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A Quiet Revolution: The First Palestinian Intifada and Nonviolent Resistance | 
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Author: Mary Elizabeth King
Creator: Jimmy Carter
Publisher: Nation Books
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
Buy New: $3.09
You Save: $13.86 (82%)
New (29) Used (9) from $1.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 417069
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 488
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6 x 0.9
ISBN: 1560258020
Dewey Decimal Number: 956.94054
EAN: 9781560258025
ASIN: 1560258020
Publication Date: July 11, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
In A Quiet Revolution, renowned civil rights activist Mary Elizabeth King questions the prevailing wisdom that the first Palestinian Intifada was defined by violence. She argues that initially, the uprising was characterized by a massive nonviolent social mobilization, rooted in popular committees often steered by women. These committees adopted strategies that began to lead to political results — among them the beginnings of a negotiated settlement. King traces the tragic movement away from peaceful protest following the killing of four Palestinian laborers in Gaza, and charts the PLOs increasing contempt for nonviolent struggle. She details the complicity of the media in this escalation of violence — TV crews would not cover peaceful protests, but Palestinian boys throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers would attract foreign cameras. King draws upon the history of non-violent movements and argues that only through nonviolent strategies can a negotiated peace be achieved with Israel. King believes that the residual knowledge of the power of nonviolent resistance from the first Intifada will provide the bedrock upon which to build this eventual, lasting peace.
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| Customer Reviews:
The only durable solution to achieve a peaceful Middle East March 5, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I write this after reading the morning paper about retaliatory attacks between Hamas inspired militants and the Israeli government that resulted in the deaths of innocent civilians on both sides. It is a too familiar and painful story over the past months and years. Decision makers on both sides of this divide would do well the take a few moments from their mutual distrust and animosity to read Mary Elizabeth King's new book, A Quiet Revolution. Painstakingly researched and gloriously written, it tells a story of hope for nonviolent change and documents the arduous journey of peace-seeking activists involved in the first Palestinian Intifada.
After an uplifting review of decisive moments across the span of human history in which nonviolent resistance yielded positive and even revolutionary change (and there are more examples than commonly meets the untutored eye), Mary King plunges into the little know story of repeated attempts by Palestinians to defend their rights using non-violent methods. Occurring during the decades following the Balfour Declaration, these courageous efforts occur against the backdrop of accelerating Palestinian armed resistance that echoed similar efforts on the other side. Her own profiles in courage and imagination include Mubarak Awad, Jonathan Kuttab and Gene Sharp who were among "the accoucheurs for the Palestinians' catalytic alterations in thinking on nonviolent struggle" during the decade of the 1980s and beyond. Completely unattached to the PLO, their peaceful insurgency sparked mobilization that eventually led to the first Intifada. She also points to the East Jerusalem and Ramallah activist intellectuals who struggled vainly against the predations of the PLO to keep the first Intifada from turning violent. As the story of this resistance unfolds, regrettably both sides contribute to the sad narrative of escalating violence. The author gives full expression to the hope for an alternative narrative reminding us again and again that it could have been different.
By documenting the advances achieved during the "non-violent" phase of the Intifada, and corollary movements around the world, Mary King's book forcefully reminds us of the potential durability of solutions that emerge from non-violent resistance. We have only to look around to conclude that resorting to violence doesn't work.
A must read in today's slanted Israeli news coverage. February 14, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I think the press is slanted toward Israel and Mary Elizabeth King gives a very unbiased picture of the Israeli-Palestinian situation.
Why is non-violent action received as violence? February 2, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Mary Elizabeth King's book, A Quiet Revolution, presents a thorough, documented description of the first intifada (uprising) of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza during the years of December 1987 through the late 1990's. It is a textbook on non-violence, really, and should be used in college courses on peace, non-violence, conflict resolution, etc.
I have been a close student of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the early 1960's, but I missed the significance of the Intifada. As King says, coordinated, non-violent resistance is hard to spot. It consists of a demonstration here, a sit-in there, a store closing in another location. Only a trained eye can see that there is a coordinated effort underway.
The book is full of stories of how the Palestinians coordinated their efforts. Such simple things as not observing the onset of daylight saving time (by setting watches ahead two weeks early) infuriated the soldiers who smashed watches that were not set at the correct time. Why? Because they are showing that they cannot be controlled. Leaflets announcing sit-ins were passed arm to arm during prayers when men are standing and kneeling arm-to-arm. The humanity and dignity of those who tried to bring their situation to the attention of the world is vividly described in this "must-read" book for anyone trying to understand the conflict in Israel and Palestine.
