Newsletter of the Israeli Council for
Israeli-Palestinian Peace
No 6-7, February-March, 1984
Not yet indexed
Editor: Adam Keller
Editorial Board: Uri Avnery, Matti Peled, Yaakov Arnon, Haim Bar'am, Yael Lotan,
Yossi Amitai
Introduction
The call to divert funds from the Lebanon War
and the settlements in the occupied territories to
social goals, originally raised by the peace
movement, is gathering force. It has been adopted
completely by the Labor Party (though some Labor
speakers except the settlements established by past
Labor governments). It has even been gaining
ground among members of the ruling Likud and its
coalition partners, particularly those who are
concerned with social issues and those who depend
on grass-roots support within the Likud.
Finance
Minister Cohen-Orgad, himself a West Bank settler,
has been forced to announce a cut of 17 per cent in
settlement budgets, compared to only 9 per cent in
other government expeditures. (Undoubtedly,
though, means will be found to channel the money
back to the settlements, under cover of other,
innocent-sounding, budgets.)
The settlers have also
been hit more directly by the economic crisis, when
the "Nofim" (="Landscapes") company ran into
financial troubles and went bankrupt. "Nofim " was
the first building company to conduct a large-scale
sales campaign, offering "a new quality of life" in a
West Bank settlement. Its widely-publicized failure
deals a heavy blow to "Gush Emunim's hope of
being reinforced by many new settlers acting not
out of nationalism but out of a desire to own a
cheap villa.
Coupled with the effects of the Karp
report - a stronger anti-settlement public opinion
has been pressuring the police into firmer action
against settler violence - it is no wonder, then, that
the settlers are begining to feel cornered. Recently,
their central council resolved to concentrate efforts
on propaganda, aimed at winning back the support
of the slum dwellers.
Judging from past experience, the settlers'
most likely method of counter-attack would be to
use some incident or provocation to whip up a wave
of anti-Arab hysteria, allowing them to implement
further steps in their settlement plans.
The most likely place for this to happen is one of the
permanent trouble-spots: Hebron, where they are
but one step from linking up their. scattered
footholds into one great fortress; Nablus, already
ringed by settlements, but with only one insecure
settler foothold inside; and Jerusalem, where the
dream of The Third Temple, built on the site of
El-Aqtz a Mosque, fires the most extreme of them.
The peace movement must be prepared to head off
this attack.
* * *
As these words are being written, the May
17th., 1983, agreement between Israel and Amin
Gumayel's government, an agreement never ratified
and long devoid of any real content, has been
formally abrogated. No one in the Israeli peace
movement will lament the passing of this misbegotten instrument: signed on Lebanese territory occupied by Israel; with a government
imposed on Lebanon by Israeli bayonets, it was as unlike a genuine peace treaty as rape is unlike love.
Unfortunately, not all citizens of Israel are
capable of clearly distinguishing a true peace from a
false one. That part of the Israeli public which took
seriously the government declarations about "A
second peace treaty with an Arab country" might
now show mistrust towards the whole idea of any
peace treaty.
Thus, in its futile desire to get by force
what can only be reached by goodwill, the Israeli
government has placed an additional psychological
obstacle on the road to peace - an obstacle which
the Israeli peace movement will have to labor long
and hard to remove.
The Editor
Because of the army's calling the editor to
repeated reserve service (within the borders of
Israel) there had been no January issue.
As the editor had now served the maximum
period allowed by Israeli law, it is hoped no further
disruptions will occur.
Chronicles of the Peace Struggle
This section chronicles the struggle for peace
going on in Israel in all its forms: demonstrations,
lawsuits, political art, etc. It includes the actions of
both regular peace organizations and non-political
individuals and groups, as well as some positions
taken by members of the political and military
establishment.
In previous issues, we tried to chronicle fully
statements by people outside the peace movement
when such statements indicate gradual acceptance
of the peace movement's ideas. We are glad to note
that in the period covered here, opposition to the
waste of money on settlements and on the Lebanon
War, and demands for its use for social purposes
instead were voiced from too many quarters for us
to be able to chronicle each instance separately.
Such opposition was voiced by workers, trade union
organisers, social workers, the mayors of towns hit
by the economic crisis, Knesset members (including
some government supporters) and others.
Page 2
The present chronicle covers the period from the
end of December 1983 to the end of February, 1984.
The words "publication date" indicate that the
event's exact date is unknown and the date of its
publication in the media is used instead.
The main Israeli peace organizations mentioned
here:
Peace Now - Israel's largest protest movement,
follows a moderate line and seeks to extend its
influence into the political center.
CSBU/CAWL - Committee for Solidarity
with Blr-Zeit University/Committee Against
The War in Lebanon - a protest movement
following a more radical line and ready to
demonstrate even on very unpopular issues.
"Yesh Gvul" (there is a border/there is a limit)
- A group of reserve soldiers who refuse too serve in
Lebanon.
"Parents Against Silence" - an organization of
parents whose sons serve in Lebanon.
ICIPP - The Israeli Council for
Israeli-Palestinian Peace - our own organization,
which specializes in legitimiz ing contacts with the
PLO.
"Campus"- a Jewish-Arab student movement.
Women Against Occupation (WAO) - a
feminist organizations, which is active in pointing
out the connection between occupation in the West
Bank and Lebanon and the inequality of women in
Israeli society.
The International Center for Peace in the
Middle-East (ICPME) - An Israel-based
organization, active in North America and Western
Europe. Its positions are close to those of the Labor
Aligment's doves.
The Committee Against Racism and For
Coexistance (CARCE) - a Jewish-Arab
organization founded recently, in reply to the
increasing incidents of racism in Israel.
Meoravut ("Involvement") - an organization
of slum dwellers, which opposes settlement in the
occupied territories and is close to the "Peace Now"
positions.
"Netivot-Shalom" ("Peace Roads") and "Oz
Leshalom" ("Courage for Peace'') - two
organizations of religious doves.
# 30/12 - During a cabinet meeting on the
economic crisis, "Peace Now" members picket
outside, calling for a stop to settlements and the
Lebanon War, thus freeing many funds for social
purposes.
# 31/12 - Members of the Shelly party
demonstrate at Upper Nazareth against the racist
group active there. The racists assult the
demonstrators and an Arab journalist, who came to
cover the demonstration.
# 3/1 - An opinion poll conducted by the
right-wing paper Ma'ariv shows a majority in favor
of placing the heaviest burden in budget cutting on
the settlements budget.
# 7/1-17/1 - A group of artists present a joint
exhibition in Tel Aviv, and call it "A Black
Exhibition" for the mood of the works presented. In
the exhibition's manifesto, they write: "This is not a
political exhibition, in the sense of taking a
common political stand. It definitely is an
exihibition seeking, as a personal protest, to portray
a sorry situation. The ideological basis of this
exhibition is rooted in the artist's strong
involvement in his/her environment, in his/her desire
for survival, and in the organic development of a
responsive and concerned sort of art, an art which is
not divorced from life. The exihibition expresses doubts and seeks to
exorcise the shadows of such devils as wars, the
holocaust, nuclear fear, terrorism, economic
depression, violence and other fear traumas which
are best expressed by the color black".
# 8/1 - A controversy is raised over a satirical
review, presented in Tel Aviv, in which the racist
slogan "Arabs out! ", used by Rabbi Kahane's Fascist
movement, is compared to the Nazi slogan "Juden
raus!" ("Jews out! "). Right-wing Labor columnist
Haim Guri protests that while he is also opposed to
racism, the comparison of any Jews with Nazis is
wrong. The review's author, Yehosua Sobol, replies
that racism in Israel, if not stopped in time, can lead
to horrors.
(The Israeli censorship board demands to
see the review, but decides to allow its continued
presentation. This cersorship board was originally
created by the British colonial authorities.
Successive Israeli governments retained it, like other
anti-democratic institutions and legislation created
by the British. In recent years it had cut parts of
Hebrew plays, meeting strong public resistance, and
completlely banned several Arab plays, to which
public resistance was unfortunately much weaker.)
- Several Negev kibbutzim demonstrate at thhe
Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem. The members
of kibbutz Negba bring with them a cardboard
replica of their old water tower, which still bears the
scars of the 1948 fighting, when kibbutz members
stopped the advance of the Egyptiam army. Many
right-wingers express shock at this anti-war use of
the Negba water tower, well known in Israel since
1948 as a symbol of heroic fighting.
# 9/1 - The deposed mayor of Gaza, Rashad
A-Shawa, meets with the leadership of the Mapam
Party in Tel Aviv. Shawa declares his support for the
PLO and says that with the evacuation of PLO
fighters from Tripoli, the military stage of the PLO's
struggle ended and the political one began.
- Labor M.K. Uri Sabag calles upon the Frennch
President, Francois Mitterrand, to nominate the
Israeli "Peace Now" movement for the Nobel Peace
Prize.
Page 3
# 11/1 - Ariel Sharon suffers a humiliating defeat
when the Zionist Movement Executive Committee
rejects his candidature for the directorship of the
Aliyah (Jewish Immigration to Israel) department.
This is a clear rejection of the policies connected
with Sharon's name.
# 12/1 - The ex Chief-of-Staff Rafael Eitan
gives a lecture at Haifa University. He is greeted by
a demostration of Jewish and Arab students, some
of whom wear cockroach masks in reference to
Eitan's notorious racist comparison of Arabs to
"drugged cockroaches".
# 14/1 - A large meeting, calling for' Israeli
withdrawal from Lebanon, is held at the Eshkol
regional council in the Negev. Labor M.K.'s address
the participants, when Ra'aia Hernick, whose son
was killed in the war's second day, attacks Labor
M.K's Abba Eban and Avraham Katz-Oz, who had
supported the war at that time and took anti-war
positions only when the war became very unpopular.
- Col (res.) Eli Geva, although sharply criitical of the
Lebanon War, calls upon soldiers not to refuse to
serve there. Geva, who was pushed almost against
his will into the role of cause celebre by his
unwillingness to participate in the attack on West
Beirut, retains a senior officer's way of thinking.
Despite being sacked for what amounts to
insubordination, he still fears for army discipline.
