Life in the Tinderbox

By Marguerite Johnson

Palestinians chafe under Israeli rule on the West Bank

Palestinians in exile speak of it as of a lost love, recalling with an aching sense of longing the serene beauty of the Samarian hills, the sweet-smelling orange groves of Jericho, the mellow light of the Old City of Jerusalem. There is an air of great antiquity about the place, as if history had paused there and left its indelible imprint. Gnarled olive trees cling to the arid slopes, and oxen and donkeys plow the terraced hillsides, much as they did when Jesus walked the paths of Palestine. In the evenings, women still gather at the village well to fill their earthen jugs, while in the thorny Judean hills, shepherds sing the same melancholy songs their ancestors did generations before.

Over the centuries, the rolling slopes and valleys that lie to the west of the Jordan River have become a Holy Land to Jews, Muslims and Christians alike, containing shrines hallowed by all three faiths. The area, which is about half the size of Connecticut, has also been a battlefield since ancient times for warring tribes and nations. At Jehovah's behest, Abraham led his Jewish tribe from the deserts of what is now Iraq to these fertile valleys beside the Jordan, then known as Palestine, the land of the Philistines.

A troubled region for most of its history, Palestine at various times fell under the rule of the Israelites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Macedonians, Romans, Turks and finally the British. When the U.N. voted in 1947 to create a Jewish homeland, it decreed that Palestine should be partitioned into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. The Arab portion included the West Bank. In 1950, however, the territory was annexed by Jordan and in 1967 it was seized by Israel in the Six-Day War after Jordan, committed by a defense pact to help Egypt, entered the conflict. The West Bank has been under Israeli military occupation ever since.

To its 720,000 Palestinian inhabitants, the West Bank is the heart of their ancient homeland and of what the U.N. had intended to be a Palestinian state. Resentment of the Israeli military occupation is the common denominator among a wide political spectrum of groups, ranging from supporters of the Palestine Liberation Organization to monarchists loyal to Jordan's King Hussein to fundamentalist Muslims who advocate an Islamic state patterned after Iran. Since 1967, the Israelis have established some 100 settlements in the occupied territories that now house 30,000 Jewish settlers. Surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by armed men, the settlements have added an abrasive element to an already tense situation.

Economically, the Israeli occupation has helped both Israel and the West Bank. Since 1967, Israel has created a complex infrastructure of irrigation systems, electrical grids and road networks in the territory. But the Palestinians nonetheless argue that Israel is making capital improvements only because it intends someday to annex the region. The Palestinians also point out that they pay more in taxes to Israel than they get back in benefits. The West Bank buys 90% of its imports from Israel, but sells only 65% of its exports in return. Nearly half of the territory's 80,000 unskilled workers hold jobs in Israel, often performing undesirable chores such as collecting garbage, but on the average they receive only 81% of the pay that Israelis get for the same work. Moreover, Israel controls an estimated 70% of the arable land in the Jordan Valley, and draws some 30% of its water from West Bank sources.

To the Palestinians, the economic inequities might chafe less if the Israeli military occupation were not so humiliating. The Palestinians, in fact, have few civil rights under the Israelis. Although there have been terrorist attacks launched from the West Bank, they usually have come from Jordan or Lebanon. Still, any Palestinian may be detained, imprisoned or deported at any time without charge. Their homes and land may be confiscated, their crops burned. A West Banker suspected of engaging in resistance activities, even throwing a stone at an Israeli vehicle, is liable to have his home destroyed; some 1,500 houses have been so razed. In some instances, Palestinians have appealed to the Israeli supreme court for redress, but the court refuses to overturn rulings on issues involving military security.

The Israelis have also brusquely deported 1,517 people that they considered to be "instigators." Most have been local leaders or prominent officials. The victims are customarily arrested during the night, without warning or any semblance of legal action, driven blindfolded to the border, and released without food or transportation. Sometimes shots are fired over their heads. In the face of these practices, according to a poll commissioned by TIME last spring, fully 98.2% of West Bank residents want an independent Palestinian state. While the Israelis have consistently claimed that the P.L.O. had little support on the West Bank, 86% of those questioned said that they would like a Palestinian state run solely by Yasser Arafat's organization.

The Israeli government has launched a vigorous campaign against P.L.O. sympathizers in the territory. Since March, eight duly elected West Bank mayors have been fired. The Israelis have attempted to promote rural-based village leagues, whose leaders are willing to cooperate with the authorities, but the leagues have been disparaged by virtually all West Bank Palestinians, who view them as an attempt to divide their ranks. (League Leader Mustafa Dudeen scored only .2% support in the TIME poll.) But they are nonetheless a source of increasing friction because Israel is funneling money and patronage through the leagues rather than through municipal authorities.

President Reagan's new peace proposals have roused excited and generally favorable interest among West Bank Palestinians. Heated discussions about the merits of the plan occur at nearly every West Bank gathering. As a Palestinian editor put it, "It may not be what we have been struggling for, but you have to be a realist." Although there is disappointment that Washington ruled out an independent Palestinian state, there is also a feeling that just about anything is now preferable to continued occupation by Israel.

-- By Marguerite Johnson.

Reported by Nafez Nazzal/Jerusalem

With reporting by Nafez Nazzal

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