Democracy: Resilience, Resistance, and Restoring Unity - Lessons from the Al-Aqsa Intifada

Ramallah - Afaq News - The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine stated in a statement issued on the occasion of the 26th anniversary of the second Palestinian uprising, the "Al-Aqsa Intifada," which erupted on September 28, 2000, following the storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque by then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon, under the protection of the Israeli occupation army. This uprising lasted more than four years and involved various segments of the public in different forms, in response not only to the criminal Sharon's incursion into the Al-Aqsa Mosque but also to all the measures and policies of the occupation, including settlement, arrest, killing, and the fragmentation of the Palestinian West Bank. During this uprising, approximately 4,412 Palestinian martyrs and 48,322 injured were recorded.

The Front added in its statement: Today, as the Palestinian people and the national cause face existential challenges due to the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, ethnic cleansing, displacement, and annexation in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, our people prove through their steadfastness and confrontation of the crimes of the settlers and the occupation army, and all the policies and procedures of the occupation, that all the fascist and racist practices of the settler occupation will not weaken their resistance or shake their steadfastness and attachment to their land and defense of their properties in the face of colonial aggression supported by Western colonialism, led by the United States of America.

The Front's statement continued, emphasizing that one of the most important lessons drawn from the second intifada (Al-Aqsa Intifada) as well as from the first major intifada that erupted in 1987, is that the Palestinian masses are rich in potential and latent energies. National unity, the availability of political will, a collectively agreed-upon national struggle strategy, and a unified struggle tool are essential conditions that must be met in order to organize the popular movement and popular resistance in all available forms.

The Democratic Front concluded its statement by affirming that this requires, first and foremost, refraining from betting on the United States, which is complicit in the aggression against our people, or on the nature and composition of the upcoming government after the elections in Israel. Instead, the focus should be solely on our people, their steadfastness, resistance, and national unity, which would enhance and strengthen the support of the free people of the world, their movements, and the countries supporting our struggle, and bolster their demands to punish the occupying state for its crimes and further boycott and isolate it.