The Anger of the Palestinians

In the West Bank, even advocating peace has its hazards

The accumulated violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank has led to a new consensus of smoldering anger among Palestinians that has drastically curtailed the voices of moderation. Last week, after completing a tour of Palestinian communities in three Arab countries and in the occupied territories. TIME Jerusalem Bureau Chief David Aikman filed this report:

At an Al-Fatah headquarters near the ruins of the Nabatiya refugee camp in Lebanon, flattened by an Israeli air strike in 1974, an unsmiling fedayeen officer in camouflage fatigues declares grimly: "In practical terms we are fighting the Americans. We have a slogan: 'The land is for the people who liberate it.' "

The sentiment is one of chilling determination. It is found not just in Palestine Liberation Organization circles but also among large numbers of Arabs living in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip who have hitherto rejected violence as a solution to the Palestinian problem. Part of it is born of the feeling that the Camp David accords are going nowhere. Part is an expression of anger at the bomb attacks last month that maimed the West Bank Arab mayors of Nablus and Ramallah. Argues Hikmat al-Masri, board chairman of Najah University in Nablus: "Under international law we should be protected by the Israelis. But they did not come to [Nablus Mayor] Bassam Shaka'a and ask him about the incident." Adds Rashad al-Shawwa, the mayor of Gaza: "We are against terror, but I am afraid that in the state of frustrations of the Palestinians, violence must be used."

Rashad al-Shawwa is no radical: he has been the target of terrorist attacks because of his view that Gaza could not function without some kind of cooperation with the occupying Israelis. But at Bir Zeit University, just north of Ramallah in the West Bank, the students' anti-Israeli rhetoric would do credit to a warm-up rally for P.L.O. Chairman Yasser Arafat. Says one 23-year-old student: "We believe in the slogan, 'What has been taken by force must be taken back by force.' Our struggle is part of the universal struggle against imperialism all over the world."

Sadly, the growing extremism in the West Bank has isolated or intimidated longtime advocates of communal peace between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East. In his quiet Ramallah apartment, Aziz Shahadeh, a lawyer since 1936, reflects on recent changes in the two communities. "I always thought that there was a silent majority of moderates among us, as there was among the Jews," he says. "Now the extremists are so powerful on both sides that the moderates have hushed their voices. Some day, there will be a catastrophe here, a real massacre."

Other Palestinians, who by no standard could be considered terrorists, worry about some terrible final conflagration. Says U.S.educated Sari Nasir, who teaches at the University of Jordan in Amman: "People are saying now that it's not a question of Israel's borders, it's a question of its existence. It's either them or us."

After Israel, the main target of Palestinian resentment is the U.S., which evokes savage condemnations that stray close to open antiSemitism. Says one bitter intellectual in Amman: "You know why I hate the American Government? Because it is not an American government, it is a Zionist government." Frustrated Palestinians often warn of the likelihood of a serious Arab use of the "oil weapon" by mid-1981. Adnan Abu Odah, a Jordan-based director of the World Affairs Council explains, "This is the question: How to make America's awareness of its liabilities outweigh its commitment to Israel."

Only one Palestinian during my two weeks of conversations suggested a solution to the Palestinian issue that did not envisage violence or coercion on a massive scale. Mansour al-Shawwa, a Gaza businessman who is also the mayor's son, still believes "the Arabs should declare peace with Israel and propose normalization." His reasoning: within three to five years, Israel would lose its "siege mentality," thereby leading to a new relationship between Arabs and Jews. But for Mansour al-Shawwa, the advocacy of peace has its hazards. Because of several terrorist attempts on his life, he is now protected at all times by a bodyguard.

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