ISRAEL
One Year Later, Israel
Still Plagued By Intifada
GIL SEDAN
Special to The Jewish News
erusalem — It began
with an accident on a
narrow road between
Ashkelon and Gaza.
On Tuesday evening, Dec. 8,
1987, an Israeli truck driver
plowed into two vans carrying
Arab laborers home to the
Gaza Strip from their jobs in
israel. Four were killed.
At their funeral the next
day, tempers flared. Speakers
claimed the truck driver
deliberately rammed the
vans. They said he was aveng-
ing the fatal stabbing in Gaza
earlier that week of an Israeli
salesman, Shlomo Sakal.
Angry youths staged
demonstrations against
Israel. By the weekend,
rioting spread throughout the
Gaza Strip and into the more
populous West Bank.
The riots have not ended
yet. They were given a name:
intifada, an Arabic term
meaning "shaking off" — the
way an animal shakes off dirt
or parasites. The purpose of
the intifada is to shake off the
Israeli administration of the
territories.
A year after the unrest
began, Israeli policymakers
remain divided over how best
to deal with it. They agree,
however, on one thing: It is
not over and the end is not in
sight. It may have weakened.
It may have changed direc-
tion. It is wounded, but still
alive; hurting, but still inflic-
ting a heavy burden on Israel.
The Plaestinians have paid
a heavy price. The Israelis
have tried to crush the in-
tifada with an iron fist.
Soldiers of the Israel Defense
Force have used live ammuni-
tion and at times brutal force
to disperse demonstrators. To
date, at least 243 Palestinians
have been killed, according to
IDF body counts, and at least
3,359 wounded. Palestinian
casualties this past year are
20 times higher than the an-
nual number in previous
years.
Taking into account the size
of the Palestinian population
in the territories - 1.5
million — their fatalities are
proportionally higher than
the 600 Israelis killed during
the three years of the bloody
Lebanon war. Some 5,000
Palestinians are in jail, 1,450
of them under administrative
detention, which means they
are held without charges and
without trial. The Israeli
authorities have deported 32
j
Palestinians, and another 27
are in jail fighting deporta-
tion orders by legal means.
Their prospects are not good.
Israel's judicial system has
yet to overrule a deportation
order.
The IDF has demolished
137 houses belonging to
Arabs allegedly involved in
terrorist acts, and it has seal-
ed off the homes of 47 others.
As with the administrative
detentions, the deportations,
demolitions and sealing off of
houses are done without
direction from the civilian
courts. The military alone
decides.
The system is a holdover
from the emergency regula-
tions promulgated by the
British mandatory authori-
ties and used mostly against
Jews struggling for in-
dependence more than 40
years ago. Defense Minister
Yitzhak Rabin repeatedly
asserted that the IDF will use
all possible measures to crush
the uprising "as long as they
are within the realm of the
But the price of the intifada
cannot be calculated only in
Soldiers on leave
from duty In the
territories speak of
an 'unbearable'
strain put upon
their natural
humanitarian
instincts by a
situation that
requires, in
Defense. Minister
Rabin's words, 'an
iron fist.
terms of dead, wounded and
imprisoned. The economy of
the territories, which
flourished during the first 20
years of the Israeli ad-
ministration, is now in ruins.
The frequent strikes, Israeli
economic sanctions, the dry-
up of investments, have caus-
ed a precipitous drop in living
standards.
Palestinian society also has
undergone a socio-political
revolution. A new generation
of local youthful militants has
taken control.
The Palestine Liberation
Organization leadership liv-
ing overseas tried in vain for
years to gain international
respectability. The generation
that grew up under Israeli ad-
ministration pushed it aside
and took over the local leader-
ship. Young activists led the
population into confrontation
- with the Israelis. The old
leaders, proud of their offspr-
ing and ashamed of their in-
ability to resist, were carried
away by the intifada even
though it destroyed the tradi-
tional structure of Palesti-
nian society.
Palestinians today are
weary of their struggle.
Hussin Fares, a Druse border
police commander in Gaza,
proclaimed recently as his
jeep drove through the alleys
of the Shati refugee camp,
"The intifada is over?' He
pointed to a small platoon of
border police whose presence
apparently frightened away
local youths who had in the
past challenged them with
stones.
