The 1st Intifada: When Non-Violent Protests Turned Violent | History of Israel Explained | Unpacked
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6zftP9yJy8

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0:00 - If you heard the term intifada and immediately thought of intense bloodshed,
0:03 suicide bombings, shootings, stabbings, you're probably picturing the Second Intifada,
0:07 which began in the year 2000 in which over 1,100 Israelis were murdered,
0:10 the majority of whom were civilians. But, as you may have guessed,
0:14 if there was a Second Intifada, that means there was also a First Intifada.
0:17 Well, the First Intifada, which lasted from 1987 to 1993,
0:21 saw a lower level of violence but was still a watershed moment
0:24 in the Arab-Israeli conflict. What was the First Intifada?
0:27 And how is it different from all other Middle East conflicts,
0:29 both before and after? (upbeat music)
0:38 By the late 1980s, Israel had fought and won several major wars
0:41 with the Arab nations surrounding it and made peace with one of those former enemies, Egypt.
0:45 But those wars, as difficult as they were, were proved to be far more conventional
0:50 than the popular Palestinian revolts known as the Intifadas. Intifada comes from Arabic word meaning shaking off.
0:55 It was originally intended by many to mean non-violent resistance to Israeli control
0:59 over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, but that's not exactly how it turned out.
1:04 So, what was going on in Palestinian society in the years leading up to the First Intifada?
1:08 While the PLO, or the Palestine Liberation Organization, was conducting major terror operations
1:12 across Israel's borders, Arabs living under Israeli rule in Gaza and the West Bank
1:16 became restless and increasingly militant. But why was this change happening?
1:20 Well, some argue that Israel's increased building of settlements,
1:23 which are communities in the West Bank and Gaza, played a major role.
1:27 But in his book Building a Palestinian State, Professor Glenn Robinson,
1:30 a researcher at UC Berkeley, argues that Israel's policy
1:33 of promoting higher education in the West Bank also contributed to the conflict.
1:37 Ironically, by bringing many poorer Palestinians into the educational system,
1:41 people who held more radical and militant views were now given a space in university campuses
1:46 to promote their ideologies. Also, although the standard of living
1:49 in the West Bank and Gaza had increased significantly under Israeli control,
1:52 high levels of unemployment still caused great frustration. Many Palestinians also saw the emergence
1:58 of leftist political groups in Israel as an opportunity to change Israeli policy
2:02 through demonstrations and achieve an Israeli withdrawal
2:04 from the territories conquered in the 1967 Six-Day War. But there was another unifying factor to throw into the mix.
2:10 Arab nationalism. Now, this movement had previously been secular.
2:14 The PLO charter made no reference to religion and the dominant factions under the umbrella of the PLO
2:20 were explicitly secular. But another kind of nationalism based on Islamic religion
2:24 had always been present in competition with the secular version.
2:28 Fundamentalist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, out of which Hamas emerged during the First Intifada,
2:32 merged religion and the national struggle into an ideology that would energize the masses into action.
2:37 Hamas in particular espouse antisemitism in its charter, endorsing the notorious forgery,
2:42 The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, to demonize Jews and Judaism.
2:45 As Israel entered 1987, the violence and riots increased.
2:49 It was the 20th anniversary of Israel's conquest of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the Six-Day War.
2:54 Islamic Jihad assassinated an Israeli military police officer
2:57 and the Israeli Security Agency, in turn, killed the six jihadists involved.
3:01 A few months later, a terrorist succeeded in penetrating an IDF base
3:04 flying on a glider and killed six soldiers.
3:07 Morale among Palestinians rose, as did their readiness to stand up to army soldiers.
3:12 Then, on December 8th, 1987, a tragic event occurred that many point to
3:17 as the spark that finally ignited the Intifada. An Israeli truck driver crashed into a row of cars
3:22 containing Palestinian workers at a check-point in Gaza.
3:25 Four of the workers were killed in the collision and seven were seriously injured.
3:29 Hundreds of other Palestinians returning from work in Israel witnessed the accident.
3:33 The next day, an estimated 10,000 attended the victims' funerals.
