The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance

by Rashid I. Khalidi

a heavily armed Israeli patrol, the soldiers in the jeep holding their weapons at the ready. They were fidgety and nervous, and in their faces I saw a quality I had noticed in the Israeli troops in occupied Beirut in 1982: they were afraid. Their vehicles moved at a snail’s pace through heavily populated built-up areas where the entire community loathed the occupation that the soldiers embodied and enforced. Soldiers of a regular army, no matter how heavily armed, will never feel secure in such circumstances. Rabin and others recognized the inherent problems that I saw on the streets of Nablus and Gaza. According to Itamar Rabinovich, Rabin’s biographer, close collaborator, and tennis partner, the First Intifada brought the veteran general to the realization that a political solution was necessary.12 Nonetheless, he held fast to the deterrent effect of brutality. “The use of force,” Rabin said, “including beatings, undoubtedly has brought about the impact we wanted—strengthening the population’s fear of the Israel Defense Forces.”13 Maybe so, but this brutality did not put an end to the uprising.