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==Timeline== ==Timeline==
<p style="text-align:center;margin:auto;">{{Timeline of Intifadas}} <p style="text-align:center;margin:auto;">{{Timeline of Intifadas}}

==See also==
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==References== ==References==

Revision as of 23:41, 3 January 2013

First Intifada
Part of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict
File:Intifada1990.jpg
First Intifada poster
DateDecember 1987–1993
LocationWest Bank, Gaza Strip, Israel
Result The Palestinians did not achieve independence. The Intifada contributed to expedite the process leading to the Oslo Accords
Belligerents
 Israel UNCI:
Palestine Palestinian dissidents
Palestine PLO
Hamas
PFLP
Commanders and leaders
Israel Yitzhak Shamir Palestine Unified National Leadership of the Uprising
Palestine Yasser Arafat
Casualties and losses

160 Israelis total: - 100 Israeli civilians killed by Palestinians, 47 of them were Israeli settlers
- 60 Israeli Security forces personnel killed by Palestinians


1,400 Israeli civilians and 1,700 Israeli soldiers wounded.

2,162 Palestinians total: - 1,087 Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces
- 75 Palestinians killed by Israeli civilians


- Approximately 1,000 Palestinians* killed by Palestinians
*Were killed under the accusation of being collaborators and informants of Israel.
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The First Intifada (also known as simply the "intifada" or intifadah) was a Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories, which lasted from December 1987 to 1993. The uprising began in the Jabalia refugee camp and quickly spread throughout Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Palestinian actions primarily included nonviolent civil disobedience and resistance, and it was the first time that Palestinians acted together and as a nation. There were general strikes, boycotts on Israeli products, refusal to pay taxes, graffiti, and barricades, but the Palestinian demonstrations that included stone-throwing by youths against the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) defined the violence for many.

Intra-Palestinian violence was a prominent feature of the Intifada, with widespread executions of alleged Israeli collaborators. While Israeli forces killed an estimated 1,100 Palestinians and Palestinians killed 164 Israelis, Palestinians killed an estimated 1,000 other Palestinians as alleged collaborators, although fewer than half had any proven contact with the Israeli authorities.

The Second Intifada was from September 2000 to 2005.

General causes

After Israel's capture of the West Bank, Jerusalem, Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Jordan and Egypt in the Six-Day War in 1967, frustration grew among Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories. The "Iron Fist" policy of cracking down on Palestinian nationalism began by Israel in 1985. This was accompanied by 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. Referring to the developments, Israeli minister of Economics and Finance, Gad Ya'acobi, stated that "a creeping process of de facto annexation" contributed to a growing militancy in Palestinian society.

During the 1980s a number of mainstream Israeli politicians referred to policies of transferring the Palestinian population out of the territories leading to Palestinian fears that Israel planned to evict them. Public statements calling for transfer of the Palestinian population were made by Deputy Defense minister Michael Dekel, Cabinet Minister Mordaechai Zippori and government Minister Yosef Shapira among others.

Describing the causes of the Intifada, Benny Morris refers to the "all-pervading element of humiliation", caused by the protracted occupation which he says was "always a brutal and mortifying experience for the occupied" and was "founded on brute force, repression and fear, collaboration and treachery, beatings and torture chambers, and daily intimidation, humiliation, and manipulation"

Background

The First Intifada came when Palestinians were protesting against Israeli acts that they regarded as brutal and when there was a political stalemate between parties involved in the Arab–Israeli conflict. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) had not brought about any solutions to alleviate Palestinian suffering and in 1982, during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the organization had been forced to relocate their offices to Tunis.

The Arab summit in Amman in November 1987 focused on the Iran–Iraq War, and the Palestinian issue was shunted to the sidelines for the first time in years.

