Do they even know what Intifada means?

It was hard to miss the mob that stormed into the campus library of Columbia University, just a week ago Wednesday, where young people literally took over the venue by force, disrupting students preparing for their final exams.  

Wrapped in the Palestinian checkered keffiyeh scarves and sporting dark sunglasses, despite the ban to obscure their identity, the invasion of ignorant cowards led a monotone chant, robotically repeated by others, shouting, “There is only one solution, Intifada, Revolution.”

Cowards, because they lack the courage to show their faces, avoiding all consequences for their actions and ignorant, because it’s quite certain that none of them even know what Intifada means or what they are promoting.

But to get an idea, we only have to go back to Intifadas which have already taken place. The Arabic word, “Intifada” literally means tremor, shiver and shudder – an apt description of the human response when this kind of uprising happens. 

The First Intifada occurred in December, 1987, when mass demonstrations, followed by a full-on rebellion started in the Jabalya refugee camp, located in the Gaza Strip when the collision of an Israeli truck was responsible for the death of four Palestinians. Because the incident occurred two days after a Jewish worker had been stabbed to death in Gaza, the accident was seen as a deliberate act of revenge.  

What followed were “violent mobs that filled the street, burning tires, the destruction of vehicles, stones and Molotov cocktails being hurled at Israeli soldiers, culminating in the estimated death of 2,000 over the course of a six-year period of extreme violence.” 

The Second Intifada, dubbed the Al-Aqsa Intifada began in September 2000 and lasted for five years. Again, just like the first, it was marked by a civilian uprising, accompanied by profound violence, which led to “the death of over 100 Palestinian protestors, just within the first few weeks.” Devolving into a period of real chaos, hundreds of shooting attacks and suicide bombings regularly happened indiscriminately, endangering the lives of both Arabs and Jews, many of which were carried out by Hamas terrorists.

Open air markets, shopping centers, buses, malls, restaurants, discotheques, border crossings, train stations, cafes, kibbutz communities, hotels, suburban communities, supermarkets, sports events, an orthodox learning institution, holiday event venues, medical centers, universities, gas stations, nightclubs, parks, a bakery and commercial buildings were all targeted.

It's fair to say that during that period, no one knew, with any certainty, whether or not they would return home alive. The list of places where violence was perpetrated knew no bounds.  Nothing was off limits, and the random acts accounted for the bloody and horrific killings, encompassing every religion, ethnicity and age group.  

As a result, many were blown up to bits, having body parts instantly severed from them, others who survived the carnage suffered devastating injuries, including massive bleeding, the loss of limbs, embedded bomb fragments, which made their way into every part of their bodies and much more, too gruesome to mention.

All of these tragic events were meant to sow fear and chaos into the hearts of everyone, but the irony, just as in every uprising, whether an Intifada or full-scale war, is that there are always sympathizers among the dead – those who would have championed the revolution that was taking place but who, instead, ended up being unintended casualties of the hate campaign for which they supported.

But that’s what happens when indiscriminate attacks take place, just for the sake of creating anarchy. Your own relatives, friends or neighbors will likely be the fallout, just because they happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. 

It is estimated that over 4,000 people were killed in the Second Intifada, 3,000 Palestinians, 1,000 Israelis and 64 foreign nationals.  

Everything I just described is the face of what is being called for by stupid, uneducated, uncaring narcissistic adolescents and 20-year-olds, whose lives are apparently bereft of meaning, to the point that their idea of a good action script is the one in real-time which blows up innocent men, women, children and infants, all for the sake of a cause they know nothing about. 

While some of them may be the children of foreigners from Middle-East countries, whose parents are proud of the activist pastime of their offspring, others are American-born recruits who have sadly been convinced that their free and democratic country comprises a bigoted collective populace which must be reprogrammed to revere and appropriate Marxist and terrorist ideology, which extols the genocide of all Jews, the dissolution of family, faith, patriotism and God as our Creator.

Theirs is a world where everyone must walk in lockstep, bowing at the feet of the chant-singing mob whose sentiments and loyalties only go one way – towards the faux victims, without whom their lives would be devoid of all purpose or a cause for which to fight. By doing so, under the cover of anonymity, they escape the heavy price that goes with being recognized as the sowers of hate, division and ultimately death. 

While many of these young people, who stormed Columbia’s library, were arrested and suspended from the university, short of individually being held responsible for their actions, and made to confront real victims of Intifadas, their lives will continue to be used for evil purposes.  

Rather than building something of value for themselves, their families and for society, as a whole, they will, instead, devote their lives to the furtherance of destruction and the tyranny of cruelty and control over others.

If we, as a people, who value decency, morality, respect and dignity for each other, do not root out this cancer in our midst by removing such individuals from civilized society, so that they can be reintroduced to the ethical foundations which they missed while growing up as privileged, spoiled and merciless brats, then humanity will be plagued with the likes of this monstrous generation which has now become a scourge to us all.

Whether that translates into a lockup facility, an internment camp or a community service sentencing, which includes tending to the victims who endured violent Intifadas, these young people will never become useful members of society with a working heart and conscience.

If they are set on promoting Intifada, then it’s time that they begin to eat the bitter fruit of its tragic results. Only then will they know the real meaning of that hateful word!