Recorded in Jerusalem in 1987, Riad Awwad’s protest album is part ode to the beauty of homeland, part historical document of Palestinian struggle, and part instruction manual for revolution.
On December 8, 1987, an Israeli truck crashed into cars carrying Palestinian workers in Gaza, killing four. Israel had been occupying Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem since 1967, inflicting curfews, raids, deportations, and more on the Palestinians who lived there. The truck incident—which Palestinians interpreted as retaliation for the recent killing of an Israeli in Gaza—was the catalyst for a massive popular uprising demanding an end to the occupation. The widespread collective action of strikes, boycotts, refusal to pay taxes, as well as occasional stone-throwing and use of Molotov cocktails, was called the First Intifada. It went on until the Israeli government and the Palestine Liberation Organization signed the Oslo Accords of 1993.
One week after the First Intifada began, musician Riad Awwad met with his sisters Hanan, Alia, and Nariman, as well as famed Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, and recorded 11 songs that spoke to the conflict happening around them. Three thousand copies of the recordings were made and circulated, but most were eventually seized by the Israeli military. In 2020, Mo’min Swaitat, the founder of British label Majazz Project, traveled to his hometown of Jenin, in the West Bank, and purchased thousands of tapes from a shuttered music store he remembered from childhood. Among them was a copy of the album that Riad Awwad, Hanan Awwad, and Mahmoud Darwish wrote, now reissued as The Intifada 1987. Its 11 songs are part ode to the beauty of homeland, part historical document of Palestinian struggle to exist on that land, and part instruction manual for revolution.
The Intifada 1987 alternates between cherishing moments of personal joy and comfort, many of which arise from tending and nurturing the land, and advocating communal political agitation when that joy is disrupted. Directives to nation-build “with a Molotov, with rocks” (on opener “Intifada”) are followed by poetic dreams of planting flowers upon returning to one’s homeland and descriptions of Palestine as the land of love and figs (“My Land My People”). Political and national identity tied to what Palestinians refer to as the Nakba (when 700,000 Palestinians were forcefully removed from their homes at Israel’s formation in 1948) coexists with more serene, individual documentation of Palestinian personhood: “I’m from Jerusalem/In the streets/In the farmers/In the factories/In the alleyway.” Together, these songs position rage and love as two sides of the same coin: The more you love your land and your people—the farmers and the factories and the alleyways—The Intifada 1987 asserts, the stronger your will to return.
While the lyrics convey the emotional urgency of the uprising, the music mirrors the DIY, community-based approach to organizing that made the First Intifada so impactful. The album was recorded in a living room on instruments that Riad Awwad made himself. There’s a captivating roughness and immediacy to the sound—usually just a twisting disco synth line and some light percussion—and a vocal rawness that makes it feel like you’re in the room with the singers. Their lyrics are often straightforward and repetitive enough to be sung in unison, like chants. “Uprising” and “The Graves” jolt forward as if leading a march out of the quiet of the living room and onto the streets.
Over 30 years later, The Intifada 1987 feels no less relevant. The militarized Israeli occupation of the West Bank continues, and millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants remain displaced as conflict over land, identity, and homeland continues. That these songs were confiscated and hidden by Israeli forces in 1987 speaks to their political potency then and now. This lost manifesto, unheard for years, is an enduring document of the power of hope, community, and collective action—how it worked in the past and how it will work in the future.
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