Will the Intifada Cross the Green Line?
LITANI, YEHUDA
WILL THE INTIFADA CROSS THE GREEN LINE? YEHUDA LITANI As the Palestinian Arab uprising known as the intifada begins to enter a lull, the question arises —paradoxically, with greater...
...Of especially serious concern are the Moslem fundamentalists...
...Several have been imprisoned after conviction...
...We could do absolutely nothing...
...Forty-eight hours after the disaster, Mirakhor recounted his feelings to me: "When the children came rushing into the synagogue, I honestly didn't believe them...
...As the intifada has become routine, the world has become more and more indifferent...
...Failing that, it is safe to assume that the strength of the Moslem fundamentalists, those who call for the eradication of the Jewish state, will grow...
...In the summer the situation deteriorated to the point that moshav (cooperative) farmers and kibbutzniks who live in one border area demanded a fence along the old Green Line...
...But the government and the Jewish establishment in general must recognize that even non-Jews deserve a legitimate share of the political cake...
...In practice, they hesitate to throw in their lot with their cousins in the territories...
...Scores of new Israeli Arab organizations are flourishing—from those that provide education, health and social welfare to those that promote Palestinian heritage and culture...
...However, the leadership itself is being overtaken...
...He continued: "The Jews don't really distinguish between the Arabs of Israel and the Arabs of the territories...
...it too has grown accustomed to the situation...
...Explosions and other terrorist acts have become commonplace in West (Jewish) Jerusalem...
...At the end of July a pipe bomb exploded on a Tel Aviv beach, killing a young girl from Canada and wounding several others...
...The Arabs believe that many of the Russians will eventually settle in the West Bank...
...they have disappointed us...
...No one is more aware than a farmer of what it means when crops are deliberately burnt...
...Your fields are on fire/'the crops are going up in flames...
...But the moment something occurs in a Jewish town we are treated like hostages...
...This wave of immigration is restoring the country's belief in itself, rekindling the Zionist spirit and reviving the memory of a glorious past...
...The area in the center and the north of Israel, known as the Triangle because of its' high concentration of Arab villages and towns—the Jezreel Valley, the Gilboa Mountain area and the Beit She'an Valley—all border Arab villages and towns on "the other side...
...Jerusalem's Arabs could become citizens but they refuse to apply...
...More and more Israeli Arabs are flocking to the Islamic Movement...
...A sense of frustration has led many Israeli Arabs, particularly young people, to despair...
...Instead, we deliberately push them to the margin...
...On the other hand, should their needs be recognized within the framework of the established political system, then the dividing line between Israel's Arabs and the Palestinians of the territories would again widen...
...Since the beginning of the year, the movement has been growing...
...Like other former border areas, Jerusalem feels the intifada more acutely...
...Organized into an informal constellation—under the Council of Arab Local Authorities—Israel's Arabs have occasionally called solidarity strikes and demonstrations and a majority of Israeli Arabs have taken part...
...He puts it this way: "Most Israeli Arabs have been going through an emotional intifada...
...They were among the founders of the moshav, established on land abandoned by Palestinian Arab villagers in 1948 during Israel's War of Independence...
...Still, I rushed out to alert the fire brigade...
...Eventually, encouraged by the Moslem fundamentalists, Israeli Arabs could join forces with the intifada in the territories...
...They know that Israel could simply reinstitute the situation that prevailed prior to the Six Day War, when a military government controlled all predominantly Arab areas in Galilee, the Triangle and the Negev...
...In Tel Aviv, less than an hour's drive away, the mood is much more relaxed, nonchalant even, the threat hardly felt...
...If nearly 20 percent of Israel's residents continue to feel neglected and worse, Israel's Arabs could indeed move toward open involvement with the intifada...
...Then they ended...
...The demonstrations and strikes have been carefully limited in time and scope...
...Will the Israeli establishment realize that a group of 600,000 people—Israeli Arabs—could well determine the direction of the entire conflict...
...Batah said there is a major difference between youngsters in Muquiebila and those from Jalamah, a few miles away but across the Green Line...
