05-15-2021, 08:49 PM
*** 16-May-21 World View -- Will there be a third Palestinian Intifada?
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
****
**** History of Palestinian Intifadas
****
![[Image: g210515b.jpg]](http://Media.GenerationalDynamics.com/ww2010/g210515b.jpg)
Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday -- can he prevent a Third Intifada (AFP)
Previously, I've described a new an unexpected development in the
current war between Israel and the Palestinians. The new development,
which has apparently caught everyone by surprise, is the rise of
extremely bitter communal / sectarian violence between Israeli Jews
and Israeli Arabs. (See "14-May-21 World View -- Communal violence within Israel threatens much wider war"
)
The purpose of this article is to explain in further detail the
significance of this violence, and the role of the "58-Year Rule" of
generational theory.
Today's violence is occurring on both the Jewish and Arab sides, but
it's being characterized by some as a "Third Intifada," a general
street uprising of Palestinian people against the Israeli government
and people.
There have been two previous Intifadas. The first began in December
1987 in Gaza and spread to the West Bank. It consisted of massive
peaceful protests, demonstrations, strikes, boycotts, and riots. It
began to die off fairly quickly, and officially ended in September
1993 with the signing of the Oslo Accords agreement, which was
supposed to provide peace between Israelis and Palestinians, but never
did anything of the sort. In the late 1990s, Hamas was formed and
carried out a series of suicide attacks against Israeli targets, while
Israelis continued to build settlements in the West Bank, with both
sides violating the Oslo Accords.
The Oslo Accords broke down in 2000, resulting in the Second Intifada,
which began in September 2000 and was an armed rebellion by
Palestinian militias, including Hamas and Fatah, against Israeli
security forces, and against Israeli civilians using suicide bombings.
The violence only began to subside in 2005, after the deaths of about
3,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis.
****
**** Yassir Arafat vs Ariel Sharon
****
During the Second Intifida, the leaders of the Palestinians and
Israelis were, respectively, Yassir Arafat and Ariel Sharon. On May
1, 2003, I posted my first major Generational Dynamics analysis,
predicting that President George Bush's "Mideast Roadmap to Peace"
peace plan would fail, because the Jews and the Palestinians would be
re-fighting the bloody 1948 war that followed the partitioning of
Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel. (Mideast Roadmap - Will it bring peace? (1-May-2003))
In that article, I wrote the following:
<QUOTE>"There's an incredible irony going on in the Mideast
today, in that the leaders of two opposing sides are,
respectively, Ariel Sharon and Yassir Arafat.
These two men hate each other, but they're the ones cooperating
with each other (consciously or not) to prevent a major Mideast
conflagration. Both of them remember the wars of the 1940s, and
neither of them wants to see anything like that happen again. And
it won't happen again, as long as both of these men are in
charge."<END QUOTE>
Although I didn't write the following, I suspected that Sharon and
Arafat were actually cooperating in back channels to prevent the
violence from turning into a full-fledged civil war.
Why would they do that? They would do that because they had both
survived the ethnic civil war in 1948-49. In my article earlier this
week, I gave an example of what happened during Rwanda's ethnic civil
war: Populations had intermarried and were living on the same streets,
where their children had played together. But that did not stop
someone from picking up a machete, going next door, killing the father
and children, raping the wife, killing her, and then cutting them all
up into mangled pieces. These examples are the rule, not the
exception, for ethnic civil wars. Crisis wars are like forces of
nature; you can no more stop a crisis war than you can stop a tsunami.
That example is from the Rwanda war, but you can be absolutely certain
that similar things happened during the 1948-49 ethnic civil war
between Arabs and Jews. Both Arafat and Sharon had lived during that
war. They may have personally participated in or ordered these kinds
of atrocities. Nobody goes through experiences like that without
being completely traumatized. Preventing a repeat of those
experiences becomes an overwhelming goal, much more important than
fighting another war, even a "justified" war.
It goes much deeper than that. Not only Arafat and Sharon, but also
millions of Palestinians and Israelis had lived through the 1948-49
war and were similarly traumatized. That's why, during the Second
Intifada, there was relatively little contact between civilian Jews
and Arabs, and most of the violence was more or less organized,
through militias and security police.
