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Intifada: The Inside Story of the Palestinian Uprising that Changed the Middle East Equation
Describes the political problems the Palestinian Uprising has caused Israeli leaders and suggests steps towards a resolution
- GenresMiddle East
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 17, 2025
This is one of the definitive works on the First Intifada, published in 1989 as a piece of reportage when the uprising was still simmering.
It puts the lie to the myth that the Intifada — Arabic for “shaking off,” like a dog shaking off its fleas — was principally motivated by antisemitism and that its main aim was the annihilation of Israel and the death of the Jews, a claim that still enjoys considerable currency today, though mainly among the tendentious and ill-informed. (See the British propagandist Douglas Murray’s most recent book for an example.)
As these two Israeli analysts observe, “the rebellion was kindled by the depressing conditions in which Israel kept the inhabitants of the territories, not the visions planted in their hearts by the PLO.”
These authors argue that the Palestinians’ deplorable economic conditions were the “real driving force” of the uprising — “the piston of the Intifada,” as they put it. (p. 93) They characterize Israel’s economic policy toward the occupied territories as one of “sheer despotism, selfishness, and greed,” and “nothing short of tyranny.” “Painful as it is to admit,” they add, “a ‘slave market’ of sorts came into being in the territories.” (p. 92)
Talk of “transfer” — a euphemism for expulsion, or what we might more candidly call ethnic cleansing — was also in the air, openly supported by officials across the political spectrum, from Labor to Likud.
In was within this context that the Palestinians emerged as a kind of “enraged proletariat” who “felt trapped in a system that seemed designed to grind them down to the dust of humanity so that at an opportune moment Israel could blow them over the border in a single puff.” (p. 99)
The following passage is worth quoting at length:
“It was with a sense of nothing more to lose that thousands of refugees grabbed at hoes, axes, sticks, stones, and whatever else came to hand to march out and proclaim that they would no longer stand for being treated like the dregs of humanity. Indeed, the early hallmarks of the revolt were reminiscent of riots in the slums and inner cities of other countries, and given the same ghastly conditions the people of any other nation — Filipinos, Poles, or Jews — would probably have responded in much the same way. … The climate in Israel not only denied that the Palestinians were entitled to political rights, it pointedly ignored the disgraceful conditions in which so many of them lived. Indifference and disdain made the lot of second- and third-generation refugees particularly bitter. Not a finger or voice was raised to help them. Israel behaved … as though it was intent upon legitimizing norms of discrimination and abuse, kneading the people who had come under its rule into a spineless mass devoid of any will of its own. In this sense Israel had only itself to blame for the bitterness and defiance cast up against it. The more it whet the refugees' sense of desperation, the further it stretched the thin membrane of their self-restraint, and the consequences were predictable. After decades of a reign of negligence, it would awaken from its long slumber on a cushion of apathy to the terrifying roar of a landslide.” (p. 80-81)
The parallels with the current “war” in Gaza are obvious enough.
It puts the lie to the myth that the Intifada — Arabic for “shaking off,” like a dog shaking off its fleas — was principally motivated by antisemitism and that its main aim was the annihilation of Israel and the death of the Jews, a claim that still enjoys considerable currency today, though mainly among the tendentious and ill-informed. (See the British propagandist Douglas Murray’s most recent book for an example.)
As these two Israeli analysts observe, “the rebellion was kindled by the depressing conditions in which Israel kept the inhabitants of the territories, not the visions planted in their hearts by the PLO.”
These authors argue that the Palestinians’ deplorable economic conditions were the “real driving force” of the uprising — “the piston of the Intifada,” as they put it. (p. 93) They characterize Israel’s economic policy toward the occupied territories as one of “sheer despotism, selfishness, and greed,” and “nothing short of tyranny.” “Painful as it is to admit,” they add, “a ‘slave market’ of sorts came into being in the territories.” (p. 92)
Talk of “transfer” — a euphemism for expulsion, or what we might more candidly call ethnic cleansing — was also in the air, openly supported by officials across the political spectrum, from Labor to Likud.
