Palestinian stone-throwing

Palestinian stone-throwers in Bil'in

Palestinian stone-throwing refers to a Palestinian practice of throwing stones at people or property. It is a tactic with both a symbolic and military dimension when used against heavily-armed troops. Proponents, sympathizers, as well as some analysts have characterized stone throwing by Palestinians as a form of "limited", "restrained", "non-lethal" violence.[1][2] Such stone-throwing can at times prove lethal: over a dozen Israelis, including women, children, and infants, have died as a result of stones being thrown at cars.[3][4][5] Some Palestinians appear to regard it as symbolic and non-violent, given the disparity in power and equipment between the Israeli forces and the Palestinian stone-throwers.[6] The state of Israel has passed laws to sentence throwers convicted of the charge to up to 10 years imprisonment even without proof of intent to harm.[7] In some cases, Israelis have argued that it should be treated as a form of terrorism, or that, in terms of the psychology of those who hurl stones, even in defense or in protest, it is intrinsically aggressive.[8][9]

It has also been described variously as a form of traditional,[10] popular protest[11] guerrilla tactic or action,[12][13] or a tactic of civil disobedience[14][15] which came to prominence during the First Intifada.[16][17] At least 14 Israelis have been killed by Palestinian stone throwing, including three Arabs mistaken for Jews.[18] It has occasionally been imitated by activists among the Arab citizens of Israel.[11] In many occasions IDF uses Palestinian civilians as human shields, including children,[19] against Palestinian protesters throwing rocks.[20]

Stone throwing is not considered a deadly force in most countries: in the West firearms are generally not used in crowd or riot dispersals and proportionality of force is the norm, except where immediate danger to life exists.[21] Stone-throwers also employ catapults, slings and slingshots[22] armed with readily available materials at hand: stones, bricks, bottles, pebbles or ball bearings, and sometimes rats[10][23][24] or cement blocks. Slingshots are often loaded with large ball bearings instead of stones.[25][26][27] Since the 1987 uprising, the technique is favoured as one which, to foreign eyes, will invert the association of modern Israel with David, and her enemies with Goliath, by casting the Palestinians as David to Israel's Goliath.[24] Despite there having been frequent acts of protest all over the Palestinian territories, the number of shooting incidents has been less than 3%.[28] Nonetheless, the international press and media focused on the aspect of Palestinian stone-throwing, which garnered more headline attention than other violent conflicts in the world,[29][30] so that it became iconic for characterizing the uprising.[31] According to Edward Said, a total cultural and social form of anti-colonial resistance by the Palestinian people is commodified for outside consumption simply as delinquent stone throwing or mindless terroristic bombings.[32]

The Israeli penal code treats stone throwing as a felony, with a maximum penalty of up to 20 years, depending on the circumstances and intentions: a maximum of 10 years for stoning cars, regardless of intent to endanger passengers, and 20 years for throwing stones at people, without proof of intent to cause bodily harm.[33] In addition a temporary measure for 3 years was enacted in November 2015 mandating minimum sentences and creating a legal equivalence between rocks and other weapons.[34] Israeli undercover forces have been observed infiltrating protests on numerous occasions, inciting demonstrators and themselves throwing stones at Israeli troops.[35][36][37] According to Israel's statistics, no IDF soldier has died as a result of Palestinian stone-throwing, only civilians (but see Binyamin Meisner, killed by a dropped concrete block).

