Issue No. 605
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26 Sept. - 2 October 2002 Issue No. 605 Special |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
The rise and fall of the Intifada
On the second anniversary of the Intifada, its future appears more dependent on what happens to Saddam Hussein than to Yasser Arafat. Dina Ezzat reports
Official Arab support for the Palestinian Intifada is clearly dwindling. The praise from the highest levels that came from across the Arab world for the Palestinian uprising when it first started on 28 September 2000 is all but gone.
This week, a communiqué issued by the Arab League on the "seriousness" of the situation in the Palestinian territories did not even mention the Intifada. "This is not new. This has been the case for a few months now," said an Arab diplomat who attended the meeting that took place on Monday at the level of permanent representatives to the Arab League. He added, "but if you want an indication of the dwindling official Arab support for the Intifada, there is the fact that a few months ago, in their meetings, Arab officials would ponder whether to include a direct reference to the Intifada in their communiqués." Today, it is an accepted fact that a communiqué coming out of an official Arab meeting will not mention the Intifada at all, and the Palestinians themselves are not opposed to this.
Like many other communiqués from Arab meetings during the past year, Monday's communiqué only referred to "the steadfastness of the Palestinian people" and "their right to resist the Israeli occupation".
In the words of one Arab diplomat, "this formulation does not necessarily point to the Intifada. Just going about daily life while under siege for months, as so many Palestinians in the occupied territories have done, could be considered 'steadfastness' and even 'resistance'." By adopting this non-committal language, Arab governments are better able to plead innocent to US accusations that they encourage military resistance. And, at the same time, they are avoiding blame by their own people for giving up on the Intifada.
At its start, the Intifada -- the second in the history of Palestinian resistance of Israeli military occupation -- was viewed with pride among Arabs, at least at the public level. At the official level, it was looked at, Arab diplomats argue, as "a political tool that could be used to the Arabs' advantage in modifying the parameters of a permanent settlement for the conflict with Israel."
The second Intifada started in the wake of the failure of the Camp David talks. Accordingly, "it came at a time when the Palestinian leadership was being hailed across the Arab world -- even in Syria, a long-time opponent of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and his Oslo accords -- for standing firm in the face of US pressures to make too many concessions," commented one Arab diplomat. Official Arab support for the Intifada was highlighted by the extra-ordinary Arab summit that took place in Cairo on 21 October 2000 -- less than a month after the Intifada began.
At that summit, the Arab official line was very much in support of the Intifada. Speeches made by heads of states praised the uprising. The language adopted by summit resolutions and the Cairo Declaration also hailed it. "The mood was one of support for the Intifada, something that was reflected in the Saudi proposal to establish two funds for the Palestinians".
Arab diplomats speaking to Al- Ahram Weekly tend to agree that when the second Intifada broke out, many Arab governments were hoping to see "a replay of the Lebanese scenario where a resistance movement that was theoretically independent of the regime managed to cause Israel so much harm that it would withdraw from occupied land". But this scenario did not come to pass for the Palestinian territories. As several Arab officials would argue, in the Palestinians' case the resistance actually led to the intensification of the occupation. Some Palestinian officials would go as far as to say that had it not been for the Intifada, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would have lacked a pretext to reoccupy the lands of the Palestinian Authority. This view is widely held in several Arab capitals that have been repeatedly and emphatically pressuring Arafat to "cap the Intifada".
The increasing official Arab impatience with the Palestinian Intifada was highlighted by the resolutions of the last Arab summit that took place in Beirut earlier this year, in which there is no reference to the uprising.
And, in Beirut the Saudis proposed an initiative for an Arab- Israeli settlement that would grant Israel two of its major demands: recognition by all Arab countries and flexibility in settling the issue of refugees. Indeed, earlier this week, in an interview with an Israeli newspaper, Israeli Minister of Defence Benyamin Ben Eliezer argued that the Saudi initiative, which was adopted at the summit level by all Arab states "was a victory for Zionism".
The shift in the Arab stance on the Intifada was prompted by several factors. Arab diplomats may disagree on the order of significance, but they would all agree that the attacks against the US in September 2001, just a few days before the first anniversary of the Intifada, was one reason, if not the main one, behind this change. "Since that day, all talk of military resistance has been associated with the attacks against New York and Washington. And even though the Arabs hastened to condemn the attacks as a heinous instance of terrorism, they had to do more to escape the US's wrath apparent in its threats of military action. Indeed, Arabs had to stop showing or even voicing any solidarity with the Palestinian Intifada."
Other factors, Arab diplomats say, include the failure of the Intifada to lead the way towards a better political settlement as initially expected. "What we see today is that the Palestinians are having to beg for what former US President Bill Clinton offered them -- which they turned down -- only a few days before the Intifada began," commented one Egyptian diplomat.
Arab diplomats also mention the policies of both Israeli Prime Minister Sharon and US President George W Bush as factors accounting for the dwindling official support for the Intifada. "For months now, it has been made very clear that while Sharon would use the Intifada, especially the suicide-bombings, as a pretext to reoccupy Palestinian land, demolish Palestinian infrastructure, and kill Palestinian citizens, US President Bush who is busy appeasing the Jewish lobby in the US to serve his own political agenda, would turn a blind eye to atrocities committed by Sharon against the Palestinians," commented one source.
This said, the future of the Intifada, however, will not be determined by the level of official Arab support since, as many officials and observers would agree, no Arab official, including Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, is in a position to either halt or keep up the Intifada. "Actually, it was the realisation that Arafat has no control over the future of the Intifada that made the Americans decide to exclude the Palestinian leader from the ongoing political game and leave it almost totally to Sharon's discretion," commented one Arab diplomat. He added, "This is also the reason that Arafat is being snubbed by most Arab leaders -- including those who think he can stop the Intifada, but is not doing anything in that respect, and those who are aware that there is really nothing he can do about it."
So what determines the future of the Intifada? Arab diplomats answer: the future of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
"It doesn't really matter very much whether Arafat stays or goes because he is not the one who is running the Intifada. What matters, is whether or not the US launches a military strike to decapitate the Iraqi regime," argued one Arab diplomatic source. He added, "If the US goes to war in Iraq, it would need quite some time to stabilise the situation there. Towards that end, Washington might find itself in a position where it has to make do with both Arafat and Sharon and induce Palestinian and Israeli leaderships to agree to a peace deal to reduce tension in this part of the Middle East."
So, if the US follows through with its reported plans and launches a two-month military operation against Iraq in February, then by its third anniversary, September 2003, the Intifada might be something of the past.
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