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A Quiet Revolution: The First Palestinian Intifada and Nonviolent Resistance
In A Quiet Revolution , renowned civil rights activist Mary Elizabeth King questions the prevailing wisdom that the first Palestinian Intifada was defined by violence. She argues that initially, the uprising was characterized by a massive nonviolent social mobilization, rooted in popular committees often steered by women. These committees adopted strategies that began to lead to political results -- among them the beginnings of a negotiated settlement. King traces the tragic movement away from peaceful protest following the killing of four Palestinian laborers in Gaza, and charts the PLOs increasing contempt for nonviolent struggle. She details the complicity of the media in this escalation of violence -- TV crews would not cover peaceful protests, but Palestinian boys throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers would attract foreign cameras. King draws upon the history of non-violent movements and argues that only through nonviolent strategies can a negotiated peace be achieved with Israel. King believes that the residual knowledge of the power of nonviolent resistance from the first Intifada will provide the bedrock upon which to build this eventual, lasting peace.
488 pages, Paperback
First published July 11, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 13, 2026
An interesting overview of nonviolent Palestinian resistance, including in the decades before the intifada but of course focussing on that latter period.
Reading books on this subject is always jarring because there are always accounts of the most horrific, sadistic acts of brutality inflicted by Israelis on Palestinians. in this case, three stories that stuck with me. First, that of the Israeli bulldozer in the village of Salim who, acting under orders, buried four young men alive for the crime of marching after prayer. The driver had originally been instructed to run them over, but refused (apparently, burying people alive is fine but crushing them is just too far. Or maybe he just didn’t want to have to deal with human remains in his treads, like the Israeli tank driver who whined during the genocide about having to clean out flesh and organs from the Palestinians he drove over every day). The other is the fate of Palestinians caught having intentionally set their watches to another time zone as a form of protest, who ended up having both their watches and their wrists smashed by the Israelis. Third, the closure of schools throughout the occupied territories, which led to Palestinian children relying on informal, popular schooling to continue their education. The Israelis legislated a maximum prison sentence of *10 years* for any teacher involved.
The names I’ll remember from this book are Mubarak Awad, Jonathan Kuttab and Daoud Kuttab. They really did try and do something thoughtful, carefully planned and strategic. It was good and it was noble, but whether it ever had any real chance of working is very much an open question. There is a baffling naivety throughout the book, in the form of the author’s recurring lament that neither of Israel’s governing parties at the time seized the opportunities presented by non-violent resistance and instead treated it is as if it were no different than armed struggle. I don’t recall her ever acknowledging the obvious: the Israelis do not want peace, they want land. As Moshe Dayan said about one bit of Egyptian soil, better Sharm without peace than peace without Sharm. The only real concern the Israelis had was whether the intifada might ride the wave of momentum from the liberation of Eastern Europe from the Soviet Union, the end of apartheid in South Africa, and the general wave of democratization and liberalization of the era (which, in 2026, seems like it was a fever dream). Of course, in the end it did not. Ultimately, the West is simply unwilling to turn on Israel, no matter how manifestly barbaric its treatment of the Palestinians. If history’s most openly-celebrated genocide couldn’t result in meaningful policy change, a few kids throwing stones was never going to accomplish much.
The author repeatedly goes into the soul-searching among Palestinians as to how to awaken the conscience of Israel and the world as to what has been done to them. Violent resistance and accomplished little in the proceeding decades, and the hope was that non-violent resistance would wake everyone up and force a solution. The book argues quite convincingly that nonviolence got the Palestinians better results in just a few years than had the preceding decades of armed force. King points out several times that the intifada was not exclusively peaceful, and cites its leaders as lamenting the attacks that undermined their approach, enabling Israel to argue that non-violence was just a ruse and that they had to defend themselves against Palestinians by whatever means necessary. I don’t have anything to contribute to that discussion, except to say that it underlines the importance of the message in Mohammed el-Kurd’s book, Perfect Victims. Perhaps unique among oppressed peoples, everything that is inflicted upon the Palestinians is entirely their fault. Always and forever, there is some reason, some justification for what Israel does to them. They’re expected to prioritize the fears of their oppressors over the reality of their own suffering. Their lives and those of their children are less important than the feelings of Israelis. They must never say or do anything that is violent, or it could be interpreted as violent, or that hints at violence in any way. Anger and hatred are completely forbidden to them, and any suggestion of either of them is further proof of their degeneracy and their evil. In sum, unless they are perfect in every way - a standard impossible to define, much less to attain - then they deserve everything they get and no sympathy or empathy whatsoever.
