Comment by richardfeynman | Hacker News Reader

Comment by richardfeynman | Hacker News Reader

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Calling the Second Intifada "sparked by Israeli massacres" reverses the basic chronology and ignores Palestinian leaders' own admissions.

1) Marwan Barghouti (Fatah leader of the uprising in the West Bank) told The New Yorker in Jan 2001: "The explosion would have happened anyway... But Sharon provided a good excuse." https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2001/01/29/arafats-gift

2) UK Parliament Hansard (Apr 16, 2002) quotes the semi-official PA daily Al-Ayyam (Dec 6, 2000) reporting PA communications minister Imad al-Falouji: "the Palestinian authority had begun preparations for the outbreak of the current intifada... in accordance with instructions given by Chairman Arafat himself" and that it was not meant merely as a protest over Sharon's visit. https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2002-04-16/debates/d69... (search within the page for "Al-Ayyam" or "Al-Falouji")

3) Arafat's widow Suha said Arafat decided to launch it ("Because I am going to start an Intifada") on Dubai TV, per MEMRI translation, quoted by CFR: https://www.cfr.org/articles/arafat-and-second-intifada https://www.memri.org/tv/suha-arafat-widow-yasser-arafat-200...

Also, this is not some uniquely Israeli talking point. Britannica describes the start as Palestinians erupting into violence after Sharon's Temple Mount visit: https://www.britannica.com/place/Israel/The-second-intifada

The chronology is clear:

1. Ariel Sharon staged a deliberate provocation by storming the Temple Mount with hundreds of policemen.

2. Palestinians protested, and Israeli forces shot live ammunition at them, killing four Palestinian civilians. Within weeks, riots had broken out and Israel had killed dozens of Palestinian civilians.

Israeli actions were the spark, not some planned Palestinian operation.

The long-term cause of the 2nd Intifada was Israeli refusal to carry out the Oslo Accords in good faith. The Palestinians recognized Israel and agreed to give up the armed struggle for their freedom in exchange for a set process by which Israel would rapidly withdraw from the occupied territories and allow the creation of a Palestinian state. The Israelis repeatedly reneged on that throughout the 1990s, and by 2000, the Palestinians were completely disillusioned with the so-called "Peace Process."

This mixes up the first 24 hours with who launched the Intifada as a sustained campaign.

Even if you think Sharon’s Temple Mount visit was provocative and Israeli police used excessive force on Sept 29, senior Palestinian figures later said the uprising was coming anyway and was planned, and Sharon was a convenient trigger.

1) Marwan Barghouti told The New Yorker: the explosion would have happened anyway; Sharon provided a good excuse. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2001/01/29/arafats-gift

2) PA communications minister Imad al Faluji: this intifada was planned in advance since Arafat returned from Camp David. https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/02/21/history-matters/

3) Suha Arafat said Arafat decided to start an intifada (MEMRI translation; CFR discusses it too). https://www.memri.org/tv/suha-arafat-widow-yasser-arafat-200... https://www.cfr.org/articles/arafat-and-second-intifada

Also, it is not just Israelis saying this. Mainstream sources record these admissions and describe the outbreak as Palestinian violence following the visit.

On Oslo: it was an interim framework with later permanent status talks, not a guaranteed rapid withdrawal and state. The PLO letter explicitly renounced terrorism and other violence. https://history.state.gov/milestones/1993-2000/oslo https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-107hr3743ih/html/B...

You've actually hit on the most important point: Although Oslo was sold as a two-state solution, the Israelis never agreed in writing to a Palestinian state.

The Israelis showed an incredible amount of bad faith. Rabin said in one of his last speeches that there would never be a Palestinian state - only a semi-autonomous entity under Israeli control. The Israelis never halted settlement construction. After Rabin was assassinated by the Israeli Right, Netanyahu deliberately sabotaged Oslo for years (which he brags about today), refusing to withdraw from the occupied territories as agreed.

After 7 years of this, with a Palestinian state no closer at all, a top Israeli politician (soon to become PM) staged a deliberate provocation, and Israeli forces began massacring Palestinian civilians.

Of course there were thoughts in the PLO about the possibility of future armed resistance. They would have been crazy not to think about that possibility. But they preferred a negotiated two-state solution, and they tried to get it for 7 years. After the Israelis started massacring Palestinian civilians, it would have been impossible for the PLO to keep a lid on the violence.

You are switching topics because the original claim does not survive contact with the record.

You said Israeli massacres sparked the Second Intifada. Your own timeline does not name any massacre that happened before it began. The first deaths were in the clashes after Sharon’s visit. That is tragic, but it is not some prior massacre that supposedly set everything off.

The US-led Mitchell Report is explicit: Sharon’s Temple Mount visit did not cause the Intifada. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/21st_century/mitchell_plan.asp

And Barghouti later said the eruption would have happened anyway and the visit was just a convenient excuse. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2001/01/29/arafats-gift

Also, your Oslo framing is backwards. Oslo did not promise a Palestinian state or rapid final withdrawal. It is an interim framework that explicitly defers permanent-status issues like borders, settlements, and Jerusalem to later negotiations. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/21st_century/isrplo.asp

A politician visiting a holy site under police protection is not a massacre and not a justification for launching an intifada.

Switching topics? We've been discussing the reasons for the 2nd Intifada. The Israelis reneging on Oslo was the fundamental reason for it.

> Your own timeline does not name any massacre that happened before it began.

Huh? I've mentioned the massacres that Israeli forces carried out in the aftermath of Ariel Sharon's storming of the Temple Mount several times now.

> The US-led Mitchell Report is explicit: Sharon’s Temple Mount visit did not cause the Intifada

You cite the Mitchell Report when it agrees with you, but ignore it when it disagrees with you.

