Editing First Intifada (section)

== Palestinian leadership ==
{{See also|Women in the First Intifada}}

The Intifada was not initiated by any single individual or organization. Local leadership came from groups and organizations affiliated with the PLO that operated within the Occupied Territories; [[Fatah]], the [[Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine|Popular Front]], the [[Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine|Democratic Front]] and the [[Palestine Communist Party]].<ref name="LockmanBeinin1989_39">[[#LockmanBeinin1989|Lockman; Beinin (1989)]], p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=KYPVNdzXUJkC&pg=PA39 39.]</ref> The PLO's rivals in this activity were the Islamic organizations, [[Hamas]] and [[Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine|Islamic Jihad]] as well as local leadership in cities such as [[Beit Sahour]] and [[Bethlehem]]. However, the Intifada was predominantly led by community councils led by [[Hanan Ashrawi]], [[Faisal Husseini]] and [[Haidar Abdel-Shafi]], that promoted independent networks for education (underground schools as the regular schools were closed by the military in reprisal), medical care, and food aid.<ref>[http://www.merip.org/palestine-israel_primer/intifada-87-pal-isr-primer.html MERIP] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131104080059/http://www.merip.org/palestine-israel_primer/intifada-87-pal-isr-primer.html |date=4 November 2013 }} Palestine, Israel and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, A Primer</ref> The [[Unified National Leadership of the Uprising]] (UNLU) gained credibility where the Palestinian society complied with the issued communiques.<ref name="LockmanBeinin1989_39" /> There was a collective commitment to abstain from lethal violence, a notable departure from past practice,<ref>"What amazed this writer . .was the interesting departure from the norms of the past. Palestinians in the Occupied Territories were continuously insisting that they would not resort to arms. Any escalation in the use of violence on their part would be as a last resort, for defensive purposes only", Souad Dajani, cited Pearlman, ''Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement'', p. 106</ref> which, according to Shalev arose from a calculation that recourse to arms would lead to an Israeli bloodbath and undermine the support they had in Israeli liberal quarters. The PLO and its chairman Yassir Arafat had also decided on an unarmed strategy, in the expectation that negotiations at that time would lead to an agreement with Israel.<ref name="Filiu" /> The First Intifada was largely peaceful and non-violent, and it has been described as a "quiet revolution" by [[Mary King (political scientist)|Mary King]].<ref name="King" /> Pearlman attributes the non-violent character of the uprising to the movement's internal organization and its capillary outreach to neighborhood committees that ensured that lethal revenge would not be the response even in the face of Israeli state repression.<ref>éPearlman, ibid. p. 107.</ref> Hamas and Islamic Jihad cooperated with the leadership at the outset, and throughout the first year of the uprising conducted no armed attacks, except for the stabbing of a soldier in October 1988, and the detonation of two roadside bombs, which had no impact.<ref>Pearlman, p. 112.</ref>

=== Pivot to the two-state solution ===
Leaflets publicizing the Intifada's aims demanded the complete withdrawal of Israel from the territories it had occupied in 1967: the lifting of curfews and checkpoints; it appealed to Palestinians to join in civic resistance, while asking them not to employ arms, since military resistance would only invite devastating retaliation from Israel; it also called for the establishment of the Palestinian state on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, abandoning the standard rhetorical calls, still current at the time, for the "liberation" of all of Palestine.<ref>Walid Salem p. 189</ref>