Catalysts

Palestinians and their supporters regard the Intifada as a protest against Israeli repression including extrajudicial killings, mass detentions, house demolitions, deportations, and so on. While relatively few houses were demolished in the years before the Intifada, Israelis believed that house demolitions had "deterrent value". After the Intifada began, and the PLO began to compensate affected families, demolitions "were transformed into a stimulus to further escalation of resistance." Further causes to the Intifada can be seen in the Egyptian withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the Jordanian monarchy growing weary of pursuing its claims to the West Bank.

High birth rates in the Palestinian territories and the limited allocation of land for new building and agriculture contributed to the increasing population density and a rise in unemployment. While income from manual labor in Israel benefited some Palestinians, unemployment was increasing, even for those with university degrees. At the time of the Intifada, only one in eight college-educated Palestinians could find degree-related work.

One incident that was often claimed as a motivation is the perceived IDF failure in the "Night of the Gliders", or the "Kibia action", in which a Palestinian guerrilla infiltrated an IDF army camp from Lebanon and killed six soldiers.

According to Donald Neff, "The immediate cause" of the First Intifada came on 8 December 1987, "when an Israeli army tank transporter ran into a group of Palestinians from Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza Strip, killing four and injuring seven. An Israeli salesman had been stabbed to death in Gaza two days earlier and there were suspicions among the Palestinian Arabs that the traffic collision had not been an accident."

Leadership

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; Fatah, the Popular Front, the Democratic Front and the Palestine Communist Party. The PLO's rivals in this activity were the Islamic organizations, Hamas and Islamic Jihad as well as local leadership in cities such as Beit Sahour and Bethlehem. However, the uprising was predominantly led by community councils led by Hanan Ashrawi, Faisal Husseini and Haidar Abdel-Shafi, that promoted independent networks for education (underground schools as the regular schools were closed by the military in reprisal for the uprising), medical care, and food aid. The Unified National Leadership of the Uprising (UNLU) gained credibility where the Palestinian society complied with the issued communiques.

The Intifada

On 6 December 1987, an Israeli businessman was stabbed to death while shopping in Gaza. Two days later, four residents of the Jabalya refugee camp—the largest of the eight refugee camps in the Gaza Strip—were killed in a traffic accident involving an Israeli trucker. Rumors circulated that the accident was, in fact, a deliberate act of revenge for the stabbing of the businessman. Mass rioting broke out on 9 December after a Palestinian teen was shot dead by an Israeli soldier after having thrown a Molotov cocktail at an army patrol.

Hours later, rioting spread into the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Within days the occupied territories were engulfed in a wave of demonstrations and commercial strikes on an unprecedented scale. Equally unprecedented was the extent of mass participation in these disturbances: tens of thousands of ordinary civilians, including women and children. The Israeli security forces used the full panoply of crowd control measures to try and quell the disturbances: cudgels, nightsticks, tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets, and live ammunition. But the disturbances only gathered momentum.

Soon there was widespread rock-throwing, road-blocking and tire burnings throughout the territories. By 12 December, six Palestinians had died and 30 had been injured in the violence. The next day, rioters threw a gasoline bomb at the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem though no one was hurt.

Other rumors circulated that Palestinian youths wounded by Israeli soldiers were being taken to an army hospital near Tel Aviv and "finished off." Another rumor, claimed Israeli troops poisoned a water reservoir in Khan Yunis. A UN official said these stories were untrue. Only the most seriously injured Palestinians were taken out of the Gaza Strip for treatment, and, in some cases, this probably saved their lives. The water was also tested and found to be uncontaminated.

The Israel Defense Forces reported more than 3,600 Molotov cocktail attacks, 100 hand grenade attacks and 600 assaults with guns or explosives. The attacks were directed at both soldiers and Israeli civilians.

Demonstrations evolved from random disturbances to more organized attacks instigated by the Palestinian leadership. By 1988, the Islamist Palestinian movements, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, emerged. The organizations were responsible for hundreds of violent acts, including kidnapping soldiers and killing Israeli civilians.

