Third Intifada as unlikely as peace

Relative, if fragile, stability has even reached the Gaza Strip. Run by the Hamas movement, it remains an “enemy entity” to Israel. But the Iranian-backed Islamists are enforcing a de facto ceasefire that has curbed rocket fire into Israel.

Hamas's critics argue that the group's current policy differs little from that of Abbas's Palestinian Authority: it is seeking to halt attacks that will draw Israeli reprisals.

That's a comparison Hamas rejects. Part of an alliance including Syria and Hezbollah, Hamas is still committed to fighting Israel but argues that Gaza is in need of calm to recover from a devastating Israeli offensive 20 months ago.

The group has said it will not use force to derail the negotiations set to begin in Washington on Thursday — a tactic it employed in the 1990s when, less powerful, it frequently interrupted U.S.-backed peace talks with suicide attacks.

Hamas activists are regularly detained by West Bank security forces trained with U.S. support. The territory would be the main front in a future Intifada because there are no Israeli settlers or soldiers in Gaza. Israel withdrew them in 2005.

“The Palestinian Authority has taken many steps to destroy the roots of any new Intifada,” said Zakaria al-Qaq, a political analyst. “Not just by targeting the Islamists, but also any party that might think of doing anything.”

No Mood For Blood

Political commentator Samih Shabib added that there is little appetite among Palestinians for another uprising. “There is no popular conviction that an Intifada is the right thing and there is no party in the field to launch it,” he said.

“The Intifada had deep lessons for the Palestinians: that the use of weapons will lead to Israeli incursions, killing, destruction, economic, political, social siege and without any benefit,” he said.

The uprising erupted when Clinton failed to forge a deal between the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak, then Israel's prime minister. Palestinian leaders at the time declared the Intifada as the route to liberation.

Unlike the first Intifada, which began in 1987 and was defined by confrontations between stone-throwing Palestinian youths and Israeli soldiers, the Palestinians resorted to guns and explosives in the second uprising. Suicide bombers struck inside Israel itself.

Zakaria Zbeida, a prominent figure in the uprising, said another Intifada was inevitable unless the Palestinians could secure an acceptable peace agreement — something he believes unlikely. But it would need time to break out.

“Maybe in four, five or seven years. But in the near future, no,” said Zbeida, who was spokesman for the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade in the West Bank. “Resistance needs a political umbrella. That is not present now,” he said.

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