Is Provocation necessarily deliberate?

In many cases, provocation is intentional. However, it could be used more loosely to describe a cause-effect relationship. For example, "He wandered in between the mother bear and her cubs, provoking an attack." Here, the provocation isn't intentional, but the action directly provokes the response.

The phrases "deliberate" or "accidental provocation" sound a little unusual to me, but they could be used to add emphasis to whether one intended to provoke or not. Usually it'll be clear from context, but it could be added to reinforce an idea. "You got what you deserved, deliberately provoking the bear like that."

dictionary.reference.com's page on provoke makes absolutely no mention of intention. In fact it has examples of contemporary usage both of where intention exists:

"When you were setting out to do this, did you have an idea of what kind of conversation you wanted to provoke from this project?"

and where it doesn't exist:

"A senior military officer familiar with the photos told me that they would likely provoke a storm of outrage if released."

Hence I see no implication of intention within the word provocation.

Dictionary definitions tend towards provocation being deliberate but also recognize the possibility that it is not. For example, the decision to introduce a poll tax in the United Kingdom was not intended to stimulate adverse reaction but, as it turned out, provoked strong protest; it was a strong but not deliberate provocation. She spat in his face; it was a deliberate (rather than accidental) provocation. The word deliberate is therefore sometimes redundant, sometimes not.