tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/intifada-11418/articlesintifada – The Conversation2024-03-11T19:32:30Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2246902024-03-11T19:32:30Z2024-03-11T19:32:30ZUS attempt to ‘revitalize’ Palestinian Authority risks making the PA less legitimate, more unpopular<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580863/original/file-20240311-24-7bkwnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C23%2C5235%2C3461&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas meet on Nov. 30, 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/IsraelPalestinians/f6460a47ee174da48d6a3dabc0527453/photo?Query=Palestinian%20authority&mediaType=photo&sortBy=creationdatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1602&currentItemNo=15">Saul Loeb/Pool via AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Gaza is still very much in the midst of war, yet discussion is turning to “<a href="https://www.axios.com/2024/01/29/israel-gaza-saudi-egypt-jordan-palestine-meeting">the day after</a>” the conflict – and who will govern the war-ravaged territory.</p>
<p>The Biden administration has said that a <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/7/us-says-doesnt-support-israeli-occupation-of-gaza-after-war">full Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip</a> would be unacceptable. Instead, White House officials have discussed “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/03/05/palestinian-authority-security-forces-gaza/">revitalizing</a>” the Palestinian Authority, or PA, the governing apparatus of parts of the West Bank, to take over in Gaza. </p>
<p>Seemingly as an <a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinian-authority-government-explainer-aefe041e045f2c60918b42f42185f41e">initial step to enable this</a>, the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/palestinians-abbas-israel-hamas-war-resignation-1c13eb3c2ded20cc14397e71b5b1dea5">PA cabinet resigned</a> on Feb. 26, 2024. This begins the process of overhauling the authority and setting up a “<a href="https://www.mei.edu/blog/monday-briefing-biden-administration-highlights-humanitarian-crisis-palestinians-gaza">technocratic government</a>” tasked with basic, short-term governance objectives, presumably in Gaza as well as the West Bank. </p>
<p>But analysts and researchers have questioned what role the PA could have, given that the body has <a href="https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/the-problem-of-legitimacy-for-the-palestinian-authority/">struggled with a legitimacy crisis</a> for well over a decade. And Israel has <a href="https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-rebuffs-calls-for-palestinian-authority-to-rule-gaza-6e5509fe">refused to countenance any PA involvement</a> in post-conflict Gaza. </p>
<p>Moreover, PA officials are wary of entering Gaza “<a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/palestinian-authority-not-going-to-gaza-on-an-israeli-military-tank-pm-says">on the back of an Israeli tank</a>,” in the words of resigning Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://mei.edu/profile/dana-el-kurd">scholar of Palestinian politics</a>, I believe any possible solution to the war in Gaza involving the PA will face significant challenges over its legitimacy, public support and ability to govern. </p>
<p>But why do Palestinians have such a negative assessment of the PA, and is that justified? To answer that, it is important to understand the shift within the Palestinian national movement since the creation of the PA in 1994 and the international community’s role in those transformations.</p>
<h2>What is the Palestinian Authority?</h2>
<p>The PA was created as a result of the Oslo Accords. The accords, a framework for negotiated peace that took place in the early 1990s, represented the first time in which the Palestine Liberation Organization, or PLO, and the state of Israel formally accepted <a href="https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/pcw/97181.htm#:%7E:text=Along%20with%20the%20DOP%2C%20the,representative%20of%20the%20Palestinian%20people.">mutual recognition</a>. </p>
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<img alt="Three men two in suits one wearing a traditional Palestinian headscarf stand. Two shake hands." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580806/original/file-20240309-26-1zkmdr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580806/original/file-20240309-26-1zkmdr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580806/original/file-20240309-26-1zkmdr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580806/original/file-20240309-26-1zkmdr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580806/original/file-20240309-26-1zkmdr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580806/original/file-20240309-26-1zkmdr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580806/original/file-20240309-26-1zkmdr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Oslo Accords were negotiated by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/IsraelPalestiniansControllingGazaExplainer/533873b1296c4dbb8c2d3d583014a7c6/photo?Query=oslo%20accords%20arafat&mediaType=photo&sortBy=creationdatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=6&currentItemNo=4">AP Photo/Ron Edmonds</a></span>
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<p>The accords were intended to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and achieve some sort of <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/what-is-two-state-solution-israel-palestinian-conflict-2024-01-25/">two-state solution</a>.</p>
<p>In anticipation of a future Palestinian state, the PA was established as a governing body. Elections were held, and the dominant party within the PLO, Fatah, also came to dominate the PA.</p>
<p>The goal was that by 1999, the Palestinians would have a state in the West Bank and Gaza. Negotiations would continue as the PA built out the institutions of the state, under the optimistic assumption that both could be arrived at concurrently. </p>
<p>But this shift from seeking liberation to state-building signaled compromises on the <a href="https://www.unrwa.org/content/resolution-194">right of Palestinian refugees to return</a> to the land they were expelled from during the creation of Israel.</p>
<p>Despite this, <a href="https://pij.org/articles/677/palestinian-public-opinion-polls-on-the-peace-process">many Palestinians were</a> supportive of having some pathway forward in which they might achieve self-determination and sovereignty. </p>
<p>The state-building project reoriented a great deal of energy and resources to the institutions of the Palestinian Authority and attempts by Palestinian leadership to achieve a viable Palestinian state.</p>
<h2>The second intifada’s aftermath</h2>
<p>When a state was not achieved by 1999, the second intifada, or uprising, <a href="https://www.palquest.org/en/node/31123">broke out</a>.</p>
<p>The Palestinian Authority struggled to maintain order and stability during the period, crucially because the Israeli military raided urban centers and attacked PA infrastructure. Analysts refer to the intifada as a moment of “<a href="https://www.ichr.ps/cached_uploads/download/ichr-files/files/000000436.pdf">infilaat amni</a>,” or a collapse of order. It saw <a href="https://www.btselem.org/press_releases/20100927">massive disruption</a> to Palestinians and Israelis and many lives lost.</p>
<p>For the remnants of the PA and its American benefactors, the lesson learned from the second intifada was that such a collapse could never be allowed to happen again.</p>
<p>In the aftermath, the focus of the U.S. and the international community turned to restructuring the PA, expanding and “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/11/palestinian-authority-secuirty-forces-west-bank-faq/">professionalizing</a>” its security forces and ensuring that the PA would be a stalwart partner to Israel in maintaining security in the occupied territories.</p>
<p>But to an increasing number of Palestinians, this focus on security coordination and restructuring did not serve the needs of a people living under occupation. In fact, in the name of security, Palestinians saw themselves more and more repressed not just by the occupation forces but by <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2013/09/palestinian-authority-must-end-use-excessive-force-policing-protests-2013-0/">their own government</a>. </p>
<p>By the mid-2000s, after the intifada tapered off, it was clear the <a href="https://theconversation.com/30-years-after-arafat-rabin-handshake-clear-flaws-in-oslo-accords-doomed-peace-talks-to-failure-211362">peace process was going nowhere</a>; the Israeli government had become increasingly right wing, and Palestinian leadership seemed both less willing and less capable to represent its people’s interests.</p>
<p>In what amounted to a <a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/the-palestinian-elections-sweeping-victory-uncertain-mandate/">referendum on the status quo</a>, <a href="https://www.palquest.org/en/node/31125">Hamas beat Fatah and won</a> in the 2006 parliamentary elections for the territories. But the results immediately led to instability and conflict between the two main Palestinian political factions: Fatah, which until then dominated the PA, and Hamas.</p>
<p>The international community also did not support the election results and empowered <a href="https://www.npr.org/2007/01/19/6923812/abbas-gets-money-support-and-distrust">Fatah to remain in power</a>.</p>
<p>This led to a split in governance between the West Bank and Gaza, with the PA losing control of Gaza entirely in the aftermath of infighting between the two parties. </p>
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<p>In response, the international community – led by the U.S. – worked to bolster the PA once again.</p>
<p>The PA has not held elections since, with the president of the PA, Mahmoud Abbas, remaining in office well past his term limit.</p>
<p>Over the years, the PA has continued to play a security coordination role in the West Bank but is perceived <a href="https://www.pcpsr.org/sites/default/files/Poll%2089%20English%20Full%20Text%20September%202023.pdf">as a burden</a> by Palestinians and as having achieved little in improving their living conditions. </p>
<p>Rather, repression and fragmentation have only worsened within Palestinian society, even as the challenges imposed by the occupation have only amplified with a now 17-year-long <a href="https://www.un.org/unispal/document/gaza-strip-the-humanitarian-impact-of-15-years-of-the-blockade-june-2022-ocha-factsheet/">blockade on Gaza</a> and continued <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/09/israeli-settlements-expand-by-record-amount-un-rights-chief-says.html">settlement building in the West Bank</a>. </p>
<p>Many Palestinian today see the PA as little more than a “<a href="https://www.972mag.com/palestinian-authority-nablus-occupation-subcontractor/">subcontractor of occupation</a> in the West Bank.</p>
<h2>Public opinion today</h2>
