How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns

by Audrey Kurth Cronin

As a grassroots, mass uprising, the intifada gave Palestinians a national identity that they had not had before, returning their cause to the forefront of world attention and resulting in pressure on the Israelis to negotiate over an independent Palestinian state. The intifada likewise changed the nature of Palestinian internal political dynamics, undercutting PLO/Fatah dominance and encouraging the rise of more extreme, radical factions, especially Hamas, spurring the PLO leadership to reassert its authority. The uprising demonstrated that the Palestinians, some half of whom had by now been born under Israeli rule, considered their leadership remote from the daily realities of life in the West Bank and Gaza.68 But it also exacted an enormous economic cost and demonstrated that a popular uprising could not, in the end, succeed in forcing the Israelis to abandon the occupied territories. By 1990, the intifada had lost direction and Palestinian groups were fighting mainly among themselves: in 1991, the Israelis killed fewer Palestinians (about 100) than did the Palestinians themselves (about 150).69 On the Israeli side, the intifada had demonstrated the limitations of military force against popular resistance, with the role of occupier causing serious strain on values and social cohesion.70 The IDF’s killing of so many civilians, particularly children (most of whom admittedly were throwing stones), was shocking and earned worldwide condemnation.71