15/1 - Avraham Burg, the interior minister's
son, participates in a "Peace Now" picket at the
Prime Minister's office, while his father takes part in
the cabinet meeting inside. Avraham Burg became a
supporter of "Peace Now" after returning from
Lebanon. .
# 17/1 - In a television program on the "Border
Guards" in Lebanon, some of them express
discontent. Members of the border guard company
decimated in the bomb attack on the Tyre military
headquaters * say: "We will go mad if they send us
back there". The commander of the Border Guards
himself says: ''We (the Border Guard) have given
enough, 10 Per cent of the Israeli casualties in
Lebanon are our men. It is time we were pulled out
of there".
* The Tyre military headquarters was destroyed
twice. In 1983, it was undoubtedly destroyed by
bomb. In 1982, the official Israeli version claimed it
was an accident, but this has been questioned. In
both cases, most of the casualties were "Border
Guards.
It should be noted that the "Border Guard",
officially a police and not an army unit, was created
in the 1950's for the purpose of carrying out such
"dirty jobs" as breaking up demonstrations,
imposing curfews, etc. They have done it against Arabs within Israel, in the occupied territories, and in Lebanon, occasionally
being used against Jews as well. The notorious
Kafr-Kasm massacre of 1956 was also carried out by
Border Guards. However, the strain of fighting
against the Lebanon guerrillas is beginning to crack
even this crack unit.
# 18/1 - A large meeting against racism takes
place in Tel Aviv. The meeting, organised by the
ICPME, is supported by a large number of Knesset
members, (including even M.K. Ehud Olmart of the
ruling Likud) and many public figures.
- The government suffers a parliamentary
defeat, on a motion presented by M. K.'s Dror
Zeigerman and Itzhak Berman, to completely
freeze settlement in the Occupied Territories.
Berman and Zeigerman, members of the ruling
Likud block, are relative "doves" compared to their
fellows. The motion, however, not being a law is not
binding on the government, which declared
beforehand it will ignore it and continue settlement.
- "Campus" members demonstrate at Tel Aviv
University, to protest racist propaganda by
right-wing students.
# ~ 19/1 - "Peace Now" announces its intention to
hold a demonstration on February 4th, the
anniversary of the demonstration in which Emil
Grunzweig was murdered*, and on the same route.
* The murder occured on February 10th, 1984. The
4th. is the anniversary according to the Jewish
calendar, which rules burial and mourning customs
in Israel.
- A confrontation evolves between Haifa
Universtiy and the Haifa Journalists, over a lecture
by Ariel Sharon at the University. The University
authorities forbid television crews from covering
the event, claiming their presence will "ignite
violence". In reply, the Haifa Journalists threaten to
boycott all events connected to the University,
which gives in and permits television coverage.
At the lecture, a large police force prevents
many anti-Sharon students, from entering, using
tear-gas against them. Some who do enter subject
Sharon to constant heckling; refraining, however,
from violence.
# 20/1 - Artists and writers supporting the Labor
party hold an anti-government demonstration in Tel
Aviv, criticizing the government both for its
economic failures and for the Lebanon War. Writer
Ammon Shamush tells of young soldiers who kissed
the earth after returning from Lebanon.
- The interior minister announces the captuure
of Yona Avrushmi, suspected of killing Emil
Grunzweig (see separate article).
- "Kol Ha'ir", a Jerusalem weekly, publishees
interviews with many reserve soldiers, who got out
of service in Lebanon by medical and other
methods, though they were not resolute enough to
refuse outrightly and go to prison.
# 21/1 - "Yesh Gvul" holds a day of study in Tel
Aviv, to discuss the Army's new regulations against
refusers, the steps to be taken in case of a new war
with Syria, and other problems.
# 22/1 - Members of Kibbutz Ein Hashofet
demonstrate at the Prime Minister's office. (Since
December, kibbutz members have been regulary
demonstrating there against the Lebanon War, every
sunday - the day of cabinet meeting).
Page 4
- The political forum of the United Kibbutzz
Movement (UKM) decides to call upon UKM
members to participate in the "Peace Now"
demonstration, marking the anniversary of the
Gruzweig murder, and to send Itzhak Ben Aharon, a
former secretary general of the Histadrut (trade
union federation) and an important and respected
UKM leader, to address the demonstration. This is
the first time the UKM has officially participated in
a ''Peace Now" demonstration, though some of its
members have participated individually since 1978.
- The members of three kibbutzim
demonstrate at the Prime Minister's office.
- Four druze soldiers in the "Border Guard"" are
discharged from service, because they refused to
serve in Lebanon. The "Border Guard" spokesman
claims the four refused out of cowardice and not for
political reasons (publication date).
- Ya'akov Shein, a reserve soldier, is releeased
from his third prison term for refusing to serve in
Lebanon and asks the army to delay calling him up
for a fouth time, considering the fact that liis
repeated imprisonments had caused a rise in his
blood pressure. This is granted. It seems, from this
and the Yuri Pines case * *, that the army has
decided it does not pay to create martyrs.
* * After Yuri Pines, a regular soldier, was
imprisoned three times and his case much publicised,
the army agreed to transfer him within Israel.
# 22/1 - 16/2 - A Jerusalem citizens' group,
belonging to no existing movement, starts
collecting signatures on a petition against the
Lebanon War and the settlements. On the first day,
they are removed by police, but when they come
again the police permit them to stay regularly, two
hours a day, in the center of Jerusalem.
# 24/1 - The CARCE holds a press conference in
Tel Aviv, to announce its intention to hold a protest
meeting in Nazareth.
# 25/1 - A soldier is jailed for 35 days for refusing
to serve in Lebanon.
- In Kiriat Shmona, a "development town" inn
the Galilee, a right-wing demonstration takes place,
in favor of continued Israeli occupation of Lebanon,
''until security arrangements are found". The words
of the town's Likud mayor, Prosper Azran, are a
testimony to the success of the anti-war movement:
"Nowadays it is fashionable to call for withdrawal
from Lebanon. If we wanted popularity, that's what
we would also be saying".
Unfortunately, government supporters in
Kiriat Shmona and other Galilee towns have
succeeded in channelling many justified social
grudges into support for the war. In another part of
his speech, Mayor Azran says: ''The fashionable, rich
people in the cafes of Dizengoff Street (Tel Aviv's
main street) do not care about us in the north. They
do not care if the PLO comes back to bombard us
from South Lebanon". Convincing the people of
Kiriat Shmona and others like them that peace is
the only guarantee for their long term security is
still a long and hard job.
# 25/1 - Members of the youth movements
connected to Labor demonstrate in front of the
Knesset against government policies, both in the
economy and in Lebanon.
- The monthly Monitin reveals that Israel hhad,
in 1952, rejected a syrian offer for direct
negotiations on the border disputes then existing
between them. The Syrian offer was rejected by
Prime Minister Ben Gurion, while Foreign Minister
Moshe Sharet was in favor of considering it.
- In the ''Tzavta'' theatre in Tel Aviv, thhe play
"Border Case" is presented. The play shows an
imaginary meeting between Raymonda Tawil, a
well-known Palestinian activist from Ramallah, and
Golda Meir, the former Israeli Prime Minister who
claimed the Palestinian People does not exist. On
this day, the real Raymonda Tawil is present in the
audience, and takes part in a debate with several
Israelis of various political views, leading to a
confrontation with a "Gush Emunim" settler.
- In the right-wing daily "Ma'ariv", an artticle
describes the life of Israeli soldiers in an outpost in
Lebanon. A form of fraternisation is developing
between them and Syrian soldiers. The Israeli and
Syrian soldiers know each other by name, and the
200-meter distance between their outposts is small
enough for shouted conversations in Arabic and
English, on subjects ranging from the weather to
politics.
# 27/1 - Four members of the Swedish
parliament submit the candidature of the Israeli
"Peace Now" movement for the Nobel Peace Prize.
- The newly formed "Committee Against
Town Arrests" holds a demonstration in Tel Aviv, to
protest the imposition of town arrest on Arabs,
both within Israel and in the occupied territories. A
person against whom a town arrest order had been
issued is forbidden to leave his or her village or
town, and has to stay at home during the night. It is
issued without a trial and without bringing any
charges. About 70 persons are at present under town
arrest, all of them Arabs. (It can legally be used
against Jews, but that is not done in practice.)
- A new Israeli film tells about the dilemmmas of
a member of a Jewish-Arab left-wing group, who
obtains in Germany funds to finance the creation of
an Arab university in Israel. Some extremist
members of the group intend to use the money for
terrorist activity instead, and the hero is caught
between them and agents of the Israeli Security
Service, who persecute the group. In real life, too,
the film's producer, Yehuda ("Judd") Ne'eman finds
himself in a cross-fire: while Israeli right-wingers
accuse him of making "a PLO propaganda film", in
the Berlin film festival, a month later, extremist
Arabs call it ''an anti-Arab movie". On the other
hand, many Jews and Arabs support the film's
political message.
# 27/1 - 8/3 - Two of Israel's main newspapers,
Ha'aretz and Yediot Aharonot compete with each
other in exposing the Lebanon War. Both papers
start publishing, as serials, parts of new books on the
war. Both books, written by skilled political
correspondents with exellent sources in the
government, expose in detail the moves behind the
scenes leading up to the war and to its crucial events
such as the Sabra and Shatila massacres, fully
confirming the charges made, at the time, by peace
demonstrators.
Page 5
- The new exposures cause a political upheaaval,
with the Labor opposition demanding to open government minutes and appoint' a new commission of inquiry. However, Labor leaders
soon realise that such a commission would also
expose their own close collaboration with the
government, at the start of the war.
- On February 19th, Labor M.K. Abba Eban caalls
for an end to "the war of minutes". When the
matter comes up to a Knesset vote, on March 8th,
almost half the Labor parliamentary group is absent,
enabling the government to defeat the motion
without trouble.
# 28/1 - The CARCE holds a large meeting in
Nazareth against racism. Speakers from more than
20 organizations, including the mayor of Nazareth
and Labor M.K.'s, denounce the various
manifestations of racism in Israeli Society, and call
upon the Knesset to enact an anti-racism law.
