Most Solidarity readers will know by now that “intifada” is an Arabic word meaning “shaking off” or “uprising”.
Perhaps the very first Palestinian intifada was in 1936 with a general strike and boycotts against the British occupation and the Zionist settlements they encouraged.
However, Intifada usually refers to two popular uprisings by the Palestinians in Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank that shook the Israeli occupation.
The first, from December 1987 to September 1993, began when decades of frustration and bitterness at unemployment, overcrowding, poverty and repression exploded in a democratic revolt from below.
After years of heroic, but unsuccessful, guerrilla struggle by the Palestine Liberation Organisation, tens of thousands of young Palestinians were fighting in a new way with mass demonstrations and strikes that challenged the PLO’s leadership.
The second Intifada, from September 2000 to February 2005, began following the collapse of the “peace process” and the expansion of illegal Zionist settlements.
Palestinian protests spread from Jerusalem to Gaza and the West Bank and were brutally put down with rubber bullets and live ammunition.
More than 100 Palestinians were killed within the first few weeks. The level of Israeli military aggression saw the intifada escalate from popular demonstration to armed rebellion.
Now “Victory to the Intifada” in general refers to the struggle to free Palestine from the Israeli apartheid regime and the military occupation.
That struggle has become international. It is not a call for violence against Jewish people—it is a call to end the violence of Israel’s occupation.
“Globalise the Intifada” firstly expresses basic solidarity with the Palestinian resistance. Secondly it recognises the need for the struggle to spread internationally, in particular against the Western imperialism that enables Israel’s occupation and against every ruling class that is complicit in the genocide.
The includes governments like the US that supply the weapons and the bombs, governments like Australia that supply F-35 parts and governments like Egypt that suppress struggles in Cairo, while collaborating with Israel.
To free Palestine, there is only one solution, “Intifada, revolution”.
By Ian Rintoul
