Growing Doubts at Home

By William E. Smith

Some Israelis speak out against Begin's West Bank policy

"Israel is creating living martyrs." Bethlehem's Mayor Elias Freij was referring to the four West Bank mayors who have been fired by Israeli authorities over the past two months. But the Palestinians of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip also have their dead martyrs, as last week's events testified all too vividly. Israeli soldiers shot and killed two Arab schoolgirls, one 14 and the other 17, in separate incidents. Their deaths brought to 15 the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli gunfire since rioting broke out in the occupied territories in March. An additional 200 have been injured. At least 13 secondary schools are closed, two universities are on strike, seven of the territories' 27 refugee camps have been under curfew, and business is at a near standstill.

The Israelis have also suffered casualties: two soldiers have been killed, and 49 soldiers and civilians have been injured, mostly in stoning incidents. To the Israelis, the most dramatic effect of the army crackdown in the West Bank, however, has been the rise of a national debate over the basic question of how Arabs under Israeli rule should be treated. A spokesman for the government of Prime Minister Menachem Begin declared last week that Jerusalem's aim in the West Bank was to block the growth and influence of the Palestine Liberation Organization. But he added, "Personally, I have reservations about how it is being done." Echoing that sentiment, members of the Labor opposition and many ordinary citizens have begun to speak out against the government's policies in the occupied territories.

The latest unrest can be traced to a decision by Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon last November to institute a "civil administration" for the West Bank and Gaza, replacing the purely military government that had prevailed since the occupation began in June 1967. Sharon put a Hebrew University professor of Arabic literature, Menachem Milson, in charge of the new administration. But mayors, intellectuals and student leaders in the West Bank were skeptical, fearing that the civil administration would evolve into a form of "autonomy" that would seemingly meet the requirements of the Camp David agreements but fall far short of the self-determination that the Palestinians are seeking.

The Arabs' anger erupted in March when Milson fired three mayors, charging them with refusing to cooperate with his administration. Two weeks ago, he dismissed a fourth mayor. The first round of firings led to strikes and demonstrations in the West Bank and even in Gaza, which had previously been relatively dormant. As the reaction began to die down, a shooting rampage by an Israeli soldier at the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem stirred up Palestinian resentment against Israeli rule all over again. The soldier, American-born Alan Goodman, has been charged with the murder of an Arab guard.

Last week, after a lone Arab youth hurled a stone at an Israeli army truck, authorities imposed a total curfew at the Amari refugee camp (pop. 6,000) outside El-Bireh. As a result, for 24 hours nobody could leave the camp to go to work, buy food or even visit a doctor. As the violence escalated, 21 of the 25 West Bank and Gaza mayors who were still in office issued a declaration of support for their ousted colleagues. The mayors further announced that they were ready to suspend their municipal duties if the Israelis did not adopt a more conciliatory policy and did not reinstate the four who had been fired. Some of the mayors feared that such action would simply enable Israeli authorities to dismiss them on the grounds that they were not doing their jobs. In the end, all but four agreed to go along with the declaration. Complained Bethlehem's Mayor Freij, a moderate: "The municipalities are being forced to commit hara-kiri."

If the Palestinian mayors were divided over events in the West Bank, so was the Israeli citizenry. After the killing of an Arab youth last month, an Israeli woman wrote to the Jerusalem Post, "I am ashamed." In another letter to the paper, Hebrew University Classics Professor Abraham Wasserstein complained that the Begin government never seemed to "find and punish Jewish terrorists who attack Arabs." Wasserstein, who lost his wife and daughter in the Holocaust, wrote that he had decided to speak out because, unlike the "good Germans" of the Nazi period, he did not want to be accused someday of having remained silent. According to the Post, the Wasserstein letter drew an avalanche of replies, most of which supported the professor.

In the Knesset last week, Israel's former United Nations Ambassador Haim Herzog, a member of the Labor Party, criticized the government's performance in the occupied territories. Said he: "Sharon has rushed into the West Bank like a bull in a china closet." Labor Member Shlomo Hillel cut in with a correction. "No, more like a rhinoceros," he said. The next day members of the Knesset's powerful Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee asked Israeli Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan why so many of the West Bank casualties were Arabs under the age of 18. Eitan did not reply. But Begin later spoke up for Israeli soldiers who have felt obliged to defend themselves against "hundreds of hooligans." Asked the Prime Minister: "What should they do? Die?"

Meanwhile, negotiations between Egypt and Israel on the "autonomy" to be granted to the Palestinians under the Camp David agreements remained stalled by an argument over the talks' venue. Begin insisted that they be held in Jerusalem as well as Cairo and Washington, but Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak wanted to avoid Jerusalem on the grounds that the city's future remains unresolved. U.S. Special Negotiator Richard Fairbanks was expected to be in the Middle East this week to try to break the impasse. One plan: to invite Mubarak and Begin to Washington for talks with President Reagan. --By William E. Smith. Reported by David Aikman and Marlin Levin/Jerusalem

With reporting by DAVID AIKMAN, Marlin Levin/Jerusalem

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