But the intifada is not over.
It has only changed faces. It
is not the intifada of the ear-
ly days.
In the first months, the IDF
was hard put to control
violence in the streets. Now
the situation is reversed.
Palestinians cannot move
from one neighborhood to
another, from one village to
another, without encounter-
ing the massive presence of
Israeli soldiers. And the IDF
does more than control the
highways and main streets of
the large towns. Almost dai-
ly it conducts pre-emptive
raids against remote villages.
They are the cause of the
most recent Palestinian
casualties. They have driven
nationalist - activity
underground.
But if mass rioting is over,
other expressions of unrest
persist. Hardly a week passes
without a general strike. An
Israeli car traveling
anywhere between Hebron, in
the south, and Nablus, in the
north, has a good chance of
being stoned — at least once.
Recently, local activists
have resorted to firebombs.
Two days before the Knesset
elections, they attacked an
Egged bus, burning to death
a mother and her three small
children.
The 70,000 Jewish settlers
living in the territories now
must think twice before leav-
ing their homes. They accuse
the security forces of im-
potence. They have rallied the
political support of hard-
liners within the Likud, such
as Ariel Sharon. Sharon has
boasted that if Likud comes to
power, the intifada would be
crushed "in two weeks."
The IDF also pays a price.
Palestinian students demonstrate on the West Bank: A new generation of
militants.
Soldiers who should be train-
ing for the "next war" devote
more time policing the ter-
ritories. That has had a bad
effect on army moral, as have
frequent stories in the press
about military brutality
toward the local population.
Soldiers on leave from duty in
the territories speak of an
"unbearable" strain put upon
their natural humanitarian
instincts by a situation that
requires, in Defense. Minister
Rabin's words, "an iron fist."
Despite strict orders against
the unwarranted use of ex-
cessive force, commanding of-
ficers find it difficult to con-
trol all deviant behavior.
Israel also pays an economic
price. Gad Yaacobi, minister
of economic coordination,
estimated recently that the
intifada would cost Israel
almost $1 billion. The main
reason, he said, is the growth
in the size of the defense and
police budgets. Another factor
is the effect the strikes in the
territories have had on the
national product, the 15 per-
cent drop in tourism this year,
the drop in Israeli exports to
the territories and, through
them, to Jordan and other
Arab countries.
There is general agreement
between Labor and Likud
that whatever the political
solution, the intifada must be
curbed. While Prime Minister
Yitzhak Shamir, the Likud
leader, has given Laborite
Rabin his full confidence,
critics like Sharon and other
right-wingers, strengthened
by the recent elections, have
proposed even tougher
measures. They want to im-
pose the death penalty on ter-
rorists and allow Jewish set-
tlers . to open fire on
rock-throwers.
If a Likud minister heads
the defense ministry in the
next government, he will be
challenged to prove he can
deal with the situation better
than his Laborite predecessor.
But if the new minister tries
to prove he is tougher than
the old one, he will likely ex-
acerbate the situation in the
territories.
The intifada may also con-
tinue to thrive if the left and
right in Israel continue to
deadlock over the political
future of the territories. The
far right demands annexation
of the West Bank. Labor still
clings to the idea of an inter-
national peace conference
and territorial compromise.
Meanwhile, increasing frus-
tration with the intifada has
produced a discernible shift to
the right among the Israeli
public, as indicated by the
emergence of new right-wing
parties in the, recent
elections.
As troubled as the Israelis
are, the Palestinians have lit-
tle to cheer about. A year
after the intifada, they are
confined to their homes,
under curfews, subject to
punitive measures. There had
been great hope in the ter-
ritories that the PLO's pro-
clamation of an independent
Palestinian state and its
limited steps toward recogniz-
ing Israel and renouncing ter-
rorism would produce some
tangible diplomatic rewards
for a year of merchant strikes
and demonstrations.
Yet the recent session of the
Palestine National Council in
Algiers, hampered by the
need to reconcile PLO
moderates and extremists,
was unable to take the
decisive step that would have
left Israel little choice but to
enter negotiations.
Now it appears that posi-
tions are hardening on both
sides. A year after the in-
tifada began, a political solu-
tion seems more remote than
ever.
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS 83