Remind Me, How Did the 2nd Intifada Begin?

Dror Eydar writes of those who

repeat the claim that the Second Intifada had broken out because of "the provocative visit by [then-Opposition Leader] Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount."

And expands:

But we know that Arafat had planned that war years before...Arafat continued to use jihadist rhetoric in the speeches he gave in Arabic (while in English he spoke of "the peace of the brave," which is open to interpretation). To this day, the Palestinian school system denies the existence of any link between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel, referring to all the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River as Palestine.

Arafat had a symbiotic relationship with the planners of the suicide attacks...It was not Arafat who deceived us. We deceived ourselves, and we continue to do so.

...On May 8, 2000, Ehud Barak and Arafat met privately in Ramallah. After their meeting, Arafat told Marwan Barghouti: "Start heating things up." Barghouti obeyed. The ground heated up, and on May 15, the Palestinians -- Fatah, not Hamas -- opened fire on Israeli troops...Barghouti was Arafat's right-hand man when it came to using violence...in 1997, Arafat armed the members of Tanzim, Fatah's militia, as sub-agents representing "the Palestinian street."...Mohammed Dahlan's Preventive Security Services perpetrated five terror attacks starting in April [2000] The last of them took place on September 27 -- and all of them took place before Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount.

   

.... In July [2000], Ya'alon told...American researchers from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy [that Israel was preparing the IDF for an outbreak of violence]. Later on, he learned that they had considered his statements about an anticipated conflict orchestrated by Arafat to be "weird."

When Sharon ascended the Temple Mount on September 28, 2000, no unusual events were expected. Arafat lit the flames the next day. Contrary to the Palestinian narrative's description of a spontaneous act, the riots did not begin on the day of Sharon's visit, but the next day...The book written by Arafat's adviser, Mamdouh Nofal, entitled "Intifada: The Shattering of the Peace Process," reports about the meetings Arafat held just before Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount and the night after it took place. During those meetings, Arafat conveyed the spirit and the message of starting the war. Faisal Husseini used the term "Trojan horse": The Oslo Accords were a Trojan horse that was used to "enter Palestine," he said, and in September 2000, "We came out of the horse."

...Then there's Suha Arafat. On the seventh anniversary of her husband's death (November 12, 2011), she recalled the events on Palestinian television. "On the personal level, I miss him," she said. "So does Zahwa [their daughter]. ... She knows that Arafat told us to leave before the [Israeli] invasion of Ramallah. He said, 'You must leave Palestine because I want to start an intifada, and I am not willing to hide behind my wife and a little girl.' Everyone said, 'Suha left him.' I never left him. He ordered me to go because he had decided to start an intifada after the Oslo Accords and after the failure of Camp David [in July 2000]."

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