Palestine-Israel: What would be at stake in a third intifada?
By
Hussein Ibish
October
19, 2009
As the
situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, especially East Jerusalem,
is balanced on a knife edge and could erupt at any moment into a new explosion
of violence or even a third intifada, it is crucial to review what is at stake
for all parties should such a catastrophic turn of events occur. Far too many
actors and commentators are casually viewing the present extremely dangerous
situation, and even welcoming the prospect of a third intifada or the
dismantling of the Palestinian Authority, or are calling for less dramatic but
also extraordinarily dangerous scenarios. So, before this goes any further, let
us be clear exactly what is at stake.
A
third intifada would undoubtedly follow the pattern established by the
relationship of the end of the first intifada to its beginning, and of the
second intifada to the first; which is to say, that this process has entailed
ever-increasing levels of violence, death and religious fanaticism on both
sides. There are fantasists who dream of a return to the long gone era of
“people power” which characterized much of the first intifada.
There
is absolutely no question that the first intifada, especially in its early
stages, was a particularly effective and praiseworthy instance of Palestinian
resistance to occupation, probably the most successful mass Palestinian
political action in modern history. However, it occurred in a context in which
heavily organized political parties, let alone with armed militias, were really
not present in the occupied Palestinian territories. The PLO was in exile in
Tunis, and Hamas did not exist at all when the first intifada erupted spontaneously.
By the end of it, the PLO was back in Palestine, and the Muslim Brotherhood had
formed its political and paramilitary wings in Palestine, i.e. Hamas, in an
Israeli-encouraged effort to split the Palestinian movement between
nationalists and Islamists (a plan that has worked only too well).
The
situation now is entirely different: even if a third intifada were to emerge
spontaneously as a consequence of popular outrage about one thing or another,
it would inevitably and almost immediately be commandeered by existing, well
organized and funded political parties with large armed militias. This is what
distinguished the second intifada from the first, and as a consequence the
second intifada was militarized and much more ideological, especially in terms
of religious fanaticism. The consequences of the first intifada were almost
entirely positive across the board. The consequences of the second were
disastrous for the Palestinian people and national movement.
I
think there can be no serious, honest doubt that no matter how much people
might wish for a return to the grassroots spontaneity and largely nonviolent
character of the first intifada, in reality there is no going back because any
such momentum will inevitably be successfully hijacked by a variety of
political and armed groups who simply weren’t present in the occupied
territories in 1987. Therefore, the only reasonable expectation is that any
third intifada will be more militarized, bloody, brutal and disastrous than the
second, just as the second was in comparison to the first. I simply cannot see
any basis for engineering a reversal of this pattern.
For
the Palestinians, this strongly suggests that any third intifada would be even
more disastrous than the second. Anyone calling for a third intifada without
realizing this is a dangerous fool playing with fire, and anyone calling for it
who does realize its actual consequences is a dangerous extremist. One of the
most probable outcomes of any third intifada would be the ascendancy for the
foreseeable future of Islamist organizations and the recasting of the
Palestinian national movement as an Islamist cause, which would almost
certainly spell the death of the dreams of Palestine and peace. I doubt that
the Palestinian national cause could, as a practical political agenda, survive
such a grotesque mutation.
It is
clear that many on the Israeli right, and also quite probably in the present
Israeli cabinet, might also welcome the emergence of a third intifada, hoping
that it would allow them to crush the Palestinian Authority, cancel any
prospect for peace negotiations, and reinforce both the occupation and the
settlement agenda with a renewed vigour and brutality. This explains the
extraordinary and calculated provocations in recent days centred around East
Jerusalem that have added so much fuel to the fire.
Such
an attitude is at least as dangerous for the future of Israel as it is for the
Palestinians. A third intifada would not only be a security calamity for
Israel, and undoubtedly be more dangerous than the second; it would probably
constitute an end to any prospects of not only peace with the Palestinians, but
of reconciliation with the Arab world and ensure that Israel remains in a state
of war for the foreseeable future. Moreover, it could well mean that Israel
will have squandered the last opportunity to divest itself of the occupation in
a rational, workable manner, rendering what will become the de facto Israeli
state as neither Jewish nor democratic in any meaningful sense and developing
and entrenching an apartheid character especially in the occupied territories.
In the long run it could prove a blow from which both the Zionist and the
Palestinian dreams and projects can never recover.
Hussein
Ibish is a senior fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine and author of
“What’s Wrong with the One-State Agenda?” THE DAILY STAR publishes this
commentary in collaboration with the Common Ground News Service
(www.commongroundnews.org).
Source:
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=107663
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