The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle
240
The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle
240Paperback(First Edition)
-
PICK UP IN STORECheck Availability at Nearby Stores
Available within 2 business hours
Related collections and offers
Overview
Addressing the most controversial issues, including the alarming escalation in suicide bombings, and the construction of the Separation Wall, he reports on the huge rate of unemployment and hunger in the Occupied Territories — statistics so critical that NGOs compare their magnitude to African nations such as the Congo. From the brutality of the Israeli army to the ever-compromising nature of the Palestinian Authority, few are spared Baroud’s thoughtful critique.
The book is clear and concise, with one chapter dedicated to the major events of each year, and includes a comprehensive timeline.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780745325477 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Pluto Press |
| Publication date: | 09/20/2006 |
| Edition description: | First Edition |
| Pages: | 240 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.91(w) x 9.06(h) x 0.60(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
The Intifada Takes Off (2000-01)
This chapter highlights some of the events which take place just months before the outbreak of the Second Palestinian Uprising, as well as the events of its first year. It explores how the Israeli army employs tactics of provocation — from fortifying settlements to invading refugee camps — in an attempt to show the Palestinians that the May 2000 retreat from South Lebanon, after 22 years of uninterrupted occupation, will not be a precedent. Talks at Camp David also commence, where Barak's famous "generous offer" is purportedly presented and subsequently snubbed by the Palestinian delegation. This becomes a monumental turning-point, with the Israelis and Americans jointly declaring that there is no hope for a bilateral peace agreement with Palestinians. Shortly thereafter, Sharon executes his contentious visit to Haram al-Sharif — an event that signifies the breaking point for Palestinians and instigates the onset of the five-year-long Intifada. Sharon is soon elected Prime Minister of Israel and unveils his new plan of targeted assassinations of Palestinian activists, a plan that will claim the lives of hundreds over the next five years. The extradition of Slobodan Milosevic highlights the limitations and double standards of international law, and the question is raised whether Israel will ever be held accountable to the same edicts. Finally, the tragedy of September 11 not only shocks the world, but profoundly changes the political landscape in the Middle East, the ramifications of which are intimately felt among Palestinians.
LESSONS FROM DEFEAT
Some would argue that the birth of the Second Palestinian Uprising was actually rooted in the south of Lebanon. After the long and cruel uprising from 1987-93, empty promises, meaningless summits, and equally barren accords had left Palestinians in a numbing impasse. Rumors circulated and were eventually confirmed when Israeli officials formally disclosed that weapons build-up was taking place within the settlements plaguing the Occupied Territories. Palestinians realized that perilous designs were being crafted in the midst of the stalemate. But to the north, a decades-long skirmish between the Israeli army and the resistance movement Hizbollah was finally coming to an end, with an assured and embarrassing defeat for the Israeli Defense Forces.
It was not until May 2000 that the Israeli army finally abandoned the gains of its precious victory in Lebanon. Nearly two decades of a war of attrition between the Israeli army and a few hundred Hizbollah resistance fighters went mostly unnoticed. It was hardly defined as a war, since it lacked the trappings of traditional combat. Nevertheless, the Lebanese resistance could claim a tangible Arab victory, after decades of humiliating defeats at the hands of the Israeli army — from Israel's so-called War of Independence in 1948, to the Six-Day War in 1967, and the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, to list some primary examples. The Lebanese resistance's triumph on the battlefield is one that Israel still denies.
Israel's then chief of staff, Lieutenant-General Shaul Mofaz, who oversaw Israel's retreat from Lebanon, warned soon after that Israel intended to deploy tanks and helicopters in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. The official claim was that violent clashes with Palestinians were causing the army concern such that the government was persuaded to send additional supplies to Jewish settlers, including sandbags and tear-gas canisters. Considering the injury inflicted on unarmed Palestinians over the years with Israel's conventional "antiriot" gear (automatic rifles, military jeeps, and tear gas), was this sudden and extreme build-up necessary? Was there any imperative to deploy heavy weaponry to combat youth, women, and children? In the midst of Israel's military build-up, Palestinian Authority officials asserted that Israel was actually targeting the P.A., even though the primary targets were groups that outwardly refused the peace terms prescribed in the Oslo Accords, drafted secretly and without the consent of most Palestinians. The P.A.'s claim to being itself the target seemed unconvincing, if not absurd, considering that joint security coordination between Israeli forces and P.A. police was actively continued, to the indignation of most Palestinians. Such dual loyalty was fully demonstrated in Palestinian protests in May 2000, which were violently suppressed jointly by Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The deliberate killing of six unarmed Palestinians and the injuring of over 1000 was not enough to persuade the P.A. to reassess its allegiances to Israel in favor of an increasingly frustrated Palestinian populace. And while Israel's increasingly violent aggressions failed to persuade the P.A. to rethink its unconditional peace negotiation strategy, it was Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak who ordered his negotiation team home, in protest at the wounding of an Israeli toddler.
Concurrently, Barak, who was dubbed a "dove" by Israeli and American political commentators, was putting himself on friendlier terms with radical Jewish settlers who were occupying 145 thriving settlements in the West Bank. These settlers, who had for long been granted participation in suppressing Palestinian protests, had worked alongside Israeli forces for years. A statement issued by Barak's office on June 21 said that Barak instructed his ministers to meet with leaders of the settlement movement regularly, lauding them as "good citizens" with an important role in defending Israel. Barak's softer tone with the settlers was a direct concession to their grievances over his wishy-washy policies, i.e. the policy of dialogue with the Palestinians. But Barak's open disregard for Palestinians' rights, and his insistence on retaining major settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, left little doubt regarding his real intentions. Furthermore, the new alliances which were in the process of being formed, coupled with Barak's growing obsession with fortifying the settlements by deploying heavy military equipment, would likely further expose his not so dove-like demeanor. This military build-up reflected Israel's realization that a Palestinian revolt against the occupation, solidified by the P.A.'s unreserved collaboration, was imminent. The fact that the Israelis were openly pursuing these militaristic policies, at a time when Israel was purportedly eager to produce a framework for a "final status agreement" with the Palestinian leadership, is telling to say the least. However, there was more to Israel's military escalation than just this. Israel's defeat in Lebanon strengthened the Palestinians' faith in armed struggle and shook the confidence of the Israeli army. Israel was, therefore, looking to reassert itself in the West Bank and Gaza. Israeli army officials made statements on various occasions, affirming their concerns regarding Hizbollah's military performance and its impact on Palestinians. The Israeli army also attempted to convey that their humiliating and abrupt retreat from Lebanon would not be repeated in the Occupied Territories. At the same time, they were seeking to redeem their shattered reputation, by taking on unarmed Palestinian youth.
MYTH OF THE GENEROUS OFFER
But there is also a highly relevant political dimension to the Second Palestinian Uprising — that of the failed Camp David II talks between Barak and Palestinian Authority President, Yasser Arafat, in July 2000. Less than two months after the withdrawal from South Lebanon, Israel attempted to force its own conditions on the Palestinian leadership at Camp David. Despite intense pressure from the "honest broker"— a role assumed by former U.S. President Bill Clinton — Arafat stood his ground. The historic narrative as written by the U.S. media often refers to this phase as that of "Barak's generous offer," claiming that Barak offered Palestinians everything they had demanded over the years, only to be refused by the Palestinian delegation, led by obstinate Arafat.
Palestinians hoped that the July talks at Camp David would be more mindful of their national aspirations for statehood than the historic Camp David treaty of 1979, signed between Egypt and Israel under American patronage. For Palestinians, the first Camp David amounted to a catastrophe. It was commonly believed that Israel's chief objective was to marginalize Egypt's role in the Arab-Israeli conflict. And it did so successfully. Not only was Egypt marginalized, but the seemingly united Arab front collapsed soon after. Egypt received harsh criticism from its Arab neighbors and lost its once leading role among Arab nations, making Israel the ultimate beneficiary. Then Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, refused any proposal for a realistic negotiation framework that could resolve the lingering conflict. Meanwhile, the United States signed a separate agreement with Israel: the Israel-U.S. Memorandum. The agreement provided American guarantees to Israel, should Egypt violate the peace treaty. It also designated a generous annual military and economic aid package to help Israel cope with the cost of peace. The question of Palestine was then shelved for years, though not completely. Israel would now concentrate on suppressing the rebellious Palestinians, while trying to create an alternative leadership to negotiate a peace based on Israeli terms.
Following its exclusive peace deal with Egypt, Israel felt a greater sense of security. Now that the war of attrition — extending from the 1973 war to 1978 — was officially over, a bloody campaign could be waged against Lebanon with the aim of altering its political structure, driving Syria out, and above all annihilating the Palestinian resistance. Just three years after the Camp David treaty, Israel's complex scheme led to the invasion of Lebanon, in the summer of 1982, culminating in the massacre of Sabra and Shatilla. The estimates on Lebanese and Palestinian casualties in Israel's war varied. But there is agreement that tens of thousands were killed and wounded. The masterminds of the invasion were the same men who signed the peace treaty with Egypt — Begin, accompanied by the rising star of Israeli politics, Ariel Sharon. And yet, Israel achieved little in its invasion of Lebanon, a lesson that cost Israel hundreds of its soldiers. Barak had the courage to admit that the Israeli presence in Lebanon was costly and futile, and so on an historic night in May 2000, Israeli troops scrambled back to Israel's northern border as their leadership vowed never to return.
Fearing that the Arab military triumph in Lebanon might give the Palestinians a degree of leverage, Barak went to work fortifying settlements and military forces in the West Bank, assuring himself and the Palestinians that he would come to the negotiation table at Camp David with a strong upper hand. It was under these complex circumstances that Israelis and Palestinians set out to Camp David under the mediation of President Clinton. The meetings would indeed prove to be provocative for Palestinians, with Barak supposedly presenting his legendary and much touted "generous offer," and Arafat's negotiation team, as Clinton stated and the media subsequently reiterated, ungratefully discounting it. But a leading Palestinian intellectual, Hanan Ashrawi, has repeatedly affirmed that no written proposal was ever presented to the Palestinians. Palestinians argued that even if there had been such a proposal, Arafat's rejection — of the partitioning of the West Bank into three cantons separated by Israeli military zones and Israeli-only bypass roads, of the continuous presence of illegal settlements, and of Israel's dominion over Occupied East Jerusalem — was nothing less than a sound choice. The declarations uttered by various American and Israeli officials following the plummeting Camp David II summit were wholeheartedly consistent with one another — Arafat has no intention of reaching a final and comprehensive peace agreement with Israel, turning down a very charitable compromise presented by the Israeli negotiation team; Arafat is no peace partner, in fact, no such partner among Palestinians exists; considering this, Israel must now do all it can to protect its citizens from foreseeable Palestinian violence, even if it must seek to achieve peace unilaterally.
But in fact, it unfolded that there was no such generous offer to begin with — according to Robert Malley, Clinton's Special Assistant for Arab-Israeli Affairs and his advisor at Camp David. Barak never unveiled his proposal, not in writing, not verbally, not even to the United States itself, Malley indicated: "It is hard to state with confidence how far Barak was actually prepared to go," the U.S. official wrote in an article published by the New York Review of Books. "His strategy was predicated on the belief that Israel ought not reveal its final position — not even to the United States — until the endgame was in sight." But there is more to this charade. There was one lone ranger behind the entire edifice of false depictions, according to the former chief of Israeli Military Intelligence, General Amos Malka. That man is Amos Gilad, the head of the research section at the MI office. Gilad's tall tale (that the Palestinians were not a partner in the peace process, and that Arafat was hell-bent on the destruction of Israel, compounded by the "generous offer" rhetoric) was so widespread it was still cited by political and media pundits in the Western media even after Malka's revealing interview with the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz. According to Malka, Gilad had no basis whatsoever for his assertions, save his own personal views: Gilad was "a very significant factor in persuading a great many people. [Yet] in all the time that I served as head of MI, the research division did not produce so much as a single document expressing the assessment that Gilad claims to have presented to the Prime Minister." That episode had therefore presented an "erroneous view of the cause of the violence [which followed two months later], and hence the mistaken conclusion that there is no Palestinian partner for peace," Haaretz concluded, elaborating on Malka's comments. Nonetheless, the Clinton Administration and mainstream media seemed to overlook what should have been a ground-shaking revelation, a scandal even. In their taking no notice, Israel was able to continue its relentless violence against the Palestinians. Its extended campaign of terror would proceed unchecked as long as Palestinians and their leadership were viewed as the source of discord, having supposedly succeeded in their diabolical scheme that began when Barak's "generous offer" was shunned at Camp David.
VIOLENCE SUMMONED
The breakdown at Camp David was exactly what the then rightwing party opposition leader, Ariel Sharon, needed to demonstrate to the Israeli public that Barak could not provide the security they deserved. To strengthen his case further, Sharon devised a plan for an historic "visit" to the Temple Mount, ironically calling it a gesture of "peace." But from the moment his plans were declared, Palestinians and others warned that stepping foot in the sacred shrine of Haram al-Sharif — the third most revered holy site for Muslims — would almost certainly ignite uncontainable violence. Thus, Sharon, accompanied by over 1000 Israeli troops and police, instigated the Middle East upheaval with his forced visit to the holy Muslim shrine in Jerusalem — particularly to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, from which the Second Uprising derived its name — on September 28, 2000. As predicted, a volcano of hostilities erupted and scores of Palestinians were killed and wounded on the grounds of the site. The next day, the Israeli army confronted angry Palestinian masses throughout the Occupied Territories, and resorted to nothing less than traditional war tactics. The Second Palestinian Uprising was born. In the early months of Al-Aqsa Intifada, Israeli tanks rolled back into the West Bank. Sharon's contrived plan to ignite upheaval invited five more long years of bloodshed.
One of the early tragedies to befall the Palestinians was the killing of Mohammed al-Durra in the Gaza Strip, less than one week after the Intifada's inception. In one of the most enduring images of the conflict, the twelve-year-old boy was shot by Israeli forces as he and his father sought refuge from the gunfire in the city of Gaza. His death sparked international sympathy and drew much deserved attention to the number of children killed by Israeli forces in the Occupied Territories. And yet Sharon's aggressive tactics garnered respect and adoration from a desperate Israeli populace, making the Premier's seat look even more promising. Months later, elections took place in Israel and on February 6, 2001, Ariel Sharon was elected Prime Minister of Israel in a landslide victory. His campaign platform had promised to crack down on Palestinian violence in 100 days. The newly elected Israeli government, led by Sharon and backed by the settlers, would soon unleash a bloody onslaught on the disadvantaged, disappointed, and fed-up Palestinian masses, an onslaught that would last for much more than 100 days. One of the many places to suffer the wrath of Sharon's new and violent policy was the Khan Yunis refugee camp in the Gaza Strip on April 11, 2001.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Second Palestinian Intifada"
by .
Copyright © 2006 Ramzy Baroud.
Excerpted by permission of Pluto Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
DedicationAcknowledgements
Preface
Foreward – Kathy and Bill Christison
Introduction – Jennifer Lowenstein
1: The Intifada Takes Off (2000-2001)
2: Intifada International (2002)
3: Calls for Reform (2003)
4: Profound Changes, Insurmountable Challenges – 2004
5: End of the Intifada (2005)
Epilogue
Appendix I – Total deaths and other losses during the Second Palestinian Uprising
Appendix II – Map of the West Bank and Gaza including the Separation Wall and Settlements location
Appendix III – Intifada Timeline: 2000-2005
Recommended Readings
Index