[News] Why be afraid of an Intifada?

[Anti-Imperialist News]

9-10-2015


  Why be afraid of an Intifada?

*http://english.palinfo.com/site/pages/details.aspx?itemid=74040*

By Nada Elia

One telling meme has been circulating on social media over the past 
week: “My name is Fadi. I’m 19 years old. I was being pursued by Israeli 
settlers. So I rushed to the Israeli police for help.  They shot me 
dead.” Along with the meme, the videotape of the killing of Fadi Alloun, 
as the settlers who had pursued him chanted “Death to Arabs,” has gone 
viral.

Alloun’s death is symbolic of the predicament West Bank Palestinians 
find themselves in, in their own occupied land, where they are hounded 
by armed settlers, who have the full protection of the Israeli military, 
while the Palestinian Authority, in charge of “coordinating security” 
with the Israeli forces, fails yet again at protecting its citizens.

Since Alloun’s death, five more Palestinians have been killed, over 175 
Palestinians injured, and scores detained, as violent clashes with the 
Israeli military spread throughout the West Bank.  More are expected to 
fall victim to this latest round of “fierce clashes,” as Prime Minister 
Benjamin Netanyahu has promised an “all-out war” on Palestinians, who 
continue to take to the streets. The escalating violence has given rise 
to talk of a “third Intifada,” with various politicians and some media 
warning about such a development, as if it were to usher a significant 
deterioration in the living circumstances of Palestinians in the West Bank.

Is a Third Intifada in the making?  How exactly does one define or 
recognise an Intifada, that Arabic word that has entered Western 
discourse, finding its way into the Merriem-Webster’s dictionary, and 
now in currency with the #BlackLivesMatter movement, who use it to 
describe the grassroots rebellion against law enforcement violence in 
the US?  And why would an Intifada be a negative development, something 
to fear, if it is indeed a rebellion, an uprising, against a racist, 
brutal, murderous, occupying juggernaut?

Which begs the question, how does one understand an “all-out war” on the 
Palestinians, as distinct from the murderous violence Israel engages on 
a daily basis? Is the seven decades-long violation of the most basic 
human rights of a people not “an all-out war” against that people, when 
it is implemented through apartheid, dispossession, disenfranchisement, 
home demolitions, restrictions on freedom of movement, all-encompassing 
structural violence, and, in Gaza, a siege that is tantamount to genocide?

Any journalist covering Palestine/Israel knows it is extremely easy at 
any given time to give an exact count of Israeli casualties, if any, 
over the previous week, even as it is quasi-impossible, at that same 
time, to give any more than an approximation of Palestinian casualties. 
  Do we count Palestinians who die of malnutrition as “casualties?” What 
about those who die due to lack of access to healthcare?  What about 
miscarriages as a result of stress? And what words do we use to describe 
the situation in Gaza, in between the recurrent vicious land, air, and 
maritime assaults Israel refers to as “mowing the grass?”

How does one define “low intensity conflict,” as distinct from “all-out 
war?” Would the people of, say, England or the US consider the 
circumstances of Palestinians under occupation, in those periods not 
identified “all-out war,” livable?  Why, then, the “fear” of an 
intifada? Is it a fear of a change in the status quo that politicians 
are invested in, a status quo of peace talks that never translate into 
peace, road maps that lead to nowhere, while the military industrial 
complex grows ever more murderous?

“What possibly awaits us here is something like a new intifada,” said 
Martin Schafer, spokesperson for the German Foreign Ministry. “That 
can’t be in anyone’s interest – it can’t be something anyone in Israel 
wants, or which any responsible Palestinian politician wants.”

But here’s part of the problem: truly responsible Palestinian 
politicians are not at the political helm. The so-called “Palestinian 
Authority” of Mahmoud Abbas is not responsible for the safety of the 
Palestinian people, it is not accountable to the Palestinians, it is a 
sub-contractor of the occupation. Like most politicians, Abbas is more 
invested in the process, than in genuine peace.  “Responsible 
Palestinians” are the civilians who persevere in their dogged attempts 
to survive, to go to school, to work, feed their families, have dreams 
and ambitions, be free, be sovereign. Responsible Palestinians rebel 
against injustice and violence.

Intifadas are good. They reveal to the world that Palestinians have not, 
will not, acquiesce to their oppression. The third intifada must be 
against the ongoing occupation as undertaken by the Israeli forces as 
well as their sub-contractor, the Palestinian Authority. Only then will 
the farce of Peace Accords and Road Maps be finally tossed into the 
trash heap of history, where it belongs.

An escalation in Israeli violence, both "state violence" and 
"state-facilitated settler violence," along with an escalation in angry 
Palestinian resistance - because there is always resistance, but it 
changes qualitatively, in response to escalating Israeli violence - do 
not necessarily make for a Third Intifada. Yet the right mix of elements 
are there, the climate is ripe, and an intifada may indeed be brewing. 
The hope - not fear - is that this time, it will be against both Israel 
and all involved in the farce that is the “peace talks”. It is time for 
action.


/- Nada Elia is a Diaspora Palestinian writer and political commentator.
The article was published in the Middle East Eye website./
-- 
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