Rocks and Politics in Israel

...But as the election date approaches and the latest American peace-talk proposals fail to win the approval of Jordan's King Hussein or Prime Minister Shamir-or bothPeres may conclude that the time has come to end the unnatural Labor-Likud marriage...

...This emboldens them to come closer, aim their stones more accurately and taunt the soldiers, whose pent up impotence and fury at times explodes in the severe beatings they administer to their captured tormentors, orders to the contrary notwithstanding...

...Since establishments failing to comply are burned down at night, some trade is conducted at makeshift stalls that disappear in the evening...

...When the teenagers counterattack and nothing else helps, the patrols shoot live bullets, at the feet of the attackers, usually from small bore rifles...

...His critics maintain that Labor long ago lost its ability to shift a Likud-led coalition toward a peace policy, and is instead implementing Likud's hawkish line...

...The fundamentalists have begun urging a return to work, school and study of the Koran...

...The Histadrut daily Davar has given much play and implicit editorial support to these calls...

...At the same time, there are indications that much of the Arab population is getting tired of the economic and physical toll of the unrest...

...Photos of truncheonwielding young soldiers and injured Arabs have produced widespread revulsion, yet on second thought many see Rabin's point that when tear gas and rubber bullets don't help, it is better to use batons than risk killing someone with live bullets...

...Eliahu Salpeter, a regular NL contributor, is a correspondent for Ha'aretz...

...The worsening conditions in the territories, they say, will progressively push Rabin and Police Minister Chaim Bar-Lev into taking the same brutal measures as a Sharon...

...The second view was that the existing old terrorist outfits were behind the " sudden" emergence of a young local leadership and had in fact orchestrated the riots from Damascus or Baghdad...

...One held that they were spontaneous-that the opening confrontation last December inspired similar moves in the neighboring camps or villages, and so on down the line...

...The most troublesome communities are placed under curfew, obliging residents to stay indoors except for 2-3 hours a day to do urgent shopping...

...Where rioting remains out of hand a quarantine is clamped on the area, forbidding people to leave their locality...

...In fact, Shamir has apparently really softened somewhat on procedural matters, and is willing to conduct simultaneous negotiations on the interim autonomy and the final fate of the territories-a course Secretary of State George ? Shultz considers vital to improving the prospects for peace talks...

...Although there are signs that important segments of the Palestinian population are tiring of the disturbances, the younger generation of leaders and the thousands of children and teenagers who do the actual rock and fire-bomb throwing are still far from exhausted...

...Observers warn, though, that Shamir is very far from ready to give up Israeli sovereignty over any territory west of the Jordan River...

...He quickly retreated, but this was seen as a step intended largely for domestic party consumption...

...Labor, they thus insist, should present a clear alternative to the voters: negotiations, compromise and peace, as against Likud's intransigence and ultimately war...

...In what for him was an unusual display of flexibility, Shamir had gone so far as to imply that even the question of final borders would be negotiable in the overall peace treaty...

...Nevertheless, Jerusalem hopes the organizational splits and unhappiness with the disruptions of normal life will before long bring the adults around to acting against the troublemakers...

...Indeed, the lack of a clear picture has in recent weeks been a major subject of intense Israeli self-criticism...

...In many places all the shops (other than food stores and pharmacies) go "on strike" for days and weeks at the behest of pamphlets signed by an unidentified "national leadership...

...In refugee camps, villages, towns, and cities, attacking Israeli military patrols and cars bearing Israeli license plates has become a favorite sport of youngsters...

...Peres continues to oppose quitting the coalition...

...Lately the picture has come into focus somewhat: It appears that the earliest outbursts were spontaneous, that subsequently an ad hoc group took charge, and that the group soon had a falling out...

...The riots have also had two significant domestic political consequences: Most Israelis, including many Likud Right-wingers, have finally come to realize that the new Palestinian Arab generation is unwilling to live under foreign occupation...

