What's the difference between habbeh and intifada?
Palestinian media and politicians have yet to agree on the terminology of the ongoing events in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
Palestinians and Arabs are still unsure about what to call the protest activities that began on the eve of the Jewish New Year on Sept. 13, 2015. Since then, 89 Palestinians and 12 Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers have been killed and many more injured.
After the 1987 first intifada and the 2000 second intifada, it has taken pundits and politicians some time to decide whether what we are witnessing today is a full-blown uprising, or intifada in Palestinian terminology, or simply short, popular outbursts of protests, what Palestinians call "habbeh jamaherieh" in Arabic.
The differences have followed the split within the Palestinian movement with pro-Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas media and politicians calling it habbeh, while pro-Hamas leaders and media are calling it an Al-Quds intifada or Al-Aqsa intifada.
Mohammad Omar, a leading Jordanian media expert and the editor of the Pan-Arab website Al-Bawaba, told Al-Monitor that it is hard to differentiate between the two terms. “What is accepted throughout the Arab world is that the habbeh, or outburst, is usually a reaction, is short winded and doesn’t usually include unified effort,” he explained.