As an aside, the quantity of footnotes in this work is significant: almost 90 pages for about 350 pages of actual text. It does get tiresome flipping back and forth, especially since many of them are substantive and contain additional information (not just citations). It might have been better to put them at the bottom of the page instead to avoid that issue.
Reading books on this subject is always jarring because there are always accounts of the most horrific, sadistic acts of brutality inflicted by Israelis on Palestinians. in this case, three stories that stuck with me. First, that of the Israeli bulldozer in the village of Salim who, acting under orders, buried four young men alive for the crime of marching after prayer. The driver had originally been instructed to run them over, but refused (apparently, burying people alive is fine but crushing them is just too far. Or maybe he just didn’t want to have to deal with human remains in his treads, like the Israeli tank driver who whined during the genocide about having to clean out flesh and organs from the Palestinians he drove over every day). The other is the fate of Palestinians caught having intentionally set their watches to another time zone as a form of protest, who ended up having both their watches and their wrists smashed by the Israelis. Third, the closure of schools throughout the occupied territories, which led to Palestinian children relying on informal, popular schooling to continue their education. The Israelis legislated a maximum prison sentence of *10 years* for any teacher involved.
The names I’ll remember from this book are Mubarak Awad, Jonathan Kuttab and Daoud Kuttab. They really did try and do something thoughtful, carefully planned and strategic. It was good and it was noble, but whether it ever had any real chance of working is very much an open question. There is a baffling naivety throughout the book, in the form of the author’s recurring lament that neither of Israel’s governing parties at the time seized the opportunities presented by non-violent resistance and instead treated it is as if it were no different than armed struggle. I don’t recall her ever acknowledging the obvious: the Israelis do not want peace, they want land. As Moshe Dayan said about one bit of Egyptian soil, better Sharm without peace than peace without Sharm. The only real concern the Israelis had was whether the intifada might ride the wave of momentum from the liberation of Eastern Europe from the Soviet Union, the end of apartheid in South Africa, and the general wave of democratization and liberalization of the era (which, in 2026, seems like it was a fever dream). Of course, in the end it did not. Ultimately, the West is simply unwilling to turn on Israel, no matter how manifestly barbaric its treatment of the Palestinians. If history’s most openly-celebrated genocide couldn’t result in meaningful policy change, a few kids throwing stones was never going to accomplish much.
The author repeatedly goes into the soul-searching among Palestinians as to how to awaken the conscience of Israel and the world as to what has been done to them. Violent resistance and accomplished little in the proceeding decades, and the hope was that non-violent resistance would wake everyone up and force a solution. The book argues quite convincingly that nonviolence got the Palestinians better results in just a few years than had the preceding decades of armed force. King points out several times that the intifada was not exclusively peaceful, and cites its leaders as lamenting the attacks that undermined their approach, enabling Israel to argue that non-violence was just a ruse and that they had to defend themselves against Palestinians by whatever means necessary. I don’t have anything to contribute to that discussion, except to say that it underlines the importance of the message in Mohammed el-Kurd’s book, Perfect Victims. Perhaps unique among oppressed peoples, everything that is inflicted upon the Palestinians is entirely their fault. Always and forever, there is some reason, some justification for what Israel does to them. They’re expected to prioritize the fears of their oppressors over the reality of their own suffering. Their lives and those of their children are less important than the feelings of Israelis. They must never say or do anything that is violent, or it could be interpreted as violent, or that hints at violence in any way. Anger and hatred are completely forbidden to them, and any suggestion of either of them is further proof of their degeneracy and their evil. In sum, unless they are perfect in every way - a standard impossible to define, much less to attain - then they deserve everything they get and no sympathy or empathy whatsoever.
As an aside, the quantity of footnotes in this work is significant: almost 90 pages for about 350 pages of actual text. It does get tiresome flipping back and forth, especially since many of them are substantive and contain additional information (not just citations). It might have been better to put them at the bottom of the page instead to avoid that issue.
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September 28, 2015The title is fairly self explanatory, but I think it gives a good analysis of the events. Also the focus on the non-violence movement and its effect are frequently missing from the popular discourse on the matter.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews