed protesters and a modern military force humanized the Palestinian struggle in ways that decades of armed attacks had failed to achieve.

Organizing systematic noncooperation

Behind the dramatic street confrontations lay a more systematic campaign of nonviolent resistance. Palestinian intellectuals like Mubarak Awad and Hanna Siniora developed comprehensive plans for civil disobedience drawing inspiration from Gandhi’s independence movement in India and the American civil rights struggle.

Mubarak Awad, who founded the Palestinian Centre for the Study of Nonviolence, translated works by Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Gene Sharp into Arabic and distributed pamphlets on nonviolent tactics throughout the West Bank. His tactics included planting olive trees on proposed settlement sites, refusing to carry Israeli ID cards, publicly defying curfews, and boycotting Israeli products. Hanna Siniora, a newspaper editor, publicly announced in January 1988 a plan for Palestinians to become self-sufficient in basic necessities so they could refuse to work in Israel, buy Israeli goods, or pay taxes to the occupation authorities.

These organized boycotts and strikes had tangible economic impact. By the end of 1988, Israel had suffered an estimated one billion dollar economic loss from the Palestinian labor strike, boycotted goods, and tax refusal. The uprising forced Israel to deploy approximately 80,000 soldiers to the occupied territories and increase military expenditures by around 600 million dollars.

Israel’s iron fist response

The Israeli government initially believed it could quickly suppress the uprising using its standard repertoire of collective punishment measures. Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin implemented what became known as the “Iron Fist” policy in August 1985, which included mass arrests, extended curfews, school closures, home demolitions, and deportations.

As the Intifada persisted, Rabin infamously ordered soldiers to use a policy of breaking bones-literally instructing troops to break the arms and legs of Palestinian protesters with clubs and beatings rather than shooting them. The brutality of Israel’s response shocked many observers. In the first year alone in Gaza, 142 Palestinians were killed while no Israelis died; 77 were shot dead, 37 died from tear gas inhalation, and 17 died from beatings.

Over the six years of the Intifada, Israeli forces killed between 1,087 and 1,204 Palestinians, including approximately 240 children. More than 120,000 Palestinians were injured, and approximately 120,000 were imprisoned at various points during the uprising. Save the Children estimated that between 50,000 and 63,000 Palestinian children required medical treatment for beating injuries in just the first two years.

The Israeli government also targeted nonviolent leaders specifically. In June 1988, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir ordered Mubarak Awad’s deportation on grounds of inciting civil uprising and distributing leaflets advocating nonviolent resistance. Israeli authorities understood that organized nonviolent resistance posed a greater long-term threat than armed attacks, as it was harder to justify brutal suppression and generated more international sympathy.

Growing dissent within Israel

As images of Israeli soldiers beating Palestinian children circulated globally, opposition grew within Israel itself. The peace movement Peace Now, which had been founded in 1978 by Israeli reserve officers, organized demonstrations calling for negotiations with Palestinians. In 1988, Peace Now led a massive demonstration of 100,000 people calling on the government to negotiate with the PLO after the Palestinian leadership accepted UN resolutions recognizing Israel.

The First Intifada also sparked unprecedented mobilization of women in Israeli peace activism. Women’s organizations like Women in Black held weekly silent vigils protesting the occupation, facing harsh verbal attacks from right-wing groups who viewed their dissent as particularly threatening to Israeli nationalist ideology.

Even some Israeli military commanders privately acknowledged the futility of trying to crush the uprising through force alone. In April 1988, an IDF commander told Israeli officials that continued armed force would not resolve the crisis, though the government continued its repressive policies for years afterward.

Outcomes and lasting impact

The First Intifada did not achieve its primary goal of ending the Israeli occupation or establishing an independent Palestinian state. However, it fundamentally transformed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and international perceptions of it in several crucial ways.

Most significantly, the uprising shattered what many Israelis had believed was a stable, relatively accepted occupation. The mass participation and sustained resistance demonstrated that Palestinians would not quietly accept permanent Israeli control. The failure of the Iron Fist policy combined with Israel’s deteriorating international image eventually forced the Israeli government to pursue negotiations rather than purely military solutions.

The Intifada gave the Palestinian cause unprecedented international legitimacy and visibility. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter later wrote that the Palestinians’ nonviolent resistance in the First Intifada represented a powerful example of using classic nonviolent methods to contest military occupation while maintaining concern for the connection between ends and means.

In November 1988, emboldened by the uprising, the Palestine Liberation Organization officially recognized Israel’s legitimacy and accepted UN resolutions, adopting the principle of a two-state solution. This led eventually to the Madrid Conference in 1991 and the Oslo Accords signed in 1993, which created the Palestinian Authority and established a framework for ongoing negotiations.

The price of partial success

While these diplomatic developments seemed promising, the Oslo process ultimately failed to deliver Palestinian statehood. Israel continued expanding settlements and deepening its control over Palestinian life even as negotiations proceeded. Many Palestinians came to view Oslo as a betrayal of the Intifada’s achievements.

The uprising also revealed the limitations of nonviolent resistance when not met with good faith negotiation. As Israeli repression intensified and key nonviolent leaders were imprisoned or deported, maintaining movement discipline became increasingly difficult. By 1990, the Intifada had begun losing direction, with sporadic violence increasing even as the organized nonviolent campaign weakened.

Mary Elizabeth King, a scholar of nonviolent movements, noted that while the First Intifada’s nonviolent sanctions achieved more than decades of armed attacks had, the uprising ultimately disintegrated into violence after Israel imprisoned, deported, or discredited the activist intellectuals who had sustained its nonviolent character.

Nevertheless, the First Intifada demonstrated that sustained mass civil disobedience could challenge even a powerful military occupation, generate global sympathy, and force political change. It showed that Palestinians were not passive victims but active agents capable of organized resistance. The uprising’s emphasis on grassroots organizing, strategic nonviolence, and building alternative institutions offered lessons that influenced resistance movements worldwide.

What do you think? Could more sustained international support for nonviolent Palestinian leadership during the First Intifada have changed the trajectory of the conflict? How might resistance movements today learn from both the successes and limitations of the First Intifada’s approach?

References

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The First Intifada: Palestinian Nonviolent Resistance and its Outcomes

Table of Contents

A grassroots revolt emerges 🔗

Limiting violence to gain moral authority 🔗

Organizing systematic noncooperation 🔗

Israel’s iron fist response 🔗

Growing dissent within Israel 🔗

Outcomes and lasting impact 🔗

The price of partial success 🔗