Death of an Intifada
Wed, Jun 2, 2004 at 9:26:38 am PDT
Note to Palestinians and their Western enablers: the intifada is over. The fence is working; you can’t get into Israel any more to slaughter children on buses. The few remaining terrorist thugs are no longer welcome in Tulkarem; they lower the property value and people who hang with them end up without houses. (Hat tip: Amy.)
Hani Aweideh looks like he hasn’t quite grown into his new role as a militia leader. Clean-cut with neatly coiffed hair, pressed beige jeans and a matching polo shirt with embroidered trim around the collar, the only thing that distinguishes this 26-year-old from the ordinary young men of Tul Karm is the AK-47 he brings with him when he emerges out of hiding for an afternoon rendezvous in an anonymous downtown store.
Aweideh handles the gun awkwardly, though with obvious reverence, asking for a plastic bag to hide it in for the short hop from the backseat of a car into the store. Not long ago Aweideh and his comrades from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades — the armed cells, affiliated with Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, that sprung up with the intifada — would have been swaggering through the streets of this West Bank market town, inspiring admiration in some residents, terrorizing others and plotting what they call “military operations” against nearby Jewish settlements or Israeli cities that lie over the Green Line, the pre-1967 border that skirts Tul Karm to the west.
But the armed men are not walking around here anymore, certainly not in broad daylight. The few of them left after the army’s frequent raids, targeted killings and arrests are said to be feeling hunted and alone. And while predictions of calm times ahead may be premature, many here are already declaring Tul Karm’s intifada over.
“Everybody’s either dead or in prison,” says Nidal Jallad, who is hanging around the store shortly before Aweideh makes his entry. “It’s over. We’ve had enough. All we want now is for the prisoners to come home.” One of Nidal’s brothers, a Hamas activist, was caught in March 2003 transporting an explosive belt from Nablus in a car with three others, including the would-be suicide bomber. He is now serving a 17-year sentence in Beersheba jail. Another brother, Nidal says, was shot by an Israeli army sniper during a curfew and is just starting to walk again after four operations. Nidal claims his brother was only outside because soldiers had taken him from his house, dropped him off near the hospital, then ordered him to walk home.
Nidal is the cousin of Malik Jallad, known as Jarira, the last commander of the Tul Karm Qata’eb, or Brigades, who was captured four months ago. When Aweideh comes in, he introduces himself as Jarira’s successor, though other local sources say the arrested leader hasn’t been replaced. There’s nobody left of the serious hard core of the Brigades, they say, only the remnants of Jarira’s junior lieutenants such as Aweideh inside the city and “a few thieves” in the two local refugee camps. The mounting tensions between the city and camp militants have turned them more into rivals than brothers-in-arms.
It’s over, Ahmed. Time to make some compromises, deal with the situation like responsible adults, and get on with building an accountable, mature society that will offer more to its children than martyrdom.
I can dream, can’t I?
