I’ve heard it many times. The 2 prior intifadas were extremely violent. So I think my experience is different than yours which may shadow some of this. He himself said the word was used by the holocaust museum to describe the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Also he isn’t making the argument it’s obscure.
I've heard it many times, now, from people trying to use it to paint Mamdani as a threat. Which is a different thing. And I'm not claiming _he_ is making the argument it's obscure; _I_ am making the argument that it _was_ obscure (before podcasters & pundits lifted it out of obscurity)...
...because a load-bearing part of your argument is that it's "a prominent expression of a movement". If you're going to walk that back now, OK.
A very quick google search has articles about the phrase, before the last few weeks. I’m willing to take your word you haven’t heard it, you aren’t willing to take mine that I have
Yes, I'm aware that Google has a date-range feature. Pre-June results are the Wikipedia page (citing 3 uses of the phrase worldwide at post-October 7 protests), then mostly a bunch of pages decrying the phrase rather than rigorously documenting its prevalence. As for taking your word...
...I'm not disputing that you have "heard it many times". I merely notice that you don't say _where_ you've "heard it many times". Hearing the phrase from pundits and the ADL condemning it doesn't count; have you specifically heard the phrase "many times" _at the protests_ under contention?
Also: Mamdani made his point about the USHMM using the word "intifada" only a week ago _when it was brought up to him_ on that Bulwark podcast, and the first intifada was not "extremely violent" unless you're counting Israel using it as a pretext to kill over a thousand people.
Intifada specifically conjures those specific acts of violence, and he did the work of associating it with violence, even justifying a phrase. It’s really easy to say - I disagree with the phrase keep that answer and move on, and he won’t
You've decided that a phrase that is, at worst, ambiguous "specifically conjures those specific acts of violence" (which acts, anyway? The IDF's 1000+ bodycount I just mentioned?), so you're big mad at the guy who recognizes the ambiguity. You're entitled to get mad about that...
...I just can't see it as anything but vindication of my original observation that "you're volunteering for the firing squad".
I think I’m at a place where I think we agree to disagree, and move on with our lives.