Enforcing Order Studying Change

Israel's police are under the magnifying glass
as claims of beating residents increase.

LARRY DERFNER
Israel Correspondent

school in Umm el-Fahm, police never
set foot inside the school, Ben-Onn
says. And the live bullet shells found
on the ground? "Police used only rub-
ber bullets," he insists.
What about the blood on the walls
and floor? "It was probably from a
rioter who'd gotten hit with a rubber
bullet and ran inside," he says. The
violence was the local residents' fault.
Ben-Onn maintains. "They began
throwing Molotov cocktails at police."
Haredi, fervently observant Jews,

Israeli students awaken and take to the streets
to make education the national priority.

LARRY DERFNER
Israel Correspondent

Jerusalem
Jerusalem
y general agreement,
n recent weeks, Israeli TV news
Israers175,000 university
audiences have seen protesting
students are among the
university students getting
most conservative and
clubbed and punched by Israeli
grade-obsessed in the world. But over
policemen. In late September, the tele-
the last two months they have been
vised scenes were of blood on the walls
acting distinctly out of character.
and floor of a trashed high school in
They are now in week six of a strike
Umm el-Fahm, an Israeli Arab city
that has kept them out of classes.
where border police had fought it out
Several dozen staged a four-week
ENFORCING ORDER on page 33
with local residents.
A few weeks before that, the TV
cameras captured a border policeman
viciously kicking a Palestinian photog-
rapher in Hebron. About a year and a
half ago, in footage broadcast around
the world, border policemen were
shown beating and riding on the backs
of Palestinian laborers whom they'd
forced to kneel on the ground.
The Israel Police say these are the
rare exceptions to the rule.
Striking university students inter-
viewed outside the prime minister's
residence in Jerusalem said the great
majority of the police they'd come in
contact with were peaceable. Still, they
all say they have experienced, or wit-
nessed, run-ins with policemen who
horsewhipped, clubbed and punched
students and not in the heat of battle,
but after the students had been driven
off the street, when they weren't resist-
ing.
Efrat Gutterman, 23, a pharmacol-
ogy student at Hebrew University, was
one of about 80 students dragged off a
Jerusalem highway they were blocking.
who attended the rally for Albert
Moscow/JTA
She says she asked a policeman why
Makashov.
ome 500 people gathered
she was being arrested. "Boom! He
The rally, held in bitterly cold
in a Moscow square
punched me right in the stomach.
weather,
came on the heels of a
Sunday to express support
`That's why,' he told me. I asked him
nationwide public opinion poll con-
for a Communist lawmaker
again. Boom! Again, in the stomach.
ducted last week that strongly sug-
who recently escaped parliamentary
`That's why,' he told me again."
gests a majority of Russians do not
censure after making several anti-
Elihu Ben-Onn, spokesman for the
share the views of the demonstra-
Semitic remarks.
Israel Police, says one officer was disci-
tors. The turnout was
"We all live in poverty
plined during the student protests. He
far less than the roughly
and Zionists in government
Demon strators
was caught clubbing a student unnec-
2,000 people who
at
a
gather
are to blame. They think
essarily; he was bounced out of the
turned out in Moscow
suare
in
Moscow
only how to destroy Russia
sergeant's course, but not suspended.
last week at a rally hon-
a show of support
and when a patriot calls a
In all, police have conducted them-
oring slain liberal law-
spade a spade, they immedi- for Co mmunist
selves properly with the student pro-
maker Galina
ker
Albert
lawma
ately want to throw him in
testers, Ben - Onn maintains.
Starovoitova.
hov.
akas
vi
jail," said Nina Drobysheva,
As for the alleged raid on the high

I

B

Russian Demonstrators
Denounce Jews

s

❑

12/4
1998

32 Detroit Jewish News

hunger strike. They have been clubbed
and even horsewhipped by police as
payback for blocking major intersec-
tions in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa.
At times, some have even demonstrat-
ed in the nude.
The strike started out with one goal
— to cut tuition by half. But after the
violence and hunger strike, the protest
clearly became something much big-
ger, aimed at creating a new national
concern for higher education.
The focal point of the protest is the
hunger strikers' tent opposite the
prime minister's residence in
Jerusalem. Students pace the side-
walks, shouting into bullhorns to win
support from passing motorists, many
of whom honk in solidarity. Israeli
adults, including any number of
politicians and public figures, come by
the tent to encourage the students.
The atmosphere is heady. The stu-
dents have attracted tremendous sym-
pathy, mainly from the middle-class
left and center.
In the face of widespread disgust
with Israeli politics, and with personal
advancement seeming to have become
the top goal in public life, the student
strike is a deep breath of fresh air.
When some government ministers
voiced support, Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu scolded them.
Their actions, he said, weakened the
government's "solid front" against
them.
Finance Minister Ya'acov Ne'eman,
a 60ish, multi-millionaire attorney
and stern economic conservative, is
leading the offensive. With his thick
glasses and ponderous way of talking,
he is the perfect foil for the students.
Negotiations last week produced
little apparent progress. Student lead-
ers refused a government plan, saying
it did not relax terms for the "commu-
nity involvement" project, which
brings with it a reduction of nearly 50
percent in tuition fees for those who
take part. The chairman of the Tel
Aviv Students' Union, Erez Eshel,
noted that the country's 12,500 med-
ical students have 44 hours of classes a
week that preclude doing community
service on a regular basis.
A cool-headed examination of the
STUDING CHANGE on page 33

