Let’s be clear: intifada means resistance. It is the mass media and Zionists who portray it solely as suicide bombing. Why has the resistance taken the form of suicide bombing?

The first Intifada started in 1987 and involved Palestinians boycotting Israeli goods, civil disobedience and work stoppages. Israel depended on the Palestinians as a cheap labour resource at this time – over 50% of Palestinians in the ‘Occupied Territories’ worked inside Israel in 1988. With the ‘Oslo Peace Process’ in 1993 Israel brought foreign workers from Asia and Eastern Europe, often ‘illegally’ but with full knowledge of the Israeli government, to substitute for Palestinian labour. These foreign workers were ideal for exploitation- they had to be housed but could be employed in very bad conditions (which they are and pay is often withheld) and can be easily deported on charges of being in Israel illegally. Palestinian labour inside Israel declined from 33% in 1992 to 6% in 1996. In the months preceding the eruption of the second Intifada 20% of the Palestinian workforce in the West Bank and Gaza Strip worked inside Israel or the settlements, but by 2000 Israel was no longer dependent on this labour force and was easily able to enforce border closures and curfews.

‘Oslo pushed the development of a parasitic Palestinian capitalist class that was reliant on its relationship with Israeli capital for its profits.’
‘Oslo aimed to keep Palestinian movement, goods, the economy and borders under Israeli control, while the Palestinian population was to be ruled by a Palestinian Authority… [whose] primary responsibility… was to ensure the “security” of Israel – i.e. to act as a police force for the occupying force.’

The Palestinian economy is completely dependent on Israel with 95% of all exports from the West Bank and Gaza Strip destined for Israel and 75% of all imports from Israel. Israel maintains complete control of the borders and thus trade. Israeli policy is actively seeking to make local production and internal trade impossible for the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel maintains ultimate control of water, electricity, phone lines, and the Internet.

In 2000 a Palestinian boycott of Israeli goods or strike actions would have hurt only the Palestinians, with virtually no effect on the Israeli economy. The second Intifada erupted spontaneously - the resistance of Palestinians against the increasing occupation and humiliation at the hands of Israel. On 28 September 2000 General Sharon made a ‘deliberately provocative, “right of ownership” walkabout at the Temple Mount – which is also the site of the mosques of al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock, Islam’s third most holy place’ under cover of 2000 soldiers with Apachi helicopters overhead. On the 29 September 2000, the Israeli army compounded the direct insult by their huge presence in the area when Palestinians went to worship at noon in al-Aqsa. Following prayers worshippers confronted the army. Israeli soldiers and police opened fire at the civilian demonstrators, including children, and killed six and wounded 220. This marked the start of the second Intifada.

In the first few days of the Intifada the IDF fired about 700,000 bullets and projectiles in the West Bank, and 300,000 in Gaza. ‘ “Someone in the Central Command later quipped that the operation should be named ‘a bullet for every child’.”’ In the first six days of the Intifada 61 Palestinians had been murdered by Israeli forces and 2,657 injured, many of them children, and many shot in the upper part of the body. During the same period four Israelis – three soldiers and one settler – were killed, while 35 Israelis were wounded, mostly lightly. Yet there were no bomb attacks on Israelis by Palestinians until 2 November when the Palestinian casualty toll had reached 145 dead compared with 14 Israelis. This was not a suicide attack – Hamas did not resort to suicide bombings until after Sharon was elected president in February 2001. Further, the Palestinians have repeatedly observed the ceasefire calls, suicide bombings have ceased for months at a time but the Israeli violent onslaught has not.

Israel led by Sharon has deliberately broken every ceasefire because Likud ultimately do not want peace - they want the excuse to make life so hellish for the Palestinians that they have to leave. Likud, Revisionist followers of Vladimir Jabotinsky, want to greatly expand Israel’s borders to include not only the West Bank and the Gaza Strip but also parts of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the Sinai Peninsular (Egypt).

Israel has always worked to expand its borders, repeatedly threatening its Arab neighbours. Israel started every single war between itself and neighbouring countries throughout its history, except one (in October 1973 Egypt and Syria struck first – parts of both already occupied by Israel). Israel is a heavily armed and funded aggressor state, built through occupation, which has been systematically terrorising the indigenous Arab population for over 55 years in order to expand and further its racist ends of being a Jewish state with a Jewish majority.

Palestinians are living under curfew, unable to move around freely, unable to tend to their livestock, olive groves or other agriculture, unable to trade. Children are being denied schooling and nutrition; adults are being denied livelihoods. Innocent civilians are being murdered every day, homes being demolished, people disabled. Torture is common, perpetrated by the Israeli detention forces that hold Palestinians without reason or trial; psychological torture is inflicted incessantly as Palestinians try to live.

The Palestinian Intifada must continue. For Palestinians it is their daily struggle to live. The Palestinian people must not be crushed. Will you side with the oppressor or the oppressed? That is the simple question. Israel has a whole lot of support in very powerful places - the US government, the British government, a vast number of businesses, charities etc.

We in our position of relative privilege in the imperialist oppressor and exploiter state of Britain that allows many, not all, to survive fairly well due to the profits made from the resources of poorer countries, cannot make judgements about how the Palestinians should resist the daily onslaught. We can have opinions and we can make analyses but we must support their struggle as one of a heavily oppressed people against the military and economic might of imperialism. We have a duty to support their struggle because we live in the country that is responsible for Palestinian oppression. We can change the situation for Palestinians by our actions in this country. WE MUST ACT NOW.

Boycott Israel! Victory to the Intifada!

Information and quotes taken from:
The New Intifada, Resisting Israel’s Apartheid, edited by Roane Carey. Verso: 2001
The Gun and the Olive Branch, by David Hirst. Faber and Faber Ltd: 2003
Class, Economy and the Second Intifada, by Adam Hanieh in Monthly Review, October 2002, Vol. 54, no. 5.
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