Factional considerations, however, mar the
success of the event. The Communist Party, which
controls the Nazareth municipality, refuses to allow
a representative of the municipal opposition, The
"Arab Progressive Movement", to speak. In protest
against this, members of the "Alternative" party
also withdraw. It is to be hoped that such
narrow-mindedness will be overcome as the
anti-racism struggle continues.
# 29/1 - Two opposing demonstrations take
place at the Lebanese border, one against the war,
by thousands of kibbutzniks from the border area,
joined by some town residents; the much smaller
pro-war demonstration is addressed by Likud
mayors from the north.
# 30/1 - Several hundred Israeli Druze
demonstrate in front of the American Embassy in
Tel Aviv, to protest American bombardment of
their co-religionists in Lebanon.
- Rafael Kashtan, a reserve soldier, is jaiiled for
35 days for refusing to serve in Lebanon. He had
already served one prison term on the same charge,
in October 1983.
# 31/1 - A delegation of the Israeli Communist
Party meets, in Moscow, with Naif Hawatmeh,
leader of the "Democratic Front for the Liberation
of Palestine" .
- Starting "Emil Grunzweig Week", "Peace
Now" members hold vigils in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem
and other places. In the evening, a memorial concert
is held in Tel Aviv.
- The members of "Oz Leshalorn" and "Netivoot
Shalom" hold a public prayer on the spot where
Grunzweig was killed.
# 1/2 - The general assembly of kibbutz Gat
adopts a resolution calling for Israeli withdrawal
from Lebanon.
#2/2 - The government suffers a Parliamentary
defeat, * on a motion condemning its plan to
destroy the Hebron market and give the land to
"Gush Ernunim" settlers. However, this resolution is
not binding upon the government, as it was
presented as a "motion for discussion" and not as a
bill.
*During the period mentioned here the
government also suffered defeat on several issues
not connected w-ith the Arab-Israeli conflict, and
thus outside the scope of this chronicle.
# 3/2 - The Israel Museum in Jerusalem presents
simultaneously two exhibitions with opposite
political messages. One is by a West Bank settler,
Yosef Cohen, who presents photographs of his
settlement and his fellow settlers. The other is by
painter Tzivi Geva, who has painted various Arab
villages in Israel.
- 39 Labor Knesset members and hundreds of
public figures sign a petition calling upon the public
to participate in the "Peace Now" demonstration.
The signatories include Efraim Katzir,
ex-president of Israel, and Shlomo Argov, the
ex-ambassador to Britain, the attempt on whose life
was the pretext for the war. This is the biggest
amount of support "Peace Now" had ever got from
the political center. In selecting the signatories,
however, "Peace Now" almost completely ignores
the more radical peace forces, such as the CAWL and
the ICIPP, who had opposed the war from the start.
Nevertheless, these groups decide to support the
demonstration and contribute to its success.
# 4/2 - About 40,000 demonstrators participate
in the "Peace Now" demonstration - the largest
demonstration ever to take place in Jerusalem, as
the first speaker, Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek,
points out. (It should be noted that it is much harder
to gather a great number of peace demonstrators in
Jerusalem than in Tel Aviv, because a large part of
Jerusalem's population is right-wing.)
# 5/2 - 1,500 people demonstrate at the Prime
Minister's office against "A war in a foreign land for
a foreign cause" . The Kibbutzniks are joined by
some residents of "development towns". Addressing
the demonstrators is the head of the trade union
council in Yeruham - a Negev town hit hard by the
economic crisis.
- Following the death of an Israeli civiliaan
worker in a guerrilla ambush in Lebanon, it is
discovered that his family will recieve only half the
compensation due to the family of a soldier killed in
the same circumstances. In protest, about 200
civilian workers who are employed in Lebanon by
the army, the communications ministry and the
public works authority refuse to continue working
in Lebanon, until they are guaranteed compensation
equal to that of soldiers. Although these workers are
not directly motivated by political views, such a
strike would have been unthinkable in any of Israel's
previous wars, fought in an atmosphere of "National
Unity".
- Students in "Herzlia" highschool in Tel AAviv
expose brutal anti-Arab practices in the "Civil
Guard", a volunteer auxiliary force formed to help
the police.
# 6/2 - Raymonda Tawil speaks to a packed hall
in Jerusalem, in a "Peace Forum", together with
Israeli speakers from the peace movement.
# 7/2 - "Ha'aretz " reports that in 1982, Yassir
Arafat was ready to consider an American proposal
for removing PLO artillery from South Lebanon, in
return for the removal of Israeli artillery from the
strip of Lebanese territory occupied by Israel since
1978. It was the Israeli government who refused this
offer, which was incompatiable with its war plans.
- The "Young Generation" of the Labor Partyy
meets with Anwar Nusaibeh, an important East
Jerusalem leader.
Page 6
# 8/2 - In Tel Aviv, an immigrant from
Argentine serving as a reserve home guard is fined
for refusing to guard a meeting at which Ariel
Sharon is the chief speaker. The man says that two
of his friends were murdered by the Argentine
generals, and he refuses to have anything to do with
extremist generals of any nationality.
- The case of an Arab student from Acre, onn
whom town arrest was imposed, is appealed to the
Supreme Court. The state openly admits that the
town arrest was imposed to prevent the student,
Ma'esara Sa'ed, from political activity at the Haifa
Technion. This, despite the fact that the movement
in which he is active, "Ibna El Balad" ("Sons of the
Village"), operates legally and no charge of illegal
activity was brought against him.
- At a conference of mayors of "developmentt
towns", a sharp controversy arises between doves,
who demand a resolution against settlements, and
Likud hawks, who oppose such a resolution.
# 9/2 - Members of the CSBU participate in a
press conference at Bir Zeit University, to protest
the closure of the university's old campus, in
retaliation for a demonstration.
- Following the successful production in
"Habirna" theather of Euripides' "Women of Troy",
playwright Hanoch Levin decides to write his own
version to the world's oldest anti-war play. Levin,
considered by critics to be one of Israel's foremost
playwriters, began his career' in 1968, writing a
satirical review called "You, Me, and The Next War"
whose mood was in sharp contrast to the nationalist
euphoria prevailing in Israel after its victory in the
Six-Day-War. His next play, "The Queen of The
Bathroom" presented in 1970, during the War of
Attrition, and harshly critical of the Golda Meir
government, caused a sharp controversy. Hooligans
entered the theather and violenty broke up the play
with the police doing nothing to prevent them.
- Nowadays, Hanoch Levin is less of a
controversial figure, both because the artistic merits
of his work have found generai acceptance among
critics (though not by government ministers) and
because the daring heresy of 1970 - criticism of a
war while it is still going on - has, in 1984, become
commonplace.
# 10/2 - In an article on Lebanon published in
Ha'aretz, author Amos Eilon notes that every time
a truckload of soldies on leave crosses the border
back into Israel, the soldiers burst into hysterical
cheers. A veteran officer says he had never seen such
a phenomenon in any previous war.
# 10/2 - 24/2 - A young artist, Ilan Golan,
presents an exhibition called "What is the price?"
The shocking pictures describe a young reserve
soldier's feeling of despair and outrage at being
abandoned and sent to die in an unnecessary war.
# 11/2 - Members of the "Alternative" party
meet, in Haifa, with representatives of various
groups active among the Arab citizens of Israel, to
discuss various possibilities of wider cooperation.
# 10-11/2 - M. K.'s Yossi Sarid, Aharon Har'el,
Ya'akov Gil, of the Labor Party, Elazar Granot of
Mapam, and Mordechai Wirszuwski of "Shinuy" (a
small liberal party) meet at Harvard University with
a group of Palestinian intellectuals headed by Prof
Walid Halidy. Though the Palestinian participants
are officially present in a private capacity, it was
clear to the Israelis that they all support the PLO
and some of them hold positions within that
organization. (This was also clear to some Labor
hawks, who sharply criticized the meeting.).
# 12/2 - Five CAWL activists in Haifa are
brought to trial for distributing anti-war leaflets and
organising a non-violent demonstration, activities
considered as "disturbance of the peace" by the
Haifa police. That argument is not accepted by the
judge.
- Since the CAWL's formation, the Haifa pollice
has tried every possible means to disrupt its
activities, resorting even to illegal actions. In other
cities the police's attitude was more tolerant.
# 14/2 - The Israeli Communist Party delegation
to Yuri Andropov's funeral in Moscow meets there
with Yassir Arafat, chairman of the PLO.
- A new research paper, published by Prof.
Alex Weingord of Jerusalem showes that Jerusalem
is still a divided city, and that its Jewish and Arab
populations exist in two separate systems, with
little integration. This reseach strikes a blow at the
strongest taboo of Israeli politics - the so-called
"Unification of Jerusalem", which is in actually a
military occupation and unilateral annexation of
the Arab part by Israel.
# 15/2 - A reserve soldier, Rafi Givoni, writes a
letter to the Defence Minister. In it he relates that
he had been a supporter of the extreme right-wing
"Ha-Tehia" party and had wholeheartedly supported
the war. The cruel treatement of Palestinian
prisoners which he witnessed in Sidon, described in
vivid and horrifing detail in his letter, had made him
a pacifist, and he tells the Defence Minister that he
is no longer willing to serve in the army. The letter
and comments on it are published in several
newspapers.
- Members of the WAO demonstrate in front
of a policewomen's meeting in Tel Aviv, to protest
the use of tear-gas against women prisoners in Nve
Tirtza prison (see issue 4/5, chronicles for October
31th, November 4th.)
- Instructors from Beer-Sheba University siign a
petition to the Defence Minister, against the town
arrest imposed on two Arab students. The affair
started on November 30th, 1983, when policemen
and detectives raided the Beer-Sheba student
dormitories, detaining four students and
confiscating Marxist literature and books on the
Arab National Movement. A magistrate ruled the
police's action illegal and ordered the four released
immediately. However, the army commander of the
northern command issued town arrest orders against
two of the students, confining them to their Galilee
villages and thus preventing them from completirig
their studies.
# 16/2 - In a letter printed in the Labor
newspaper Davar, a father whose son died in the
1973 Yom Kippur War calles upon widows,
bereaved parents and orphans to cry out against
"those who initiated this dammed war, who are
responsible for it, who have shed and are continuing
to shed every day the blood of our sons".