<p>It is, then, perhaps unsurprising that the Palestinian Authority has faced an ongoing legitimacy crisis. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.pcpsr.org/sites/default/files/Poll%2089%20English%20Full%20Text%20September%202023.pdf">September 2023 poll</a> by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, 76% of Palestinians polled within both territories expressed dissatisfaction with the PA’s governance. </p>
<p>This lack of support for the PA does not necessarily signal support for Hamas either; in questions about possible parliamentary elections, Hamas garnered only 34% of the potential vote – second to Fatah.</p>
<p>These low approval trends are echoed in other polling. The <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/what-palestinians-really-think-hamas">Arab Barometer</a>, for example, conducted polling merely days before Oct. 7 and found only 27% of respondents in Gaza selected Hamas as their preferred party. Comparatively, only 30% favored Fatah. Although subsequent <a href="https://www.pcpsr.org/sites/default/files/Poll%2090%20English%20press%20release%2013%20Dec%202023%20Final%20New.pdf">polling in December</a> shows a bump for Hamas, this is much more pronounced in the West Bank than in Gaza. And the majority of Palestinians still are unsupportive.</p>
<p>It is clear that most Palestinians are fed up with <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/94d888ce-9efc-4e65-b93c-bea952e83824">their political options</a>. Furthermore, the PA has long abandoned attempting to reflect Palestinian public opinion – in no small part because of the international community and the role it wants the PA to play.</p>
<p>Revitalizing the PA, as the U.S. appears intent on doing, looks to be a Herculean task, given how low the body is held in the eyes of many Palestinians. Moreover, any outside attempt to empower unaccountable leadership – and ignore Palestinian public demands and input – risks repeating history. After all, this was precisely how the PA lost its legitimacy to begin with.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224690/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dana El Kurd is affiliated with the Middle East Institute and the Arab Center Washington.</span></em></p>Israel has made it clear that Hamas should have no role in Gaza after the war. But seeking an alternative in the Palestinian Authority is fraught with problems.Dana El Kurd, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of RichmondLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/968642018-05-18T13:00:10Z2018-05-18T13:00:10ZPalestinian women: a history of female resistance in Gaza and the West Bank<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219576/original/file-20180518-42233-v7vdix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C68%2C3431%2C2258&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Woman on the march. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/bilin-palestine-december-31-2010-palestinian-1062820916?src=0u4wKyY_kqLINqEMheKEOw-1-38">Dominika Zarzycka/Shutterstock.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Outside observers tend to imagine the face of Gaza as resolutely male: the bearded Hamas “militant”, or the young man hurling stones across the border fence. But Palestinian women, both in Gaza and the West Bank, have a significant presence as activists, protesting against an unjust occupation, but also as the backbone of a fragmented and demoralised society.</p>
<p>Women have been active in the Palestinian struggle since its early days. In the 1920s, they protested side by side with men against British control of their country. They formed charitable organisations and <a href="http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=83084">expressed themselves politically</a>.</p>
<p>After the state of Israel was created in 1948, the majority of Palestinians were forced to flee into exile, and here too women played a key role as protectors of their families, and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2538283">repositories of the “national story”</a>. It was vital that Palestinians, wherever they were in the world, did not forget what had happened and continued to insist on their right of return to their homeland. Women passed their memories of Palestine down to subsequent generations. </p>
<h2>Participating in politics</h2>
<p>In the 1960s, with the emergence of a Palestinian liberation movement, dedicated to regaining the lost homeland, some women turned to more militant activities. Leila Khalid, for example, hijacked several airliners on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and became <a href="https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745329512/leila-khaled/">a familiar face</a> in the Western media. </p>
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<span class="caption">Mural of Leila Khaled on a wall in Bethlehem.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Leila_Khaled_-_Icon_of_the_Palestinian_Revolution.jpg">Rehgina/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>Gradually, women also started to engage in formal politics, through membership of the main Palestinian political factions. Although Palestinians tend to be socially conservative and are anxious to shield women and girls from what might be considered “dishonourable” or nontraditional behaviour, many younger women found a new kind of freedom through education and political mobilisation.</p>
<p>A largely non-violent intifada (or “uprising”) began in 1987. Women, men and children combined efforts to resist the 20-year occupation of their land. They did so <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/030639689303400303">in innovative ways</a>, for example by establishing alternative educational facilities for children after all the schools were closed, creating an alternative economy based on home produce, as well as <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Intifada.html?id=KYPVNdzXUJkC&redir_esc=y">engaging in large-scale protests</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/for-gazas-peaceful-protesters-power-is-all-about-perception-96679">For Gaza's peaceful protesters, power is all about perception</a>
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<p>There were also attempts at dialogue between Palestinian and Israeli women. For example, in July 2006, members of the International Women’s Commission for a Just and Sustainable Palestinian-Israeli Peace (IWC) convened an emergency meeting in Athens. They urged the international community to intervene. In <a href="https://unispal.un.org/DPA/DPR/unispal.nsf/0/554262E9B99D8D80852572EB0048CF2F">their words</a>: </p>
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<p>Civilians, mainly women and children, are paying the price daily for this vicious cycle of retaliation and counter-retaliation. This is a time of great danger … If no action is taken today, tomorrow will be too late. </p>
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<p>Although no resolution came out of this or similar calls, initiatives involving women from the two sides were judged to have been among the most promising.</p>
<h2>Telling the world</h2>
<p>Such activities ended in 2000, with the start of the second intifada. The resistance was no longer a shared endeavour involving all sectors of society – it was an armed confrontation. Women <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1395628?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">suffered greatly</a> from rising levels of violence and decreasing security for civilians. </p>
<p>No one felt safe. Girls travelling from their homes to university were likely to experience harassment at Israeli army checkpoints and, as a result, many parents started to keep their daughters at home, and even to marry them off at the earliest possible opportunity; the age of marriage began to fall. </p>
<p>As the economic situation deteriorated, women had fewer opportunities for employment. Incidences of mental illness rose and women exhibited deep anxiety about the safety of their children.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/stop-telling-palestinians-to-be-resilient-the-rest-of-the-world-has-failed-them-96587">Stop telling Palestinians to be 'resilient' – the rest of the world has failed them</a>
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<p>Many Palestinians feel that they have no control over their own lives. Under a harsh Israeli regime, it has been very difficult to exercise agency and Palestinian political parties have seemed weak and ineffectual. The Islamist party Hamas seemed to offer a more assertive form of opposition, and many women were attracted by its grassroots organising and evident ability to confront the Israeli occupation. Some <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14690764.2010.546115">became militants</a>.</p>
<p>While it may be tempting to argue that the participation of women in violence is a sign of a society that has lost its way, the reality is more complex. Many Palestinian women point out that their community is powerless; it has neither the political leadership nor the weapons to fight a conventional war. Instead, it relies on all its members to participate and “tell the world” what is happening to them. </p>
<p>By protesting at the Gaza-Israel border to mark the anniversary of al-nakbah (“the catastrophe”), Palestinians are reminding the world that they were dispossessed 70 years ago and this injustice has still not been remedied. Palestinian women, as much as men, have a vital stake in finding a solution to the conflict, that will provide safety and certainty for the next generation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96864/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maria Holt receives funding from Arts and Humanities Research Council and the United States Institute of Peace. </span></em></p>Palestinian women are the backbone of a fragmented and demoralised society.Maria Holt, Reader in Politics, University of WestminsterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/497942015-11-04T16:46:35Z2015-11-04T16:46:35ZWhat is the legacy of Yitzhak Rabin?<p>On November 4 1995, Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister of Israel, was murdered by Yigal Amir, an extremist religious Jew opposed to his peace deals with the Palestinians. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1993-2000/oslo">Oslo process</a>, which culminated with the awkward handshake between Rabin and Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn in September 1993, established limited self-rule for Palestinians and entailed an Israeli redeployment from the West Bank, territory that Amir believed to be the biblical birthright of the Jewish people. </p>
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<p>It’s common to contend that Rabin’s murder also killed the peace process. But given Rabin’s willingness to change course depending on the circumstances, there is no way to know whether he would have continued with the concessions agreed in the Oslo accords. </p>
<p>So, 20 years on, how to assess Rabin’s legacy? </p>
<h2>The 1990s – a relatively secure decade</h2>
<p>Rabin knew that by the 1990s, Israel was more secure than it had ever been since its establishment in 1948. </p>
