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October 3, 2003/Tishri 7 5764, Vol. 56, No.2
Intifada marks anniversary
DAN BARON
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
JERUSALEM - Three years of terrorism, military operations, recession and failed peace missions finally have Israelis and Palestinians agreeing on something: There is no light at the end of the tunnel.
This week, Palestinians throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip - and Arabs in Israel - celebrated the third anniversary of the intifada with rallies, marches and political pronouncements.
In Palestinian-populated cities, masked militants marched through the streets at political demonstrations marking the campaign of violence launched against Israel at the end of September 2000, but the rallies were relatively small.
Their size suggests popular exhaustion with the intifada, or caution after Israel's strikes against terrorist leaders and its threat to expel Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat.
For Israelis, the optimism that characterizes Rosh Hashana did little to sweeten expectations for a new year free of suicide bombings and terrorist ambushes.
"I think our triumph is that we have succeeded in internalizing terror so that it does not overly affect our lives," said Justice Minister Yosef "Tommy" Lapid, in one of the week's rosiest assessments.
For the Palestinians, too, the year has resulted in few gains.
Arafat repeatedly was maligned by the White House, and a new P.A. prime minister contributed little to the Palestinian cause before bowing out.
Now the Palestinian issue has shifted to the back burner in Washington, given the Bush administration's preoccupation with Iraq, where the United States has to contend with its own "occupation."
Though many in the West continued to champion the intifada as a "freedom movement," Palestinian terrorism has helped shift the Palestinian cause somewhat closer to Al-Qaida in the eyes of some observers.
The P.A.'s outgoing security minister, Mohammed Dah-lan, says that change was not lost on him.
Considered a favorite of Washington but ousted in Arafat's latest government shuffle, Dahlan told The Associated Press this week, "We did not understand 9/11 in a correct and fundamental way that would have allowed us to help the national interest of our people, to bring back the international legitimacy of our authority."
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