ISRAEL TOWARD MORE BRUTAL REPRESSION by MICHEL WARSHAWSKY One of the most Important elements on which the Israeli government had based its policy in the territories occupied since 1967 was the apparent passivity of the inhabitants of this territory, especially the Palestinians of the West Bank. The weakness of mass struggles in the West Bank between 1969 and 1974 and in the Gaza Strip after 1971 enabled the Zionist regime to make big speeches about the "liberal" character of its occupation and the alleged acceptance of that occupation by the Palestinians. At first glance, it often could have seemed that the population in the occupied territories did not support the resistance movement and that this movement could neither speak nor act in their name. It must be noted, in the first place, that the low level of struggles in the West Bank was not at all the result of any allegedly liberal occupation, but on the contrary
Far-right Zionist demonstration in occupied West Bank.
of the effective repression imposed immediately after the occupation began in June 1967 and above all of the demoralization brought on by the defeat of the Arab regimes in the 1967 war. It was precisely the later political successes of these Arab states against the Zionist state that were to induce a deep change within the occupied Palestinian population. These successes were to enable the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to make some not negligible diplomatic breakthroughs, which in turn served to catalyze new mobilizations in the territories occupied since 1967. Thus, it is no accident that each wave of mass mobilization in the West Bank during the past two years has been linked to the PLO's diplomatic offensive (Arafat at the United Nations, Security Council discussion on Palestine, etc.). Failure of Israeli policy The racist sentiment of superiority that has characterized the whole of Ismeli policy since June 1967 was also felt in the manner in which the Zionist authorities dealt with the occupation. It was considered "normal" that the Arabs should passively submit to Israeli domination; it was "natural" that sooner or later they would accept the occupation. It was for this reason that the occupation forces were not at all prepared to confront the uprising in the West Bank, just as the Zionist army was not prepared to confront the Arab military offensives when the October War broke out three years ago. This is what explains the Israeli failures in the occupied territories, both politically (the latest municipal elections, for example and from the standpoint of pure repression. It is clear that Israeli policy has failed on all fields. The elections, which according to Prime Minister Robin and Minister of Defense Peres were supposed to permit an accelerated integration of the West Bank through the regime's project of "self-administration, " became transformed into a plebiscite against the Zionist occupation itself. Notorious collaborators like Sheikh Khalil did not even make any gestures to respond to the voters and
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ISRAEL in most of the large towns of the West Bank - Nablus, Hebron, Ramallah, el-Bireh - the slates of the National Front were elected. In reality, these slates were coalitions that more or less openly claimed allegiance to the PLO. It is obvious that after such electoral results the plan for self-administration has to be scrapped. But it has also turned out that the repressive measures have lost much of their effectiveness. The wave of strikes and demonstrations that mobilized the whole of the West Bank has now lasted for more than three months. Even the most optimistic forces had not expected this. The occupation forces spared no effort in trying to put an end to this mass movement: hundreds of preventive arrests, days and days of curfews, requisition of shops on strike, and, above all, unprecedented violence in dispersing demonstrators. In the space of two months, the occupation forces murdered twelve people. But neither the curfew nor the murders broke the combativity of the inhabitants of the West Bank. On the contrary, each new murder, each new repressive measure (for example, the transformation of the Casbah of Nablus into a ghetto closed by iron gates) provoked new demonstrafons more or less in solidarity with the resistance movement (as well as the systematic appearance of Palestinian flags and increasingly radical slogans). It is thus not surprising that in face of the failure of the present policy in the occupied territories, a debate has broken out among Israeli leading circles over what new repressive measures to take. For the most part, the various alternatives turn around techniques of repression, whether to use lead bullets or rubber ones, clubs or tear gas, systematic curfews or attempts to institute a so-called normalization in the cities of the West Bank. The argument of the "liberals" is typical: "Deadly bullets damage Israel's already tarnished image and are ineffective. " A whole liberal program. As against this "Zionist left, " the right demands an accentuation of repression, that blood flow whenever necessary. And the right adds a new element to its strategy, an element that was rarely expressed openly until recently: massive expulsion of the Palestinians, and in some cases, even a massive transfer of population beyond the borders of Palestine. For the moment the government has opted for attempts af normalization. It has withdrawn most of its military forces from Nablus and Ramallah and has dismantled the iron gates of the Casbah. The curfew has been suspended in exchange for the agreement of the municipal councils to try to put an end to the mobilization. But this retreat on the part of the occupation forces is seen by the population as a victory and will certainly entail new mobilizations, Limits of the mobilization As significant and militant as the latest mobilizations in the West Bank have been, their perspectives remain limited and are narrowly dependent on the development of the Palestinian resistance outside the borders of the Zionist state. The lack of independent perspectives for the struggles of the Palestinian population under Zionist - occupation on the other side of the "green line" (the pre-1967 state borders) is the direct consequence of the specific forms taken by the Zionist colonization in Palestine: destruction of Palestinian society through the expulsion of the majority of the indigenous population and their dispersion throughout various Arab countries. Since 1967 the center of the Palestinian national liberation movement has been located in the refugee camps in which the various organizations of the resistance arose and in which most of the fighters have been recruited. It is these armed organizations of the resistance that have waged the struggle against the Israeli occupier, thus permitting the weakness of the struggle of the masses in the occupied territories to be ameliorated somewhat. But