[Preechr]

Intifada should be broken down to it's three letter root: nun, fa', dad, or nafada. Nafada means to shake off, dust off, or in conversational terms, to shake off one's laziness or to end a relationship that should not be. The Hans Wehr Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic translates intifada as a "tremor, a shudder or a shiver." It should be noted that the word "thawra," as in the popular PLO guerrilla song, " Thawra, thawra, hat al-nasr," - Revolution, revolution, until victory - was not the choice to describe the uprising that emerged spontaneously from within the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

You want to talk about mythology and manipulation of history? I would love to see you provide some evidence that Arafat had anything to do at all with the emergence of the intifada. He was in Tunis, following the news via fax machine along with the rest of the PLO leadership. For some reason, it is convenient for you to paint with a broad brush here and label all of the Palestinians with the same sticker despite the historical fact that Arafat had only ever represented the refugees up until this point. He never even publicly uttered the word Israel before he shoved himself in front of the intifada movement. He had to, as the intifada began in Israel, not anywhere else, and he realized that this was where he needed to be in order to remain the face on the Palestinian cause.

Arafat only began to be concerned with the Palestinians living in Israel when those Palestinians began their own uprising. Before that time, he had rarely even been there, and since he'd left Beruit, his power and importance had been steadily waning. Hell, he'd just been rejected almost entirely at the 87 Arab Summit... This was the point in time at which the pendulum shifted. Here was where it became evident that the Palestinian movement had two factions, one that could never recognize Israel and one that was willing to deal, and the PLO leadership most definitely began to add weight to the constituency that happened to allow some sort of hope for peace.

Why do you need to avoid this very important distinguishing characteristic of the conflict? I will nail it down for you, and I want to hear your answer to just this one question before we go further: Is there a difference, in your opinion, between the causes of the Palestinian refugees, the Palestinians living in Israel, and the jihadis fighting a proxy war against the West via the Palestinian conflict? If so, how so?