A good rule of thumb is that if somebody is playing word games they should be ignored; they are dishonest and/or just parroting things and/or dumb (obfuscating is the dumb person’s idea of cleverness). If somebody tries to legitimize such conduct, it’s a good sign that one should disengage from them too.
This was yeoman’s work, but the takeaway is that NPR should continue to keep going out of business.
In the context of the current protests it clearly refers to promoting the Palestinian cause and attempting to halt an active brutal genocide, one that is articulated most clearly and passionately and disgustingly by Israel’s own vicious leaders and government. Only the willfully blind pretend it’s not happening and the most pernicious are pleased at the slaughter.
Your article and its sly concern with the supposed meaning of a phrase whose intent in the context of the protests is pretty clear - “stop the damn genocide”, is dishonest. The protests also use other phrases to say, in different ways, “stop trying to shift attention from the real issue which is a brutal long-running colonial occupation that sabotages all peace deals because the goal is and always has been a greater Israel.
We have in Zionist Israel a regime that takes great joy in sniping children, bombing residential areas and in the wanton destruction of civilians (it’s part of their Dahiya doctrine) which it can only accomplish thanks to its demented patrons in the West.
To harp on about a phrase indicating resistance, used by an incarcerated, brutalized, endlessly terrorized population living under occupation and constant control and surveillance, is a symptom of the problem. The problem being the current Israeli regime, the de facto genocide, and Israel’s Western sugar daddies, and those who think what Israel does is just peachy keen. And articles like these.
Do you really see the use of a particular phrase as such a big problem? Ok, fine. How about writing about the phrases churned out by Netanyahu, Israeli government and IDF officials, the language around the support of rape and torture, the open calls for total destruction in the Israeli media, the racist Israeli language towards Palestinians and others, there’s endless fodder there. What are your thoughts on that?
I would argue that being fully honest about the meaning of the word intifada brings clarity to the situation. It allows follow up questions, like- will intifada work? Will it lead to a better outcome? What about after the intifada? What did the other intifadas accomplish? My argument is different from Mike's in that I dont object necessarily to an open call for an uprising. But pretending that you're not doing something, when you in fact are, because you secretly fear the repercussions will be the same unfortunate results from the two previous instances where you did the very same thing... doesn't seem like a good idea at all. What was October 7th if not an intifada? And how has that worked out? You think it's wise to call for another?
I'm in the United States. I don't care about any of the things you described (just as you probably don't very much care about other contemporary atrocities, which don't intersect with your personal sympathies). I DO care about our journalists, and how they use language. I found this essay interesting and helpful.
I would hope that as a human being you would care about atrocities no matter where or upon whom they are perpetrated. You should care even more about those being enabled, aided, and abetted by your government because perhaps you can raise your voice, as a human with conscience to object about these matters, as Americans have done through their history.
And if you care about journalists and language, then care about the bias and propaganda in the media and the extremely partisan language employed, care about the journalists being harassed and arrested in the UK and elsewhere, and those killed even as they identified themselves as journalists in conflict zones, and those targeted because of their journalism.
And care about the fact that senators and congressmen are being bought by AIPAC and that election interference, by these and other lobbyists, is corrupting the political system, and disenfranchising citizens, and is not beneficial, in the long term, for the people or the country.
Only the wilfully ignorant are pretending that it's happening. Go look up Sudan and then get back to us. What an inflammatory, ignorant, and vilifying comment. You absolutely don't know anything and are an antisemite - that's obvious. You're disgusting and the people who liked your comment as well.
After what Israel has done, I don’t blame them. I won’t be happy until Tel Aviv is indistinguishable from Gaza City. Israel has been a cancer since 1948. It can’t be allowed to continue.
We all can get caught up on what words mean or what they meant to different people especially in this conflict. It’s easy when you have the upper hand in an apartheid state to be intellectually clever about it shy words mean. Unfortunately if you are fighting for you freedom, you do not have the luxury of parsing words to convey how you feel. Palestinians are people who deserve the right to live free of oppression . Human rights matter. Decency matters. Equality matters. How you express a need for a change is irrelevant especially if you fighting for your life. Literally fighting for your life. While you set in Tel Aviv soiling some sun on the beach, Palestinians are living through an oppression you through in 1930’s. Read the room.
