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Myths & Facts OnlineThe IntifadaBy Mitchell G. Bard“The intifada was a spontaneous uprising,
resulting solely from Arab anger at Israeli atrocities.
“The intifada was a spontaneous uprising, resulting solely from Arab anger at Israeli atrocities.” FACT False charges of Israeli atrocities and instigation from the Muslim clergy in the mosques played an important role in starting the intifada. On December 6, 1987, an Israeli was stabbed to death while shopping in Gaza. One day later, four residents of the Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza were killed in a traffic accident. Rumors that the four had been killed by Israelis as a deliberate act of revenge began to spread among the Palestinians.1 Mass rioting broke out in Jabalya on the morning of December 9, during which a 17-year-old youth was killed by an Israeli soldier after throwing a Molotov cocktail at an army patrol.2 This soon sparked a wave of unrest that engulfed the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem. Over the next week, rock-throwing, blocked roads and tire burnings were reported throughout the territories. By December 12, six Palestinians had died and 30 had been injured in the violence.3 The following day, rioters threw a gasoline bomb at the U.S. consulate in East Jerusalem. No one was hurt in the bombing.4 In Gaza, rumors circulated that Palestinian youths wounded by Israeli soldiers were being taken to an army hospital near Tel Aviv and "finished off." Another rumor, claimed Israeli troops poisoned a water reservoir in Khan Yunis. A UN official said these stories were untrue. Only the most seriously injured Palestinians were taken out of the Gaza Strip for treatment, and, in some cases, this probably saved their lives. The water was also tested and found to be uncontaminated.5 “The intifada constituted passive resistance. At its worst, it involved nothing more than children tossing stones at heavily armed soldiers.” FACT The intifada was violent from the start. During the first four years of the uprising, more than 3,600 Molotov cocktail attacks, 100 hand grenade attacks and 600 assaults with guns or explosives were reported by the Israel Defense Forces. The violence was directed at soldiers and civilians alike. During this period, 16 Israeli civilians and 11 soldiers were killed by Palestinians in the territories; more than 1,400 Israeli civilians and 1,700 Israeli soldiers were injured. Between 1997 and the signing of the Oslo accords, 90 Israelis were killed.6 During an August 1988 visit to Bethlehem, U.S. journalist Sidney Zion was nearly struck by a rock while riding in a taxicab. "It's a good thing the rock missed me," he said. "I didn't see it coming, and wouldn't have lived to see the next second had the driver been going a kilometer faster. Fortunately, nobody was in that seat, but it was clear that the Arabs weren't aiming at dead air." Zion — who had been writing about the Middle East for more than 20 years — said that American media reports had led him to believe that "the rock-throwers were aiming at the Israeli Army, not at taxicabs. Did you ever see anything else on TV? Did you read anything to the contrary in the newspapers? Kids were tossing stones at soldiers, that's all." "It simply didn't occur to me that American journalists would suppress news of a life-and-death danger. It was only later that I discovered that what happened to us was hardly uncommon," Zion wrote. "On any given day in the West Bank, Israeli civilians are getting brain-damaged from these nice little Arab youngsters and their pebbles."7 “Media coverage of the intifada was fair and balanced.” FACT Candid members of the media admitted that coverage of the intifada was skewed. According to Steven Emerson, then a CNN correspondent, U.S. reporters acquiesced to Palestinian control over what was filmed. An Israeli cameraman who worked for several U.S. networks told Emerson that "if we aim the camera at the wrong scene, we'll be dead." In other instances, the networks handed out dozens of video cameras to Palestinians so that they could provide footage of strikes, riots and funerals. "There is absolutely no way to ensure the authenticity of what is filmed, nor is there any way to stop the cameras from being used as a tool to mobilize a demonstration," he wrote.8 Although nearly one-third of all Palestinians murdered in 1989 were killed by their Arab brethren, only 12 of the more than 150 stories filed by U.S. networks from the West Bank that year dealt with the internecine warfare. "While Palestinian political terror on the West Bank fails to make the news," Emerson wrote, "utter fabrications about Israeli brutality are reported uncritically." For example, in early 1988, reporters were called to el-Mokassed Hospital in Jerusalem to film a