Editing Palestine (section)

=====Second Intifada (2000-2005)=====
At Camp David in July 2000, President Clinton and Israel's tenth Prime Minister Ehud Barak conferred, and came up with an ultimatum for Arafat: either he was going to accept the Bantustan-ization, the surrounding and splitting up of many enclaves of Palestinian territory, or his career was over.  Continuing support for a two-state solution, Arafat wanted concessions such as land-swaps of equal value and right of return for displaced people. That was rejected and Arafat was again demonized as an opponent of peace, since this peace deal  (and Arafat's stay in power) was predicated on the Bantustan-ization of the occupied Palestinian territories. He again became a terrorist in the eyes of the Zionists and their American allies after having been rehabilitated as a statesman by Western diplomats and media. There is a lot of dispute on Camp David as nothing was written down and our knowledge comes from personal testimonies alone.

After the negotiations were axed, Palestinians felt again hopelessness and frustration. They were hoping for an end to the occupation and the right of return for refugees, but most likely neither was ever on the table. Later that year, on September 16th, 2000, Palestinians were mourning the anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacres which were executed in West Beirut during the 1982 Lebanon war by the IDF. Israel's eleventh Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, was the leader of the IDF at the time of the massacres, the victims of which were almost entirely Palestinian, the exceptions being Lebanese Shi'i. On September 28th, 2000, Sharon entered Al-Aqsa Mosque with a large delegation, which was seen as a provocation and an intrusion in the context of the Camp David negotiations and the anniversary. The month of September was rife with small skirmishes and violent incidents, but this led to a larger convergence of forces unified against Israeli occupation in the wake of the failed peace talks at Camp David. The protests were surpressed by the IDF using rubber bullets, tear gas, and live ammunition. Within the first few days after the protests at Al-Aqsa Mosque, the IDF fired over a million rounds. Following peaceful rallies, the IDF opened fire on the protesters, killing seven. The demonstrations that followed were put down just as savagely. Civilians were murdered, including young children with their parents. This was the boiling point for Palestinians; they were furious. 

Diana Buttu, a Ramallah-based analyst and former adviser to the Palestinian negotiators on Oslo, told Al Jazeera: “Everybody, including the Americans, were warning the Israelis that the Palestinians are reaching a boiling point, and you need to calm down. Instead, they turned up the fire even more."

Many groups took up arms against the Israeli armed forces, as well as the population of Israeli settlers who continued encroaching upon their land. Suicide bombers attacked Israeli buses and cafes in a series of attacks. Israel launched its largest offensive on the West Bank since 1967. Over the following five years, 3,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis were killed. However, on February 8th, 2005, a ceasefire was announced by Sharon and Abbas, after which the violence dwindled. Israel withdrew its military forces and settlers from the Gaza Strip, but imposed strict control of movement in Gazan airspace, seafront, and at its checkpoints. This was soon coupled with the enhancement of the wall between Israel and Gaza, originally a fence built in 1971, which has since been upgraded with technology and other structural features and dubbed "The Iron Wall" (after Jabotinsky's book). 

Operation Defensive Shield (April, 2002) was perhaps the most notorious IDF operation during the Second Intifada. During this operation, the IDF's use of human shields-- common during and since the 1967 war-- became official ("open") policy. Assaults and raids were carried out in major Palestinian population centers, and though the use of human shields ("neighbor policy") was challenged in Israeli High Court, regulation was circumvented and has been used ever since, though publicly condemned by the state.

Israel and its allies continued for years to blame Arafat and others for the uprising, claiming Palestinian leadership pre-meditated the violence "as early as" July 2000. Meanwhile, some Palestinians blamed Sharon personally for the violence on Israel's part, but overinflated his already significant role (as opposed to most Palestinians who blamed the IDF and Israel as a whole).

In March 2002, the Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah put forward a peace pan for Palestine. However, his plan went even further than the international consensus in favor of Israel. For example, it called for "normal relations" on top of Palestinian and international recognition of Israel. This plan did not uphold the right of return, but used an even more vague expression. However, it was endorsed by every member of the Arab League as well as the Palestinian Authority. It thus became just another "failed" "peace" plan in Israeli history books.

That same year, the Israeli cabinet began the construction of the West Bank Wall, also known as the Separation Barrier. This wall was nominally supposed to stop Palestinians from entering the West Bank without a permit. However, it was also used to further the goal of Zionist Lebensraum policy. Not only was this barrier erected right through and between Palestinian communities which were culturally bonded for centuries; 85% of it runs through the West Bank, inconsistent with the 1949 Armistice "Green Line". This allows Israel to erect a fence without consequences in which the land occupied since the 1967 Six-Day war is developed into settlements, which are completely illegal under international law and which are often cited as a method of Israeli apartheid. This includes East Jerusalem, which was illegally annexed and occupied by Israel in the Six-Day war. When taken with the boxing-in of Gazans after the ceasefire and cessation of violence, the erection of the wall can be seen as part of the same plan-- the subjugation, annihilation, and (the eventual goal of) expulsion of Palestinians from all their territories.
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In 2005, following the Second Intifada, the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) movement was founded by over 170 Palestinian unions, professional and women's associations, refugee and refugee aid networks, and other organizations from Palestinian civil society. The BDS movement's roots lay in the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance held in South Africa. At the conference, which took place during the most tumultuous point in the Second Intifada, the discussions led participants to reaffirm popular principles of self-determination for all peoples, as well as an acknowledgement of Zionism and the similarities between the struggles of South Africans and Palestinians. The BDS movement has advocated international civil struggle via a) boycotts on Israeli companies and their products, b) divestment by national and international institutions from Israel, and c) calling for sanctions on Israel.