Judea Magazine, No. 1.2
Hebron Etzion
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JUDEA ELECTRONIC MAGAZINE Vol.1, No.2 Adar-Nissan 5753/Mar-Apr 1993
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Contents: SECURITY
- Arabs Steal Jewish Goat Herd
- Decline of the Intifada: A View from the Field
- Hebron: A City with No Police
- Why Christians are Leaving Bethlehem
- Women in the Intifada
- A National Day of Hate: Palestine Independence Day
- End the Terror Against the Jews
- Palestinian Psychology: Believing a Different Reality
- Who Has the Territories?
- Waiting for Another Missile Attack
- The Unique Land of Israel
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ARABS STEAL JEWISH GOAT HERD
On the night of 20 August 1992, a group of Arabs entered the
Jewish village of Tekoa in the Etzion Bloc of Judea and stole the
entire 140-head flock of the Tekoa Goat Dairy. For nearly a decade,
the Tekoa Goat Dairy has produced high-quality goat milk and cheeses
from a specially nurtured and bred herd that took years to develop.
The milk has been especially vital for scores of babies throughout
Israel who are unable to digest cow's milk. The flock was stolen to
be slaughtered for meat and was never recovered. No one has been
apprehended for the crime. A few days prior to this incident, 600
fruit trees belonging to nearby Kibbutz Kfar Etzion were destroyed,
with the tracks of those responsible leading to a nearby Arab village.
Under the proposed autonomy, who will be responsible for bringing to
justice the perpetrators of these frequent crimes by Arabs against
Jews? -- M.A.
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DECLINE OF THE INTIFADA IN JUDEA AND SAMARIA: A VIEW FROM THE FIELD
Miro Cohen
[Editor's Note: Miro Cohen is the Security Coordinator, the local
person responsible for the safety of the 500 residents of Tekoa, a
Jewish community located a 20-minute drive south of Jerusalem at the
edge of the Judean Desert, between King Herod's palace -- Herodion --
and ancient Tekoa, home of the Prophet Amos. Miro is a shepherd,
speaks fluent Arabic, and has had five years of daily experience with
the Arab uprising known as the intifada. In this piece published in
1990 and still true today, he shares here from his broad knowledge of
Arab life in the rural villages of Judea.]
*Who are the Activists?*
The Arab fundamentalist movement, Hamas, is now the leading force
in all the rural Arab villages in Judea and Samaria, and because of
this the villages are more extreme in their activities. Hamas sends
its orders into the villages from outside, in the case of Tekoa, from
Jerusalem or Hebron. In every village there is a group of 5 to 10
young activists - the "masked youth" or the "people's committee." In
more troublesome villages the group might number between 10 and 30.
In villages closer to large towns there are also branches of the PLO.
The villages closer to towns are less extreme than the distant rural
villages. It is not that they love the Jews but that they have other
interests. They are more educated and have lower school dropout
rates. Overall, there are no large organizations as there are in the
cities. The general picture is one of small units, mostly of Hamas,
operating according to orders from above.
They do not have telephones to communicate with each other, so
they use very simple systems: whistles from those acting as lookouts;
messengers -- small children who would not be suspect, or young women.
Young women are playing a very active part in the whole enterprise.
They do not actually participate so much in attacks but they are very
active in preparing flags and slogans and acting as couriers.
The majority of activists are between the ages of 12 and 17.
Seventeen is more or less the upper limit because after 17 they go out
to work. At this age their interest in working and making money
begins to assert a greater influence over them.
*Most Do Not Participate*
Contrary to the common belief, most of the Arab population does
not in fact participate in the uprising. Most of the adult population
does not participate, as well as a very large part of the youth.
There are entire families that do not participate.
There are a few dozen Arab schools in Judea and Samaria located
next to major roads, affording the students easy opportunities to
attack passing Jewish cars. Yet the scores of rocks being thrown from
a school may be the work of only twenty rockthrowers. It is also
important to remember that things are different among children. It is
quite probable that when children are all together in school,
including the children of those who cooperate with the Jews and those
who were never involved with the intifada, these children have to go
along with the crowd. Sometimes the children of parents who are
suspected of being collaborators or children from neighborhoods where
there are no problems will be active at school to prove that their
parents are not collaborators.
In one way it is possible to say that all participate. There are
general norms of not telling on one another, not erasing slogans,
helping erect roadblocks. That does not mean that a few minutes after
the organizer has left, the adults won't go out and clear the
roadblock themselves. They do it to prevent being woken up later by
soldiers to clear it. They do many things that they are forced to do
in order to show that they have done something. Some will also go and
throw a few rocks on the road at night, even though they know it is
not serious, in order to feel that they were part of something. But
most of the population does not participate in violence against Jews.
