The intifada is an Arab militant movement. What is the intifada

The Arab-Israeli confrontation is one of the largest armed and political conflicts, which has been destabilizing the situation in the Middle East for more than half a century. The intifada is one of the most striking episodes of this struggle. It manifested itself both in acts of civil disobedience and in direct armed actions by the opposing sides. Let's find out more in detail what an intifada is and follow its chronology.

History of the Arab-Israeli confrontation

But first, in order to have a more accurate picture of the situation that led to the emergence of this movement, we need to go deeper into the history of the Arab-Israeli confrontation.

Although conflicts between Jews and Arabs of Palestine have happened since the end of the First World War, they acquired a real scale only after the formation of the State of Israel in 1948. According to the UN decision, the creation of an Arab state was also planned on the Palestinian lands, but for a number of reasons this idea was never implemented.

Already at the initial stage of Israel's existence, almost all Arab countries refused to recognize it as a legitimate entity. In 1947-1949 the Israelis had to enter the war of independence with a coalition of Arab states. The result was a convincing victory for Israel. In addition to gaining independence, the new country was able to seize a number of territories that were destined for the non-created Arab state in Palestine.

But that was only the beginning. A whole series of new conflicts followed. And practically in all, Israel won and annexed new lands inhabited by Arabs.

Thus, by the mid-1980s, under the occupation of Israel, virtually all of the territory that was intended to create an Arab state on Palestinian lands turned out to be. Relations between the Israelis and the inhabitants of the occupied territories were extremely tense, which created the preconditions for a wave of disobedience and new armed conflicts. Back in 1967, the PLO was created, the purpose of which was to abolish the occupation regime (through armed and political struggle) and the establishment of an independent state of Palestine.

The essence of the term "intifada"

Now let's find out what exactly the term "intifada" means. This concept is literally translated from Arabic as an "uprising". In broad use, it came in the late 80-ies of the XX century, when in the occupied territories of Palestine began the movement of disobedience, which turned into an open armed and even terrorist form of struggle.

Thus, the Arab intifada is an uprising of the Arabs of Palestine against the occupation authorities.

The Background of the Uprising

As already mentioned above, the Arab population of Palestine was extremely negative about the Israeli occupation authorities, and in their turn, they in every way oppressed the local population, seeing it as enemies. According to the Palestinians themselves, these harassment of the Israeli administration were repressive.

Just before the first intifada began, namely in mid-1987, several Israelis were killed, only one of whom was a military man. This fact even more heated and so restless situation. The disturbances took on a mass character, and acts of cruelty were shown by both sides. Especially the situation escalated in the Gaza Strip - the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory bordering on Egypt.

Oil in the fire poured the refusal of Egypt and Jordan from the Palestinian lands. That is, a situation in which local Arabs did not in fact have any political rights, was mothballed.

The radical organizations "Palestinian Islamic Jihad" and "Hamas" became increasingly popular among the inhabitants of the occupied territories. At the same time, the activities of the PLO also became more active.

The beginning of the first intifada

The Palestinian intifada began in December 1987. The catalyst for the indignation of the Arabs was a car crash caused by a clash between an Israeli military truck and a wagon carrying a large number of Palestinians. In this accident many local people died. The Palestinians took the tragic event as the deliberate revenge of the Israelis.

Mass riots began. Originally, Palestinians used stones and other improvised tools as tools against the Israelis, so the second name for this intifada is the "war of stones."

The further development of the events of the first intifada

The Israeli military in response to the flying stones in them began to open fire, which further exacerbated the situation. The uprising spread to the west bank of the Jordan River, and in the second half of December reached Jerusalem, which Israel considered its capital.

The first Palestinian intifada was marked by a large number of teenagers participating in it. Over time, except for stones, the rebels began to use Molotov cocktails and firearms. Nevertheless, the Israeli army had an overwhelming material superiority over the rebels, which enabled it, eventually, to cope with them.

During the uprising, about two thousand local Arabs and 111 Israelis were killed.

