Palestinian revolt grows (continued from page 1)

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... Palestinian revolt grows (continued from page 1: “Israel's isolation increases as Palestinian revolt grows”)

units, in full battle dress and armoured vehicles, open fire at will on unarmed crowds.

Virtually every village has been assaulted. A March 21 Associated Press dispatch described Israeli methods:

"Soldiers entered Tarqumiya, a village of 9000 people about 4 a.m. and took over the school, throwing all the desks out of the classroom; then about 500 youths marched to the school and started throwing rocks."

Israeli radio admitted that 13 Palestinian children were shot at the school in Tarqumiya, which was converted into an army headquarters.

Nearby in Hebron, soldiers rushed Alia Hospital. Many youths had been deliberately shot through the testicles. The AP account was graphic:

"Khalid Hassan Ahmed, 18, died of a gunshot wound in the stomach... Walid Abdul Falaita, 18, was shot in the heart... About 200 villagers accompanied bodies to the cemetery, waving a large Palestinian flag and shaking their fists. 'We will all join you, our martyrs. Our spirits and our lives are with you,' they chanted gathering around freshly dug graves... Hospital officials said 50 soldiers fired gas into the Alia Hospital compound before storming it."

Throughout the West Bank and Gaza toxic gas has been used, causing miscarriages, vaginal bleeding, and asphyxiation.

In Nablus, soldiers poured boiling water over a 2-year-old, who was later brought into Ittihad Hospital "catatonic."

In the village of Maythalun (between Nablus and Jenin), three youths were shot dead, and the entire village massed at their funeral. In Beit Sahur, near Bethlehem, soldiers arrested every young male, sealing the houses.

"Quelling the protests"

New York Times correspondent John Kifner called the systematic roundups "part of a series of tough new measures, including economic sanctions and collective punishment, that the Israeli army and other officials are imposing in hopes of quelling the protests, which have grown into an increasingly organized Palestinian mass movement in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip."

The army's new orders allow detention without any specific charge or trials, even in military courts. Moveover, according to the March 23 New York Times, "the new procedures do away with judicial review of the administrative detention sentences and allow local commanders to order the arrests."

Immediately after the order, people were seized overnight in more than a dozen refugee districts, villages and towns in the West Bank and Gaza.

Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin announced that "Israeli civilians have the same authority as soldiers to shoot." He added, "Soldiers need not fire warning shots before shooting Palestinians."

Newsweek (April 4) was more explicit:

"The decree meant Israeli soldiers could shoot to kill Palestinian youths... Yitzhak Rabin [was] effectively deputizing settlers."

The decision, according to Newsweek would "open the floodgates of the 60,000 settlers' pent-up frustration (sic)."

Dual power emerges

In four months the Palestinian uprising has done more to challenge Israeli control than had been achieved in 20 years.

The entire infrastructure of Israeli rule has unraveled. Spies are asking forgiveness, confessing their deeds, and exposing the apparatus of control. Police are resigning.

The Village Leagues, Israeli organizations of collaboration, have collapsed. The Los Angeles Times reports that challenges by the "Unified National Leadership of the Uprising" have led to resignations by municipal, village, and town councils.

Before the uprising, 20,000 Palestinians worked under Israeli army and police control, providing services to the West Bank and Gaza. They were teachers, clerks, and administrators. Most have resigned.

Increasingly, dual power is emerging in the West Bank and Gaza. The Israelis close the schools; the resistance organizes classes. The Israelis order shops to open; the resistance keeps them closed. The Israelis close the shops; the resistance opens them.

Protest's economic weapons

The West Bank and Gaza are trapped in what Newsweek (March 28) calls a "colonial setup." Newsweek cites Israeli demographer Meron Benvenisti as follows: "The Occupied Territories became a source of cheap labor and a captive market for Israeli goods."

Israel's trade surplus with the West Bank and Gaza, Benvenisti reveals, is $500 million a year. The government takes a further $80 million a year in taxes above what it provides in meager social services. The territories import $780 million a year of Israeli goods at high prices.

But the uprising has changed everything. Newsweek states:

"The Palestinians have some economic weapons of their own. Thousands of Arab workers had long since walked away from jobs at Israeli farms, factories, and construction sites. Palestinian shoppers cut back their purchases of Israeli goods. Arab merchants and self-employed professionals struck a more direct blow at the occupation; they refused to pay Israeli income and commercial taxes."

Thus, as Newsweek acknowledges, the economic sword cut in two directions. Israel's construction industry which drew 42 percent of its workforce from the Occupied Territories "has been hobbled by Arab walkouts." Hotels in Jerusalem report a sharp drop in spring bookings.

Israeli Economic Minister Gad Yaacobi estimated that the first three months of "rioting" cost Israel's economy "at least $300 million"—10 percent of U.S. aid for a full year.

"Liberated zones"

No respite can be expected for Israel.

The villages in the West Bank and Gaza have responded defiantly to Israel's barbaric onslaught, declaring themselves "liberated zones," barricading their streets, and flying the Palestinian flag.

Newsweek reports: "Their protests are adroitly coordinated through leaflets issued by the shadowy Unified National Command of the Uprising. Their leaflets are the law of the land."

Despite the massive repression, Palestinian spirits have never been higher. This spirit is perhaps the factor of greatest concern to the Israeli state. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir told Israeli television:

"The people who are throwing stones, the inciters, the leaders, they are today in a situation of euphoria, of great enthusiasm. They think that they are the victors."

Middle East editor of the Jerusalem Post Yehudi Litani reported that "[Israeli] security forces estimate the army has now detained the majority of those now pulling the strings of the uprising"—and yet the uprising continues, the leaflets continue to appear, and a mood approaching panic is settling in among Israeli leaders.

Uprising galvanizes Palestinians

On March 30, Land Day—the day Palestinians inside pre-1967 Israel protest the confiscation of their land—a general strike of Palestinians inside the pre-1967 borders was called. This action renewed a general strike in support of the uprising which was first held on Dec. 22, 1987.

The Unified National Leadership of the Uprising in the Occupied Territories called for "huge demonstrations against the army and settlers" to coincide with the general strike.

For the first time since 1948, Palestinians throughout Lebanon—joined by Lebanese in Sidon, Beirut, and other cities—also staged their own demonstrations and general strike in solidarity with the uprising.

The uprising has galvanized not only the so-called Israeli Arabs, but the Palestinians in the Diaspora. The participation of the Palestinians of Lebanon and of thousands of Lebanese themselves was felt throughout the Arab world.

Israeli reprisals

This new phase of the Palestinian revolution was not lost on the Israeli authorities.

In an attempt to counter coordination between the Palestinians inside the "Green Line" (pre-1967 borders) and the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, the Israelis completely "sealed off" the West Bank and Gaza.

"Since Intifada (Uprising) is taking place both in the West Bank and in Israel," (emphasis added) a senior military source said, "we decided to separate the two and to prevent large-scale public disorder." (Los Angeles Times, March 29)

"We want to signal very clearly that we are not going to hesitate to use whatever measures are necessary," Defense Minister Rabin said.

But the Palestinians, entering their 40th year of occupation since the founding of the Israeli state, have not been deterred.

The "revolutionary war" of the Palestinian people is recruiting the hearts and minds of youth in every Arab country and in capitals across the world.

For, as Newsweek (March 28) concluded, "In what could be a long war of attrition, the Palestinians may prove to have the kind of staying power that money can't buy."

[Photo caption: In four months the Palestinian uprising has done more to challenge Israeli control than had been achieved in 20 years.]