dying Palestinian boy. His Palestinian doctor showed him hooked to life-support tubes, and claimed the child had been savagely beaten by Israeli troops. On February 8, 1988, ABC's Peter Jennings introduced the report by saying UN officials "say that the Israelis have beaten another Palestinian to death in the territories." NBC and CBS also gave the claims wide publicity. But the story wasn't true. According to the child's autopsy and medical records, he died of a cerebral hemorrhage. He had been sick for more than a year. Overall, the U.S. networks, Emerson wrote, "have been complicit in a massive deception about the West Bank conflict." NBC's Tel Aviv bureau chief Martin Fletcher acknowledged that the intifada posed a fairness problem. He noted the Palestinians manipulated the Western media by casting themselves as "David" against the Israeli "Goliath," a metaphor used by Fletcher himself in a 1988 report. "The whole uprising was media-oriented, and, without a doubt, kept going because of the media," he said. Fletcher openly admitted accepting invitations from young Palestinians to film violent attacks against Jewish residents of the West Bank. "It's really a matter of manipulation of the media. And the question is: How much do we play that game? [We do it] in the same way that we turn up at all those Bush or Reagan photo opportunities. We play along because we need the pictures."9 “The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) is a force for moderation in the territories. It advocates Arab-Jewish harmony and reconciliation.” FACT Hamas is opposed to Israel's existence in any form. Its platform states that "there is no solution for the Palestinian question except through jihad (holy war)." The group warns that any Muslim who leaves "the circle of struggle with Zionism" is guilty of "high treason." Hamas' platform calls for the creation of an Islamic republic in Palestine that would replace Israel. Muslims should "raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine," it says.10 “The PLO had no role in fomenting intifada violence.” FACT Throughout the intifada, the PLO played a lead role in orchestrating the insurrection. The PLO-dominated Unified Leadership of the Intifada (UNLI), for example, frequently issued leaflets dictating which days violence was to be escalated, and who was to be its target. In 1989, for example, the PLO declared February 13 a day for "escalating attacks on the collaborators" and "traitors" who work for the Civil Administration in the territories. The PLO's Baghdad radio station described methods of arson through which "the orchards and fields of the Zionist enemy can be set ablaze."11 The New York Times described the discovery of "a cache of detailed secret documents showing that the PLO hired local killers to assassinate other Palestinians and carry out 'military activity' against Israelis." One document described how the PLO wanted the attacks credited to fictional groups so as not to disturb the U.S.-PLO dialogue.12 Yasser Arafat defended the killing of Arabs deemed to be "collaborating with Israel." He delegated the authority to carry out executions to the intifada leadership. After the murders, the local PLO death squad sent the file on the case to the PLO. "We have studied the files of those who were executed, and found that only two of the 118 who were executed were innocent," Arafat said. The innocent victims were declared "martyrs of the Palestinian revolution" by the PLO.13 Palestinians were stabbed, hacked with axes, shot, clubbed and burned with acid. The justifications offered for the killings varied. Sometimes, being employed by the Civil Administration in the West Bank and Gaza Strip was reason enough. In other cases, contact with Jews warranted a death sentence. In October 1989, a Palestinian father of seven was knifed to death in Jericho after selling floral decorations to Jews who were building a succah. Accusations of "collaboration" with Israel were sometimes used as a pretext for acts of personal vengeance. Women deemed to have behaved "immorally" were also among the victims.14 The UNLI's calls for violence escalated after the 1990 Temple Mount tragedy. Yasir Abd-Rabbo — formerly the PLO's interlocutor in its dialogue with the U.S. — declared that "the war of stabbing with knives against the usurpers of Jerusalem is just beginning."15 The PLO continued its efforts to foment violence throughout 1991. On March 3, the UNLI issued a communique calling for "increased confrontation" with Israeli forces in the West Bank and Gaza. Another PLO leaflet, issued in September, called for the "execution" of anyone who sells property in Jerusalem to Jews.16 According to the Israeli government, the PFLP alone carried out 122 terrorist attacks during 1991, resulting in the murders of 18 residents of Israel and the territories. Crimes