Is a third Palestinian intifada on the way – or has it already begun?

Violence is escalating but it is not yet clear whether Palestinian society is united in a desire for another prolonged period of unrest A weekend of febrile violence in the West Bank and east Jerusalem has led to growing fears of a third Palestinian intifada. One of the latest victims was a 13-year-old boy killed by Israeli forces during clashes outside a refugee camp in Bethlehem. Abdel Rahman Shadi, who lived in Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem, was struck in the chest by Israeli fire and died after undergoing emergency surgery in Beit Jala hospital on Monday – the second youth to be killed in 24 hours. There is concern among diplomats and analysts in the region that the escalating violence could turn into a new intifada, or uprising. Four Israelis were killed in attacks by Palestinians on Friday and Saturday. The front page of one mass-circulation newspaper on Sunday stated simply: “The Third Intifada.” Elsewhere in the Israeli media, columnists were more circumspect. Some asked whether the latest events fitted the pattern of the two previous intifadas, which began in 1987 and 2000, and if not, how the current escalation could be curbed before becoming one. Not only in the Israeli media has the question been asked. The issue was given added urgency by the Facebook posting of Muhanad Halabi, a 19-year-old Palestinian student who stabbed two Israeli men to death in the Old City on Saturday, who linked his actions directly to a “third intifada”. Speaking to Palestinian Radio on Sunday morning, Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian peace negotiator, said he was reminded of the first days of the second intifada. “These events are reminiscent of September 2000,” he said. “Experience shows us that Israel cannot prevent Palestinian freedom by forceful measures.” The issue has been raised in public by diplomats including the German foreign ministry, before a visit to Berlin by the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu. “What possibly awaits us here is something like a new intifada,” said the foreign ministry spokesman Martin Schäfer. “That can’t be in anyone’s interest – it can’t be something anyone in Israel wants, or which any responsible Palestinian politician wants.” What is certain is that these appear unusual and dangerous times. Jerusalem’s bustling Old City has been under an unprecedented two-day closure to Palestinians not resident in its narrow lanes. On the West Bank’s roads, Jewish settlers and Palestinians have been stoning cars. At the entrance to the northern West Bank city of Nablus on Monday, scores of Israeli soldiers milled at a checkpoint. But none of this answers the question of whether an intifada has begun or may be coming unless there is a rapid calming. Part of the problem is definitional. Past intifadas – the second in particular – saw the co-option of Palestinian security forces into the violence and widespread endorsement by the rival political factions, something yet to occur this time. But, by the same token, the second differed in many ways from the first, meaning past intifadas are not reliable indicators of what the next might look like. What can be said – as the pollster and political scientist Khalil Shikaki argued following the release last month of the most recent survey by his organisation, the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research – is that there appear to be the same levels of dissatisfaction within Palestinian society that were in evidence at the outbreak of the second intifada. The poll found 42% of respondents believe that only an armed struggle would lead to Palestinian statehood, and two-thirds want Mahmoud Abbas to step down as president. It also indicated that the majority of Palestinians no longer believe that a two-state solution is realistic, with 57% saying they support a return to an armed intifada in the absence of peace negotiations, up from 49% three months ago. “If a spark comes along, there is absolutely no doubt that the Palestinian situation today is very, very fertile for a major eruption,” Shikaki said. But it is not yet clear that Palestinian society – which paid a huge price in the last intifada, for little discernible gain – is united in a desire for another prolonged period of unrest. Unlike the last uprising, triggered by a visit by Israel’s then prime minister, Ariel Sharon, to the flashpoint Jerusalem religious site known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and Jews as the Temple Mount, recent violence has remained largely sporadic, characterised not by suicide bombings but by “lone wolf” attacks. he violence has yet to reach the level of that intifada, in which more than 40 Palestinians were killed and almost 2,000 injured in the first days alone. But the way in which a pattern of lethal violence, funerals, clashes and revenge appears to be building quickly into a cycle is familiar. Writing in Ha’aretz, the columnist Anshel Pfeffer said it was this that worried him: not that the violence was unique, but that it had begun to merge into some kind of constant. “When the spikes come fast and furious, and so close to each other that the lulls in between are barely noticeable, perhaps it’s time to acknowledge that the shift has already happened and maybe the third intifada has already been going on for a year or so?” Pfeffer argued, too, that that another reason a third intifada could look different is because of a recent spike in Jewish extremism feeding into the confrontations. “Another characteristic of the next (or current) intifada could certainly be the increasing prevalence of Jewish ‘price tag’ operations, such as the arson attack that murdered three members of the Dawabsheh family in the West Bank village of Duma about two months ago.” If there is another key difference it is that this wave of unrest has not been limited only to the West Bank but has been sharply present in occupied east Jerusalem as well, bubbling under the surface since last summer. In the northern West Bank town of Tulkarem, mourners gathering for the funeral of 18-year old Huthayfa Othman Suleiman – who was killed by Israeli forces during a clash on Sunday evening – were pondering the same issue: whether an intifada was coming and, if it was, what it would mean. As Suleiman was buried in the cemetery of his home village of Bala, speakers referred to their sense of anger that Palestinian security forces had held back popular protest. They also referred to recent tensions at al-Aqsa mosque, part of the Noble Sanctuary, which have been an engine driving the escalating violence. Among the mourners was Hassan Qureishi, deputy speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council. “Up to this point I don’t believe it is an intifada. An angry uprising, yes,” he said. “What it does not have is a political decision to back it and political cover. That is not in our hands but those of Abu Mazen [the popular name for Abbas]. Under pressure, he might have to make that decision.” Qureishi said that would require Abbas to end the Palestinian Authority’s continuing security co-operation with Israel, a point at which he could see an intifada beginning in earnest. Qureishi, like others, also points to a generational split: those Palestinians in their early 20s and younger, who have grown up since the Oslo peace accords, appear more likely to feel they have reaped no benefit from the moribund peace process. At the cemetery, Ibrahim Hamdan, 50, was more pessimistic. The owner of an electrical supply business, he said he suffered a huge financial loss in the second intifada but he would be willing to pay that price again. “There won’t be a change [in the Israeli attitude] so it will get worse and worse. There are already signs that say a third intifada will occur. What do you expect? We have nothing left to lose. It is not pessimism; it is just reality. Something different needs to happen.”