Word: intifadeh
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1988-1988
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...When an Israeli hit team assassinated the Palestine Liberation Organization's operations chief three weeks ago, the act was in retaliation for his role in masterminding a large number of P.L.O. terror attacks over the years. Yet al- Wazir's death was also intended to decapitate the intifadeh, the five- month- old uprising that has rocked the Israeli-occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank. As head of the P.L.O.'s "western-sector command," he was in charge of the organization's support for the rebellion. Killing him, the Israelis believed, would deal the uprising a serious blow...
...Israelis -- and P.L.O. Chairman Yasser Arafat -- should know by now, the intifadeh seems to be running itself. Arafat and other Arab leaders have lent considerable rhetorical support to the uprising, as well as an undetermined amount and of financial aid. Just last week Arafat and Syrian President Hafez Assad held a surprise meeting in Damascus to assert their joint symbolic control over the uprising. The encounter was their first since 1983, whenAssad sent the Palestinian leader into exile after a long feud. "There are no differences among the one family," said Arafat after the meeting. "The outcome ((of the session...
...prestige damaged by the murder of al-Wazir, Arafat evidently thought that making peace with Syria -- a leading exponent of the rejectionist, smash-Israel position -- would help him reaffirm his authority over the P.L.O. Assad, for his part, spotted an opportunity to assert his own championship of the intifadeh by embracing his old enemy. Yet as the pair were declaring their commitment to the rebellion, its true leadership remained where it has been all along: in the hands of the disaffected youths, middle- class shopkeepers, villagers and refugees in the occupied territories...
...intifadeh has given birth to a diffuse and decentralized underground of local popular committees and anonymous coordinators that has survived both the murder of al-Wazir and the arrest of nearly 5,000 Palestinians since December. Many of the local leaders are adherents of one P.L.O. faction or another, but they evidently do not take orders from anyone outside the occupied territories. Rather, decisions made within the occupied territories appear to be approved and ratified by the Palestinian leadership in exile...
...year-old graduate of Israeli jails, Mahmoud has worked since February to stoke the fires of rebellion. His personal allegiance is to Fatah al- Intifadeh, a hard-line, pro-Syrian faction. His first assignment was to transform the informal activism of his home refugee camp into an efficient engine of protest. With seven other Palestinians representing most of the P.L.O. factions and one spokesman for unallied "independents," Mahmoud welded together a series of secret subcommittees charged with various aspects of the rebellion...