The confrontations between the Palestinian youths and the occupation forces in Jerusalem brought forward the aficionados of white and black questions: Is it the outset of a third intifada or is it not an intifada at all? In fact, they had excessively discussed the question of the war a few days before the new question surfaced. The resistance and rejectionist forces want a third intifada, since it represents the only response to the evident failure of the negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli Government throughout 20 years. The resistance, as they affirm, succeeded in kicking the occupation out of southern Lebanon (except for some farms and hills) and pushed Ariel Sharon to leave the Gaza Strip, thus crowning the second intifada. But if the awaited intifada does not break out, then it is the fault of the defeatists who offer security and political services to the occupier. The people, for their part, are only waiting for a sign. However, the above-mentioned does not point out the repercussions of the last intifada on the Palestinian cause, which lost the minimum level of national unity that had once overshadowed factions who held enmity for each other and whose concern today is to finish off their domestic rivals before ending the occupation. The hot-headed did not see that the factions who insisted on militarizing the intifada (this trend was not restricted to one or two headlines), contributed hand-in-hand with the Israeli Governments to the destruction of the national Palestinian project, while the Palestinian society continues to pay until now the price of the failure of the intifada in achieving any political results which can be built upon for the future. The point of view supporting the outbreak of a third intifada says that the Palestinians are willing to pay the greatest human and physical cost as long as Israel is facing a security and political predicament in return, regardless of the short and long term repercussions. Such ideas and views are produced by a mind that sidetracks politics in its capacity as a complex and periodic action, one that requires more than spontaneous anger and edginess. What only remains in this mind is the enthusiastic momentum toward confrontation, clashes, and fighting, even if the results are further fragmentation within the domestic rank and a consolidated absence of a political project on which all the Palestinian factions agree to end the occupation. In other words, those who go too far in calling for an intifada do not link the action to the result. The only thing that matters to them is to protest and vent out their anger and these are the core and essence of politics. It goes without saying that harvesting the Palestinian bloodshed is left for the enemy. In this regard, the permanent Palestinian intifada is the opposite of the permanent Trotsky intifada, as our intifadas end with defeats, ones whose duplication we cannot adjourn. A glance at the Israeli policies reveals that Benjamin Netanyahu does not care about the results of the immense settlement projects in Jerusalem and elsewhere, and that his acknowledgement of the two-state solution does not go beyond some words uttered. Therefore, the Palestinians find themselves before a major question: What should be done to establish the state and regain the rights of the refugees? It is no secret that the policy adopted since the Oslo Agreement until today is facing a state of clinical death thanks to the Israeli policies on the one hand, and the enormous mistakes committed by the Palestinian leaders on the other hand, let alone the deteriorating Arab situation and the fading international concern with the Palestinian cause. The Palestinian question is answered by repeating the recipe of the armed resistance and the popular intifada without examining the previous experiences and their outcomes that outline the same political landscape in which we live and struggle.
