A Third Intifada?

A third Intifada?

The intifada in the minds and hearts of my generation is a romantic idea of an idealistic phase. And to the minds of the new generation, is more of an epic to an achievement that brought in the taste of the liberation.

Between the two tastes of what the intifada resembles, and we are talking the first intifada here, not the second, lies the aspiration of a nation that is still thriving for a sense of liberation, the freedom that has been totally lost through the years.

Oslo came to make sure that the taste we feel as liberation, is just another consumer’s life, with some decoration and checkpoints that eventually became borders, and VIP passes to those who are lucky and capable and a rising flag and pronounced name off a state.

I was almost fifteen when the first intifada ignited, and sometimes I feel I never passed that phase. I still don’t understand how things were complete. With the reality of today, everything seems unreal. But what I remember clearly and vividly am that sense of real belief that we will be finally liberated. Occupation back then wasn’t in this debased form of a wall, checkpoint and encroached colonies. But yet, the sense of liberation and claiming Palestine was a real striving feeling that I grew up praying for a day in day out.

They intifada made us grow; I don’t know what it means to be a teenager. All that I know and remember of those years is that business in thinking of a day of freedom coming to the horizon soon. Each one of us felt that he had a role, that he was part of the happening, in throwing stones or in wishing to throw a rock like me. In setting a tire on fire or gathering for a demonstration. Writing prose, a statement, helping the young resisting youth, hiding them or feeding them. Men, women, boys and girls. Everyone felt he was part of the change that was taking place. The universities became think tanks, committees spread and formed in every category and shape. We could smell liberation coming and the day of a free Palestine will be soon.

It is true that it was a dream to sea the flag rising anywhere. It was a crime to have it; I remember we never dared to have it at home. I will never forget that time when I was coming back from Jordan on Allenby Bridge. I was maybe eight or nine and very excited about a pendant with the Palestinian map in wine red color I bought for a quarter of a dinar from Amman with my aunt when the Israeli security stopped us and investigated my father for the whole day. It was sunset when they released him, and I will never forget that slap he gave me in my face in front of them to show them that he didn’t approve of what I have bought with me and that he never knew about. I didn’t understand why he slapped me then, and I never knew why they kept us until the very last guard had to leave on that day. But I know from that day that this map was a precious thing to have, and having it is freedom.

So when Oslo came, and the flag was raised I told myself, a dream is being fulfilled, and we will build out homeland step by step and regain it. After all that suffering, Arafat the hero and his men, the years of diaspora and exodus will make them fights for the land.

Well…

We all know what happened since then …

What sparked the fire of last week when Muhannad Halabi (19) from Ramallah, stabbed and killed two Israeli settlers (one of them in the army) in the old city of Jerusalem wounding other two. Of course, Muhannad was immediately shot to his death, the case with every single incident like that. Something that keeps on speculations and assumptions to take place. In the time of social media and Facebook, it wasn’t hard to read Muhammad’s mind. Muhammad’s last status was a response to Abu Mazen’s speech in the UN in a rude way saying thank you but you Jerusalem is not east or west it is all. And what I see is a third intifada that is inevitable. A closer look at Muhannad’s week reveals his last appearance during the ceremonial event at al-Quds University for the murder of Diya’ Talahmeh the week before by the Israeli soldiers in Hebron where the young man was shot several times, and no one made a spur on it for the Eid. It wouldn’t be a surprise to know that the two young men were friends, especially that they also belonged to the same political faction inside the university. Not to mention the last appearance f Diya’s in a university in a demonstration to denounce the Israeli aggression on al-Aqsa mosque.

Al Aqsa. A spiritual meaning for every single Palestinian from one side. And meaning that presents honor and pride from the other side. Reading Muhannad’s previous posts on the matter expresses his sadness on Jerusalem, Palestine and he describes her as a raped girl whose brothers were watching. All that has been happening in the last months in al-Aqsa within the Israeli provocations that resulted in prohibiting people from entering the mosque and allowing fanatic settlers to tour around the mosque and its areas aroused the sense of despair in every single Palestinian mind … imagine those religious among them.