When Yassir Arafat died in November 2004, I wrote the following:
<QUOTE>"Yes, he was a brutal, vicious terrorist. Yes he was
a liar and maybe even a crook. Yes, he approved suicide bombings
that killed Jewish children.
But for a man in his position, approving suicide bombings was the
lesser of two evils. The greater evil was unleashing a new
genocidal war, one that would kill many more Jewish and Arab
children than suicide bombings do."<END QUOTE>
Mahmoud Abbas, born in 1935, took Arafat's place. He was also a
survivor of the 1948-49 war, and did not radically change Arafat's
policies. Today, Abbas is facing the possibility of leading the
Palestinians through a Third Intifada.
****
**** The decline of Mahmoud Abbas
****
I have often seen Al-Jazeera's political analyst Marwan Bishara
discuss Mideast topics. It's always been clear that he hates Israel
but, notably, it's also been clear that he hates Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah
even more than he hates Israel. He considers Abbas to be a historic
traitor to the Palestinians, because he negotiates with the Israelis
to keep the peace, and the West Bank security forces cooperate with
the Israeli security forces for the same reason.
So I listened to Bishara rant for a long time on Saturday.
He wonders why the Israelis are killing innocent Palestinians.
He wants the US, the UK and the EU all to condemn Israel for
its practices, and to force Israel to accept a ceasefire with
Hamas.
It's not surprising that Bishara sharply disagrees with Abbas.
Abbas was born in 1935 and lived through the 1948-49 war. Bishara
was born in 1969, and knows nothing about the war except what
Palestinian activists have told him. So he welcomes a Third
Intifada, because the Palestinians might finally achieve their
dreams of freedom -- whatever that means.
Abbas opposes a Third Intifada. He believes that the Second Intifada
was a disaster for Palestinians. His unstated reason is that it is
absolutely certain that Abbas remembers the traumatizing atrocities of
the 1948-49 war. He is old enough to remember them, and he's also old
enough to recognize that it's happening again. Israel's prime
minister Benjamin Netanyahu was forced to go on television and tell
the nation: "Nothing justifies the lynching of Arabs by Jews and
nothing justifies the lynching of Jews by Arabs." For him to make
that announcement reveals that horrible things are happening today
and, indeed, news reports confirm that.
****
**** Can Mahmoud Abbas prevent a Third Intifada from occurring?
****
Mahmoud Abbas is now 85 years old. I reported years ago that polls
shows young Palestinians were almost unanimous in disliking Abbas.
They consider him a failure for any number of reasons, the most
obvious one being that, 27 years after the Oslo Accords, almost
nothing has changed for the Palestinians. Young Palestinians dislike
Hamas leaders almost as much.
In my article last week, I described how the 58-Year Rule applies.
The generations people who lived through the 1948-49 war were all
traumatized by the horrors and atrocities. We've found that these
generations all retire and die around the same time, 58 years after
the end of such a war, which would have been 2006-2007. That's why
the First and Second Intifadas fizzled. There were too many people
around who were traumatized by the last war, and would do anything to
keep it from happening again.
But that's not true today. Abbas is still around, but almost everyone
else from that generation of survivors is gone. That's the difference
between Mahmoud Abbas and Marwan Bishara. Bishara has no personal
knows of the wars atrocities, so he couldn't care less if there's
another ethnic civil war. He and many other young people welcome it,
because they have fantasies that they'll be free an that Israel will
be pushed into the sea.
So, can Mahmoud Abbas prevent a Third Intifada from occurring? Can an
85 year old extremely unpopular leader stop a force of nature? If I
had to bet (and fortunately I don't), I would bet that he can't. Or
if he can, he can stop it only temporarily.
****
**** Can Joe Biden bring peace to the Mideast?
****
On Saturday, there was a panel of journalists on the BBC discussing
the Israel-Palestine situation. The hostility to Israel among these
journalists is enormous, and not surprising. And it's worth noting
that there are anti-Israel demonstrations going on in cities around
the world.
One person said, "I'm going to say something very controversial.
