'The struggle of the Palestinians will continue...'

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REVOLT IN PALESTINE SOCIALIST ACTION FEBRUARY 1988 7 The following are major excerpts from an interview with Ralph Schoenman which was broadcast on KPFK Radio in Los Angeles on Jan. 14, 1988.

Schoenman, former general secretary of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, has been involved for over 30 years in solidarity work with the Palestinian people. He was interviewed by Suzi Weissman on her show, "Portraits of the USSR." The excerpts are reprinted with permission.

Suzi Weissman: Welcome back to "Portraits of the USSR." Today we are going to discuss the civil war in Israel. I understand you have some recent information about the situation in Palestine.

Ralph Schoenman: I got a report from friends of mine in Dheisheh camp, which is the most militant Palestinian camp in the West Bank and is located in the outskirts of Bethlehem. Dheisheh has been subjected to continuous repression by the Israelis for over 20 years.

What the Israelis have done in the last couple of days is to seal the camps. They have put up concrete barriers in front of the entrances and exits so that no one can go in or out. And they have prevented food and medical supplies from going in.

They are doing the same thing in Gaza, the Jabalya, the Beach Camp, and elsewhere. In fact the United Nations officials are reporting that when the children are going to the U.N. depots to get powdered milk, the soldiers are shooting at them and beating them with sticks.

So essentially what the Israeli army is doing is attempting to create a series of Warsaw Ghettos by starving out the camps—preventing food, water, and medical supplies from getting in.

Weissman: When I started out this program I referred to recent events as a civil war. Perhaps I should reformulate this to say a war on the Palestinians by the Israeli state.

Schoenman: It is certainly a civil uprising, an open insurgency, a rebellion on the part of the Palestinian people. And, as the papers have begun to make clear, it is not confined to the territories occupied since 1967, but includes the territories occupied before 1967—the territories that are called Israel proper, or what is known as the territory inside the "Green Line."

Weissman: Could you describe for the listeners what the nature of the conflict is today?

Schoenman: To understand what is going on in Gaza and the West Bank you have to appreciate the day-to-day conditions under which people live. One cannot plant a tomato or an eggplant in the West Bank or Gaza without a military permit—which is not issued. You can't white-wash a house. You can't repair a window. You can't sink a well. You can't have a cassette which has Palestinian national songs.

The military law under which people live is that which the British had imposed during the Mandate, and which ironically enough the Jewish jurists at the time designated as worse than the laws that had been adopted during the Hitler rule in Germany. These are the laws which govern Palestinian life today throughout the territories.

It means that anybody can be detained or arrested without charge, without notification to family, without habeas corpus, without any due process-and can be "disappeared." This is a day-to-day constant of Palestinian life.

Weissman: talking about just the West Esaias Baitel/AFP Bank and Gaza or Israel itself?

Schoenman: The conditions inside the "Green Line" for Palestinians are equally onerous, but a little bit different. These conditions of military rule existed from 1948 to 1967. In 1967 military rule was modified for Palestinians, but one has to bear in mind that the process through which Palestine was colonized is only marginally different from what we see today in the West Bank and Gaza.

The Zionists represented approximately 29 percent of the population in 1947 and had about 6 percent of the land. And that land was largely obtained by force of arms. When Palestine was partitioned, the Zionists were given 55 percent of the most fertile lands.

But between the time that the United Nations partitioned Palestine and the time that the Israeli state was formally declared, the Zionist militia had already seized 75 percent of the land and had driven out 800,000 Palestinians. In that period, they systematically razed to the ground 385 towns and villages, out of the total of 475 towns and villages of Palestine. They were literally wiped off the face of the map.

Weissman: After these settlements were destroyed, what became of the inhabitants?

Schoenman: The inhabitants were in large majority driven out. Approximately 800,000 Palestinians were driven out, leaving approximately 138,000 in Palestine. The 90 remaining villages and towns had their land confiscated without compensation. So effectively what was done was to steal almost the entirety of Palestinian land.

The Jewish National Fund estimates that the figure was as high as 90 percent of the land. The value of that land and property is estimated by the United Nations at $300 billion.

The Israeli state is really a function of piracy. It is the result of the sustained plunder of the Palestinian people and the seizure of their land and property. The slaughter that took place in Deir Yasin and other Palestinian villages in 1947-48 was designed to create a panic that would cause people to flee for their lives. This is the process through which the Palestinian exodus was accomplished.

So the conditions in which the Palestinians live in pre-1967 Israel are no less onerous than those facing the people in the West Bank and Gaza.

Weissman: Then what happened in 1967 to make things worse?

Schoenman: In 1967 the Israeli state expanded and absorbed the West Bank and Gaza and the Golan Heights. It imposed on the territories the conditions that I had mentioned earlier of military rule. One thing to bear in mind is that the absence of any formal rights means that (continued on next page)

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