The March 1982 Palestinian general strike was a general strike and wave of protests in Palestine and Israel in March 1982, in opposition to the forced dismissals of Palestinian city councils and mayors.
On 11 March 1982, the Israeli government banned the National Guidance Committee, a Palestinian leadership body in the occupied territories led by mayors elected in 1976. On 18 March, the Israeli government ordered the city council of Al-Bireh, a city in the West Bank, forcibly disbanded and its mayor dismissed, claiming that the council supported the Palestine Liberation Organization and had refused to cooperate with the Israeli Civil Administration. Two more Palestinian mayors, Bassam Shakaa of Nablus and Karim Khalaf of Ramallah were forcibly dismissed a week later. In response, a general strike and widespread protests broke out across the Palestinian Territories, with some protests being held in Israel in solidarity, and additional protest being held to mark Land Day. The Israeli government attempted to forcibly suppress the general strike, including through use of tear gas, rubber bullets, and live ammunition, as well as increased censorship of the press, imposition of curfews, and forcing shopkeepers to open their shops. The strike was also marked by an increase in Israeli settler violence. At least five Palestinians were killed over the course of the general strike, as well as one Israeli soldier.
The strike was a key moment in a wave of Palestinian unrest between late 1981 and mid 1982, at that point the largest outbreak of Palestinian unrest since Israel captured the Palestinian territories during the Six-Day War in 1967, with some Palestinians referring to it as a "Spring Uprising"Bregman, Ahron. Cursed Victory: A History of Israel and the Occupied Territories. Penguin UK, 2014. or as the "Intifada of 1982." Palestinian nationalists in the occupied territories, who supported the PLO but largely acted independently of the PLO's central leadership (then based in Lebanon), contended that the Israeli government aimed to suppress Palestinian nationalism and undermine local democracy as part of a move towards annexation of the Palestinian Territories. The Israeli government, led by Likud Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Minister of Defence Ariel Sharon, argued that the Palestinian mayors were political extremists who played key organising roles within the PLO, including terrorism, and that peace between Palestine and Israel would not be possible as long as the PLO continued to dominate Palestinian politics. The Israeli disbandments and response to the strike were widely condemned internationally, and resulted in the Israeli government nearly losing a vote of no-confidence in the Knesset.
By the end of 1982, following the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, almost all of the elected Palestinian city councils had been disbanded, the National Guidance Committee had been definitively dismantled, and the PLO had been expelled out of Lebanon. In the longer term, however, the Israeli government's actions failed to effectively suppess the Palestinian nationalist movement, leading to continued tensions throughout the 1980s that culminated in the outbreak of the First Intifada in 1987.
Background
By 1982, the PLO was based in Lebanon, and had become a major participant in the Lebanese Civil War.
In 1976, the Israeli government, then led by the Israeli Labor Party, allowed local elections to be held throughout the West Bank, under the assumption that conservative, pro-Jordanian candidates would win. Instead, the 1976 West Bank local elections saw major victories by candidates linked to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), bringing a cohort of younger, more nationalist, and more outspoken figures to the forefront of Palestinian politics. These mayors and councillors would subsequently become the leading figures in the National Guidance Committee, formed in 1978 as a coalition of nationalist leadership figures (including labour unionists, student council leaders, and other local groups) to coordinate their activities in the occupied territories.Aronson, Geoffrey. Israel, Palestinians and the Intifada: Creating Facts on the West Bank. Routledge, 1990. Chapter 9. The election results shocked the Israeli government, who subsequently expelled the mayors of Hebron and Halhul, and tried to expel the Mayor of Nablus, in 1979 and announced that it would indefinitely block further local elections from being held in Palestine, claiming that further elections would "cause damage to the peace process." Tensions surrounding Palestinian mayors were amplified when Israeli settlers attempted to murder several of the mayors in June 1980.
Also adding to the tensions were suspicions among Palestinians that the Israeli government wished to undermine the independence of Palestinian city councils and local Palestinian institutions, and extend its control over the Palestinian population and land.Hartley, Cathy & Paul Cossali. Survey of Arab-Israeli Relations. Taylor & Francis, 2004. Page 90. One key factor in these suspicions was Israeli support for the creation and arming of the Palestinian Village Leagues, associations based on primarily rural traditional societal structures that Israel saw as more amenable to Israeli interests. Most Palestinians, however, considered the Village Leagues to be inauthentic and collaborators. In November 1981, the head of the Village League in Ramallah, Yusuf Khatib, and his son, were assassinated by Palestinian militants in an attack claimed by the PLO. On 12 March 1982, shots were fired by Palestinian militants at the home of a Village League leader in Beitunia.