In the absence of the Muslim world, the Arab world and the Palestinian leadership inside a horrific silence, it only increased the state of helplessness and despair among Palestinians.

The fact that people are rising again to take justice into their own hands fully realizing this would be their very last hope for life and somehow trying to secure their own envisioning of a better deal up in the sky, makes is definitely a state of the dangerous path to everyone.

These people can belong to one faction or another in principle or even in membership, but they actually move alone, because even though these young people don’t realize yet that all Palestinian factions are part of what forms this corrupt leadership and authority.

There is something about the old city of Jerusalem and the Aqsa that definitely makes minds blow off and hearts ready to explode. Is it part of a charm, a spell or a curse, or is it ignited by a real Jerusalem ignited each religion and believe carries with I don’t know? But inside all this, there is this real love for a land that its people want to feel free and want to live liberation.

A martyr, two, three and four. Young men, a child. The Israeli bullets don’t differentiate and are so eager to be fired, and they are just splashing in the chests of Palestinians like fireworks to the sky.

Does this all means a third intifada?

My answer is no …

Last year aggression on Gaza didn’t make an intifada. A few clashes and some deaths won’t do in the west bank either. The Palestinian Authority serves a rough hand on security to ensure things will not go out of control.

What is happening is a population with its unarmed boys and men are daring to go to the crossing points where the Israelis are, and the Israelis enjoy another hunting season with more Palestinian lives down. Abbas is letting it be because he knows or maybe he doesn’t, that the street is on a real boil. A few lives, with a few screams, and some statements (from his inefficient, disgusting consultants), and a lot of rumors to make sure that nobody knows anything will make this last a few more days or a week before everything goes back to the norm.

After all, Abbas and his authority have all the means to control Palestinians lives in the PA. Everyone in a way or another if not directly indirectly rely on an income that he needs to have in the bank by the end of each month to fulfill commitments that are mostly loans and mortgages to the banks.

The problem is not in Abbas and his leadership. The problem is with us the people who really never seem to give up hope on seeing any spark of dignity in this leadership. As if we all want to see a sign. We beg him to be anything. Anything that resembles a Palestinian leader to at least out least of our expectations.

And yet …

The president is in silence. Al Bireh is invaded daily for the last three days. It is meters away from where he personally lives, and he never bothered to come out for a statement.

When the people are the ones who go to the street and fight, and the leadership and its so many majors and lieutenants and army of security stay home or off the uniform and allow the occupation invasion to their supposedly sovereign areas, then there is a serious problem in such leadership.

The intifada in out minds is about liberation … how can we get liberated when the leadership is the safeguard of occupation.

The last scandal in the revelation of the Israeli TV regarding the Itamar operation indicates that those who committed the service were from Hamas. Something that Fatah’s martyrdom brigades claimed have done and took out the streets in celebrations cheering Abu mizzen’s announcement for an assumed end to Oslo. But what is worse doesn’t finish here. It is in the mere fact that the Israeli soldiers abducted one of the men from the hospital after having coordinated with the PA security that has informed them about him.

Israel confirmed again and again that the security coordination between them and the Palestinian side has been at its best levels.

In the security cabinet, Abbas finally did tonight, the Palestinian News kept it unclear to what role would the security take, and no statement was made. But on the Israeli news, it was confirmed that Abbas gave orders to prevent further deterioration of the situation!!!!

A third intifada or any intifada cannot find a way within an authority that is there to first safeguard the occupation, and then and most importantly, when an uprising in this sense should happen while there is an authority that should be responsible for the population, it is the security elements of this power that should be in the frontline to stand up against the occupation ran its violation. Children and young men are not supposed to be on the frontline, and they are not even expected to be the ones who defend the security of this nation. It is the responsibility of this authority that claims sovereignty over the people.

Until this power is dissolved, washed out or terminated by those, who created it … a third intifada is not on the horizon.