*The Balance of Power*
Of the over one hundred rural Jewish settlements in Judea and
Samaria, not one has been the target of bands of hostile neighboring
Arabs, unlike the situation that was common in this country fifty
years ago. There are many reasons for this. First of all, they know
that the Israelis living in the settlements all have guns. They do
not attack Jewish settlements because they are not so extreme as to
lose their heads. They know it would be suicide. They believe the
Jews in the settlements are strong and that every settlement is like a
fort, where everyone walks around armed and the place is actively
guarded, and that everyone there is just waiting for the chance to
shoot an Arab.
A second reason is that in Judea and Samaria they do not feel as
hopeless and desperate as they do in Gaza. In Gaza they are much
worse off, both economically and morale-wise, and have greater hatred
for the Jews because of their poverty. The satisfied ones are less
dangerous; it is the hungry ones who are more dangerous. The Arabs in
Judea and Samaria still live well. Life is good for them. Even with
the intifada, the Arabs living in Judea and Samaria know that compared
to other Arab countries they have a higher level of freedom and
prosperity than any Arab state could give them. So it is in their
basic interest not to inflame matters.
Those who do participate in more serious activities, such as
scattering nails on the roads, are the more extreme groups who care
more, but most do not. Most close up their houses at 8:30 or 9:00
p.m., with the coming of darkness, watch a bit of TV, and go to sleep.
They do not go out and very few individuals venture outside.
*Who is Winning?*
These days there is a marked decline in violent acts and the
continuation of this trend depends largely on us. We must show them
who the ruling authority is here, but must also deal with them as
human beings; to work very hard with the carrot and stick approach. On
one hand, we show them that we want to help them. On the other hand,
they have to pay their taxes, drive with valid licenses, and everyone
who does not will not be jailed but will face a stiff fine.
The main reason that the intifada will decline is that the Arabs
in Judea and Samaria still need to work for the Jews. The major
economic fact of life among rural Palestinians is that almost every
family sends out two or three workers to work at Israeli construction
sites, factories or hotels. The reason that we had nineteen years of
quiet was because their economic situation had improved every year.
This was despite the fact that we ran a bad civil administration
from 1975 on into the 1980s that dealt with the Arabs quite poorly.
Beneath the top level of officers, the civil administration was
staffed by people without any abilities other than the fact that they
spoke Arabic, Jews and Arabs, especially Christian Arabs, who acted
towards the local population exactly like the Turks had done.
Sometimes, they defrauded the locals without anyone intervening to
stop it. One of the main reasons behind the outbreak of the intifada
was the bad relationship between the civil administration and the
local population.
There was an initial period that lasted nearly a year when it
seemed that the Army was operating with its hands tied and that the
Arabs were not afraid of the Army, but the next year, since they began
using plastic bullets and improved rubber bullets, the Army began to
learn from its experience. At one time they depended upon reserve
units that had no idea how to function against a civilian uprising,
but after they acquired experience, together with the greater use of
regular units, the Arabs are again afraid of the Army. They also
respect the Army as an army that will not act unfairly toward them and
will not bother those who do not cause trouble. The Arabs know the
situation well. They know everything that is happening in the area
better than we do. They know exactly what every Army unit is like. So
if there are fewer incidents in an area, it has a lot to do with the
type of unit that is there and how it acts.
In reality, Arabs are not so very different from Jews. What may be
different is that Arabs tend to get excited more quickly and then give
up more quickly, but generally their thinking or analysis of the
situation is not different from ours. They see more or less through
the same lenses that we use. They follow our internal politics very
closely. What we say, they hear, through radio and television and
everything else. They have been with us for over twenty years and
hear the same things we do.
Again, contrary to popular wisdom, they no longer think they are
going to win a Palestinian state. Yet they will continue with the
intifada to get a better deal in the end. What keeps them going today
is mainly the Americans and support from various other countries and
international organizations. There are a few families who make a
living from the intifada. A lot of money is still coming in to fuel
the intifada. It is not coming from Jordan, that way has been sealed,
but a lot is coming through overseas organizations, tourists, even
Jews. But only a few families benefit from this. It does not reach
everyone.
Overall, they realize that they have serious leadership problems.
They see that with all that they have done in these years of intifada,
the pressure on them has not weakened but rather has strengthened.
