Middle East Trials and Errors

By William R. Doerner

In the West Bank city of Hebron, 14 teenage boys were marched into an unheated courtroom and ordered to sit on a wooden bench. Their hands were bound with strips of clear plastic. Asked by the Israeli military judge if they were guilty of the rioting charges lodged against them, all pleaded innocent. They were herded out of court and back to a makeshift detention center in the nearby village of Dahariya to await trial. In another courtroom, in the city of Nablus, an army prosecutor urged the judge to be lenient with Nasser Zuhadi Kakmeh, 16, because the youth had been wounded in the leg while throwing stones and bottles at security forces and was now repentant. "I want to hear it from you," the judge told the defendant. After a long pause, Kakmeh replied, "I regret what I did. I'll never do it again." His sentence: 45 days in jail and a $193 fine. On the Gaza Strip, the penalties were harsher. Many of those who pleaded guilty were jailed for three months and fined up to $644. Outside a courtroom in Gaza City, an elderly Bedouin, stunned after learning of his young son's high fine, said bitterly, "I will have to beg for that."

Israel last week was dispensing turnstile justice, some of it compassionate, some of it harsh, most of it simply quick. After the worst Arab rioting in the country's occupied territories in nearly two decades, military authorities were determined to make speedy examples of the more than 1,000 demonstrators arrested, the vast majority of them Palestinian males between the ages of 14 and 35. The number of Arab fatalities rose to at least 22 after a 17-year-old Palestinian died of gunshot wounds sustained in one of the riots. The week brought a few fresh incidents of violence, but for the most part an uneasy calm settled over the Gaza Strip and West Bank communities that had erupted in rage for more than two weeks. "The riots in the territories will not happen again," vowed Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin. "Even if we have to use massive force, we will not allow last week's events to repeat themselves."

As Rabin spoke, the Israelis were in the midst of a military buildup of unprecedented size. Anticipating a new wave of demonstrations on New Year's Day, celebrated as the 23rd anniversary of the founding of the Palestine Liberation Organization (P.L.O.), authorities sent thousands of fresh troops into the territories. Gaza was patrolled by triple the usual number of soldiers, more than were used to seize the 140-sq.-mi. strip of land from Egypt during the Six-Day War in 1967. Troop strength in the West Bank was double the normal size. The strategy was effective: the anniversary passed without serious incident.

Some of those put on trial last week had been arrested during the riots and held in detention camps. More than 1,000 others were seized later in a series of carefully planned army and police raids on the homes of suspected protest organizers. Armed with lists of names obtained from confessions of those already under arrest or collected with the help of videotapes shot by army cameramen during the disturbances, troops carried out nighttime raids in such restive refugee camps as Jabalia in Gaza and Balata near Nablus. In addition to their targeted prisoners, the raiders sometimes hauled in any male member of a household whose age made him suspect. Inside Israel proper, police took into custody more than 70 Israeli Arabs and charged them with fomenting disorder for participating in a strike staged two weeks ago to show solidarity with the Palestinians.

Israel governs the territories under laws dating from the British mandate of 1922 to 1948, when the land then known as Palestine was administered by London. Among other things, the code allows authorities to hold security detainees in "administrative custody," without trial, for up to six months. In the tumultuous days preceding Israel's achieving statehood in 1948, such provisions were frequently invoked against Jewish activists agitating for a British departure. With Israel coming under heavy criticism for violating internationally accepted standards of due process in its treatment of Arab prisoners, Rabin was only too happy to recall that history lesson. Said the Defense Minister: "I enjoyed reminding the BBC that the laws in force in the territories today are the laws the British left us."

Even so, Palestinians charged that the Israelis were perverting the laws. They claimed that beatings of prisoners were widespread and that Israeli soldiers urinated on detainees and inflicted other indignities. Even if many of the claims were exaggerated, and Israeli officials adamantly insisted they were, some Palestinians feared that a recent report by an Israeli Supreme Court commission might invite excessive zeal. In effect, the document endorses the use of "moderate" force by the internal-security agency Shin Bet in dealing with its prisoners.

Courtroom procedures were less than ideal. Palestinian lawyers charged that their clients were discouraged from attempting to prove their innocence out of fear of receiving harsher sentences if they demanded a trial and were found guilty. Since the standard $644 fine for a number of acts of rioting is the equivalent of nearly a year's wages for many Palestinians, more than a few were reluctant to contest the charges. Two weeks ago Palestinian defense lawyers in Gaza protested these pressures by refusing to accompany their clients into court, and last week their colleagues in the West Bank followed suit. Said Gaza Attorney Khalid al Qudra: "We find no justice when we can only advise clients to be guilty." The legal boycott had no effect on the proceedings, which, court officials contended, met accepted standards of military justice even without defense lawyers present.

