Palestine | Intifada: Terrorism or Uprising?

The Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS) has an anti-Semitism problem. Its namesake, then a former German Chancellor, said in a 1965 television interview: "The power of the Jews—even today, especially in America—should not be underestimated." Adenauer also protected and pardoned numerous perpetrators of the Holocaust. In addition, he employed Hans Globke , the author of the Nuremberg "Racial Laws," as his right-hand man. The conservatives have never distanced themselves from him: Globke's portrait still hangs in the Chancellery. Furthermore, the CDU's most important patrons include heirs of Nazi billionaires .

When the KAS addresses its own legacy, it brims with excuses and relativizations. Globke, for example, is recast as a "controversial and complex figure." However, the KAS lacks any nuance when it comes to the worldwide solidarity movement with Palestine. When demonstrators demand to "globalize the Intifada," the foundation doesn't consider this complex, but tantamount to a call for terrorist attacks against Jews.

Anna Staroselski , a well-known spokeswoman for the conservative German-Jewish association Werte-Initiative, also writes: "To call for an Intifada is to call for the murder of Jews. Nothing else!" Many right-wing publications and some Jewish organizations define the term this way.

But researchers like Yair Wallach, director of the Centre for Jewish Studies at SOAS University in London, disagree : The meaning of the term depends on the context. "As far as the use of the term in Arabic is concerned, the situation is clear: It is a term with a very broad meaning. To equate it blanketly with, for example, 'suicide attack,' is simply wrong and demonstrates ignorance." Wallach therefore rejects bans on slogans containing the word "Intifada," as demanded by right-wing actors or even the KAS.

Arabic dictionaries state that intifada comes from the word "to shake off," meaning "uprising," "upsurrection," or "rebellion"—a shaking off of oppression. This can refer to any uprising. For example, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of the Polish Jews imprisoned there in 1943 is called "Intifadet Ghetu Warsaw" in Arabic. Over the past 100 years, there have been many other uprisings in the Arab world, all of which are collectively called "intifadas," such as those in Iraq in 1952, Bahrain in 1965, and Western Sahara in 1999.

However, a globally known uprising is commonly referred to as "the" or first intifada: On December 9, 1987, four Palestinians in Gaza were run over by an Israeli military truck. Initial protests against this were violently suppressed by the occupying forces – which in turn triggered new ones. This soon developed into a mass uprising in Gaza and the West Bank. This first Palestinian intifada was dominated by peaceful forms of protest such as strikes, demonstrations, and tax boycotts. Nevertheless, more than 1,000 Palestinian civilians were killed.

"To demand an Intifada is to demand the murder of Jews."

Anna Staroselski Values ​​Initiative

"For me, the Intifada is one of the examples in history in which people wanted to take their lives into their own hands," says German-Palestinian socialist Ramsis Kilani, who was expelled from the Left Party at the end of 2024 for "anti-Israel" and "Hamas-glorifying statements": "They built women's councils, strike committees, and other forms of self-organization from the bottom up."

The dominant political forces at the time were the secular-nationalist Fatah and the left-wing pan-Arab Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). A resistance movement claiming to be based on Islam – Hamas – was just founded in those days and reportedly received secret support from Israel during its formation to oust the secular and left-wing forces.

The mass protests of this most famous intifada, and especially the Palestinian strikes, hit the Israeli economy hard. The government of Yitzhak Rabin was forced to recognize the goal of an independent Palestinian state with the Oslo Accords of 1993. However, in the following years, Israel took no steps to make this possible—on the contrary, Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza were continuously expanded during the so-called "peace process."

In this context, the right-wing Israeli politician Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on September 28, 2000, a central holy site in the Islamic, Jewish, and Christian faiths. As Defense Minister, Sharon had already refused to intervene in the 1982 massacre of thousands of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, which later forced him to resign. The Al-Aqsa Mosque is also located on the Temple Mount. Sharon planned this provocation as an election campaign maneuver, and protests were not long in coming – the uproar actually helped the far-right politician win the election a few months later.

It was only during the second Palestinian Intifada, from 2000 to 2005, that Palestinian groups also carried out suicide attacks against civilian targets in the Israeli heartland. However, even during this second Intifada, there were peaceful protests against the "apartheid wall" involving Palestinian, Israeli, and international activists. These protests, too, were brutally suppressed by the Israeli army.

In Germany, the assumption is widespread that all Jews identify with Israel. Critics see this as an antisemitic cliché about a supposedly homogeneous people with uniform political interests. To illustrate this, it is worth taking a look at New York City – the city with the largest Jewish population outside of Israel. In the Democratic Party primary in June, 33-year-old Muslim socialist Zohran Mamdani emerged from nowhere to win. Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, was constantly attacked by his older, more right-wing rivals for his solidarity with Palestine. Although he repeatedly promised to work for the safety of Jewish citizens, he was and continues to be vilified as an antisemite.

The criticism specifically referred to an interview in which he was asked about various slogans in the Palestine movement, such as "Globalize the Intifada." Mamdani replied that he was aware that these were understood differently. "What I hear from many is a desperate desire for equality and equal rights, and a commitment to the human rights of Palestinians," Mamdani said. As a Muslim who grew up after the attacks of September 11, 2001, he knows only too well how Arabic words are twisted and distorted. Therefore, he did not distance himself from the slogan "Globalize the Intifada."

Mamdani nevertheless won the primary – by a large margin. Polls show that, with 37 percent support, he is also the most popular candidate among Jewish New Yorkers . This can be seen as an indication of how, especially among younger segments of the Jewish community in the US, they are turning away from Zionism en masse in light of the genocide in Gaza.

Liad Hussein Kantorowicz, a Berlin Jew who grew up in Palestine but now describes herself as a "former Israeli," also primarily associates the term "Intifada" with the protests of the late 1980s. It was a "popular uprising" in which women and children played major and visible roles, she said in an interview with "nd." When she hears the word "Intifada" today, Kantorowicz thinks of this mass resistance of the oppressed.

Given the attacks that were also carried out during the second Intifada, it is understandable that many Jews in particular equate the term with terror. Others even use it to describe global struggles against oppression. But it is clearly antisemitism to assume, as Adenauer did, that "the Jews" could or even should have uniform political views on such a controversial issue.