Silenced Palestinian Voices II: Roots of Resistance, 1967 to 1987

Part 2 of “Silenced Palestinian Voices.”

When I hiked in the hills of Samaria in 1976 with friends, fellow students at the Faculty of Agriculture, what struck me was the hatred I encountered. We walked along terraced farmed lands, tended by women bent over from the waist. Those who looked up "shot daggers at us." Since our Israeli-born friend, an ex-IDF officer, ignored the looks, so did I.

I have long viewed the land as disputed rather than occupied, and the conflict as something involving leaders and militants. But those eyes on the terraces were not confused about who I was or what I represented. And I never forgot them. That moment stayed with me because it contradicts the narrative I would come to believe. The one that describes the post-1967 years as a time of prosperity and calm for Arabs in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. Israel brought water, electricity, jobs, and education.

Was it patronizing of me to expect gratitude? Perhaps the more important question is whether it was even possible to safely express gratitude in a society where moderation, I discovered, was dangerous.

From Despair to Hostility: The Silencing of the Middle Ground

The 1967 Six-Day War changed the map and marked a decisive shift in the history of the Palestinians. 1948 brought the Nakba—"catastrophe"—and 1967 brought the Naksa—"setback." But between the moments of despair and the hostility that would define the 1980s, there was a middle ground of Palestinian voices seeking accommodation, pragmatic solutions, and peaceful coexistence.

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* A note about terminology: Since this is an article about Palestinian Arab voices I am using their terminology and not inviting a political/diplomatic debate about them.

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These voices would be systematically silenced by members of their own community and the PLO in exile. The transformation from despair to hostility wasn't just about Palestinian consciousness; it was about which Palestinian voices were allowed to speak and which were forced into silence.

1967-1970: The Last Moment of Possible Partnership

When Arab leaders in Jerusalem were invited on 22 July 1967 to discuss joining a unified Jerusalem Municipal Council, Jerusalem mayor Ruhi al-Khatib’s response was a categorical no:

. . . joining the [Israeli] municipal council... would constitute an official recognition of the annexation of Jerusalem, which we neither accept as a fait accompli nor acknowledge.

But this wasn't the only voice. According to a UN report published only three months after the Six-Day War, Israeli officials had had some exploratory contacts with Palestinian notables, but public alignment remained untenable. At the same time, infrastructure and services were extended to the new Jerusalem neighbourhoods and the Histadrut (National Trade Union) was available for Arab employers and employees.

The Education Trap: Learning Resistance

While more schools were built and more pupils were enrolled, their classroom education neglected educating them about their heritage. Their schooling was supplemented by underground political education. Young Mohammad Massad's experience was typical; as he recounted to me, at age six in 1981, "Nasser Kamil, 25-year-old former security prisoner, a member of the PLO, assembled the young children from the neighbourhood and bought them candies. He taught them anti-Israeli songs... He would take care of us and play all kinds of games with us... but we were living in the middle of 'crazy'."

The educational system, therefore, created a generation that knew they were Palestinian but learned what that meant from former prisoners and resistance fighters, not from moderates seeking peaceful solutions.

1970s-1980s: The Economics of Dependence and the Politics of Shame

By the mid-1970s, economic integration was transforming Palestinian life and by 1990, living-standard indicators in the West Bank and Gaza improved markedly: life expectancy rose from 56 to 66 years; infant mortality fell from 95 to 42 per 1,000; households with electricity increased from 30% to 85%, safe water from 15% to 90%, and refrigerator ownership from 11% to 85%.

This prosperity created a class of Palestinians whose daily lives depended on Israeli employment and whose families benefited from Israeli infrastructure. But given the threats and attacks against public figures who expressed even pragmatic acceptance of this reality, it is likely they could not voice anything other than opposition to the occupation. Looking at it this way may help explain my observation that suicide terror attacks were often committed by middle class young people, some in the middle of university studies.

1976-1985: The Rise of Resistance Culture and the Marginalization of Moderates

Land Day in 1976 established a new tradition:

Since 1976, Palestinians inside Israel, in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and the diaspora have commemorated Land Day… to assert their unbreakable commitment to their land and to demonstrate that they have not surrendered..

This culture of "never surrendering" created enormous social pressure against any Palestinian who might publicly advocate for compromise or accommodation.

Despite the rising tide of resistance culture, some Palestinians continued to advocate for pragmatic solutions throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Their voices deserve to be heard because they represent the path not taken.

According to Yigal Carmon who was one of the Israelis involved in the project,

Mustafa Dodin and a group of Palestinian activists submitted a request to the Military Administration in the West Bank [in 1978] to establish a village league in the Hebron area.

Dodin opposed the PLO. He believed local traditional clan leadership would lead to peace negotiations with Israel.

He was silenced by both Israel, because of his promotion of Palestinian autonomy, and by the PLO that branded him a collaborator. Aziz Shehadeh, a lawyer in Ramallah who sought Palestinian autonomy with Israeli backing, was shot in 1985. The Villages League that promoted local clan leadership in seven villages fell.

