PALESTINE/ISRAEL: Future Prospects for Aqsa - Intifada

Future Prospects for Aqsa - Intifada

POSTED BY DR. ELIAS AKLEH ON DECEMBER 14, 2015 IN MIDDLE EAST, NEWS & ANALYSIS, SOCIETY & RELIGION, ACTIVISIM & BDS, PALESTINE/ISRAEL | | 1 RESPONSE

Since the beginning of the Intifada early October Palestinian protesters had suffered many casualties on the hands of the Israeli soldiers, who had murdered so far 120 Palestinians, including 25 children and 6 women, many were murdered in cold blood in short range and by Israeli snipers.

By Dr. Elias Akleh

The Israeli barbaric terrorism against Palestinians had violently broken all the red lines. The imperialist Israeli government had occupied the land, destroyed villages, ethnically cleansed Palestinians, besieged, starved and bombed Gaza Strip, controlled all Palestinian civilian, political and economic life aspects, kept on expanding and building new illegal colonies/settlements, suppressed all Palestinian peaceful demonstration within Palestinian towns with extreme military violence, loosened all punitive laws against extremist colonizers/settlers, who daily terrorize Palestinian civilians, and finally encouraged extremist religious Talmudists to routinely violate Palestinian religious sites.

A Palestinian olive grove at Burin village in Nablus, set on fire by settlers from the Yitzhar settlement

Under the protection of the Israeli soldiers, armed extremist Jewish Israeli religious fundamentalist colonizers/settlers have been terrorizing Palestinian civilians. They routinely attack Palestinian farmers, cut down their thousands-years-old olive trees, fruit trees and agricultural products. They shoot Palestinian farm animals, poison their water wells, burn their harvests, and conduct nightly raids against Palestinian homes with fire bombs and live ammunitions. Even within main Palestinian cities Israeli young gangs terrorize residents, vandalizing and burning their properties.

Jewish settlers destroy Church

They have attacked and burnt many churches as well as mosques. They ram with their cars Palestinian young students while on their way to school. They have kidnapped Palestinian children, tortured them, and burned them alive. They firebombed Palestinian homes and burned them while asleep. And lately they are violating the Islamic Al-Aqsa Mosque; the third holiest Islamic site, and consecrating its sanctity with their disconcerting ritual dances and calling for the destruction of the Al-Aqsa and the rebuilding of their alleged temple.

Israeli settlers storm Al-Aqsa Mosque

Tired of the Israeli terrorism, of the continuous theft of their land, of the humiliation they suffer at the hundreds of Israeli military checkpoints, of the increasing loss of their freedom, of the inability of the Palestinian Authority to protect them, of the frozen peace negotiations, and of the negligence of the international community of their plight and their rights, the Palestinian young generation took into the streets into a third Intifada. While the majority of them are demonstrating against the choking military checkpoints confronting well-armed Israeli soldiers and snipers, who use stun and smoke grenades, rubber-coated and live bullets, and poisoned and chemically treated waste water cannons, others, who had suffered and lost the most, decided to give the Israelis some of their own medicine. So we witness some knife stabbing and vehicular ramming of Israeli soldiers.

Since the beginning of the Intifada early October Palestinian protesters had suffered many casualties on the hands of the Israeli soldiers, who had murdered so far 120 Palestinians, including 25 children and 6 women, many were murdered in cold blood in short range and by Israeli snipers. Almost 15800 protesters were wounded and at least 2500, including 1200 children, had been detained during early morning raids.  In a collective punishment the Israeli soldiers had demolished with explosives tens of homes belonging to Palestinian families, whose children were involved or accused of attacking Israelis.

Israeli soldiers arrest and handcuff young Palestinian boy

Yet the Intifada continues and intensifies. The more violent the Israeli soldiers become, raiding hospitals and schools, closing media centers and breaking their equipment, attacking reporters and medical personnel on the scene and increasing their military checkpoints between Palestinian towns, the more Palestinians take to the streets. The present Palestinian young generations are no longer afraid of Israeli soldiers as expressed by some Israeli military officials.

With all this violence, the casualties, and the interruption of daily lives of both Palestinians and Israelis one wonders where this spontaneous Intifada would lead, what are its goals, how would it end, and who would blink first; the Israelis or the Palestinians.

There are three possibilities. In the first the Intifada would be totally ignored and deserted by the local Palestinian traditional leadership, by the Arab World, and by the international community. Faced with the Israeli intransigence and brutal military force the protests would wind down gradually until they are totally suppressed without achieving any gains.

