Indiana University Press Israel Studies: This Content Downloaded From 128.226.37.5 On Thu, 22 Sep 2016 23:30:46 UTC

Palestinian Armed Struggle, Israel's Peace Camp, and the Unique Case of Fatah-Jerusalem
Author(s): Hillel Cohen

Source: Israel Studies, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Spring 2013), pp. 101-123
Published by: Indiana University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.18.1.101
Accessed: 22-09-2016 23:30 UTC
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Hillel Cohen
Palestinian Armed Struggle,

Israel’s Peace Camp, and the
Unique Case of Fatah Jerusalem
Abstr act
Fatah activists in Jerusalem did not initiate suicide attacks during the
second intifada (which began autumn 2000), as opposed to Hamas activists
in the city and Fatah activists all over the West Bank and Gaza. I suggest
that one of the main reasons for this unique behavior is the tradition of the
joint non-violent Palestinian-Israeli struggle in the city against the Israeli
occupation and the settlement project, which was the strategic choice of
Fatah leadership in Jerusalem under Faisal Husseini since the mid-1980s.
I argue that it is not the contact between Israelis and Palestinians by itself
that has led the latter to avoid killing civilians, and some of the former to
refuse serving in the Israeli army, but the joint vision of the relation between
the two people.
T his article attempts to understand a significant but largely

unknown phenomenon: the minimal participation of Jerusalemite Fatah
members in suicide attacks during the al-Aqsa Intifada (known also as the
second Intifada, October 2000–December 2005, for purposes of this dis-
cussion). This avoidance stands in marked contrast to the activity of Fatah
members from other Palestinian towns and cities who carried out dozens of
attacks during this period. It also is at odds with the high level of military
activism pursued by the Fatah cadre based in Jerusalem over the course
of the 1970s and early 1980s, and the jihadist approach that became the
signature of Hamas-Jerusalem during the second Intifada.
Fatah Jerusalem’s avoidance of taking part in suicide missions is even
more striking in the light of the fact that throughout the second Intifada,
101
102 • isr ael studies, volume 18 number 1
Jewish Jerusalem constituted the main target for Palestinian suicide attacks.
Suicide bombers killed 174 Israelis in the city and injured more than a thou-
sand, i.e., a third of the total number of Israeli casualties in such attacks
in the country.1
The organizational affiliation of the attackers in Jerusalem adds another
dimension to our discussion. Out of a total of thirty attacks in the city,
Hamas and Fatah carried out an equal number, thirteen attacks each (43%),
while Islamic Jihad managed three attacks (10%), and an independent cell
implemented a single one. The nationwide distribution differed consider-
ably, with Hamas being responsible for 40% of the attacks, Islamic Jihad
for 25%, and Fatah 23%.2
Given the higher proportion of Fatah’s attacks in Jerusalem one might
assume that locally-based operators were more involved in suicide attacks
than their counterparts elsewhere. However, the reality was different. A
detailed examination of the operations reveals that none of the attacks in
the Israeli capital (and the Palestinians’ desired capital) were initiated by
Fatah Jerusalem. All of Fatah’s attacks in the city were planned and executed
by Fatah military activists outside Jerusalem, mainly from Bethlehem and
Samaria. In this article I suggest that the almost negligible involvement
of Fatah Jerusalem, the natural candidates to perform such missions, was
not incidental but rooted in the unique history of the activity of Fatah in
Jerusalem, as will be discussed below.3
This is not saying that members of Fatah Jerusalem abstained from
armed struggle. They were involved. But usually they targeted military
objects, or settlers, who are considered by Palestinians to be an arm of the
occupation. Neither is it suggesting that all Fatah members in the holy city
rejected suicide attacks. A handful were involved in these operations by
providing guidance to terror activists who came to the city from the West
Bank; others expressed their satisfaction (though sometimes with reserva-
tions) after such attacks. Yet, according to the available data, not a single
member of Fatah Jerusalem planned or carried out a suicide attack against
civilians, nor was there a single leader of Fatah Jerusalem who promoted
this strategy.
The questions that arise are simple: Why didn’t Fatah Jerusalem ride
the wave of suicide attacks during the Intifada? What were the sources of
this unusual political behavior? What can we learn from this about the
identity of Palestinians in Jerusalem and about Jewish-Arab relations in the
city? I suggest that a crucial (though not the sole) factor in this avoidance
was the relations of Fatah Jerusalem with the Israeli peace camp, which
were much closer than was the case for any other Palestinian group. My
Palestinian Armed Struggle, Israel’s Peace Camp • 103
theoretical argument is that it was not the personal relations between

Israelis and Palestinians that caused these Palestinian activists to refrain
from targeting Israeli civilians (and some Israelis to avoid participating in
the occupation system), but rather the joint political struggle. Thus, it is
not relationships and personal acquaintance in themselves that contrib-
ute to reducing violence (as was suggested by early adherents of contact
theory4), but joint political activity and a joint vision for the city. In this
sense, the political behavior of Jerusalemites reflects an important dimen-
sion in the Israeli-Palestinian experience, one that is worth attention and
contextualization.
SUICIDE ATTACKS IN JERUSALEM:

INITIATORS, BOMBERS, AND BYSTANDERS
The Al-Aqsa Intifada that was launched in late September 2000 with mass
demonstrations at points of friction between Palestinians and the IDF forces
in the territories, quickly turned into an armed conflict in which Israel
proved its supremacy. This was reflected in a high number of Palestinian
casualties, many of them civilians who had not been parties to the violence,
and in Palestinian attacks on Israeli cities, also characterized by a largely
civilian casualty count. As the violence escalated, Jewish Jerusalem once
again found itself a preferred target for Palestinian attacks—a distinction
that it had held in both the distant and the more immediate past.
By early November 2000 an Islamic Jihad car bomb had exploded
in the city’s Mahane Yehuda market, claiming two lives. After a period in
which most terrorist attacks were limited to shootings, the conflict’s first
suicide attack in Jerusalem was carried out on 27 March 2001, by members
of the Islamic Jihad movement. Twenty people were injured in the attack,
which resulted in no fatalities. It took another four months for the city’s first
mass terrorist attack to be implemented—the Sbarro restaurant bombing
in which 15 people lost their lives (9 August 2001). This attack was initiated
and carried out by members of the Hamas military wing in Ramallah. At
the beginning of that month the number of Jewish fatalities stood at 118,
one-third of them within Israel and the remainder civilians and soldiers
who were killed in the territories, while the number of Palestinian fatalities
was 486, the vast majority of them civilians.5 Like the Hamas operatives,
the senior Fatah echelon also felt a need to protect the inhabitants of the
territories, and they began considering attacks on civilians within the Green
Line. Marwan Bargouti explained:
If the Israelis continue to attack our lives, killing people on the ground, day
by day, attacking with tanks and aircraft, why should the people of Tel Aviv
be allowed to live a secure life? You do not respect our ‘A’ areas, we do not
respect your ‘A’ areas. If you come into my home and do as you please, why
should I be polite in your home?6
The next terrorist attack in Jerusalem also originated with Hamas-

