THE LAST FEW days in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict recalls the first violent days of the intifada whose anniversary fell on Friday. This begs the question of how long the uprising will continue.
Statistics suggest that the intifada is more popular than negotiations. The vast majority of Palestinians — 84 percent — feel the uprising is an appropriate response to the current situation. Support for the intifada has increased over the year, from 80 percent to 85 percent. And over half of respondents believe it will achieve its goals.
The first uprising lasted four years and led to the Madrid peace conference and later Oslo. This second uprising is now marking its second anniversary and few would hazard a guess as to where it is heading. But Palestinians of all political persuasions are determined to continue with the intifada until they achieve their national rights. for its fate is fundamentally connected with the reasons for which it began: As a protest at the conditions imposed on the Palestinians. But the danger with total confrontation is that it may be exactly what Ariel Sharon wants.
There is enough evidence that the Israeli leader has steadily upped his offensive in the occupied territories precisely to trigger wilder Palestinian responses and then to use those as a cover to further Israel’s ambitions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Put baldly, these are to roll back the geopolitical realities created by the Oslo peace process, dismantle the Palestinian Authority piece by piece and insert new territorial realities in their place. Sharon has a vivid political map for a permanent resolution with the Palestinians. On it, the Palestinian state will occupy no more than 42 percent of the West Bank — about two percent more than the Palestinians have been given so far.
However, one year after its eruption, it would be wrong to say the uprising has not done serious damage to Sharon’s hopes. It has brought the Palestinian plight to the headlines, galvanized world public opinion and stirred world conscience. It has mobilized Arab governments and their people in a popular support and consolidated a measure of Arab unity as it rallied the Arabs around its goals. The turmoil has caused four Arab states to sever whatever ties they had with Israel.
It has been an expression of the will to resist and it will continue to defy, expose and ultimately defeat Sharon’s policy and his inhuman assault on life and dignity.
Palestinians have been oppressed to a point far beyond anyone’s imagination. Palestinian lives and society has borne enormous losses. Resistance to the occupation, however, has been strong and it is a resistance demonstrative of Palestinian knowledge of their right to a viable state and liberty from the occupation. The resistance should be indicative of the need for just negotiations which do not attempt to deny a people’s basic right guaranteed under international law. Although the regional and international balance of power is sharply skewed in Israel’s favor, the uprising is a message that the Palestinians will not accept a political solution which does not fulfill their basic rights. The Israelis refuse to see the obvious, that they have created the conditions for a long confrontation. They have given the Palestinians nothing and since the Palestinians have nothing, they have nothing to lose by fighting on.
