Tension on the Borders

By William E. Smith. Reported by David Halevy and Robert Slate/Jerusalem

COVER STORIES

Israel is challenged from the Golan Heights, the West Bank and the Sinai

On the road between the Sinai and Tel Aviv, an Arab youth leading a donkey raised his fist and shouted: "In fire and blood, we shall free my Palestine." In the town of Yamit, Israeli settlers burned furniture and other belongings in a bonfire and cursed the Israeli government that was forcing them to leave their homes in the Sinai. On the West Bank, shaken by a month of violence, Arab youths continued to stone soldiers in ugly skirmishes protesting the Israeli occupation. On the Golan Heights, there was rifle fire as soldiers wounded four Druze Arabs who were demonstrating against the Israeli annexation of the region in December. In northern Galilee, thousands of Arab residents of Israel marched to commemorate Land Day, an annual protest against the Israeli practice of confiscating Arab property in order to build more Jewish settlements.

As Holy Week began in Jerusalem, Israelis were locked in a series of struggles on a number of fronts. They were striving to maintain a tight hold on the occupied Arab territories and trying to adjust at the same time to the trauma of withdrawing at long last from the Sinai, the great desert barrier that separates them from Egypt.

Prime Minister Menachem Begin appeared to have weathered a parliamentary crisis that had broken out the week before. His Likud coalition, sustained by a mere one-vote majority in the 120-member Knesset, had been whiplashed by the two explosive issues confronting Israel at the moment: the forthcoming withdrawal from the Sinai and the government's repressive treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Two weeks ago, the Begin government barely survived a no-confidence motion that ended in a 58-58 tie vote. But for a budget vote last week, Begin gained the tacit support of an opposition member, Mordechai Ben-Porat of the TELEM party. Then at midweek, the Knesset took a five-week recess for the Passover holiday. The government thus seemed to be secure until the Knesset meets again in early May, and by that time the politically sensitive withdrawal from the Sinai will have been completed.

On the West Bank, fighting flared again. In the village of Ya'bid, near Jenin, a band of Arab youths, armed with knives and homemade firebombs, attacked an Israeli army patrol. The soldiers opened fire, wounding three Arabs. Elsewhere, three soldiers were injured in stoning incidents, and a member of a village council in the Hebron area was wounded slightly when a pipe bomb exploded beneath his car. Overall, however, a measure of normality seemed to be returning to the West Bank. The towns of Ramallah and Nablus remained heavily guarded by Israeli troops, but the strike that had closed down most stores a week earlier was gradually ending.

On Tuesday, crowds of Israel's Arab citizens--they number 650,000--staged marches and demonstrations marking Land Day. On the first Land Day, in 1976, six Arabs were killed by Israeli soldiers. This year nobody was killed, mainly because Israeli troops avoided the Arab areas. In northern Galilee, Palestinian youths poured gasoline on tires and set them aflame, a cheap way to block a road and create the billow of menacing black smoke that has become a symbol of protest. Demonstrators chanted again and again: "In blood and in spirit, we will sacrifice for you, O Galilee." Another slogan: "Qiryat Shemona, you will hear the Katyushas," a reference to the P.L.O. rocket attacks from Lebanon against targets in northern Israel before the cease-fire went into effect in July. In the afternoon, 5,000 people marched to the beat of a bugle, cymbal and drum. A group of Arab youths, their faces concealed by scarves, committed an act that to many Israelis was unthinkable: they hoisted a Palestinian flag on Israeli territory.

On the West Bank, however, the Israelis were ruling with increasing firmness. Last month they deposed three mayors whom they believed to be too sympathetic to the P.L.O. Last week they tightened censorship over Jerusalem's Arabic-language newspapers. The harassment of Arab authorities often was not only arbitrary but bewildering: in Bethlehem, for example, Israeli authorities refused to register a new ambulance that was given to the town by a West German charitable organization. No explanation was offered.

The West Bank civil administration of Menachem Milson, operating under the guidance of Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, clearly is turning away from Israel's former policy of making limited democracy available to the people of the West Bank on the local level. The theory of Israel's former Labor governments was that if the West Bank were allowed to develop its own leadership, as it did in the elections of 1972 and 1976, there might be a gradual erosion of support for hard-line P.L.O. policies. But it now appears that the Israelis will tolerate no position that is even vaguely sympathetic to the P.L.O.

