"Intifada!" is indeed a call for genocide, not for "shaking off oppression"

Israel haters are going a bit crazy about Rep. Elise Stefanik's questions to the university presidents in the hearing last week.

Daoud Kuttab writes in the LA Times:

Reality check — intifada has nothing to do with genocide of Jews

When New York Rep. Elise Stefanik repeatedly — and now infamously — badgered three college presidents about the nuances of free speech last week, she attempted to push her narrative that elite schools are antisemitic by equating “chants for intifada” with “genocide of Jews.”

The three presidents fell for the trap that a Palestinian uprising could be connected to crimes against humanity.

I was a journalist for Al Fajr, a Palestinian weekly, in the late 1980s, when the first intifada began. The word appeared on leaflets in the title of a Palestinian Liberation Organization-backed group: the Underground Unified National Leadership of the Intifada.

Dan Fisher, then the Jerusalem bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, asked me to translate it. “Intifada” means “shaking off,” I told him, a reference to the demand for freedom from occupation. Palestinians opposed the occupation, not Israel. Palestinians’ aspirations were for an independent state alongside Israel, not instead of Israel.

This is gaslighting.It is akin to the stupid argument that "antisemitism" means "against Semites."  Words and phrases evolve in meaning and today, "intifada" is understood by all Israel haters to mean violence.] (The idea that Palestinians would accept a permanent Jewish state in any form is simply a lie.) 

It is not only Kuttab trying mightily to redefine "intifada" this week  - here is Judith Butler in Boston Review:

Intifada, generally translated as “uprising” in Arabic, means “to be shaken” or “to shake oneself.” It is understood as a movement that refuses to remain docile in the face of colonial violence, an effort to throw off the shackles of colonial rule. It is also a call for Palestinian unity. Does it necessarily imply genocidal violence? No.

Again, gaslighting.

When the word "intifada" is used by both Palestinians and protesters today, it means nothing other than violence.

The first intifada, while violent, was not characterized by the horrific suicide bombings and bus bombs of the second intifada, or as Palestinians celebrate it, it the "Al Aqsa Intifada." 

In Arabic Palestinian media, however, the word "intifada" by itself is always understood to mean the second intifada.

The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey research routinely asks in their polls how people want to respond to Israel,. The latest poll released yesterday includes choices of "unarmed popular resistance" and "a return to confrontations and armed intifada." 

Not once have they referred to unarmed resistance as an "intifada." The Palestinians who are answering the questions wouldn't even understand a question that asks about an unarmed intifada.

Finally, the people behind the "Globalize the Intifada" slogan itself make no secret of their support for violence. After all, they are the same people who also chant "by any means necessary." 

The Within Our Lifetime group, one of the key organizers of these protests demanding an intifada, write on its "Points of Unity page,"We defend the right of Palestinians as colonized people to resist the zionist occupation by any means necessary. ...We believe the liberation of Palestine will be achieved through the initiative and strategy of all forms of Palestinian resistance." This means violence, and that is exactly what they mean when they say "intifada."  These groups applauded the violent pogroms of October 7. Their leader, Nerdeen Kiswani, has promoted violence against "Zionists" and called for their deaths. 

There is no doubt among both Palestinians and anti-Israel activists as to what the word "intifada" means. 

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