Palestinian Armed Struggle, Israel’s Peace Camp, and the Unique Case of Fatah Jerusalem

Fatah activists in Jerusalem did not initiate suicide attacks during the second intifada (which began autumn 2000), as opposed to Hamas activists in the city and Fatah activists all over the West Bank and Gaza. I suggest that one of the main reasons for this unique behavior is the tradition of the joint non-violent Palestinian-Israeli struggle in the city against the Israeli occupation and the settlement project, which was the strategic choice of Fatah leadership in Jerusalem under Faisal Husseini since the mid-1980s. I argue that it is not the contact between Israelis and Palestinians by itself that has led the latter to avoid killing civilians, and some of the former to refuse serving in the Israeli army, but the joint vision of the relation between the two people.