Democratic Palestine : 28 (ص 9)
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- Democratic Palestine : 28 (ص 9)
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From Stones to Civil Disobedience
With stones and collective action, the Palestinian people are challenging the army of one of the world’s
top-ranking military powers, in order to end the occupation of their country. This article evaluates the
current uprising in terms of its nature, organization, methods and political perspective.
The mass uprising in occupied
Palestine that started on December 8,
1987, is the culmination of years of
mass struggle. Our heroic people have
been engaged in mass movements since
the turn of the century. There were
mass revolts confronting Zionist im-
migration to Palestine in the 1920s. In
1936, Palestinians staged the longest
general strike in history (six months),
beginning a three-year rebellion against
British colonialism and the Zionist in-
vasion of Palestine. After the
establishment of the Zionist state in
1948, there was a lull due to the disper-
sion of the Palestinian people and their
lack of an independent organization.
After the PLO’s establishment and the
rise of the armed resistance, Palestinian
struggle entered a new phase. The
Zionists’ occupation of the West Bank
and Gaza Strip in 1967 was met by an
upsurge of mass and armed struggle.
The Palestinian national liberation
movement relies on two main bases of
struggle: inside and outside occupied
Palestine. There are objective dif-
ferences between these two arenas of
struggle. Due to the ferocity of the oc-
cupation, it has taken longer to develop
an organized framework for the
revolution inside Palestine. On the
other hand, the role of the Arab
governments and official politics has
less impact inside Palestine. There is a
high degree of militancy due to the
direct, daily confrontation with the
enemy, and the relative absence of the
bureaucratic practices of the rightist
trend in the PLO. Despite these dif-
ferences, the relationship between the
two bases is a complementary, dialec-
tical one, due to the unity of the
Palestinian people and their goals.
After the exodus of the PLO from
Beirut in 1982, occupied Palestine took
its rightful place as the main arena of
confrontation. Mass activities and
uprisings became a permanent feature
of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in
particular. In 1987, there was a
remarkable upsurge in mass action. The
position of the Palestinians under oc-
cupation was a main factor mitigating
for the reestablishment of Palestinian
national unity in the PLO, as was
achieved at the April 1987 PNC session
in Algiers. Restored unity in turn spur-
red the masses to stage a series of
demonstrations. These continued in
June to mark Palestinian rejection of
20 years of occupation of the West
Bank and Gaza Strip. In autumn, there
were several weeks of uprising, in par-
ticular protests against US Secretary of
State Schultz’s visit to occupied
Palestine, and the Amman Summit’s
neglect of the PLO. On this backdrop,
confrontations with the Israeli army in
early December unleashed the current
uprising which has become the most
sustained struggle since the 1936-39
revolt.
As of this writing in mid-March, over
140 Palestinians have given their lives
to end the Zionist occupation; over
5,000 have sustained serious injury and
thousands have been detained. (The
divergence between Palestinian reports
on the death toll and the count of 85
registered in the media is that the latter
is based on deaths confirmed by the
Israelis who count only those shot by
their troops, while ignoring, for exam-
ple, the many who have suffocated
from tear gas, including a number of
babies and elderly.) Though the oc-
cupiers’ terror tactics have ranged from
shooting to kill, breaking bones,
maiming and mass arrests, to curfews,
food blockades and economic sanc-
tions, the Palestinian masses have per-
sisted.
CHARACTERISTICS
OF THE UPRISING
TOTAL PARTICIPATION
All classes and sectors of the Palesti-
nian people are taking part in the
uprising, if we exclude a negligible
minority of traitors, many of whom
have fled to the Zionist state to escape
the masses’ wrath. Besides those who
take to the streets to confront the
Zionist troops, all are participating ac-
cording to their place in society. Mer-
chants have sustained a _ prolonged
commercial strike despite the Zionist
soldiers’ attempts to force reopening.
Palestinian landlords have announced
that they will not collect rent for the
first three months of the uprising.
Trade unions are ready to make the
needed repairs on houses and shops free
of charge. Workers went on strike, and
many are still boycotting work in
‘Israel’. Students and teachers have
turned schools and universities into
battlegrounds for confronting the
enemy. Churches as well as mosques
hold funerals and services for the mar-
tyrs, which often grow into demonstra-
tions. Christian as well as Muslim
clergymen issue calls for solidarity in
the uprising.
The uprising has included all age
groups and both sexes. In the first
month, the most visible participants
were the youth armed with stones. Soon
Palestinian mothers were seen in the
streets, taunting the Israeli soldiers and
trying to prevent the arrest of their
sons. By the second month, young
women participated almost equally
with young men. Older women could be
seen carrying loads of stones on their
heads to provide ammunition to the
younger. It became common to see
elderly men attempting to compete with
the youth in throwing stones. A look at
the list of martyrs and injured makes
clear the participation of all ages and
sectors.
ALL OVER PALESTINE
The current uprising differs from
previous ones in its scope. All camps,
villages and towns are involved. The
leadership inside occupied Palestine has
the ability to coordinate mass activities >
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