REVEALING the CHASM by Alan Dowty and Michelle Gawerc*
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THE INTIFADA: REVEALING THE CHASM By Alan Dowty and Michelle Gawerc* The outbreak of a new Palestinian uprising (intifada) in September 2000 is analyzed by examining Palestinian perceptions and activities. This article discusses the causes of this development, analyzes Palestinian strategy, and talks of differing Palestinian and Israeli views on the course of the peace process. It also discusses the standpoints of leaders and of public opinion toward these events. The outbreak of a new Palestinian uprising opinion polls, and other available sources. (intifada) at the end of September 2000, came Insofar as it deals with Palestinian media and as a seismic shock to most observers. Such other Palestinian sources, the views expressed widespread violent confrontations between include officially sanctioned views within the Palestinians and Israeli forces seemed like PA, different views within the leadership, and ghosts from the past, wildly incongruent when finally, grassroots perceptions and attitudes. 98 percent of the Palestinians in the West Since the Palestinian press is essentially Bank and Gaza strip (outside east Jerusalem) controlled by the PA, it expresses the message no longer lived under direct Israeli that the PA wishes to convey to its own occupation. Accordingly, this implausible public. It also includes, however, some event made sense only if it had been, at least messages to the PA from that public. Given in some degree, deliberately planned and this focus on Palestinian leadership attitudes, organized. inevitably less attention is paid to Israeli The question merits investigation, but perceptions (about which, in any event, there analysis should not stop there. There are is less debate). other questions that go beyond the issue of whether, and in what sense, the intifada was EXPECTATIONS OF RENEWED or was not deliberately provoked. Would VIOLENCE something like this have happened, sooner or In its first and most comprehensive later, in any event? Could or should it have statement regarding the causes of the intifada, been anticipated? Whatever the role of the made to the Sharm El-Sheikh Fact-Finding Palestinian Authority (PA) in instigating the Committee (the Mitchell Committee) at the intifada, what stance has it followed since end of December, the government of Israel then? How much control does the PA ascribed the violence of the previous three leadership, or Yasir Arafat personally, months “at its most basic” to “the failure, and actually exercise? Does the PA actually have indeed refusal, of the PLO and the Palestinian a strategy or game plan? Authority to comply with their essential But perhaps most importantly, we should responsibilities, pursuant to the various ask what the last year tells us about the chasm agreements concluded with Israel, to take that separates Israelis and Palestinians. In the such measures as are necessary to forestall understandable push to conclude peace, have acts of violence and terror against Israel and important basic differences in conceptions of Israelis.” The intifada was thus “part of a the peace process been overlooked or calculated policy of the Palestinian leadership understated? Since Palestinian attitudes are in respect of the conduct of its relations with the key issue, we focus on Palestinian Israel,” and preparations for it were evidenced perspectives before and during the intifada, as in such pre-intifada activities as an increase in conveyed in the Palestinian press, public hostile propaganda, the military training of 38 Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 5, No. 3 (September 2001) Alan Dowty and Michelle Gawerc Palestinian children in summer camps, the sides were living in different realities, with failure to confiscate illegal weapons, the Palestinians openly expressing a sense of release of known terrorists from detention, deep dissatisfaction that threatened to erupt at and the stockpiling of food and medical any time. In retrospect, there were numerous supplies.(1) In the first three months of the signs of a potential explosion that might be intifada, according to this report, there were set off by any random event. In the about 2700 live-fire attacks initiated by Palestinian submission to the Mitchell Palestinians against Israeli civilians, police, Commission, only about one page, or 5 and soldiers.(2) percent of the entire document, is devoted to Among Palestinians there were other the actual triggering event of the intifada indications of at least a general expectation or (entitled, “Why Did Barak Instigate the anticipation of renewed violence. In July the Crisis?”). The emphasis is on “the roots of the Fatah movement announced a general call-up current uprising” and condemnation of Israeli of boys under the age of 16 for weapons counter-measures taken after it began. training.(3) A group monitoring Palestinian Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount media reported in early August that was not the cause of the intifada; on this Palestinian television was contributing to an particular point Palestinian and Israeli “eve of war” atmosphere by repeated observers are in agreement. In a typical broadcasts of military parades and video clips Palestinian formulation, the intifada “was not of violence against Israeli soldiers.(4) In late just a reaction to a provocative incident.... It is September Arafat reportedly met with leaders a declared, unequivocal position by the of Tanzim, a paramilitary group within Fatah, Palestinian people on the bankruptcy of the to warn that clashes might be imminent.(5) At negotiating option and the full rejection of the around the same time the PLO Executive overall Israeli conduct.”(11) Committee issued a call “to exercise the Hasan Khadir, a Palestinian author familiar maximum degree of vigilance and to be with Israel, claims that to Palestinians it prepared for all eventualities.”(6) seemed that Israel was using the Oslo process Throughout the intifada, the involvement not in pursuit of a “two-state” solution to the of Palestinian security officers in the clashes conflict, but as a means of getting rid of has been reported and documented densely-populated Palestinian areas while extensively. Israeli Chief of Staff Shaul maintaining “an improved occupation.”(12) Mofaz testified to the Knesset Foreign Affairs The fragmentation of the West Bank and and Defense Committee that Palestinian Gaza into separated enclaves--”Bantustans” in security officers were responsible for 40 Palestinian parlance--was a major source of percent of the Israelis killed in the intifada.(7) grievance and frustration. Bypass roads, Israeli security sources noted the presence of many of them reserved for Jewish settlers, a top Palestinian security figure, Tawfiq and checkpoints around PA-controlled areas Dirawi, on the Temple Mount on the fateful meant that Palestinians had even less freedom day of September 29, lending further credence of movement than they had had before the to the view that “Arafat lit the fire, even if he Oslo agreements. So while Israelis felt that is now having trouble controlling the intensity occupation was all but over, since nearly all of the flames.”(8) The clearest claim of West Bank and Gaza Palestinians were now responsibility on the Palestinian side came under PA civil authority, the perception on from PA Communications Minister Imad Al- the other side was quite the opposite. Faluji, who asserted that “this intifada was The most explosive issue, however, was planned in advance, ever since President the continued expansion of Jewish settlements Arafat's return from the Camp David in the territories. Though no new settlements negotiations.”(9) Such later claims may were being established, the “natural growth” overstate the case.(10) of existing settlements evoked a furious Our survey of Palestinian sources over this response among Palestinians that reached a period, however, reveals a more complex crescendo in early September. Al-Quds picture, showing the extent to which the two claimed on September 13 that according to Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 5, No. 3 (September 2001) 39 The Intifada: Revealing the Chasm official figures from the Israel Ministry of position was not simply an opening Housing, there had been a 96 percent increase gambit.(19) At about the same time, the PA in construction starts in settlements during the Minister of Finance, Muhammad Zuhdi al- first half of 2000 compared to the first half of Nashashibi, explained that for Palestinians the 1999.(13) Throughout the month headlines in concept of compensation was not as a the Palestinian press focused attention substitute for return but in addition to it, as unremittingly on all new settlement payment for damage sustained by the refugees activities.(14) When the intifada began and their property during their absence.(20) settlements were singled out as targets of In this context, further postponement of choice; the director-general of the PA the declaration of a Palestinian state put the Information Ministry wrote that “the PA leadership on the defensive with its own settlements' fields and factories are a target public, whose high expectations it had for the rage of the Palestinian people.... We nurtured. Statehood had already been must continue to see them as targets for postponed once, at the end of the five-year burning and destruction; this is our legitimate transition period set in Oslo I. Another right...”(15) The anger against the settlers is postponement, beyond the second agreed typified by a columnist in the PA