Fighting for freedom by taking toddlers hostage and then starving, torturing and killing hostages is freedom fighting? You're supporting a terrorist regime that exploits and kills Palestinians but the Jews are the problem, of course. Do you even know Arab history of conquest and forceful conversion to Islam? Read the room and sit down because you clearly are ignorant.
What is your definition of "fought?" As Michael said, there are multiple ways that the word fought may be taken. If you're allowing free speech, honest debate is appropriate. If you mean a confrontationally violent definition, it would be taking it as actual violence. Morally destroying, revolting, or harming individuals, societies or countries has no value.
As long as israel continues its genocide and ethnic cleansing, anyone associated with the israeli government or companies that provide the israeli death machine anything is a fair target for equivalent violence. israel must be fought. they won't stop on their own because they have the blessing of their colonial masters in the US Government on both sides who support it
You are carrying a very great load of hate, distrust, sadness and vitriol. Mankind can and is distructive to one another. Both sides can be hurtful. Historians, archaeologists, scholars have shown that Jews have lived and occupied the Sinai Peninsula for 5-6 millennia.
Bullcrap!!! You probably believe that Oct 7 never happened. Hamas’ written charter states that Israel should be eliminated. A 2-State agreement is impossible with Hamas. Hamas is a terrorist group that even Egypt and Jordan disregard.
No, I have supported righteous Palestinian resistance for years including Oct 7th and subsequent Al-Qassam activities. israels undeniable genocide and ethnic cleansing has radicalized people around the globe to stand up
Stringing words together because you heard them doesn't mean you understand any of them. Do you know what a colony is? That means they have a home country to return to, like France did with Algeria. Stop being ignorant and pretending that's what you care about. It's quite simple, Arabs lost multiple wars, refused peace agreements, terrorized Jews and were humiliated and Arabs can't live with the humiliation after centuries of conquest and conversions and now, no more? How can that be? Learn that you lost the wara, you are not refugees, you have to accept defeat and move on for the sake of the children instead of teaching them hate and martyrdom and being perpetual victims. Executing hostages isn't the way. Grow up.
Admit humiliation and decades of defeat and that without being propped up by your benefectors Iran, you're powerless and cowardly, hiding in tunnels and sacrificing your people. You should be embarrassed that what you think humanity is - being a Jihadist for Allah. You're an embarrassment.
Also learn to read and respond to arguments. You have very low quality reasoning ability and come off as a troll.
I'm not hiding in a tunnel lol, I think fighting for freedom from western domination is a glorious cause. I don't care how i come off to genocidal ethnic cleansers as they are evil and anyone who supports them are as well
So where do you reside? What's your ancestry is like? Do you support genocide of Jews? It sure comes off that way. But you don't care and that is obvious. I'm glad you're using all the tools and benefits and freedoms the western civilization brought to you while islamists are still stuck in medieval times of barbarism and cruelty, where women have no rights and sharia is issued by mullahs and stoning is acceptable and raping children is par for the course.
You come off ignorant and immature but of course you don't care because you don't know history. Perhaps you would prefer to live at the times of the caliphates. Perhaps you don't recognize that Iran's goals is re-establishing islamization of the world. Maybe you prefer THAT because in your mind, very young, impressionable, idealistic, and nihilistic, you think that is the right way. You're very much wrong and ignorant. It's sad. I won't be responding as you are muted. You are a sad sad young person.
Oh I think intifada means ice cream party except to a few Israelis and other Jews who know what happened especially during the second intifada. Shame on all those minimizers of language deliberately chosen for its message of death a destruction to Jews. They all need to be called out for this crap.
The thing I find most egregious in the chant “intifada revolution, there is only one solution”—and the reason I hope it wasn’t played—is the echo with the Nazi’s Final Solution, a killing of all Jews.