- Members of "Meoravut" demonstrate In
Jerusalern, to protest worsening economic
conditions and the allocation of funds to
settlements and the Lebanon War expenses.
Page 7
# 17/2 - In a newspaper interview, two "Peace
Now" members, who were severely wounded in the
grenade attack in which Emil Grunzweig was killed,
complain that for various bureaucratic reasons, state
authorities refuse to pay for medical care for them.
# 17-18/2 - About 70 Jewish and Arab youth
participate in two days of study organised by a
Jewish-Arab youth circle called "Re'ut" ("Amity").
The youths concentrate on the situation of the Jaffa
Arabs, who live in shocking conditions, neglected by
the Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipality. They hear lectures,
visit the Arab neighborhoods of Jaffa, and decide to
prepare a report and publish it.
# 19/2 - The members of seven kibbutzim
demonstrate in front of the Prime Minister's office.
A bereaved mother, Efrat Spiegel, carries a sign with
the question: "In the defence of which country did
my son fall?"
- A counter-demonstration by the extreme
right-wing movement "Tzomet" ("Crossroads") fails
to draw more than a few dozens, compared to more
than a 1000 anti-war demonstrators.
# 22/2 - Some in the peace movement elect to
continue army service in Lebanon and the occupied
territories, in the hope of ameliorating abuses from
inside. They constantly face cruel dilemmas. This is
demonstrated again when Col. Ran Cohen is ordered
to judge two soldiers who refuse to serve in
Lebanon, whom he sentences to 28 days restriction
to camp, instead of the usual imprisonement.
- Cohen had been, for six years, member of'' the Shelli party,
together with ICIPP leading members such as Uri
Avnery and Matti Peled. Cohen's decision to
participate as a soldier in the Lebanon War, despite
his political opposition to it, was one of the main
issues causing the party's split in March 1983. After
the split, Ran Cohen and his supporters retained the
name "Shelli", while Avnery and Peled joined the
group which later founded the "Alternative" Party.
Ran Cohen later volunteered to join the regular
army, after being promoted to the rank of full
colonel and is now on activy duty.
- Rafael Eitan, the racist former chief-of--staff,
appeares at Beer-Sheba University, calling for
permanent Israeli occupation of South Lebanon. In
response to protests from the audience, he calls to
an Arab student: "What are you doing here? Go to
Saudi Arabia!" This racist innuendo causes strong
protests from many students present, while
right-wing students cheer Eitan.
# 24/2 - "Meoravut" members demonstrate in
Tel Aviv, erecting tents similar to the transient
camps in which Oriental immigrantes were housed
during the 1950's, many of which developed into
still existing slums.
- WAO members demonstrate in front of the
Nve Tirtza women's prison, where the prisoners are
continuing a strike against having to cook for the
guards.
# 26/2 - Two soldiers, a sergeant and a
lieutenant, are jailed for refusing to serve in
Lebanon. Another soldier is jailed for 21 days for
refusing service in the West Bank, declaring at his
trial that he is unwilling to participate in oppressing
the Palestinian People.
- M. K. Mordechai Wirszuwski, of the small
opposition liberal party "Shinuy" ("Change")
declares he will henceforth open every Knesset
speech by saying: "We should get out of Lebanon
immediately".
- 50 soldiers of a paratrooper reserve batttalion,
just released from Lebanon, demonstrate in front of
the Prime Minister's office, headed by the battalion
commander, Major Ran Wingart, who says they have
deeided to demonstrate because they felt their
service was useless and purposeless, consisting of
defending themselves and unsuccessfully chasing
undefined persons, and that Israeli presence in
Lebanon is creating new enemies for Israel. Several
hundred kibbutzniks also demonstrate with the
same slogans. Inside the cabinet meeting, ministers wrangle
over several proposals for partial withdrawal in
Lebanon, but reach no conclusion.
- 30 lawyers, Israelis and Palestinians froom the
occupied territories, sign a joint petition protesting
harsh and unfair penalties imposed by the military
courts in the occupied territories.
# 27/2 - In a television program, some of Israel's
most extreme chauvinist and religious fanatics are
exposed. In the same program Dr. Avi Ravitski, a
leading member of "Netivot Shalom", sharply
denounces the fanatics on religious grounds, saying:
"I regard our present situation as a sort of test. For
1900 years we Jews have been persecuted and
tormented, and we called upon the world for justice.
If, now that we have power over others we use it to
persecute them, we are making the suffering and
sacrifice of our ancestors meaningless".
- A proposed law against racism and
discrimination, proposed by M. K. Muhamad Watad
of Mapam, passes first reading in the Knesset. The
justice minister tries to neutralise the proposed law
by turning it into a "motion for debate" which is
not binding upon the government. He is defeated,
and the law is passed to committee. However, it has
a very long legislative, process still to pass, and its
chances of surviving in the present Knesset seem
remote .
- The army stops distribution of an issue oof
"Bemahaneh Nahal" ("At The Nahal Camp''), organ
of the Nahal Corps, because of an editorial critical of
the Lebanon War. In March the editor is sacked. The
Nahal ("Fighting-Pioneering Youth") is a special
kind of army service, in which the soldiers spend half
their time in old or new settlements and the other
half as regular combat soldiers. Among Nahal
soldiers, who are mostly kibbutziks or intend to
become ones, there has been discontent over being
ordered to help "Gush Emunim", as well as because
of their high casualties in Lebanon (see issue 4/5,
Chronicles for October 27th.)
# 28/2 - Residents of a Jerusalem slum, ironically
called "Ir Ganim" ("Garden City") paint a green line
around their neighborhood, to syrnpolise their
demand that the government treat them as it does
the West Bank settlements that lie beyond "The
Green Line" (the pre-'67 border.)
# 29/2 - Hundreds of students and instructors at
Haifa University sign a petition calling upon the
university authorities to stop disciplinary
proceedings against the chairman of the Arab
Students' Committee for his part in a January 19th
demonstration against Ariel Sharon.
Page 8
ICIPP Activities
On January 17, the ICIPP held a press
conference in Jerusalem at which it announced two
pojects connected with the name of Issam Sartawi:
The Issam Sartawi fund (see box), and a monument
in his memory, which will be erected near the city of
Acre, his birthplace.
Yigal Tumarkin, the Israeli sculptor who
designed the monument, describes it as follows:
"Coexistence, homage to Issam Sartawi, to be
erected near Acre, facing the sea.
The sculptor is influenced by traditional forms
of Muslim tombs, tents and water canals. The
symmetric masses, colliding with two quarry stones
(60x60x200cm) in the center, which are made of 20
mm steel plates (320x200cm), and a chord of 8 mm
stainless steel, 20 m long, create the shape of a tent
above a dry water canal which looks disconnected
from its water source.
The cloth waving in the wind with colors of the Israeli and Palestinian flags
follows an old Canaanite tradition adopted by both
Jews and Muslims.The masses and stones are in strict symmetry
symbolizing coexistence. The water canal will carry
water only when coexistence and peace prevail".
Next to the structure, and in harmony with it,
a plaque will be installed with the following verses
by the Arab poet Adunis:
That which persistently haunts my heart
Uproots palm-trees, domes and bells,
Strikes the face of the earth,
That dissenting blood, that dissent
Is but another flame
In the name of the rising tommorrow,
In the name of the earth.
(Trans. M.B.)
As explained at the press conference, the ICIPP
feels that the activities of Sartawi during the last
nine years of his life, his contribution to the Israeli-
Palestinian dialogue, his ideas on peace expressedon
numerous occasions, and the sacrifice he made for
the cause of peace - all these deserve to be
remembered in a very special manner. A sad aspect
of the Palestinian people's tragic situation is that
Palestinians who fall in the service of their people
abroad are condemned to be buried on foreign land.
This was also the fate of Dr. Sartawi. A monument
for him in Israel would be an appropriate symbol of
the cravings of the Palestinian people for
recognition and liberty.
The costs of the project are estimated at
10,000 dollars. Contributions will be appreciated. If
the money needed could be raised in time, the
monument will be unveiled in April 1985, on the day
of Sartawi's assassination. A special
brochure in Hebrew, Arabic, and English, with
pictures of a model of the monument, is also
available.
It is noteworthy that right-wing opposition to
these projects has been much smaller now than
would have been the case when the ICIPP started its
activities in 1976*. Denouncement, so far, has come
only from "Gush Emunim" settlers (as could have
been expected) and from the mayor of Acre, who claimed that "The monument will anger the Jewish population of Acre".
Hopefully, he is wrong. The Jews of Acre are on good terms with their Arab
neighbors. Nevertheless, Until the monument is
actually built, many political and legal obstacles will
have to be overcome. But there is a good chance
that they will be overcome, because Issam Sartawi
has gained deep respect among many Israelis.
* Several years ago, there was a public uproar over
the building, in East Jerusalem, of a monument to
Jordanian soldiers killed in 1967, In official Israeli
demonology, a PLO "terrorist" ranks much higher
on the scale of evil beings than a Jordanian
soldier...
The Issam Sartawi Fund - Charter
1. The fund, in memory of the late Issam
Sartawi, is hereby established for the purpose of
encouraging research and creativity related to
the basic problems of the Palestinian people
and to the subject of Israefi-Palestinian
dialogue.
2. The Fund is established by the Israeli
Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace (hereafter
"The Council") and. will be administered by it.
Additional organizations may eventually join
the Fund with the Council's consent; in such a
case the necessary changes in organization and
administration will be announced.
3. Every year, on April 10 (the day of
Sartawi's assassination) or on a date close to it,
the fund, will grant a prize for a scholarly,
literary or artistic work in any one of the above'
mentioned fields. Works will be considered by a
specially appointed jury if presented directly by
the authors or if recommended by a qualified
person with the author's consent. The prize for
1984 will consist of the sum of 100,000 shekels,
In subsequent years the sum may be altered. *
The jury will be empowered to split the prize
between up to three contesters.
4. From 1984 on, the date for submitting
the works will be announced in the month of
January together with the names of the Jurors
who will be appointed by the Council.