<p>By the time he became prime minister (for the second time) in 1992, Israel had a peace treaty with Egypt and a close alliance with the United States. It was the strongest military power in the region, with the most advanced weapons systems and a powerful domestic arms industry, while its most vociferous enemies – Iraq and the Palestine Liberation Organization – had either been defeated (Iraq in the First Gulf War) or were at the nadir of their influence and appeal (the PLO at the end of the First Intifada). It was also in the early 1990s that the country established diplomatic relations with key states in the world, including Russia, China and India. Israel could, Rabin felt, afford a peace process with the Palestinians. </p>
<p>That realism also led Rabin to the belief that a Palestinian state was inevitable as a result of Oslo, as he told his close aide Eitan Haber (who in turn told me during an interview). </p>
<p>Rabin <a href="http://ejt.sagepub.com/content/16/4/687.abstract">didn’t like or trust</a> Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, and it’s not clear whether he had a sense of what such a state would look like. But he knew ruling over another people was no longer viable. And he was <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Israels-National-Security-Woodrow-Wilson/dp/0801862175">already thinking</a> about Iran as the primary strategic threat to the country. </p>
<p>At the same time, however, Rabin was capable of using brute force when he deemed it necessary. </p>
<h2>A ‘risk’ for peace?</h2>
<p>Rabin’s “break their bones” <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=hHQe4qn-EmUC&pg=PA259&lpg=PA259&dq=Rabin+break+their+bones+Yaari+intifada&source=bl&ots=DYWWXxPDDe&sig=ZuuOCDui6ZacxF-1QNcJIsWNcks&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDgQ6AEwBGoVChMIgdKc4tP0yAIVDGs-Ch0WAgmC#v=onepage&q=Rabin%20break%20their%20bones%20Yaari%20intifada&f=false">instructions</a> regarding Palestinian protesters and rioters in the First Intifada helped legitimize a harsh Israeli response to civilian rallies against the occupation. </p>
<p>He used deportation and border closures as he thought necessary. In other words, he did not hesitate to use force and coercion. But he was, at the same time, willing to innovate for the sake of Israeli security, and to adopt nonmilitary means as well. </p>
<p>It’s become a cliché to talk of “risks for peace,” and Rabin used similar language in defending Oslo. </p>
<p>But Rabin didn’t see things as gambles. As a military man, he saw issues as having best solutions, which might still fail. But it was important to try. </p>
<p>Almost all of Israel’s leaders have dismissed this part of his legacy – his willingness to take risks.<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/03/19/the-weakening-of-the-israeli-left/"> Even those on the left and in the center</a> worry that the Israeli public doesn’t want to hear about an end to the occupation while Palestinian terrorism continues. Unlike Rabin, they have been unwilling to confront public opinion on the matter.</p>
<h2>A golden era for Jewish-Arab relations in Israel</h2>
<p>There is another important issue of Yitzhak Rabin’s time in office that has been eclipsed in the past 20 years. </p>
<p>Rabin’s second tenure as prime minister is known as the “golden era” of Jewish-Arab relations in Israel. Rabin paid more attention to Arab citizens of Israel, about 20% of the population, <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/israel/2015-10-14/arab-israelis-step-out">than any other Jewish Israeli leader had before or has since</a>.</p>
<p>In addition to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Soldier-Peace-Life-Yitzhak-Rabin/dp/0060186844">directing more resources</a> to the community, he responded to their concerns by dropping the traditional paternalistic attitude the Zionist parties had long held regarding the Arab minority.</p>
<p>Perhaps more importantly, for the first and only time, Arab political parties played an indirect role in policymaking. </p>
<p>In 1993, as a result of the Oslo accords, Rabin lost his majority in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. Two Arab parties propped him up from outside his own coalition, voting with the government on no-confidence measures brought by the opposition.</p>
<p>Rabin’s views on Israel’s Arab minority reflected his analysis of Israeli-Palestinian relations more broadly – namely, that coercion was simply untenable as a solution to Israel’s relations with Palestinians inside and outside of Israel.</p>
<p>Since 1995, Arab citizens have either disengaged from the political process or <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-israels-minorities-bring-about-a-change-in-government-38764">voted for Arab parties in increasing numbers</a>, at the expense of Rabin’s party, Labor. The percentage of Arab citizens’ votes for the top three Arab parties, for example, has climbed from 68.7% in 1999 to 80% in 2015.</p>
<p>Wars between Israel and Hamas have cast Palestinian citizens of Israel as potential fifth columns, while Arab participation in the political process has been delegitimized by some Jewish leaders. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, running for reelection in 2015, <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-apologizes-to-arabs-for-voter-turnout-remark/">warned</a> his supporters that Arabs were coming out to vote “in droves” and thus endangering his party’s rule, and that of the right wing more generally. (Netanyahu later apologized for the remark, though many Arab leaders remained skeptical and unsatisfied.)</p>
<p>At the same time, a new generation of Arab leaders has adopted a more confrontational approach, most notable in their rhetoric. In addition to calls for the Arab community to be recognized as a national minority that would give the equal status to the Jewish community, some Arab politicians have also cast Jewish Israelis as among the evildoers of the world. Knesset member Haneen Zoabi, for example, has <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Zoabi-says-IDF-worse-than-ISIS-379241">compared</a> the Israeli military to the Islamic State. Not surprisingly, this caused the Zionist parties to view the Arab parties with suspicion and hostility. </p>
<p>It’s difficult, then, to speak clearly about Rabin’s legacy because of changed domestic and regional conditions, only some of which are related to the Oslo process that Rabin promoted. </p>
<p>But I would argue that he should be remembered for trying – for understanding that Israel needed to change, to focus on achieving domestic harmony and an accepted place in the Middle East. </p>
<p>The right in Israel, by contrast, views <a href="http://www.momentmag.com/qa-explaining-israels-wave-of-violence/">the recent wave of violence</a> as simply the latest outburst of anti-Jewish activity and threat that stretches back to the Roman age. </p>
<p>Rabin also proposed serious ideas for how to scale down the occupation, even in the face of domestic opposition. The left in Israel forgets this, and tends to react to public opinion rather than try to shape it with bold policies.</p>
<p>Rabin’s was a gritty peace, requiring constant effort to fend off challenges. It was not the “clean” version many expect today – that the occupation will be easy to end, that Palestinian hostility will cease once Israel withdraws from the West Bank, that Israel’s security concerns are exaggerated. That he pushed forward in the face of these challenges makes Rabin a peacemaker in the true sense of the word.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49794/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brent E Sasley receives funding from UT Arlington.</span></em></p>Twenty years ago, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin – the man who ushered in the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians – was assassinated. Today’s Israel is a very different place.Brent E Sasley, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Texas at ArlingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/494722015-11-02T10:27:31Z2015-11-02T10:27:31ZWith Israeli-Palestinian tension running high, a third intifada is just a spark away<p>Speaking at a rally to mark the <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.683420">20th anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination</a>, former US president, Bill Clinton, told the crowd that Rabin “gave his life so that you could live in peace. What does it all amount to? Now that is up to you.”</p>
<p>It was, sadly, all too timely a message. Despite the relative decline in reciprocal violence in Israel and the West Bank in the past few weeks, the ground is still burning – and neither Israeli nor Palestinian leaders are doing much to quench the flames. </p>
<p>Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has announced a <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-benjamin-netanyahu-orders-review-of-the-status-of-palestinian-neighbourhoods-in-east-a6709906.html">review of the residency rights</a> of tens of thousands of Palestinians living in East Jerusalem, while Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/28/mahmoud-abbas-appeals-un-international-protection-for-palestinians">called for the creation of an international force to protect the rights of his people</a>. These are just the latest moves in a series of populist and ill-conceived steps the two leaders have taken since the most recent outbreak of violence.</p>
<p>These recent hostilities have confirmed once again that this is not only the most intractable conflict of our time, but also the most confusing. </p>
<p>There is almost no aspect of this conflict that hasn’t been fiercely contested. Whether it’s the origins of the first <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/arab-israeli-war">Arab-Israeli war in 1948</a> and the birth of the Palestinian refugee problem, the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/jul/20/comment">failure of the 2000 Camp David Summit</a> and the outbreak of the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7381378.stm">Second Intifada</a> weeks later, or the <a href="https://theconversation.com/rebuilding-gaza-needs-freedom-and-normality-not-just-aid-33604">2014 Gaza war</a> between Israel and Hamas, Israelis and Palestinians (and their respective supporters) have shown an incredible capacity to unburden themselves of introspection and resist the temptation to find common ground. </p>
<p>This time, the self-destructive tendencies of both sides have been laid bare with the help of social media, a domain where fact and fiction are hard to separate – particularly when it comes to Israeli-Palestinian relations. </p>
<p>The immediate bombardment of information, misinformation and disinformation by the Israeli and Palestinian PR machines on social media after each stabbing, shooting and disturbance has made it impossible for the casual observer to make sense of why the violence is boiling over once again.</p>
<h2>Slanging match</h2>
<p>Both Israelis and Palestinians maintain that the key issue underpinning this episode is the <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/10/israel-temple-mount-status-quo-waqf-guards-visits-palestine.html">threat to the long-held status quo</a> over praying rights in the holiest and most controversial religious site in Jerusalem, known as Temple Mount to Jews and al-Haram al-Sharif to Muslims. The site was administered solely by the Jordanian Waqf until 2000, but after the Second Intifada began, Israel <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-rejects-jordanian-offer-to-manage-temple-mount/">took control</a> of entry to the complex. </p>