"In the case of intifada, there is a clear reason for the stigmatization, itself a word that has religious significance to Christians and was first used to mean branded as with an iron. Who did the branding with the word intifada? The answer is the Palestinians, who rose up in 1987 in the First Intifada. That intifada saw more than 1,500 people killed, most of them Palestinian"
Who killed the 1500 people, Mike? You dishonest piece of shit.
~1500 protesters were killed by IDF, and yet the 'branding was done by Palestinians?'
The Palestinians called their own uprising "the intifada". They called for armed resistance. Maybe they were right to do so, but they lost that conflict. How many more times will the Palestinians do that before they accept that it doesn't work, they need to accept tge Israeli conditions for peace and let go of absurdity like "the right of return". No victor in any war has ever allowed a "right of return". The call for intifada isn't wrong- it's counterproductive and stupid. The call for a right of return isn't wrong either. In a perfect world there would be no war refugees. But Palestinians live a real world and they have refused to accept that for 80+ years. It's not wrong, it's dumb.
Happy to see you critique how an entire PEOPLE should react to years of trauma and subjugation, as if the Palestinian people are a monolith from your perch.
What has them giving up any concessions over the last many decades amounted to? Israel is actively stealing land _currently_ inhabited by them, to pretend that this would all be over if the Palestinians didn't demand a right to return is so delusional, that I have to assume you do it in bad faith. Or well, maybe you are just that dumb.
Keep in mind that the best-case argument that Zionists can make for this theory is just 1999, which is still 25 years ago. Nothing since then has budged the Israeli position, including several peaceful protests, pressure from liberal Israeli elements for more assimilation, and armed resistance. Not only has one side continued to double-down, they've taken every opportunity possible to annex more land, crush moderate Palestinians and boost Hamas, and also explicitly reject any possibility of a two-state solution. So pretending like peace is ever, or ever will be on the table is ludicrous. The only choice presented to the Palestinians is if they'd prefer to die in a prison or of starvation, or be bombed to death.
Also, the Palestinians called the first uprising 'intifada'.
The violence was predominantly disproportionately inflicted *on* them, rather than by them. The association of it with violence was due to IDF's violence, not theirs.
That was the point in the paragraph I quoted, an Orwellian twisting of agency.
I don't know how common your given definitions of uprising and revolutions are. I don't share them personally (but maybe I'm very unusual?).
I always interpreted "uprising" to mean violence, so didn't think there was much of a point to quibbling over whether intifada is a synonym for it. Contemporary articles about the Iraqi intifada describe violent mobs attacking foreigners. Later on, the intifada culminated in a coup where the military executed the king. I'd call that an uprising.
In contrast, I don't think of revolutions as inherently violent so don't see why NPR would avoid recording that chant. Maybe I'm just affected by "revolution" being diluted by how often it's used in tech demos or whatever, but even political revolutions can be relatively peaceful (e.g. Velvet revolution, Singing Revolutions).
Are these unusual positions for what "uprising" and "revolution" mean? I think my understanding aligns with the dictionary:
History shows that most uprising lead to violence as that's the most basic emotion: hate. Mobs are a dangerous thing; it only takes a few bad actors to steer them into violence and destruction.
Most of the people involved in the protests surrounding the current Gaza conflict don't understand the history. This Gaza conflict is not an isolated incident but a continuation of something that has been ongoing for over a century.
Protestors at universities and on marches call for a 'Two State Solution'. This involves splitting the territory with Israelis and Palestinians each governing their respective parts. This is really the only feasible solution - I fully agree.
However, it has already been attempted. The 1993 Oslo Accords, between Yasser Arafat of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Yitzhak Rabin, then prime minister of Israel, aimed to deliver a Two State Solution.
The problem was that, from a Palestinian perspective, it was a top down initiative that was destined to fail because it was imposed upon the Palestinian people by its leaders, rather than being a bottom up initiative led by the will of the people.
