The 2014 Jerusalem unrest, sometimes referred as the Silent Intifada (other names given include urban intifada, Firecracker intifada, car intifada, Jerusalem intifada, and Third intifada) is a term occasionally used to refer to an increase in violence focused on Jerusalem in 2014, especially from July of that year.Nathan Thrall, 'Rage in Jerusalem,' London Review of Books Vol. 36 No. 23 4 December 2014, pages 19-21.'The current upsurge in protests and violence has been called the silent intifada, the individual intifada, the children's intifada, the firecracker intifada, the car intifada, the run-over intifada, the Jerusalem intifada and the third intifada. But what it most closely resembles isn't the First (1987-93) or the Second (2000-05) Intifada but the surge in unco-ordinated, leaderless violence that preceded the largely non-lethal protests in the early part of the First Intifada.' Although the name "silent intifada", appears to have been coined in the summer of 2014, suggestions that there should be or already is an incipient intifada had circulated among activists, columnists, journalists and on social media since 2011. Commentators speculated about the varying utility to the Palestinian and Israeli left, right, and center of not only of naming, but of asserting or denying that there is or is about to be a new intifada.
By some estimates, more than 150 attacks occurred in July and August 2014. By October some news sources, and Israeli politicians from both the far right and far left, were referring to the wave of attacks as a Third Intifada (following the First Intifada from 1987 to 1993, and the Second Intifada from 2000 to 2005), although many journalists and Israeli analysts in the security establishment deny the events have amounted to a full scale intifada.
Hamas and the Palestinian Authority repeatedly called for "a day of rage" against Israel in solidarity with the "Jerusalem intifada."Inna Lazareva, "Hamas Calls For Third Intifada", The Telegraph, July 25, 2014. The Telegraph, noting that riots had occurred on a daily basis as a Palestinian reaction to the kidnapping and murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, reported this as a call for the start of a third intifada. Marwan Barghouti, a leader of both the First and Second Intifada also called for a Third Intifada.Umberto Bacchi, "Marwan Barghouti Calls Third Intifada Against Israel", International Business Times. Retrieved November 21, 2014.
According to Al-Jazeera and Al-Monitor, the probability of such an outbreak might arise from frustrations of a harsh economic situation and the lack of a diplomatic future for resolving longstanding issues, namely the breakdown of the 2013–14 Israeli–Palestinian peace talks, increasing Israeli settlement in the Palestinian territories and attempts by Israel to get a foothold on the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount. IDF, and Shin Bet assessments in 2013 indicated that growing unrest in the occupied territories might catalyze "lone wolf" operations.Khalid Amayreh,'Is a Third Intifada in the offing?' Al Jazeera November 18, 2014.
Terminology and precedents
Since the Six-Day War, Palestinians have engaged in two national uprisings against Israel. These revolts were known as the intifadas, meaning to "shudder", from a root meaning "to shake off".Kenneth W. Stein, "The Intifada and the Uprising of 1936–1939: A Comparison of the Palestinian Arab Communities", in Robert Owen Freedman (editor)'s The Intifada: Its Impact on Israel, the Arab World, and the Superpowers, University Press of Florida (1991), p. 32, n.2.
Mention of the outbreak of a third Intifada long predates the circumstances of late 2014.
Other sources describe the "methodical campaign of arrest and assassination by Israel" of mid-level and senior-level leadership across the Palestinian political spectrum, resulting in 40,000 arrests and more than 300 assassinations, as the reason for Hamas and Al-Fatah not having an appetite for a third uprising.
Background and specific causes of tension
In early February, Thomas Friedman, writing for The New York Times after a visit to Ramallah, stated that a third intifada was underway, not from the Palestinians, reportedly "too poor, too divided, too tired'" or disenchanted of resorting to uprisings that bring no results, but rather in the European Union in Brussels. Friedman noted the increasing European calls for disinvestment and an economic boycott of Israel as well as the worldwide opposition to Israel's occupation."The Third Intifada", The New York Times, February 4, 2014.
The U.S. Congressional Research Service foresaw, immediately after the outbreak of the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, that the conflict might engage the Obama Administration in a search for means to avoid a spillover into what could become a Third Intifada.Jim Zanotti, "Israel and Hamas: Another Round of Conflict", Congressional Research Service, July 2014. Retrieved November 22, 2014. By late September U.S. administration officials were pressing for a renewal of peace talks as a means of preventing 'greater Israeli–Palestinian conflict in Jerusalem and the West Bank', for they were convinced that 'the absence of negotiations leads to violence', as the collapse of John Kerry's initiative in April was seen as one cause for the July–August war in Gaza and the turmoil in the West Bank and Jerusalem.Nathan Thrall, "Israel & the US: The Delusions of Our Diplomacy," New York Review of Books, October 9, 2014.pp.39–42, p.39.
