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Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March 2008, pages 60-61 Waging Peace Lecture Marks 20th Anniversary of the Palestinian Intifada
SPEAKING TO A full house at the Palestine Center in Washington, DC on Oct. 25, Dr. Mary King, professor of peace and conflict studies at American University presented her case that the first intifada was a massive nonviolent resistance to the Israeli occupation. Her findings are the result of 18 years of thorough research on the subject and are the subject of her new book, A Quiet Revolution: The First Palestinian Intifada and Nonviolence Resistance (available from the AET Book Club). Describing nonviolent resistance as “a technique for pursuing social justice that is frequently the only realistic way to oppose military occupations,” King proceeded to list three nonviolent strategies implemented by Palestinians during the first intifada, which lasted from December 1987 until March 1990. First, despite the Israeli occupation, Palestinians created active committees that structured a civil society. Secondly, the intellectual community presented an alternative to armed struggle, which helped foster an environment more accepting of political compromise and negotiations with the Israelis. And thirdly, the Palestinians adopted nonviolent techniques from movements from other parts of the world. It was interesting to learn from Dr. King that, early on, all nonviolent movements take great care to choose the appropriate name for their struggle. The Palestinians were no exception. “The word intifada came from student struggles during the 1980s against Israeli Military Orders 854 and 947, considered by the Palestinians to be an assault on their academic freedom,” King explained. Noting that the Arabic word intifada literally means “to shake off,” King pointed out that “The students chose a deliberately, specifically, linguistically nonviolent word with no connotations of retaliation or vengeance.” In Dr. King’s opinion, the lasting result of the first intifada was the sound argument for a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Sadly, she said, the conflict’s major players in the conflict—the PLO, the Israelis, the United States and the international community—let this crucial opportunity slip away. The PLO saw the movement as a threat to its control over the occupied territories, especially since at the time they were headquartered more than a thousand miles away, in Tunis. The Israelis refused to see the uprising as anything more than a military operation, totally disregarding its political aspects. “Nonetheless,” she said, “the basic political accomplishments stand.” While a great deal of press time around the world was devoted to the struggle, King said, most news reports didn’t seem to understand or present what was taking place as a well-coordinated nonviolent movement with the ultimate goal of doing away with the occupation. Nothing was reported on the nonviolenttechniques—first used by Gandhi in India—being employed, or the fact that the Palestinians’ actions were similar to those used by the civil rights movement in the United States and other parts of the world. In the end, Dr. King said, the unified front of the Palestinians within the movement fell apart. The Israelis continued to ignore the potential of recognizing or negotiating with the leadership of the first intifada, and, instead of supporting the movement, the PLO continued to attempt to dominate it and minimize the up-and-coming leadership on the ground. And most of the world sat by and allowed the leaders of the struggle to be either deported or imprisoned. Despite all of this, Dr. King stated, the first intifada lead to the 1991 international conference in Madrid, and then to the Oslo accords. Although Oslo did not succeed in the goal of achieving lasting peace and Palestinian statehood, she acknowledged, the stage was set for direct dialogue between the Palestinians and Israelis, with the possibilities being endless. “The implications of the first intifada apply far beyond the Middle East,” Dr. King concluded. “An entire society living under occupation unified itself based on changes in popular thinking about how to transform their predicament.” —Jamal Najjab |
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