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PA Seeks to Exploit West Bank Protests

Warnings of a Third Intifada fail to address the core issues behind the West Bank protests, namely Israel's occupation, Dalia Hatuqa writes.
A Palestinian woman raises her hand written with the Arabic words "our prisoners are our dignity" as she takes part in a protest against the death of a Palestinian detainee in an Israeli jail, in Gaza City February 24, 2013. Palestinian officials on Saturday demanded an international investigation into the death of a Palestinian detainee who died in an Israeli jail hours earlier. A spokeswoman for Israel's Prison Authority said that the detainee, 30-year-old Arafat Jaradat, had apparently died of cardiac ar

According to the blogosphere and media, a third intifada has been just around the corner for a few months now. However, as clashes raged through the West Bank between Palestinians and the Israeli army over the last two days that followed the death of Arafat Jaradat — a 30-year-old Palestinian man held in an Israeli jail — this rhetoric hit new heights. Protests and confrontations continued in the West Bank today, most notably in Jaradat’s hometown of Sa’ir, elsewhere in Hebron, Nablus, and outside of Ofer, the Israeli military prison on the outskirts of Ramallah, where demonstrations had already been taken place almost everyday for the past week in support of four Palestinian hunger strikers, including Samer Issawi.

Israeli news outlets — including Haaretz, The Jerusalem Post and Arutz Sheva — all wondered aloud whether these heightened tensions marked the beginnings of a third intifada, raising many questions: Were these reflections of fears brewing inside Israel, or did they constitute wishful thinking? In other words, would another intifada be beneficial to Israel at a time when it seems to have been losing many PR battles of late? Would an outbreak of hostilities provide Israel with a much-needed justification to the international community to warrant its ongoing military occupation?

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