<p>Palestinian leaders claim that ever since, Israel has allowed an increasing number of Jewish prayers on the site while limiting Muslim access to it. For its part, the Israeli government accused Palestinian extremists of disturbing the status quo by smuggling weapons to the site and inciting violence against Jewish prayers.</p>
<p>Reciprocal incitement and hatred between the Israeli and Palestinian camps has been a permanent fixture on social media for a few years now. Over the past few weeks there have been numerous new Facebook pages and twitter feeds by Israelis and Palestinians inciting violence against each other, but this time even their respective leaders have done their best to up the ante by spreading misinformation and lies. </p>
<p>On October 12, two Arab teenagers aged 13 and 15 were <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/palestinian-teens-stab-13-year-old-israeli-violence-continues-rage-382576">shot by Israeli police</a> after they stabbed a 13-year-old Jewish boy. In response, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, gave a live broadcast on Palestinian TV in which he described the shooting as an “<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/11934330/Israel-fury-over-Abbas-execution-of-Palestinian-teenager-claim.html">execution</a>”, even though the two Palestinian youths were not killed, and were taken to an Israeli hospital for treatment.</p>
<p>Ironically, while the office of the Israeli prime minister was quick to call Abbas’s comments “<a href="http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/Issues/Pages/Palestinian-incitement-and-terrorism-Oct-2015.aspx">incitement and lies</a>”, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu showed his own aversion to the truth only a week later. </p>
<p>Addressing the 37th Zionist Congress in Jerusalem on October 20, Netanyahu went back as far as the 1920s to dig up Palestinian “lies” about the Jewish threat to Jerusalem’s Holy Sites. His <a href="https://theconversation.com/netanyahus-narrative-how-the-israeli-pm-is-rewriting-history-to-suit-himself-49759">fictitious account</a> of what really happened when the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, met Adolf Hitler in Berlin in November 1941 (according to Netanyahu, until that meeting Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews, only to expel them, but Husseini urged him to burn the Jews) has since been ridiculed on social media and been condemned as a fairy tale by historians. </p>
<h2>Stop the incitement</h2>
<p>The timing of this latest spike is also hard to explain. After all, talk of a third intifada has been simmering away since the <a href="https://theconversation.com/jerusalem-attacks-are-no-isolated-incident-the-third-intifada-is-here-34395">last violent episode in November 2014</a>. So rather than a single incident or issue which underpins the current state of affairs, it’s worth reflecting on why the environment as a whole is changing. </p>
<p>In one sense, these events are filling a diplomatic vacuum created by the failure of the nine month-long mediation effort of US Secretary of State John Kerry in 2013-2014. Sadly, both sides have filled it with incitement and dangerous rhetoric.</p>
<p>The attention of the international community has also been pivoting towards more pressing agendas in the past two years – the negotiations with Iran, the rise of Islamic State, the civil war in Syria, and the ensuing refugee crisis in Europe. By comparison, the Israeli-Palestinian issue is a basket case which has already consumed two decades of intense diplomatic, political and economic investment but remains stubbornly deadlocked. And unlike these more recent items on the international agenda, it does not pose an immediate threat to international security. </p>
<p>The other issues have again demonstrated that a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a panacea to the world’s problems. It would not have prevented the rise of IS or the Syrian civil war, or headed off Iran’s nuclear ambitions. </p>
<p>The sad truth, however, is that for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to once again receive serious diplomatic attention from the international community, a third intifada does need to break out. Right now, it’s just about latent, but all it needs to manifest is one spark. </p>
<p>In 2000, that spark was Ariel Sharon’s visit to Temple Mount. If the international community wishes to avoid a deadly repeat of the awful events that ensued, all efforts should now be directed at curbing incitement on both sides.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49472/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Asaf Siniver does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As Israel marked the 20th anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination, fears of another surge in violence were as high as ever.Asaf Siniver, Associate Professor (Reader) in International Security, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/489392015-10-12T11:17:26Z2015-10-12T11:17:26ZJerusalem: an intifada by any other name is just as dangerous<p>The next visit of the Middle East Quartet <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/with-israel-visit-quartet-aims-to-kick-start-peace-talks/">to Jerusalem and Ramallah</a> will take place against a backdrop of serious unrest. The violence re-emerged last month and clashes have become a daily occurrence in Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank, resulting in the deaths of <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/10/palestinian-teen-killed-clashes-rage-west-bank-151011143250761.html">24 Palestinians and four Israelis</a>. </p>
<p>This has been fuelled by an array of issues, among them <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/09/israeli-police-palestinians-clash-al-aqsa-compound-150927132041035.html">restrictions on movement</a> around the Old City and al-Aqsa mosque compound; tensions at the <a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/israeli-forces-clash-palestinians-west-bank-checkpoint-1522774">checkpoints</a>; the sustained <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/29/netanyahu-approves-west-bank-settlement-construction-demolition">construction of illegal settlements</a>; <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/31/israel-talk-is-cheap-price-tag-violence">attacks by settlers</a> on Palestinians and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/01/two-israelis-killed-in-car-in-west-bank-after-shots-fired-from-passing-vehicle">vice versa</a>; <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/07/israel-demolish-arab-buildings-west-bank-un-palestinian">home demolitions</a> and peace talks that have yet to effectively promote a higher, equal price on life on the ground.</p>
<p>In response to the unrest, the mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, advised gun-owning civilians to carry their weapons at all times “<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/jerusalem-mayor-nir-barkat-tells-people-to-carry-firearms-as-violence-threatens-to-escalate-a6685651.html">like military reserve duty</a>”. While carrying arms is a common sight around the settlements, the call for residents of Jerusalem to do likewise is a negative development. The addition of more arms will not hasten the end of the conflict, but rather its escalation.</p>
<h2>‘War’ on stone-throwers</h2>
<p>The resurgence of violence <a href="https://theconversation.com/violent-clashes-in-jerusalem-fed-by-extreme-israeli-counter-measures-47669">has been linked</a> to the restrictions placed on access to the al-Aqsa mosque compound during Rosh Hashanah in mid-September, which resulted in three days of <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.677830">clashes between Israeli police and Palestinian protestors</a>. </p>
<p>In response to the protests and <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.675869">the death of Alexander Levlovitch</a>, an Israeli driver, Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/09/israel-toughen-penalties-stone-throwers-150916054234945.html">a “war” on stone-throwers</a> through the implementation of tougher penalties on children who throw stones, as well as their parents; a minimum sentence of four years in prison for adult throwers and new rules on opening live-fire. Under the extended measures <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/25/israel-live-ammunition-measures">approved by the security cabinet on September 24</a>, Israeli forces can fire .22 calibre live rounds from Ruger rifles both when their own lives, and the lives of others, are perceived to be at risk. </p>
<p>While Israeli officials have defended the regulations as necessary and “non-lethal”, humanitarian organisations argue that “two-two” bullets have been responsible for the deaths of four Palestinians since the start of the year, the latest being a 13-year-old boy, <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.678885">Abed a-Rahman Abdallah</a>, who was killed in Aida refugee camp near Bethlehem
on October 5. </p>
<p>According to Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem, the introduction of the “two-two” to East Jerusalem is “<a href="http://www.btselem.org/press_releases/2015106_cease_use_of_022_inch_bullets">expected to have lethal consequences</a>”, while the extended authorisation is seen as further evidence of <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.679530?date=1444634113724">Netanyahu’s lack of vision</a> and understanding when it comes to ending the conflict.</p>
<h2>Intifada: part three</h2>
<p>As the unrest approaches the one-month mark, the Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh issued the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/five-palestinians-killed-by-israeli-forces-in-a-single-day-as-hamas-declares-third-intifada-a6688016.html">call for a “Third Intifada”</a>. Following on from the First Intifada (1987-1993) and the Second Intifada (2000-2005), the current unrest has also been called “<a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/10/israel-east-jerusalem-temple-mount-terror-attack-train.html">the Silent Intifada</a>”, the “<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.676073">Urban Intifada</a>” and the “<a href="http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Jerusalem-intifada-hashtag-widely-being-shared-among-Palestinian-activist-421421">Jerusalem Intifada</a>”. </p>
<p>For some, the prospect of a new intifada brings <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/This-is-not-the-third-intifada-yet-421413">caution and concern</a>; for others it is less an intifada and more “<a href="http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/A-wave-of-terror-not-an-intifada-421378">a wave of Palestinian terrorism</a>”. The reluctance to apply the term is indicative of its symbolic power: when Knesset member, Haneen Zoabi, from the Joint List (the coalition of Arab-dominated parties in the Knesset called) for “popular support” for those resisting the restrictions in the Old City, Netanyahu asked the attorney-general, Yehuda Weinstein, to <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.679817">open a criminal investigation</a> on the basis of incitement to violence. For Zoabi, Netanyahu’s response reflects the sentiments of the right-wing government, his speech marked by “<a href="http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Zoabi-calls-for-popular-intifada-and-Netanyahu-instructs-A-G-to-open-criminal-investigation-422577">crazed words of incitement</a> [and] a moral and political bankruptcy”.</p>
<p>When couched in the broader conflict, the current unrest stands as both a return to protracted outbursts, as well as a testament to the failure of the peace talks that preceded it. For both Netanyahu and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, the violence is yet another bout – one in which Netanyahu is keen to sustain the occupation at any cost, while Abbas poses as the reluctant opponent thrown in on the third round. As <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/10/israel-palestinians-violence-fears">Hasan Qureishi observed:</a> “Arafat made things happen. Abu Mazen reads the news.”</p>
<h2>Distance and despair</h2>
<p>The past two decades have brought a new generation of Palestinians and Israelis to a time marked by recurrent tensions, wars and restrictions, whether formally or informally. For some Israelis, the West Bank evokes the “<a href="http://972mag.com/how-israeli-media-obscures-palestinian-humanity/96173/">the Wild West</a>”, a place to be avoided or entered cautiously; for Palestinians, crossing the border into Israel is perilous, if not fatal, depending on the route taken.</p>
<p>For the protesters engaged in the street clashes, the hope that surrounded the Oslo Accords has become either a distant memory or a sentiment that was never experienced. The Third Intifada marks a bursting point in the frustrations that have accumulated over the years and while the Quartet will look to piece together <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.679766">confidence-building measures</a>, the real challenge lies in the streets and homes on the ground.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/48939/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Luisa Gandolfo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Violence has become a daily occurrence in Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank and the body count is rising.Luisa Gandolfo, Lecturer in Peace and Reconciliation, University of AberdeenLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/476692015-09-21T14:35:46Z2015-09-21T14:35:46ZViolent clashes in Jerusalem fed by extreme Israeli counter-measures<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/95398/original/image-20150918-17704-1ewzzdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Mussa Qawasma</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On the evening of Monday September 14, Alex Levlovich was driving back from the Rosh-Hashana Seder, the celebration of the Jewish new year, along the road that separates the Jewish neighbourhood of Armon Hanatziv and the Palestinian neighbourhood of Tsur Bahir in East Jerusalem when the <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/.premium-1.676282">window of his car was smashed by a stone</a>. </p>
<p>Levlovich was so startled that he suffered a heart attack and lost control, swerving and hitting a post. Two passengers in the car suffered light injuries and Levlovich died.</p>
<p>The government of Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to paint the tragic incident as the latest in a campaign of Palestinian “popular terrorism”. But stone-throwing by Palestinian youth is a symptom of unrest in East Jerusalem that has its own reasons, many of which stem from the centre and the fringes of Netanyahu’s government and from years of neglect.</p>
<p>The Israeli security forces have an armoury that makes stones look, well, stone-age. Legislation to curb stone-throwing has only recently <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/11755603/Israel-introduces-controversial-20-year-jail-sentences-for-stone-throwing.html">been passed</a>, introducing draconian sentences of up to 20 years.</p>
<p>The new measures that the government is introducing to fight stone-throwing will now include the use of attack dogs and <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.676478">collective punishment</a> as well as the use of <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/11871193/Benjamin-Netanyahu-considers-using-live-sniper-fire-against-stone-throwers.html">sniper fire</a>. They are grossly inappropriate, undemocratic and dangerous, they risk escalation and bode badly for Jerusalem and Israel as a whole.</p>
<p>I have <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-the-west-bank-rocks-kill-but-mostly-palestinians-44618">written</a> before about Palestinian stone-throwing and the Israeli government’s attempts to paint it as a deadly danger - even though it only rarely is. The measures by which the current government seeks to counter the threat of stones are more dangerous than the stone-throwing itself. </p>
<h2>East Jerusalem: waiting to explode</h2>
<p>Palestinian East Jerusalem is a powder keg. Occupied and annexed in 1967, its <a href="http://www.btselem.org/jerusalem">roughly 300,000 people</a> hold a status of “<a href="https://www.acri.org.il/en/category/east-jerusalem/citizenship-and-residency-east-jerusalem/">permanent resident</a>” that can be revoked if they fail to prove that their “centre of life” is in Jerusalem. </p>
<p>Some 84% of its children <a href="http://www.ir-amim.org.il/en/report/failed-grade-%E2%80%93-east-jerusalems-failing-educational-system-2012#overlay-context=he/slider/%25D7%25AA%25D7%259E%25D7%2595%25D7%25A0%25D7%25AA-%25D7%259E%25D7%25A6%25D7%2591-%25D7%2599%25D7%25A8%25D7%2595%25D7%25A9">live below the poverty line</a>, there is a chronic <a href="http://www.ir-amim.org.il/en/report/failed-grade-%E2%80%93-east-jerusalems-failing-educational-system-2012#overlay-context=he/slider/%25D7%25AA%25D7%259E%25D7%2595%25D7%25A0%25D7%25AA-%25D7%259E%25D7%25A6%25D7%2591-%25D7%2599%25D7%25A8%25D7%2595%25D7%25A9">lack of schools</a> and – being devoid of approved urban plans – any construction is mostly illegal and <a href="http://www.btselem.org/jerusalem/discriminating_policy">demolition is frequent</a>.</p>
<p>It is also home to the one of the most volatile religious compounds in the world, <a href="http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Society_&_Culture/geo/Mount.html">the Temple Mount</a>. After Israel annexed East Jerusalem following the 1967 war, the Jordanian-controlled Waqf – the group that looks after Temple Mount – was given administrative authority under Israeli sovereignty. This is the status quo, which involves a balance of rights and access to the Temple Mount compound between Muslims and Jews.</p>
<p>Muslims retain full access to the Temple Mount, while Jews keep to the Wailing Wall as their site of worship and are allowed visit the mount as tourists but not as worshippers. Access for non-Muslims to the mount is administered by the Israeli police and is only allowed through the Mughrabi gate, above the Wailing Wall. </p>
<p>The administrative ban on Jewish worship is aided by a Jewish religious ban, issued by non-Zionist Haredi Rabbis as well as official state Rabbis against Jewish presence on the Temple Mount itself. This is because the exact locations of the various parts of the Jewish temple are not known and hence it’s possible that Jews may unintentionally step in sacred forbidden areas.</p>
<p>Over the years, this version of the status quo has been a source of tension and violence. The Temple Mount has long served as a national Palestinian symbol and Israeli infringements – or perceived infringements – have sparked violent disturbances quite regularly. In recent years <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/200677">several Jewish groups</a> have been challenging this ban and in recent days the Temple Mount has become the flashpoint that <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/LIVE-BLOG-Jerusalem-of-rage-416689">threatens to set off the tinder box in East Jerusalem</a>.</p>
<h2>The bigger picture</h2>
<p>The inter-communal conflict in Jerusalem is as volatile as it is complex. However, the one aspect of it that has shown a clear and steady advance has been the framing of Palestinian violence as terrorist and the subsequent importation of West Bank counter-terrorism tactics to fight it. </p>
<p>One of these measure, administrative detention, that the Netanyahu government plans to expand to Israeli citizens under a controversial <a href="http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/politics/84244-150902-israeli-lawmakers-to-vote-on-broad-anti-terror-bill">anti-terror law</a> was ironically linked by the government to the need to fight <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.674043">Jewish terrorism</a> following the arson attack in Duma in the West Bank in which an Arab toddler and his father were burned to death at the end of July.</p>
<p>In this context it is important to note the warning of Arab Knesset members that the new anti-terror law was really aimed at <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/200263#.VfspMbQwL5g">restricting protests</a> by all Palestinian citizens of Israel in solidarity with Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. </p>
<p>This argument gained credence when Netanyahu visited the scene of Levlovich’s death in East Jerusalem, 48 hours after the killing and <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Netanyahu-declares-war-on-those-who-throw-rocks-and-firebombs-416283">declared that</a>: “In the state of Israel we do not accept these phenomena, and I’m not only talking about the roads to Jerusalem or about Jerusalem itself, I am talking about Galilee and about the Negev”. </p>
<p>There are no civil disturbances currently in the Galilee or the Negev and therefore no apparent reason for them to be mentioned. What the two areas have in common though is a large proportion of Palestinian citizens of Israel. It is difficult to assess the exact meaning of this statement. It is certainly possible that Netanyahu misspoke – but what it appears to mean is that the ever-expanding definition of “terrorism” and the ever-expanding tools of “counter-terrorism” that have already crossed over to East Jerusalem may be directed at all Palestinian-Israelis. </p>
<p>Indeed it has been reported that the police will consider all of the decisions made in regard to Jerusalem <a href="http://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2015/9/21/israel-expands-use-of-snipers-in-negev">as applying to the Negev</a>. The highlighting of the Negev is especially timely given that renewed efforts to engage in a largescale population resettlement of the indigenous Bedouin population there is <a href="http://972mag.com/so-we-meet-again-prawer-plan/106647/">waiting in the wings</a>.</p>
<p>This is very much in line with Netanyahu’s infamous rallying call in the last election, which warned that Palestinian Israelis were “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/17/binyamin-netanyahu-israel-arab-election">heading to the polling stations in droves</a>” framing them as a danger to Israeli society. However this round of violence in Jerusalem ends, it risks turning paranoia into policy and the radicalisation of Israeli “counter-terrorism” will have a lasting effect on inter-communal relations in Israel.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/47669/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yoav Galai does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Israel’s extreme response to Palestinian protests is simply prolonging the cycle of violence.Yoav Galai, PhD candidate in the School of International Relations, University of St AndrewsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/343952014-11-18T18:42:41Z2014-11-18T18:42:41ZJerusalem attacks are no isolated incident: the third intifada is here<p>The attack on a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-30092720">Jerusalem synagogue</a> in which four Jewish worshippers were killed and eight were injured has sparked new fears that fighting between Israel and Palestinian could flare up once more.</p>
<p>The attack, by two Palestinians carrying meat cleavers and a gun, has the potential to kick off fresh religious confrontation and a <a href="https://theconversation.com/jerusalem-israeli-settlements-and-why-a-third-intifada-could-be-about-to-kick-off-33646">third intifada</a>.</p>
<p>The immediate trigger for the attack was the death of a Palestinian bus driver in Jerusalem. The Israeli authorities who carried out the autopsy on the body concluded that the driver hanged himself but a Palestinian pathologist who participated in the autopsy argued that the bus driver was <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.626996">probably murdered</a>. Hours earlier a Palestinian had stabbed an Israeli with a screwdriver near the Damascus Gate.</p>
<p>In a conflict littered with seemingly isolated incidents, attacks and counter-attacks, it is sometimes difficult to see the wood for the trees. But taking a long-range view of the conflict since the failure of US secretary of state John Kerry’s mission to the region that ended in <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/28/israel-apartheid-state-peace-talks-john-kerry">April 2014</a>, the inescapable conclusion is that the third intifada is already here.</p>
<p>The city of Jerusalem, and the dispute over Temple Mount/Harem al-Sharif in particular, is at the heart of this conflict. This is the holiest site in Judaism. It is where God is believed to have created Adam, where Abraham offered his son Isaac as a sacrifice to God, and where the two Holy Temples once stood. For Muslims, it is from this spot that the Prophet Muhammad visited Heaven during his nocturnal journey. It is home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam, after Mecca and Medina.</p>
<p>Israel annexed East Jerusalem following the June 1967 war and continues to manage security and access to the holy sites of the old city, but the mount is managed by Muslims.</p>
<h2>Rising tensions</h2>
<p>On October 29, a Palestinian from East Jerusalem <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Unknown-assailant-shots-seriously-wounds-known-right-wing-activist-in-Jerusalem-380210">attempted to assassinate</a> a prominent rabbi who advocated free Jewish access to Temple Mount. In response, Israeli authorities temporarily closed off the site to both Jews and Muslims. Israel has since allowed access once more but the violence has not abated. Jerusalem is still very much in the eye of the storm.</p>
<p>The attempt on the rabbi’s life was the culmination of months of tension in East Jerusalem. The city is home to around 250,000 Palestinians who hold Israeli ID cards and pay taxes to Israel, but there have been repeated efforts by certain Jewish religious groups to <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/09/30/uk-palestinians-israel-silwan-idUKKCN0HP1GO20140930">buy Palestinian property</a> in order to create a Jewish majority in the city.</p>
<p>The synagogue attack is therefore neither isolated nor random. The murder of Jews in their place of worship by Palestinians is hugely symbolic though. This was not merely an attack on the Jewish state, but an attack on Judaism itself. </p>
<p>In the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7381369.stm">first intifada</a> of 1987, the Palestinians rose up against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza for the first time. The <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3677206.stm">2000 intifada</a> followed a failed peace process. But this intifada is not being fought over territory or negotiating positions. It is a religious conflict that is bubbling up as a result of contrasting claims to sovereignty over the Holy City of Jerusalem.</p>
<p>The language used by both sides to describe the current tensions points to these religious undertones. The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) has asked the international media to refrain from using the Jewish name of Temple Mount when reporting the story. It says the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound is not a disputed territory and so any other name for it is null and void. The Israeli government, on the other hand, has characterised the synagogue murders as the latest in a series of acts of Palestinian terrorism designed to damage Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem and to kill Jews just because of their religion. </p>
<p>The Israeli government has responded to the attack by ordering the immediate <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/187605">demolition of the perpetrators’ houses</a> and the bolstering of security in the city. This decision was as swift as it was predictable, and is unlikely to calm the situation.</p>
<p>But Israel’s options are limited – the Palestinians of East Jerusalem are not subjected to the same restrictions of movement and employment as the people living in the West Bank and there seems to be no central authority behind these spontaneous attacks. Israel has accused the Palestinian Authority of inciting this wave of religious violence against Jews in Jerusalem but the organisation does not have the civil authority in the city to bring the situation under its control.</p>
<p>Tensions will without doubt escalate in the coming days and weeks. It is clearer than ever that Israelis and Palestinians will not resume the stalled peace process for the foreseeable future. To think so would be naïve at best. </p>
<p>This intractable conflict has long been defined by issues such as the future of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the fate of Palestinian refugees. Now the added burden of more religious tensions is certain to condemn the people of the Holy Land to many more years of bloodshed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34395/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Asaf Siniver does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The attack on a Jerusalem synagogue in which four Jewish worshippers were killed and eight were injured has sparked new fears that fighting between Israel and Palestinian could flare up once more. The…Asaf Siniver, Associate Professor (Reader) in International Security, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/342292014-11-14T06:19:50Z2014-11-14T06:19:50ZAs unrest brews, Israel and Islamic State find common ground in mutual hatred<p>The seven-week Gaza War ended inconclusively on August 26. Israel declared victory saying that Hamas was seriously weakened and had achieved none of its aims whereas Hamas claimed to have repelled Israel forces while continuing to be able to fire rockets. </p>
<p>The human costs were great, with more than 2,200 people killed, the great majority of them Palestinian civilians including at least 400 children. Israeli military losses were 66 soldiers with 450 wounded, some of them maimed for life, few compared with the Palestinians but much higher than expected, including many from the elite Golani brigade. The infiltration tunnels, in particular, <a href="https://theconversation.com/problems-ahead-for-israel-after-pyrrhic-victory-in-gaza-30575">proved to be very difficult to find and destroy</a>.</p>
<p>In the aftermath, the Gaza economy may now be hugely damaged but Hamas itself has experienced increased support, not just in Gaza but in the West Bank, across the region and beyond. Funds are readily available for reconstruction, but Israel has worked in concert with the al-Sisi government in Cairo to restrict the movement of construction materials. </p>
<p>As winter approaches this is causing considerable anger in Gaza and the West Bank, although the Israeli authorities insist that reconstruction can all too easily be re-directed towards tunnels and missile launchers.</p>
<h2>Leaderless intifada</h2>
<p>Meanwhile Israeli diplomats are seriously worried about the loss of public support overseas – especially in Western Europe. But the government has a greater concern – an upsurge in insecurity in the West Bank and in Israel itself. This has manifested itself in lone attacks on civilians including knife attacks and the use of vehicles to kill pedestrians.</p>
<p>During the height of the Gaza War there was talk of a new organised Palestinian uprising (<em>intifada</em>). But that was never very likely given the remarkable levels of security control across the West Bank involving strategic roads, road blocks and checkpoints, not to mention the continuing co-operation between Israeli and Palestinian police and security forces.</p>
<p>What worries the Israeli government is the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/12/world/middleeast/a-leaderless-palestinian-revolt-proves-more-difficult-to-curb-.html?_r=0">evolution of a leaderless and unpredictable revolt</a> and this is of particular concern when it involves Israeli Arabs acting within Israel. It stems partly from the Gaza War and the lack of rebuilding but has been heightened by the activities of radical Israeli religious groups insisting on the right to pray at the Temple Mount – the Moslem Haram al-Sharif - with some even insisting that the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock should be replaced by a “<a href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/sarah-irving/crowdfunder-indiegogo-hosts-campaign-destroy-al-aqsa-mosque">Third Jewish Temple</a>”.</p>
<p>What has made tensions even higher has been the determination of the Netanyahu government to usher in a further wave of settlement building, much of it in the East Jerusalem that the Palestinians see as the capital of their future state.<br>
In all, this is proving to be a thoroughly uncertain period for Netanyahu’s government and does much to explain <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-2832961/Clashes-Jerusalem-ahead-Kerry-talks-Abbas.html">John Kerry’s visit to the region this week</a>. </p>
<h2>Unlikely allies</h2>
<p>For the Israelis, though, the one development that remains helpful is the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/islamic-state">rise of Islamic State</a> in Syria and Jordan. In their relations with Washington, successive Israeli governments were long able to portray the country as a bastion of Western influence in the face of Soviet regional ambition. After the Cold War, the 1990s proved more difficult – but by the end of the decade there were new threats: al-Qaida, the Iraqis and especially the Iranians and their presumed nuclear weapons programme.</p>
<p>Then, a year or so ago things were looking difficult once more. Saddam Hussein was long gone, the US had withdrawn from Iraq, al-Qaida was diminished and there was a worrying rapprochement under way between Washington and Tehran. That is still the case and it is here that the rise of Islamic State has been something of a god-send. Once again, Israel is a powerful ally for the US against a common enemy.</p>
<p>But this also suits the Islamic State propagandists. Indeed the Gaza War has been a gift to them, not least in the opposition it has stirred up among young Muslims in Western Europe. In the UK, for example, teachers in schools with many Muslim students have been reporting a degree of bitterness and anger, even expressed by children as young as seven or eight, which they have not seen for a long time.</p>
<p>Islamic State itself is under some pressure from the coalition air strikes and <a href="http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/pentagon/2014/11/11/iraq-anbar-surge/18848715/">will be facing another 1,500 US troops in the coming weeks</a>, some of them in the areas of greatest conflict, but this is far from critical – and the decision of the powerful Egyptian paramilitary group, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/world/middleeast/egyptian-militant-group-pledges-loyalty-to-isis.html?ref=world&_r=0">Ansar Beit al-Maqdis</a>, to support it has been a welcome step.</p>
<p>Israel, with its very close links with the United States, and its recent war in Gaza is therefore really helpful as Islamic State seeks more recruits from Europe. It may seem extraordinary that Israel and the Islamic State – such different entities – should find each other serving a useful role, but that is a marker for the current fractured state of politics in the Middle East.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34229/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Rogers has received funding from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development. He lectures regularly at the Royal College of Defence Studies. He will be giving a talk at the Edinburgh Festival on Wednesday, August 27 on the theme of “A Century on the Edge, 1945-2045 – from Cold War to Hot World”</span></em></p>The seven-week Gaza War ended inconclusively on August 26. Israel declared victory saying that Hamas was seriously weakened and had achieved none of its aims whereas Hamas claimed to have repelled Israel…Paul Rogers, Professor of Peace Studies, University of BradfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/336462014-10-31T06:15:11Z2014-10-31T06:15:11ZJerusalem, Israeli settlements and why a third intifada could be about to kick off<p>Does this month’s escalation in violence in Jerusalem and the West Bank mean that a third intifada – a Palestinian uprising against the Israel’s occupation, following those of 1987 and 2000 – is imminent?</p>
<p>The latest events in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict prove that the next round could kick off at any moment.</p>
<p>On October 19, a five-year-old Palestinian girl in the West Bank <a href="http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=734030">died</a> when she was hit by a Jewish settler’s car. Three days later, a 20-year old Palestinian from East Jerusalem’s Silwan neighbourhood <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-palestinian-car-ramming-claims-second-death-in-israel-2014-10">drove onto a light rail station</a> platform in the city centre, killing a 20-year old Ecuadorian tourist and a three-month-old baby, and injuring seven other passengers. </p>
<p>He was shot by Israeli police as he tried to flee from the scene of the incident – and his funeral was accompanied by more violence across East Jerusalem and the West Bank. </p>
<p>These are not isolated incidents: they are the overspill from the tension over the rehousing of Israeli Jews in largely Arab districts in East Jerusalem, which has been under Israeli occupation since the June 1967 war. </p>
<p>Silwan, in particular, has seen outbreaks of violence between local Palestinian residents and Israeli settlers, who have <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.621871">started moving into houses there</a> in recent weeks.</p>
<h2>Back and forth</h2>
<p>In the wake of the latest violence, the Israeli Defence Ministry has announced that for security reasons, Palestinian labourers who are permitted to work inside Israel will no longer be allowed to board Israeli-run buses to and from their homes in the West Bank.</p>
<p>In response to questions from the country’s attorney-general, the military acknowledged that it saw no security threat in Palestinians riding West Bank buses. Then the real reason for the restriction emerged: defence minister Moshe Ya’alon had issued the order in response to <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/11192479/Palestinian-apartheid-bus-row-escalates-as-Israeli-minister-Moshe-Yaalon-ordered-explain-ban.html">pressure from the settler lobby</a>.</p>
<p>With charges of apartheid being levelled at Israel, the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, did his best not to be outflanked by his right-wing cabinet ministers and the powerful settler movement, announcing fast-track planning for more than <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/world/middleeast/benjamin-netanyahu-east-jerusalem.html?_r=0">1,000 new apartments</a> in several Jewish neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem.</p>
<p>The latest tit-for-tat took place on October 29, when Israel <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.623602">closed the Al-Aqsa mosque</a> in the Old City of Jerusalem, Islam’s third holiest site, following the murder of a right-wing Jewish activist by a 32-year old Palestinian from the Abu-Tor neighbourhood of East Jerusalem. It is the first time the mosque has been closed off since the June 1967 war, prompting the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to denounce it as an act of war, while Netanyahu blamed Abbas himself for the shooting incident. The <a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/10/30/jerusalem-on-edgeasisraelipolicekillpalestiniansuspect.html">re-opening of the mosque</a> was announced on October 31.</p>
<p>Each of these stories is disturbing enough on its own. Taken together, they add to the simmering tension and unilateralism on both sides.</p>
<h2>US relations at a low</h2>
<p>In recent years, Israel’s settlement activity has been met with several Palestinian moves at the United Nations; earlier in October, the Palestinian Authority announced that it would push for a UN vote on a <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/ahead-of-netanyahu-obama-meet-palestinians-submit-draft-statehood-bid-to-un/">2016 deadline for Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank</a>.</p>
<p>US-Israeli relations, meanwhile, are <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/10/the-crisis-in-us-israel-relations-is-officially-here/382031/">sinking to a historic low</a>. Ya’alon remains persona non grata in Washington ever since he <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Yaalon-criticized-for-reportedly-calling-Kerry-obsessive-messianic-338109">dismissed</a> the efforts of the US secretary of state, John Kerry, to mediate a two-state solution as “messianic” and “obsessive”. </p>
<p>The failure of Kerry’s recent mission in spring 2014 all but confirmed that after 20 years of continuous engagement, the US mediation strategy had finally run its course. Patience is also running out in Washington: senior State Department officials have gone so far as to call Netanyahu recalcitrant, pompous, “Aspergery”, and even “<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/10/the-crisis-in-us-israel-relations-is-officially-here/382031/">chickenshit</a>”. </p>
<p>This reciprocal verbal abuse is unprecedented in the history of US-Israel relations and raises serious questions over whether the Obama and Netanyahu administrations will ever put such matters behind them to revive the stalled negotiations.</p>
<h2>Ignition point</h2>
<p>With no diplomatic solution on the horizon and with no evidence that either party is willing, or able, to break the psychological barriers to reconciliation, both sides are resorting to increased unilateralism and kowtowing to their own domestic pressures. Netanyahu is shackled by his right-wing coalition partners, while Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas is determined not to go down in history as a Palestinian quisling.</p>
<p>And on the ground in Jerusalem, both Arabs and Jews are openly talking about a burgeoning third intifada. There are daily clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli police, especially in East Jerusalem, and warnings and threats from both sides are ratcheting ever upwards.</p>
<p>So far, this new cycle of violence more resembles the first intifada than the second; it is spontaneous and decentralised – and characterised more by Molotov cocktails and riot police than by suicide bombs and military crackdowns. </p>
<p>But as the recent war in Gaza and the second intifada reminded us, it won’t take much of an additional spark to set this tragic conflict alight once again.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article has been updated to reflect the re-opening of the Al-Aqsa mosque.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/33646/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Asaf Siniver does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Does this month’s escalation in violence in Jerusalem and the West Bank mean that a third intifada – a Palestinian uprising against the Israel’s occupation, following those of 1987 and 2000 – is imminent…Asaf Siniver, Associate Professor (Reader) in International Security, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/316702014-09-15T10:55:25Z2014-09-15T10:55:25ZI refuse to serve – the lonely conscience of Israel’s refuseniks<p>In 1988, I was in Kathmandu in Nepal when I found out that war was raging in the occupied territories; it would soon become known as “the intifada”. And when, in a small corner shop I spotted in one of the papers a picture of an Israeli soldier beating a Palestinian demonstrator with the butt of his rifle, my hair stood on end. There was something very poignant about this picture: the Palestinian looking up at the Israeli and the soldier looking down while raising his rifle. </p>
<p>From Kathmandu I sent a letter to the editor of Haaretz newspaper criticising my fellow Israelis and accusing them of committing the same brutal crimes against the Palestinians that so many other peoples of the world had once wreaked upon Jews.</p>
<p>In my letter, which was published, I wrote that I would not return home before the abuse of Palestinians was over. But in the end I had nowhere else to go. In Jerusalem when I bumped into journalist friend of mine, he raised an eyebrow and asked: “Well, what are you doing here?” I had no answer. But I did say that should I be called up by the army for a tour of duty in the occupied territories, I would flatly refuse. He printed the exchange a week or so later in the Haaretz weekend supplement under the headline “Ronnie Bregman refuses for the first time”.</p>