The Israeli response to the Palestinian uprising was also deadly. The IDF killed many Palestinians at the beginning of the Intifida, the majority killed during demonstrations and riots. Palestinian protests were unpredictable and often violent and IDF troops were untrained in controlling them. This led to many Palestinian deaths. Israel used mass arrests of Palestinians while Palestinian leaders closed down elementary schools and women and children confronted Israeli soldiers on the border.

Casualties

See also: Palestinian casualties of war, Israeli casualties of war, Palestinian political violence, and List of Palestinian suicide attacks

The Israeli army killed more than 1,000 Palestinians in the 1st intifada and more than 120,000 Palestinians were arrested in the 6-year conflict. In 1990 Ktzi'ot Prison, in the Negev, held approximately one out of every 50 West Bank and Gazan males older than 16 years.

Gerald Kaufman remarked: "riends of Israel as well as foes have been shocked and saddened by that country's response to the disturbances." In an article in the London Review of Books, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt asserted that the IDF was given truncheons and encouraged to break the bones of Palestinian protesters. Swedish branch of Save the Children estimated that, "23,600 to 29,900 children required medical treatment for their beating injuries in the first two years of the intifada", one third of whom were children under the age of ten years old.

Intra-communal violence

From 1989-1992, this intra-communal violence claimed the lives of nearly 1,000 Palestinians. By June 1990, according to Benny Morris, "he Intifada seemed to have lost direction. A symptom of the PLO's frustration was the great increase in the killing of suspected collaborators; in 1991 the Israelis killed more Palestinians - about 100 - about 150."

Other notable events

On 19 April 1988, a leader of the PLO, Abu Jihad, was assassinated in Tunis. During the rioting that followed, about 16 Palestinians were killed. In June of that year, the Arab League agreed to support the intifada financially at the 1988 Arab League summit. The Arab League reaffirmed its financial support in the 1989 summit.

In 1989, local committees in Beit Sahour initiated a nonviolence movement to withhold taxes, taking up the slogan "No Taxation Without Representation". Israeli defense minister Yitzhak Rabin's response was: "We will teach them there is a price for refusing the laws of Israel." When time in prison did not stop the activists, Israel crushed the boycott by imposing heavy fines and seizing and disposing of equipment, furnishings, and goods from local stores, factories and homes.

The Israeli state apparatus carried out contradictory and conflicting policies that were seen to have injured Israel's own interests, such as the closing of educational establishments (putting more youths onto the streets) and issuing the Shin Bet list of collaborators. Suicide bombings by Palestinian militants started on 16 April 1993 with the Mehola Junction bombing, carried at the end of the Intifada.

United Nations

The large number of Palestinian casualties provoked international condemnation. In subsequent resolutions, including 607 and 608, the Security Council demanded Israel cease deportations of Palestinians. In November 1988, Israel was condemned by a large majority of the UN General Assembly for its actions against the intifada. In view of the continuing killing and wounding of defenceless Palestinian civilians by Israeli soldiers and settlers, the resolution was repeated in the following years.

The Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices

In its annual report of 26 August 1988, the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices reported about the intifada in detail. Following next reports, the General Assembly reacted on 8 December 1989 with an unusually strong condemnation of Israel in Resolution 44/48. Israel was condemned for a long list of bad behaviours, which were inter alinea called "war crimes and an affront to humanity". The long list of charges included inter alia annexation, deportation, expulsion, destruction, collective punishment, administrative detention, torture, illegal exploitation, curtailing of free press, killing and wounding of defenceless demonstrators, breaking of bones and limbs of thousands of civilians, use of toxic gas and arming of Israeli settlers with the purpose to perpetrate and commit acts of violence against Palestinians and other Arabs, causing deaths and injuries. Israel also obstructed UN investigations. Alle resolutions were opposed by Israel and the United States only. For large parts of Resolution 44/48 Israel was even the only voter against it.

