the First intifada
leSSonS from tHe firSt intifAdA: when mass struggle shook the israeli regime in May 2021, as Gaza was under another murderous assault by the israel state, a major wave of solidarity protests with the palestinian people swept the globe. this was combined with protests and a general strike of palestinians in Gaza, the west bank and within israel’s borders. this naturally brought the question of ‘how the israeli state can be defeated?’ to the fore of people's minds. peter McGregor looks back at the lessons from the First intifada. The bombardment of Gaza lasted 11 days. Over 250 people were killed and over 1,000 injured. This happened in the context of the ratcheting up of assaults on Palestinians by the Israeli state in East Jerusalem and Sheik Jarrah. One harrowing tweet brought home the devastation and terror that Palestinians were facing: “Tonight, I put the kids to sleep in our bedroom. So that when we die, we die together and no one would live to mourn the loss of one another.”1 Looking back at the First Intifada that erupted in December 1987 can assist in answering the aforementioned question, particularly in light of the emergence of a new mood of defiance. This was best exemplified by the protests and general strike of Palestinians in response to the barbarity of the Israeli war machine. The Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, reported on the impact of the strike: “The Israel Builders Association said Palestinian workers had observed the strike, with only 150 of the 28 l SocialiSt alterNative l AuTuMN / WINTEr 2021
65,000 Palestinian construction workers coming to work in Israel. This paralyzed building sites, causing losses estimated at 130 million shekels (nearly $40 million). But even before the strike, since the beginning of the operation in Gaza, only 6,000 to 8,000 Palestinians were coming to work every day. According to Yehuda Katav, vice president of the builder’s association, construction has slowed to a snail’s pace. ‘We cannot build without them’.”2 This, coupled with the various other protests that took place in Sheik Jarrah and all across the occupied territories, and the international outpouring of solidarity all provide hope for a movement against the occupation.
40 years of dispossession & occupation The Arabic word ‘intifāḍah’ literally means ‘shaking off’, and given its association with key struggles of the Palestinian people is generally understood to mean uprising. The First Intifada was exactly that, an uprising in an attempt at shaking off years of colonialism, occupation and brutal repression. It began when an Israeli settler crashed his truck into cars in the Gaza Strip, killing four Palestinian workers on 8 December 1987. This event was the spark, but a piling up of unbearable conditions created the tinder that produced a powerful flame. The Intifada took place 40 years after the ‘Naqba’ in 1947, which saw the expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland with some 750,000 forced to flee their homes, and just over 20 years after the occupation of the remaining Palestinian land in 1967, beginning a steady process offurther ethnic cleansing of
