MIDDLE EAST: A third bloody Palestinian uprising may have begun long before last week's seminary massacre.
PALESTINIAN AND Israeli analysts have been predicting for several years that a third intifada is about to erupt because of the deteriorating conditions for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Some Israeli analysts argue that last week's murder by a Palestinian of eight students at a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem launched a third intifada. However, the first and second intifadas, or popular risings, were sparked by Israeli actions against Palestinians rather than Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
The first erupted on December 8th, 1987, when an Israeli lorry ploughed into Palestinian workers in Gaza, killing four; the second on September 29th, 2000, when Israeli troops killed four Palestinian youths during protests at a visit Ariel Sharon made to the mosque compound on Jerusalem's acropolis.
Palestinians cite as proof of a new intifada the killing by Israel of 110 Palestinians during attacks on Gaza between February 28th and March 2nd. Among the victims were 51 civilians, including 25 children, two infants, six women and a paramedic. One Israeli civilian and four soldiers died in this bout of violence blamed by Israel on the firing of rockets into its towns by Hamas and its allies. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum suggested that Palestinians are now engaged in an "intifada of the rocket". Stones were the weapons of the first intifada, guns and bombs of the second, which has not yet been declared over.
However, Sam Bahour, a Palestinian businessman with US citizenship who lives and works in the West Bank, argued in an article published in February 2006, that the third intifada, the "intifada of the ballot box", began when Hamas ousted Fatah from power in the January 2006 election. He said the vote reflected popular discontent against "a failed peace process, a road map that led to a separation wall, and a corrupt government".
Instead of accepting a democratically elected Hamas government, Israel besieged and blockaded Gaza while the US and EU isolated and boycotted the Palestinian Authority until Mahmoud Abbas, the president and head of Fatah, broke with Hamas last summer. Thus, the third intifada became a rising not only against Israel but also against the US, EU and Fatah.
Jaber Wishah, of the Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, agrees. "Palestinians have had a very bitter experience over our choice in the 2006 election. [The international community] did not respect the result. I ran for election and lost but I respect the result. This election was a golden chance to make Palestinians think moderately and modernly. The opposite is coming. Now we will have more extremism and more violence." He says al-Qaeda does not have a presence in Gaza so far, "[but] it could come at any moment. The incubator of extremism and violence is the occupation."
Although Israeli analysts claim that Palestinians are too war weary and hemmed in to engage in further conflict, Wishah lists several elements which could produce an explosion. Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak is seeking a "legal umbrella" for operations in heavily populated civilian areas during a Gaza offensive in the coming months. The Palestinians are divided and weak, the region is unstable, the US gives "blind support to Israel, and the EU ignores Israel's violations of the fourth Geneva Convention and international law.
Palestinians are being "cooked in a pressure cooker with Israel in control of the fire. [But] when things calm down either side can raise the level of violence". He does not believe the new intifada will be confined to Gaza. "They cannot successfully split Gaza from the West Bank. Palestinians live in total ambiguity and total uncertainty: this is more dangerous than danger itself."
