The Intifadah and Nonviolent Struggle

The intifadah has thus far been distinguished on the Palestinian side by predominantly nonviolent forms of struggle-perhaps 85 percent of the total resistance-along with certain types of "limited violence," such as stone throwing and petrol bombs, and occasionally more serious violence. The nonviolent methods have taken such forms as commercial shutdowns, economic boycotts, labor strikes, demonstrative funerals, the hoisting of Palestinian flags, the resignation of tax collectors, and many types of political noncooperation. The development of self-reliant educational, social, economic, and political institutions has also been very important.

Gene Sharp is the director of the Program on Nonviolent Sanctions at Harvard University's Center for International Affairs and president of the Albert Einstein Institution, a foundation dedicated to research on the potential of nonviolent struggle. He is the author of The Politics of Nonviolent Action (Boston: Porter Sargent, 1973) and Almuqawama Bila Ounf [Non Violent Resistance] (Jerusalem: Palestinian Center for the Study of Nonviolence, 1986).