Ordinary Palestinians are very much against a two state solution. Hamas (long before it became a political party) was a terrorist guerilla group that aimed to disrupt the two state solution brokered at the Oslo Accords. They embarked on a campaign of suicide bombings aimed at derailing the delivery of this solution. Within three years it had conducted no less than 141 suicide bombings on school buses, in restaurants and across the country aimed at killing Israeli civilians - this was part of the first Intifada.
By 1995 the Israeli population lost its patience with Israel’s left wing government’s attempts to deliver a two state solution. Instead it had delivered only death and misery rather than the peace that had been promised, and this culminated in the assassination of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Hamas subsequently embarked on an second Intifada in 2000, intent on killing more Israelis and destroying any prospect of a two state solution. All of this led to Hamas becoming heroes among the Palestinians and, in 2006, Hamas was elected into political power in Gaza creating a terrorist state.
Anyone can look up the Hamas charter of 1988. It is freely available on the internet. Article 7 calls for the killing of all Jews and the destruction of the state of Israel. Iran, the paymasters of Hamas, have reiterated this objective many times including a speech that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gave declaring that 'Israel must be wiped off the map'. Is this not genocidal intent? Yet protestors ignore this and accuse Israel of genocide.
Hamas was elected to power by Palestinians on its charter of destroying Israel - which explains why aid received by Gaza over the decades went to building 400 miles of underground tunnels in preparation for a war in Gaza. Then Hamas invited that war through the atrocities it committed on 7th October, yet the aggressor is portrayed as the victim!
Apparently, more than 70% of Palestinians still support the Hamas doctrine. In short, Palestinians don't want a two state solution, they want the destruction of Israel leading to a single Palestinian State. So why are all of the protests calling for a two state solution? And why do the protestors hold placards that read "River to the Sea", a pseudonym for the destruction of Israel, and "Jihad" which means holy war?
I am all for freedom of speech, but people need to educate themselves before speaking because much of what they are saying is incoherent.
I think that unfortunately, “Arabs” get lumped into one group that tend to be represented by the violent minority. At least I hope it’s the minority. I see Araba flying planes into the World Trade Center, be heading Western reporters on social media, bombing trains in Spain and killing innocent civilians in Belgium, just to name a few. I don’t know of any such incidents by Jewish people against our western civilization.
While Wikipedia is not by any means the final word on anything, its etymology captures what I had read from various sources.
“Intifada is an Arabic word literally meaning, as a noun, "tremor", "shivering", "shuddering". It is derived from an Arabic term nafada meaning "to shake", "shake off", "get rid of", as a dog might shrug off water, or as one might shake off sleep, or dirt from one's sandals.”
As used in the Israel-Palestinian situation, the evident sense of intifada is that Jews are to be shaken off because they are dirt - as Abbas revealed in his statement about Jews with “their dirty feet” desecrating al Aqsa.
Generally, though, if you are made aware that your chant can send a message antithetical to your own peaceful one, any normal person would change the chant. That they refuse to do so here suggests that this word parsing is a dodge and a convenient cover for a call to violence that also dehumanizes Jews.
Thanks for the essay. In my mind, hopefully without being too simplistic, there is always those opportunistic to use violence for political gains or even vile purposes, and so those will sneak in and make the most of any peaceful activimism, intifadha or otherwise. The problem is that the narrative can be quite similar between those peaceful (not daring enough by nature??), and the "other ones".
A good rule of thumb is that if somebody is playing word games they should be ignored; they are dishonest and/or just parroting things and/or dumb (obfuscating is the dumb person’s idea of cleverness). If somebody tries to legitimize such conduct, it’s a good sign that one should disengage from them too.
This was yeoman’s work, but the takeaway is that NPR should continue to keep going out of business.
In the context of the current protests it clearly refers to promoting the Palestinian cause and attempting to halt an active brutal genocide, one that is articulated most clearly and passionately and disgustingly by Israel’s own vicious leaders and government. Only the willfully blind pretend it’s not happening and the most pernicious are pleased at the slaughter.