In was within this context that the Palestinians emerged as a kind of “enraged proletariat” who “felt trapped in a system that seemed designed to grind them down to the dust of humanity so that at an opportune moment Israel could blow them over the border in a single puff.” (p. 99)
The following passage is worth quoting at length:
“It was with a sense of nothing more to lose that thousands of refugees grabbed at hoes, axes, sticks, stones, and whatever else came to hand to march out and proclaim that they would no longer stand for being treated like the dregs of humanity. Indeed, the early hallmarks of the revolt were reminiscent of riots in the slums and inner cities of other countries, and given the same ghastly conditions the people of any other nation — Filipinos, Poles, or Jews — would probably have responded in much the same way. … The climate in Israel not only denied that the Palestinians were entitled to political rights, it pointedly ignored the disgraceful conditions in which so many of them lived. Indifference and disdain made the lot of second- and third-generation refugees particularly bitter. Not a finger or voice was raised to help them. Israel behaved … as though it was intent upon legitimizing norms of discrimination and abuse, kneading the people who had come under its rule into a spineless mass devoid of any will of its own. In this sense Israel had only itself to blame for the bitterness and defiance cast up against it. The more it whet the refugees' sense of desperation, the further it stretched the thin membrane of their self-restraint, and the consequences were predictable. After decades of a reign of negligence, it would awaken from its long slumber on a cushion of apathy to the terrifying roar of a landslide.” (p. 80-81)
The parallels with the current “war” in Gaza are obvious enough.
April 29, 2026
Another in my 1980s flashback series, an important contribution by the “liberal” Israeli team of Ze’ev Schiff and Ehud Ya’ari, whose books on Israeli wars and politics reflect a hopeful time before their country turned in on itself. This one chronicled the 1987 rise and eruption of the First Intifada (when I first heard the term, Allan Sherman’s “Camp Granada Song” came to mind.) The term itself means uprising, storm – not the same as jihad, all-out holy war, though all have become conflated in forty years of propaganda. It was Israel’s “Third Front,” after its wars with the Arab League states and the terror wars with the PLO. It was ultimately the most successful, bringing the Two-State platform to the post-cold war table and – briefly – a cease-fire; going the way, of course, like all such “Injun treaties” into the heavy tomb of history.
The failures of the Six-Day War and the PLO to bring Israel to its knees from without threw the ball to the people on the ground, the average Palestinian pressed by military occupation and poverty, discrimination and expropriation, forced to work as migrant labor for his master like a township Bantu. The very stones at their feet became their weapons, aided by grass-roots preaching in mosques and youth centers, led by a new generation of campus activists and veterans of the Israeli prison system. Its Unified National Command was a clandestine, horizontal structure that Mossad could decapitate but never behead, buttressed by local “soviets” of people’s committees, funded through Egypt.
Schiff and Ya’ari were spot-on that “occupation and democracy cannot dwell together for long” (p. 329); that one must subsume the other. The statement expresses, of course, an Israeli definition, for it was always a one-sided polity. We see now which side won, as an authoritarian Mussolini figure lays claim to the Israeli state as his personal patrimony; and both occupation and Intifada are taken to their final solution in the scorched grass roots of Gaza. As Israel squandered its opportunities for peace before the Intifada, and its opportunities after Oslo, it was left with nothing else.
It is also revealing, in the authors’ list of resolutions, how “the Palestinians must not have” this, or “be allowed” that; “they” are still seen as colonial subjects, even by such liberal men of Israeli letters, not agents of their own self-determination. In a warning to “Israeli Arabs” on p. 187, they are enjoined to “beware” that they are protected by the strength of Israeli democracy and must help strengthen, not sabotage it. The problem was that Israeli racist forces, completely denying others’ identity or rights on principal, even then advocating forced “transfer,” were also protected by Israeli democracy; and by demagoguery better able to twist it to their demographic advantage. Young Palestinian militants in turn, smarting under their hurts, were likewise not attuned to the possibly well-meant warnings of Israeli scholars.
The South African and Palestinian rebellions rose together in the 1980s; thanks to international support they were always well-aware of each other and mutually influenced. Yet one “peace process” flourished, and the other withered like a bloom in a desert hotwind. Why? Because, of course, it was Israel: no special sanctions allowed, but always special pleading by Western governments. Throwing South Africa to its fate was necessary to prove one’s progressive credentials, so that the pleas for Israel could be all the more credible.
Thus we are now seeing the Intifada’s last act like a Samson shorn and chained, possibly taking down the pillars of occupation and the temple of Zion with it.