  1. ^ :'we have nothing to defend ourselves with.” Stone-throwing must suffice, he said. “We can’t take an M-16 and go kill every settler. All we have are those stones. A bullet can kill you instantly. A little stone won’t do much. But at least I’m sending a message.”.' David M. Halbfinger, Adam Rasgon, 'Life Under Occupation:The Misery at the Heart of the Conflict,' New York Times 22 May 2021.
  2. ^ Edward Kaufman, Manuel Hassassian, 'Understanding Our Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and Searching for Its Resolution,' in Judy Carter, George Irani, Vamik D Volkan (eds.) Regional and Ethnic Conflicts: Perspectives from the Front Lines, Routledge, 2015 pp. 87-128 p. 109.
  3. ^ MEDOFF, RAFAEL (3 May 2015). "Baltimore 'riot mom' needed in Jerusalem".
  4. ^ Levinson, Chaim (25 September 2011). "Fatal West Bank car crash caused by Palestinian stone-throwing". Haaretz. Retrieved 12 May 2024.
  5. ^ Macfarlane, Julia (16 May 2018). "Why Palestinians throw stones: A reporter's notebook". ABC News. Retrieved 12 May 2024.
  6. ^ Maia Carter Hallward, Transnational Activism and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Palgrave Macmillan 2013 p. 50
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference AlJaz was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Chibli Mallat, Philosophy of Nonviolence: Revolution, Constitutionalism, and Justice Beyond the Middle East, Oxford University Press, 2015 pp. 52-53.
  9. ^ Maia Carter Hallward,Transnational Activism and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013 p. 50.
  10. ^ a b Mary Elizabeth King, A Quiet Revolution: The First Palestinian Intifada and Nonviolent Resistance, Nation Books, 2009 pp. 257-264:'Residents of the West Bank and Gaza say that the use of stones is traditional . . Most Palestinians interviewed here see the practice as hard evidence they were not using weapons.'(p.259).
  11. ^ a b Yitzhak Reiter, Syracuse Studies on Peace and Conflict Resolution: National Minority, Regional Majority: Palestinian Arabs Verses Jews In Israel,, Syracuse University Press, 2009 pp. 60, 141.
  12. ^ Gilbert Achcar, Eastern Cauldron: Islam, Afghanistan and Palestine in the Mirror of Marxism, Pluto Press, 2004 p. 124:'The First Intifada is a guerrilla war in which the fighters have no weapons but stones.'
  13. ^ Anne Marie Oliver and Paul F. Steinberg p. 57.
  14. ^ Belén Fernández, The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work, Verso Books, 2011 p. 112 for 'non-lethal civil disobedience' :'What the Palestinians under occupation were saying by using primarily stones instead of firearms was that the most powerful weapon against the Israelis was not terrorism or guerrilla warfare. The most powerful weapon, they proclaimed, was massive non-lethal civil disobedience. That is what the stones symbolized".
  15. ^ Brian K. Barber, Joseph A. Olsen, 'Adolescents' Willingness to Engage in Political Conflict: Lessons from the Gaza Strip,' in J. Victoroff (ed.) Tangled Roots: Social and Psychological Factors in the Genesis of Terrorism, IOS Press 2006 pp. 203-225 p. 206. 'Youthful activism during the first intifada was restricted mostly to relatively low-level, non-dramatic forms of violent activism (e.g. demonstrating, throwing stones, erecting barricades, etc: the first Palestinian suicide bombing did not occur until 1993 as the first intifada was ending'.
  16. ^ Gilles Kepel, Terror and Martyrdom: The Future of the Middle East, Harvard University Press 2009 pp. 85-86.:'the first intifada, a Palestinian uprising that began in December 1987. This protest entailed strikes, boycotts, barricades, and acts of civil disobedience, but what caught the attention of news media around the world was stone-throwing by Palestinian youths against the tanks and soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces. These guerrilla tactics . . .
  17. ^ Ira M. Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies, Cambridge University Press, 2014 pp. 603-4:' demonstrations, riots, and stone throwing in protest against Israeli occupation, the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, taxation, and administrative harassment.'.
  18. ^ Cite error: The named reference Medoff was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  19. ^ "Israel faces human shield claim". 23 April 2004. Retrieved 4 November 2024.
  20. ^ "Israel-Gaza: IDF used Palestinians as human shields 1,200 occasions in last five years, say Israeli defence officials". BelfastTelegraph.co.uk. 11 October 2005. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 4 November 2024.
  21. ^ Pete van Reenben in 'Children as Victims in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Policing Realities and Police Training,' Charles W. Greenbaum, Philip E. Veerman, Naomi Bacon-Shnoor (eds.), Protection of Children During Armed Political Conflict: A Multidisciplinary Perspective, Intersentia Antwerp/Oxford 2006 pp371-393 p. 384:'Stone throwing is not considered a deadly force in most countries, and the reaction of the police is protection by shields and protective clothing, out-manoeuvering the stone-throwers, water cannons and occasional tear-gas. In Western countries, fire-arms are not used, apart from cases of immediate danger to life. The open fire regulation used by Israeli forces, as far as is clear what it contains, seems to allow for a much faster use of fire arms and for heavier arms than is usual in demonstrations elsewhere. The requirement of proportionality of force, . . does not appear to apply here.'.
  22. ^ Robert Fisk, The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group 2007 p. 578.
  23. ^ Beverley Milton-Edwards,The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A People's War, Routledge 2008 p. 144.
  24. ^ a b Benny Morris Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–1998, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2011 p. 580
  25. ^ Schmetzer, Uli (25 February 1988). "Palestinian Uprising Escalates Israeli Troops Ambushed In Gaza Strip". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 7 November 2014.
  26. ^ Freed, Kenneth (13 February 1988). "Israeli Soldiers Kill 2 Palestinians : Patrol Is Attacked After Muslim Service". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 7 November 2014.
  27. ^ Oded Haklai, Palestinian Ethnonationalism in Israel, University of Pennsylvania Press 2011 p. 122.
  28. ^ Wendy Pearlman, Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement, Cambridge University Press, 2011, pp. 105-106
  29. ^ David Newman, 'Citizenship, identity and location: the changing discourse of Israeli geopolitics,' in David Atkinson, Klaus Dodds (eds.). Geopolitical Traditions: Critical Histories of a Century of Geopolitical Thought, Routledge, 2002 pp. 302-331 p. 326.
  30. ^ Erica Chenoweth, Maria J. Stephan, Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict, Columbia University Press, 2013 p. 119
  31. ^ Cite error: The named reference Ismail was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  32. ^ Peter Childs, Patrick Williams, Introduction To Post-Colonial Theory, Routledge, 2014 p. 109.
  33. ^ Kate Shuttleworth, 'Palestinian stone throwers could face 20 years in jail', The Guardian 4 November 2014. 'There would be two major sentences for stone throwers – those who endanger the safety of someone inside a vehicle could be jailed for 10 years without proof there was intention to harm; those throwing stones at people could be sentenced for up to 20 years in prison without the need to prove they intended to cause serious bodily harm.'
  34. ^ The Kenesset grants Final Approval: Minimal Sentences for Rock Throwers, Cancellation of Stipends of Rock Throwers' Parents (Hebrew), Haaretz, Nov 2015
  35. ^ Thrall 2017, p. 138.
  36. ^ Levinson, Chaim (7 May 2012). "'Undercover Israeli Combatants Threw Stones at IDF Soldiers in West Bank'". Haaretz. Archived from the original on 30 January 2023. Retrieved 5 March 2024.
  37. ^ Tharoor, Ishaan (8 October 2015). "Watch: Israeli undercover cops brutally beat Palestinian protesters". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 15 November 2022. Retrieved 5 March 2024.