THE Aqsa’s blessed intifada has completed its first victorious year and it is on the right path to the final victory. In fact, the Al-Aqsa intifada was triggered by the visit of the criminal Ariel Sharon to the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The current intifada will continue because it is the glorious reaction that made the Arabs walk with their heads high despite hundreds of martyrs, disabled and displaced Palestinians. A recent poll revealed that 86 percent of the Palestinians are determined to continue the intifada, regardless of any consequences, as victory is their final goal and objective.
However, the intifada has united the Palestinian factions and gathered the Palestinians of all political beliefs under one flag with one aim — liberation. Moreover, despite the remaining one percent of Palestinians in the occupied lands and despite the daily atrocities of the Israelis and their war machine, the Palestinians are determined more than ever to make their dream come true. For that, however, they are ready to sacrifice and pay any price.
Despite one Israeli death to 10 Palestinians killed, and despite the Palestinians’ lack of power in comparison to the Israelis, the intifada has managed to cause investments in Israel to fall by 50 percent. Capital also flew out of Israel, by some estimates in the billions of dollars. Ironically, the security of the settlers that was promised by Sharon has not happened so the settlements of imported Jews are almost empty and many Jews had to repatriate to their point of origins. Moreover, the intifada brought the Palestinian issue back to the international stage, sympathizers increased and resistance is more organized than ever.
Ironically, the struggle for freedom and dependence is called terrorism by the butcher Sharon. The killing of Palestinians, the destruction of their homes, the murder of their leaders, the policy of starvation and the random sieges are not, in the opinion of Israel and Zionism, terrorism.
More ironically, the conditions laid down by Sharon have prevented many possible meetings with Palestinian leaders for negotiating peace or pushing the peace process forward. In fact, Sharon has requested Yasser Arafat to arrest 180 Palestinian activists as a condition for meeting with Peres.
Unfortunately, the Palestinian National Authority has responded in a number of occasions to such requests and never submitted similar requests to the Israelis to arrest those responsible for massacres and killings. Nonetheless, Israel will not respond to such requests because Sharon himself would be at the top of the list. — [email protected]