Has the Third Intifada Started?

A quick review of history, by way of introduction.

In 1987 the Palestinians launched a civil revolt or “Intifada” against Israel, which lasted until 1993. The outbreak appeared to be spontaneous and popular, linked to a traffic accident in which an Israeli driver killed 4 Palestinians, and initially exploded into violence in the Jabalia Refugee Camp in Gaza.

The First Intifada spread throughout Gaza, Judea and Samaria and was characterized tactically by Palestinian youth attacking Israeli troops using rocks and Molotov cocktails (petrol bombs). Televised images of youths with rocks defined the violence for many, but during the first four years of the uprising, more than 3,600 Molotov cocktail attacks, 100 hand grenade attacks and 600 assaults with guns or explosives were reported by the Israel Defense Forces. The violence was directed at Israeli soldiers and civilians alike: 16 Israeli civilians and 11 soldiers were killed by Palestinians in the territories; more than 1,400 Israeli civilians and 1,700 Israeli soldiers were injured.

The first phase of the Intifada had Israel confused for an appropriate response. Israeli soldiers shooting live fire into crowds of young Palestinian rioters made a disastrous impression on the world’s TV screens.

The UN and Governments around the world jockeyed to denounce Israel’s response in the harshest terms.

Yitzhak Rabin’s subsequent command that (instead of live fire) “soldiers should break the bones of Palestinian protestors” was understood literally by troops in the field, who extensively used the tactic of grabbing Palestinian rioters, and then beating them with sticks or butts of weapons, indeed breaking many bones.

Under Rabin’s replacement defence minister Moshe Arens, Intifada leaders and activists were methodically hunted down, killed, or arrested and imprisoned.

With much of the terrorist leadership neutralized by Israel, The Intifada eventually turned inwards, with Palestinians focused on attacking other Palestinians. Over a thousand alleged Palestinian “collaborators” were killed by Palestinian kangaroo courts and death squads. By 2003, the Intifada was abandoned by the Palestinian leadership and their followers, for pragmatic reasons.

The second Intifada started in late 2000, reportedly sparked by the visit of Ariel Sharon to Temple Mount.

The beginning of the Second Intifada coincided with the winding down of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations between Yasser Arafat & Ehud Barak. Yasser Arafat extracted the most concessions any Israeli leader had ever proposed, and then Arafat rejected them (at Taba), and solely pursued hostilities.   

The Second Intifada (actually a guerilla terror war) was characterized by the use of suicide bombs, gun attacks and mortar attacks by Palestinian terrorists upon Israeli civilians and troops.

Initially the Israeli Defence Forces and Security Agencies were overwhelmed by the attacks, as Palestinian terrorists carried out devastating bomb attacks every few days on civilian soft targets (buses, cafes, and other public gathering places) in Israeli cities. Over a thousand Israelis (mainly civilians) were murdered.

In March 2002, Israel changed tactics, launching Operation Defensive Shield and the IDF successfully re-occupied the Palestinian territories (Areas A and B) which had been under Palestinian Autonomy under the Oslo Agreement. 

When Arafat died in Paris in November 2004, the Second Intifada lost much of its impetus.

Similarly to the end of the First Intifada, the end of the Second was characterized by Palestinians turning their arms against Palestinians – mainly Hamas against the PLO.  This culminated in the Hamas coup against the PLO, and the Hamas’ take-over of the Gaza Strip in 2007.

It is now 2010, and I believe we may be at the beginning of the Third Intifada.

If the first Intifada was characterized by the images of rock throwing Palestinian youths, and the Second by suicide bombers, the Third may be characterized by the use of foreign citizens confronting Israeli troops.

This is the brain-child of Turkey’s Erdogan, Iran’s Ahmedinijad and Hamas’s Mashaal.

The objective is to promote Islamic Jihad by weakening or even destroying Israel.

The use of foreign citizens as ‘victims of Israeli aggression’, legitimizes and strengthens the previously pariah regime, Hamas, and deliberately distracts the free-world’s attention from the Iranian nuclear bomb program.

The Obama Government is mealy mouthed and apologist.

Regretfully, as in the opening phases of the First and Second Intifadas, Israeli has apparently again been caught on the wrong foot by our enemies, and the international media has publicized images of (apparently) murderous Israelis and (apparently) heroic Palestinians/Peace Activists.

The Israeli Government might start the counter-attack, by publicly exposing Turkey’s Islamist Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of supporting and promoting Islamic Jihad.

By Erdogan’s alignment of his (once-proudly) secular Republic of Turkey alongside Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas – and by initiating, funding and supporting the cynical flotilla - Erdogan has used his nation’s well-earned respectability in the West, in order to provide a veil of international respectability for Jihad and war on Israel.

Mealy mouthed responses are not appropriate.

It is no longer an issue of whether or not we should lower the Turkish ambassador’s seat by 5 or 10 cm’s.