The Mitchell Report explicitly states that the PLO had no premeditated plan to unleash violence.

In fact, it says that the proximal cause of the 2nd Intifada was the massacre that Israel carried out on 29 September 2000 against Palestinian protesters. Those protests were in response to Sharon's storming of the Temple Mount.

The report says that after that massacre, neither side showed restraint, which caused the violence to escalate.

So the report that you yourself are citing as an authority turns out to agree almost 100% with what I've been telling you all along.

> Oslo did not promise a Palestinian state or rapid final withdrawal.

Actually, Oslo II lays out a very specific timeline for Israeli withdrawal, to be completed within 18 months (by mid-1996!).

More generally, the Oslo Accords were sold as a rapid path to a two-state solution. If the Accords weren't about a two-state solution, then the Palestinians were completely swindled by the Israelis.

Nice try, but you are rewriting your own claim.

You opened with: the Second Intifada was sparked by Israeli massacres. Now your alleged massacre is Sept 29, the first day of the clashes after Sharon’s visit. That is not a prior massacre that precipitated anything, it is the opening confrontation itself, and you are laundering it with a loaded word.

On Oslo, you did not even mention it until your massacre story fell apart. And your Oslo summary is wrong on the text. Oslo II explicitly defers permanent-status issues (Jerusalem, settlements, borders, refugees, etc.) and excludes them from PA jurisdiction. The 18-month line is about phased interim jurisdiction, not a guaranteed state or full withdrawal. This was also obvious to everyone alive at the time and was widely reported. It's only now that people like you are attempting to rewrite history. https://www.peaceagreements.org/agreements/410/

Read the Mitchell Report you keep invoking.

- It describes Sept 29 as large demonstrations where Palestinians threw stones and Israeli police used rubber-coated bullets and live ammunition, killing 4 and injuring about 200. Calling that a massacre is absurd. It was an armed clash, premeditated and planned by the palestinians, so not only was there no massacre, but the Palestinians themselves say armed clash was premeditated and Sharon's visit was just a pretext.

- The Sharon visit did not cause the Al-Aqsa Intifada.

Source: https://www.palquest.org/en/historictext/13561/mitchell-repo...

Also, Sharon visiting a holy site under police protection is not violence. Mitchell even says holy places must be accessible to all believers. The choice to turn that into an uprising was a choice.

> You opened with: the Second Intifada was sparked by Israeli massacres. Now your alleged massacre is Sept 29, the first day of the clashes after Sharon’s visit. That is not a prior massacre that precipitated anything, it is the opening confrontation itself, and you are laundering it with a loaded word.

Those are the exact same thing. The "clashes" you're describing are Israeli forces firing live ammunition at unarmed Palestinian demonstrators in the wake of Sharon's deliberate provocation.

You pulled out the Mitchell Report as an authority on the subject, and it turns out that the Mitchell Report backs me up.

> Calling that a massacre is absurd.

Police opening up with live ammunition into a crowd of unarmed demonstrators, killing 4 and injuring 200 is not a massacre?

> but the Palestinians themselves say armed clash was premeditated and Sharon's visit was just a pretext.

No, no one said the September 29th clashes were premeditated. How would the PLO even be responsible for Israel deciding to open up with live ammunition on a crowd of unarmed Palestinian demonstrators? Did the PLO use mind control on the Israelis?

> Also, Sharon visiting a holy site under police protection is not violence. Mitchell even says holy places must be accessible to all believers.

The Mitchell Report says that Sharon's visit was a deliberate provocation. He wasn't just a random believer visiting a holy site. He was a top Israeli politician (on the verge of becoming prime minister) and a notorious general with a long career of slaughtering Palestinian civilians (including in Lebanon, where he let fascist Christian militias carry out a massacre in a Palestinian refugee camp). He stormed the holiest Muslim site in Palestine with hundreds of police officers. It was a political stunt intended to spark a reaction. One would have to be incredibly naive to think otherwise. Sharon knew that his actions would spark a massive outrage among Palestinians. Or are you claiming that Sharon had no idea what he was doing?

> The 18-month line is about phased interim jurisdiction, not a guaranteed state or full withdrawal.

No, the 18-month deadline is explicitly about full withdrawal of all Israeli forces from virtually the entire West Bank (including Area C) to specific military bases. Israel just completely reneged on that. Netanyahu has boasted about torpedoing Oslo by reneging on that specific requirement.

You are rewriting your own argument.

You opened with "Israeli massacres sparked the Second Intifada." Now the "massacre" is just the first day of the riots themselves, and when that gets challenged you pivot to Oslo (which you never mentioned in your original claim).

Mitchell's chronology is not "Israel opened fire on peaceful unarmed demonstrators." It describes a confrontation after Friday prayers where Palestinians began throwing at police near the Western Wall; police used rubber-coated bullets and live ammo; 4 Palestinians killed, about 200 injured; and 14 Israeli policemen injured. That is a violent riot plus (arguably) bad crowd-control, not a one-sided massacre. Same report: "no persuasive evidence that the Sharon visit was anything other than an internal political act" and "The Sharon visit did not cause the Al-Aqsa Intifada." https://avalon.law.yale.edu/21st_century/mitchell_plan.asp

Nobody is claiming Palestinians pre-planned Israeli live fire or used "mind control." The point is what happened next: Palestinian leaders chose to turn this into a sustained uprising. Barghouti said the explosion would have happened anyway and Sharon "provided a good excuse." https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2001/01/29/arafats-gift

Also, a politician visiting a holy site under police protection is not violence. Throwing stones and turning it into a street war is.

Your Oslo II claim is wrong on the text: interim jurisdiction explicitly excludes settlements, Jerusalem, borders, etc. The 18-month clause is phased redeployments, not "full withdrawal from Area C." https://www.peaceagreements.org/agreements/410/

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