There was some debate about whether the “Paris Riots” qualified as an intifada, and today Andrew Sullivan has a few posts up that depart from his more cautious approach yesterday. Good, as I think it’s important that we get terminology right here.

Listening to CBC radio last night I was perplexed to hear the riots being described as “protests”, but give the source of the comment not that surprising. On the other end of the spectrum is "war" and if that war has a religious overtone then the term “jihad” comes into play. In between these two extremes are descriptions such as “revolt”, “unrest” or “uprising”, which translates into Arab as “intifada”. Given the fact that the French rioters are pre-dominantly of Arab descent, there is no reason why the term “intifada” should be far-fetched. Even if there weren’t any religious aspects to it, it would still be acceptable term given the similarities with the Palestinian uprisings. Some believed that using it was overstating the events, and the WaPo takes a cautionary approach today, although they come pretty close to arguing that very little is needed for the mayhem to be hijacked by extremists at which point I assume they can start using the word “intifada”. Well, we're using it here and if you're looking for something lighter, try French Toast.