...For the most part, they have adopted a neutral fence-sitting posture...
...I covered the few miles to the fields on foot in double-quick time...
...The Arabs, of course, see this massive aliyah quite differentiy...
...it is not a formal border...
...What's more, the international media no longer cover daily events in the territories...
...Moreover, by now, the intifada functions more through inertia than with the volcanic spirit that informed its early phase...
...The dramatic shift in Israeli Arab sentiment created by the rise of the fundamentalists is reflected in the recent municipal election in Umm-el-Fahm, for years a bastion of the Communists...
...That "life must, after all, go on" is a cliche generally accepted on both sides...
...For years the Arab Communist party, Rakah, was at the forefront of the political struggle of Israel's Arabs...
...Strong winds were blowing that particular Shabbat afternoon...
...I felt helpless...
...Now the Islamic Movement is moving to the forefront among Israeli Arabs...
...The real problem is, in the words of a leading Israeli security figure who has dealt with Israel's Arabs for years, the "intifada of the heart...
...Islamic religious leaders and preachers began working in mosques and other religious institutions within Israel, paralleling the indoctrination Israeli Arab students were getting at Islamic colleges in the territories...
...I spoke with Gazi Batah, 55, principal of an elementary school in the Arab village of Muquiebila, just inside Israel...
...Their screams were directed to Yehezkiel Mirakhor, a 42-year-old farmer who was engrossed in Minchah prayer that Saturday afternoon in June...
...Wheels moving toward its adoption have been set in motion...
...The arsonists' tracks led back across the Green Line into the West Bank...
...The world has evidently seen enough of the territories...
...Only rarely have these kinds of incidents been traced to Israeli Arabs...
...The whole moshav came out to watch...
...Not surprisingly, funding for some of these groups has come from organizations linked to the PLO, as well as from Islamic fundamentalist organizations in the Arab world, Europe and the United States...
...In last year's election, however, the fundamentalists scored a resounding victory...
...Police experts who scoured the scene found unmistakable evidence that the fire had been set deliberately...
...Both Israelis and Palestinians have grown accustomed to living with the uprising...
...Israel's Arabs are nearly 20 percent of the population...
...Our future is here (within Israel), even should a Palestinian state come into existence right alongside us...
...I am genuinely pained at being treated as if we were a walking bomb, a suspicious object that is liable at any time to blow up our neighbors' homes or destroy their property...
...They also fear that the overall demographic balance will tilt in Israel's favor...
...Another is will Israeli Arabs somehow be drawn into the fray...
...The idea of creating a new Arab political coalition—from the Arab supporters of Zionist parties to the Islamic fundamentalists to the Communists—that would become a parliamentary force in the Knesset has been embraced by a host of Arab intellectuals...
...They wanted to take the law into their own hands...
...After nearly three years (the intifada started in December 1987) a status quo has developed within the territories...
...A prominent member of the movement in the Jerusalem area—who requested that he not be identified further—recently told me that once such a state is se^t up, those Jews who remain would be permitted to live as a tolerated minority along the lines of the Ottoman Empire's 500-year-long millet system—relatively autonomous communities directed by a religious leader responsible to the sultan...
...There were no unbridled outbursts like those that repeatedly characterize the intifada...
...The rise to prominence of the Islamic Movement—to accord this new political force its formal title—actually began during the 1970s...
...Like most of his fellow moshavniks, Mirakhor is of Kurdish origin...
...If an Arab had ventured into the village at that moment, I'm sure they would have killed him—torn him to bits...
...It aims to broaden the scope of the intifada with a two-fold purpose: to cause discomfort to Jews living in border areas and to entice Israeli Arabs into a more active role in the intifada...
...This support by Israel's Arabs expresses their solidarity with Palestinians in the territories who quixotically see Saddam Hussein as helping them achieve Palestinian independence...
...However, Israeli Arab support for Saddam does not reflect weakening of their fundamental view of themselves as part of Israel...
...But these demonstrations were staged during the three days of mourning...
...They doubled and tripled the intensity of the blaze...