In the immediate wake of the kidnapping and murder of three Jewish teenage boys, Jewish mobs attacked Palestinians in Jerusalem."Extreme rightists attack Palestinians in Jerusalem as teens laid to rest", Haaretz. Retrieved November 3, 2014. Immediately after their funeral, two attempts were made to kidnap and murder Palestinian children, and the second kidnapping succeeded, leading to the petrol-dowsing and torching of Mohammad Abu Khdeir. Discovery of his body led to massive Palestinian protests, with chants of "Enough of the suffering, enough of the pain," in East Jerusalem, and calls for a third intifada.Ruth Eglash and Griff Witte, 'burial revive intifada fears for Middle East,' The Washington Post, July 5, 2014. Police used live fire, rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse protesters at his funeral. Some 18 Palestinians were wounded in East Jerusalem and 8 in Ramallah.Gili Cohen, updates, July 4: East Jerusalem clashes,' Haaretz, July 5, 2014
The wave of political violence from the Palestinian side includes sniper fire and knife attacks on Jewish pedestrians and the stoning of vehicles carrying Jewish passengers, and stone-throwing and firebomb attacks including a September 30, 2014 attack on a nursery school for Jewish children.
Tensions in East Jerusalem began to rise in late October, as the number of Palestinian Jerusalemites injured by Israeli forces since July 1 rose to 1,333 (among which 80 children), while 4 had been shot dead. In the same period, 3 Israelis were killed and 65, of whom 33 were civilians, suffered injuries from Palestinians. ..Protection of Civilians 28 October – 3 November 2014 OCHA November 7, 2014.
Particularly notable is the Palestinian use of firecrackers thrown at civilian targets and at police, some have caused severe burn injuries and hearing loss. In November 2014, Israeli authorities seized an enormous shipment of weapons bound for East Jerusalem. The containers – labeled "Christmas decorations" – included: "18,000 fireworks, including those of calibers that are restricted in Israel; 5,200 commando knives; 4,300 flashlights that can be used as electro-shockers; 5,500 Taser electro-shockers; and 1,000 swords."
Nir Barkat, Jerusalem's mayor, accused the Israeli Ministry of Public Safety of failing to protect Jerusalem residents from attacks including a series of terrorist ramming attacks and the destruction of 3 stations on the Jerusalem Light Rail. As of early October 2014, 30% of the cars on the Light Rail were out of commission due to what are described as "focused behavior" that take place where the rail line runs through the predominantly Arab neighborhood of Shuafat.
However, by late October, violent incidents were described as "sporadic", and rioting was not widespread or large-scale. Asked on November 11, 2014 whether the situation amounts to a new intifada, Israel Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon responded that although the military would deal with the present, "escalation", in his view: "In Judea and Samaria today, we don’t see the masses taking to the streets... This is mainly lone attackers. Let’s wait to see what we call it."
On November 17, Haaretz military correspondent Anshel Pfeffer gave his opinion that the "current upsurge in stabbings, terror attacks using cars, Jewish vigilante reprisals, and clashes between police and rock-throwing youths at the usual flash points" is not an intifada because neither Fatah nor Hamas has decided to back it, as the PLO did with the two previous intifadas. Writing in the wake of the November 18, synagogue massacre, Pfeffer made a second distinction. Whereas the suicide bombers of the Second Intifada were sent by handlers from towns and villages in the West Bank to attack targets with which they were not familiar, the perpetrators of the summer and fall of 2014 are self-motivating lone wolves who carry residency status that entitles them to move freely around the city. They often attack targets in the neighborhoods where they work; in Pfeffer's words, "they know when and where to do it", and this makes them hard to stop.
Ingrid Jaradat Gassner, of the Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem, remarked in November 2014 that Palestinians feel that they have no leader to stand up for their rights, with politics in flux a decade after the death of Yassir Arafat. The depth of frustration, in her view, has grown significantly due to creeping settlement of their lands, border restrictions on movement, and collective punishment meted out on them when attacks take place. They have, she argues, a sense that Israelis are raising more and more obstacles before the Palestinians' quest for "normal lives".Greg Botelho, "Experts: No third intifada yet -- but few signs of hope, either", CNN. Retrieved November 21, 2014.
A 2014 article published by USA Today also stated that the house demolition policy has been a cause of tension, while mentioning other issues such as the lack of basic municipal services to Palestinian families and the inability of obtaining permits to build new places to live.
In terms of Jerusalem specifically, a February 2015 article by the Times of Israel stated that the approximately 80,000 residents in the eastern area separated by the West Bank barrier wall faced severe problems in terms of mail delivery, garbage services, and water supply. The publication quoted Mayor Barkat as asking the IDF for assistance in terms of having private contractors with police escort in order to sort things out.
Incidents
Israeli news sources have marked the beginning of the latest intifada as July 2014, corresponding with the murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, a sixteen-year-old Palestinian who was kidnapped and burned alive by Jewish extremists — a retaliatory attack following the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers. Three weeks later, thousands of Palestinians marched from Ramallah toward Jerusalem. Protesters were stopped and confronted by Israeli border guards near the Qalandiya checkpoint where violence erupted, leaving 200 Palestinians wounded and two dead. A notable increase of attacks in Jerusalem was observed by Israeli security sources in the aftermath of the Khdeir murder and Israel's Operation Protective Edge on the Gaza Strip."Third intifada not likely, says former Jerusalem police chief", The Jerusalem Post, September 9, 2014. Retrieved November 21, 2014.