What Leaders of the Intifada Say Behind Closed Doors

By Frank Collins

I have spent most of my time during the past six years in occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip getting acquainted with the Palestinian people, their thoughts and their activities. When I first arrived, I was struck by their weariness with the occupation, and by their apathy. The intifada has changed all that.

During the past several weeks, I have talked with many young Palestinians, including ex-prisoners and the "wanted," and representatives of the several PLO factions in the local leadership of the intifada. The meetings took place mainly in private homes, often with my hosts on the lookout for soldiers patrolling the area.

These interviews revealed a remarkable consensus among the PLO factions as to the direction of the intifada and its problems. While the discussants tended to magnify differences of opinion among the PLO factions, in fact the variationsregarding strategy and tactics among those with whom I talked were small. Thus I feel justified in combining their answers to my questions, using the collective "we," rather than attempting to report each dialogue separately.

Goals of the Intifada

We want peace and recognition of the state of Palestine in the occupied territories. Everything that the Israelis do to us makes us believe that the Israelis do not want peace, but war and our expulsion from our homeland.

Shamir's Election Proposal

From the very first, we believed that Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's elections proposal was only a game to win time to put down the intifada by military means. What has happened in the last year shows that we were right. The quick attempt of the United States to sponsor a "peace process" based on Shamir's ploy shows that some Americans wanted the same thing.

What Israelis Want

The fall of the Shamir government and the subsequent political maneuvers are of little interest to us. We believe that Shimon Peres wants the same things as Shamir, but is more hypocritical about it. Whatever Israeli government is formed, it will be against us and against a free Palestine. The real Israeli plan is the transfer of as many Palestinians as possible out of Palestine, maybe not now but over the years. They want to make life so miserable for us that we will leave voluntarily. Some of us are afraid that Shamir wants to kill many more of us to stop the intifada. Most of us think that if he does it will set the whole world against him.

The Intifada Leaders and the PLO

Except for the small minority who support Hamas (the Muslim fundamentalist party), the support of the PLO among the rest of us is very nearly 100 percent. Outside of some details, the various factions in the PLO are in essential agreement about the tactics of the intifada. There is working unity between the PLO factions outside and those inside, and a thousand channels of communication between them. Intifada actions are jointly planned by the inside and outside factions, and agreed upon by the PLO as a whole.

What Hamas Wants

Hamas generally supports actions of the intifada, although its final goals are very different. Hamas wants the whole of Palestine, while the PLO is prepared to settle for Palestine in the occupied territories. Some of the Hamas actions divide the Palestinian people.

PLO Concession to Israel

We believe that the PLO has conceded to the Israelis everything that is needed for negotiations to begin with PLO acceptance of UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 together with giving up armed struggle. The PLO has received nothing in return from Israel. We are opposed to making more concessions as we believe that they will gain us nothing. Some of us want to go back to the original 1947 UN resolution for the partition of Palestine, with its more equitable division of land between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

The Intifada Will Continue As Long As Necessary

The intifada will continue until the Israelis end the occupation, even though it may take years. We are not tired and our morale is good. Our suffering will not be in vain, and in the end we will win as in Algeria. Our patriotic struggle is of many kinds, only partly stones and Molotov cocktails. We believe that it is gaining the sympathy of people everywhere.

Unarmed Resistance vs. Armed Struggle

We believe that the present methods of struggle in the intifada are working, but we need further development of the intifada in all areas. Armed struggle did not work in the 20 years that we tried it. If it seems to our advantage, we may go back to armed struggle, but only with the complete agreement of the PLO, inside and outside.

Organization of the Intifada

The strength of the intifada is that it is a democratic struggle in which everyone participates and it is organized by representative committees in every village and camp. The committee memberships are nominated by each of the several factions in the PLO, with additional independent individuals selected because of their special abilities. This is also the structure of the national PLO.

The Problem of Collaborators

Those who collaborate with the Israelis are a very big problem. They help the Israelis by terror tactics, and they inform on political activists to the Israeli occupation forces. Nearly all of those who collaborate do so because of drugs, which make good people bad. We are making a big effort through Palestinian drug abuse centers to rehabilitate the people whocollaborate because of drugs. The use of drugs in Palestine has dropped by more than 90 percent. But what are we to do with the big collaborators who push drugs furnished by the Israelis? Killing is a last resort. It is a decision by the village committees, and not an individual action.

The Israelis have enlisted drugs as a weapon of the occupation.

These responses, of course, do not cover everything that these young Palestinians talked about, only the highlights. Some of the answers also merit additional discussion.

Above all is the sincerity of the acceptance of the two-state solution by the intifada leaders. Several of the young Palestinians made statements along these lines: "Of course, I would like all of Palestine, which the Israelis took away. My grandparents were expelled from inside the Green Line. Many Israelis would like to take the whole of Palestine. But neither is possible. The only solution I can hope for is to live in peace in the new state of Palestine, and perhaps some day see a confederation of Israel and Palestine."

The Influx of Soviet Jews

All of these young Palestinians are bitter about the immigration of Soviet Jews, while Israel does not allow Palestinians who are outside to return to their homes within Israel, or even to return to the occupied territories. The Palestinians say that the clear intention of the Israelis is to settle the Soviet Jews in the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, just as Shamir said. They say that the immigration of the Russians should be delayed until the Palestinians have the right of return. One of the Palestinians with whom I talked said that there were ecological population limits, among them the growing shortage of water. He fears that Russian immigration means that the Palestinians will simply be pushed out.

A Broad Based Movement

Not one of the Palestinians with whom I talked wanted a resumption of armed struggle, not even members of the Popular Front. The reason is clear. The armed struggle was carried out by a tiny minority. By contrast, virtually the whole population is participating in the largely nonviolent intifada. The struggle of a few radicals has been converted to a broadly based people's movement.

Loyalty to the PLO

There was unanimous and enthusiastic support of the PLO among all those with whom I talked. The theory that there is a non-PLO constituency that can be split off and negotiated with is downright silly. However, this is the notion behind the proposition that elections must be held in the occupied territories before negotiations can begin.

The killing of collaborators is deeply troubling to every Palestinian with whom I have ever spoken. Israeli occupation is possible only with a network of Palestinian collaborators. They are not only informers, but many also commit violence against their fellow Palestinians. As traitors to their people, they are more hated than the Israeli soldiers. In recent years, the Israelis have enlisted drugs as a weapon of the occupation. Drug addicts are particularly vulnerable to coercion by the Israelis. While intifada leaders have been largely successful in reducing the use of drugs, there remains the question of what to do about the drug pushers. Under the condition of the occupation, the Palestinians have found only one answer.

Frank Collins is an American free-lance journalist who divides his time between Jerusalem and Washington, DC. He has a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Columbia University.