In 1981, the moderate Christian Mayor of Bethlehem, Elias Freij, was exasperated:

We’re afraid of your police who force us to open, we’re afraid the PLO will burn our shops if we don't stay closed, and we’re afraid of Jewish extremists.

He, Gaza City Mayor Rashad Shawa, and others had good relations with Israeli officials, hoping to work toward a modus vivendi. However, two men were injured by car bombs, some say by Jewish extremists, others say by PLO terrorists. And in 1989, during a speech in Saudi Arabia, Arafat himself threatened Freij for suggesting a year-long cessation of terrorist attacks in exchange for a prisoner release deal:

Whoever thinks of stopping the intifada before it achieves its goals, I will give him ten bullets in the chest.

Within hours after that speech, Freij withdrew his proposal, announcing:

I have the right to make a proposal but the PLO has the right to make decisions, and if they have decided that the time is not suitable or the idea is not suitable, 1 certainly respect that.

He also backtracked on his earlier support for the Village League, calling them collaborators.

Hanna Siniora, Editor of al-Fajr, put it even more directly in 1985: “I am realistic enough to understand that Israel is a reality, and we have to face this reality." Siniora's newspaper apparently faced constant pressure from Palestinian factions to take more radical positions.

Abu Rahmeh, Gazan representative to Palestinian-Jordanian talks, pushed a moderate line: “The Palestinians should understand that peace requires moderation, and in a settlement, no one gets everything he wants.”

Zafer al-Masri used his personal wealth to better the lives of his fellow citizens and once Mayor of Nablus, he wasted no time improving the city infrastructure. However, his moderate views led to him being “silenced” when an assassin murdered him two months after he became mayor. Threatened before his death, the PLO claimed him as a martyr after his death. And his murder was said to instill fear in others with moderate views.

The Silencing Mechanism: How Accommodation Became Treason

The silencing of moderate Palestinian voices happened through multiple mechanisms:

Social ostracism: Palestinians who worked with Israeli authorities or spoke positively about any aspect of Israeli administration were labeled collaborators and excluded from Palestinian society. Traditional Palestinian hospitality became conditional on political conformity.

Physical intimidation: The PLO in Tunis issued death sentences against Palestinians deemed to be collaborating. Local resistance groups carried out assassinations and attacks against moderates.

Media suppression: Palestinian newspapers and intellectuals faced pressure to avoid any content that might be seen as "normalizing" the occupation.

The result was that Palestinians who might have provided bridges between communities were systematically removed from public discourse, leaving only the voices of resistance and rejection.

The Consequences: Daily Life Under Dual Pressure

This silencing created impossible situations for ordinary Palestinians. They lived under Israeli military rule while being monitored by Palestinian resistance groups for signs of collaboration. If officials could be threatened, it is doubtful that villagers and farmers would feel safe to express anything but hostility toward Israel.

By the late 1980s, even normal economic relations became politically charged. The Beit Sahour tax revolt captured this perfectly with the slogan: "Must we pay for the bullets that kill our children?" noted in unsourced community accounts and echoed in a 2014 Ma’an News article, alongside the more famous "No taxation without representation." This dual rhetoric reframed the economic relationship that had brought prosperity to many Palestinian families as complicity in their own oppression.

Cultural Resistance: The Alternative Narrative

Palestinian women's folktales from the late 1970s reveal how even cultural expression reflected this political pressure. In the Galilee, storytellers mocked the ghoul in their stories, turning fear into laughter and irony. Im Nabil of Turmusʿayya in the West Bank, by contrast, treated the same figure with religious seriousness, casting tales as moral lessons about faith, obedience, and divine justice. In refugee camps in Lebanon, recorded by Rosemary Sayigh, the stories carried the weight of exile, grief, and political urgency. What was comic in the Galilee and devotional in the West Bank became tragic and politicized in the camps, showing the versatility of Palestinian oral tradition.

Traditional embroidery (tatreez) became a form of political expression: women stitched national symbols into their patterns, even embroidering protest chants onto men's keffiyehs.

These women’s voices rarely traveled beyond their immediate circles.

The Path Not Taken

The women on the terraces who shot daggers at me in 1976 may not have chosen hostility; they may have had hostility chosen for them. I wonder what stories those women told their families about my small group of hikers. I wonder what stories they might have told their families if moderate voices had been allowed to flourish, if accommodation had been socially acceptable, if Palestinian discourse had included space for those who saw cooperation as patriotism rather than treason.

Instead, the systematic silencing of moderate Palestinian voices created a society where only resistance was legitimate, where economic cooperation was shame, and where the pragmatic voices that might have built bridges were forced underground or eliminated entirely.

Then, when the First Intifada erupted in December 1987, leaflets would declare: "No voice is higher than the voice of the Intifada."

The quiet abandonment of the moderate Palestinian voice continues and the next article will follow right along with it.

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