Is Uday Al-Tamimi the icon of the third intifada?

The last will of the young martyr Uday Al-Tamimi, written by hand after he had managed to outfox the security system of a country that claims to be a great state with an invincible army, was remarkably mature. “My [resistance] operation at Shuafat Checkpoint was a drop in the stormy sea of the struggle. I know that I will be martyred sooner or later, and I know that I did not liberate Palestine through this operation, but I carried it out with a goal in mind; for the operation to mobilise hundreds of young men to carry arms after me.”

This hero’s exploits will pass into legend. He managed to break through a checkpoint in Shuafat, north of Jerusalem, bypass the Israeli guards who torture the Palestinians by making them stand for hours in queues to get through, and give them a dose of humiliation and shame. His dignity did not allow him to live under the humiliation of a brutal military occupation any longer, so he aimed his gun at the soldiers, killing one and wounding three others. Amazingly, he was able to get away.

The occupation authorities went crazy, spending 12 days searching for a young man with a shaved head who attacked a sizeable group of Israeli soldiers on his own. A tight siege was imposed on the Shuafat refugee camp and surrounding areas. Young Palestinian men shaved their own heads in solidarity, for which the barbers refused to take payment. They also burned down the surveillance cameras and used Al-Tamimi’s name in messages and phone calls in an effort to mislead Israeli intelligence agents.

Uday Al-Tamimi did not lie low; he chased after the Israelis, attacking them again near the illegal Ma’ale Adumim settlement, east of Jerusalem. He wounded an Israeli security guard before he clashed with heavily armed soldiers and fought with rare valour until his last bullet and his last breath.

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Videos online after his martyrdom showed him shooting even while bullets rained down on him from every direction. When his gun was empty, he reloaded, which is when he was shot in the face. With his last breath he joined the ranks of heroic Palestinian martyrs who refused to accept any more humiliation by the occupiers who seized their land. The ranks grow every day, a human record of the great history of struggle, a totally legitimate struggle for freedom. The world forgets this legitimacy, and views events through the hateful Zionist lens that turns the oppressors into victims, and the real victims into villains. This is a hypocritical world with no conscience or moral compass.

Thousands of Palestinians flocked to Al-Tamimi’s family home to pay their respects; pride was mixed with sadness. They renewed their intention to resist the occupation in the footsteps of Uday and the other martyrs before him, until Palestine is liberated.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir once said that the old [Palestinians] will die and the young will forget. She was wrong. Neither Uday nor the other fine young people standing up for their rights today knew pre-Nakba Palestine; they are all too young to have lived through the talks that led to the disastrous Oslo Accords, although they have had to live with the even more disastrous consequences. The old kept the keys to the homes from which they were driven by the nascent Zionist state, and have handed them down to the young people, along with their memories so that the young will never forget. The process will continue until Palestine is free from the river to the sea. The Zionists are deluded if they believe that they will be safe in the land stolen from the Palestinians.

Uday Al-Tamimi was not affiliated with any Palestinian resistance faction; nor were the five guerrillas who, a few months ago, carried out their operations in the major cities of Israel, including the capital, Tel Aviv. The guerrillas killed 14 Israelis and wounded at least 20 others. They infiltrated the occupation state, thwarting the much-acclaimed Israeli security, precisely because they were not part of any larger group or resistance movement. They were individual initiatives reminiscent of the first Palestinian intifada, hitting targets in the Palestinian territories occupied in 1948 that Israel considers to be within its safe (yet never declared) state borders.

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It is significant that these fighters used automatic weapons, not explosive vests as in the past. These were not indiscriminate “suicide” attacks. The targets were serving soldiers, police and border guards, even though almost all Israelis have weapons and are in the reserves as part of their compulsory military service.

In the darkness of the Arab world, there is light emanating from Palestine, from Jerusalem and the West Bank, from Shuafat to Jenin and Nablus, which

Israeli forces are still besieging as they look for the Lion’s Den whose members are responsible for many operations. We are witnessing a new kind of resistance faction without a declared leadership; whose youth hang red ribbons on the barrels of their guns to symbolise unity within the Palestinian ranks. These young Palestinians have restored the national liberation struggle; they are not interested in the lost cause of political horse-trading in endless negotiations.

The Palestinian heart is still alive, beating with freedom; it has not grown old, like the “leadership”, and surrendered to the Zionist enemy. Instead, the young people are determined to fight to liberate their land; theirs is a different path. They are shaming the likes of Fatah and the Popular and Democratic Fronts, which have faded into the background after the signing of political and security agreements which see Palestinian security forces employed solely to defend Israel and its occupation interests.

It is apparent, therefore, that young Palestinians are ready to carry out the wishes of Uday Al-Tamimi’s last will; and that the struggle will continue. He seems to have become, unwittingly perhaps, the icon of what may well be the third intifada.

The Zionists in Israel and beyond fear this; they know what it means. The soldiers and police deployed across the occupied West Bank will not protect them. Senior military officers have admitted as much, with 55 per cent of Israeli ground forces sent to the occupied territory to confront young Palestinians in anticipation of a new intifada.

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Moreover, the collaborators in Ramallah will not protect them, because what we are seeing is a spontaneous youth intifada with no clear leadership that could bend under the pressure of military and financial brokers inside and outside occupied Palestine. They are continuing in the footsteps of the explosive resistance factions and embody the honourable national unity that focuses on the legacy of the resistance, not on the legacy of the accursed Oslo Accords, which have left a mark of disgrace in the history of the determined Palestinian people.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.