5. The prize awarding ceremony will be
combined with a scholarly or artistic event
initiated by the Council.
* The prize for 1984 was donated by the Henri
Curiel group in Paris. We take this opportunity
to express our deep gratitude to them. (Henri
Curiel, a left-wing Egyptian Jew 'living in
French exile, played an important part in'
starting the dialogue between Israelis and
Palestinians. After he was assasinated, the
group continued and still continues this
activity).
Page 9
ICIPP Activities (cont.)
Recently ICIPP members have made several
tours abroad. During German chancellor Kohl's visit
to Israel, German television held a week of programs
on Israel. It culminated in a 90 - minute public
debate titled "Israelis, Palestinians, and we
Germans". Uri Avnery participated on the Israeli
side, along with Col. (res) Mordechai Bar-On of
"Peace Now".
Among the Palestinians participating
were Hana Seniora, editor of the East Jerusalem
El-Fajr, and the journalist Hakem Abd-Al Hadi. The
most important participant was one who was
absent: The Israeli authorities denied Raymcnda
Tawil, of Ramallah, permission to go to Germany.
Uri Avnery sharply denounced this oprressive act,
which backfired because the seat, symbolically left
empty for Tawil at the television debate,
dramatized the Palestinian people's plight.
Several weeks later, Uri Avnery was invited,
along with members of other Israeli Organizations,
to address a party convention of "Democrazia
Proletaria", an Italian independent left-wing party.
On this occasion, he held talks with Palestinian
guests to the convention, as well as with
representatives of many peace organizations, and
liberation movements from both the Third World
and Eastern Europe. ("Democrazia Proletaria" holds
a neutral line concerning the great power struggle,
and supports both the Polish "Solidarity" and the
Nicaraguan Sandinists).
Matti Peled took part in two events in Paris.
The first was a meeting of the French "Comite
Palestine et Israel vivront" ("Israel and Palestine will
live"), which took place at the French Senate
building. It was sponsored by Senator Cecile Golder.
Issam Sartawi's widow was the guest of honor. The
meeting took place despite an attempt to sabotage
it, by an Israeli hawkish Labor M.K., Aharon
Nahmias, who had sent a telegram to the French
Senate's secretariat, requesting it to cancel the
"Anti-Israeli meeting".
Mati Peled also took part in a Israeli-Palestinian coloquium, along with Gideon
Spiro of the CAWL, journalist Ammon Kapeliuk,
and others. The Palestinians participanting did not
officially represent the PLO, but their positions left
no doubt as to their sympathies. (The deputy PLO
representative in Paris, Amin Abu-Hatzira, was also
present, though he was not an official speaker).
The ICIPP emblem, the crossed flags of Israel
and Palestine (which appears at the top of this
page) has continued to be a source of controversy in
Israel. This symbol is worn by many peace activists,
not only ICIPP members but aIso many others who
believe in Israeli-Palestinian peace. The sight of it is
greately hated by right-wingers and by many police
officers.
Two incidents occurred recently. In one,
right-wing students at Tel-Aviv University
boycotted a meeting of the student union council,
because the council's vice-president, a member of
"Campus", was wearing the ICIPP emblem; in
another incident, Shabtay Levi, a peace activist,
demanded that the police return an ICIPP emblem
confiscated from him on March 30th. 1983. The
police responded that the emblem, as well as two
emblems of Bir-Zeit University, were destroyed on
November 28th by a court order. This court order
was issued before the Attorney General's letter to
the ICIPP, affirming that wearing the ICIPP emblem
does not constitute a legal offence. Nontheless, the
ICIPP legal experts are now examining the Levi
case, and considering possible actions.
The ICIPP in the New York Times
A recent series of articles in the "New York
Times" disclosed details of the unofficial
negotiations which had taken place between the
U.S. administration and the PLO leadership in the
first half of 1982. We reproduce here one of the
"New York Times" articles which directly concerns
the ICIPP.
This version is from the "International Herald
Tribune", which reproduced the article on February
22th. 1984.
JERUSALEM - An Israeli editor and leftist
politician, Uri Avnery, said Tuesday that before
Israel invaded Lebanon, the Palestine Liberation
Organization had negotiated with the United States
a statement recognizing Israel and had scheduled it
for release in Paris on June 14, 1982. The Israeli
invasion took place June 6, provoking the PLO to
cancel the announcement, Mr. Avnery said in a
telephone interview.
He said that the information had come to him from the late Dr. Issam Sartawi,
the PLO's roving ambassador. Dr. Sartawi, an
outspoken moderate, was assassinated in Apri11983
at a meeting of the Socialist International in
Portugal.
According to Dr. Sartawi's account as reported
by Mr. Avnery, the negotiations between the PLO
and the United States were conducted through
Tunisia, apparently paralleling contacts at the same
time through John Edwin Mroz, a specialist in
Middle.East affairs.
Mr. Avnery is a former member of the Knesset,
Israel's parliament, and editor of Haolam Hazeh, a
leftist magazine. He has frequently met with PLO
officials. One of those meetings, in England, was the
genesis of the Mroz and Sartawi initiatives, he said.
Since 1975, U.S. policy has been based on a
pledge to Israel that Washington would not
recognize or negotiate with the Palestinian
organization until it acknowledged Israel's right to
exist and accepted relevant United Nations
resolutions. Dr. Sartawi's effort, Mr. Avnery said,
was to get the PLO to satisfy the- American
conditions.
"By the end of 1981", Mr. Avnery said, Dr.
Sartawi "got the green light from Yassir Arafat to
try to get American-PLO negotiations started. He
had conversations with Bruno Kreisky in Vienna,
with officials of the British Foreign Office in London, the Elysee Palace in Paris and the European Economic Community in Brussels, and he decided
that the best intermediary would be Tunisia". (Mr.
Arafat is chairman of the PLO and Mr. Kreisky was
then Chancellor of Austria).
Page 10
According to Mr. Avnery, Dr. Sartawi met with
President Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia, who sent
Prime Minister Mohammed Mzali to Washington.
"I'm not sure whom he met in Washington,"
Mr. Avnery said. "I believe it was Haig," he said,
refering to Alexander M. Haig Jr., then Secretary of
State, "but I'm not certain. He talked with people
there and came back to Tunis and said he had a
positive response". Then, he added, over the next
months ''there was an exchange of messages to
prepare the statement that the PLO was supposed to
give. The PLO wanted to be sure that the text of the
declaration would be acceptable to the Americans,
wanted the Americans to commit themselves in
advance that the text would satisfy their demands".
Eight days before Mr. Sartawi was to read the
PLO statement, Mr. Avnery said, the Israeli Army
invaded Lebanon and "Issam Sartawi said he was
sure he was double-crossed by Alexander Haig".
It can only be hoped that the next time the
U.S. administration opens a round of discussions
with the PLO (there are some indications that it
may have already done so) it will have learned
something from the Beirut fiasco.
The Avrushmi Affair: Judicial process and political
manoevering
As February 10th, 1984, drew near, a political
time bomb began ticking under the feet of Israel's
Interior Minister, Dr. Yosef Burg.
A year before, on February 10th, 1983, a
grenade was thrown on a "Peace Now"
demonstration, killing Emil Grunzweig and
wounding ten other demonstrators. Throughout the
year, speakers from the peace movement and dovish
Knesset Members pressured Burg about the
Grunzweig investigation. They placed it with the
list of other unsolved crimes, such as the 1980 bomb
attacks on three Arab mayors in the West Bank, the
murder of three students in the Hebron Islamic
University, the acts of violence by West Bank
settlers mentioned in the Karp report *, and the
activity of the anti-Arab underground calling itself
T.N.T. (Terror Against Terror).
Mr. Burg, a long-time veteran of political
infighting, decided to head off the large "Peace
Now" demonstration, called for the anniversary of
the murder. In a surprise press conference, carefully
staged to produce maximum dramatization, Burg
announced that the murderer had been found and
apprehended. He criticized "Peace Now" for its
pressure, which "hindered the police in their work".
The man presented publicly as the murder
suspect was Yona Avrushmi, a 28-year old petty
criminal from Jerusalem. It was declared that he had
acted alone, had no accomplices ** and belonged to
no organization. His motive was presented as grief
over the death of his brother, killed in the
Yom Kippur war, and over his brother-in-law, killed
in Lebanon.
In this way, Burg hoped to put "Peace
Now" on the defensive. He aimed to remove all
political connotations from the Grunzweig Affair,
by turning it into an isolated act of a deranged
individual, which even the most extreme hawk
could piously condemn while going about his usual
bussiness of settling and annexing the occupied
territories.
However, Burg did not succeed in carrying out
such a political coup. "Peace Now" responded by
placing the Grunzweig murder in the context of
many violent attacks by government supporters on
"Peace Now" demonstrations. It pointed out that
such attacks were inspired by wild demagoguery and
incitement by ministers; Burg himself had accused
"Peace Now" of treason, during a pro-war rally in
July 1982.
Two days later, investigation into Avrushmi's
background revealed that he had been employed as a
mechanic in Ofra - a West Bank settlement whose
members are known for their extremism. The
settlers claimed they offered him the job after his
last release from prison in order to help with his
rehabilitation. They professed horror and disbelief
at his being accused of "killing another Jew". (In the
settlers' code, killing a Jew is very horrible; killing an
Arab is something different, not so horrible.)
As the affair unfolded, public opinion showed
less and less inclination to rest content with the
convenient scapegoat offered up to it by Burg. It
turned out that the police used undue pressure in
questioning Avrushmi, such as denial of sleep. It also
turned out that the police only have evidence that
Avrushmi bought the fatal grenade - not that he
himself threw it. Finally, Burg was charged by many
public figures and legal experts with prejudging
Avrushmi at the press conference, thus denying him
the chance of a fair trial.
On the legal level, the question of Avrushmi's
guilt or innocence, as well as the issue of possible
accomplices, will be decided by the courts. On the
political level, however, it is already clear that Burg
failed to close the Grunzweig Affair.
The "Peace Now" demonstration, held to
commemorate Grunzweig, succeeded in drawing
both a large number of demonstrators and the
support of many figures from the political center.
