13 - Postscript: evaluation and conclusion

Summary

We are witnessing the birth of a nation. It is beautiful… it is glorious … it is heroic.

Ambassador Robert Neumann1 June 1988, Washington

The Intifada and beyond

The Western media date the beginning of the Palestinian Intifada (uprising) from 9 December 1987 when serious disturbances were sparked off in the occupied territories following a road accident in Gaza involving an Israeli vehicle and resulting in the deaths of four Arabs. But, during a long interview with the present writer on 15 November 1988 at the end of the PNC meeting in Algiers, Yasser Arafat pinpointed the Sabra and Shatila massacres of September 1982, during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, as the landmark, for it was then that he appealed to his people under occupation to move in defiance. According to him, incidents started building up from that time, sometimes unreported, sometimes with ferocity but always with momentum. Arafat listed these with amazing precision. His claim seemed credible judging by the increased awareness on the part of the Palestinians under occupation of each subject debated and each step taken during the November 1988 PNC meeting, even before any reporting in the press took place; the reading of the ‘Palestinian Document of Independence’ in Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem at the same time as Arafat was reading it in the PNC meeting (see below); and the simultaneous celebrations afterwards, both in Algeria and the occupied territories. These all signified remarkable co-ordination.