The Second Palestinian Intifada:
A Chronicle Of A People’s StruggleBook Review By Jim Miles
08 July, 2006
Countercurrents.orgThe Second Palestinian Intifada - A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle. Ramzy Baroud (Pluto Press, London); also available at Amazon.com
“Few are spared [Baroud's] perceptive eye, and only the morally callous will fail to respond to his pleas to remedy the injustice that he exposes.” -- Professor Noam Chomsky, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“A compelling narrative of Palestinian victimization [presented] with candor and uncompromising integrity.” -- Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, Palestinian Legislator for the Jerusalem District
'Masterful prose. ... (A) scathing but heartfelt portrait.' -- Professor Norman G. Finkelstein, author of “The Holocaust Industry”
A chronicle is a “continuous register of events on order of time” and within that framework, Ramzy Baroud recounts the reality of the Intifada as seen from inside the wall, through the distorted lenses of the western media, as well as a more analytical view of politics. These three themes - the ‘wall’, the media, and politics – surface time and again within the narrative of events.
The introduction presents the underlying reality of all Israeli actions, that its success “in fragmenting physical and geographical Palestine is matched by its success in having shattered the social, political, and economic strata as well,” and they “have been systematic and ongoing since well before the Second Intifada.” The end purpose is a negation of the Palestinians as a people and as a geographical entity so that greater Israel may be realized.
It is both a personal story and a societal story, a narrative that presents a global view while at the same time relating the gritty reality of everyday events when a “policy of starvation, assassination, and systematic killing is imposed – when people are brutalized in the streets, when schools are raided by Apache helicopters, when F16s erratically bombard villages and towns, when a whole nation is collectively abused and violated with almost no protection.” For the author, it is life itself, “As for me, I am Palestinian: I grew up in the Gaza ghetto and need not reverse the picture to understand. Outrage is now part of my anatomy.”
The ‘wall’, the ‘security fence’, the ‘separation barrier’, whatever its title, has become a symbol of Israel intentions just as much as it is the reality of Israeli intentions. Rather than following easily demarcated defensive positioning, the wall contorts itself around and through communities, between people and their farmlands and wells and schools, and then through the schoolyard itself. Rather than being built along the original green line, the line marking the end results of the 1967 war, it absorbs many Palestinian communities within West Bank territory that are obviously destined to be eliminated and replaced by settlements. Like all walls it is porous, almost entirely under Israeli control, a barrier of humiliation, degradation, and denial of all civil rights, including the geographic right to one’s own land.
It is illegal. “The construction of the wall and its associated regimes are contrary to international law…All states are under obligations not to recognize the illegal situation resulting from the construction of the wall.”
Yet to follow western media, it is all the fault of the Palestinians, that the Israelis are doing nothing but good against a violent, dangerous, and uncontrollable people. Western media, particularly in the United States and Canada, relate the Israeli position as – pardon the cliché – if it were gospel, which unfortunately for many it has become. “Israel understands the impact of the media in the world, and takes the business very seriously.” The occupiers become the victims, a story that ties in well with the media spin on American military efforts throughout the Middle East, the ‘evil’ other of the terrorists. Yet for the true victims “driven to the verge of desperation, blowing oneself up might actually seem like a rational way out of a despairing situation.”
Baroud argues that Palestinians should not succumb to Israeli values and destroy citizens but to “maintain its moral edge, the Palestinian revolution should not depart from its all-encompassing, tolerant, and inclusive path, it should not be tainted by the fallacies of the occupier, it should not fall into the trap of fury, racial and religious exclusivity, and revengeful acts against civilians.”
For their own reasons, geopolitical with oil and control of the Middle East, religious with the strengthening fundamentalist evangelicalism, and the neocon desire to rule the world without allowing anyone else to interfere, the United States has provided unequivocal support to the Israeli position. Americans are not adverse to ghettos and have allowed them throughout their history. Palestine is another area to be controlled, another ghetto, seldom heard from, even less seen, to further America’s own political purposes.
This book is as much an indictment of the media and those that manipulate it as anything else. The story of the Palestinian people through the five years of the Intifada is grossly misrepresented in western media. Any periods of ‘peace’ are always fragmented by Palestinian terrorists, always demonstrating that they are incapable of controlling themselves, that they are essentially an uncivilized people. Those same periods of peace are ongoing periods of Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people, but those daily events are seldom recorded in news articles.
The most recent events in Palestine, and the Middle East, demonstrate perfectly well the major themes that are presented in Ramzy Baroud’s personal and…what - nationalistic, cultural, societal, political, geographical, figurative…account in “The Second Palestinian Intifada.” Democracy and its attributes have been shown to be nothing but a mirage, an ephemeral quality that is to be denied once its reality is attained contrary to American interests and expectations.
The recent election of Hamas, receiving 74 out of 132 seats in the Palestine Legislative Council, shows the Palestinian denial of the media narrative against them. In what was probably the most truly democratic election anywhere in the globe, including the paragon of democracy the U.S. itself with its flawed system, the Palestinian vote represented the spirit of the people against all physical and emotional odds.
Not surprisingly, the western media, following Israel’s lead, reported only on the non-validity of a terrorist group controlling a government, even though “Hamas held truce throughout most of 2005 and then were asked to accept Israel outright even while Israeli atrocities continued” and without any guarantees of any kind from the Israelis in return.
Taken in the larger context of the Middle East, the Americans and Canadians withheld funds intended to assist the Palestinian government with its civic objectives with both governments explicitly stating they would not negotiate with ‘terrorists’.The wall continues to grow, a sinuous cancerous band destroying Palestinian land and society. The western politicians continue to be held in thrall to the Israeli perspective. The media continues to misrepresent the ongoing struggle in Palestine. But the epilogue of the Second Palestinian Intifada is both positive and hopeful, while still serving as a warning that a subjugated people can never be fully denied. “The Second Palestinian Uprising…will always be remembered by most Palestinians, as well as by people of conscience everywhere, as a fight for freedom, human rights, and justice. It will remain a powerful reminder that popular resistance is still an option – and one to be reckoned with at that.”
Ramzy Baroud writes with integrity and passion on events that should be universally known but are not represented in western media. “The Second Palestinian Intifada” provides a realistic and honest perspective on the critical events that are affecting Palestine, the Middle East, and, to follow, all of us collectively. It is a people’s story that needs to be made known.
-The Second Palestinian Intifada - A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle is now available at Amazon.com among many other online outlets.
-Jim Miles is a Canadian educator and a regular contributor of opinion pieces and book reviews to Palestine Chronicles. His interest in this topic stems originally from an environmental perspective, which encompasses the militarization and economic subjugation of the global community by corporate governance and by the American government.
