Are We on the Cusp of Another Intifada?

Israelis are shooting Palestinians. Palestinians are shooting Israelis. The Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount is once again the scene of clashes. And in a horrific arson attack by Israeli extremists last week, a Palestinian 18-month-old was burned to death. Yes, the Israeli-Palestinian issue is heating up again.

And as if to draw attention to the growing possibility of major violence, the Council on Foreign Relations issued a memo authored by my former State Department colleague Steven Simon, one of the best analysts of the Middle East I know. Steve’s paper really is worth a read as a first-rate analysis of what’s going on in the Holy Land right now — and why it’s so dangerous.

So, are we headed for an explosion, the Third Intifada that many have been predicting for a while? It’s hard to say. The Middle East is full of surprises that American analysts — myself included — aren’t always good at anticipating. (Remember the First Intifada? The Arab Spring?) But I’d bet — as I did last summer when events on the ground, including the horrific murder of three Israeli teenagers and the savage killing of a young Palestinian, threatened major violence in the West Bank — that we’re still not on the verge of a big explosion. Of course, something could set off a new conflagration. Any effort to defame or destroy one of the two mosques on the Haram al-Sharif would almost certainly spark a massive and sustained period of violence, for example. But still, factors new and old make an intifada unlikely.

By far the biggest obstacle to another intifada-style uprising is the demonstrated costs of earlier episodes. Now, to be sure, people, including you and me, don’t always act rationally or in ways that are suited to their best interests. And an argument might be made that there were advantages to the First Intifada that erupted in December 1987. It actually put Palestinians on Israel’s political map and forced Israeli leaders, particularly the late Yitzhak Rabin, then the country’s defense minister, to the conclusion that there was no military solution to the Palestinian problem. The resulting Oslo peace process failed to deliver a lasting settlement, but it did lead to Palestinian political governance in part of historic Palestine and made statehood the central issue.

But violence has been costly for the Palestinians, the Second Intifada in particular. Some 4,000 people (the vast majority of them Palestinian) died; the Palestinian economy and the Palestinian state’s institutions suffered what seems like irreversible damage. Palestinian terrorism, in particular suicide bombings, destroyed the Israeli center left, gave rise to the Israeli trope that the Israelis have no partner, and empowered the right and the settlement enterprise. The credibility of the government’s security services was undermined and Fatah’s failures to end the occupation, rid itself of corruption, and improve the Palestinian economy opened up new opportunities for Hamas. It’s unlikely the Palestinians would want to take on another uprising that could lead to even further setbacks.

Other history lessons make another intifada unlikely, too. Two intifadas — painful and costly for Israel as they were — have proved that the Israeli occupation isn’t your typical colonial enterprise. Unlike other occupations, where occupiers can be pushed out by an unacceptable level of terrorism and violence and simply sail back to the motherland (see: Algeria under the French, or Vietnam under the French and Americans), Israelis aren’t going anywhere. Palestinians must know that the unilateral disengagement from Gaza undertaken by Ariel Sharon in 2005 didn’t set a precedent that’s likely to be repeated in the West Bank.

The geopolitical winds in the Middle East are also blowing against another intifada. Hamas is caught in perhaps one of its worst crises since its inception in the late 1980s. The group is strapped for cash, under pressure from Egypt and Israel, and unable to deliver economic relief and recovery to the public. This means that the Islamist group is in no condition right now to go to war — either to resume its high-trajectory missile and rocket campaign or to foster an uprising in the West Bank.

That helps to explain the recent rapprochement between Hamas and Saudi Arabia. Last week, Hamas officials announced that Iran’s aid to Hamas has been drastically reduced. Relations with Tehran have been strained since Hamas’s political leaders were forced to distance themselves from the Iran-backed Syrian government, which was killing Sunnis and Palestinians in Syria. Combined with Saudi Arabia’s recent efforts to counter Iran, there is an opening for improved relations between Hamas and the Saudis. Last month, King Salman of Saudi Arabia hosted a Hamas delegation in a rare meeting in Riyadh. The message: financial support will be forthcoming if, indeed, Hamas has severed its Iranian ties. Whether Saudi support will temper the character of Hamas’s military wing is an open question. But it seems logical to conclude that for the time being, Hamas is unlikely to bite the hand that feeds it and go back to confrontation with Israel.

Hamas’s current vulnerability also accounts for the reports of negotiations with Israel over a long-term interim agreement to preempt another war in Gaza. On paper, the logic for such an approach seems compelling: Hamas wants to open up Gaza economically and needs Israel’s cooperation. And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would prefer a long-term deal with Hamas over Gaza than risk politically explosive negotiations with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for a two-state solution. The negotiations over Gaza will likely not produce an agreement because the level of mistrust between Hamas and Israel is just too high, but they do suggest that neither side is looking for an escalation.

If Hamas is reluctant to ramp up tensions with Israel now, Abbas and his Fatah party are even less interested in doing so. The last thing Abbas wants is a large-scale uprising that spins out of control and undermines his current initiative to gain international recognition for Palestinian statehood and put pressure on Israel. The fact is that, for Mahmoud Abbas, any violent uprising will further undermine his current international diplomacy and marginalize him further. That he has maintained Palestinian security cooperation with Israel these many years speaks volumes about his view of an armed uprising: Abbas doesn’t want one.

For now, despite the recent escalation, an uneasy but violent status quo will likely prevail. This, of course, has been the story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for quite some time now. Diplomacy has rarely been effective in tackling the big issues. And we’ve never witnessed the level of violence required to create sufficient urgency to compel governments to resolve the conflict in stages, let alone all at once.

Israelis and Palestinians usually manage to pull back from the brink and keep matters from getting out of control even as they do their perverse dance as occupier and occupied. This latest surge of bloodletting will likely pass, too. It’s as if both know that violence and terror cannot solve the problem — or even create a process that allows them to do so. I suppose in its own bizarre way, that’s good news. But the bad news is still demoralizing. Neither side is yet ready to pay the price necessary to solve the conflict, including making painful decisions on Jerusalem, borders, or refugees. And until both sides are ready to make these choices, the gun, the knife, and the bomb will continue to highlight the risks of avoiding them.

Photo credit: MUSA AL-SHAER/AFP/Getty Images