<p>Refusal to serve was an unusual act of defiance quite unheard of in those early days of the intifada, particularly by someone like me – a Major (res.) in the army with war experience in 1982 Lebanon. To save myself from the unpleasant prospect of being sent to prison for refusing to serve, I packed up my bags and emigrated to England, where I still live.</p>
<h2>Unit 8200</h2>
<p>Last week 43 IDF soldiers – many of them still active reservists – <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/12/israeli-intelligence-reservists-refuse-serve-palestinian-territories">signed a public letter</a> which they sent to Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and to the IDF chief of staff declaring that they will refuse to serve in the occupied Palestinian territories. All the signatories were from <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/best-tech-school-is-israels-unit-8200-2013-8">Israel’s elite Unit 8200</a> which is the equivalent of America’s NSA or Britain’s GCHQ, its task to collect signals intelligence by interception, for example, of communications between people.</p>
<p>In my <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/18/cursed-victory-history-israel-occupied-territories-ahron-bregman-review">recently published book Cursed Victory</a> I quoted directly from top secret transcripts of telephone conversations, including between former president, Bill Clinton, and world leaders and among Palestinians in the occupied territories, all obtained by Unit 8200. </p>
<p>Secretly listening to telephone conversations of the president of the US enables Israeli leaders to manoeuvre in world politics. Collecting Palestinians’ private information such as sexual preferences or health problems enables the Israelis to blackmail Palestinians into becoming informants. The veterans of Unit 8200 said in their letter that they “refuse to continue serving as tools in deepening the military control over the Occupied Territories” and as a result they are “conscientiously incapable of continuing to serve this system”.</p>
<h2>Refusing to serve</h2>
<p>In the period between my 1988 refusal to serve in the occupied territories and last week’s refusal of the 43 Unit 8200 veterans, there have been some other high-profile incidents of refusals to serve. In 2002, for instance, <a href="http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2003/3038idf_pilots.html">27 reserve pilots published a letter</a> declaring their refusal to fly assassination sorties over Gaza after <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/jul/23/israel1">14 civilians, including children, were killed alongside Salah Shehade</a>, the leader of Hamas’s military wing, by a one-tonne bomb dropped on Shehade’s house from an F-16.</p>
<p>Sadly, in Israel, the refusal to serve in the occupied territories is not a widespread phenomenon, not least because it takes real guts to stand out and spell out the words “I refuse to serve”. It isn’t easy – and I know that from my own personal experience – to turn your back on your own country and people, as it leads to isolation and resentment by friends and often family.</p>
<p>And how effective is the refusal to serve in bringing an end to the Israeli occupation? The slogan, one often hears, that the more Israelis refuse to serve, the more difficult it will become for the army to maintain the occupation, is perhaps not wrong but it is much too simplistic. Most of those who refuse to serve, originate from the centre-left-liberal wing of Israeli politics which in recent years has given way to a more nationalist right which is both religious and secular. There will always be enough Israelis belonging to the latter group willing to do the dirty job which is at the heart of the occupation machine, if only in order to ensure that the West Bank is not given to the Palestinians.</p>
<p>It seems to me – and I’m sad about it – that the refusal to serve in the occupied territories will remain a personal matter done by a relatively small group of conscientious objectors with little – if any – real impact on the duration and conduct of the occupation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/31670/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ahron Bregman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In 1988, I was in Kathmandu in Nepal when I found out that war was raging in the occupied territories; it would soon become known as “the intifada”. And when, in a small corner shop I spotted in one of…Ahron Bregman, Lecturer, Department of War Studies, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/289822014-07-10T05:14:08Z2014-07-10T05:14:08ZAs Gaza erupts, the big change from a decade ago is to the wider region<p>The scorch marks and angry graffiti seemed familiar. The rubbish underfoot in the dust on the hard summer ground did, too. The calm suggested that something had changed. That impression grew. The officer from the Israeli border police took only a quick glance at my passport, pressed against the glass behind which she stood. </p>
<p>At the Qalandia checkpoint on the West Bank between Ramallah and Jerusalem, nearby fortifications were built of tall concrete slabs and fire had blackened one of the watchtowers. The flames had even disfigured part of the wall’s defiant decoration: a spray-paint portrait of the late Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat. </p>
<p>I was coming back last week from doing interviews for a book: “Headlines from the Holy Land” which I am writing, about journalism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. My own interest stems from the two years, 2002-2004, I spent as the BBC’s correspondent in the Gaza Strip. The signs of violence and conflict that day reminded me of the countless times I crossed from Israel into Gaza, sometimes even as Israeli warplanes tore overhead on their way to hit targets in the crowded coastal territory. </p>
<p>The calm which seemed so striking a couple of weeks ago was, of course, deceptive – as violent conflict has erupted once again in the Gaza strip. Qalandia is not at the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28233135">heart of the latest fighting</a>, but it was incidents on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem – the beginning and end of my journey that day – which provided the spark. </p>
<p>In June, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28098523">three Israeli teenagers were killed on the West Bank</a>, which, along with Gaza, Israel occupied in a war with its Arab neighbours in 1967. The <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/07/reported-confessions-israel-mohammed-abu-khdeir-killing">killing of a Palestinian teenager from East Jerusalem followed</a>, apparently in revenge. Now Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement which controls the Gaza Strip, are engaged in their most <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/09/israel-palestine-gaza-strip-offensive-air-strikes-tel-aviv-airport">serious military confrontation for almost two years</a>. </p>
<h2>Telling the story</h2>
<p>Reporting from Gaza can be fascinating, frustrating, heartbreaking, and, sometimes, rewarding. It can also be difficult and dangerous. Pressures of deadlines, and the importance of accuracy – where you will never satisfy all members of your audience that you have been accurate – make it all the more demanding. Deciding to take the wrong turning at the wrong moment can put you in serious trouble, or worse. That is just for the international journalists. </p>
<p>Palestinian colleagues must also worry about their own families and property. At this particular time, almost all of them will also be observing a strict dawn-to-dusk fast for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.</p>
<p>Telling the story is a real challenge. For even sticking to the basics prized by most news organisations in the English-speaking world: “who-what-when-where-why-how” presents endless dilemmas. The “why” in particular is a question with endless possible answers. </p>
<p>My recent research has led me to look at the work of my predecessors as correspondents in the region. The late British Conservative politician, Winston S Churchill (grandson of the wartime leader) was among them. He reported on the 1967 war. The book “<a href="http://www.sixdaywar.co.uk/winston_churchill.htm">Six Days</a>”, which he co-wrote with his father, Randolph, takes the reader as far back as the Bible as a way of providing introductory context. </p>
<p>You do not need to go back quite that far to see the immediate causes of the current fighting. There is a grim familiarity about Israeli statements about “<a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-jets-strike-9-gaza-targets-overnight/">striking the terrorist infrastructure</a>” (given Gaza’s dense population, this often involves killing civilians too) and Hamas’ threatening to “<a href="http://www.independent.ie/world-news/middle-east/hamas-warns-israel-gates-of-hell-will-open-if-any-retaliation-launched-30397383.html">open the gates of hell</a>”.</p>
<h2>No winners – just losers</h2>
<p>Having locked horns, both Israel and Hamas will have to strike at each other until they can separately claim victory. Past experience – and Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile defence system – suggest that more Palestinians than Israelis will be killed before that point is reached.</p>
<p>I was surprised by the calm at Qalandia that day, but not deceived. In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, such moments – even if they last for months – are born of fatigue and resignation, not reconciliation.</p>
<p>Has anything really changed since I was in Gaza and Jerusalem a decade ago? Yes: the surrounding region, and not just that. War in Iraq and Syria has led many to conclude that the borders drawn up by colonial powers at the end of the First World War have had their day. Two decades years of talks aimed at defining borders for two states – Israel and Palestine – between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean – have failed, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-27154489">most recently in April</a>.</p>
<p>For all it must be hellish now, Gaza could get worse. Two years ago, the United Nations asked whether <a href="http://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/press-releases/gaza-2020-liveable-place">it would be habitable by 2020</a>. </p>
<p>“Operation Protective Edge”, as the Israeli Army has named its latest campaign, will not bring an end to the conflict. Rather, it will serve to remind the world of the problems which plague Palestinians and Israelis – even as neighbouring Iraq and Syria serve as reminders that discontented populations and military occupations, even national borders, may endure for decades, but not always for ever. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/28982/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Rodgers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The scorch marks and angry graffiti seemed familiar. The rubbish underfoot in the dust on the hard summer ground did, too. The calm suggested that something had changed. That impression grew. The officer…James Rodgers, Lecturer in Journalism, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.