The Jerusalem Intifada

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

It is clear the various Arab media outlets are very interested in a new intifada being carried out by the Palestinian people, and everyone asks whether there is a “third intifada,” as they call it, or not.

For the sake of accuracy: if there is a new intifada, it is number 25 in Palestinian history since 1920. The Palestinian people has carried out many intifadas at every turning point the Palestinian cause has passed through.

For example, there was an intifada in the Jaffa area in 1920, another in Jerusalem in 1920 as well, an intifada occurred in 1923, and another in 1927, and the famous Buraq Intifada erupted in 1929, when Jews desecrated the Buraq Wall, which they call the Wailing Wall, resulting in the deaths of about 160 Jews and about 120 Palestinian martyrs.

Matters did not calm except through the efforts of Palestinian leaderships, who always volunteer to calm situations and lean toward unequal dialogue and the search for peaceful solutions that ultimately come at the Palestinian people’s expense.

Then other intifadas occurred, foremost among them the great strike of 1936, which lasted about six months and was likewise spoiled by the Palestinian and Arab political leaderships, and the Palestinian people carried out an armed revolt during the strike that lasted three years, ending in 1939.

Two Recurring Features of the Intifadas

Historically, it is noteworthy that the intifadas have been characterized by two main features:

1. Intifadas erupt when a political and militant vacuum occurs in the Palestinian arena, in which leaderships capable of defending Palestinian rights are absent.

The Palestinian arena has witnessed repeated militant vacuums over the various phases of the conflict in Palestine, and it was the Palestinian masses who rose up, taking the place of the political and revolutionary leaderships and defending the Palestinian right.

The Palestinian leaderships were, on a number of occasions, struck by paralysis, retreating greatly in their various political activities, so that the Palestinian cause faded from Palestinian and Arab minds and awareness, and interest in it weakened.

This is what happened in 1987, when the Palestinian leadership appeared completely helpless, its movement weakening to the point that the Palestinian cause began to fade from international forums and conferences, and even from the minds of many who owned the cause. The scene repeated itself in 2000, when Israel was treating Palestinians with contempt, and had conscripted them to serve as guards for the Kingdom of Israel through security coordination, normalization, and economic annexation.

2. All the intifadas that have occurred throughout Palestinian history have not produced good fruit for the Palestinian people to harvest.

Palestinians have consistently offered many sacrifices in lives, homes, trees, and farms, but without reaping benefits regarding ridding themselves of the British Mandate, the Zionist invasion, and the Judaization of the country.

In every intifada, the political leaderships followed the path of bargaining and appeasement, feeding on the people’s sacrifices and spoiling their fruits. The 1987 intifada witnessed the greatest such spoiling, since its result was the Palestinian leadership’s recognition of the Zionist entity.

Intifada or Movement?

The West Bank, and some Palestinian sites in the territory occupied in 1948, are now witnessing a popular movement the media has dubbed the “Jerusalem Intifada.” This movement began in the city of Jerusalem, which witnessed repeated Zionist assaults on Al-Aqsa Mosque, and on Palestinian youth, some of whom were martyred because of Israeli soldiers’ target practice on Palestinians.

The city of Jerusalem witnessed Palestinian acts of vengeance characterized by the use of knives and ramming vehicles, and the territory occupied in ‘67 lived through a great national vacuum, as Israel went to great lengths in its assaults without receiving any response from the Palestinian factions or from the Authority.

Palestinians felt weakened, disgraced, and humiliated, and some began deciding to take revenge individually, and there is no doubt the individual acts that occurred raised the morale of ordinary people, giving them hope and conviction that Palestine would not die, and that there would always remain someone to resist and to avenge the blood of the martyrs and of Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The level of Palestinian resentment rose over the days, especially since Israel was not deterred by the individual stabbing and ramming acts, so Jerusalem decided to rise up in confrontation with the arrogance, in revenge against the enemies, and in vengeance for the blood.

It is difficult, so far, to describe what is happening in the territory occupied in ‘67 as a mass intifada, because of the weakness of mass participation. So far, Palestinian protest actions have not expanded to encompass the various Palestinian population centers, and the number of population centers that have participated so far does not constitute the majority — there are about five hundred population centers in the West Bank, and so far only a few dozen of them have participated in confrontations against the occupation.

Currently absent from the Palestinian movement are many professional and union groups, such as doctors, engineers, academics, and lawyers, and participation across various age groups is weak.

Young men and women are the ones leading the movement, while the older generation still watches from afar without moving effectively. Popular committees have also not been formed in the various cities, villages, and camps, and forming them is inevitable if the matter becomes serious and the Palestinian movement takes on a broader popular scale.

Of course, these committees are vital for running people’s daily lives, attending to their needs for water, food, and medical treatment, and also for coordinating the activities of those rising up and setting various programs for daily activities.