[long pause] If Donald Trump were president, this would not have
happened."
Instead of the usual screaming, this comment was met with silence,
which I interpreted as tacit agreement.
According to these journalists, Biden was hoping to avoid having to
deal with the Mideast, since he wanted to focus on getting a new
nuclear agreement with Iran, and ending the sanctions. This would now
be very controversial, since Iran is funding Hamas. But the
journalists are blaming Biden for the Mideast war, saying that he has
been ignoring the Palestinian problem in favor of the Iran policy.
So the narrative is growing that the Mideast war is Israel's fault,
and it's also Biden's fault because Biden is not holding back Israel,
and forcing Israel to agree to a ceasefire.
In Washington, Democrats like AOC are demanding that Biden end all
funding to Israel, and force Israel to accept a ceasefire under terms
dictated by Hamas. Republicans are angry that Biden has been taking a
wrecking ball to all aspects of America's domestic and foreign policy,
and is giving money to the Palestinians, which they are using to buy
weapons from Iran, which Biden is also supporting.
So this is shaping up to be a major political issue in America.
Meanwhile, the Israel-Palestine war is continuing to escalate, and
will continue to do so no matter what Biden does.
Sources:
Related Articles:
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Israel, Gaza, West Bank, Palestine,
First Intifada, Second Intifada, Third Intifada,
Oslo Accords, Hamas, Fatah, Yassir Arafat, Ariel Sharon,
Mahmoud Abbas, Marwan Bishara, Benjamin Netanyahu
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
- History of Palestinian Intifadas
- Yassir Arafat vs Ariel Sharon
- The decline of Mahmoud Abbas
- Can Mahmoud Abbas prevent a Third Intifada from occurring?
- Can Joe Biden bring peace to the Mideast?
****
**** History of Palestinian Intifadas
****
Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday -- can he prevent a Third Intifada (AFP)
Previously, I've described a new an unexpected development in the
current war between Israel and the Palestinians. The new development,
which has apparently caught everyone by surprise, is the rise of
extremely bitter communal / sectarian violence between Israeli Jews
and Israeli Arabs. (See "14-May-21 World View -- Communal violence within Israel threatens much wider war"
)
The purpose of this article is to explain in further detail the
significance of this violence, and the role of the "58-Year Rule" of
generational theory.
Today's violence is occurring on both the Jewish and Arab sides, but
it's being characterized by some as a "Third Intifada," a general
street uprising of Palestinian people against the Israeli government
and people.
There have been two previous Intifadas. The first began in December
1987 in Gaza and spread to the West Bank. It consisted of massive
peaceful protests, demonstrations, strikes, boycotts, and riots. It
began to die off fairly quickly, and officially ended in September
1993 with the signing of the Oslo Accords agreement, which was
supposed to provide peace between Israelis and Palestinians, but never
did anything of the sort. In the late 1990s, Hamas was formed and
carried out a series of suicide attacks against Israeli targets, while
Israelis continued to build settlements in the West Bank, with both
sides violating the Oslo Accords.
The Oslo Accords broke down in 2000, resulting in the Second Intifada,
which began in September 2000 and was an armed rebellion by
Palestinian militias, including Hamas and Fatah, against Israeli
security forces, and against Israeli civilians using suicide bombings.
The violence only began to subside in 2005, after the deaths of about
3,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis.
****
**** Yassir Arafat vs Ariel Sharon
****
During the Second Intifida, the leaders of the Palestinians and
Israelis were, respectively, Yassir Arafat and Ariel Sharon. On May
1, 2003, I posted my first major Generational Dynamics analysis,
predicting that President George Bush's "Mideast Roadmap to Peace"
peace plan would fail, because the Jews and the Palestinians would be
re-fighting the bloody 1948 war that followed the partitioning of
Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel. (Mideast Roadmap - Will it bring peace? (1-May-2003))
In that article, I wrote the following:
<QUOTE>"There's an incredible irony going on in the Mideast
today, in that the leaders of two opposing sides are,
respectively, Ariel Sharon and Yassir Arafat.