the resistance movement itself has been unable to develop independent perspectives, because of the specific conditions in which it has had to wage its struggle and, above all, because of its dependence on the various Arab regimes. The petty-bourgeois leadership of the resistance has chosen not to base Itself on the mobilizafion of the toiling masses of the Arab countries and not to link its struggle to that of the workers against the ir own bourgeoisie. On the contrary, this leadership has chosen political and financial support from the Arab regimes in exchange for the "noninterference" of the resistance in the internal affairs of the various Arab coun tries. The events of Black September in Jordan in 1970 and of the current civil war in Lebanon have clearly demonstrated that the policy of noninterference was not only erroneous but even absurd. The very existence of the resistance in the various Arab countries represented interference in the internal affairs of these states and a permanent threat to the existing regimes. In order to preserve its very existence the resistance was compelled to struggle against the bourgeois regimes, for whom the dismantling of the resistance, or at least a serious limitation on its freedom of action, was a necessity; the only altemative was to increasingly accept the Diktats of these regimes. Thus, in an apparently paradoxical fashion, the future of the mobilization of the Palestinian population in the West Bank is being played out in Lebanon; that future is tied to the outcome of the civil war in Lebanon. Inasmuch as everything suggests that the majority of the
DANON Present Israeli Settlements in Occupied Areas Halla d SYRIA Macifereshean Tel Aviv Amman Jerus GamE Ralah JORDAN El ISRAEL PLO leadership will opt for a new compromise with the bourgeois Arab states (new rapprochement with Egypt, discussions between Arafat and Assad), it seems that the outcome of the recent mobilizations will be found in .. Geneva. But the resistance will come to the negotiating table in Geneva weakened by the civil war in Lebanon and further weakened by the accords that will finally end that war. The PLO will probably attend under the auspices of one or several of the Arab regimes and will probably find itself facing the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank under conditions much worse than those the revolutionary Marxists and the Palestinian organizations of the Rejection Front predicted nearly three years ago. The Israeli "peace plan" Although the integration of the PLO into the American peace plan does not seem to pose too many problems, the same is not true of the integration of the Zionist state, The Israeli regime continues to refuse to consider withdrawal from the West Bank or negotiations with the PLO. Nevertheless, as all observers have noted, new American pressure will be exerted on the leaders of the Jewish state after the American presidential elections. The probability of a new U.S. diplomatic offensive, the confrontation with a mass civilian resistance in the occupied territories, and the divisions provoked by the wildcat "unauthorized" colonizations organized in the West Bank by the Zionist far right have combined to permit a certain clarification of the Zionist government's plans for the West Bank. The overall project provides the framework of the "compromise" the Zionist leaders are prepared to accept in regard to the future of the West Bank. This Israeli "peace plan" is in fact not new. In effect it amounts to the old Allon Plan, bitterly debated more than six years ago. The Allon Plan was never officially adopted by the govemment, but the map of the Zionist colonies established in the West Bank since
1967 is clearer than any official communiqué. There is a line of colonies along the Jordan River, a cluster of colonies in the areas around Jerusalem, Ramallah, and Bethlehem, and a corridor of new colonies that is to link Jerusalem to the pre-1967 Israeli territories in the Jordan Valley. What will be the results of such a plan for the Zionist leaders? The complete occupation of Palestine with the exception of two Arab enclaves, one in Judea, the other in Samaria, themselves linked to Jordan through the Jericho corridor. What is involved here is clearly a project for the South Africanization of Palestine, with the creation of a state (an "Arabistan") enjoying a strictly relative aufonomy, politically dependent on both Jordan and the Zionist state. Such is the plan for a "Palestinian state" that the Zionist leaders are prepared to accept. It is not in contradiction with the process of Zionist colonization; on the contrary, it is fully integrated into the process of this colonization. This plan also indicates what are the limits of the concessions the Jewish state is prepared to make in the context of a peace treaty. The only element that has not been taken into consideration is whether the Arab regimes and the Palestinian leadership will accept this plan or not. Inasmuch as all signs are that they will not, the Israeli "peace plan" loses Its reason for existence and the key to the present "peaceful solution" must once again be sought in Washington. For the Israeli gendarmes of imperialism in the Arab East, there has always been a contradiction between their own expansionist projects and the overall objectives of their imperialist patron. And in the final analysis, it is the pressure brought to bear by the latter that will determine the fate of the occupied West Bank. In the meantime, the Zionist bastion is hardening its attitude. In spite of certain temporary retreats, what must now be expected is a hardening of repression both in the occupied territories and within the pre-1967 borders. There will be not only an intensification of official repression, but also a strengthening of tendencies and groups of fascist ideology which will often assume certain repressive tasks that the goverment is not yet prepared to undertake. For the moment, the authorities have no interest in seeing a proliferation of partisan initiatives against the Arab population and the forces of the left, but it would be utopian to belleve that the policy of systematic murders by the repressive forces in the West Bank and in Galilee faces big dissent among the Israeli-Jewish population. It is thus that one must understand the violence of the latest demonstration of right-wing students at the University of Jerusalem, who for the first time used arms (brass knuckles and clubs) to disperse a demonstration of the Union of Arab Students against repression in the West Bank. When cold blooded murder goes on in Nablus and Ramallah, there is no longer any hesitation about killing elsewhere. And it will not be long before shots are fired at the University of Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. Such is the criminal logic of colonial repression and such is the road down which the Zionist state is heading today.
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