Rebellion with A Cause

By Johanna McGeary/Gaza

The intifadeh lives. Last week, eight months after the Palestinian uprising first exploded in the occupied territories, yet another two-day general strike shut down businesses in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Curfews were again clamped on restive towns and refugee camps, accompanied by more roadblocks, stonings, riots and tear gas. Another ten Palestinians were killed by Israeli soldiers, raising the count of total dead since last December to more than 230.

While Middle East experts argue over the implications of King Hussein's abdication of responsibility for the West Bank, the Palestinians who live in the occupied lands remain as determined as ever to shake off Israeli rule. They have adopted a strategy of making the occupation as expensive as possible for Israel, even at great cost to themselves. The Israeli government is replying with collective punishment -- curfews, mass arrests, demolition of homes, destruction of crops, deportations -- but has so far failed to crush the rebellion. In the process, the intifadeh has been transformed from a test of muscle into one of will. "This is a war of attrition," says "Mahmoud," a Palestinian activist, explaining the growing use of fire bombs against the / Israeli military. "We know a few Molotovs are not going to liberate Palestine. But with them we can exhaust the Israelis before they can exhaust us."

With the intifadeh running in a lower gear, large-scale demonstrations and riots have given way to smaller, though just as lethal, clashes between Palestinian activists and Israeli army patrols across the West Bank and Gaza. Some of the confrontations are initiated by "striking forces," groups of young men organized in nearly every Palestinian community. Instead of waiting for spontaneous outbursts, they mount hit-and-run raids designed to keep Israeli soldiers on edge. Other confrontations result from provocations by the army and by the Israeli policy of harsh reaction to the slightest sign of rebellion. Says a senior officer in Gaza: "The soldiers must run to every tire burning and stone throwing and chase the perpetrators, even if the chances of catching them are not high."

Street clashes may mark the front line of the uprising, but at the heart of the resistance lies a passive refusal to cooperate with the occupation. The intifadeh has become a tug of war for economic and psychological advantage. The pervasive commercial strike under which Arab shops open for only three hours a day remains one of the most palpable symbols of Palestinian solidarity. The army has given up trying to break this form of protest.

At the same time, Israel is using a variety of repressive measures to dampen the spirit of rebellion. With revenues from the occupied territories slashed as much as 50% by a Palestinian tax boycott, the government has begun staging "tax raids." Some 9,000 residents of Beit Sahur, near Bethlehem, were placed under curfew for a week after 300 townsfolk threw away their Israeli identity cards to protest orders to pay back taxes. When a mob stoned Israeli cars in the village of Beit Omer a few weeks ago, the authorities retaliated by refusing to issue market permits to 50 local fruit growers; now millions of dollars worth of plums are rotting on the trees. Money is growing scarce, especially in Gaza, as the Israelis impose punitive fines and present confiscatory bills for dwindling services. Merchants in the West Bank say their income has shrunk by 60%. Savings are vanishing. To punish communities where there has been rioting, the Israeli authorities sever telephone lines, cut off electricity, curtail food shipments and restrict travel.

The streets of Gaza were deserted last week as residents sullenly submitted to a host of new regulations. Outside the Jabalia refugee camp, under a blazing sun, thousands of men stood in a queue snaking between double rows of barbed wire to receive new identity cards. Without them, they cannot work or travel and are subject to arrest. Near the Erez checkpoint on the Israeli border, Gaza drivers lined up every day starting at 3 a.m. for license plates that specifically identify the car owner's camp or town. At Gaza military headquarters, other Palestinians waited for proof-of-tax-payment stamps that they need to obtain travel permits and birth certificates. All the red tape is intended to rebuild Gaza's dependence on Israel and, incidentally, provide the government with up-to-date information on Palestinians living in the strip.

Israel has succeeded in imposing a measure of calm in the Gaza enclave, but it is taking constant vigilance by 11,000 troops and a regimen of curfews, arrests, beatings and harassment to keep the area's towns and refugee camps from erupting anew. When the local council of Al Bureij resigned under orders from intifadeh's leaders, the Israelis placed the refugee camp under 24-hour curfew for two weeks. The army cut power lines and waterlines, and barred the men from working in Israel for one month. Tax raids conducted block by block netted about $90,000. Says a senior official of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency: "Israel wants the population to come and say they've had enough."

But Jerusalem is reluctantly recognizing that the intifadeh is a fire it may be able to bank but cannot quench. In an unprecedented admission, a senior military officer said recently that while the violence has lessened, he could see no end to the uprising. "There is no return to the pre-December 1987 status quo," he said. The situation "demands that we organize for the long run." On this point, at least, Israelis and Palestinians agree. "The intifadeh has become natural to people," says a shopkeeper in the West Bank town of Anabta. "We will live on a scrap of bread, but we will never give up."

With reporting by Jamil Hamad/Beit Sahur