"rocks which have a certain ability to kill, were responded to, regularly, not with tear gas but with bullets which were proven to be more effective killing weapons than rocks. The mass killing responses from the Arab side to such measures, surely should not have come as surprises. Your remarks sound as if there was a one sided escalation."
With remarkable regularity, the rocks have been mixed with bullets in this intifada, rendering tear gas ineffective as a response. Your remarks sound as if the intifada were a spontaneous event, not under political control; I disagree.
While there have been Israeli escalations in the violence, the basic political impetus for this intifada has been entirely from the Palestinians side. It's basically a low grade guerilla war, conducted by shooting and bombing IDF checkpoints, firing mortars into the settlements, sniping at cars on the roads, and random terror. And besides all that, conducted in the media with pictures of dead kids as the weapon of choice. Just ask yourself, which side would benefit from an actual cease-fire (assuming no new negotiations)? It would be a win for the Israelis and a loss for the Palestinians.
In fact, this intifada saved Arafat's butt. His weakness and corruption was causing even Fatah members to turn on him. Hamas was moving to replace him. He jumped on the violence to "escape by running ahead", in Professor Sayigh's words. (Prof. Sayigh, a prof. at Bir Zeit and consultant to the Camp David negotiations, wrote an interesting piece in Survival called "Arafat and the Anatomy of a Revolt", where he said in essence, that the intifada was an opportunistic survival tactic on Arafat's part; there was no overall strategy) |