Failing Security Council

On 17 February 1989, the UN Security Council unanimously but for US condemned Israel for disregarding Security Council resolutions, as well as for not complying with the fourth Geneva Convention. The United States, thus itself not respecting the UN charter, put a veto on a draft resolution which would have strongly deplored it. On 9 June, the US again put a veto on a resolution. On 7 November, the US vetoed a third draft resolution, condemning Israeli violations of human rights, the siege of towns, the ransacking of the homes and the confiscation of their property and valuables. The US rejected on-site monitoring by the UN.

On 14 October 1990, Israel openly declared that it would not abide Security Council Resolution 672 and refused to receive a delegation of the Secretary-General, which would investigate Israeli violence. The following Resolution 673 made little impression and Israel kept on obstructing UN investigations.

Outcomes

The intifada was neither a military nor a guerrilla conflict. The PLO - which had limited control of the situation - never expected the uprising to make any direct gains against the Israeli state, as it was a grassroots, mass movement and not their venture. However, the Intifada did produce a number of results that Palestinians considered positive:

  • By engaging the Israelis directly, rather than relying on the authority or the assistance of neighboring Arab states, Palestinians were able to demonstrate their identity as a separate nation worthy of self-determination.
  • It broke the image of Jerusalem as a united, Israeli city.
  • The failure of the "Iron Fist" policy, Israel's deteriorating international image and 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 the violence though negotiation and dialogue with the PLO.
  • The Intifada resulted in international attention to the Palestinians' cause.
  • The Palestinians showed for the first time that there were two sides to the Israel-Palestine issue.
  • Many American media outlets openly criticized Israel in a way that they had not before.
  • 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 mid-November 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.
  • Criticism of Israel came from the United Nations, the European Community and the United States as well as the Arab states - which during the 1980s were concentrated on the Iran–Iraq War.
  • The European Community (later European Union) became an important economic contributor towards the nascent Palestinian Authority.
  • The Intifada empowered Palestinians to enter negotiations which lead to the Madrid Conference and the Oslo Accords.
  • The uprising can be linked to the Madrid Conference, and thereby to the return of the Palestinian Liberation Organization from their Tunisian exile.
  • The Intifada exposed many problems with the IDF's conduct in the operative and tactical fields, and also the general problem of Israel's prolonged control of the West Bank and Gaza strip. These problems were noticed, and widely criticized, in international forums.

However, the impact on the services sector, including the important Israeli tourist industry, was notably negative.

