Summary
The Palestinian uprising that erupted in the summer and fall of 2000, in Makdisi’s account sparked by Arik Sharon’s visit to Haram al-Sharif but as much a revolt against the Palestinian leadership’s seven wasted negotiating years as against the occupation itself (Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, PDF p.137).
Details
- Mati Steinberg of the Shin Bet, quoted by Makdisi, warned the Israeli approach “dictates just one choice to the Palestinians: either they surrender to Israel’s dictates, or they rise up against the dictates at all costs” (PDF p.137).
- Thousands of Palestinians, most of them civilians, were killed or injured by Israeli forces; Palestinian bombings of civilian targets inside Israel killed hundreds of innocent Israelis (PDF p.137-138).
- Israel smashed the Palestinian Authority’s institutions, formally reoccupied large portions of the West Bank, confined people to their homes for days and weeks, and flattened entire communities in Nablus and Jenin and in Rafah, Gaza, with Caterpillar D9 armoured bulldozers, leaving tens of thousands homeless (PDF p.138).
- A programme of extrajudicial executions, formally approved by a country’s high court — the only one of its kind, the text notes — left hundreds of Palestinians dead or wounded, a large proportion innocent bystanders; the army fired over a million bullets in the first few days (PDF p.138).
- General Moshe Ya’alon, in charge of the military response: “The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness,” “that they are a defeated people” (PDF p.138).
Related pages
Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, First Intifada, Oslo Accords, Arik Sharon, Palestinian Authority