...They further reject Peres' argument that leaving the government would result in handing over the critical defense, police and foreign ministries to Likud extremists...

...Meanwhile, in his own Labor Party criticism of Rabin's policy of beating Arab rioters has exceeded that of the general public...

...Peres is under growing pressure, and not merely from doves, to pull Labor out of the coalition government and actively challenge Shamirboth for the good of the country and to enhance the party's chances in next October's elections...

...The Arab youngsters know the soldiers have strict orders to shoot only if their lives are in danger (and even stones and iron bars can kill in the hands of hundreds of rioters trying to overwhelm 10-15 troops...

...That caused a considerable uproar in his Herut Party, where the contestants for leadership -Trade Minister Ariel Sharon and Deputy Prime Minister David Leviseized the opportunity to attack the Prime Minister...

...The Army responds with tear gas, rubber bullets and baton charges...

...Stories of numerous excesses by soldiers, however, and especially the news that on February 5 some troops reportedly attempted to bury four Palestinian youths alive, are strengthening fears that Rabin's approach may be causing deeper long-term harm to the psyche of Israeli soldiers than to Arab demonstrators...

...As new information was uncovered, the weight of the evidence kept shifting from one assessment to the other...

...The PLO pamphlets, on the other hand, continue to urge the escalation of violence to force Israel to turn over the West Bank and Gaza to the Palestinians...

...At this point different terrorist organizations started launching separate actions alongside independent local actions...

...One of the most obvious is the ambivalent reaction to the beatings ordered by Defense Minister Yitzchak Rabin...

...It certainly means the "Israeli occupation" is not acceptable, and therefore bodes ill for the limited autonomy Prime Minister Yitzchak Shamir has in mind...

...PRESSURE ON PERES Rocks and Politics in Israel BY ELIAHU SALPETER Tel Aviv Like doctors anxiously monitoring a critically ill patient, the Israeli media daily measure the temperature of the latest West Bank and Gaza Strip outbursts, now in their third month, hoping to find that the fever is lessening...

...There were actually detailed reports of a Supreme Coordinating Committee, made up of 10-12 top figures from the wellknown terrorist organizations, picking the place and deciding the nature of each day's demonstration or strike...

...The main split is between the Moslem fundamentalists and the PLO...

...The adults still do not seem ready to stand up to the youngsters, whose daring elicits a measure of pride...

...Additional matters being debated range from why Jerusalem was caught off guard to the mistake of publicly proclaiming a policy of beatings when the tactic is routinely employed by most police trying to subdue riots...

...Now leaflets that had seemed to emanate from a joint headquarters (usually distributed by schoolchildren) strongly suggest the re-emergence of past divisions among the various factions...

...Most of the Arab workers from Gaza and the West Bank have already returned to their jobs in Israel, it is noted, despite the youngsters' violent efforts to prevent their departure every morning...

...There have been important developments on the Israeli side, too...

...Peres has responded that Labor must stay in the government to prevent it from adopting extreme nationalistic policies which would exacerbate the Palestinian crisis and sooner or later lead to another war with the Arabs...

...For political scientists, it is fascinating to observe how a few hundred youngsters, initially in the Gaza Strip and then in the West Bank, pushed aside the traditional leadership (which, by the way, at the outset seemed quite willing to sit back and let the teenagers rampage...

...At the beginning, there were two estimates of the moving force behind the disturbances...

...Nor is any diplomatic activity, like a UN-sponsored international conference to press Israel to give up the occupied territories, permissible...

...Thus the abnormal has become the normal in much of the occupied territories...

...Often barricades are placed across the road, forcing people to get out of their vehicles and making them better targets...

...What was taken by force will have to be restored by force, they say, but the time is not yet ripe for the Jihad that will replace Israel with the Moslem state of Palestine...

...If this means opposition to any foreign rule, it would torpedo Foreign Minister Shimon Peres' notion of a Palestinian entity attached to Jordan...