...The Soviet Jewish immigration has created grave concern in the Arab world, among the Palestinians in particular, overshadowing anything Israel has done in the territories since 1967, including creating new settlements, requisitioning land and building massive new suburbs in East Jerusalem...
...Its members were shunned by the political establishment, disregarded as lepers by some, as traitors by others...
...While there is no doubt that the movement subscribes to extreme solutions in accord with Islamic law, it seeks to create a much more moderate image for itself...
...The firefighters who rushed in from nearby Afula could do nothing except prevent the fire from spreading to neighboring farms...
...a number of Jews have been murdered by nationalist Arabs...
...His family came to Israel from Iraq in the 1950s...
...It's a complex business and in no small measure depends on us—Israeli Jews—since we have not succeeded in involving them—the majority, I mean, not those negative elements who have always sought to undermine us—in the state and given them a place in the establishment...
...What I don't accept is that their anger should be vented against us...
...Yet they are still marginal politically...
...The Islamic Movement cleverly conceals its primary objective—the eventual creation of a full-fledged Moslem state in Palestine, extending from the Jordan to the Mediterranean—under the guise of quiet but very determined religious and social activities...
...Moshav Avital is a cooperative farm in the Ta'anach region beneath Mount Gilboa, near the Green Line...
...If the Arabs want to play with fire, then we can do it better,' many said...
...Here," he said, "there is a consensus...
...But Moslem fundamentalists inside Israel associated with the movement have been caught committing acts of sabotage, burning fields and cars, uprooting fruit trees, setting fire to forests and even preparing to carry out more serious terrorist acts...
...We are at the beginning of a process, but we are prepared to stop...
...The Arabs in the territories who are directing the intifada are attempting— whether from desperation or not—to transfer the uprising to Israel itself by committing acts of sabotage across the Green Line and by influencing the until now great silent majority of Israeli Arabs...
...Since last spring, hundreds of acts of sabotage, arson and destruction of property have already been committed on the Israeli side of the line...
...This has led to a veritable local building boom—of mosques, classrooms and kindergartens—in this town of 22,000...
...The events at Moshav Avital are hardly an isolated phenomenon...
...continued firm page 37 Jews rarely go into Arab areas...
...Once we put our faith in the Communists...
...That evening the men of the moshav assembled near the synagogue...
...YEHUDA LITANI As the Palestinian Arab uprising known as the intifada begins to enter a lull, the question arises —paradoxically, with greater insistence—will the intifada cross the Green Line...
...As a practical matter, attempts to lure Israel's Arabs into the intifada have failed...
...The enormous popularity the movement has achieved since then has been fueled by Arab disappointment with the achievements of the existing political framework...
...The moshav chairman, 50-year-old Michael Shaul, later described their mood, They were very angry, really bitter...
...Caught between the hammer and the anvil, how are Israel's Arabs going to react—will they take an active role in the intifada alongside their Palestinian cousins from the territories...
...What disturbs us is that we are barred from becoming full partners in a collective Israeli future...
...The refrain of Israeli Arabs right now is this: We are different, recognize that...
...The demonstrations and strikes by Israeli Arabs reflected dismay and pain but not revolt or rebellion...
...Now, the Green Line is only a notion that distinguishes Israel proper from the areas occupied in 1967...
...Jerusalem's Arabs have the status of residents, not full citizens, like the rest of the country's Arab community...
...The fire clearly started in several spots, an unmistakable sign that this was the work of people, not nature...
...In Jerusalem, too, the Green Line has long been crossed...
...Now we are considering moving toward another camp, more extreme and one which, unlike the Communists, does not recognize the validity of a sovereign non-Moslem state in the Middle East...
...Will the Intifada Cross the Green Line...
...The intifada began not as a result of instructions from above but as a centrifugal force bursting out from the refugee camps of the Gaza Strip and then of the West Bank...
...The movement's presence is now felt in every sphere of life...
...Moreover, the demonstrations were well controlled and circumscribed...
...I fully understand the anger of our Jewish neighbors...
...Appropriate patterns of behavior have become stabilized...
...In any coalition-building process, they are pushed to the sidelines...