The most serious threat hanging over the Palestinian detainees is deportation, another legacy of British-mandate law. Since 1967 Israel has used that device to get rid of some 2,500 undesirable Palestinians, expelling them to neighboring states with large Palestinian populations. The practice is widely viewed as a violation of the fourth Geneva Convention, which establishes rules for the conduct of affairs in territory seized during wartime. Israel claims to abide by humanitarian provisions of the convention, but its courts have held that local laws supersede the international code on this matter. Said Rabin: "Deportation is part of our system." Late last week, authorities releashed more than 100 Palestinian detainees without trial and simultaneously announced that Israel had issued deportation orders against nine residents from the occupied territories. All nine were described as "leading activists and organizers" during the riots.

Deportation is applauded by almost no one outside Israel. Jordan, which has granted citizenship to most West Bank Palestinians and has accepted some deportees in the past, announced last week that it would not permit their entry. Egypt, the only Arab state that recognizes Israel, foreclosed any possibility of receiving newly deported Gazans. Faced with those refusals, Israel would probably send its Palestinians to Lebanon.

The Reagan Administration deplored the possibility of deportations, continuing the public scolding that Washington has been giving Jerusalem since the riots began. U.S. Ambassador Thomas Pickering called on Rabin to warn him that Washington would be highly critical if Israel went ahead with the expulsions, which the U.S. views as illegal and fears would increase tensions in the occupied territories. But Israel refused to rule out a disciplinary measure that it regards as its single most effective weapon against Palestinian subversion. Said Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir: "We appreciate the American advice, but we will act as we judge best."

Israeli leaders also rejected criticism that the military, well trained in warfare, was ill prepared to handle riots and too quick to use lethal countermeasures. Rabin continued to insist that "whenever there is clear-cut danger to our troops, they have orders to use live ammunition." Army officials, however, announced that future draftees will be trained in crowd control and supplied with nonlethal riot gear, including rubber bullets, tear- gas grenades and defensive shields.

That decision underscored how sensitive Israel has become to the image it projects abroad, especially in the U.S. Israeli political figures complained bitterly that TV coverage in particular was distorted. Said former Israeli Ambassador to Washington Moshe Arens: "One cannot see on television that the soldiers would ((have been)) in great danger if they did not defend themselves." After seeing footage of the first few encounters, army officials ordered that patrol units in the territories be accompanied by foreign- language speakers who could deal with the press.

Beyond images, there was the much more substantial question of whether Israel truly understands the root causes of the riots. Rabin insisted the protests were the work of a few organized provocateurs, a view that may be shared by most Israelis. "There were instigators forcing kids to demonstrate, forcing people to close their shops," he said. "This unrest was organized by a few at the local level."

But to most Palestinians and some Israelis, such contentions represent a profound misreading. In their view, the riots were widely supported and spurred by a generation of Palestinian youth that has grown up under the occupation. These disaffected Palestinians are contemptuous of both the Israelis, who show no signs of ending their rule, and the P.L.O. leaders, who have been ineffectual in challenging it. "We have reached the point where we have nothing to lose," says Gaza Attorney Al Qudra. "It is not important whether we live or die if we do not have our rights."

Calling themselves the shabab, an Arabic word loosely translated as the "guys," this embittered, sullen generation has taken to the streets of the occupied territories spoiling for trouble. "We are a pot full of steam, and pressure must explode," says Mahmoud Hamaid, 32, one of the shabab, whose 22-year-old brother Khalid was killed in the rioting. "You can't decide when this explosion will take place. It is always there."

Meron Benvenisti, a former deputy mayor of Jerusalem who heads the West Bank Data Base Project, an independent research organization, is no advocate of Palestinian independence. But he believes government officials are ignoring reality when they deny there is widespread support for the Palestinian cause. "They're still trying to define it as the work of a small group of agitators," he says. "They can't admit that it's broadly popular because they will not face that problem." A number of U.S. Jews, profoundly disturbed by the riots and how they were handled, agree. Said Hyman Bookbinder, a longtime leader of the American Jewish Committee: "Most of us do understand the frustrations of the Palestinians, and we are sympathetic. We feel a responsibility to the young Palestinians, most of whom have spent their entire lives in anger, bitterness and disappointment. We know the situation has been allowed to drag on for too long."

If Rabin is right, the military and judicial shows of force that brought an uneasy calm to the occupied territories last week will continue to keep the Palestinians in check. If Benvenisti and Bookbinder are right, the Israelis have only bought a little breathing space, and no amount of jail time and fines will keep the West Bank and the Gaza quiet for very long.

With reporting by Johanna McGeary/Jerusalem and Nancy Traver/Washington