As you know by now, 'non-violent' struggle is not about sitting around in circles singing Kumbaya. Quite the contrary, it's a highly strategic enterprise that usually entails significant risks to personal safety for those who take part. Zunes gives several examples of non-violent struggle in the MENA region while Dajani discusses the effectiveness of non-violent resistance in the first Palestinian Intifada. As we know twenty-five years later, the Intifada didn't lead to a resolution of the conflict. What did it achieve, if anything? What impact did it have on both the Palestinian and Israeli societies?
The Intifida, which can be perceived as both a non-violent resistance movement and a violent resistance movement, brought both negative and positive consequences. For one, there were deaths of Israeli and Palestinian innocents as violence increased through the movement. Not only were Israelis and Palestinians killing each other, but many Palestinians were slaughtered by other Palestinians because they were thought to be Israeli collaborators (http://www.merip.org/palestine-israel_primer/intifada-87-pal-isr-primer.html). If anything, this only raised suspicious of Palestinians in Israeli society, while at the same time increasing more Liberal peace movements within Israel, against the occupation of Judea/Samaria and Gaza. While the Israeli government did not exactly ease many restrictions on Palestinians, many Israelis began to pay attention to Palestinian struggles. Palestinians, on the other hand, became more resistant to the Israeli government, and increased a sense of Palestinian nationalism.
The status quo of the Israeli occupation was probably realized by Palestinians at this point. In the Intifada, though many were killed, brought together a number of Israelis and Palestinians to attempt to solve the conflict. Even though today this bloody conflict still rages on, the post intifada period brought hope to end the conflict.
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