To these demonstrators, it, was clear that
Israeli-Arab peace and the defense of democratic rights within Israel have become inextricably linked.
The enemies of democracy and of peace are the same:
those who wish to maintain occupation in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip. Democracy and military
occupation are incompatible - in the end, one of
them will destroy the other.
Page 11
Postsript: as this article goes into print, the
police announced the apprehension of two Jewish
terrorist groups, each numbering four members. One
is accused of shooting at an Arab bus, wounding six
passengers; the other, of attempting to blow up the
Al-Aqtz a mosque and other Muslim and Christian
places of worship.
In possesion of the second group,
described by Mr. Burg as messianic crackpots, were
found large quantities of army-issue arms,
ammunition, explosives and even hovitzer shells.
One of the messianic crackpots, for whom the police
is still searching, apparently has a proffesional
knowledge of explosives and sabotage techniques.
There can be little doubt that the police's
sudden 'vigorous action, after years of "fruitless
investigations" into similar cases***, ows something
to the pressure of public opinion. This pressure must
be kept up, for only the tip of the terrorist iceberg
had been exposed. (In the last 100 days alone, about
30 such terrorist acts were committed!) Moreover,
as the right-wing parties and "Gush Emunim"
settlers try to disassociate themselves from these
acts, the essential links between the occupation
regime and the terrorism it breeds must be
demonstrated.
*On this report, see the article in this issue.
** A soldier, arrested for stealing the fatal grenade
from army stores and selling it to Avrushmi, was
condemned to six years in a military jail. But the
soldier did not, apparently, know for which purpose
the grenade was needed.
***On March 9th, Ma'ariv reported that the police
have already been aware, in 1982, of the "messianic
crackpot" group's activity, but investigation was
stopped "by an order from above". Upon this
publication, the police command concentrated their
efforts, not upon finding the originator of the
"order from above", but on searching for the one
who leaked the affair to Ma'ariv. The telephones of
senior police officers were tapped, and police
colonel Asaf Hefetz was suspended from duty, on
suspicion he was the source of the Ma'ariv
publication. This caused a near-mutiny in the Tel
Aviv police, were Hefetz is very popular, and
touched off a power-struggle among various factions
in the police and several contenders for the office of
Inspector-General. As this issue goes into print, the
reprecussions of this affair are still growing wider
and wider, with Col. Hefetz appealing to the
Supreme Court against his suspension, and
opposition M.K's demanding to appoint a
commision of inquiry.
Comment
The Karp Report and its implications
In July 1980, 14 senior Israeli jurists, who had
compiled evidence on uninvestigated and
unpunished violent acts by West Bank settlers, sent a
memorandum to the Attorney-General After a
year, the Attorney-General got Begin's approval for
appointing a team, headed by the Attorney-
General's deputy Yehudith Karp, and consisting of
the Jerusalem District Attonery, a police
representative, and a representative of the West
Bank military administration. The team met once a
month amfreviewed material supplied by the police.
Quite soon, the team felt frustrated and hampered
in its work. In May 1982, it composed a report,
which was shelved and not acted upon, while the
West Bank situation continued to deteriorate. In
1983 Yehudith Karp, in protest, resigned from
heading the team, which ceased to exist. The whole
affair then leaked to the press, which demanded
publication of the report. The government resisted
publishing it for a whole year but had to give in and
finally published it on February 7th, 1984.
The following are excrepts from a summary of
the Karp report, published in Yediot Aharonot on
February 8th, 1984.
The report examines more than 70 cases of
lawbreaking, 15 of them in great detail, and from its
findings and conclusions an alarming picture
emerges of lawbreaking, of defects in police
Investigation, of refusal by the Jewish inhabitants
(settlers) to cooperate with the police and of
involvement by the military administration in
attempting to disrupt investigation against Jews.
The team observed that the police
investigation is not carried out throughly, not only
because the police is unable to apprehend the,
suspects and bring them to trial, but also because of
"outside interference by military administration
people, who give orders on whether or not to open
an investigation, and on matters relating to the
investigation, such as release from police
custody".
The report observes that "the interference of
the military government in investigation is naturally
interpreted as taking the side of the suspects".
Police major Ezra Kalij, head of the investigations department of Yehuda Police District (The southern part of the West Bank) testified that:
"At a senior defence level, unknown to me, the
Jewish inhabitants in the territories were made to
understand that they are soldiers for all intents and
purposes, including being under army orders.
Because of this, they refuse to cooperate with the
police or give information..."
The report describes various cases which the
Karp team had examined, some of which are
described in the following:
On March 24th, 1982, a boy was shot dead in
the Bani-Na'im village, in Hebron District. The
suspect was interrogated only six days later. In the
interval, a delegation of Israeli inhabitants of the
area came to the police, its members clearly stating
they will not cooperate with police investigators,
but will act "on instructions from the (military)
administration and the Minister (of Defence)". It
appears that the delegation also included the suspect
himself.
An order for the arrest of one suspect was not
carried out. A police officer claimed that policemen
were supposed to carry out the arrest after
midnight, but reported he was not home. Later, the
suspect said he was home during that night...
were supposed to carry out the arrest after
midnight, but reported he was not home. Later, the
suspect said he was home during that night ...
Page 12
On three similar cases involving death, the Karp
team says:
"The team had great difficulty in following
police investigation in cases of shooting by Israelis
who are not soldiers, mainly because such cases have
recently become numerous. Police reporting of such
cases is extremely slow. In cases involving only
wounding and in which no complaint was made,
there was no report at all and no investigation is
taking place. The police's position is that the police
is incapable of following such events. In the Village of
El-Arub near Hebron, a 14-year old girl was shot
dead. The team heard of this only from the
communications media, because the police did not
report it at all ...
Another case is. the "Kdumim Affair".
[Kdumim is a Jewish settlement near an Arab village
named Kadum]. Inhabitants of Kadum village
appealed to the Supreme Court, claiming that in
May and June 1981, 300 olive trees were uprooted
from their lands, their property was damaged and
trespassing was committed. Police investigation
showed that illegal acts were committed on the
appelants' land, but the case was closed because "the
perpetrator is unknown".
The head of the Supreme Court Appeals
Department in the Justice Ministry wrote: "I believe
at least one of the chief perpetrators could have
been identified, because in the complaint to the police,
one of the landowners described a man who had
threatened him, a day before the events took place.
Also, when the police investigator visited the scene
of the crime, he found one of the Kdumim settlers
there. Finally, a tractor was also working on the
land, and its driver could have been investigated as
to who employed him".
The team concludes: "The case was returned to
the police for completing the investigation, and
despite the fact that there was a good basis for
identifying the suspects (...) the police returned it
again, and after many months recommended to the
Central District Attorney to close it permanently".
Another case dealt with "Beit Hadasa" in
Hebron. [This is a house occupied by Jewish settlers,
while on its ground floor several shops are owned by
Arabs.] One evening, the ceiling of an Arab-owned
shop caved in. The settlers on the floor above
explained it as an accident, resulting from their
dancing to celebrate the Purim Holiday. But on the
morning, the merchant found all his merchandise
gone, and the "Beit Hadasa" people explained that
they have feared it would get dirty, and therefore
removed it.
Finding all his merchandise gone, the merchant
sat on the stairs and started crying. Three armed
men from "Beit Hadasa" came and asked him to
leave the place. When he told them that this was his
shop, they stepped on his feet, pushed him, picked
him up and removed him from the shop. His son,
who arrived at this time, was also pushed and his left
hand hurt (...)
Police major Kalij testified to the Karp team
that the Hebron military governor ordered the
Hebron police commander not to investigate this
affair.
Due to considerations of space, we were able to
bring here only small excerpts from the full 30-page
report, but they are enough to show why it caused
such a public uproar, and why the government was
so reluctant to release it for publication.
The "Gush Emunim" settlers immediately began a smear
campaign against Ms. Karp, against the Attorney-
General, and against Ezra Kalij, who had in the
meantime resigned from the police. (Kalij had
started libel proceedings against a settler, Eliakim
Ha'etzny, who called him "a primitive man").
The settler propaganda regards all three as their sworn
enemies. Several ministers, noteably Interior
Minister Yosef Burg, also attacked Ms. Karp and
claimed the report was motivated by political
considerations.
On the other hand, the peace movement, of
course, defended the Karp Report which confirmed
its main arguments against the settlers. More
significantly, practically the whole legal profession
in Israel came to her defence, from law students who
signed petitions, to the Israeli Association of Jurists
and the respected ex-president of the Supreme
Court, Shimon Agranat, and of course, Karp's own
superior - Attorney-General Yitzhak Zamir.
Faced whith this massive protest, Burg and other ministers
had to retract their accusations, while Defence
Minister Arens (ever eager to display a liberal image
hiding an extremist position) came out in Karp's
defence.
The Karp report has clearly had some effect in
the occupied territories themselves. Three settlers
from Alon Moreh are at present undergoing trial for
the murder of a girl from Nablus, in December 1983.
In this case, the police persisted in its investigation
despite all the pressure and even intimidation, which
the settlers brought to bear - a fact which can be
attributed to the counter-pressure exerted by public
opinion and by the Karp Report.
In considering the Karp Report, however, it
must be kept in mind that it was not written by
members of the peace movement, but by
government officials, who acted on a brief to
"investigate the enforcement of law and order in
Judea and Samaria"; who throughout the report
regard the settlers as "Jewish residents of Judea and
Samaria", clearly recognising their right to settle
and carry firearms, though seeking to define and
limit the occasions on which these firearms are used.
In short, the Karp Report recognises occupation and
settlement as a fixed framework, but seeks to
impose on this situation the norms of the rule on
law, practiced (with some execptions) within Israel.
This is clearly impossible. This contradiction * is
but a reflection of a more basic one: for the last
seventeen years, the Israeli government has been at
one and the same time, a democratic government
elected in free elections, and subject to criticism by
a parliamentary opposition and a free press - as
regards Israeli citizens; and a military dictatorship,
enforcing an ever more brutal and repressive regime
- as regards the Palestinian population of the
occupied territories.
The solution to this basic contradiction lies outside the scope of any official,
legal report - it lies in the uprooting of the entire
system of occupation and settlement, and its
replacement by peace between two equal, sovereign
states.
