Fatah: Violent Arab riots in Jerusalem and mixed Jewish-Arab towns show more “rage and self-sacrifice” than two previous intifadas
Fatah Revolutionary Council member Muhammad Al-Lahham: “What is happening inside the occupied land, the 1948 lands (i.e., riots by Israeli Arabs), is a true intifada… I’ve never seen one day of a situation [like this]. Not even in the 1987 [first] Intifada, the Stone Intifada, and the [second] Intifada of 2000. The situation and popular uprising did not have this rage, this noise, this self-sacrifice or sacrifice, whether in Haifa, Jaffa, Lod, Ramle, Umm Al-Fahm, Nazareth, the Galilee, the Triangle, the Negev, Be’er Sheva (i.e., all Israeli cities and areas), and everywhere. There is a state of intifada, a feeling that there is an essential need for a Palestinian existence that expresses itself through all means of struggle that are available to the Palestinian people.”
The Fatah official made this statement during ongoing violent Arab riots in Jerusalem and other mixed Jewish-Arab cities in Israel, and while Hamas and Islamic Jihad fired thousands of rockets from the Gaza Strip at Israeli population centers.