And as the Army gets more experienced it learns how to increase the
pressure. Today the intifada activists can no longer incite crowds to
take to the streets. Only a few are active. In addition, the whole
business of Jewish immigration from Russia is greatly depressing them.
Today, peace for most of the adult Arabs living in the Judean and
Samarian countryside does not mean a Palestinian state. Peace means
something like what the Likud was offering but not more than that.
Many now do not want a state. Talk with the more serious adults and
they will tell you that at best such a state would be a second
Lebanon, but not more than that. They know that other Arab states
would try to control them and that the private individual would
suffer.
--_Survey of Arab Affairs_No. 21 (1 August 1990), Jerusalem Center
for Public Affairs
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HEBRON: A CITY WITH NO POLICE
[Editor's Note: This perspective on daily life in traditional
Moslem Arab Hebron was written during a stint of army reserve duty.]
There are 80,000 Moslem Arabs living in Hebron, with another
40,000 in the greater Hebron area - 120,000 souls who live in a place
where there are no police. Imagine how you would feel if any of the
following incidents happened in your neighborhood in Israel or North
America?
A worried-looking, middle-aged man comes up to the guardhouse with
his teenage son. He shows us a note and an M-16 bullet that he found
on his door that morning. The note says the boy has one week to stop
"collaborating with the authorities" or the next bullet is for him.
He reports his story to the police, but what can they do? About 80
percent of the Arab policemen in Judea and Samaria resigned at the
start of the intifada. There is a skeleton staff of Arab and Jewish
policemen at every station.
A youth of about 18 comes by on Shabbat wanting to see the police.
He had been carrying an identity card from the authorities to get past
Israeli checkpoints and had lost it. Now he was afraid to go home for
fear that the wrong people would find it and kill him. An Arab
policeman told him to go home and come back the next morning.
A middle-aged couple in traditional Arab dress walk up to the
guardpost and ask for help because their 16-year-old daughter has been
kidnapped. An Arab policeman told them to go home. It was later
explained to me that this was a traditional way of courtship in their
culture.
An army patrol brought into the police station a man they found
along the road next to El Arub, a long-settled refugee camp about 10
minutes north, at 2 a.m. An Arab policeman heard his story, concluded
he was drugged like another brought in the previous night, and
literally threw him out of the compound into the street. After a
while he came back up to the guardhouse and, seemingly in great
distress, explained in Hebrew that he came to headquarters to see the
person in charge because he wanted a gun to kill himself. His eldest
son had just been killed that night by an Arab motorist in El Arub.
He worked with Jews and thought they would help him so he came here to
the authorities in Hebron. We called the night duty officer, who woke
up the night duty Jewish police officer, who came out to the
guardhouse and heard the man's story. He took him inside and called
his family to come get him, which they did within the hour.
A veteran Arab policeman comes by the guardhouse. We ask him if he
isn't afraid to work for Israel Police. He tells us that the only
Arab policeman ever killed in Hebron during the intifada was not for
political reasons but for sexual transgressions. He also tells us
that he has witnessed brutal violence in his village from a very early
age, including the murder of an innocent young girl by her grandfather
for an alleged social crime. As a result of another misunderstanding
over family honor, he tells us that during a period in the 1980s more
than 30 people were killed by their fellow-villagers in Dura, south of
Hebron. The threat of the intifada is not much different from what he
has always known, and he is careful about women.
Nearly every night someone comes into the police station to report
that a large rock was thrown at their vehicle suddenly from ambush,
cracking but not shattering the mandatory reinforced windshields.
Sometimes these people are truckdrivers; sometimes they are Jewish
mothers with young children who have lived through a nightmare of
ambushes, burning barricades, bricks and firebombs for nearly four
years. Now there is a reported increase in sniper gunfire incidents
against both Jewish civilians and Israeli soldiers. The police take
the report so that the complainants can replace their window glass,
but they can do nothing to stop it.
Imagine hearing the sound of gunfire nearly every night in your
town. I heard it just as often before the intifada when I was
stationed here in 1986. This is just a slice of the day-to-day life
at the junction of the Arab population of greater Hebron and the
Israeli authorities.
The local Arab population's reacceptance of an Israeli-supervised
Arab police force will be a sign of their reacceptance of an authority
other than their incited youth in order to deal with the anarchic,
out-of-control elements in their society. As long as they continue to
accept a daily world with no police, by the refusal of the local
political consensus to let the Arab police return to work as has been
proposed, they will pay the price in continued hardship for many of
their own people.