That view was strongly emphasized by Israeli leaders last week during a two-day visit by Lord Carrington, the British Foreign Secretary. Carrington defended the European Community's opinion that the P.L.O., once it accepts Israel's right to live in peace and security, should be allowed to take a role in the peace process. Said he: "We believe the Palestinians are entitled to self-determination." Israeli Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir replied that Israel would never accept "a partition of this small and sacred land." Added an aide to Begin: "If a Palestinian state came into existence, Israel would have no choice but to destroy it."

Israelis feel so strongly about the West Bank in part because of what is happening in the northern Sinai, which Israel has agreed to give back to Egypt by April 25. Although most Israelis regard the Sinai withdrawal as a suitable price to pay for peace with Egypt, the evacuation is nonetheless a difficult step, which will leave them feeling more cramped and less secure than they were before. But the real victims of the Sinai withdrawal are the 5,000 Israelis who lived there; to them, the experience of leaving has been both sorrowful and infuriating.

In Yamit, where 1,000 families lived until recently, a group of settlers gathered around a bonfire one night last week to sing, dance and, in the words of one resident, recapture "the special atmosphere that prevailed here for so many years." One settler, a Soviet immigrant, cried, "Our Prime Minister is a traitor, our Defense Minister is committing treason!" In the main square, once known for its clean, green landscaping, graffiti had appeared on the walls: "No to exile and wandering, yes to fatherland and freedom." Sand dunes, pushed by the wind, were already attacking the town from all sides. Even a big white dove of peace, painted two days earlier by a departing settler, was being swallowed up by the sand.

At Yamit, about 2,000 zealots were preparing for what they called "the final battle" with the Israeli armed forces. Some of them were disillusioned settlers, and some were Jewish militants recruited in the U.S. Five boatloads of additional recruits attempted to reach Yamit last week, but four of the boats were blocked by the Israeli navy. The zealots claimed to have built a makeshift fortress for themselves in Yamit, and threatened to fight off Israeli efforts to remove them.

Most governments, including Egypt's, were convinced that the Israeli withdrawal would be completed on schedule. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has tried hard to assure the Israelis that Egypt will not turn hostile after the withdrawal has been completed. Says he: "We shall be as committed to peace after April 25 as we have been before."

The U.S. is pleased with Israel's policy in the Sinai but concerned and even irritated over its handling of the situation on the West Bank. The tone of U.S. criticism has been insistent but not harsh; Secretary of State Alexander Haig believes that talking tough to Begin only makes him more stubborn. The fear in Washington is that the West Bank incidents will so anger the Arabs that the cease-fire along the Lebanese border, which has held since last July 24, will end. That in turn could give the Israelis cause to mount an assault against P.L.O. positions in southern Lebanon.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has been advising Arab governments not to overreact to the rising tension. Says a U.S. analyst: "The Arabs are more skeptical than ever about our ability to influence Israel, and they think the Israelis are just one step away Bank." from Most Arab annexation of specialists the at the West State Department have also concluded that Begin has no intention of giving up the West Bank settlements or even of curtailing their growth.

What will the P.L.O. do if the situation on the West Bank should get worse? P.L.O. Chairman Yasser Arafat insisted last week that his organization will not break the cease-fire in southern Lebanon, despite the impatience of some of the P.L.O. 's more radical leaders. "I am sure I can control the situation," he said. Arafat supports the diplomatic approach at this stage for several reasons.

The Arab world is divided and concerned about Iraq's recent losses in its war with Iran. There are signs that the P.L.O. may be short of weapons. Finally, Arafat realizes that the West Bank Palestinians, using only sticks, stones and burning tires, have been getting a good press throughout the world.

The final Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai is a momentous event, but it does not bring the Israelis and the Arabs any closer to a solution of the two central issues of their conflict. One of these is the fate of the Palestinian people. The other is 'the future of Jerusalem (see following story), so sacred to Jews and Arabs alike that it is seemingly beyond compromise. -- By William E. Smith. Reported by David Halevy and Robert Slate/Jerusalem

With reporting by David Halevy and Robert Slate/Jerusalem

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.