In this scenario we see the Palestinian Authority (PA) paralyzed politically and unable to protect or even to lead the protesters. The PA is pressured by Israel, the US, the EU, and some Arab leaders to stop and to suppress the Intifada or lose all financial support and collapse completely. Although mildly objecting openly of the harsh Israeli measures the PA is not just being passive but is covertly colluding with the Israelis in arresting some activists and providing intelligent reports to the Israelis. Not doing so the PA could be dismantled, and its officials could be laid off, imprisoned, deported or assassinated.

The Arab World is busy with the Israel/American/EU-created ISIS terrorists. Most of the Arab leaders had given up on the Palestinian cause and had not been contributing anything to the Palestinians. Some are treating Palestinians as a foreign nation and don’t want to do anything with them. The attitude is “let them deal with their own problems, we have our own”. Even the Arab media outlets are ignoring the Palestinian Intifada and seldom report about it even though they have enough space to report about trivial facts about western actors’/actresses’ lives and sport games.

The Arab World is either ignoring or unaware of the fact that their “terror problem” is actually the rear battle line of the Zionist imperialist project while Palestine is their front line and that Palestinians are actually fighting and defending the whole Arab World.

The international community is totally ignoring the Palestinian Intifada as they had done during the previous decades. They are busy doing the Zionist bidding by destroying Syria under the justification of their “war against global terror”; ISIS. The Zionist owned/controlled major media outlets are hardly mentioning the Intifada, and if they do they would describe the Palestinian protesters as “knife wielding terrorists against unarmed Israeli civilians”, totally ignoring the fact that Israelis have been terrorizing Palestinians for the last 67 years and lately they had broken all the red lines by burning their children and desecrating their Christian as well as their Islamic holy sites.

The second scenario is the development of some type of underground armed struggle against Israeli targets similar to what happened during the second Intifada. Every day Palestinian social media post horrific videos and accounts of the brutality of Israeli soldiers, extremist colonizers/settlers and armed Israeli civilians gunning down Palestinians in the streets, invading Palestinian towns, demolishing Palestinian homes, and desecrating Al-Aqsa mosque calling for its destruction. New Palestinian generations could not and would not accept to keep living under such terror. If ignored and left alone without any political support from the Arab World nor from the international community that may lead to some tangible gains, like the dismantling of the hundreds of check points, the lifting of the siege against Gaza Strip, and the unification of the several Palestinian factions through election and political process, some Palestinian youths could become radicalized and resort to armed struggle.

Few instances of such armed struggle had been witnessed lately.  On Friday November 6th two shooting attacks left three Israeli soldiers injured after a 72 years old Palestinian woman was shot dead in Halhul north of Al-Khalil (Hebron). Several incidents of shooting against Israeli soldiers took place around Palestinian Qalandia Camp; in November 11th against the Israeli colony of Kokhaf Yacob, in November 16th against Israeli soldiers who tried to storm the camp to demolish a Palestinian home, and in December 12th against Israeli soldiers. Also on December 12th Shaul Nir, a former member of an Israeli terrorist organization; Jewish Underground, was shot near the West Bank city of Tulkarem. Although some Palestinian factions in Gaza Strip are calling for arming the Intifada to bomb Israeli targets, yet such possibility is still remote.

The third scenario is the intensification of the Intifada involving the majority of Palestinians; young and old, men and women, to take the shape of total community demonstrations that would fill up the streets of all the Palestinian cities and towns. Such large movement would grab the attention of the whole world and would cost Israel further international embarrassments and inflict on it severe economic and security prices that would eventually lead to Palestinian political gains. Such a scenario requires new leadership, new blood independent from the traditional competing factions, with revolutionary political vision.

Whatever the future may bring, the Intifada had already accomplished some political gains. It had torpedoed Israel’s plans to divide Al-Aqsa Mosque, asserting that the Mosque is the burning red line. It had also worked as a warning to the extremist colonizers/settlers that their terror attacks against Palestinians would not be as easy as before and they would have repercussions. It also had sent a message to the Israeli occupiers that they would not enjoy security with occupation. Many Israelis opted to stay indoors away from public places and not using public transportations for fear of attacks.

Israel is an occupier. Palestinians have the right to defend themselves and to struggle to achieve their independence and their freedom in whatever method they see fit.