Ramallah and Hamas-Jerusalem: a double suicide attack in December
2001 at downtown Jerusalem’s Zion Square that claimed 11 lives. A month
later Fatah entered the picture with its first suicide attack in Jerusalem (27
January). A young woman from Ramallah, Wafa Idris, blew herself up on
Jaffa Street, killing another person along with her.7
In March-April 2002 terrorist attacks followed each other in quick
succession, and the number of Israeli casualties was exceedingly high. Beth-
lehem’s Fatah branch, one of whose commanders was Ahmad al-Mughrabi,
dispatched a suicide bomber on 2 March to blow himself up among Jews
leaving a synagogue, ten of whom were killed. A Hamas cell consisting of
Jerusalem- and Ramallah-based activists carried out the Café Moment ter-
rorist attack in Jerusalem on March 9; Fatah operatives from Nablus man-
aged to smuggle into the city a suicide bomber who killed three people on
King George Street on 21 March, while members of the Bethlehem Fatah
branch sent a female suicide bomber to a supermarket in Kiryat Hayovel
on 29 March (two fatalities); in early April another female terrorist linked
to Fatah-Bethlehem blew herself up in the Mahane Yehuda market, killing
another six people.
The wave of terrorist attacks continued into the spring and summer. A
Hamas cell based in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan carried out an
attack—this time outside of Jerusalem—in a nightclub in Rishon Lezion,
on 7 May (15 fatalities), while on 18 July a suicide bomber blew himself
up on Egged bus line 32A, killing 19. The latter terrorist was linked to a
Nablus-based Hamas cell that recruited people in Jerusalem as well. A sui-
cide bomber who was recruited by Hamas-Bethlehem blew himself up in
November of that year on Egged bus line 20, killing 11; in mid-2003 Hamas-
Hebron became active in a wave of Jerusalem bus bombings (attacks on bus
line 6 in May, on line 14 in June, and on line 2 in September), in which a
total of 47 people were killed. The Jerusalem Hamas cell (Issawiya), aided
by Ramallah, smuggled a suicide bomber into Café Hillel in the German
Colony, in an incident that claimed seven lives. In January and February
2004 another two major attacks were carried out in Jerusalem, on bus lines
14 and 19, in which eight and eleven people were killed, respectively. Fatah,
via the Al Aqsa Brigades’ Bethlehem branch, was responsible for the latter
terrorist attacks.
One of the main goals of those behind the suicide attacks was to
achieve a balance of terror that would lead Israel to curtail its attacks on
the cities of the West Bank; Jerusalem’s Jewish residents were the primary
target of this strategic effort. However, as a review of the attack initiators
and implementers readily shows, most of these incidents were conceived
and carried out by Palestinians from outside Jerusalem, and a minority of
them by Palestinian Jerusalemites. Based on these figures, two contradictory
questions can be asked: Why were Palestinian Jerusalemites less involved
in the armed struggle than were residents of the other areas? The premise
implicit in this question is that East Jerusalem residents are part of the over-
all population of the Occupied Territories, and that they might have been
expected to participate equally in a struggle bearing the name Al Aqsa. The
opposite question may be asked as well: Why were so many Jerusalemites
involved in suicide attacks, despite being holders of the blue Israeli identity
cards that confer permanent residency status, if not citizenship? Here the
assumption is that the latter group constitutes a distinct political entity,
one with stronger ties to Israel than to the territories. I present below a few
possible, though inadequate, explanations regarding the level of military
activity of Palestinian Jerusalemites that can be found in the Israeli politi-
cal and public discourse; subsequently, I address another dimension of the
issue, one that places it in a new light: the distinctive character of Fatah
Jerusalem.
JERUSALEM, POLITICAL IDENTITY,

AND TERRORIST ATTACKS
Attempts to explain the degree to which Jerusalemites were involved in the

Palestinian armed struggle are rooted in several different lines of thought:
The Palestinian Jerusalemites’ Political-Economic Status
This basic and familiar argument holds that Israel’s de facto annexation of
East Jerusalem in 1967, its attendant opening of the Israeli labor market
to the city’s Palestinian residents, and the application of Israeli health and
welfare laws to these residents, led to a significant improvement in East
Jerusalemites’ socioeconomic status, and, accordingly, to a preference for
Israeli rule on the part of many local Arabs. A byproduct of this state of
affairs is that the Palestinian Jerusalemites have no motivation to take part
in terrorist attacks. This argument has been voiced in Israeli public and
political discourse, and was posited by Minister of Public Security Moshe
Shahal in an address to the Knesset in 1997.8
The Palestinian East Jerusalemites’ favored economic status is indeed
noteworthy. Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics data from 2002, the
peak year for suicide bombings, indicate that only 3.1% of East Jerusalem
Palestinians were living under the (Palestinian!) poverty line, compared
with 14.5% on the West Bank and 33% in the Gaza Strip.9 A statement
issued by the Prime Minister’s Office in the wake of the terrorist attack by
a Silwan-based Hamas cell on Hebrew University’s Mount Scopus campus
reflects the approach that the Palestinian Jerusalemites are to pay for their
better economic status by acquiescence (note the use of the expression “Arab
population” rather than “Palestinian population”):
This is a direct blow to the trust we have shown towards the residents of East
Jerusalem, who may pay [a] heavy social and economic price when the Jewish
population cuts off contact with them and they come to be treated as suspects
everywhere they go. Apparently these extremist elements have not obtained
“permission” from the Arab population of Jerusalem to cause such damage to
its reputation with all implications of that result.10
The assumption that there are Palestinians in Jerusalem who refrain

from terrorist activity due to a fear of losing their privileges is entirely rea-
sonable, but as an explanation it is insufficient. The status of the Palestinians
in East Jerusalem, though better than that of the Palestinians in the ter-
ritories, is economically inferior to that of Jerusalem’s Israeli population: in
2003 23.5% of Jewish Jerusalemites were living under the Israeli poverty line,
compared with 63.5% of the city’s Arabs.11 Palestinian Jerusalemites who
compare themselves to residents of the territories could view themselves as
lucky, but those who compare themselves to the city’s Jewish population
would have a sense of disenfranchisement. Moreover, the economic level
of East Jerusalem’s population is far from uniform; within the area annexed
to Israel one finds small pockets of upper-middle-class life alongside lower-
class and slum areas.
More importantly: that the significance of the economic advantage
enjoyed by Palestinian East Jerusalemites has its limits can be inferred from
the background of Hamas activists arrested for their involvement in fatal
terrorist incidents. These operatives were a varied group in terms of their
socioeconomic and educational status, ranging from the unemployed and
those with only grade-school educations, to those firmly in the middle class.
Economic status has more of an effect on non-ideological people than on

