Cry for Revenge

When Israelis want to say "I'm no hayseed" or "I wasn't born yesterday," they use the phrase "I wasn't born in Afula." The reference is to a sleepy town of 23,000 that lies south of Lake Tiberias, the biblical Sea of Galilee. With its small stores and workshops and its disposable-diaper factory, Afula is an unlikely setting for an outpouring of political protest. But last week, as a crowd of 5,000 gathered to mourn the death of a local resident named Albert Bukhris, the town became a focal point of anti-Arab feelings aroused by the murder of 17 Israelis over the past 15 months.

Bukhris, 32, had been shot and killed in the West Bank town of Nablus, where he operated a food kiosk, by the Syria-based Abu Mousa branch of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The group is hostile to Yasser Arafat's main-line P.L.O. Only two days before the shooting, Bukhris had been detained briefly in Afula for taking part in a protest following the murders of two Israeli school teachers, allegedly by three Arab youths. At both this and the demonstration over Bukhris' death, police clashed with the angry followers of Rabbi Meir Kahane as the protesters shouted, "Kill the murderers of Jews!" and "Death to the terrorists!" Kahane, head of the ultraright Kach Party and the founder of the Jewish Defense League in the U.S., was prevented by police from attending Bukhris' funeral.

Prime Minister Shimon Peres' national unity government is under pressure, especially from the extreme right, to take a tougher line on Arab terrorism. Kahane, who advocates expulsion of all Arabs from Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, is gaining popularity, as is Tehiya, a small, right-wing party. A poll printed at week's end by the daily newspaper Ma'ariv showed that if elections were held today, Kahane's Kach Party would increase its seats in the Knesset from one to five, while Tehiya would go from five to nine. Kahane, whose anti-Arab views strike a responsive chord in many working-class Sephardic Jews from Muslim countries, is openly contemptuous of democracy.

Meanwhile, the government is also being criticized for the continuing unrest along its northern border with Lebanon. A suicide car bomber drove into an Israeli armored patrol in southern Lebanon last week, wounding two Israelis and killing one Lebanese civilian. Israel quickly retaliated with an air strike on the headquarters of a radical Lebanese group that has claimed responsibility for seven car-bomb attacks on Israeli positions. Peres is said to be ready to adopt stronger antiterrorist measures. "There is no place for incitement and hysteria," Peres said. But, he promised, "there will be no compromise" when it comes to sabotage and terrorism.