These two men hate each other, but they're the ones cooperating
with each other (consciously or not) to prevent a major Mideast
conflagration. Both of them remember the wars of the 1940s, and
neither of them wants to see anything like that happen again. And
it won't happen again, as long as both of these men are in
charge."<END QUOTE>
Although I didn't write the following, I suspected that Sharon and
Arafat were actually cooperating in back channels to prevent the
violence from turning into a full-fledged civil war.
Why would they do that? They would do that because they had both
survived the ethnic civil war in 1948-49. In my article earlier this
week, I gave an example of what happened during Rwanda's ethnic civil
war: Populations had intermarried and were living on the same streets,
where their children had played together. But that did not stop
someone from picking up a machete, going next door, killing the father
and children, raping the wife, killing her, and then cutting them all
up into mangled pieces. These examples are the rule, not the
exception, for ethnic civil wars. Crisis wars are like forces of
nature; you can no more stop a crisis war than you can stop a tsunami.
That example is from the Rwanda war, but you can be absolutely certain
that similar things happened during the 1948-49 ethnic civil war
between Arabs and Jews. Both Arafat and Sharon had lived during that
war. They may have personally participated in or ordered these kinds
of atrocities. Nobody goes through experiences like that without
being completely traumatized. Preventing a repeat of those
experiences becomes an overwhelming goal, much more important than
fighting another war, even a "justified" war.
It goes much deeper than that. Not only Arafat and Sharon, but also
millions of Palestinians and Israelis had lived through the 1948-49
war and were similarly traumatized. That's why, during the Second
Intifada, there was relatively little contact between civilian Jews
and Arabs, and most of the violence was more or less organized,
through militias and security police.
When Yassir Arafat died in November 2004, I wrote the following:
<QUOTE>"Yes, he was a brutal, vicious terrorist. Yes he was
a liar and maybe even a crook. Yes, he approved suicide bombings
that killed Jewish children.
But for a man in his position, approving suicide bombings was the
lesser of two evils. The greater evil was unleashing a new
genocidal war, one that would kill many more Jewish and Arab
children than suicide bombings do."<END QUOTE>
Mahmoud Abbas, born in 1935, took Arafat's place. He was also a
survivor of the 1948-49 war, and did not radically change Arafat's
policies. Today, Abbas is facing the possibility of leading the
Palestinians through a Third Intifada.
****
**** The decline of Mahmoud Abbas
****
I have often seen Al-Jazeera's political analyst Marwan Bishara
discuss Mideast topics. It's always been clear that he hates Israel
but, notably, it's also been clear that he hates Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah
even more than he hates Israel. He considers Abbas to be a historic
traitor to the Palestinians, because he negotiates with the Israelis
to keep the peace, and the West Bank security forces cooperate with
the Israeli security forces for the same reason.
So I listened to Bishara rant for a long time on Saturday.
He wonders why the Israelis are killing innocent Palestinians.
He wants the US, the UK and the EU all to condemn Israel for
its practices, and to force Israel to accept a ceasefire with
Hamas.
It's not surprising that Bishara sharply disagrees with Abbas.
Abbas was born in 1935 and lived through the 1948-49 war. Bishara
was born in 1969, and knows nothing about the war except what
Palestinian activists have told him. So he welcomes a Third
Intifada, because the Palestinians might finally achieve their
dreams of freedom -- whatever that means.
Abbas opposes a Third Intifada. He believes that the Second Intifada
was a disaster for Palestinians. His unstated reason is that it is
absolutely certain that Abbas remembers the traumatizing atrocities of
the 1948-49 war. He is old enough to remember them, and he's also old
enough to recognize that it's happening again. Israel's prime
minister Benjamin Netanyahu was forced to go on television and tell
the nation: "Nothing justifies the lynching of Arabs by Jews and
nothing justifies the lynching of Jews by Arabs." For him to make
that announcement reveals that horrible things are happening today
and, indeed, news reports confirm that.
****
**** Can Mahmoud Abbas prevent a Third Intifada from occurring?
****
Mahmoud Abbas is now 85 years old. I reported years ago that polls
shows young Palestinians were almost unanimous in disliking Abbas.
