011 01111
Without Palestinians
I
Israel's closing of
the territories gave
the Jewish state a
much-needed respite
from terrorism.
LARRY DERFNER
ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT
t was a lovely Passover
holiday, not having the
Palestinians around. I
never thought I'd write
something like that. It's
not a very liberal or
humane sentiment. But
that's the way it is, and I
think I speak for just
about all the Jews here,
except for a few hard-
core, hard-headed leftists,
when I say there's a new
freedom and lightness in
the air since the
Palestinians got locked up
inside the territories.
I must admit, it's been
great. Now is the most
beautiful time of the year,
the beginning of spring,
the air is cool and the
wild flowers are bloom-
ing. Everybody's on the
road.
And the Palestinians
can't come in. It was per-
fect timing, in an ironic
kind of way, the killing of
the two cops near Hadera,
right on the eve of the
holiday. Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin closed the
territories, and after that
it was Happy Passover.
I'm being facetious, but
not very. It was such a-
relief not to to read and
hear about killings all the
time, that I didn't really
care too much about the
Palestinians, even the
good ones. So they're out
of work, so their future is
in a shambles. Like Mr.
Rabin said in the Knesset
last week, "First we'll
worry about ourselves,
then we'll worry about
them."
How am I supposed to
care for these people
when they're killing
Israelis for being Israelis?
All right, it's not them
— it's a few of them.
They're not all terrorists,
just a few. But go figure
out which ones are the
killers and which ones are
just coming to work. A
Palestinian works for a
Jewish farmer three
years and one day stabs
him to death.
A not uncommon story.
The Palestinian had no
record, gave no inkling
An Israeli officer returns a Palestinian to the territories
that he was planning to
kill anybody, and one day
he surprises you.
That sort of thing was
happening more and
more, the Palestinian
worked for his victim
three years, a few
months, a few weeks. He
got turned around by
, llamas or Islamic Jihad
or one of the secular
death squads, or he was
threatened by one of
those groups, and he
killed an Israeli or two.
With such characters cir-
culating among the
120,000 Palestinians
working in Israel, you
tend to want to be rid of
the whole bunch.
Remember the Tylenol
scare about a decade ago?
It was only a few capsules
that were poisonous, but
they took all the bottles
off the shelves.
God, the way I must
sound, comparing
Palestinians to pills!
You should have heard
Mr. Rabin last week: "We
don't want them -swarm-
ing around here."
"Swarming," he said,
like they were flies or ver-
min. And this is the peace
candidate, the guy the
settlers and the right-
wingers want to get rid of
because he's soft on ter-
ror. Imagine what these
really militant types are
saying about our cousins
across the Green Line.
We've all gotten a little
callous. Well, some of us
started out callous, others
became so. Like me.
When the intifada started
back in the winter of
1987, I used to drive
down from Haifa to Tel
Aviv in the rain to take
-part in the big Peace Now
demonstrations. I was
honestly conscience-
stricken by the soldiers
killing stone-throwers,
two, three or more a day.
I thought we should give
up the occupation, negoti-
ate a withdrawal from
most of the West Bank
and Gaza, and keep only
the small parts we needed
for security.
If Rabin speaks of
the Palestinians as
if they are insects,
what is the
right-wing saying?
I still think that. But a
few things have changed.
For one, the stone-throw-
ers are now only the
extras in the intifada; the
principals are the fellows
with sabers and subma-
chine guns, and they're a
lot less sympathetic.
For another, this gov-
ernment, unlike the pre-
vious one, is ready to give
the Palestinians much of
what they want, but the
Palestinians, evidently,
are not ready to put away
their weapons until they
get 100 percent. Not a
real good basis for peace
negotiations. And finally,
this "so many killed, so
many wounded in clashes
in the territories" thing
has been going on too
long. I'm numb.
Three Palestinians
killed, four Palestinians
killed, this used to be the
stuff of front-page head-
lines. Now it's a box in
the middle of Page 3, or
Page 5.
I read that the
Palestinians also had a
bad month in March, that
about 25 of them, includ-
ing a number of children,
were shot to death by sol-
diers. Statistics, I'm sorry
to say. I can't feel for co
them. It's rough in those m
a'
refugee camps, I pray to —
God I never have to serve co
there, and, except for the
few trigger-happy or
sadistic soldiers roaming <
3--
the West Bank and Gaza,
I give my backing and my 4g
PASSOVER page 50