those intensively engaged by ideology, for whom religious and national
considerations trump personal and economic ones.
Relative Security
Another explanation that attributes the Palestinian Jerusalemites’ different
style of opposing the occupation to differing conditions has also been pos-
ited by some Palestinians, but with a different emphasis: “The occupation in
Jerusalem is less strongly felt. Most of those who carried out suicide attacks
were people who had lost a family member or suffered personally. I wouldn’t
say that Jerusalem is not occupied, but it’s not occupied in the same way.”12
This explanation also offers a partial answer to the question, and is based on
knowledge of the personal background of some of the Fatah operatives who
carried out terrorist attacks in Jerusalem. One such operative was Ahmad
al-Mughrabi of the Dheisheh Refugee Camp near Bethlehem, who diverted
activity aimed at countering the IDF in the Territories to the sphere of
suicide attacks in Jerusalem after his brother, a fellow Fatah operative, was
killed during clashes with an IDF patrol in Bethlehem.13
The relatively protected status of Jerusalemites from the first year of the
intifada on (not including the event that incited it, the demonstrations in
al-Aqsa following Ariel Sharon’s visit there, in which seven demonstrators
were killed) is borne out by the following data. According to the Palestinian
Bureau of Statistics, of the 1,392 Palestinians who were killed in the West
Bank and Jerusalem combined between 2000 and 2003, only 53 were killed
in the Jerusalem District—4%, with the District population accounting for
13.5% of the West Bank population. The chance of a Palestinian Jerusalemite
being killed was less than a third that of a Palestinian from elsewhere in the
territories, and the percentage of bereaved families in Jerusalem was a third
that of the percentage for the entire West Bank 14(in contrast to Jerusalem’s
Jewish residents, who stood the greatest chance of being killed out of the
entire Israeli population). These data offer yet another partial explanation of
the Palestinian Jerusalemites’ lower motivation to participate in the armed
struggle, but it does not account for the organizational distribution of those
who carried out the terrorist attacks.
High Motivation, Limited Capability

Another possible explanation for the minimal involvement of East Jerusale-
mites in the terrorist attacks is the stronger intelligence-gathering capability
of the security services within Jerusalem, compared with the territories—a
capability that kept them on the trail of organized efforts to carry out
attacks. This was due, among other things, to East Jerusalem’s direct sub-
jugation to Israeli rule since its annexation to Israel in 1967, in contrast to
the cities of the West Bank and Gaza, which had gradually come under
the security control of the P.A (Palestinian Authority) since that entity’s
establishment in 1994.15
This explanation presupposes that, in terms of motivation or political
identity, there is not necessarily any difference between East Jerusalemites
and the Palestinians in the territories, and that any difference in behavior is
due to the deterrence effect of direct Israeli control. Indeed, the motivation
to execute terrorist attacks is clearly evident in the activity of two major
Hamas cells during the Al-Aqsa Intifada, cells that succeeded in carrying
out several “quality” attacks before they were located and trapped—this in
addition to the Jerusalemites who aided and abetted other cells by gather-
ing information, transporting operatives, etc. One may also assume that
many of those who considered joining the armed activity were deterred
by the numerous sweeps carried out by the GSS. On the other hand, the
activity of Jerusalem-based Hamas cells also testifies to the fact that the
GSS’s capabilities in the city were limited as well, and that strong motiva-
tion on the part of East Jerusalem terrorist operatives could overcome the
efforts of the GSS.
Desire And Ability
Another approach to the question focuses not on the relatively low terror-
ism participation rate of Palestinian Jerusalemites, but on the fact of their
being involved at all. This approach holds that Jerusalemites were highly
motivated to take part in armed activity, and that East Jerusalem-based
operatives were responsible for a very high proportion of the Al-Aqsa
Intifada terrorist attacks. In other words: economic status does not prevent
such activity, nor does deterrence on the part of the Israeli security forces
affect the Palestinian Jerusalemites. This is the position held, for instance
by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC), at the Israel
Heritage and Commemoration Center. In their reliable report that was
published in November 2005 entitled “Jerusalem as a Preferred Target for
Palestinian Terrorism during the Five Years of Violent Confrontation”, they
mention that Jerusalemite Arabs (in line with the Prime Minister’s Office,
they do not refer to them as Palestinians) were involved in attacks in which
1,171 Israelis were injured and 186 were killed.16
These data would seem to contradict all of the aforementioned expla-
nations regarding the tendency of East Jerusalemites to refrain from terror-
ist activity. However, it is merely an apparent contradiction. Considering
the freedom of movement enjoyed by Palestinians in East Jerusalem thanks

to their Israeli identity cards, their potential for contributing to the suicide
attacks was much higher than their actual involvement.
What, then, may be inferred from Palestinian Jerusalemites’ participa-
tion in the suicide attacks? Was their involvement in these attacks similar to
that of the other Palestinians in the territories, or did they view themselves
as “exempt” from such an obligation? And how can one reconcile the data
testifying to their intensive involvement in violent activity with other
analyses and data indicating preference for Israeli rule over affiliation with
the P.A, as posited in Shahal’s speech?
The answer lies in the fact that Jerusalem’s Palestinian population is
not homogeneous. While the Palestinians in the territories were almost uni-
fied in their support of the suicide attacks, with a blurring of distinctions
between Fatah and Hamas, in Jerusalem this was not the case. Although
some of the Jerusalemites’ opposition to terrorist activity stemmed from
economic considerations or a fear of the long arm of the Israeli security
forces, the opposition shown by Fatah Jerusalem operatives was due to a
specific outlook informed by their years-long contact with the Israeli peace
movement. This was true both of the organization’s leadership and of its
younger cadre, those who had been involved in joint Israeli-Palestinian
activity from the late 1980s up to 2000.
FATAH AND TERRORIST ATTACKS ON CIVILIANS—

A BRIEF HISTORY
The Fatah movement coalesced during the late 1950s. From the time of its
inception it called for the liberation of Palestine as a whole, for revolution-
ary violence, and for Palestinian self-determination. From 1965 until the
war in 1967 Fatah was responsible for several incidents within the borders
of the State of Israel, whose existence it did not recognize. After the war,
the movement tried to establish its headquarters in the occupied territories
and to instigate civil disobedience combined with guerilla warfare, but the
attempt failed due to a lack of experience in covert activity, limited popu-
lar support, and the effectiveness of the Israeli security forces. The Fatah
headquarters moved to Jordan and, after the conflict with the Jordanian
authorities in 1970–71, to Lebanon. Both during its brief period of activity
in the territories and in its activity outside of Israel—its mortar and Katyu-
sha attacks and its infiltrations into Israel—Fatah operatives attacked both
civilian and military targets.17
Israel and various international parties defined Fatah as a terrorist