3:38 Rumors spread alleging that the crash was intentional, an act of revenge for the stabbing death
3:42 of an Israeli in Gaza two days earlier. That day, demonstrations quickly erupted
3:47 at the Jabalia refugee camp and protests spread into the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
3:52 Young people took to the streets, sealing off access to the refugee camps
3:55 with burning tires and by throwing stones. Store owners closed their shops
3:59 and Palestinians who worked in Israel stayed home on a strike.
4:02 Never before had the Arab-Israeli conflict seen this level of demonstrations.
4:06 Tens of thousands of civilians took part, including women and children.
4:10 The Intifada was now in full force, taking on a life of its own.
4:13 So, where was the PLO in all of this? Well, they were actually caught off-guard
4:17 by the popular revolt. A new group of local Palestinian activists
4:21 emerged from the community to guide the protestors, challenging the PLO's claim to represent the people.
4:26 An organization called the Unified National Leadership of the Uprising
4:29 was formed to coordinate activities and to ride social services and make-shift schools
4:33 when the official school year was suspended. Early on,
4:36 civil disobedience was the main strategy of the movement. Palestinians working in Israel went on strike.
4:41 Almost 60,000 Palestinians worked in Israel, so mass strikes effectively shut down
4:45 Israel's construction industry and impacted agriculture as well.
4:49 Palestinian businessmen refused to pay taxes to Israel and consumers boycotted all Israeli goods.
4:54 The Intifada also cost a 50% reduction in the number of visitors to Israel.
4:59 All of these factors damaged the economy severely. Although Palestinian groups had, in theory,
5:04 agreed to refrain from violence, this didn't prevent widespread rock throwing
5:07 and the use of Molotov cocktails, or petrol bombs, against Israeli soldiers and civilians alike.
5:13 Palestinians had no army so they had to use unconventional weapons,
5:16 but they were weapons. Israelis remember it as a time
5:19 when it seemed you couldn't drive on the road without being struck by rocks.
5:22 Scenes of chaos like these created a sense of panic in Israeli society.
5:27 Very soon, discipline among the protestors was breaking down and the old guard, the PLO, co-opted the movement.
5:33 After this point, the Intifada could no longer be called non-violent.
5:36 One of the PLO's main roles was instructing people about what level of violence should be used,
5:41 when it should be escalated, and against whom.
5:43 Guns, grenades, explosives. Some 700 attacks in all
5:48 were perpetrated against Israeli targets during the first four years of the Intifada.
5:52 So, how did the Israeli government respond to all of this? What tactics could a country like Israel use
5:57 to combat these threats? What would a victory even look like
6:01 under these circumstances? These were some of the dilemmas faced by Israeli soldiers
6:04 during the First Intifada. See, the Israelis were just as surprised by the uprising
6:09 as the PLO was. This was a situation the IDF had no training for
6:12 and they were conflicted over how to respond. They were used to fighting other soldiers,
6:16 not civilians in densely populated areas throwing rocks and petrol bombs.
6:20 But Minister of Defense Yitzhak Rabin ordered the IDF to act forcefully
6:24 in putting down the riots. Palestinians and those sympathetic to their cause
6:28 dubbed Rabin as the bone breaker. To try to quiet the riots,
6:31 soldiers fired tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets, and sometimes even live ammunition
6:37 when threatened with violence. But without success.
6:40 There were also beatings, mass arrests, and curfews imposed.
6:44 And the decision to shut down schools and universities did not have the intended effect of slowing the protests.
6:49 It just led young people to protest even more. The media coverage proved highly damaging
6:55 to Israeli public appeal. TV screens across the globe were filled with images
6:59 of young protestors facing off with heavily armed Israeli police.
7:03 The demonstrators knew to alert journalists and photographers
7:06 to scenes of protests. To many, it seemed as if the tiny Jewish nation
7:11 had become a giant oppressor of the Palestinian people, who were just no match for the IDF.
7:15 But the Intifada came at a great cost to the Palestinians as well.
7:18 By the end of the Intifada, some 1,100 Palestinians would be killed
7:22 in clashes with the Israeli forces working to stop the uprising.