Remembering history to re-live it? January 31, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Mary King has achieved an extraordinary feat. In A QUIET REVOLUTION she first demolishes the myth (especially popular among some academic experts on non-violent movements) that the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising (1987-1993), somehow wasn't "really" non-violent because of the iconic stone-throwing children. She demonstrates the strategic non-violence that in fact underpinned that movement, all the while recognizing that its mass popular character was an equally important feature. In doing so, King demonstrates how the breadth of that social mobilization - bridging class, gender, age, occupation, political views, factional affiliation -- made the first uprising so historically significant. And crucially, King understands, as so many observers of the photogenic intifada did not, that the real power of the uprising lay not in the children and teenagers challenging Israeli soldiers across the dusty streets of the occupied territories, but rather how it transformed and opened up Palestinian society itself. The very term, "intifada," refers less to direct resistance than to the notion of shaking up, or shaking out -- agitating and remixing sclerotic social relations.
Today, as Palestinians on the Gaza-Egypt border, those in the West Bank mobilizing non-violent direct action against Israel's Apartheid Wall and all those challenging the ever-encroaching expanexpansion of settlements, the lessons of the first intifada are more relevant than ever. We should all be grateful to Mary King for teasing out the lessons of history of that crucial time.
Proof that Nonviolence is also Pragmatic January 12, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
King, Mary Elizabeth. A Quiet Revolution: The First Palestinian Intifada and Nonviolent Resistance. New York: Nation Books, 2007.
This is an incredibly important book. The author details the overwhelmingly nonviolent first Palestinian Intifada (usually translated as "shaking off"). This is a quite thorough discussion that includes many interviews and archival research dating back to the 19th century. King employs theoretical discussions of nonviolent pioneers like Gandhi and Martin Luther King though she tends to employ a perspective developed by Gene Sharp (usually referred to as strategic nonviolence). She also develops ideas from Ernest Haas and Antonio Gramsci to explain the evolution and transference of nonviolent ideas and practices to the Occupied Territories. Given the dearth of scholarly or journalistic accounts of the nonviolent character of the first Palestinian Intifada, I suspect that quite a few readers will initially be skeptical. However, this book is very well researched.
Additionally, for those skeptical readers, I think that you will find the author's tone to be consistent with the nonviolent approach, primarily the notion that all human beings deserve respect (in this case Israeli and Palestinian). Further, she does not pull any punches and deals forthrightly with controversial issues like stone throwing and petrol bombs that were used in even during the most nonviolent phase of the Intifada.
Though the book includes significant and lengthy historical material as well as detailed discussions of the inner workings of various civil society organizations that developed during this period (1987-1990), the author does carry a strong argument: "the zenith, this phase produced the greatest and most enduring results of the uprising and lasted for more than two years, from January 1988 until March 1990, when leading figures were incarcerated" (296). In other words, the most nonviolent of this overwhelmingly nonviolent revolution was incredibly effective, resulting in significant political gains as well as the construction of a thriving civil society within the Occupied Territories. Though the gains of Oslo I and II were minimized over time as a result of Israeli backpedaling, the fact of the matter is that a few years of nonviolent activism were objectively more successful than decades of PLO advocacy of violent revolution.
King is also incredibly sensitive to Israeli fears. She concedes that it was Israeli fear that prohibited most Israelis from actually seeing that the first Intifada was not a movement to destroy Israel but rather a movement towards independence. In fact, one of the primary results of the Intifada was to reconcile a majority of Palestinians to the existence of Israel. Thus, the Intifada was waged against the occupation and against the PLO which was forced to concede acceptance of Israel in significant portions formerly Mandate Palestine.
King concludes with an epilogue that is both realistic and hopeful. She reinforces her earlier argument by indicating that further study of the development of a Palestinian civil society will benefit both Palestinians and Israelis. The nonviolent movement from 1987-1990 built institutions that have not been destroyed and there are leaders who have popular support among Palestinians who should be supported not jailed. As she says, the road to Israeli security lies through the creation of a Palestinian state and the road to a Palestinian state lies through a peaceful settlement with Israel.
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