ABSTRACT
Using a social movements theoretical framework, I have concluded that, while potential mobilization for civil resistance in Palestine has remained high, action mobilization has been fragmented by the interaction of ineffective organizational structures, political constraints and misapplied movement framings of nonviolence during the post-Oslo period. Specifically, the second intifada saw the increasing institutionalization NGOs and political parties, repression of resistance from both the PA and Israel, and the shifting meaning of nonviolence from activism to accommodation. Space exists for the re-emergence of a widespread civil movement, but it depends largely on reclaiming a space for popular struggle in the post-Oslo context, and redefining nonviolence as civil resistance, rather than peacebuilding. Indeed, many activists are already working to relocate activism at the grassroots level, ground civil resistance in local histories and traditions, and re-frame nonviolence as strategic action.