Page 13
*Another instance of this same contradiction
occured in the Supreme Court on February 15th,
1984. A settler, sentenced to 39 months
imprisonment for shooting at an Arab car, appealed
his sentence. His lawyer, Aharon Papo (himself a
well-known right-winger) boldly claimed for his
client the "right" to carry arms without permit and
to shoot at Arab cars if he believes the driver intends
to run him down. The judges severely reprimanded
Papo, asking "Do you wish to create Wild West
conditions In Israel?" Actually, "Wild West
conditions" may be a fairly accurate description of
conditions on the West Bank, with Palestinians
playing the part of Indians.
"Security arrangements" - a
catch-word for the occupation of
Lebanon
In the first stages of the Lebanon War, a very
important part was played by a single slogan,
consisting of just two words: "Forty Kilometers".
This refered to both the range of the PLO artillery,
and the extent of Lebanese territory that was
supposed to be occupied by Israel for the purpose of
insuring "Peace For Galilee". Behind this slogan, a
"national consensus" was established: in the Knesset
vote held on the third day of the Lebanon War, all
members of the Labor party but one voted for the
"40 kilometer war".
However, within a very short time this slogan
turned into a boomerang. Labor leaders and
"moderate" ministers within the government
regarded the "Forty Kilometers" as a convenient
excuse to jump on the bandwagon, in what seemed
at the time, as a highly successful and popular
enterprise. Unlike them, most ordinary citizens,
among them soldiers in Lebanon, took it quite
seriously. Their shock at finding themselves fighting
a bloody and interminable war more than a 100
kilometers from the Israeli border, was one of the
major factors contributing to the growth of the
anti-war movement.
In "recent months a new slogan; "Security
Arrangements", designed for much the same
political purpose, has become more and more
common in Israeli politics.
This time, establishment politicians have done
better. "Forty Kilometers" has a very precise
geographical meaning, whose truth or falsity can be
ascertained by one look at the map. "Security
Arrangements", however, is a very elastic and
ambiguous term, into which various meanings can
be fitted.
Generally, it is presented to the Israeli public as
a set of measures which will insure that territory
vacated by Israel will not be again used for attacks
on the Galilee. The actual measures proposed, both by
government spokespeople and by Labor party
leaders, amount to permanent Israeli rule in South
Lebanon by indirect means.
The "Security Arrangements" proposed by Labor leader Shimon
Peres include the "right" of Israeli airplanes and
warships to enter Lebanese airspace and territorial
'waters, for both reconnaissance and bombing
missions; the "right" of Israeli ground forces to
conduct search-and-destroy missions against
"terrorist bases"; and the permanent presence of
Israeli "early-warning sta tions" and "intelligence-gathering installations", in a territory policed by Lebanese "local forces" friendly to Israel.
All these are, of course, also accepted by the
government, thus re-creating the "national
consensus".
It is hardly surprising that the Labor leadership
is subscribing to the "Security Arrangements"
slogan. What is much more alarming is that
moderate sections of the peace movement, those
close to or connected with the Labor Party, have
also started paying lip-service to this slogan.
At demonstrations held by "Peace Now", "Parents
Against Silence" and kibbutz members, slogans like
"Get out of Lebanon now" and "Return the soldiers
home", are interspersed with such formulas as: "Get
out of Lebanon while obtaining security
arrangements", "Get the best security arrangements
possible" and "Hurry up with the security
arrangements". Many demonstrators seem to
support both sets of slogans, without realising the
contradiction between them.
However, the situation in Lebanon might not
permit this ambiguity to continue much longer. The
Lebanese candidates vying for the role of "local
forces" are faring more and more badly.
Thegovernment of Amin Gumayel was supposed to play
an important part in the "Security Arrangements".
In the now defunct agreement of May 17th, 1983, it
both provided legal sanction to the permanent
violation of Lebanese airspace and territorial
waters, and undertook to send its army southwards
to police the northern half of South Lebanon (the
southern half was to be policed by major Saed
Haddad's Israeli-controlled militias, which were to
be officially recognized by Gumayel as a "territorial
regiment" of the Lebanese army).
In practice, Gumayel's army has not even been able to hold on
to West Beirut, which the Israeli army handed over
to it in 1982 after disarming the Muslim population,
much less extend its rule southwards.
Haddad's militias have been weakened by their
leader's death, and Israel has not been able, so far, to
find a replacement for him. In any case, even under
the best of conditions this force, estimated to
number between 1300 to 2000 fighters, has been
barely able to control the narrow strip of Lebanese
territory which Israel gave it in 1978. It could never
cope with the much bigger territory and population
which the Israeli army itself has great trouble
controlling.
Page 14
The decisive factor in South Lebanon is the
Muslim Shi'ites, who comprise a great majority of
the population. This population, for many
generations the downtrodden of Lebanese society,
is now in the midst of an upsurge, influenced by the
success of their co-religionists in Iran.
The Shi'ites will now settle for nothing less than their rightful
place in Lebanese society. Against this rising tide,
Israel is attempting to create a "civil guard" in some
I Shi'ite villages, comprising a few hundred people,
most of them criminal elements ...
Faced with this situation, Israeli government
spokespeople have begun talking more and more
openly, about the need for an extended stay in
Lebanon, while careful to add "until suitable
security arrangements are established". *
However, continuing the Israeli occupation in
its present form is far from easy. Unlike the West
Bank, where Israeli rule is fairly stable despite
continued Palestinian resistance, in Lebanon the
Israeli army is stuck in a Vietnam-style conflict. As
in every guerilla war, the Israeli army is hampered by
political considerations.
Some hardliners in the army and government propose such measures as
sealing the Awaly river bridges - by which arms are
smuggled into South Lebanon - destroying orange
groves which give cover to guerillas or closing the Sidon
Harbor in retaliation to a guerilla ambush. However,
such measures greatly damage the region's economy
and push larger sections of the population into open
resistance. Also, this population is the very one out
of which the politicians still hope to recruit the
friendly "local forces"...
A compromise solution, debated both in
government circles and in the press, is a partial
withdrawal to a more southern line, "getting rid" of
Sidon and its hostile, 200,000 strong population. To
be effective, this must be followed by a complete
sealing-off of the reduced territory, a brutal
counter-insurgency campaign of the type used in the
Gaza Strip in 1968-70, and an economic integration
of the region with Israel, replacing the severed links
with North Lebanon.
Unfortunately, some of the centers of Shi'ite resistance to Israeli rule are
located within the proposed new lines, such as the
area east of Tyre, named by Israeli
soldiers "The Iron Triangle" or "The Triangle of
Hatred", for good reasons. It is to be hoped that
Israeli and world public opinion will not accept the
cost, in human lives and brutal repression, neccessary
for the implementasion of this plan.
The task of the Israeli Peace movement, and
particularly of its hardcore sections that are free of ,
Labor influence, is to help destroy the "Security
Arrangements" myth, as they did with the term "40
Kilometers". Also, it must raise demands for
complete Israeli withdrawal, for an end to Israeli
manipulations and interference in Lebanon, and for
an Israeli-Palestinian peace, which alone can remove
the essential problem that caused the Lebanon War.
*Unlike the situation in the West Bank, no Israeli
politician will dare talk of open annexation in
Lebanon. During the first months of the war, a
demand by "Gush Emunim" that South Lebanon be
considered part of the Biblical "Promised Land"
aroused much public indignation, and the settlers
were forced to retract it.
PLO - Weeks of decision
The next session of the Palestinian National
Council (PNC), expected to be convened in April or
May 1984, may well be crucial. It may produce a
historic breackthrough, But this is still far from
certain.
In the wake of events in Tripoli, the Syrian
attack on the Palestinian national movement and
the meeting of Chairman Arafat with President
Hosni Mubarak, there is an urgent need for new
decisions. These should lead towards meeting US
conditions for a dialogue with the PLO, some
arrangement with the Hashemite regime in Jordan
and a consolidation of the new relationship with
Egypt. In short, creating the conditions for a
resolute and persistent political effort by the PLO
towards peace.
While it may be comparatively easy to pass the
necessary resolutions on these matters, the real
difficulty - and the real test - will arrive if and
when another matter comes up: the dialogue with
the Israeli peace movement.
In the past, Chairman Arafat has succeeded in
convincing the PNC to adopt the minimun
resolutions needed; and since 1974 an impressive
record of realistic and moderate resolutions have
been passed by the council. With one exception.
In the 1981 PNC session in Damascus, Arafat
did not suceed in convincing the PNC to adopt a
resolution to open a dialogue with all Israelis who
accept the principle of Palestinian
self-determination and the status of the PLO as the
sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian
people. Instead, a resolution was passed allowing for
a dialogue only with "democratic and progressive
forces in the occupied homeland who oppose
Zionism in principle and in practice".
This resolution, if strictly adhered to, closes the door to
all Jewish Israelis, except a tiny minority of
Communists and extreme leftists, who together
constitute less than one percent of the Jewish
population. It played a major part in the defeat of
the Israeli peace movement during the Israeli
elections which took place a few weeks later.
At the 1983 PNC meeting, in Algiers, an effort
was made to alter this unfortunate resolution. It was
spearheaded by Dr. Issam Sartawi, but Chairman
Arafat prevented him from submitting his proposal,
believing that the moment was not suitable.
After the evacuation of the Palestinian army from Beirut
in August 1982, Chairman Arafat took some very
courageous decisions in this direction, such as
meeting with a delegation of the Israeli Council for
Israeli-Palestinian Peace (Matti Peled, Uri Avnery,
Yaacov Arnon) on Arab soil. He had also invited
Israeli Labor Party leaders to a meeting with PLO
leaders in Italy, but was rebuffed by Labor.
However, in Algiers it appeared that the
relationship of forces made it impossible to adopt
such a resolution without causing a serious split in the PLO, and the leadership wanted to prevent this crisis. Instead, the old obnoxious resolution was left
standing.
Page 14
It may be argued that there are more than
tactical reasons for this. The need for a dialogue
with the Israeli peace movement has never been
clearly explained to the Palestinian masses. The
personal example of Chairman Arafat, and the
interviews given by Issam Sartawi, were not enough
to create a Palestinian consensus on this crucial
matter. For many Palestinians, including moderates,
the need for this dialogue is still far from obvious.
