The power and the weakness of the Intifada

 Shlomo Gazit (transl. by Prof. Israel Shahak)

[Shlomo Gazit is former head of Israel’s Military Intelligence]

Yediot Ahronot, 7 December 1992.

The Intifada was not a planned uprising. If we had reacted differently, on the day or in the first days of its outbreak, maybe it would not have flared up at that time. However, the Intifada was inevitable. The complex of the circumstances created a highly explosive atmosphere. All that was needed was one spark, and it was lighted in the Gaza Strip as a reaction on the tragical traffic accident when a careless Israeli truck driver hit a local vehicle and killed four of its passengers.

What was the political and psychological background that made the outburst possible? First, the time that passed since June ’67, since the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In the preceding 20 years a new reality emerged: 70% of the local population were born after the Six Days War. These young people have not known another reality besides the Israeli military occupation. Second, notwithstanding the long time that passed, no programme was on the political agenda that was supposed to deal with the Palestinian problem and to suggest to the population a way out of the deadlock. In the course of time, the policy of the "enlightened occupation" that was characteristic of the Israeli military administration in the beginning, a policy of minimum provocation, hurting the feeling of the inhabitants minimally had totally disappeared.     .

In the course of the Intifada, the old conventions of the Palestinian society, with its strong patriarchal tradition, were shaken. The veteran moderate leadership disappeared and a new leadership grew up, who had been forged in the Israeli prisons: Israel tightened increasingly the choking rope in the Territories, by taking steps toward a creeping annexation. Every free, and even not so free plot of land was seized either for security purposes and for the erection of new Jewish settlements. There was an increasing presence of Jewish settlers on the local population. The Palestinian defeat in the Lebanon war and the humiliating eviction of the PLO forces from Beirut symbolized the end of PLO’s armed struggle against Israel, and caused a justified feeling among the Palestinians that the Palestinian issue was entirely forgotten and will not be on any political agenda. The uprising has continued for five years. Erroneously, an approach is prevalent among us, that calls every Palestinian terror act and every attack "Intifada". This is wrong. Palestinian attacks and terror acts were also prevalent before. When we examine the Intifada and count the terror acts during that period, we are misleading ourselves.

What were the aims of the Intifada? The Intifada was first of all a Palestinian outcry: "If I do not act myself, nobody wiII do it for me." Against the background of the failure of the Palestinian struggle waged outside, the total lack of interest on the part of the Arab regimes and the international community to do anything for them, it was a struggle by the people concerned about thelr own fate, for raising the Palestinian problem and the need to stop the Israeli occupation to the top of tht political agenda, It was meant to be a popular struggle, abstaining as far as possible from acts of violence. The intentlon was to concentrate on demonstrative acts and on a policy to put an end to the administrative and economic dependence of the inhabitants of the Territories on Israel.

And finally, psychologically, the Intifada was to give the Palestinians in the Territories a feeling of pride by confronting Israel as equals.

What are the achievements of the Intifada? It was indeed a popular uprising that contributed a lot to the unification and to forging of the people (there is almost no family where there is no "Shaheed" [martyr] who has fallen in the campaign or with a prisoner who was in an Israeli prison). From its ranks arose a new, younger leadership with a different social and educational background than the traditional background.

However, its main success was on the political level: The Intifada brought up the Palestinian struggle to the top of international awareness, it forced the Palestinian National Council to accept the resolution of November 1988, that demands negotiations as a way to reach an agreed political solution, and it also forced Israel to look for and to propose a political solution – reflected in the political programme initiated by the government in ’89, and finally, it motivated the USA to intervene actively in order to bring the parties to the negotiating table.

Considering these successes, it is not less important to examine in what the popular Palestinian struggle did not succeed, and to examine the results that were not intended by the insurgents from the outset. No need to emphasize, that the main hope of the Palestinians was not fulfilled – Israel did not withdraw and has not evacuated the territories of Judea, Samaria (sic) and Gaza. On the contrary, the chief Israeli answer, entirely contrary to what the Palestinians expected, was a massive colonization that doubled the number of Jews in the Territories, the number of the existing settlements and the land belonging to them. Jewish settlements were one of the important factors that induced the Palestinians to start political talks. Israel has also learned to live also with the Intifada. Without underestimating the economic, military and human burden of the Intifada, we have entered a routine. The Arabs in the Territories were the ones who began to suffer from the continuous struggle – from a fatigue, an increasing economic burden and the natural human desire to return to a normal life, as far as possible.

The aim of a de facto disconnection of the Territories from Israel was not reached. Soon it turned out that this was an impracticable hope. Almost in every respect, especially the need of the population for the Israeli labour market, things returned to their old pattern.

However, some things occurred also that had not been planned: Though the Palestinian leadership, remembering the trauma of the internal struggle in 1936-39, tried hard to prevent the renewal of the inter Palestinian terror, the Intifada restored the norm of "liquidation of collaborators". This slogan covered a wave of many hundreds of brutal murders, in most cases committed without a reasonable explanation.

The Intifada produced deep sediments of hatred between the two peoples. This hatred explains also the phenomen of Arab knife stabbers who are motivated by fierce feelings, and the reactions of the Israeli mob after tough cases of attacks. These trends make the future solution infinitely more difficult, the more as there is always a danger that an unforeseeable incident might turn into a huge fire with repercussions exceeding the scope of a local incident. Perhaps more important and more dangerous than anything else is the strengthening of the Palestinian factors who refuse a peaceful settlement, headed by the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad movements. Those elements thrive on a feeling of deep frustration, arising form the gap between the big hopes and expectations, and their non-fulfilment.

The balance of the past years is not unequivocal. It contains both achievements and failures. But the most important message in the final summary of the period is the outlook: A continuation of the Intifada (and there is no reason that it should fade and stop by itself) will harm the hopes of an Israeli-Palestinian settlement. The longer the Intifada goes on without a real advance toward a political accord, it will encourage and strengthen the forces who refuse to make peace, those who deny a political solution. And thus, more negative facts will be created and it will be harder to overcome them in the foreseeable future.