Timeline

Template:Timeline of Intifadas

References

  1. Lockman; Beinin (1989), p. 327.
  2. ^ B'Tselem Statistics; Fatalities in the first Intifada
  3. ^ Collaborators, One Year Al-Aqsa Intifada, The Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, October 2001. Retrieved 15 May 2007.
  4. ^ Lockman; Beinin (1989), p. 38.
  5. Lockman; Beinin (1989), p. 5.
  6. The Intifada - An Overview: The First Two YearsCollaborators , One Year Al-Aqsa Intifada, Fact Sheets And Figures
  7. Roberts; Garton Ash (2009), p. 37.
  8. McDowall (1989), p. 2.
  9. BBC: A History of Conflict
  10. ^ Morris, Benny (2001). Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001. Vintage. p. 567. ISBN 0679744754.
  11. Lockman; Beinin (1989), p. 32.
  12. Morris, Benny (2001). Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001. Vintage. pp. 341, 568. ISBN 0679744754.
  13. Shalev (1991), p. 33.
  14. Nassar; Heacock (1990), p. 31.
  15. Ackerman; DuVall (2000), p 403.
  16. Shalev (1991), pp. 111–4.
  17. Ackerman; DuVall (2000), p 401.
  18. Shay (2005), p. 74.
  19. Oren, Amir (18 October 2006). "Secrets of the Ya-Ya brotherhood". Haaretz. Retrieved 13 May 2008.
  20. Neff, Donald. "The Intifada Erupts, Forcing Israel to Recognize Palestinians". Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. December. 1997: 81–83. Retrieved 13 May 2008.
  21. WRMEA
  22. ^ Lockman; Beinin (1989), p. 39.
  23. MERIP Palestine, Israel and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, A Primer
  24. Shlaim (2000), pp. 450–1.
  25. Intifada
  26. WRMEA Donald Neff The Intifada Erupts, Forcing Israel to Recognize Palestinians
  27. Human Rights Watch (HRW) (1991) Prison Conditions in Israel and the Occupied Territories. A Middle East Watch Report. Human Rights Watch. ISBN 1-56432-011-1. Pages 18, 64.
  28. McDowall (1989), p. 2.
  29. Mearsheimer, John; Walt, Stephen (2006). "The Israel Lobby". London Review of Books. 28 (6): pp. 3–12. {{cite journal}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  30. "One Year Al-Aqsa Intifada Fact Sheets And Figures". Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group.
  31. Morris (1999), p. 612.
  32. Sela, Avraham. "Arab Summit Conferences." The Continuum Political Encyclopedia of the Middle East. Ed. Sela. New York: Continuum, 2002. pp. 158-160
  33. Gradstein, Linda "Palestinians Claim Tax is Unjust, Many Don't Pay" Sun-Sentinel 8 October 1989, p. 12A
  34. "Welcome To Beit Sahour Official Website". Retrieved 7 June 2008.
  35. Sosebee, Stephen J. "The Passing of Yitzhak Rabin, Whose 'Iron Fist' Fueled the Intifada" The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. 31 October 1990. Vol. IX #5, pg. 9
  36. Aburish, Said K. (1998). Arafat: From Defender to Dictator. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing pp.201-228 ISBN 978-1-58234-049-4
  37. Nassar; Heacock (1990), p. 115.
  38. Jeffrey Ivan Victoroff (2006). Tangled Roots: Social and Psychological Factors in the Genesis of Terrorism. IOS Press. p. 204. ISBN 978-1-58603-670-6.
  39. ^ UNGA, Resolution "43/21. The uprising (intifadah) of the Palestinian people". 3 November 1988 (doc.nr. A/RES/43/21).
  40. Resolution 44/2 of 06.10.89; Resolution 45/69 of 06.12.90; Resolution 46/76 of 11.12.91
  41. Report of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied Territories. 26 August 1988 (doc.nr. A/43/694 d.d. 24 October 1988).
  42. Report of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied Territories. 31 March 1989 (doc.nr. A/44/352 d.d 13 July 1989); Report of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied Territories. 25 August 1989 (doc.nr. A/44/599 d.d. 12 October 1989)
  43. UNGA, Resolution 44/48. Report of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied Territories. 8 December 1989
  44. Yearbook of the United Nations 1989, Chapter IV, Middle East. 31 December 1989.
  45. Division for Palestinian Rights (DPR), The question of Palestine 1979-1990, Chapter II, section E. The intifadah and the need to ensure the protection of the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. 31 July 1991.
  46. Nassar; Heacock (1990), p. 1.
  47. Alimi (2006), p. 1.
  48. McDowall (1989), p. 3.
  49. Shlaim (2000), pp. 455–7.
  50. Foreign Policy Research Institute Yitzhak Rabin: An Appreciation By Harvey Sicherman
  51. Hiltermann (1991), p. x.
  52. Shlaim (2000), p. 455.
  53. Shlaim (2000), p. 466.
  54. Roberts; Garton Ash (2009) p. 37.
  55. Noga Collins-kreiner, Nurit Kliot, Yoel Mansfeld, Keren Sagi (2006) Christian Tourism to the Holy Land: Pilgrimage During Security Crisis Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., ISBN 978-0-7546-4703-4 and ISBN 978-0-7546-4703-4

Bibliography

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