Peace agreements

It is significant that the events of the intifada contributed to a split in the Israeli society itself. Many Israelis were willing to make concessions to the Palestinians for the sake of preserving peace and preventing similar conflicts in the future. This situation led to the fact that Israel won the "peace party" headed by Yitzhak Rabin.

The Israeli government negotiated with Palestinian leaders represented by PLO representatives. In 1993, peace agreements were signed in Oslo between Yitzhak Rabin and the head of the PLO Yasser Arafat, which provided for the creation of the Palestinian autonomy. It is this event that can be considered the end of the first intifada.

Prerequisites for the Second Intifada

Nevertheless, the main contradictions between Israelis and Palestinians - even after the signing of the treaty in Oslo - were not lifted, and they later served as prerequisites for the conflict, known as the second intifada.

The formal reason for the new uprising was the visit of Ariel Sharon in 2000 to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The Palestinians saw a violation of the agreement in this incident, although the Israeli side insisted that, according to the agreements, access to this shrine is open to people professing any religion.

In any case, this event served as only a catalyst, not the root cause of a new uprising known as the Al-Aqsa intifada. This is the name of one of the mosques on the Temple Mount.

The beginning of the second intifada

The second intifada (Al-Aqsa intifada) began with mass riots in September 2000 on the same day that a landmark visit to the Temple Mount took place. Already the next day tens of thousands of people took part in the riots.

Government forces used firearms against them, which led to numerous casualties on both sides. Also, the Israeli authorities used aircraft that struck at a number of Palestinian settlements.

It is also worth noting that the second intifada in Israel, unlike the first, was accompanied by massive outrage among Arabs with Israeli citizenship.

Further events of the intifada Al-Aqsa

Meanwhile, the intifada in Israel began to grow in scale. Palestinian radical organizations carried out a series of terrorist attacks against Israelis.

The most active actions of the rebels are in 2002. In response, the Israeli army conducted Operation Defensive Wall, which almost completely stopped the intifada in the territory of Israel proper, but nevertheless the riots continued on the lands of the Palestinian Authority. However, in the future the uprising went into decline and by 2005 almost completely ceased, although some sources consider the final end of the second intifada only in 2008.

During the fighting for the entire period from 2000 to 2005, more than 3,100 Palestinians and about one thousand Israelis were killed. If, however, 2008 is the end of the intifada, the number of victims will increase significantly. Among the Palestinians it will be almost five thousand, and among the Israelis - 1200 people.

Consequences of Intifada

Both sides of the conflict realized that the intifada is a path to destruction, because the economic indicators of both Israel and the Palestinian Autonomy have seen a significant decline, not to mention human casualties. Particularly badly affected by the tourism industry, because few people want to go to a country where active fighting is conducted.

Although there was no formal agreement between the Palestinians and the Israeli leadership, both of them made some concessions. Thus, in 2005, the government of the State of Israel decided to withdraw the Israeli troops, administration and settlers from the Gaza Strip. In turn, the leaders of the Palestinian resistance also contributed to reducing the intensity of the confrontation.

However, these steps, as well as the agreements after the first intifada, did not solve the problems of the Arab-Israeli relations, but only frozen the current situation. The most extremist Palestinian organizations decided to continue the struggle, in response to which Israel in 2008 conducted a special operation in the Gaza Strip.

When will the third intifada begin?

In connection with the operation in the Gaza Strip against Hamas in late 2008 and early 2009 by the Israeli army, the latter called on the Arabs to launch a third intifada. True, this call did not have mass support among the population. In fact, the third intifada has not yet begun.

Nevertheless, given the fact that a tangle of accumulated contradictions between the Israelis and the Palestinians has never been unleashed, it can be concluded that unless a drastic measure is taken, a new armed clash between the opposing sides is inevitable. Moreover, many Palestinian organizations believe that the intifada is the only way to full independence.

Confirmation of this can serve as mutual shelling, which began again in 2012. It remains to be hoped that among the leaders of both Israelis and Palestinians will prevail those individuals who are striving for a reliable lasting peace for many years.