-- M.A., _Survey of Arab Affairs_, No. 25, 15 August 1991,
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
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WHY CHRISTIANS ARE LEAVING BETHLEHEM
Discussing the continuing emigration of Arab Christians from the
Holy Land as the result of Moslem exclusivism, Father Georges
Abou-Khazen, a parish priest in Bethlehem, has written: "In the Moslem
world there cannot be, in the near future, a pluralistic or democratic
society" (_Terra Santa_, Nov-Dec 1992, an Italian-language magazine
published by the Franciscan order; as reported in _Jerusalem Post_, 27
Nov 92).
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WOMEN IN THE INTIFADA
Amikam Nachmani
What is the situation of Palestinian women within the intifada
today? Before the intifada, Palestinian women in Gaza, for instance,
had the option of wearing Western clothes. Since the intifada they
have had to cover their body and sometimes even their face. With the
rise of Muslim influence, there is constant pressure on Palestinian
women to behave in an austere and modest manner, or as if they are in
mourning.
The intifada no longer involves mass activities that include
women, but rather acts of smaller armed groups who hit Israeli and
Palestinian targets, so Palestinian women have suffered from the
change. They have been sent back home to serve as the "womb of the
nation," to give birth to many more children and replenish the
casualties of the intifada. The moment Israeli forces began to detain
Palestinian women for acts of violence, this was the end of their mass
participation in the intifada because it meant breaking a taboo that
Pales- tinian society was not ready to accept. To a Palestinian, a
wife or daughter taken into custody by Israeli policemen acquires an
immoral stain for life.
The depressed economic situation has also affected life for
Palestinian women. Families are more eager to marry off their
daughters because it means one less mouth to feed. This has lowered
the age of marriage to the point where it is no longer rare to see
girls of 12 and 13 getting married for economic reasons. In such a
situation the traditional payment the bridegroom pays to the girl's
father has declined. However, while this means it is cheaper for a
Palestinian man to get married, this has led to a sharp rise in
divorce (up to 20 percent in some places) within Palestinian society.
It apparently becomes easier for a man to divorce a woman whom he did
not pay so much for in the first place. It is also easier for him to
acquire a second or third wife. Though it is extremely difficult to
verify, it appears that acute economic pressures have had even more
tragic consequences for a number of women who turned to prostitution
for economic reasons and were then murdered by the intifada activists
for "immorality."
As we see, there has been no social liberation for Palestinian
women, as a few had declared at the beginning of the intifada, but
rather a general deterioration in their status with increasing
subjugation to the moral dictates of religious fundamentalism, severe
economic poverty, and even the threat of murder. Sacrificing
everything to the national cause meant that the deprived sectors in
Palestinian society were pushed back socially even farther than where
they had been in December 1987 when the intifada started. In this
sense, women were no exception.
-- Excerpted from "How Fares the Intifada?: Assessing the New
Mood," Survey of Arab Affairs, 30 (15 November 1992).
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A NATIONAL DAY OF HATE: PALESTINE INDEPENDENCE DAY
In early November our Arab neighbors celebrate one of their
national Days of Hate, known in the media as Palestine Independence
Day. Perhaps elsewhere they have fireworks and parties, but in the
part of Israel I live in, the main entertainment on that day seems to
be finding a car with Jews in it to stone. On the fourth anniversary
of the PLO's proclamation of an independent Palestine, David Silver
was driving to his home in Tekoa from nearby Efrat when scores of Arab
youth were released from school to act on what they had been taught.
He barely escaped through the gauntlet of flying stones that smashed
his car.
Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been going on
for over a year, but the Arab hatred remains unchanged. Four years
ago at the very same spot, my wife and I and our then-infant daughter
were returning home in the morning from a visit to the dentist when we
were suddenly confronted with a rock-throwing mob from the same
school. It seems they are still teaching the same hatred for Jews
four years later. -- M.A.
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"In general, the Jewish population has acted with great restraint
in the face of hardship and attacks." - Interview with Tat Aluf Moshe
Yaalon, Commander of the IDF in Judea and Samaria, _Maariv_ (30 Oct
92)
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END THE TERROR AGAINST THE JEWS
Rafael Eitan
[Rafael Eitan is a member of the Israeli Knesset (Tsomet), former
Chief of Staff of the IDF, and former Minister of Agriculture.
Excerpted from _Maariv_ 23 Oct 92.)
Terror has existed and will continue to exist in Eretz Israel in
different forms and with different names, but with one goal -- the
destruction of the Zionist enterprise.
