بقلم : Ahmad Sabbahi
As much as the Palestinian uprising was an exceptional event in itself in terms of its coverage throughout the country, the incident of the martyrdom of four Palestinian workers in Jabalia in the Gaza Strip through the collision of an Israeli military bus sparked the intifada in which all sectors of the Palestinian people and their age trends participated, but at the same time it represents a station It is one of the many milestones in the history of the continuous struggle of the Palestinian people. This intifada was preceded by many struggle stations, but it did not take the required size of attention, and if some consider that the stone uprising was an event that was not unprecedented historically, this is also true, given the long period of time as an event A side with the occupation (1987-1993), the property of stones as a weapon in the confrontation, and the number of martyrs and wounded, and the Israeli killing machine, including the policy of breaking the bones against those who participate in it.
In view of the direct results of this intifada, it undoubtedly opened up new horizons for the Palestinian struggle, as it perpetuated the movement of the center of gravity from the outside to the inside, and also led to the emergence of Islamic resistance movements that participated forcefully and effectively alongside the Palestinian factions. On the Arab level, the Palestinian cause has returned to its priority in the Arab ladder of interests, in addition to the great international sympathy, especially after the crimes and brutality of the occupation towards the demonstrators were exposed.
- The political stages that preceded the uprising:
the Arabs fought two wars against the entity of the Israeli occupation in 1967 and 1973, and neither did those wars lead to the liberation of Palestine or the return of refugees, and at that point a current within the Palestinian Liberation Organization crystallized as “realistic” calling for the participation of political action in the struggle against The occupation was translated into the so-called “Ten Points Program” in the twelfth session of the Palestinian National Council, which was held in 1974 after that proposal was firmly rejected. This program was adopted to defeat the Israeli occupation from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, establish a revolutionary base for them, and accept participation in political efforts besides the armed struggle to liberate Palestine, citing in addition to political realism that there is great support from large sectors of the population of the occupied areas for this approach.
As far as this matter was considered a concession, some people consider that the Palestine Liberation Organization achieved a political victory through this approach in terms of what was achieved at the 1974 Summit in Riyadh in terms of recognizing the right of the Palestinian people to return and self-determination, and its right to establish the Palestinian National Authority led by the PLO as the representative Legitimate and only for the Palestinian people, leading to the participation of the late President Yasser Arafat in the session of the United Nations General Assembly in 1974 in which the international presence was devoted to the organization, and this matter would not have happened without this change in approach.
But after the exit of the Palestine Liberation Organization from Lebanon in 1982, it suffered from political vulnerability and a state of great marginalization, as not much took place during those years, and the uprising of stones came to constitute a political lever for the Palestine Liberation Organization, which ended with the signing of the Oslo Agreement in 1993.
The advances and intifada of the Intifada and the Palestinian internal situation:
Some Palestinian writers believe that the occupation of Beirut in 1982 by the Israeli occupation is not limited to expelling the Palestine Liberation Organization and ending the armed presence in Lebanon, but that goes beyond eliminating the resistance of the population in occupied Palestine and sowing despair among them.
But the steadfastness of the Palestinians for a period of three months led to many popular revolutions that were marked by their popular nature in 1983 and 1986 in the West Bank and Gaza, the confrontations between students and the occupation, in addition to the strike of four thousand prisoners in the prisons of the Israeli occupation, and the major confrontations in 1985 in Jerusalem.
In addition to the fact that the Israeli material occupation is the most prominent factor for this intifada, its policies have led to major distortions in the structure of the Palestinian economy in the agricultural and industrial sectors, which in turn has negatively affected Palestinian labor, which was forced to work in the occupied Palestinian interior.
The intifada broke out on December 9, 1987 and the beginning was from Gaza, to move to the West Bank and Jerusalem, where it was marked by the first period of wide popular confrontations, strikes and demonstrations for a period of four years, followed by the growth of armed operations, and the Palestinian people in this intifada presented 1540 martyrs, 130 One thousand wounded, and 116 thousand detainees. - The rise of Islamic resistance movements, “Hamas and Islamic Jihad”:
Some Palestinian writers believe that the emergence of the Islamic trend posed a great challenge to the Palestine Liberation Organization, because they reject its political program, and to recognize the oneness of its representation of the Palestinian people, if we consider that Islamic action as a political and militant program is an alien to the Palestinian situation, Others believe that the Islamists had their acceptable presence as the Muslim Brotherhood within the camps of the sheikhs within the Fatah movement in Jordan (1968-1970), in addition to the participation of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt to the Great Palestinian Revolution (1936-1939).
Some attribute the vitality of the Islamic phenomenon among the Palestinians after the failure of nationalist, leftist and secular ideologies in resolving the issue, so the year 1980 was the year of the emergence of armed Islamic action by establishing cells that carried out several operations, after which Hamas and Islamic Jihad launched the uprising of the stones to carry out specific operations alongside The rest of the Palestinian factions.
The political track of the Oslo agreement:
The Palestinian Liberation Organization considered that the intifada is a golden opportunity, especially what it left of repercussions at all levels, and therefore given the international circumstances, it is mature to offer an initiative to resolve the conflict with the Israeli occupation, and for this reason the Palestinian National Council held its session Nineteen in Algeria in 1988, when the following international laws 181 (the decision to partition Palestine into two Arab and Jewish states) and No. 242 were recognized and called for a political settlement, also declaring “Palestine independence”, and these decisions met opposition to the Islamic Jihad and Hamas.
In that year, the Palestinian-American dialogue began at the level of the American ambassador in Tunis. After the Gulf War, the pace of communications accelerated, and the Madrid Peace Conference was launched in 1991, leading to the signing of the Oslo Agreement in 1993 and the end of the stone uprising.
What are the achievements of the intifada:
Some people may consider that the end of the intifada with the signing of the Oslo agreement is a negative fruit, but considering the size of the popular participation and the length of time for the intifada, it proved that the Palestinian people are ready to sacrifice and fight even with rocks, and that they have a long soul despite all the methods of occupation and its terrorism And his murder, which did not prevent the Palestinian from confrontation, and popular resistance action among children, women and youth, and social solidarity through the societies and societies that were concerned with health and living matters, has emerged in this uprising to constitute with armed action a strong lever in confronting the occupation. The occupation revealed the criminal and public face that was portrayed by the world’s lenses, represented by killing, to the breaking of the bones of young men with stones, thinking that this would guarantee the end of the intifada, which clearly expressed its despair.
Also among the fruits of this intifada was the transfer of the militant and militant weight to the Palestinian interior through specific operations carried out by the national and Islamic factions, to start a new era of military confrontation with the occupation, which was evident in the Al-Aqsa Intifada after seven years, and in the era of the late President Yasser Arafat Where it was very clear that the Oslo agreement did not achieve much.