West Bank Crackdown II

As a consequence of an incident that shook all of Israel in late March, Defense Minister Ezer Weizman last week abruptly removed Brigadier General David Hagoel, 49, as chief of the 2,200-man Israeli occupation force on the Jordan River's West Bank. At the same time the commander and deputy commander of the Bethlehem military district, a lieutenant colonel and a major, were ordered to be court-martialed for "an infringement of existing orders.'"

Weizman's move stemmed from an episode involving Israeli forces on the West Bank who were overzealously cracking down to discourage Arab protests against the incursion into South Lebanon. At Beit Jala, a village five miles south of Jerusalem, a group of soldiers entered the local Arab high school, ordered the students to shut their windows and then tossed cans of U.S.-made antiriot gas into some rooms. A number of students leaped out of second-floor windows to escape the choking gas; ten were hospitalized with various fractures, some crippling.

The Beit Jala incident gained national attention in Israel when it was reported by TIME Jerusalem Bureau Chief Donald Neff, who was the first journalist to investigate the episode. A spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, citing a "thorough" probe of the matter, heatedly maintained that there was "no truth whatsoever" in TIME's account. Israelis accepted that explanation. The Tel Aviv daily Ma'ariv implied, falsely, that Neff had never visited Beit Jala.

But Weizman diligently pressed his own probe. It both confirmed Neff's report and showed that the officers concerned had tried to cover the incident up. The Israeli press reacted to Weizman's conclusions with shock--and approval.

Said Ma'ariv last week: "It is hard to say which is more serious, the deeds that were perpetrated in the Beit Jala school in contravention of orders and of any human decency, or the attempt to escape responsibility by a false report." No less surprised were the West Bank Arabs. Said Jabra Arag, a Beit Jala physician: "It is a great credit to Weizman that even in occupation, democracy can prevail."

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