- Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom-fighter’s gun. Do
not let the olive branch fall from my hand. I repeat: do not let the olive branch fall
from my hand. - War flares up in Palestine, and yet it is in Palestine that peace will be born....
SOURCE:United Nations Information System on the Question of Palestine, http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.
NSF/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/a238ec7a3e13eed18525624a007697ec!OpenDocument.The First Intifada
DOCUMENT IN CONTEXT
The Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and West Bank, including East Jerusalem,
has been marked by two periods of intense protest by Palestinians. Each of these upris-
ings, or intifadas (“shaking off”), prompted renewed international efforts to resolve the
underlying conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
The first intifada erupted in December 1987. The proximate cause was the death
of four Palestinians, killed when a truck driven by an Israeli ran into the vehicles in
which they sat at an Israeli checkpoint at the Gaza border on December 8. The next
day, thousands of Palestinians turned out in Gaza for the funeral of three of the men;
large demonstrations followed, eventually leading to confrontations between Palestini-
ans—many of them wielding stones and sticks—and Israeli security forces. Conflict
escalated rapidly on both sides as groups of Palestinians sought to provoke the Israelis,
and the Israelis employed increasingly tough measures.
The intifada initially appeared to be spontaneous, but within days Palestinian fac-
tions began organizing the rebellion. The Unified National Leadership Command
(UNLC) of the Intifada, consisting of local representatives of four groups belonging
to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), coalesced and began issuing regular
leaflets, or communiqués, calling for collective action against the Israeli occupation.
The command’s third communiqué, dated January 18, 1988, is typical of others in its
call for civil disobedience against the occupation and its florid praise for Palestinian
“martyrs,” people killed or wounded by the Israelis: “A thousand thousand salutations,
endless honor and glory, exaltation and eternal life to you and our people’s martyrs,
heroes of the uprising, who saturate the soil of the beloved homeland with rivers of
your spilt blood, hoist the banners of freedom and independence, and with your pure
shed blood pave the way to victory and the independent state under the leadership of
the great and powerful PLO.” Among other things, this leaflet—the first to be specif-
ically authorized by the PLO leadership—also calls on Palestinians in all sectors of
society to stop working for Israelis, to boycott Israeli products, to close streets to
impede the Israeli army and settlers, and to assist in aid and information operations.
ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIANS 191