movement, first and foremost due to its activity vis-à-vis civilians. Fatah
defined itself as an anti-colonialist liberation movement, and rejected
any distinction between civil and military within the Zionist entity, as,
from the Fatah’s point of view, everyone, whether civilian or soldier, bore
responsibility for the Palestinians’ expulsion from their land.
Arafat’s argument in this regard was presented during his historical
address to the UN General Assembly (13 November 1974) in which he pre-
sented his definition of terrorism: “The difference between the revolution-
ary and the terrorist lies in the reason for which each fights. For whoever
stands by a just cause and fights for the freedom and liberation of his land
from the invaders, the settlers and the colonialists, cannot possibly be called
terrorist,” he argued.18 Thus, it is not the means that determines who is a
terrorist, but rather the ends.
Beyond the issue of theoretical justification, another barrier to mean-
ingful Palestinian discussion regarding attacks on Israeli civilians was the
extensive damage wrought upon the Palestinian civilian population by
Israeli attacks. This was the historical memory that had been preserved of
the 1948 war, and it was the personal experience of many due to IDF activity
in Jordan and Lebanon during the 1970s and the early 1980s.
In the late 1970s, subsequent to the Israel-Egypt agreements, Fatah insti-
gated a wave of attacks in Israel, which Arafat explained in terms of a desire
to show Israel and the United States that no complete resolution could be
expected without taking the PLO into account.19 Another way of reinforc-
ing the PLO’s status in the territories was an influx of funds (donated by the
Arab League countries) for the establishment of Palestinian civic-political
institutions in the territories. This opened up a channel for nationalist activ-
ity for those unwilling or unable to take part in the armed struggle. Faisal
Husseini, a senior Fatah Jerusalem leader, was a key figure in this process.
Husseini, appointed by Arafat to command Fatah Jerusalem in 1967 and
arrested that same year on a weapons charge, and as the son of Abd alQadr
al-Husseini, the Palestinian commander killed in the battle of al-Qastel in
1948—and as a well-connected political activist enjoying the trust of myriad
groups and organizations—strove to lay a political groundwork for Fatah
in Jerusalem.20 With backing from Fatah’s Abu Jihad, Husseini founded
the Arab Studies Society in a building belonging to his family known as
Orient House, and worked to strengthen the political consciousness of East
Jerusalem’s Palestinians within the framework of Fatah.
Husseini concluded, at an early point in his activist career, that politi-
cal effort should be given preference over military struggle—which opinion
he voiced in an interview with Amnon Rubenstein, conducted in prison

in 1968.21 The leadership cadre that coalesced in Jerusalem during the
early 1980s and that included philosophy professor Sari Nusseibeh (now
President of Al-Quds University), journalist Ziad Abu Zayyad (editor of
the journal Gesher [“Bridge”], intended for the Israeli public), and other
political activists with a media background such as Salah Zuhaika, Daoud
Kuttab, Radwan Abu Ayyash, Hanna Siniora, and Talal Abu Afifeh, shared
Husseini’s outlook. They also stressed the need for contact with Israeli par-
ties, an issue that had been controversial within both the “external” and
the “internal” Fatah leadership. These figures also formulated an approach
disfavoring attacks on civilians—while Fatah’s operational arm, under the
leadership of Abu Jihad, continued recruiting local activists for such attacks.
This intra-Fatah controversy was clearly reflected in another bus bomb-
ing that took place in Jerusalem in December 1983, in which six people
were killed. That year contact solidified between Palestinian figures in the
territories and the Israeli peace movement, in the wake of the Israeli protests
against the massacre carried out by the Phalangists with IDF support in
the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps a year earlier, a growing movement in
Israel to abstain from military service in Lebanon, and an intensified effort
to monitor human rights violations in the territories.22 Palestinian public
support for talks between the Israeli peace movement and the Palestin-
ian leadership was exceedingly high,23 and after the bombing Palestinian
leaders from the West Bank published—for the first time—a statement in
both the Arab and Israeli press condemning the attack, claiming that these
operations violated official PLO policy and jeopardized Israeli-Palestinian
dialogue. The leaflet was published independently, without consultation
with PLO institutions in Lebanon and Tunisia, and was widely quoted
by the Israeli media, the Labor Party, Peace Now, and other center and
left-wing bodies.24 This criticism by his supporters in the Territories was
probably what motivated Arafat’s spokesman, Ahmad Abd al-Rahman, to
announce that the PLO was not responsible for the attack, and that the
PLO has always abstained from attacking civilians, only four days after the
PLO had assumed responsibility for the explosion.25
The rationale posited by the leaflet authors is relevant to our dis-
cussion. Moral considerations aside, they viewed this kind of attack as
detrimental to the possibility of bringing Israelis to understand the Pales-
tinians’ case. Here one can see the beginnings of the discursive, political,
and practical connection between dialogue with Israelis and opposition
to attacks on civilians. The logic behind this approach is clear: attacks on
civilians were always regarded as problematic by many Fatah operatives,
while others viewed them as a necessary evil. If a fair agreement could be

reached through dialogue and without harming civilians—that would be
the preferred option. And, of course, dialogue presupposed some kind of
recognition of the other party and awareness of its needs.
After December 1983 Fatah curtailed its terrorist activity, both for
operational reasons and due to opposition by the leadership in the ter-
ritories (although certain parties within Fatah were against the change and
continued recruiting personnel for the implementation of attacks in Jeru-
salem up until the time of the First Intifada). During those years Jerusalem
was transformed from terrorism target to a hub of Israeli-Palestinian joint
activity. In 1985 the first Israeli-Palestinian anti-occupation organization of
its kind, the Committee against the Iron Fist, was founded; its membership
included Fatah Jerusalem operatives, first and foremost Faisal Husseuni,
and Israeli leftists such as Gideon Spiro and Michael Warshavsky of the
Alternative Information Center (AIC).26 Husseini, however, was not con-
tent merely to link up with the anti-Zionist left and expanded his circle of
Israeli interlocutors by meeting with members of Peace Now (the backbone
of the Zionist left, which started at that time supporting negotiations with
Palestinians27), the Labor Party, and the Likud.28 In parallel, Fatah Jerusa-
lem continued to express its opposition to attacking civilians. Following the
stabbing of an elderly Jewish person in the Old City in December 1986, a
leaflet of denunciation was worded, signed and distributed by Fatah (and
other) Palestinian leaders in Jerusalem, including Husseini, Zuhaika, and
Nusseibe. In addition, a joint Israeli-Palestinian meeting was held, with
members of Peace Now and Fatah, to condemn both the occupation and
violence.29 This was the start of a process during which a joint political
platform for these two groups was created, based on two elements: no to
occupation, no to violence.
JERUSALEM IN THE FIRST INTIFADA:

CREATION OF AN ALLIANCE
The outbreak of the first Intifada in 1987 found Husseini in administra-

tive detention, and Peace Now and other Israeli peace activists mounted
a campaign demanding his release.30 After his release, Husseini joined
the leadership of the uprising, and in parallel strengthened his contacts
with the Israeli peace camp. In a sense, the popular uprising constituted a
victory of the non-militaristic approach in Fatah, since Abu Jihad himself
ordered Fatah’s cadres to avoid using firearms and attacking civilians.31 The
Israeli peace camp was aware of the self-restraint on the Palestinian side,
and of the harsh measures taken by the Israeli security forces despite this
restraint, and was mobilized into unprecedented activity. As the Jerusalem
Post reported in February 1988, “Dozens of groups, both spontaneously
organized and veterans of the anti-war [in Lebanon] efforts, have sprung
into action.”32 Part of this motion was channeled into human rights
activity, and important NGOs, such as Hamoked, B’tselem, Rabbis for
Human Rights, and the Israeli Committee against Torture, as well as the
joint Palestinian-Israeli Coalition of Women for Peace, were established
during the Intifada. All these movements and NGOs were located in Jeru-
salem, and all cooperated with Palestinian political movements, especially
with Fatah, a point that is crucial to our understanding of the Palestinian
political scene in Jerusalem.
In July 1988, Arafat’s adviser, Bassam Abu Sharif, published an article
calling for a two-state solution. As a follow-up, Husseini participated in
a public conference organized by Peace Now in Jerusalem, together with
Radwan Abu Ayyash. Both speakers assured the audience that the main-
stream PLO leadership supported the establishment of a Palestinian state
to live in peace side by side with Israel.
At the conference, to which the Palestinian attendees arrived in the car
of Janet Aviad of Peace Now, Al-Husseini called upon Israel to engage in
talks with the PLO under international sponsorship, and presented an idea
of Jerusalem as an open city: “In order to solve the problem of Jerusalem
one needs considerable imagination . . . In principle I view Jerusalem as one
city serving as two capitals for two states. But in order for this to happen, a
great many dreams have to be given up. Not just dreams, we’ll have to give
up nightmares as well.33
Soon afterwards, he was placed again in administrative detention. In
response, Peace Now organized a protest demonstration near Yitzhak Rabin’s
Tel-Aviv home.34 The movement also sent letters to foreign governments,
urging them to pressure Israel for his release.35
At this stage, both sides believed that cooperation made strategic
sense. For the Israeli peace camp, Husseini and his circle proved that it was
possible to forge common ground with Palestinians within the PLO main-
stream. For Fatah, joint efforts were a way to shift Israeli public opinion
towards recognizing the PLO and accepting the idea of a Palestinian state. It
became almost routine to see Husseini and other Fatah members participat-
ing in public meetings with Israelis, where they explained the Palestinian
perspective, and articulated their preference for non-violent struggle and
mutual compromise.36
During the Intifada, Husseini was appointed as the head of Fatah in

the West Bank, and the first representative of the Palestinians in the Ter-
ritories in Fatah’s Central Committee, the highest decision making body
in the movement. Yet most of Husseini’s energies were dedicated to Arab
Jerusalem, where he created a coalition of Palestinian political groups while
working to sustain reciprocal relations with the Israeli peace camp. He also
encouraged cooperation between Palestinian human rights organizations
(usually affiliated with PLO factions) and Israeli ones. On the first day of
1990 he was among the leaders of a peace demonstration under the title:
“1990: Time for Peace” in which some 30,000 Israelis, Palestinians, and
internationals created a human “peace chain” around the walls of the Old
City. The trust that developed between him and Israeli groups enabled them
to start cooperating in the struggle against settlement later that year, when a
settlers’ group entered a building in the Christian Quarter in the Old City.37
The discourse developed by Fatah during the Intifada advocated joint
Israeli-Palestinian activity, opposed the killing of civilians, and promoted
a peaceful two-state solution. This was in sharp contrast with the previous
call for armed struggle discussed earlier. The idea of Jerusalem as an open
city and capital of two states offered the peace advocates from both sides a
shared formula that enabled them to adhere to their national and religious
beliefs without ignoring the other’s rights.
However, the Islamists and other rejectionist groups took a different
stance, and Fatah itself was to some degree ambivalent. This was evident
during the Gulf War of 1991, when the PLO and many Palestinians in the
Territories supported Iraq. Again, it was Faisal Husseini who presented his
(and many other Palestinians’) stance to the Israeli public. “My position is
clear and coherent: I oppose any attack on civilians.”38 This statement made
the continuation of joint Israeli-Palestinian cooperation possible.
The end of the Gulf War and the U.S. peace initiative of the early 1990s
created new challenges for the joint peace camp. The American initiative
triggered a concerted response among settlers in Jerusalem, who endeavored
to preempt any negotiations. In 1991, the U.S. secretary of state headed to
Israel to meet—separately—Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and the
Palestinian delegation led by Husseini. Hoping to derail the talks, settlers
from the El-Ad Association occupied several homes in the Palestinian-
inhabited village of Silwan, just to the south of the Old City wall. Peace
Now in Jerusalem reacted quickly, going to Silwan to demonstrate solidarity
with the Palestinian residents, while coordinating their steps with Husseini’s
Orient House.39
Following the Madrid Conference of 1991, Palestinians established

action committees composed of supporters of the peace process from Fatah
and other movements. At their head were Professor Sari Nusseibeh and
another prominent Jerusalemite activist, Ziad Abu Zayyad, who termed
them the Palestinian Peace Now.40 A Committee for the Defense of the
Land of Silwan was also established, and in December 1991, a joint Israeli-
Palestinian anti-settlement demonstration, involving thousands of Israelis,
took place in the village. Husseini, as one of the leaders of the event, told
a journalist that allowing the settlers to move into Silwan “will complicate
the situation [. . .] and give ammunition to those who do not believe in
the peace process.”41
This demonstration was only the beginning. During the following year
Peace Now became virtually a permanent presence in Silwan. Members of
the movement slept in the village, staying overnight in houses at risk of
invasion. Peace Now and other Israeli groups were also involved financially
and professionally in legal battles (including appeals to the Supreme Court)
over Palestinian property rights.42
The Oslo Agreements of 1993 raised hopes among Peace Now mem-
bers that the government would take the “peace file” upon itself, making
citizen activism less urgent. However, settlement activity in the city never
ceased, and the Israeli peace camp was pushed to continue its joint struggle
alongside the Palestinians. Not only was the activity shared, but also the
argumentation. When settlers in the Shimon ha-Tsadik neighborhood
or in Sheikh Jarrah argued that all they were doing was simply returning
to the houses from which Jews had been evicted in 1948, the Israeli left
and the Palestinians gave a single response: by doing so, you legitimize
the Palestinian demand to implement the Right of Return for Palestinian
refugees.
During that period, Husseini continued to develop the vision of Jeru-
salem as an open city, an idea shared by many Israelis in the peace camp. In
this vision, Jerusalem would be the capital of both states; sovereignty would
be divided between them according to the pre-1967 lines, without borders
existing inside the city itself. The vision included concessions from both
sides. Israelis were supposed to give up sovereignty over East Jerusalem,
including the Temple Mount; and Palestinians would acknowledge Israeli
sovereignty in the city’s pre-1948 Arab neighborhoods.43
The assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish right-
wing activist in November 1994, suicide attacks by Hamas in February-
March in Jerusalem and elsewhere in 1996, and the election of rightwing
Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister later that year, marked
the beginning of the end of the peace process. Nonetheless, despite the
sharp shift of Israeli society to the right, cooperation on the ground between
Fatah’s cadres in Jerusalem and the Israeli peace camp continued. In 1998,
for example, twenty Israeli activists were arrested by the Israeli police while
protesting against the occupation of homes in Silwan.44
Attempts to block settlement activity failed. The Israeli government
started building Har Homa in 1997; soon it became a large Israeli-Jewish
neighborhood of middle-class Jerusalemites. Construction of a Jewish
neighborhood in Ras al-Amoud was also approved by Netanyahu, then
delayed (to be renewed in the following years). Settlers have occupied,
with the approval of Israeli courts, houses in the Shimon ha-Tsadik quarter
in Sheikh Jarrah. For many Palestinians who supported the peace pro-
cess, this expansion proved that Israel was less interested in securing peace
than in grabbing land. Husseini warned more than once that settlement
growth would lead to violence and demolition of Arab houses.45 The
al-Aqsa Intifada was fueled by this base of Palestinian frustration and
disappointment.
KILLING CIVILIANS IN THE SECOND INTIFADA:

OPPOSITION FROM WITHIN
The intifada was triggered by a visit by Ariel Sharon to the Al-Aqsa com-
pound in Jerusalem—the event that gave the uprising its name. The conflict
quickly escalated from mass demonstrations to violent confrontation, and
the Palestinians’ way of compensating for their inferiority in manpower
and armaments was to adopt the suicide attack approach. For Hamas this
was nothing new; a desire for vengeance ever since Baruch Goldstein mas-
sacred Muslim worshippers at the Cave of the Patriarchs in February 1994,
combined with a political aspiration to prevent implementation of the Oslo
Accords and of the PLO-Israeli-American alliance against Islamic funda-
mentalism, led the movement’s leadership to change its own ruling and
to permit, seven years after its founding, terrorist attacks against civilians,
including suicide attacks.46 The P.A’s security apparatus, which was Fatah-
based, had been active during the Oslo years (1994–2000) in thwarting such
attacks, though with varying levels of conviction and resolve.
“We, in the Preventive Security under Rajoub, were determined to
prevent attacks by Hamas, as we knew that it would lead to Israeli reprisal
and harm our efforts to establish our independent state,” a Fatah activist
in Jerusalem, who became an officer in the Palestinian Preventive Security,

recalled.47
When the Al-Aqsa Intifada broke out, Fatah was faced with a dilemma.
First, the initial uprising was characterized by a dimension of opposition
to the P.A, in which Fatah was the dominant faction. Moreover, Fatah,
despite criticism of the Oslo Accords, viewed itself as committed to the
Accords, in contrast to Hamas, the Jihad, and the PFLP. For these reasons
Fatah initially adopted a policy of mass protest accompanied by controlled
violence. This was the approach advocated by Marwan Barghouti, head
of the Fatah Supreme Council in the West Bank, prior to the Intifada.
Intra-Fatah competition for leadership and, especially, the large number
of Palestinian casualties, led more and more Fatah members to support an
intensification of the armed activity. Many members of the organization’s
security forces embraced this stance out of a sense of duty to defend their
people, and Barghouti became the main spokesman of this group. For
him, adopting the suicide-attack method was also a way of strengthening
Fatah’s standing vis-à-vis Hamas, and of reinforcing the Palestinian position
in negotiations with Israel. He hoped and believed that a large number of
Israeli casualties would cause the Israeli public to pressure its government to
soften its negotiating stance. 48Fatah military operatives hastened to adopt
this approach, and Fatah began initiating suicide attacks within Israel, with
extensive support from the Palestinian populace.
However, Palestinian support for suicide attacks was not unqualified.
An early example of a statement of opposition to the suicide attacks was
published by Rema Hamami and Musa Budeiri in al-Quds, 14 December
2001. Dozens of scholars and public figures called upon the Palestinian
factions to avoid attacking civilians in al-Quds on 19 June 2002 and in the
days that followed.49 However, opposition to these attacks did not come
merely from the popular or academic sphere, but also from within the Fatah
movement itself, in which an atmosphere of contention prevailed over the
issue of deliberately harming civilians.
As was well documented, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), later the
chairman of the P.A, and Jibril Rajoub, then head of the Preventive Security,
opposed the militaristic approach for many reasons.50 The center of the
opposition to the new trend was Jerusalem, whose leadership was almost
united in its rejection of the militarization of the Intifada and especially to
attacks on civilians. Leading members of Fatah Jerusalem recall that they
presented this view to Arafat in early 2002, before the re-occupation of all
West Bank cities by Israel, but he ignored them. The head of the tanzim
in the Old City, Nasser Qos, who served as Faisal Husseini’s personal
bodyguard until the latter’s death and the head of the Orient House secu-
rity, expressed opposition to military operations and repeated it during his
campaign for the Palestinian Legislative Council in 2006, holding the same
view he had shared with Husseini for many years.51
A plausible axiom is that people who know each other are less likely
to kill one another. This idea was the basis of the contact theory, which
encouraged contact between members of rival ethnic groups.52 However,
this theory was sadly refuted by the experience of Rwanda, former Yugo-
slavia, Lebanon, and other places (including the holy land) where people
killed their neighbors in civil or ethnic wars.
What I suggest, therefore, is not that the dialogue and encounters
between Israelis and Palestinians brought about a rejection of indiscrimi-
nate killing. Instead, it was a shared vision of the future of Israelis and
Palestinians, and the joint political struggle toward these goals. This type of
activity has the power to break the dichotomy of friends vs. foes, which is
usually based on an ethnic-national divide. As a leading member of Fatah
in Jerusalem said, Jerusalemites developed their own practices of resistance,
which were based on sumud [steadfastness and preservation of the Arab
identity of Jerusalem], NGOs’ activity, and popular joint struggle.53 Or
in the words of another prominent Palestinian activist in Jerusalem (who
was involved in the Palestinian armed struggle in the late 1960s and was
incarcerated in an Israeli prison for 17 years): “Today I cannot but differ-
entiate between Israelis who support the Palestinian cause and those who
oppose it.”54
Certainly, the joint activity has had an impact not just on Palestinians.
Israelis who have been involved in the joint activities were influenced in a
very similar way. Young Israelis, some of whom participated in Peace Now
activities before 2000, some of whom joined more radical Israeli groups
such as Ta’ayush and Combatants for Peace (established during the second
Intifada), have decided to refuse serving in the Israeli military. This clear evi-
dence of the significant effect of joint political struggle on its practitioners
is beyond our discussion.
CONCLUSION
The Al-Aqsa Intifada, which brought with it an unprecedentedly high