Your article and its sly concern with the supposed meaning of a phrase whose intent in the context of the protests is pretty clear - “stop the damn genocide”, is dishonest. The protests also use other phrases to say, in different ways, “stop trying to shift attention from the real issue which is a brutal long-running colonial occupation that sabotages all peace deals because the goal is and always has been a greater Israel.
We have in Zionist Israel a regime that takes great joy in sniping children, bombing residential areas and in the wanton destruction of civilians (it’s part of their Dahiya doctrine) which it can only accomplish thanks to its demented patrons in the West.
To harp on about a phrase indicating resistance, used by an incarcerated, brutalized, endlessly terrorized population living under occupation and constant control and surveillance, is a symptom of the problem. The problem being the current Israeli regime, the de facto genocide, and Israel’s Western sugar daddies, and those who think what Israel does is just peachy keen. And articles like these.
Do you really see the use of a particular phrase as such a big problem? Ok, fine. How about writing about the phrases churned out by Netanyahu, Israeli government and IDF officials, the language around the support of rape and torture, the open calls for total destruction in the Israeli media, the racist Israeli language towards Palestinians and others, there’s endless fodder there. What are your thoughts on that?
I would argue that being fully honest about the meaning of the word intifada brings clarity to the situation. It allows follow up questions, like- will intifada work? Will it lead to a better outcome? What about after the intifada? What did the other intifadas accomplish? My argument is different from Mike's in that I dont object necessarily to an open call for an uprising. But pretending that you're not doing something, when you in fact are, because you secretly fear the repercussions will be the same unfortunate results from the two previous instances where you did the very same thing... doesn't seem like a good idea at all. What was October 7th if not an intifada? And how has that worked out? You think it's wise to call for another?
I'm in the United States. I don't care about any of the things you described (just as you probably don't very much care about other contemporary atrocities, which don't intersect with your personal sympathies). I DO care about our journalists, and how they use language. I found this essay interesting and helpful.
I would hope that as a human being you would care about atrocities no matter where or upon whom they are perpetrated. You should care even more about those being enabled, aided, and abetted by your government because perhaps you can raise your voice, as a human with conscience to object about these matters, as Americans have done through their history.
And if you care about journalists and language, then care about the bias and propaganda in the media and the extremely partisan language employed, care about the journalists being harassed and arrested in the UK and elsewhere, and those killed even as they identified themselves as journalists in conflict zones, and those targeted because of their journalism.
And care about the fact that senators and congressmen are being bought by AIPAC and that election interference, by these and other lobbyists, is corrupting the political system, and disenfranchising citizens, and is not beneficial, in the long term, for the people or the country.
Only the wilfully ignorant are pretending that it's happening. Go look up Sudan and then get back to us. What an inflammatory, ignorant, and vilifying comment. You absolutely don't know anything and are an antisemite - that's obvious. You're disgusting and the people who liked your comment as well.
Bullshit.
They are openly calling for the violent destruction of Israel. Everyone knows this
After what Israel has done, I don’t blame them. I won’t be happy until Tel Aviv is indistinguishable from Gaza City. Israel has been a cancer since 1948. It can’t be allowed to continue.
We all can get caught up on what words mean or what they meant to different people especially in this conflict. It’s easy when you have the upper hand in an apartheid state to be intellectually clever about it shy words mean. Unfortunately if you are fighting for you freedom, you do not have the luxury of parsing words to convey how you feel. Palestinians are people who deserve the right to live free of oppression . Human rights matter. Decency matters. Equality matters. How you express a need for a change is irrelevant especially if you fighting for your life. Literally fighting for your life. While you set in Tel Aviv soiling some sun on the beach, Palestinians are living through an oppression you through in 1930’s. Read the room.
Fighting for freedom by taking toddlers hostage and then starving, torturing and killing hostages is freedom fighting? You're supporting a terrorist regime that exploits and kills Palestinians but the Jews are the problem, of course. Do you even know Arab history of conquest and forceful conversion to Islam? Read the room and sit down because you clearly are ignorant.
The notion of a Hamas apologist talking about decency.