7:25 Remarkably, almost as many Palestinians would be killed at the hands of other Palestinians
7:29 accused of collaborating with Israel. In fact, thousands of Palestinians
7:33 had been working with Israeli authorities, giving valuable information on terror activities.
7:36 But, when threats by the PLO didn't stop their cooperation with Israel,
7:40 special death squads executed those suspected of collaborating.
7:43 Two years into the conflict, 1/3 of the 2,700 attacks carried out by Palestinians
7:47 were directed at fellow Arabs. Aside from the human toll,
7:51 the Palestinian economy and society just couldn't bear the prolonged work stoppages and boycotts.
7:55 The Intifada was losing steam. The First Intifada brought major changes
7:59 to the political landscape. Before the Intifada and in its early days,
8:03 the PLO was at a low point. They had just been expelled from Jordan in the early 70s
8:07 and had been forced to flee Lebanon in the early 80s. Worst of all,
8:10 they couldn't show that years of terrorism had produced any positive results.
8:14 But once the PLO took control over the Intifada, its image was greatly enhanced.
8:18 Now, media coverage depicted Palestinians as victims, not terrorists,
8:22 and garnered international sympathy for their cause. This, in turn, allowed Yasser Arafat
8:26 to present a more moderate-looking political program. In November 1989,
8:31 Arafat decided to go against decades of PLO policy of seeking Israel's destruction
8:35 and instead recognized Israel and adopted the principle of a two-state solution.
8:39 Israeli leadership doubted Arafat's sincerity seeing as the PLO continued to engage in violence.
8:44 Eventually, though, in May 1989, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir
8:47 and Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin produced a peace initiative that, for the first time,
8:52 referred to the Palestinians as its partner in negotiations. The initiative stalled though
8:56 as Palestinian violence continued. But in September 1993,
9:01 with the signing of the Oslo Accords, the First Intifada finally came to an end,
9:05 opening the path to peace negotiations. The PLO itself committed to reject violence and terrorism,
9:11 a pledge it did not end up honoring in the coming years, particularly during the Second Intifada of 2000 to 2005.
9:17 During the Second Intifada, over a 1,000 Israelis were killed,
9:20 78% of whom were civilians. In the end, the Israeli government had no good answer
9:25 to the challenge posed by the popular uprising in the First Intifada.
9:28 But if the idea and some methods proved ineffective for stopping the violence,
9:32 the media coverage was a disaster. Israel's public image took a huge hit.
9:37 Before 1967, Israel was seen by the world
9:40 as David fighting the giant Goliath in the form of the Arab nations who raid against it.
9:44 The 1967 Six-Day War may have altered the view of Israel as an underdog,
9:48 but the tiny country still maintained its reputation of fighting fairly
9:52 to defend itself in wars it didn't choose. Both before and after its wars,
9:56 Israel had made several attempts at peace agreements, including territorial compromise.
10:01 The First Intifada, though, challenged that image. Now, the lightly armed Palestinian public
10:06 would garner sympathy from the nations of the world, despite terrorist groups like Hamas and the Islamic Jihad
10:11 who still carried out attacks. Israel was now being viewed as an occupier
10:15 by a broader audience. Many Israelis were also disturbed
10:18 by the optics of the situation. Soldiers fighting terrorists and enemy armies
10:22 to protect the state had always been a source of pride.
10:24 But soldiers fighting teenagers, even violent ones, was a jarring and uncomfortable concept for many.
10:30 Politicians and citizens from across the political spectrum now began to debate the morality and ethics
10:35 of policing a large hostile civilian population. Today, people remember the Intifada in different ways.
10:41 For some, it was a time when the Palestinian people rallied together
10:45 to try to remove the Israeli presence from the West Bank and Gaza.
10:48 For others, it was a time when the Palestinian people,
10:51 galvanized by its leaders, engaged in violent and deadly riots,
10:54 forcing Israeli military to respond in kind and protect its citizens.
10:58 In some ways, both are true. Thanks for watching.
11:01 See you guys next week. (upbeat music)