HARDER LINE

Taking
A Harder
Line

HELEN DAVIS

Foreign Correspondent

Many Israelis have concluded
that they can no longer
tolerate Palestinians living and
working in their midst.

erusalem — The intifada and the Persian Gulf
War have raised Palestinian passions to the
boiling point. Desperation has become the hall-
mark of the Palestinian cause and emotional
rhetoric its calling card.
But this turn of events has also produced a reac-
tion among Israelis that is no less emotional, and
which in its own way represents an equally desperate
state of mind.
Reluctantly, growing numbers of Israelis are accept-
ing the viewpoint that the Palestinians in their midst
must go; that they have become too much of a security
risk to endure any longer; that the most prudent
course now is to reduce their presence, at least in that
portion of Israel that lies within the Green Line, the
Jewish state's pre-1967 borders, and, if necessary, in
the occupied territories as well.
There is growing evidence that the mainstream of
Israeli society has begun to accept this viewpoint. A

Photo By N. Adar/Media

III

An anti-Arab demonstrator waves a flag atop a van owned by
Arabs who ran away when violence exploded following the
funerals of terrorist victims in Jerusalem.

22

FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 1991

Helen Davis is a writer based in London, who travels frequently to Israel. This
article was made possible by a grant from the Fund for Journalism on Jewish Life,
a project of the CRB Foundation of Montreal, Canada. All views expressed are solely
those of the author.