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In The Jordan Valley,
A Growing Doubt
Visiting Labor-endorsed border settlements, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres
can offer no sense of security.
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s the day wore on, For-
eign Minister Shimon
Peres grew more and
more withdrawn.
He thought he was ventur-
ing into friendly territory — the
kibbutzim and moshavim of the
Jordan Valley, the West Bank
settlements "endorsed" by the
Labor Party — but his audi-
ences kept going on about their
uncertainties, their fears and
their disillusionment with the
government. Mr. Peres played
his role of visionary statesman,
but it wasn't working.
On a November morning in
the meeting hall of Kibbutz Al-
mog, just south of Jericho, Mr.
Peres leaned forward in his
seat and looked intently at the
settlers.
"I know it's very hard to
get used to this new way of
thinking," he said, "but, even
though it may be bold and au-
dacious to say, I tell you there
is going to be a new reality here,
better than the one that exists ,
today."
"With us or without us?"
asked kibbutznik Yitzhak
Danon, seated next to Mr.
Peres, staring at the floor.
The 17 farming settlements
of the Jordan Valley have al-
ways held a preferred place in
the doctrine of the Labor Party.
Dotting a stretch of desert
north of the Dead Sea along the
Jordanian border, these are the
"security settlements" that
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin
vowed to hold onto in any peace
agreement.
These are the settlements
that establish a Jewish pres-
ence along the Israeli side of the
Jordan River, which the Labor
Party considers the country's
vital "security border."
Since the "Gaza-Jericho
First" accord, though, the
roughly 3,000 Jewish residents
of the Jordan Valley have be-
gun to wonder what lies in store
for them. Jericho is right in
their midst, and the city is go-
ing to be turned over to Pales-
tinian self-rule. The Israeli
Army is supposed to be out of
there completely by next April.
In the meantime, it hasn't
been settled if the first stage of
autonomy will be limited to
Jericho, or stretch well beyond
the city limits, as the PLO
wants. The Jewish settlers don't
Shimon Peres
explained the peace process
In a New York talk.
know who is going to protect
their lives, and whether their
kibbutzim and moshavim will
be able to survive, or whether
they will be engulfed by an
emerging Palestinian state.
"Who is going to police the
roads, the army or the Pales-
tinian police? Who is going to
protect us when we have to dri-
ve through Jericho on the way
to Jerusalem?" asked one
woman at Kibbutz Gilgal.
"Responsibility for the safe-
ty of Jews, whether in their
homes or on the roads, will be
ours," replied Mr. Peres. But the
residents said their security was
being eaten away already, ever
since the accord with the PLO
was signed on Sept. 13.
They informed Mr. Peres
that Palestinians from the area,
mainly those who work on their
farms, had been stealing and
torching their tractors, cutting
irrigation pipes and vandaliz-
ing other equipment on nearly
a daily basis.
"They want to show who's
boss," said one woman.
"The children are afraid to go
out of their houses after dark,"
said Yoav Zimrin, head of Kib-
butz Gilgal, even though no at-
tacks had been made on people.
"It's my understanding that
there have always been prob-
lems here like this. Are things
any worse than before?" Mr.
Peres asked.
"Yes," came a chorus in reply.
"We're still under the Army's
protection, but we already feel
the Arabs coming into our set-
tlements. What's going to hap-
pen later?" a man asked.
Residents estimated that the
Labor Party and the left-wing
Meretz Party got anywhere
from 60-85 percent of the Jor-
dan Valley's vote in last year's
election. One after another, they
said they had not gone over to
the right wing, that they still
supported the peace accord in
theory.
But they kept talking about
their "uncertainty," about how
they wanted "straight answers"
from the government — a clear,
unequivocal statement that Is-
rael would keep the Jordan Val-
ley not only during the 2-3 years
of autonomy, but in the final
arrangement too, and forever.
They were boiling over a
statement made by the foreign
minister's deputy, Yossi Beilin,
in which he said the Jordan Riv-
er need not be Israel's security
border.
"To get up in the morning to
go to work and hear that on the
radio, it's impossible. How can
we plan for the future?" asked