Decency requires awareness and empathy with those who are suffering. You sir lack both.
Tell that to Hersh.
You sir lack any awareness or decency or humanity. Take a seat.
Intifada now! israel must be fought worldwide to end their genocide and colonial occupation & ethnic cleansing of Palestine
What is your definition of "fought?" As Michael said, there are multiple ways that the word fought may be taken. If you're allowing free speech, honest debate is appropriate. If you mean a confrontationally violent definition, it would be taking it as actual violence. Morally destroying, revolting, or harming individuals, societies or countries has no value.
As long as israel continues its genocide and ethnic cleansing, anyone associated with the israeli government or companies that provide the israeli death machine anything is a fair target for equivalent violence. israel must be fought. they won't stop on their own because they have the blessing of their colonial masters in the US Government on both sides who support it
You literally don't know what words mean. People are starting to catch onto the bullshit and the emotional manipulation. Grow up.
You are carrying a very great load of hate, distrust, sadness and vitriol. Mankind can and is distructive to one another. Both sides can be hurtful. Historians, archaeologists, scholars have shown that Jews have lived and occupied the Sinai Peninsula for 5-6 millennia.
So what? Fuvk israel it'll collapse in our lifetimes
Ah, so you DO love genocide
Well that just sounds like ethnic cleansing and genocide.
thats what israel is doing
Bullcrap!!! You probably believe that Oct 7 never happened. Hamas’ written charter states that Israel should be eliminated. A 2-State agreement is impossible with Hamas. Hamas is a terrorist group that even Egypt and Jordan disregard.
No, I have supported righteous Palestinian resistance for years including Oct 7th and subsequent Al-Qassam activities. israels undeniable genocide and ethnic cleansing has radicalized people around the globe to stand up
Stringing words together because you heard them doesn't mean you understand any of them. Do you know what a colony is? That means they have a home country to return to, like France did with Algeria. Stop being ignorant and pretending that's what you care about. It's quite simple, Arabs lost multiple wars, refused peace agreements, terrorized Jews and were humiliated and Arabs can't live with the humiliation after centuries of conquest and conversions and now, no more? How can that be? Learn that you lost the wara, you are not refugees, you have to accept defeat and move on for the sake of the children instead of teaching them hate and martyrdom and being perpetual victims. Executing hostages isn't the way. Grow up.
israel cant survive without its colonial masters sending weapons to prop it up. It's a fact. They will be fought around the globe.
Admit humiliation and decades of defeat and that without being propped up by your benefectors Iran, you're powerless and cowardly, hiding in tunnels and sacrificing your people. You should be embarrassed that what you think humanity is - being a Jihadist for Allah. You're an embarrassment.
Also learn to read and respond to arguments. You have very low quality reasoning ability and come off as a troll.
I'm not hiding in a tunnel lol, I think fighting for freedom from western domination is a glorious cause. I don't care how i come off to genocidal ethnic cleansers as they are evil and anyone who supports them are as well
So where do you reside? What's your ancestry is like? Do you support genocide of Jews? It sure comes off that way. But you don't care and that is obvious. I'm glad you're using all the tools and benefits and freedoms the western civilization brought to you while islamists are still stuck in medieval times of barbarism and cruelty, where women have no rights and sharia is issued by mullahs and stoning is acceptable and raping children is par for the course.
You come off ignorant and immature but of course you don't care because you don't know history. Perhaps you would prefer to live at the times of the caliphates. Perhaps you don't recognize that Iran's goals is re-establishing islamization of the world. Maybe you prefer THAT because in your mind, very young, impressionable, idealistic, and nihilistic, you think that is the right way. You're very much wrong and ignorant. It's sad. I won't be responding as you are muted. You are a sad sad young person.
Lol coward
How ridiculous. Spewing garbage. What a bore
speaking truth you mean
Garbage and ignorance
LMAO.
Thank you for this piece, Mike. Clearly sums up what’s been swirling in my head.