If we take the time to understand the roots and the causes of this
terror, we may then be able to reach a number of conclusions and
recommendations:
1) Negotiations should not be held under the threat of continued
violent acts. If the Arab negotiators say they have no authority over
the Arab public, how will this be any different under autonomy?
2) Renew Jewish settlement everywhere, especially in places prone to
disturbances.
3) Immediate deportation of inciters.
4) Exact heavy economic pressure on places where acts of nationalist
violence have occurred.
5) Blow up houses of those guilty of acts of terror or assisting in
them. Close institutions whose premises are used to direct propaganda
and terror campaigns. Those completing jail terms for terrorist
activity should be released only if they agree to leave for an Arab
country.
6) Damages caused by hostile actions will be compensated in their
entirety through fines levied on the place where the damage was
caused. Reunification of families is allowed but only outside of
Israel.
7) One who attacks a soldier endangers his own life. Citizens have to
know that they are authorized to protect themselves and use their
weapons if attacked. Arab traffic will be banned from roads where
attacks occur.
All of these recommendations are only examples of the steps we can
take in this struggle. Our humbling ourselves before the enemy, our
granting concessions without anything in return, are bringing us more
terror. The test for those Arabs selling peace must be -- stop the
terror. If not -- no talks and no negotiations.
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PALESTINIAN PSYCHOLOGY: BELIEVING A DIFFERENT REALITY
Irwin Cotler
This past spring I attended a seminar in Israel that was part of a
Conference on "Children in the Shadow of the Gulf War," focusing on
the impact of the war on Israeli and Palestinian children. Both
Israeli and Palestinian psychologists gave presentations. The
Palestinian psychologists said that during the curfew, and in the
midst of the Gulf War, there were rumors that were genuinely believed
amongst the residents of the territories to the effect that the
Israelis had built mass graves for the Palestinians, that there were
concentration camps which had been built, and that there were massive
bus transfers across the border. They related that Palestinian
children were even describing their experiences in these Israeli
concentration camps, having been saved from these mass graves.
Afterwards I raised with the Palestinian interlocutors my concerns
-- or that of any human rights lawyer -- investigating allegations of
human rights violations in the territories. I mentioned to them that
if they themselves acknowledged that these were not only rumors that
were genuinely believed, but children were recalling their experiences
as if they had in fact been in the camps, how was one to know what to
believe when allegations were made of torture of children or women
during the course of the intifada? Could that not also be part of the
creative imagination? No reply was given.
[Note: Irwin Cotler is a constitutional lawyer who has worked
actively for decades on behalf of the human rights movement.]
-- _Survey of Arab Affairs_, No. 25, 15 August 1991, Jerusalem
Center for Public Affairs
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WHO HAS THE TERRITORIES?
Land area in 000 sq. mi. Land area
------------------------ ---------
Algeria 918 Saudi Arabia 830
Egypt 365 Sudan 966
Iran 636 Syria 71
Iraq 168 United Arab Emirates 32
Jordan 37 Yemen 207
Kuwait 6 -----
Lebanon 4 Total 5,034
Libya 679 Israel - (incl. Judea,
Oman 115 Samaria and Gaza) 17
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WAITING FOR ANOTHER MISSILE ATTACK
Obscenity is some Arab madman shooting missiles at you and your
kids, and all you can do is duck. Four million Jews lived through six
weeks of Scud missile attacks during the Gulf War of 1991.
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THE UNIQUE LAND OF ISRAEL
Eretz Israel [the Land of Israel] is not something apart from the
soul of the Jewish people; it is no mere national possession, serving
as a means of unifying our people and buttressing its material, or
even its spiritual survival. Eretz Israel is part of the very essence
of our nationhood; it is bound organically to its very life and inner
being. Human reason, even at its most sublime, cannot begin to
understand the unique holiness of Eretz Israel. -- Rabbi Abraham Isaac
Kook, _Lights_.
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Being a Zionist means, in short, that I now consciously and
strongly feel I am a Jew and am proud of it -- Hannah Senesh
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JUDEA Magazine is an academic-oriented bi-monthly electronic magazine
produced and transmitted from Judea, Israel. Its focus is the
rebuilding of Jewish communities and Jewish life in Judea. Internet:
amiel2@crosswinds.net Mail: Judea Magazine, Yael and Mark Ami-El, Editors,
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JUDEA Magazine is offered without charge on the Internet. All
material may be reprinted with attribution to JUDEA Magazine and
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