...I am not responsible for these awful actions...
...The attempts to take the intifada across the Green Line are likewise a process that gains strength from below rather than from deliberate decisions adopted by a Palestinian Arab leader in Tunis or by a Palestinian leader in the territories...
...This comes at a time when the PLO and the United Leadership of the intifada must confront the rapidly burgeoning strength of the Moslem extremists...
...The Soviet Union has become a positive boon for Israel, the source of a major gift—the massive influx of new immigrants...
...We want to break through these barriers, to be fully assimilated into Israel...
...Following Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, the East Jerusalem weekly A-Nadwa reported that 60 percent of Israel's Arab citizens supported the Iraqi leader...
...Finally, the Soviet Union, which had steadfastly supported the Arabs over the past two decades, is more and more wrapped up in its own acute problems...
...In a quarter of an hour, 20 acres of choice wheat were destroyed...
...When I got there, there was nothing left...
...This collective cry came from a crowd of sweating, panting children as they burst into the synagogue at Moshav Avital...
...They told me they already had word of the fire...
...Not simply that...
...Deliberate burning of Jewish crops, damaging farm property and equipment, strewing nails on roads, uprooting trees and laying explosive charges are regular occurrences here...
...Their anger should be at the Palestinians of the territories...
...Thus far, the vast majority of Israel's Arabs have not been drawn in...
...The famous Green Line was a bright green line that appeared on maps in the 1950s and 1960s demarcating the old Jordan-Israel border, a border that no longer exists...
...It is a border of fear...
...Israelis are again confident of their country's role as a haven for Jews the world over and of Israel as the center of the Jewish people...
...But we are prevented from doing so...
...In 1990 alone more than 200 cars belonging to Jews in the western part of the city have been destroyed by fire...
...Some are ready to embrace radical positions...
...Yehezkiel Mirakhor's entire crop went up in smoke...
...Slowly but surely, the movement has gained a secure foothold in both the Triangle and in Galilee...
...Building on the rejection of Rakah, they argue: If thus scorned, then at least let us be proud in our rejection...
...The city that between 1948 and 1967 was cut by the border between Jordan and Israel remains divided...
...On a political level, some of these organizations have forged ties with Palestinians in the territories, as well as with Arabs elsewhere in the world, including Europe and America...
...Gradually the attacks have spread beyond the border area to other portions of the Galilee, to the Lachish area in the south and even to Jerusalem...
...No one is shocked any longer at stone throwing, acts of sabotage, strikes and work stoppages...
...My brother's car was destroyed by fire right in the middle of the village...
...We are fellahin (simple farmers)," he explained...
...The new police minister, Roni Milo, turned down the request because building such a fence would have meant turning his back on the Greater Israel ideology of the Likud party to which he belongs...
...Moreover, the movement has a firm financial base, supported by the Moslem Brotherhood in various Arab countries...
...Rakah never managed to become part of mainstream Israeli politics...
...The question whether the intifada will cross this now notional line has several aspects...
...Demonstrations, disturbances, even incidents that result in injuries and deaths are no longer news...
...One is will Palestinian Arabs from the territories (the West Bank and Gaza Strip) attempt acts of sabotage in Israel itself...
...The Israeli government is more inclined to circumvent the Palestinian problem, while the United States is content to test the mood in Jerusalem and is still not ready to exert any pressure...
...Faced with their inability to lift the intifada out of what seems like a rut, the PLO and the United Leadership have been searching desperately for new directions in the uprising...
...But the council—which embraces .a wide variety of political opinions from the Islamic fundamentalists to the atheist Communists—continues to retain a delicate balance between support for the intifada's objectives and staying out of a confrontation with the authorities...
...Here in Muquiebila we too have had our fields set on fire...
...Throughout the summer not a day passed without at least a handful of incidents...
...On the other hand, there is an intifada which has crossed the Green Line...
...But their partisans were few...
...We have seen this process before...
...True, major disturbances erupted after a young, Israeli Jew in cold-blood killed seven Gaza laborers waiting at a collection point in Rishon Lezion...
Vol. 15 • October 1990 • No. 5