This movement is now unfolding under the shadow of security coordination with the Zionists, normalization, and economic annexation, and food reserves are not yet available to help the needy and the poor, nor are there awareness programs for people to rally them behind the existing movement.

This means the appropriate stage for a mass intifada spanning the whole area of the West Bank is not ready, and the movement toward preparing it is nearly absent.

The most important point in this whole matter — regarding the movement expanding to become an intifada — relates to the West Bank’s cultural, national, and societal readiness to move. The West Bank suffers greatly from the shrinking of national culture, which consumer culture has replaced.

The Palestinian Authority, Israel, and the Western states have preoccupied people with concerns different from the national concern, tying their daily lives to these concerns, which relate to livelihood and financial matters.

National culture has retreated, people have lost much of their trust in the Palestinian leaderships and factions, and people have begun shying away from participation, believing they are sacrificing so that opportunists can reap the fruits through their bargaining over Palestinian rights, to the point that people’s trust in one another has deteriorated to a great degree.

Relations between people, or some people, now rest on mutual suspicion, and this type of relationship is not suited to the collective action the Palestinian movement against the occupation requires. It is supposed that work be done to overturn the currently prevailing relations so they rest on mutual trust instead, but this is not going to happen as long as the Palestinian Authority controls the institutions of the Palestinian people.

The Path to Accomplishment

The Palestinian intifadas — as I noted above — have not succeeded, in the sense that they have not achieved independence and restored the people’s fixed national rights, and the evidence for this is that the occupation still sits heavily on the chest of the homeland and its citizens, and the facts on the ground it imposes increase day by day.

The intifadas have a similar course most of the time, meaning Palestinians follow the same intifada methods represented by throwing stones, issuing statements, burning car tires, demonstrations, and writing on walls, and so on.

These are patterns the occupation has grown accustomed to, and it always programs its repressive measures according to what it expects from Palestinian activities, and since its expectations are correct most of the time, Palestinians are required to change their field tactics in order to confuse the Zionist soldiers.

The Israeli army is trained to suppress Palestinian protests, and has experience in this field, but this experience becomes useless if Palestinians change the patterns of their confrontations and actions against the occupation. It is true that Zionist measures against people lead to counterproductive reactions, but we must pay attention to the fact that Palestinian accomplishments raise people’s morale, and lead to a rise in the level of participation in mass actions.

For Palestinians to achieve real accomplishments, it would be best for their political leaderships to remain outside the Palestinian struggle scene, because statistics indicate that the people offer the sacrifices, while the leaderships offer the concessions.

The Palestinian people do not need someone to bargain away the homeland and its rights, and the most skilled bargainers are those who claim to represent this people, and this is what the Palestinian people has experienced since the beginning of implementing the agreements with the Zionists.

The other point toward achieving an accomplishment relates to persistence. The Palestinian people suffers from a problem of short breath because of its leaderships — every time it moves to confront the occupation, offering enormous sacrifices, its youth are martyred, its homes destroyed, its trees uprooted, and its sons sent to prison, and suddenly the movement stops without achieving any accomplishment.

The Palestinian people has paid a great deal of sacrifices over the years, but in installments. What could happen if the people continued its activities over a long period, without tiring or growing bored? Would it achieve a positive result? My assessment is yes.

For the people to pay great sacrifices all at once is better than paying them in installments. For example, the martyrdom operations terrified Israel and struck its people with panic and dread, and many people were forced to leave Israel for good, searching for security and safety, but these operations suddenly stopped and were afterward emptied of their effect. If the spirit of persistence is absent, positive results are not guaranteed.

Another important point concerns transforming the intifada into resistance. Is it reasonable to expect positive results from an intifada occurring at the same time as security coordination and normalization with the Zionists, and amid Palestinians flocking to buy Zionist goods? Of course, these are contradictory behaviors.

An intifada is a protest and does not fall under the banner of resistance, and it would be better for Palestinians to reconsider protest actions, since they are incapable of expelling the occupation. Let us always remember that Israel occupies Palestine with tanks and cannons, not with flowers and roses, and if the response is not in kind, the peaceful side remains the loser.

This ongoing movement is divided into two branches: the branch of knives, which terrifies Israel, frays its nerves, and shakes its security pillars, and the branch of stones, which costs Palestinians a very heavy price. It is true that stones draw global media attention and help make the peoples of the earth understand the Palestinian cause, but they cost Palestinians many martyrs and wounded, and wisdom says a person should reinforce what benefits him and rid himself of what harms him.

For this reason, the Palestinian Authority must return the weapons it has confiscated from Palestinians’ hands to their owners, without informing the occupation about these owners, if it has not already done so.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “انتفاضة القدس” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.