Also contributing to tensions was the significant increase in Israeli settlers in Palestine following the election of the Menachem Begin-led government in the late 1970s, who took a more active role in encouraging settlement. As well, following the Egypt–Israel peace treaty in the late-1970s, Israel gradually withdrew its occupation of the Sinai Peninsula, including dismantling its settlements in the Sinai, a withdrawal that was due to be complete by late April 1982 under the Camp David Accords and that was opposed by many settlers in the West Bank and Gaza. In early March 1982, some settlers blockaded roads in the West Bank in protest over the withdrawal. Israeli Minister of Defence Ariel Sharon, however, pledged that West Bank settlements would not be dismantled, saying that "we would never agree to their removal. Half a million Israelis would stream into the region to stop it."
In November and December 1981, a significant wave of protests broke out across Palestine following the Israeli government's announcement that it would re-organise the body overseeing the occupation of the Palestinian Territories from the Israeli Military Governorate into the Israeli Civil Administration, a nominally civilian-led department of the Israeli Ministry of Defence. The Civil Administration was to be led by Israeli academic Menahem Milson, one of the main proponents of the Village Leagues and an advocate for active intervention by the Israeli government in Palestinian politics to cultivate anti-nationalist Palestinian leadership. The re-organisation was viewed as a cosmetic change at best, and at worst as a prelude to annexation.
Late February and early March 1982 also saw a small outbreak of protests following the Civil Administration's decision to forcibly close Birzeit University for two months after a group of students attacked an Israeli official visiting the campus to try and enforce Israeli Military Order No. 854, which gave the Civil Administration greater control over Palestinian universities. Early 1982 also saw rumours of war between Israel and Lebanon, as well as a significant general strike by the Golan Heights Druze protesting against Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights.
The first two months of 1982, however, also brought some hopes of peace, with the United States attempting to restart the Palestinian autonomy talks, the PLO accepting the Saudi-proposed Fahd Plan for peace, and two moderate Palestinian mayors, Elias Freij of Bethlehem and Rashad al-Shawwa of Gaza City, making statements calling for the PLO to officially recognise the State of Israel.
Events Banning of the National Guidance Committee On 11 March 1982, the Civil Administration banned the Palestinian National Guidance Committee.
Forced disbanding of the Al-Bireh city council On 18 March 1982, the Israeli Civil Administration ordered the elected city council of Al-Bireh, a Palestinian city in the central West Bank, to be immediately disbanded and Al-Bireh mayor Ibrahim Tawil immediately removed from his post. In their place, the Israeli Civil Administration announced that it would install a committee of Israelis led by a former Israeli military officer. The order, signed by Civil Administration head Menahem Milson, justified itself by accusing the city council and mayor of refusing to cooperate with the Civil Administration. Minister of Defence Ariel Sharon claimed the city council had "preferred an extraneous political consideration to the well-being of their city and its inhabitants," accusing the council of having "cut off all contact with the civil administration whose main function is to make possible normal life." The order marked the first time in the Israeli occupation that Israel moved to completely dismantle an elected Palestinian city council.
The order was met with widespread shock in Al-Bireh. After being escorted by soldiers out of the Al-Bireh city hall, Tawil met the press and accused Israel of attempting to impose the Civil Administration on Palestine and described the order as "a revenge action against the council of El Bireh because they refused on principle to meet with Milson," saying that he would not recognise the order as valid. Protests gathered outside the city hall and soon spread through the city, with several protestors being arrested after throwing stones at an Israeli military bus.
General strike As news of the order spread through Palestine, protests began to break out across the country, including general strikes in Al-Bireh, Bethlehem, and Ramallah. Mayor of Nablus Bassam Shakaa announced that the Nablus municipality would go on a three-day strike and would not cooperate with the Civil Administration.
On 19 March, the general strikes spread to the entirety of the West Bank. The Israeli military moved to suppress the protests, confiscating the editions of three Palestinian newspapers published in East Jerusalem before they could be distributed, claiming that the newspapers had not presented their articles to the Israeli Military Censor for approval before publishing.
On Saturday 20 March, Israeli soldiers surrounded the Nablus city hall to prevent a demonstration called for by Shakaa and ordered a curfew over the Cave of the Patriarchs after a clash between protestors and settlers from Kiryat Arba. In Al-Bireh that day, Israeli soldiers used tear gas to forcibly disperse a woman's protest outside the city hall and later opened fire with live ammunition on a protest in the city's main square after the protestors threw stones, injuring two protestors and killing one, a 17-year-old named Ibrahim Ali Darwish. The body of another 17-year-old Palestinian, Mohammed Abdullah Youssef Suhweil, was also discovered in the Israeli settlement of Shilo, with one settler being arrested for murder, and several local Palestinians claiming that the settlers had been kidnapping and beating Palestinian youth.