The Role of Palestinian Resistance in Maintaining the Conflict Status Quo

Abstract

The Palestinian resistance transformations in methods and the development of the performance was made by trial and error by many internal and external factors through the history of Israel Arab conflict. Started as a regional nationalism conflict, where all borders were a battlefield then it turned into territory conflict by fragmented factions in Gaza and West Bank. The uprisings from 1987 to 2005 led to two political gains, Oslo accord and international recognition of PLO and the withdrawal from Gaza. The deterrence plans and the Israeli power imbalance during the two uprisings couldn’t succeed to dominating the resistance and positioning them in the optimal point of control. Attrition values and unstable conflict cycles on both sides led to peace discussion. Confrontation after the withdrawal from Gaza 2005 gave the Israeli better positioning and the attritions were mostly in one side, which allowed them to be in discussionsl positioning of the power game. The Palestine resistance was not in any day a resistance of political factions; it was individual and community collective consciences, as history indicates that the conflicts never end as well the dream of the Palestinian state. Lion’s Den and Lone Wolves’ activities are the expressions of objection on the grievance, political process, and the historical Palestinian factions’ modus operandi. The Palestinian Authority and factions’ management of the political gains led to losing both resistance and the strong political position where internal conflicts, corruption and multinational programs were the reasons thereof. The push and pull factors to resist for the Palestinians are different based on the interests of the factions, the Palestine authority ended up generating new conflict cycles with no solutions and open confrontation and de-escalation with no political gains or terror balancing in front of effective deterrence strategies by Israel. The resistance optimal equilibrium (ROE), which is a terminology I coined from the Social Optimal equilibrium, showed the best use of resistance when the Israelis changed their deterrence methods many times and the attrition levels increased to reach political solution and better positioning for the Palestinians and that is by separation of non-violent resistance from violent resistance in West Bank in the second intifada, the mass peaceful protesting under at least some national objectives and in avoiding the escalation in Gaza strip.