number of Palestinian and Israeli fatalities, also led to a cessation of joint
Fatah-Peace Now activity. The Palestinians realized that the Israeli peace
movement had failed in its attempt to end settlement activity and to
advocate for a two-state solution; they saw Israeli support for such a solu-
tion diminish. The Israelis were outraged over Fatah involvement in terror-
ist attacks on civilians, and refrained from contact with Palestinians. Faisal
Husseini’s death shortly after the outbreak of the Intifada (March 2001)
cut off one of the main Israeli-Palestinian communication channels that
remained—a channel that had combined political activity with grassroots
activity on the ground.
So deep was the rift between the two sides that Peace Now activists
in Jerusalem were unaware that their Fatah colleagues opposed the suicide
bombings. In conversations that I held with several activists, some of them
“disillusioned” leftists and others steadfast adherents to traditional Peace
Now positions, my interlocutors were surprised to hear the numerical data
regarding Fatah Jerusalem’s avoidance of involvement in the suicide bomb-
ings, and the statements opposing attacks on civilians issued by their former
partners in joint Israeli-Palestinian activity.
The joint Fatah-Peace Now efforts can be seen, in retrospect, as an
important, if fleeting, historical moment made possible by very specific
social and political circumstances. Although joint activity between Israelis
and Palestinians from the territories took place as far back as the late 1960s
and continues to take place today, the activity discussed in this paper was
distinguished by the fact that both groups were aligned with the main-
stream ethos of their respective societies—rather than being radical factions
trying to change the existing order. Up until 1985, interaction and activ-
ity on the part of both societies was limited to groups that stood outside
their respective national agendas; far-left factions proposed and worked
to advance non-nationalist and cosmopolitan solutions. Fatah and Peace
Now, by contrast, worked within the framework of the Palestinian and
Israeli national agendas, accepted their respective premises, and tried to
devise solutions that accorded with them. They chose to formulate a shared
vision, but not a shared future, as reflected in their attempt to forward a
two-state solution. However, this solution was rejected by powerful forces
within both Palestinian and Israeli society, forces that strove, each in its own
way, to prevent such a solution from being implemented: the Israeli settlers
by intensifying construction activity in the territories (with the support of
the Israeli government), and the Islamic opposition by means of terrorist
attacks (to which the P.A leadership at times turned a blind eye).
Once it became clear that a two-state solution—and thus an end to
the occupation—was receding farther and farther into the distance, there
was no longer any shared vision left to cling to. Fatah, which had been, at
its inception, an entity oriented toward armed struggle, re-embraced its
former philosophy, thereby accelerating the decline of Peace Now. Only

the Jerusalem-based Fatah personnel, those who, more than anyone else,
had been politically and emotionally invested in the forging of a shared
vision, found it hard to reconcile themselves to the change and refrained
from involvement in the suicide attacks (though not in the armed struggle
against military targets). From this we may conclude that a shared vision
is one of the most effective barriers to violence, even when bloody ethnic
conflict has already erupted.
Since the Al-Aqsa Intifada, joint Israeli-Palestinian activity has returned
to a framework reminiscent of the 1970s, meaning that the Israeli activists
are, for the most part, non-Zionists, some of whom advocate a bi-national
state—while their Palestinian counterparts are primarily members of local
organizations rather than Fatah (although Fatah does not usually prevent
its people from participating in these latter entities).
There are, today, no pre-eminent Israeli or Palestinian groups that
espouse a shared vision and engage in joint activity. This being the case,
the impact of the joint struggle is now exceedingly limited, and of value
primarily to its participants, who are thereby carving out for themselves a
space in which they can be politically active, without generating any change
in the general political arena.
Notes
I wish to thank the Israeli Science Foundation for a grant that enabled me to finish
this study (“The Palestinians and the New Israeli Left”, ISF 693/11).
1. The total number of Israelis killed during this period was 1,084,525 in suicide
attacks, the rest by more “traditional” means. A third of those killed in suicide
attacks were killed in Jerusalem. The main source for these figures is the 302–page
report of the Israeli think tank (whose members are former intelligence officers)
Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, Suicide Bombing Terrorism during
the Current Israeli-Palestinian Confrontation (September 2000–December 2005) (Her-
zliya, 2006). The report contains short descriptions of most attacks and attackers.
For the attacks in Jerusalem see also the report of the same organization, based
on Israeli security agency (shabak) information, http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/
malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/pdf/ct_iss_be.pdf
2. Idem.
3. Fatah Jerusalem was not involved in suicide missions in other areas, so one
cannot argue that the reason for their avoidance was merely the principle of “Don’t
make a mess in your own back yard”.
4. Gordon Allport, The Nature of Prejudice (Cambridge, MA, 1954). The theory
was later developed and nuanced for example by Thomas F. Pettigrew, “Generalized
Intergroup Contact Effects on Prejudice,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
23 (1997): 173–85.
5. According to the statistics of the human rights organization B’tselem, www
.btselem.org.
6. Nahum Barnea, “We Want to Liberate You: An Interview with Marwan
Barghouti,” Between the Lines, 2 September 2001, quoted in Gil Friedman, “Strate-
gic Deficiencies in National Liberation Struggles: The Case of Fatah in the al-Aqsa
Intifada,” Journal of Strategic Studies 31.1 (2008): 41–67.
7. Information on these attacks, unless noted otherwise, is from the report by
the ITIC, Suicide Bombing (above, n.1).
8. See Labor Minister of Police Moshe Shahal’s Knesset speech dedicated to
Jewish building in East Jerusalem, 17 February 1997.
9. Al-Jihaz al-Markazi lil-‘ihsaa, Kitab alquds al-‘ihsa’i al-sanawi (Palestinian
Bureau of Statistics, Jerusalem statistical yearbook) (Ramallah, 2003), 164–69.
10. Prime Minister’s Office, press release 21 August 2002, accessed 12 August
2009, www.pmo.gov.il.
11. Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, The Statistical Yearbook of Jerusalem
( Jerusalem, 2004). http://jiis.org.il/.upload/yearbook/2004/shnaton_f0204.pdf.
12. Author’s interview with a Fatah Jerusalem operative, 4 January 2011.
13. Suicide Bombing; Journalistic report on the family, accessed 18 October
2009, http://www.alwatanvoice.com/arabic/content-118927.html; interviews with
member of Fatah Bethlehem’ secretariat, 18 June 2005 and 22 September, 2009. For
a detailed account of Mughrabi’s life, see Joshua Hammer, A Season in Bethlehem:
Unholy War in a Sacred Place (New York, 2003).
14. Idem., n.9.
15. See Knesset speeches of the leader of the opposition Labor Party Shimon
Peres, and Likud Deputy Minister of Defense Silvan Shalom, 24 September
1997, on the difficulty of the Israeli security agencies to operate in the Palestinian
Territories after the Israeli withdrawal.
16. Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, accessed 7 February 2012,
http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/pdf/ct_iss_be
.pdf.
17. On the early stages of Fatah and the adoption of Frantz Fanon’s ideology
see Yezid Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National
Movement 1949–1993 (Oxford, 1999), 80–91.
18. Walter Laqueur and Barry Rubin, eds., The Israeli-Arab Reader (New York,
2001 revised edition), 176.
19. Arafat to Fatah officers in Lebanon quoted in Filastin al-Thawra, 20 February
1978, 12.
20. For biographical notes on Husseini, see the website of the fund named after
him, www.fhf-pal.org.
21. Ha’aretz, 22 March 1968, quoted in Eran Tzidkiyahu, Prince of Jerusalem:

