Is Israel Losing the Intifada?

By Andrew Killgore

Israel's brutality against the Palestinians has cost it much of its good name in the US. Is it also losing the physical battle against the intifada in the West Bank and Gaza? Impressions during a four-day visit in March say yes.

In Bethlehem, the Israelis have erected a fine-mesh wire structure enveloping the police station. Those inside are safe from young stone throwers. Meanwhile, the Israeli troops are in a prison of their own making.

Only six soldiers were to be seen in Ramallah. A year earlier there were hundreds. Is Israel running out of manpower? Statistics show more Palestinians killed and maimed on a daily basis than a year ago. Yet a visitor sees the Palestinian inhabitants of Ramallah and Bethlehem opening and closing their shops as instructed by the central Palestinian command. Temporarily, at least, such West Bank towns have been "liberated" by their own inhabitants. To show they are still in charge, however, soldiers of the Israeli army or the even more brutal "Border Police" sally forth from time to time to kill and wound deliberately.

Makkased Hospital on the Mount of Olives is crammed with Palestinian victims of such Israeli forays. One teenager clings to life despite five bullets in his head and neck. Will he live? Yes. Can he ever go home? No.

Makkased records show 650 in-patients since the intifada began 15 months earlier, two-thirds of them injured by bullets. In the same period, the hospital treated 6,500 Palestinian out-patient victims of the uprising. Are any patients turned away? No, even if they end up in has or in bunk beds. Is there money enough to care for such a heavy patient load? There was not enough before the intifada. There is now. That says something about Palestinian resourcefulness.

There are two Gazas. One of misery, suffering and death. The other outwardly tranquil and pleasant. The Gaza of degradation is for the 700,000 Palestinians. The pleasant Gaza is for the 2,500 Jewish settlers. But the mind plays tricks in recalling elation in the eyes of Palestinian children making their defiant "V signs, and wariness in the eyes of Israelis "enjoying" their beach resorts. The physically pleasant Gaza becomes the hellish one in memory.

In 1989, as in 1988, the same lake of sewage stands near the huge Jabalya refugee camp Al-Ahli Hospital beds are still full of teenagers with bodies torn by outlawed "dum-dum" bullets masquerading as bullets of "plastic" and rubber."

Down through Gaza town there are dozens of small roadblocks, on main streets as well as alleys. Everywhere there are knots of young Palestinians, but an odd absence of Israeli soldiers and Border Police. Is Gaza liberated because Israel has run out of manpower?

Ansar II prison still broods silently behind its barbed wire south of Gaza town. A thousand nameless Gazans are imprisoned inside. Or are they inside? No Israeli will tell any Palestinian anything, anytime about missing relatives. Is he inside? Silence. Is he among the 4,000 to 5,000 at Ansar III in the Negev Desert? Silence. Is he alive? Silence. Is he dead? Silence.

South from Gaza town, in the Gaza of the Jewish settlers, there are lovely sand dunes, white beaches, and open spaces. Europeans working there call it the "Hollywood Gaza," reflecting the fantasy Israel wants US politicians and Zionist supporters of Israel to see. Brought to Gaza via the "transnational highway," constructed inland from the overcrowded misery of Gaza town and the refugee camps, such American visitors see idyllic scenes of bronzed Israelis at beach parties and cook-outs.

But a nagging reality intrudes. The expensive beach hotel, built with American Jewish guests in mind, lies empty Even here in "Hollywood Gaza" the well-fed occupiers have lost. The bloodied children of teeming "unseen Gaza" have won the hearts and minds of the world.

Andrew I. Killgore, a former US ambassador to Qatar, is publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.