First published 1990 by Westview Press, Inc.
Published 2018 by Routledge
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Peretz, Don, 1922
Intifada: the Palestinian uprising/Don Peretz.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-8133-0859-3ISBN 0-8133-0860-7 (pbk.)
1. West BankHistoryPalestinian Uprising, 1987 . 2. Gaza Strip
HistoryPalestinian Uprising, 1987 . I. Title.
DS110.W47P46 1990
956.953044dc20 89-25076
CIP
ISBN 13: 978-0-367-00362-3 (hbk)
This book is intended as an overview of the uprisingthe Intifada of the Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza, territories occupied by Israel since the June 1967 war. In the two years since the Intifada began during December 1987, it has acquired unusual international importance and visibility and has led to a number of significant changes in the policies of the principal actors involved, especially Israel, the United States, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the Palestinian inhabitants of the occupied territories. The Intifada has altered, in many ways, the dimensions of the Arab-Israeli conflict by rearranging the order of political and diplomatic priorities of those involved and by thrusting the conflict to the forefront of international attention. This book describes the background, origins, and causes of the uprising and its impact on the actors; it also examines the prospects for coping with it.
I am obligated to my wife, Dr. Maya Peretz, for her assistance in preparing the manuscript and in helping to meet the publisher's deadlines, which sprang upon us more quickly than anticipated. Thanks also go to Deena Hurwitz, to Palestine Perspectives, and to the UNRWA Liaison Office in New York for the photos used. Finally, I wish to express my appreciation to the Rockefeller Foundation for the time I spent at its Study Center in Bellagio, Italy, during the final editing stage of this book.
Don Peretz
1
Origins of the Intifada
The Palestine uprising, or Intifada, that erupted in Gaza and the West Bank during December 1987 was the latest manifestation of the 70-year-old Arab-Israeli conflict. The roots of the struggle can be traced to the nineteenth century, which witnessed the rise of Arab nationalism and of Zionism, the movement to establish a Jewish national home in Palestine. Both movements were influenced by modern European nationalism, but each had its own distinctive characteristics.
Arab nationalism was in part a reaction against the Ottoman government, which had controlled Palestine and other Arabic-speaking areas of the Eastern Mediterranean since the sixteenth century. In the early twentieth century, the Ottomans attempted to make the Turkish language and culture dominant in their empire, a course of action opposed by Arab nationalists who wanted to revivify their own tradition.
Jewish nationalismin part a reaction to European anti-Semitism, in part an attempt to revive the Hebrew language and culturesought to unite the Jews of the world in support of a home in Palestine, which, according to the Old Testament, was the land of their ancestral origin. The organized Jewish national movement was called Zionism; its goal, a return to Zion (after Mount Zion in Jerusalem). By the end of World War I, the Jews constituted about 10 percent of Palestine's population; more than 90 percent were Muslim and Christian Arabs.
After Turkey's defeat by the Allied Powers in World War I, the new League of Nations divided the former Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire into mandates assigned to Great Britain and France. Britain received the mandate for Palestine and remained in control until 1948. During the war, the British had promised to aid both Arab nationalists and Zionists in the achievement of their goals in exchange for assistance, promises that were difficult if not impossible to reconcile in Palestine. Arab nationalists in the country opposed establishment of the Jewish national home there and demanded independence like the other neighboring Arab countries. The Zionists wanted Palestine to become a Jewish state and insisted that the British help them by permitting large-scale Jewish immigration, settlement, and development of the country. Despite continued conflict among the Arabs, British, and Jews during the mandate, the Zionists greatly expanded their presence, increasing the Jewish population by ten times, from 60,000 to 600,000a growth from a tenth to a third of Palestine's population.
During World War II, liquidation by Nazi Germany of nearly 90 percent of European Jewry underscored the urgency of emigration from the continent. Zionists became more militant in their demands that the British open the gates of Palestine to Jewish refugees and increasingly impatient to establish the Jewish state. By the end of the war, Great Britain, weary of conflicts throughout its far-flung empire, decided to give up the mandate and turned the problem over to the newly formed United Nations. In November 1947, the UN General Assembly recommended partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states and an international zone encompassing Jerusalem and the surrounding areas. The Zionists accepted the partition proposal; but the Arabs of Palestine, supported by other Arab states, opposed it, and civil war broke out between the Jewish and Arab inhabitants. When the mandate ended, in May 1948, surrounding Arab states joined the fighting against the new nation of Israel declared on May 14, 1948, as the last British troops left the country.
Between 1947 and 1949, as a result of the first Arab-Israeli war, most Arabs left their homes in areas controlled by Israel. They became refugees in the surrounding Arab countries. During the next forty years, four more wars were fought between Israel and these states, in 1956, 1967, 1973, and 1982. In 1967, Israel defeated Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, thereby acquiring additional territorythe Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, Arab East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. Sinai was returned as part of the 1979 peace treaty with Egypt; however, Gaza, the Golan area, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank have been occupied by Israel since 1967. In Gaza and the West Bank there are several hundred thousand refugees who fled from Israel during the first war in 1947-1949 in addition to the indigenous Palestinian Arab population who remained in their homes. These nearly 2 million Arabs, both refugees and indigenous inhabitants, consider Palestine their homeland. And there are another approximately 2 million Palestinians scattered among surrounding countries (Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Arabian Peninsula) as well as beyond the Middle East, who continue to identify with their homeland and with their compatriots living under Israeli occupation.