Faisal Husseini and the National Leadership in the Territories (MA thesis, The
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2012) [Hebrew].
22. In that year a first report was published in Hebrew under the title Human
Rights in the Territories Captured (muhzakim) by the IDF, by the International
Center for Peace in the Middle East (Tel-Aviv, November 1983). M.K Shulamit
Aloni wrote the introduction, and the report was written by a team led by Deddi
Tzuker, later an MK (Meretz).
23. 85% of the Palestinian population in the territories supported dialogue,
according to a poll conducted in 1983. See Al-Bayader al-Siyasi, 3 December 1983,
special supplement.
24. Al-Fajr, Al Ha-Mismar, 8 December 1983.
25. Voice of Palestine, 15:32, 7 December in Summary of World Broadcast, 9
December ME 7512. For withdrawal from responsibility see FBIS, 7 December
1983, 1.
26. Alternative Information Center, Twenty Years of Joint Struggle ( Jerusalem:
al-Risala, 2005), 6–12 [in Hebrew and Arabic]. See also Mary E. King, A Quiet
Revolution: The First Palestinian Intifada and Nonviolent Resistance (New York,
2007), chapter 8.
27. Interview with Janet Aviad of Peace Now, who has been in charge of the
contacts with Palestinians since 1985; 13 September 2009, Jerusalem. For earlier
contacts see Salim Tamari, “Israeli-Palestinian Dialogue,” MERIP Report, January
1983, 23–4.
28. Mordechai Bar-On, In Pursuit of Peace: A History of the Israeli Peace Move-
ment (Washington, DC, 1996), 234–6, where the contacts with the Likud’s Moshe
Amirav are also described.
29. Palestinian leadership leaflet against stabbing, 14 December 1986, in Arab
Studies Society Archive, the Orient House, Document no. 1873. I wish to thank the
team of the ASS for their hospitality. Invitations to the conference were published
in Jerusalem’s pro-PLO dailies al-Fajr and al-Sha’b, 5 December 1986.
30. Bar-On, In Pursuit of Peace, 216–7. Danny Rubinstein, “He is Lucky,”
Ha’aretz, 9 August 1987.
31. Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State, 618.
32. Jerusalem Post, 22 February 1988.
33. The full text of Husseini’s address was published in the Jerusalem local
magazine Kol ha-Ir, 5 August 1988. See also Eran Tzidkiyahu, “Prince of Jerusalem”.
34. Bar-On, In Pursuit of Peace, 246–7.
35. Correspondence in the Peace Now offices, Jerusalem, file 1988.
36. On the meetings in Tel-Aviv see Ha’aretz, 1 December 1988. Ads against the
detention of Abu Ayyash and Abu Zayyad were published in Ha’aretz, 14 December
1990 (and elsewhere). Husseini’s address to Peace Now demonstrators in Tel-Aviv
in May 1990; a copy (in Arabic) is filed in the Peace Now offices in Jerusalem, file
1990.
37. Meeting of the coordinating forum of Peace Now, 17 April 1990; Peace Now
files, Yad Yaari Archive, (2) 3.92.
38. Ha’aretz, 28 January 1991.
39. Naomi Chazan’s interview by Salim Tamari and Joel Beinin in Middle East
Report 175 (March–April, 1992): 8–11.
40. Yediot Aharonot, 11 November 1991.
41. Jerusalem Post, 12 and 22 December 1991.
42. Interview with Aviad, 13 September 2009.
43. Ha’aretz, 25 July 2000.
44. Peace Now files, Yad Yaari Archive, (4) 20.92; “Peace Monitor: May 16–
August 15, 1998,” Journal of Palestine Studies 28.1 (1998): 122.
45. A few weeks before his death he said this again, Ha’aretz, 15 April 2001.
46. Yoram Schweitzer, “Palestinian Istishhadia: A Developing Instrument,”
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 30.8 (2007): 667–89.
47. Interview with the author, Jerusalem, 11 August 2006.
48. For a good analysis, see Graham Usher, “Facing Defeat: The Intifada Two
Years On,” Journal of Palestine Studies 32.2 (2003): 21–40. Barghouthi’s testimony in:
The State of Israel v. Marwan Barghouthi, Tel-Aviv District Court, severe-criminal-
file 1158/02, court verdict, articles 13–15. On the Palestinian security officers who
joined the armed struggle see Hillel Cohen, “Society–Military Relations in a State-
in-the-Making: Palestinian Security Agencies and the ‘Treason Discourse’ in the
Second Intifada,” Armed Forces & Society 27.3 (2011).
49. al-Quds, 14 December 2001 and 19 June 2002 and subsequent days.
50. “Mahmud Abbas’s Call for a Halt to the Militarization of the Intifada,”
Journal of Palestine Studies 32:2 (2003): 74–8.
51. Interview with a member of Fatah-Jerusalem’s secretariat, 31 July 2006. For
Qos’s opinion see also Al-Hayat al-Jadida (Ramallah), 23 January 2006.
52. Allport, The Nature of Prejudice.
53. Interview with the author, January 2012, Jerusalem.
54. Conversation with A., the Old City of Jerusalem, November 2010.

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Palestinian Armed Struggle, Israel's Peace Camp, and the Unique Case of Fatah-Jerusalem

Author(s): Hillel Cohen

Palestinian Armed Struggle,

T his article attempts to understand a significant but largely

theoretical argument is that it was not the personal relations between

SUICIDE ATTACKS IN JERUSALEM:

The next terrorist attack in Jerusalem also originated with Hamas-

JERUSALEM, POLITICAL IDENTITY,

Attempts to explain the degree to which Jerusalemites were involved in the

The assumption that there are Palestinians in Jerusalem who refrain

Economic status has more of an effect on non-ideological people than on

High Motivation, Limited Capability

the freedom of movement enjoyed by Palestinians in East Jerusalem thanks

FATAH AND TERRORIST ATTACKS ON CIVILIANS—

Israel and various international parties defined Fatah as a terrorist

he voiced in an interview with Amnon Rubenstein, conducted in prison

while others viewed them as a necessary evil. If a fair agreement could be

JERUSALEM IN THE FIRST INTIFADA:

The outbreak of the first Intifada in 1987 found Husseini in administra-

During the Intifada, Husseini was appointed as the head of Fatah in

Following the Madrid Conference of 1991, Palestinians established

KILLING CIVILIANS IN THE SECOND INTIFADA:

in Jerusalem, who became an officer in the Palestinian Preventive Security,

The Al-Aqsa Intifada, which brought with it an unprecedentedly high

former philosophy, thereby accelerating the decline of Peace Now. Only

21. Ha’aretz, 22 March 1968, quoted in Eran Tzidkiyahu, Prince of Jerusalem:

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