ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that Palestinian people power has demonstrated the capacity to transform oppressive conditions, making it the best prospect for sustainable peace. The first intifada began with an incident in December 1987, in which an Israeli military vehicle struck and killed four Palestinian commuters at a Gaza checkpoint. The intifada was much more than just stone-throwing youth and barricades of burning tires. The intifada was a mass movement, with a role to play for virtually every man, woman, and child, from the cities to the countryside, from the refugee camps to the universities, from volunteer relief committees to trade unions. Palestinian residents issued desperate pleas to the international community and to the Palestinian Authority (PA), but these were met with near-total silence. Much of the world's attention was preoccupied with the militarized violence of the second intifada, and with the United States' recent war on Iraq.