Oh I think intifada means ice cream party except to a few Israelis and other Jews who know what happened especially during the second intifada. Shame on all those minimizers of language deliberately chosen for its message of death a destruction to Jews. They all need to be called out for this crap.
Thank you for this thoughtful essay.
The thing I find most egregious in the chant “intifada revolution, there is only one solution”—and the reason I hope it wasn’t played—is the echo with the Nazi’s Final Solution, a killing of all Jews.
"In the case of intifada, there is a clear reason for the stigmatization, itself a word that has religious significance to Christians and was first used to mean branded as with an iron. Who did the branding with the word intifada? The answer is the Palestinians, who rose up in 1987 in the First Intifada. That intifada saw more than 1,500 people killed, most of them Palestinian"
Who killed the 1500 people, Mike? You dishonest piece of shit.
~1500 protesters were killed by IDF, and yet the 'branding was done by Palestinians?'
The Palestinians called their own uprising "the intifada". They called for armed resistance. Maybe they were right to do so, but they lost that conflict. How many more times will the Palestinians do that before they accept that it doesn't work, they need to accept tge Israeli conditions for peace and let go of absurdity like "the right of return". No victor in any war has ever allowed a "right of return". The call for intifada isn't wrong- it's counterproductive and stupid. The call for a right of return isn't wrong either. In a perfect world there would be no war refugees. But Palestinians live a real world and they have refused to accept that for 80+ years. It's not wrong, it's dumb.
Happy to see you critique how an entire PEOPLE should react to years of trauma and subjugation, as if the Palestinian people are a monolith from your perch.
What has them giving up any concessions over the last many decades amounted to? Israel is actively stealing land _currently_ inhabited by them, to pretend that this would all be over if the Palestinians didn't demand a right to return is so delusional, that I have to assume you do it in bad faith. Or well, maybe you are just that dumb.
Keep in mind that the best-case argument that Zionists can make for this theory is just 1999, which is still 25 years ago. Nothing since then has budged the Israeli position, including several peaceful protests, pressure from liberal Israeli elements for more assimilation, and armed resistance. Not only has one side continued to double-down, they've taken every opportunity possible to annex more land, crush moderate Palestinians and boost Hamas, and also explicitly reject any possibility of a two-state solution. So pretending like peace is ever, or ever will be on the table is ludicrous. The only choice presented to the Palestinians is if they'd prefer to die in a prison or of starvation, or be bombed to death.
Also, the Palestinians called the first uprising 'intifada'.
The violence was predominantly disproportionately inflicted *on* them, rather than by them. The association of it with violence was due to IDF's violence, not theirs.
That was the point in the paragraph I quoted, an Orwellian twisting of agency.
I don't know how common your given definitions of uprising and revolutions are. I don't share them personally (but maybe I'm very unusual?).
I always interpreted "uprising" to mean violence, so didn't think there was much of a point to quibbling over whether intifada is a synonym for it. Contemporary articles about the Iraqi intifada describe violent mobs attacking foreigners. Later on, the intifada culminated in a coup where the military executed the king. I'd call that an uprising.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1952/12/07/84376305.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
In contrast, I don't think of revolutions as inherently violent so don't see why NPR would avoid recording that chant. Maybe I'm just affected by "revolution" being diluted by how often it's used in tech demos or whatever, but even political revolutions can be relatively peaceful (e.g. Velvet revolution, Singing Revolutions).
Are these unusual positions for what "uprising" and "revolution" mean? I think my understanding aligns with the dictionary:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/revolution
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/uprising
History shows that most uprising lead to violence as that's the most basic emotion: hate. Mobs are a dangerous thing; it only takes a few bad actors to steer them into violence and destruction.
Most of the people involved in the protests surrounding the current Gaza conflict don't understand the history. This Gaza conflict is not an isolated incident but a continuation of something that has been ongoing for over a century.
Protestors at universities and on marches call for a 'Two State Solution'. This involves splitting the territory with Israelis and Palestinians each governing their respective parts. This is really the only feasible solution - I fully agree.
However, it has already been attempted. The 1993 Oslo Accords, between Yasser Arafat of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Yitzhak Rabin, then prime minister of Israel, aimed to deliver a Two State Solution.
