The word Intifada has become the beacon of resistance against oppression by the Palestinian people against their Israeli oppressors. Intifada in itself has popularly come to be seen as a rebellion or resistance. It first manifested itself in Palestinian culture when Palestinian civilians rose in an uprising against Israel, a resistance that lasted for six years from December 1987 to 1993. This was the fist time images of young Palestinians hurling rocks against Israeli tanks flashed itself around the world. This movement was met by a heavily armed Israeli force and thousands of Palestinians lost their lives, were injured, or imprisoned indefinitely.
The second Intifada began some seven years later and lasted fasted for about five years. It was also a resistance that was rebuffed by intensified Israeli bombings and artillery which led to some international relief organizations objecting to the Israeli ploy of indiscriminately targeting civilian areas. Unfortunately, not much came of any follow up investigations into the Israeli tactics that bordered as war crimes. As has become their second hand nature, they quickly dismissed such charges as ‘anti Semitic’.
Early this year, a New York court charged that the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the Palestinian National Authority were guilty after finding them complicit in six raids around Jerusalem which killed 33 people during the second Intifada. The court subsequently awarded the plaintiffs damages of over $218 million for Palestinian rebellion.
New York, an American city, has been traditionally a bastion of wealthy Zionist individuals and organisations with a long arm that seduces politicians, judges, media figures and others and steers them towards promoting the interests of Israel. So it was not completely surprising that a court would come up with such a blatant judgment.
As an analogy, imagine a US court finding the late Nelson Mandela and his African National Congress party guilty of resistance and long and sometimes violent struggle that led to the deaths of white South Africans during Mandela’s years of anti-apartheid struggle. The oppressed black majority had sought to recover its rights from the dominant white minority, fighting against the discriminatory laws that prevailed at the time. White South Africans had died during the long rebellion, but so did many black Africans and in much larger numbers, fighting for their right to exist on their own lands.
While much of the western media at the time maligned the rebellion as acts of terrorism, as was often done to Mandela’s African National Congress, to the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world, the Second Intifada was another desperate uprising against Israeli oppression. As reported, ‘Its violence and longevity, even in the face of overwhelming odds, signaled the extent of the sheer despair felt by the Palestinian people. They had nothing else to fight with save smuggled explosives, missiles and stones wrenched from the streets.’
During the second uprising, some 1,000 Israelis were killed, a death toll which shocked the Jewish state to the extent that it led to a resumption of the peace process. A summit was arranged in 2005 at Sharm El-Sheikh and after lengthy debate, Israel’s premier Ariel Sharon and the Palestinian president agreed to stop all violence and return to the negotiating table. Although many analysts saw the Israeli agreement as subtle maneuvers to reach a comprehensive peace deal, the Intifada was perceived a s a victory for the Palestinians as it had forced the Israeli leadership into the negotiating arena. It was a victory that exacted a large price in Palestinian blood. More than 3000 lives were lost during the long struggle.
It was during these struggles that the vicious nature of the Israeli reprisals became more apparent with bombings and assassinations. They indiscriminately bulldozed Palestinian homes and cold bloodily gunned down young children holding weapons no more deadly than a rock. During their savagery, they employed the old Nazi tactic of revenge attacks designed to produce a multiple of their own dead. The three to one ratio of Palestinian to Israeli victims during the second Intifada is irrefutable evidence of this diabolic strategy.
In subsequent raids, the Israelis vastly improved the ratio of dead. In the 2008 raid on Gaza, just 13 Israelis died against a body count of almost 1,500 Palestinians. This was followed by another incursion by the Israelis in 2014 which led to the death of more than 2500 Palestinians, a third of whom were children not yet in their teens. More than 11.000 Palestinians were injured by waves of Israeli aircraft targeting schools and medical centers.
The world sat by its television screens motionless and watched the day-to-day unfolding of the slaughter. The voices of international relief organizations were much louder this time in their objections against the Israeli brutality, and were not easily squelched by cries of ‘anti-Semitism’. The Israelis meanwhile termed their offensive a success as they lost only 66 soldiers and five civilians.
Now this New York court makes a mockery of justice by granting the Israelis judgments in their favors? Israel’s blasting apart of women and children and shooting dead young stone-throwing demonstrators are not acts of terrorism according to this skewed court. Instead the court was keen to dismiss the Israeli brutality as acts of self-defense and grant a judgment in their favor. What hypocrisy!
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