By now, it is common for supporters of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement on campuses to interrupt speeches and chant “Long Live the Intifada.”
At UT-Austin, the chant was shouted by a group from the Palestine Solidarity Committee as they interrupted an event put on by the Israeli Studies Department. The group was led by law student Mohammed Nabulsi, who will be interning at “Palestine Legal,” which serves as the lawfare division of the BDS movement:
Similar chants we have covered at Legal Insurrection include Northeastern University, San Francisco State, City University of NY, and UC-Davis.
The Intifada is the bloody campaign of terror launched by Palestinians mostly against Jewish civilians.
The suicide bombing campaign of the Second Intifada killed almost one thousand Israeli civilians, and led to the construction of the security barrier. That security barrier (maliciously called the “Apartheid Wall” by groups like Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace) is now the focus of protests because it is more important to BDS supporters that Palestinians have unfettered access to kill Jews.
The current wave of terror, sometimes called the Third Intifada, the Knife Intifada, or the Stabbing Intifada) is not as bloody as the Second Intifada (yet) because knives can’t kill as many people as bombs. But that may be changing, as a bus was bombed just a few days ago. It was not immediately known if the bomb was planted or a suicide bombing. Police just released the identify of the bomber, who died in the suicide bombing. His family celebrated his death and handed out candies.
Why do BDS activists chant “Long Live the Intifada”? Because they are chickenhawks.
How easy to sit back at UT-Austin, or one of the U. California campuses, or any of the other campuses where such chants are heard and cheer on the suffering of people half a world away. It transforms their uninspiring coddled Western lives into something heroic — they get to feel that they are fighting for “Palestine” without risking a knife to the neck or a bullet to the head or nails from a suicide bomb to the abdomen.
An interesting thing happened on the way to “Long Live the Intifada” — actual Palestinians, not the Western wannabees, grew tired of it.
The Washington Post reports, After six months of violence, Palestinians wonder: What was gained?:
After six months of attacks by Palestinian youths against Israeli soldiers and civilians, authorities have begun to hope the wave of violence is subsiding.What did the Palestinians gain?Funerals, many say….“We’ve lost enough sons,” said Awni al-Jabbarin, the father of 20-year-old Muayyad, who was fatally shot by Israeli soldiers after he lunged at them with a knife at a highway junction.Asked what the death of his child meant, the father stared off into the distance. “It achieved nothing,” he said……. the trend suggests the flames may be burning down to embers.According to Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security agency, there were 20 significant attacks in March compared with 78 in October. This month, there have been four.
There are no illusions here. There still is a large part of Palestinian society that supports Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Islamist armed factions who have brought far more death and destruction to Palestinians than they ever will to Israelis. In that regard, there is little difference between the Western leftists and the Jihadists.
[Featured Image: Protest at Northeastern University, Boston]
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