by Daniel Flesch
On the same day that an ISIS-inspired terrorist killed 15 civilians in a deadly car attack in New Orleans, hundreds of pro-Palestinian protestors marched in Times Square chanting, “There is only one solution: intifada revolution.” After a year of such scenes and with domestic terror attacks escalating, the threat from those calling to “globalize the intifada” has never been more acute.
So, what exactly is meant by an “intifada,” and how do we defeat it?
Intifada – or “uprising” – refers to two periods of sustained violent Palestinian revolt against Israel. The first intifada (1987-93) ended with the onset of the Oslo peace process, as Israelis believed Palestinian violence stemmed from their desire for independence.
The second intifada (2000-05) began with the failure of Oslo as Israelis learned that rather than seek their own state, the Palestinians sought to destroy the Jewish state. And they would seek to achieve this through any means necessary, including targeting civilians.
Prior to Oct. 7, the second intifada was the most traumatic period in Israeli history. In its first full year, Palestinian suicide bombers targeted buses, pizza shops, nightclubs, and other “soft” targets, killing over 100 civilians, including Americans.
In a country where it is commonplace for children to take public transportation to school, parents could no longer trust their kids would return home alive.
By the time it ended, over 1,000 Israelis and 2,700 Palestinians were dead, with thousands more injured.
This is what those calling to “globalize the intifada” mean to import to American streets. Their goal is not to affect U.S. policy towards Israel or the Middle East but to destroy the United States through a political revolution that features a Palestinian-inspired strategy of indiscriminate attacks against civilians.
Since Hamas’ massacre on Oct. 7, those agitating for an intifada have used the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust as a pretext to engage in further violence against Jews, including blocking Jewish congregants from entering synagogues while shouting “Long live intifada,” stabbing a Jewish man while shouting “free Palestine” (pictured above), fatally hitting a Jewish counter-protestor in an altercation, and many other incidents.
In a disturbing development this past November, police and the FBI raided the home of two Palestinian-American sisters at George Mason University (GMU) in Virginia and found rifles, ammunition, and an explosive device, along with signs that read “Death to the Jews” and “Death to America” and the flags of Hamas and Hezbollah, both U.S.-designated terror organizations. The sisters, leaders in their campus’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, previously participated in an act of vandalism when they defaced the student center with the threats of a “student intifada.”
In December, the FBI arrested an Egyptian national and GMU student for plotting an attack on the Israeli consulate in New York City because the “building represented the ‘Yahud,’” Arabic for “Jew.”
Of course, most of the activists chanting “intifada” are useful idiots supporting the progressive cause du jour, however evil and misguided it may be. They couldn’t even tell you from which river to which sea “Palestine will be free.”
But there are plenty of individuals and organizations committed to tearing down American society, and their demonstrated proclivity for violence comes as Islamic terrorism makes a resurgence.
Consider recent events: On Oct. 9, the FBI arrested an Afghan national in Oklahoma City for plotting an ISIS-inspired mass casualty attack on election day. On Oct. 26, an illegal migrant shot a Jewish man in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in Chicago who was walking to synagogue and then shouted “Allahu Akbar” just before exchanging gunfire with police. On Nov. 8, the FBI arrested a Houston man for providing material support to ISIS.
The New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans is only the most recent – and most successful – Islamic terrorist attack. And if the “globalize the intifada” crowd is allowed to persist, there will be more.
But this growing threat can and must be defeated.
Israel defeated the Palestinians’ second intifada by simultaneously playing offense and defense. Following a particularly heinous Hamas bombing of a hotel on the eve of Passover that killed 30 and injured 150, it launched a military operation to regain control of the West Bank and uproot terror infrastructure in Palestinian cities.
At the same time, Israel began erecting the security barrier along the Green Line, thereby stemming the flow of suicide bombers and other terrorists into Jewish population centers.
We need such a dual approach that sees law enforcement actively root out those supporting terrorist organizations and a civil society that creates its own barrier, beyond which the current antisemitic strain of anti-Americanism is no longer tolerated. The National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism’s Project Esther, for example, provides such a blueprint.
If we fail to act now, it is only a matter of time before the third intifada is here.
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Daniel Flesch is a senior policy analyst for Middle East and North Africa at The Heritage Foundation.
Image “Intifada Knife Attack” by Crown Heights Shrmira.
