and travelers aren't waiting
for convoys on the main
roads.
"But you never know when
a stone will fly at you,"
Baruchi said. "In my region,
between Hebron and Jerusa-
lem, almost no day passes
without a vehicle being hit
and at least once a week
someone is hurt."
In response, all vehicles car-
rying school children have
been fitted with shatterproof
plastic windows, as have been
a number of buses run by
Egged, the Israeli bus co-
operative. Several regional
councils have begun making
two-way car radios available
to residents, so drivers can
call for help.
And since the intifida
began, settlers have given up
on pistols. They now carry
army-issued Uzi sub-machine
guns or rifles for self-defense.
Settlers living in more
isolated settlements will
often wait at the side of the
road for other Israeli cars go-
ing their way.
The difference in the pat-
tern is particularly felt in
isolated settlements, where
pressures have eased. "I think
the Arabs are getting tired,"
Bar-Haim said. In the early
months of the uprising, he
said he road near the village
would be blocked by rocks
and burning tires for two to
three kilometers. "They must
have brought in dump
trucks."
The army initially asked
settlers to use tractors to
clear the road. But when the
tractors also clipped Arab
trees and houses, the army
stopped calling on the set-
tlers for assistance. Now
Arab residents are routed out
to clear the stones.
The settlers have also
developed their own warning
language. Shots at night
signal a driver stranded or in
trouble, and members of near-
by settlements respond
quickly. But local Arabs have
learned the settlers' routine
and have adjusted their own
tactics accordingly.
Once Bar-Haim and
another resident responded to
a distant blaring of a horn.
When they approached they
saw headlights of a car halted
at the far edge of a broad
roadblock. As the settlers got
out of their cars to help clear
the road, the vehicle, evident-
ly an Arab car used to lure
them out, backed away and
the would-be rescuers found
that a roadblock had been set
up behind their own vehicles,
trapping them temporarily.
Throughout the territories,
small tent encampments sig-
nal the army's- new intifada
deployment sent to cope with
a massive, non-lethal popular
uprising and to keep the
roads open.
Jeeps with flameproof tops
and screens to ward off bot-
tles and stones regularly
patrol the roads; the soldiers
aboard them wear helmets
with plastic face shields. At
night, searchlights on high
ground sweep back roads.
The army is also staging its
own night-time ambushes.
It is, however, unable to
completely halt attacks on
Israeli vehicles passing
through the territories, and
senior army officers say it is
a situation the settlers will
have to live with.
The settlers, however, are
demanding sterner action.
Noam Arnon, spokesman for
the militant Gush Emunim
settlement movement, has
said that all houses and trees
that might offer cover to
Arab ambushers should be
cleared for 100 meters on
either side of roads in the ter-
ritories.
Permission should also be
given to civilians and soldiers,
he said, to fire at the legs of
stone throwers after a warn-
ing has been shouted and
after a warning shot has been
fired in the air.
Baruchi, the Gush Etzion
security chief, does not ad-
vocate such draconian mea-
sures. "I'm not for giving a
free hand to everyone to fire
at stone throwers," he said.
"The army has to find a solu-
tion to this problem. Perhaps
expulsion of families of stone
throwers. I don't know. Just
putting them in prison or fin-
ing them has not proven a
solution."
The level of violence on the
roads has induced caution
among settlers but has not
changed significantly the pat-
tern of their lives.
"It's very interesting that
people have been able to get
used to it," Bar-Haim said.
"It's a nuisance but it's
become a way of life."
Baruchi agrees. "People
have learned to cope with it.
It's become a subject for con-
versation, about this stone or
that bottle — sometimes even
jokes," the security chief said.
"But if someone is killed,
there will be an outburst that
will be hard to contain."
One result of the intifada,
said a West Bank woman, is
that the prayer pronounced
by religious Jews setting out
on a journey has taken on
new meaning. The prayer
calls on the Almighty to pro-
tect the traveler against
"enemies and ambushers
along the way."
When they set out on the
bus to Jerusalem in the mor-
ning, she said one person
usually reads the prayer
aloud and the rest answer
"amen."
"Since the intifada, we have
been saying it with special
fervor." ID
— (c) The Jerusalem Post
Can Gaza Refugees
Be Rehabilitated?
An Israeli resettlement officer, once a
refugee himself, says not all of the
problems in Gaza are political
ERIC ROZENMAN
Special to the Jewish News
T
he two jeeps, when they
finally arrived at the
Erez checkpoint just a
few miles south of Ashkelon,
did not inspire confidence. In-
stead of sturdy, olive-drab
machines, perhaps with hood-
mounted machine guns, they
are white Suzuki Samurai
mini-jeeps with large Hertz
rental signs on each door.
But inside each sit six Is-
raeli soldiers — two in front,
four in back. Except for the
drivers, they ride with their
weapons pointed out. Follow-
ing instructions, we pull our
Subaru Justy, also conspicu-
ous by the rental agency signs,
in between the little jeeps.
The rent-a-jeeps and the
well-armed soldiers — some
reservists on active duty —
symbolize Israel's makeshift
but determined response to
the Palestinian Arab uprising.
Everything in order, our
three-vehicle convoy leaves
the checkpoint and • speeds
into the Gaza Strip.
We pass an Israeli settle-
ment of trailer homes circling
a small water tower and Isra-
eli flag, all surrounded by
barbed wire. Beyond the
homes are mature citrus
orchards and a beautiful
stretch of beach.
We arrive at a stucco build-
ing from which Egypt's mil-
itary governor ran things
following the British evacu-
ation in 1948. Today, Rafi
Sadeh manages the refugee
rehabilitation and resettle-
ment program. Aerial photo-
graphs of the camps and
resettlements line the wall of
his office. An Israeli civilian
employee, it is Sadeh's job to
rehabilitate the refugees.
From 1948 to 1967 the
Egyptians kept Palestinian
Arab refugees in Gaza under
daytime curfews and enforced
a strict separation of the
refugees and the indigenous
population. Camp residents
could not move outside or
work outside. The only escape
valve was joining one of the
terrorist organizations. After
1967, Sadeh said, Israel be-
came the escape valve.
During the nearly two dec-
ades of Egyptian occupation,
Sadeh said, no effort was
made to rehabilitate any of
the refugees. When Israel be-
gan trying to relocate resi-
dents into new and better
housing outside the camps,
the PLO at first killed Pales-
Rafi Saden
tinian Arabs who cooperated,
sometimes wiping out whole
families. The terrorists under-
stood that an end to the
camps meant an end to the
organization's most powerful
symbol and best source of
potential recruits.
Nevertheless, since the early
1970s, 12,000 families —
approximately 72,000 people
— have been relocated. Ac-
cording to the Israelis, they
were the last to join the upris-
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
35