Recent research on contentious politics in the Middle East emphasizes the importance of repression and its effect on social movements, often manifested in demobilization and so-called ‘nonmovements’. This case study of West Bank Palestinian activism seeks to go beyond such outcomes. The current, youthful nonviolent Palestinian grassroots activism in the West Bank is persistent, despite repeated violent repression. Focusing on the interplay between context, practices, and networks, this article shows how an increasingly vocal and visible popular resistance movement has asserted itself despite facing double repression – from the occupying Israeli state and the Palestinian National Authority. In a highly repressive context characterized by widespread demobilization, especially among young people, the impetus for mobilization is not perceived opportunity, but rather existential threats. The analysis focuses on how long-term repression from the external occupier and the internal elite contributes to forming specific kinds of contentious practices and networks among young Palestinian grassroots activists. By deploying new and creative contentious tactics they partly succeed in challenging the Israeli occupation without risking sanctions from the internal Palestinian elite. They are also able to criticize this elite implicitly, bringing popular pressure to bear on it. However, while the strategic use of nonviolence has provided these activist environments with a degree of resilience in the face of repression, they are unable to mobilize on a wide scale as long as the Palestinian political elite does not support them.

The use of violent coercion to repress unarmed protests, such as that seen during the Arab Spring, sometimes backfires on the government – an outcome called ‘political jiu-jitsu’. Examining unique global data covering extreme violence used by governments against unarmed protests from 1989 to 2011 (drawn from UCDP) and the Nonviolent and Violent Campaigns and Outcomes (NAVCO) data, this study aims to explain the conditions under which this outcome occurs. This study contributes to both the nonviolent action and one-sided violence literatures by further disaggregating this effect into both domestic and international outcomes, a distinction that has not previously been made in empirical studies. We find evidence that a pre-existing campaign infrastructure increases the likelihood of increased domestic mobilization and security defections after violent repression, but is unrelated to international backlash. Within ongoing NAVCO campaigns we find that parallel media institutions increase the likelihood of increased domestic mobilization and international repercussions after repression, and that this effect holds true for both traditional media and ‘new’ (i.e. internet-based) media. One of the novel contributions of this study is that we identify an important selection effect in the NAVCO data and the critical role of organizational infrastructure, especially communications infrastructure, in generating preference changes that create the conditions where killing unarmed civilians becomes costly for repressive governments. We conclude with a discussion of the potential implications of this study and avenues for future research.