It has to be stressed that such a dialogue with
patriotic Israelis, most of whom consider themselves
Zionists, is absolutely necessary. The reasons for this
are manifold. Without a face-to-face, open and
honest dialogue, Israelis and Palestinians will not be
able to communicate and understand each other.
Lacking such understanding, neither side can explain
to its own people how peace is possible.
More importantly, the first step towards a just
peace is reversing the process of dehumanization
evident on both sides. One picture of Chairman
Arafat receiving an Israeli journalist in besieged
Beirut, or sitting on a sofa between an Israeli
general and an ex-member of the Knesset, did more
towards this end than 100 a speeches. Such meetings
have a profound symbolic value. They help to
convince public opinion on both sides that a just
solution is viable and will lead to a real peace.
On the Israeli side, it is the job of the hardcore
elements in the peace movement, who advocate the
creation of a Palestinian state and recognition of
the PLO, to gain the support of the larger peace
movement, such as "Peace Now".
This is a necessary step towards changing general public opinion, which
would ultimately lead towards a basic change in
Israel's official policy. Such a process will of course
be reflected also in American public opinion, which
plays such an important role.
All this is quite clear to many Palestinian
leaders in the occupied territories and in the higher
councils of the PLO. The question is whether the
forthcoming session of the PNC will be able to
change the obsolete and anachronistic resolution of
1981, and call for an open, regular dialogue with all
Israeli peace forces which accept Palestinian
self-determination, statehood and representation by
the PLO, irrespective of their ideological
orientation.
The answer will probably depend on the
composition of the PNC meeting. If the session is
boycotted by all those who took part in. the
Syrian-Libyan aggression against the Palestinian
people in the Beka'a Valley and in Tripoli - such as
Ahmed Jibril's General Command, Saiqa and Fatah
"dissidents" - there will probably be a majority in
support of change. In this case, George Habash's
Popular Front might play the honorable role of the
loyal opposition.
On the other hand, if the diverse groupings of
foreign agents inside the PLO, the Fatah renegades
and the elements manipulated by Syria and Libya,
will again appear in the PNC session, there may be
no possibility to adopt any relevant resolution at all.
A period of stagnation and inflexibility may set in.
This would be a disaster.
Faced with the greatest opportunities and
dangers, the PLO is called upon by history to take
decisive steps now. After the valiant fight of the
Palestinian army in Beirut and Tripoli, led with
great personal courage by Chairman Arafat himself,
it is to be hoped that the same spirit of courage will
now prevail in the political field.
Uri Avnery
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Inconsequential meeting in Amman
The long-awaited meeting between King
Hussain and Chairman Arafat in Amman turned out
to be an event of rather modest significance. After
the historic meeting in Cairo, in which Arafat's
political goals were found to be compatible with
Egypt's adherence to its policy of peace with Israel,
it was expected that the Amman summit would
bring new life to the stalled peace process.
But in between the two meetings something
happened which made the promising beginning in
Cairo look like an exercise in futility.
The joint visit of President Mubarak and King Hussain with
President Reagan in Washington proved to the two
Arab leaders that the US is still not interested in a
serious peace process. The situation was described as
that of a pre-election period, when nothing
unpalatable to Israel, or to its allies in American
public opinion, can be tried.
But looking back over a 17 year period, with
four presidential campaigns and five different
administrations, the only puzzle is that such an
argument can be still made with any pretense of
sincerity. Between one presidential campaign and
another, and Israeli elections thrown in when
convenient, the USA has always produced ample
reasons to oppose a meaningful peace initiative in
the Middle East.
It is hard to know with what expectations the
two Arab leaders went to Washington, but it is very
easy to guess how they returned home. After being
promised all the USA could offer in terms of
military hardware*, they were forced to recognize
that the US is no more willing to pursue peace today
than it was 17 years ago. This must have been King
Hussain's main message to Arafat. With this fact
looming in the background, whatever else the two
leaders tried to do in Amman, they must have
realized that their belated meeting could be nothing
but a nonevent.
There is only one interesting aspect to this
nonevent: the meeting of 38 West Bank leaders with
Yassir Arafat in Amman was in direct defiance of
the Israeli military authorities, who expressely
ordered them not to meet him. By this act of
defiance, the Israeli government was placed in a
dilemma: either ignore the defiance and suffer a loss
of face (always a dangerous tactic for a regime
relying on brute force, as Israel does on the West
Bank); or punish the delegation members, thus
persecuting even the most moderate Palestinians.
At last, they were summoned, each to his district
military governor, and reprimanded for meeting
Arafat, which, considering the military's vast arsenal
of punitive measures, is little more than a token
punishment.
* Which promise, also, was not kept, as King Hussain
learned when shopping for "Stinger" missiles.
Matti Peled
Supplement Page A
Mobilisation to prevent a Palestinian Leader's Deportation
The following is an article published in the "Jerusalem Post"on
March 15th, 1984
By Michael Eilan
Jerusalem Post Reporter
Israel is planning to banish a
Palestinian leader who has been
kept incommunicado under military
guard for the last 11 months.
The man, Abu Ali Shahin, is
reportedly a friend of Yasser
Arafat's and a moderate Palestinian
nationalist who has encouraged
contacts towards peace with
Israelis. He is regarded as having
considerable moral authority among
Palestinians in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip.
Shahin served a 15-year term in
Israeli jails after he was arrested in
Hebron for being the Fatah commander
in the area. He refused to
ask for the customary one-third
remission of his sentence under
parole, and since his release has
been subject to official constraints
of varying severity in the Gaza
Strip.
Military sources said last night
that Shahin is being banished
because he never had the right to
live in the Gaza Strip. The sources
said he infiltrated from Jordan
shortly after the Six Day War,
and was allowed, for a while, to stay
in Gaza.
But Shahin's attorney, Leah
Tzcrnel, said at a press conference
yesterday that Shahin was in Rafah
when the war broke out, and was
registered in Gaza in the post-war
census that determined eligibility to
live in the area.
At one time after his release from jail, the authorities
wished to banish him, but Tzemel
appealed to the High Court of
Justice with an affadavit from a
Rafah official who said he had seen
rhe form with which Shahin
registered in the census. The army
then cancelled that banishment
order.
The military source could not explain
last night why Shahin had
been allowed to stay in the Gaza
Strip if indeed - as the authorities
claim - he infiltrated from Jordan.
The source said Shahin was allowed
to stay "out of consideration," but
could not say what had changed
now.
Shahin is now confined to the village
of Dahaniya, in the south of the
Gaza Strip. Dahaniya is surrounded
by barbed wire, with a military
guard. Under the terms of his confinement
he is not allowed to leave
the village, must be at home from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. and is "not allowed to
have contacts with other people"
without permission from the
military governor of Gaza.
Shahin was not even allowed to
see his wife until Tzernel appealed
to a military appeals court who gave
her permission to visit him for one and
a half days a week.
Palestinians and Israelis who have
formed a Comrnittee for the
Defence of Abu Ali Shahin said
yestrday that he had been recently
offered a deal under which he
would not he banished.
The terms of this deal, which
Tzernel said had been offered by
"very senior officials," were that
Shahin was to publicly condemn the
bomb that killed six people in a
Jerusalem bus in mid-December.
Shahin replied that he would be
perfectly willing to condemn this attack
if the Israeli authorities would
in turn condemn Israeli attacks
against Palestinian civilians in
Lebanon.
In many ways Shahin is officially
a non-person. He is being banished
because his permit to stay, given
together with the confinement
order, has lapsed. But he is
stateless, as are all Palestinian
refugees in the Gaza Strip who were
never given Egyptian citizenship
(unlike refugees in the West Bank
who got Jordanian citizenship after
1948).
The Israeli authorities have consistently
refused to give Shahin an
identity card.
Supplement Page B
Should he be banished, it is not
clear which Arab country would accept
him, since he has issued very
strong statements against the
governments of Jordan, Egypt,
Syria and Saudi Arabia.
After his release from Jail in the
summer of 1982, he was allowed 10
weeks of freedom and was then confined
to Rafah, where he had to
report to a police station twice a
day. He was later confined to
Dahaniya.
Under the terms of a letter
Tzemel received from the army's
legal.adviser in Gaza, Shahin must
"leave the area" by April 5. It appears
that the army wants to banish
Shahin through not renewing. the
order. It is in this letter that Shahin
is called a "threat to security and
public order."
Michael Argaman, of Kibbutz
Kerem Shalom near Dahaniya, saw
Shahin for several minutes a few
months ago. Argaman said yesterday
that he got to Dahaniya through
the fields of his kibbutz. But a few
minutes after he entered the house
with an American journalist,
soldiers from the guard at Dahaniya
turned up and took him to Gaza.
Charges were proferred against
Argaman and the other people who
saw Shahin, but they were later dropped.
Kibbutz Kerem Shalom has now
joined the effort to stop Shahin's
banishment. Other members of the
committee are Ziad abu Ziad, Uri
Avnery, Argaman, Feisal Husseini,
and Leah Tzemel.
Members of the committee said
they were' especially worried about
Shahin's health: He limps because of
injuries to his back and has several
severe ulcers.
The Abu Ali Shahin Defence Committee is the first organisation,
since 1967, which was founded jointly by Israelis and by Palestinians from the occupied territories. This was evident both at the March 14th press conference, and at a protest meeting held on March 24th, outside the Dahaniya fence.
The speakers included Matti Peled and Uri Avnery, among a broad spectrum of Israeli and Palestinian speakers. The hundreds of participants also included Israelis and Palestinians, particularly a large contingent of Bir-Zeit students.
This marks a new stage in Israeli-Palestinian cooperation for peace.
The Committee has also published a protest poster in Hebrew and
Arabic, and its members picketed the Defence Ministry in Tel-Aviv.
On March 26th, a Supreme Court judge issued an interim injunction
forbidding Shahin's banishmerit, pendirig a final decision by a three member
bench.
The next issue of "The Other Israel" will give details on further
developments in this affair.