Although it has been 20 years since the outbreak of the second intifada (al-Aqsa Intifada), interest in the revolt that started October 1, 2000, and ended April 30, 2008, has not diminished. The event, which has been marked with several articles, continues to resonate among Israelis. An examination of this uprising will help us understand how this has influenced many young Israelis to appreciate the implacable enemy bent on annihilating the Jewish state.

Samuel M. Katz, a Middle East security and international terrorism expert, noted that of the eight conflicts with the Arabs in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, the second intifada was the seventh and the “third bloodiest.” Normally wars are fought to achieve political objectives or appropriate another country’s land. Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat and the leaders of Hamas did not seek to wrest any new political concessions from Israel, create any additional territorial entities or proffer a solution to this intractable conflict. Their only goal appeared to be to exact as much pain and suffering as possible on the Israeli civilian population.

Goal of the Intifada

To inflict the greatest harm and trauma to Israeli noncombatants, Katz said the Arabs intentionally designed attacks to generate an appalling number of fatalities, without the remotest possibility of there being any international condemnation or retribution. The terrorists never wore uniforms or conducted their terror activities in the open. Frequently, they hid among the local population, using civilians as human shields.

Israelis viewed this violent eruption as proof of the Arabs’ effort to compel Israel to accept their terms for peace. Jacob Shamir and Khalil Shikaki, authors of “Palestinian and Israeli Public Opinion: The Public Imperative in the Second Intifada,” asserted that Yasser Arafat had limited international credibility, and failed to convince Israelis that this was a spontaneous national eruption over which he had no control.

Israelis Unintentionally Supply Arms to the Arabs

Inadvertently, the Israelis furnished some of the very weapons the Arabs used in this intifada, according to Gal Luft, the executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security. As a result of the Oslo Accords (signed in 1993 and 1995), the Israelis transferred arms to the Palestinian Security Services (PSS) with its more than 40,000 regular army, police, military police units, intelligence services and coast guard, which were used against the Israelis.

Arab journalist Zaki Chehab points out that during the first intifada, Israeli control of the Egyptian border and her considerable military presence in the Gaza Strip rigorously limited the quantities of ammunition and weapons the Arab military organizations could acquire. During the second intifada, Hamas smuggled thousands of arms through the underground tunnel networks connecting the Gaza Strip with Egypt.Some of the weapons were then transferred to Hamas terrorists in Judea and Samaria. There were also significant amounts of ammunition abandoned in the Sinai desert by the Israelis and the Egyptian armies after the Six Day War in 1967. Egyptians traders found the ammunition, which they sold to Palestinian Arab organizations. These were used by Hamas, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Islamic Jihad during the final phase of the first intifada when military attacks became more intensive. Additional sorts of explosives were manufactured from materials found in the Arab markets.

Area A

The entire Arab terrorist infrastructure, Samuel Katz explained, was located in Area A, consisting of approximately 18% of the total territory of Judea and Samaria. These were the towns and cities of the Palestinian Authority under complete command of Arafat’s security and intelligence services and civil servants. According to the provisions of the Oslo Accords, Area A was protected from Israeli intervention, thus allowing Hamas, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and Palestine Islamic Jihad, who amassed large quantities of arms and controlled gangs in the neighborhoods, to operate with total impunity.

Operation Defensive Shield

On March 29, 2002, the IDF initiated Operation Defensive Shield in Judea and Samaria to uncover and destroy all illegal armaments; confiscate bomb-making material and demolish the rocket production facilities; disrupt the ability of the terrorists to plan, coordinate and execute their attacks; and eliminate the terrorist commanders and individuals orchestrating the suicide bombings. This was the largest IDF military invasion in Judea and Samaria since the Six Day War in 1967.

During the six months after launching Operation Defensive Shield, between April and September 2002, Katz said 14 Palestinian Arab suicide bombers murdered 81 people and wounded almost 300 more. One of the most horrific attacks occurred at a game room in Rishon L’Tzion, a Tel-Aviv suburb, where a Hamas terrorist succeeded in killing 15 and wounding 55.

Thomas Friedman’s Conclusion

When the al-Aqsa Intifada began, The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman visited Israel and Ramallah where he concluded, “This war is sick, but it has exposed some basic truths… to think that the Palestinians are only enraged about settlements is also fatuous nonsense. Talk to the 15-year-olds. Their grievance is not just with Israeli settlements, but with Israel. Most Palestinians simply do not accept that the Jews have any authentic right to be here. For this reason, any Palestinian state that comes into being should never be permitted to have any heavy weapons, because if the Palestinians had them today their extremists would be using them on Tel Aviv.”

Dr. Grobman is Senior Resident Scholar at the John C. Danforth Society and a member of the Council of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East. He lives in Jerusalem.