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Divided Israelis
The Intifada polarized Israeli society between those who supported reaching accommodation
with Palestinians and those who advocated intensified repression to put down the uprising. A
Labour leader said at the time, “the sooner the Palestinians resort to terrorism, the better it will
be for us.”
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By mid-February 1988 there were more than thirty different organizations active in
Israel to protest Israel’s violent repression of the uprising.
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Peace Now, the largest peace
organization, mobilized thousands of Israelis for rallies demanding a negotiated settlement to the
Israeli-Arab conflict. More radical groups, including the Committee to End the Iron Fist, Dai
La’kibush (End the Occupation), The Twenty-First Year, and Yesh Gvul (a military refuser group
created during the war in Lebanon) used civil disobedience to demand an end to the occupation.
By June 1988, more than 500 reservists had signed a petition refusing to serve in the Occupied
Territories.
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Arab citizens of Israel also supported the Intifada in limited ways.
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Arab-Israelis sympathized
with their co-nationals in the Occupied Territories but also coveted their Israeli citizenship.
During the Intifada Arab-Israelis organized protest rallies, sent food and medicine to the
territories, collected funds, donated blood, and organized campaigns designed to publicize the
plight of Palestinians living in the besieged camps and villages.
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A major attempt to coordinate
63
Thomas Friedman, From Beirut to Jerusalem (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1989). p.410
64
Reuven Kaminer, The Politics of Protest: The Israeli Peace Movement and the Palestinian Intifada (Brighton,
UK: Sussex Academic Press, 1996). pp.47-48
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The number of reservists who refused to serve in the Occupied Territories rose from 160 (in Jan. 1988) to more
than 600 by the seventh month of the Intifada. In signing their declaration the refusers referred to the "absence of a
political solution" and not simply the degree of violence as the reason for their refusal. By March 1988, some 2000
reserve officers were urging PM Shamir to "favor the way of peace." 1250 army officers and commanders sent a
petition to Prime Minister Shamir calling for "territories in exchange for peace." At that time, the Israeli
organization Peace Now found that "90% of the senior officers in the Israeli army are in favor of territorial
compromise and the return of the territories in exchange for peace." The Council for Peace and Security was
established in May 1988 by former Israeli generals to convince the public of the need to negotiate directly with the
PLO and withdraw from the Occupied Territories to improve Israeli security. (Cited in the Jerusalem Post
International Edition, 11 June 1988. From Dajani, pp. 80-82)
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Following the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, the indigenous Arab population living inside Israeli borders
became citizens of Israel. From 1948-1967 this group lived under direct military rule and were treated, according to
Azmi Bishara, a prominent Arab-Israeli and member of the Israeli Knesset, “like a fifth column, a group that
constitutes an actual or potential threat to state security.” After this period, writes Bishara, “they were treated as a
group that had to be integrated and have its national identity eliminated within the framework of an Israeli state.”
By 1990, the Arab Israeli population had grown to around 700,000, or 16% of the total Israeli population. (Azmi
Bishara, "The Palestinians of Israel," in The New Intifada: Resisting Israel's Apartheid, ed. Roane Carey (London:
Verso, 2001). p.139
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Schiff and Ya'ari. p.171
Convention