The failures of the Six-Day War and the PLO to bring Israel to its knees from without threw the ball to the people on the ground, the average Palestinian pressed by military occupation and poverty, discrimination and expropriation, forced to work as migrant labor for his master like a township Bantu. The very stones at their feet became their weapons, aided by grass-roots preaching in mosques and youth centers, led by a new generation of campus activists and veterans of the Israeli prison system. Its Unified National Command was a clandestine, horizontal structure that Mossad could decapitate but never behead, buttressed by local “soviets” of people’s committees, funded through Egypt.
Schiff and Ya’ari were spot-on that “occupation and democracy cannot dwell together for long” (p. 329); that one must subsume the other. The statement expresses, of course, an Israeli definition, for it was always a one-sided polity. We see now which side won, as an authoritarian Mussolini figure lays claim to the Israeli state as his personal patrimony; and both occupation and Intifada are taken to their final solution in the scorched grass roots of Gaza. As Israel squandered its opportunities for peace before the Intifada, and its opportunities after Oslo, it was left with nothing else.
It is also revealing, in the authors’ list of resolutions, how “the Palestinians must not have” this, or “be allowed” that; “they” are still seen as colonial subjects, even by such liberal men of Israeli letters, not agents of their own self-determination. In a warning to “Israeli Arabs” on p. 187, they are enjoined to “beware” that they are protected by the strength of Israeli democracy and must help strengthen, not sabotage it. The problem was that Israeli racist forces, completely denying others’ identity or rights on principal, even then advocating forced “transfer,” were also protected by Israeli democracy; and by demagoguery better able to twist it to their demographic advantage. Young Palestinian militants in turn, smarting under their hurts, were likewise not attuned to the possibly well-meant warnings of Israeli scholars.
The South African and Palestinian rebellions rose together in the 1980s; thanks to international support they were always well-aware of each other and mutually influenced. Yet one “peace process” flourished, and the other withered like a bloom in a desert hotwind. Why? Because, of course, it was Israel: no special sanctions allowed, but always special pleading by Western governments. Throwing South Africa to its fate was necessary to prove one’s progressive credentials, so that the pleas for Israel could be all the more credible.
Thus we are now seeing the Intifada’s last act like a Samson shorn and chained, possibly taking down the pillars of occupation and the temple of Zion with it.
May 19, 2021
Fantastisk bog, der beskriver og analyserer alt om den palæstinensiske opstand i 1987, også kaldet Intifadaen.
Sjovt, at den situation, der udspiller sig lige nu i Palæstina, til forveksling minder om det, der skete med Intifadaen for mere 30 år siden
Sjovt, at den situation, der udspiller sig lige nu i Palæstina, til forveksling minder om det, der skete med Intifadaen for mere 30 år siden
June 6, 2024
Very academic look at the Intifada that started in 1987. Not history (or current events) written in a story form, just going through what happened and how people responded. Pretty detailed, and good luck to those making decisions about Israel and Palestinians.
September 27, 2023
similarly excellent as schiff and yaari’s previous work on the lebanon war.
this dynamic duo manages to serve exactly what i want to eat:
- well-researched, investigative
- critical of both sides and without politicial bias
- analytical
- deeply insightful about individual and group motivations, even those that are less obvious
their writing style is of the sort published in newspapers: fast and difficult to track if you’re hoping to read quickly. i found myself lost in details and having to retreat often. i wish they would have softened the writing a bit.
also, many of the remarks breathe of repetition. the book could have been a bit shorter had this been corrected.
this book can be considered a stepping stone in a school on the palestinian-israeli conflict: reading the moods and political climates of the late 80s, an excellent way to understand how the conflict has evolved, and very rewarding to read in 2023, despite how depressing the outcome has been.
this dynamic duo manages to serve exactly what i want to eat:
- well-researched, investigative
- critical of both sides and without politicial bias
- analytical
- deeply insightful about individual and group motivations, even those that are less obvious
their writing style is of the sort published in newspapers: fast and difficult to track if you’re hoping to read quickly. i found myself lost in details and having to retreat often. i wish they would have softened the writing a bit.
also, many of the remarks breathe of repetition. the book could have been a bit shorter had this been corrected.
this book can be considered a stepping stone in a school on the palestinian-israeli conflict: reading the moods and political climates of the late 80s, an excellent way to understand how the conflict has evolved, and very rewarding to read in 2023, despite how depressing the outcome has been.
November 23, 2008
hardback edition
I really like anything by Schiff
I really like anything by Schiff
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews