Who's in favor of a Palestinian intifada?
How do you know if someone is a leftist? You ask whether he thinks an intifada is imminent.
By Zvi Bar'el Tags: Israel newsHow can you find out if someone is a leftist? You ask him whether he thinks an intifada will take place. If he responds, "Yes, no doubt. Pretty soon," we have a dangerous leftist. If he responds, "That's silly, a few riots and a Qassam rocket are not an intifada," we have a proud Jew who believes that the Arabs have already learned their lesson. This is one of the new characteristics of the left-right clash, but not of the real danger that lurks behind the Temple Mount's thick walls, or beyond the fence surrounding the Gaza Strip.
The dice games between the left and right in Israel, where the result on the Palestinian side needs to be guessed, usually take place when inactivity on the political front leaves people bored. It's as if it's someone else's game; we're just managing the bets. There is also the game between Israel and the United States. Obama is with us or against us? With us? The right-wing fans stand up and cheer. Against us? The left applauds.
Here is another way of distinguishing between the left and right: In the morning a Qassam rocket falls and kills someone. Someone? Just a foreign worker, the kind that can be replaced. The "terrorism map" is immediately pulled out. If the rocket belonged to Hamas, alas, Operation Cast Lead failed. A point in favor of the left. If a different group fired the rocket, possibly a global jihad organization - something that falls not to us but to the "international community," which handles Islamic extremism - we lose interest. In other words, Cast Lead is still effective. A point for the right.
This is the nature of the risk during a political vacuum. On the face of it, nothing terrible is happening. Since Cast Lead - another historic watershed - only 300 Qassam rockets and mortar shells have been fired, and "only" one person has been killed. In Jerusalem "only" several dozen police officers and Palestinians have been injured in clashes on the Temple Mount. There are often more injuries at a soccer game that turns violent. The demonstrations at Sheikh Jarrah? At Na'alin and Bil'in? Nothing to write home about. "Just another" issue for legal deliberations over the right to demonstrate and the right to property.
But a vacuum is an explosive situation. For example, the authority of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is already being challenged. He has made too many errors recently and has too few achievements. The dispute between Israel and the United States is a great achievement, but it has yet to bear fruit. There has been no real construction freeze and no transfer of territory to the PA.
True, the Palestinian security forces control the streets, and there is order and obedience, but there is no hope. The PA doesn't quite know how to leverage the dispute with Israel. Should it declare an independent state? Should it hand over the conflict to the UN in an effort to increase international pressure on Israel? Like Israel, the Palestinians are doing their real negotiating with the United States. In the meantime, there are different sounds from the ground - some people believe there is no way to avoid another violent outburst, which will extricate the PA from its status as a soft player that is implementing Israel's vision of Palestinian autonomy.
Unlike the West Bank, Gaza is armed with Qassam rockets and long-range missiles, but the Hamas threat is not just directed at the communities of the northern Negev. Hamas' ability to get supporters in Jerusalem and the West Bank onto the streets is something new. It's not measured merely by the number of stone-throwers on the Temple Mount, but also by the alternative of an uprising that the Islamist group is trying to encourage. The holy sites are its living space, and when a non-religious Egyptian newspaper writes in its main headline that "The Al-Aqsa Mosque is on the verge of collapse" because of the Israeli construction work, and the kings of Jordan and Saudi Arabia are furious because of Israel's activities in Jerusalem, Hamas doesn't need Qassams. The smoldering can be seen and heard.
Will there or won't there be an intifada is a sly question. It assumes that even if an intifada does take place, we already know how to handle it, and if it does not happen, well, we've won anyway. Meanwhile, the main question now in the dispute between the left and right, as if it were really an ideological issue, hides behind it: the true struggle for the future of the state and its international standing.
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This week with Fatah and Hamas was an eye opener and depressing. Neither of them will ever make peace with Israel. Settlements are not the cause of friction, Israel being Jewish and democratic is.
So it already has been that way for over 20 years. But like in most areas except for oil production Israel is just much better at it. Even with anti-Israel PAC's outnumbering pro-Israel PAC's by a 3 to 1 margin! I believe Israels success is because that are simply a more moral country, and it's easier to sell the truth than the lies and myths the Arabs PAC's are stuck with.
Clever answer you wrote to poor little Natallie who thinks she is important enough to be an enemy of Israel. Which governments are you an enemy of? Apart from your own of course.
Tough luck Natallie, you vote in California, not Gaza. If the Gazan people want to commit suicide it is their choice. Just not in Israel. Israel is building for the future.
"I vote no to a Palestinian intifada." - Natalie Durson Of course you do Natalie. You are an enemy of Israel and it's current government. Why would you want what Israel's government clearly seeks?
"Mark Lincoln of the state of texas, where mexicans are essentially the modern slaves, . . " - Chris Stein Such twaddle. To my west is an American family with a Mexican heritage. To my East are immigrants from Costa Rica. You are so full of it you don't have a clue how out of it you are.
The Palestinians' biggest compromise has been that they have accepted the existence of Israel as a state. This means they have given you part of their homeland and they are not willing to give it all away. Israel will never see that day, do why not peace now?
no 5, amir: if you want another intifadah or war so badly and when it comes are you the first who will start to fight the enemy? what you say you must also take the consequences of it. otherwise you are only a palestinians-hater, an anti-semite and a coward. the same goes for your zionistic government. let netanyahu, lieberman, ayalon etc. go first with their families before the israeli army when they will declare another war to the palestinians/arabs. perhaps they will become great heroes, who will be admired by everyone in this world as excamples for us all. think twice and well before eventually start another war and also think of the consequences of it.
Except you're not there are you abdalla? You're doing your "resisting" from Florida,lol.
they would have had a state 60 years asgo.
What has been the objectives of "50 years of war"? The belief that Arabs like you are "breeding more fighters" and unwilling to live in peace is precisely what distinguishes the realist from the closed-eyed who'd rather look for reasons why the murderer kills, terrorist strikes and Jew hater hates. The right does not care for the "why" and simply accepts that genocide belongs to the human condition and examines the options of survival from the Abdallas. Abdalla is prepared to breed and send his children to die with aim of killing Jews. The left will talk of justice while Abdalla's children gleefully blow themselves up at Pizza shops to kill as many Jewish children as they can. The right will ask ask why but why not stop Adballa before he has the chance....
Another Palestinians inifade be good thing for the follow reason. Most if not all Jews settement in West Bank into Israel side of security fence. The Palestinians on Israel side security fence flee to Palestine side of Security fence. Leading Palestine state with out Jersoalam and devide Hebron.
The Palestinians should avoid giving Israel cause to declare open season on Palestinians. It is easy to see that Israel is making itself less and less respected on the world stage. I believe we are only a few years from international sanctions upon Israel. This and only this will open the road to peace. Another good options for the Arabs. Take a couple billion dollars of Saudi money and open an office in Washington DC. Fight Israel in the halls of the American capitol, not on the streets of Gaza. If they already are doing that to some extent, triple it or quadruple it.
And you're proud of that? Have 10 intifadas if you want...you're only hurting yourself...who cares...
panel of 4...2 on hamas side, 2 on PA side... the only discussion taking place, is how best to get rid of all of israel...this is not about gaza and WB, it is about israel inside the green line...israel rightly knows what they are facing...the people here and elsewhere who THINK this code word "occupation" is about gaza and west bank are either delusional, ill informed, ignorant or anti semitic. It is that simple. What a disgrace the arabs are and by defacto, obama. nabil shaath and abdullah abdullah are on the PA side of this farce called a debate in doha..and BOTH of them are for taking down all of israel. It is perfectly crystal clear.
50 years of war and were still here and breeding more fighters and resister the game hasn't changed just the players and some tactics
---sorry I mean what has Israel given that they owned to give.
Mark Lincoln of the state of texas, where mexicans are essentially the modern slaves, what good-will gesture have the Palestinians made towards the Israelis? Do you count Firing rockets, calling for multiple intifadas?
"A leftist could care less about Jewish heritage" - Avi I guess those 'leftists' who founded Israel didn't care then?
"Palestinians make no progress because they won`t compromise" - McQueen The only 'compromise' acceptable to the Israeli right is for the Palestinians to disappear.
the only thing that Israel is forced to use against terror . And Israel learned it the hard way , but they did learn it . As far as the world's opinion is concerned , who cares as long as lives are being saved . Finally Israel took the right attitude .
belong to some other place.
Whatever the diplomatic situation their goal is always the same: get without giving
I am a rightist and I see a new intifada--because the Pal leadership is still incapable of coming to terms with the existence of Israel. The Pals think time is on their side--they are wrong. Oil will collapse in 10 or 20 years and the economiestheir will continue to atrophy while Israel moves ahead.
..no dreaming.. it will end their madness
that's the most obvious distinction.
Let's hope that another intifada takes place and we can deal with it as history as shown us. What worked for the allies in their fight against the axis should be used against the Palestinians. Total defeat, total ruin. That is the only way that we will have quiet.
"You ask him whether he thinks an intifada will take place. If he responds, 'Yes, no doubt. Pretty soon,' we have a dangerous leftist." So, anyone watching the news who figures an intifada will take place soon, whether they want it or not, whether they grieve over the thought or not, is a dangerous leftist?
just a little quote to refresh our memory reg. olmert: i, like many others, was raised with a deep conviction that the day would never come when we would have to relinquish parts of the land of our forefathers. i believed, and to this day still believe, in our people's eternal and historic right to this entire land. (ehud olmert, address to us congress, 24 may 2006) and edward: please, we should stop whining about how hamas wants to eliminate us and that we actually are full of peaceful intentions towards arabs - it's just, that they can't be trusted. same gospel over and over doesn't get truer the more often it's being repeated. if we really want peace, there's a lot of work to be done on our art as well.
Left and right is no longer defined by Socialist versus Revisionist but by belief and trust in the Arab's willingness to leave us alone. The left would like to trust the Arabs willingness to peace and has internalized the hope of brotherly love. It even sees itself-- well the right-- to blame for being hated. The right sees its consequences in history and refuses accept eternal Jew as eternal victim much less accept the blame. Its also optimist versus realist. The right grasps that the Arabs don't speak with a united voice and for every Arab that truly would like to live in peace and co-existence there is an Nationalistic Arab leadership and a significant mass of Arabs that would never accept peace and co-existence short of the complete Muslim hegemony and a "final solution". Of course even within this "dream" there too is no unity amongst these forces and enough family and tribal feuds--- and inter-Muslim conflicts--- to keep the soil watered in blood to the last man standing..
Zvi.Please look at facts and not fantasy.Olmert was talking to Abbas for a prolonged period.Olmert was having indirect negotiations with Syria through Turkey but there were 2 wars during Olmerts primeministerialship.You are forgetting Iran as a factor.When the iranian axis feels peace with the palestinians is making progress,the start wars.When Israel has a right wing government ,the left thinks peace is unlikely and so does Iran and that prevents wars.