I'll see if I can find a more detailed piece later if you're interested, but I can write up something in general now.
In short, they indeed did try everything mentioned when people say "well, they should <blank> instead" now--mass demonstrations, workers' strikes, economic methods of resistance, international press attention, etc... It was a geniunely mass popular uprising, and generally non-violent means of resistance were employed (sometimes demonstrations that were attacked by Israeli military/police would respond with rock-throwing, but know that violence was NOT the primarily intended method). There were some attacks on military forces and colonists in the occupied Palestinian territories, but such were NOT any primary activity of choice, just as they aren't now either but of course a bit more prominent and considered more newsworthy.
In response to this, they were beaten, shot, tortured, and seized
en mass--hundreds of deaths caused by Israeli military and settler rampages every year of the struggle, thousands more injured, with some 175,000 Palestinians arrested in the time periond.
Israeli PM Shamir endorsed this brutal campaign wholeheartedly; that great peaceful dove General Rabin proposed a "Force--Might--Beatings"/"Break Their Bones!" sort of response. International support was clearly behind the Palestinians. President Bush wasn't so sure about it all, but nothing was
effectively done to stop it and American policymakers continued to support the Israeli occupations of Palestine and Lebanon. (the latter being a whole other subject.. of which I also know quite well--in fact, it was while studying the '87-'95 intifada and Israeli occupation of Lebanon that I became completely disgusted, and re-evaluated everything about Israel the modern Mideast history..)
In the year that it began, there were several settler rampages in the '67-occupied Palestinian lands, particularly the Nablus/Balata and Gaza camps, with the occupying army doing nothing to stop it. The formal start of the uprising occured in December, after an Israeli truck in Gaza rammed into vans of Palestinian workers returning home--but it was in general a fire just waiting for a spark to begin with, just like the al-Aqsa Intifada was in 2000, that was just what finally set it off. A thousand Palestinians were seized and arrested that Christmas weekend alone!
The struggle lasted several years. The Israeli government, realizing that beating the Palestinians into submission was no option in ending the resistance, turned to Arafat and the PLO to suppress the intifada for them, through the sham process that became known as the Oslo Accords. This process across the 90s saw the transformation of the PLO from a revolutionary nationalist movement to a generally ineffective (in both senses) collaborationist government called the Palestinian Authority. The time period also saw no lasting positive changes over conditions in '67-occupied Palestine, and vastly increased colonization of the land by the Israeli government--most markedly under Labour administrations, I might add.
The experience was very instructive to all parties. While their initial response was panic in realizing that their ability to brutalize the uprising into submission were failing miserably--as such ideas ALWAYS WILL--, US/Israeli policymakers used the PLO to good effect in putting down the uprising without needing to resolve the core issues behind it. This was a particularly educating experience to Hamas as well, among many others but notably so in their case and that had the most effect on today's activities, who in an embryonic status participated in the uprising (the nature of activities between then and now are FAR different, I might add). The lesson taught to them was that continuing on the same path would only lead to fruitless brutalization and beatings, no positive change brought about, and betrayal by collaborationist entities looking to fatten themselves in exchange for the momentary illusion of power given to them by the Israeli occupying authorities.
The period of the 90s saw vastly increased "settlement" activities in '67-occupied Palestine, which meant more Palestinians driven off their lands and the latter seized. The Labour party as head of State in Israel saw no change in these colonization activities, nor did conditions in the '67-occupied Palestinian lands effectively alter for the better under their watch. The hostile activities of the "settlers" in the occupied lands continued, with next to nothing done about them by the Israeli military.
I shouldn't leave out the most notable of these "settler" attacks, as it had a very profound effect on recent news. February 25th of this year is the 10th "anniversary" of the massacre in Hebron/al-Khalil, where an American Jewish "settler" named Baruch Goldstein, on a suicide mission, shot and killed around 30 people (wounding dozens more) at the Haram al-Ibrahimi mosque in al-Khalil before being beaten to death by the survivors. Shortly after this, a Hamas human-bomber appeared as the last of 5 bombings that were carried out in retaliation to this massacre.
That's about all I have to write for now, I'm sorry if this may be a bit disorganized..
here's a couple timelines of events for the time periods:--
http://www.passia.org/palestine_facts/chronology/19631988.htmhttp://www.passia.org/palestine_facts/chronology/19891990.htmhttp://www.passia.org/palestine_facts/chronology/19911993.htmhttp://www.passia.org/palestine_facts/chronology/19941995.htmThese are from a Palestinian site, so I guess feel free to attack it from that angle, but I would highly recommend the chronologies--they're a bit long, but incredibly useful.
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