They consider him a failure for any number of reasons, the most
obvious one being that, 27 years after the Oslo Accords, almost
nothing has changed for the Palestinians. Young Palestinians dislike
Hamas leaders almost as much.
In my article last week, I described how the 58-Year Rule applies.
The generations people who lived through the 1948-49 war were all
traumatized by the horrors and atrocities. We've found that these
generations all retire and die around the same time, 58 years after
the end of such a war, which would have been 2006-2007. That's why
the First and Second Intifadas fizzled. There were too many people
around who were traumatized by the last war, and would do anything to
keep it from happening again.
But that's not true today. Abbas is still around, but almost everyone
else from that generation of survivors is gone. That's the difference
between Mahmoud Abbas and Marwan Bishara. Bishara has no personal
knows of the wars atrocities, so he couldn't care less if there's
another ethnic civil war. He and many other young people welcome it,
because they have fantasies that they'll be free an that Israel will
be pushed into the sea.
So, can Mahmoud Abbas prevent a Third Intifada from occurring? Can an
85 year old extremely unpopular leader stop a force of nature? If I
had to bet (and fortunately I don't), I would bet that he can't. Or
if he can, he can stop it only temporarily.
****
**** Can Joe Biden bring peace to the Mideast?
****
On Saturday, there was a panel of journalists on the BBC discussing
the Israel-Palestine situation. The hostility to Israel among these
journalists is enormous, and not surprising. And it's worth noting
that there are anti-Israel demonstrations going on in cities around
the world.
One person said, "I'm going to say something very controversial.
[long pause] If Donald Trump were president, this would not have
happened."
Instead of the usual screaming, this comment was met with silence,
which I interpreted as tacit agreement.
According to these journalists, Biden was hoping to avoid having to
deal with the Mideast, since he wanted to focus on getting a new
nuclear agreement with Iran, and ending the sanctions. This would now
be very controversial, since Iran is funding Hamas. But the
journalists are blaming Biden for the Mideast war, saying that he has
been ignoring the Palestinian problem in favor of the Iran policy.
So the narrative is growing that the Mideast war is Israel's fault,
and it's also Biden's fault because Biden is not holding back Israel,
and forcing Israel to agree to a ceasefire.
In Washington, Democrats like AOC are demanding that Biden end all
funding to Israel, and force Israel to accept a ceasefire under terms
dictated by Hamas. Republicans are angry that Biden has been taking a
wrecking ball to all aspects of America's domestic and foreign policy,
and is giving money to the Palestinians, which they are using to buy
weapons from Iran, which Biden is also supporting.
So this is shaping up to be a major political issue in America.
Meanwhile, the Israel-Palestine war is continuing to escalate, and
will continue to do so no matter what Biden does.
Sources:
- With Israel and Gaza already beset by chaos, West Bank ‘explosion’ looms (Times Of Israel, 14-May-2021)
- Several Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in West Bank protests (Al-Jazeera, 14-May-2021)
- Is This the Third Intifada? (Slate, 15-May-2021)
- Thousands attend rallies in Irish cities in solidarity with Palestine (Irish Times, 15-May-2021)
- Latest conflict exposes impotence of Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority (Irish Times, 14-May-2021)
- Intifada -- Palestinian-Israeli history (Britannica)
- Fear over Lebanese intrusion grows, Metulla residents told to stay indoors (Jerusalem Post, 14-May-2021)
Related Articles:
- Communal violence within Israel threatens much wider war (14-May-2021)
- Trump announces fantasy 'Peace to Prosperity' Mideast peace plan (29-Jan-2020)
- Mideast Roadmap - Will it bring peace? (1-May-2003)
- Yasser Arafat dies (14-Nov-2004)
- Ariel Sharon - Israel's political earthquake (29-Nov-2005)
- How do unrealistically high expectations affect the world? (08-Jan-2005)
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Israel, Gaza, West Bank, Palestine,
First Intifada, Second Intifada, Third Intifada,
Oslo Accords, Hamas, Fatah, Yassir Arafat, Ariel Sharon,
Mahmoud Abbas, Marwan Bishara, Benjamin Netanyahu
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