committed by Fatah included the July 4 murder of a 61-year-old Arab villager near Jenin; the September killing of Israeli Sgt. Yoram Cohen and the October murder of a man found stabbed to death in a Gaza street, his head covered with a sack. A note bearing the words "Force-17," denoting Arafat's personal bodyguard, was found on the body.17 Later in the intifada, Hamas began to vie with the PLO for control of the uprising. In December 1992, for example, Hamas began to target IDF troops, killing four in several daring ambushes. “The Palestinians who died in the intifada were all killed by the Israelis.” FACT Initially, more Palestinians died in clashes with Israeli troops — battles usually triggered by Arab attacks against soldiers — than were killed by their fellow Palestinians in the intrafada. This changed dramatically in early 1990. In that year, the number of Palestinians dying in engagements with Israelis fell by more than half. More Palestinians were murdered by Palestinians in the intrafada during that period. The internecine killings increased in 1991, with 238 Palestinians (up from 156) dying in the intrafada, more than triple the number who died at the hands of Israelis.18 Nearly 200 Palestinians were killed by their fellow Palestinians in 1992, more than double the number killed in clashes with Israeli security forces. The methods of murder, Steven Emerson reported, included beheading, mutilation, cutting off ears and limbs and pouring acid on a victim's face.19 The reign of terror became so serious that some Palestinians expressed public concern about the disorder. The PLO began to call for an end to the violence, but murders by its members and rivals continued. When many Palestinians heard a knock at the door late at night, the New York Times reported, they were relieved to find an Israeli soldier rather than a masked Palestinian standing outside.20 Even after the intifada fizzled out following the signing of the Declaration of Principles in 1993, internecine warfare among the Palestinians continued, and persists to this day. “Israel closed West Bank schools during the intifada to deprive Palestinians of an education.” FACT Educational opportunities in the territories greatly improved under Israeli rule. The number of elementary and secondary schools increased by more than a third from 1967-88. Women were major beneficiaries of the boom. From 1970-86, for example, the percentage of women who had not attended school was slashed by more than half, from 67 percent to 32 percent. Before 1967, no universities existed on the West Bank; six were built under Israel's administration. Despite the intifada, nursery schools, kindergartens and most West Bank vocational schools remained open because none were used to instigate violence. Gaza schools also stayed open because militant Islamic fundamentalists there used the mosques, not schools, to incite their followers. The PLO used many schools, however, to stimulate attacks against Israelis. Caches of knives, clubs and iron bars were found hidden in school buildings. "Schools are the natural place for a demonstration to begin," wrote Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab. "In school, demonstrations and stone-throwing are part of a tradition....To hit an Israeli car is to become a hero."21 In 1988, Israel closed some secondary schools and colleges in the West Bank that were being used to orchestrate the insurrection. After it announced the closures, Israel offered to reopen any school whose principal would guarantee that his school would be used to educate children, not to encourage rioting. But educators, many cowed by the uprising leadership, remained silent. When the violence subsided, Israel reopened all high schools, colleges and universities. At least 700 Arab students, faced with increasing politicization and decreased funding of Arab private schools, transferred to Jerusalem municipal schools in 1991. To accommodate the increased demand, the Israeli education ministry provided funding for renting and furnishing schools in several East Jerusalem neighborhoods. Palestinians deported from Kuwait with identity papers showing they were originally residents of Jerusalem were welcomed to the city, and dozens of pupils, children of the repatriated Kuwaitis, are also being absorbed by the Arab system. By mid-1991, former Arab private school teachers were actively seeking new municipality teaching positions.22 Interestingly, when the U.S.-led coalition attacked Afghanistan in October 2001, the Palestinian Authority reacted to violent protests by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by closing universities and schools there.23 Notes1New
York Times, (December 14, 1987). See also: Israel Previous To order the paperback edition, click HERE. |
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