The problem was that, from a Palestinian perspective, it was a top down initiative that was destined to fail because it was imposed upon the Palestinian people by its leaders, rather than being a bottom up initiative led by the will of the people.
Ordinary Palestinians are very much against a two state solution. Hamas (long before it became a political party) was a terrorist guerilla group that aimed to disrupt the two state solution brokered at the Oslo Accords. They embarked on a campaign of suicide bombings aimed at derailing the delivery of this solution. Within three years it had conducted no less than 141 suicide bombings on school buses, in restaurants and across the country aimed at killing Israeli civilians - this was part of the first Intifada.
By 1995 the Israeli population lost its patience with Israel’s left wing government’s attempts to deliver a two state solution. Instead it had delivered only death and misery rather than the peace that had been promised, and this culminated in the assassination of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Hamas subsequently embarked on an second Intifada in 2000, intent on killing more Israelis and destroying any prospect of a two state solution. All of this led to Hamas becoming heroes among the Palestinians and, in 2006, Hamas was elected into political power in Gaza creating a terrorist state.
Anyone can look up the Hamas charter of 1988. It is freely available on the internet. Article 7 calls for the killing of all Jews and the destruction of the state of Israel. Iran, the paymasters of Hamas, have reiterated this objective many times including a speech that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gave declaring that 'Israel must be wiped off the map'. Is this not genocidal intent? Yet protestors ignore this and accuse Israel of genocide.
Hamas was elected to power by Palestinians on its charter of destroying Israel - which explains why aid received by Gaza over the decades went to building 400 miles of underground tunnels in preparation for a war in Gaza. Then Hamas invited that war through the atrocities it committed on 7th October, yet the aggressor is portrayed as the victim!
Apparently, more than 70% of Palestinians still support the Hamas doctrine. In short, Palestinians don't want a two state solution, they want the destruction of Israel leading to a single Palestinian State. So why are all of the protests calling for a two state solution? And why do the protestors hold placards that read "River to the Sea", a pseudonym for the destruction of Israel, and "Jihad" which means holy war?
I am all for freedom of speech, but people need to educate themselves before speaking because much of what they are saying is incoherent.
There is no two state solution. There will be one state of Palestine
Fuck yourself. And FREE PALESTINE!!
“Sure I know you think we called you a ‘kike,’ but really we were just using the short version of ‘kaykem,’ an Arabic word mean beloved friend.”
"kaykem" = a beloved friend ??
That “whoosh” sound you hear is the joke passing several feet above you
I think that unfortunately, “Arabs” get lumped into one group that tend to be represented by the violent minority. At least I hope it’s the minority. I see Araba flying planes into the World Trade Center, be heading Western reporters on social media, bombing trains in Spain and killing innocent civilians in Belgium, just to name a few. I don’t know of any such incidents by Jewish people against our western civilization.
While Wikipedia is not by any means the final word on anything, its etymology captures what I had read from various sources.
“Intifada is an Arabic word literally meaning, as a noun, "tremor", "shivering", "shuddering". It is derived from an Arabic term nafada meaning "to shake", "shake off", "get rid of", as a dog might shrug off water, or as one might shake off sleep, or dirt from one's sandals.”
As used in the Israel-Palestinian situation, the evident sense of intifada is that Jews are to be shaken off because they are dirt - as Abbas revealed in his statement about Jews with “their dirty feet” desecrating al Aqsa.
Generally, though, if you are made aware that your chant can send a message antithetical to your own peaceful one, any normal person would change the chant. That they refuse to do so here suggests that this word parsing is a dodge and a convenient cover for a call to violence that also dehumanizes Jews.
Thanks for the essay. In my mind, hopefully without being too simplistic, there is always those opportunistic to use violence for political gains or even vile purposes, and so those will sneak in and make the most of any peaceful activimism, intifadha or otherwise. The problem is that the narrative can be quite similar between those peaceful (not daring enough by nature??), and the "other ones".