West Bank Settlers' Riot Marks End of “Greater Israel”

By Stephen J. Sosebee

Since the Israeli Labor government of Yitzhak Rabin signed the Declaration of Principles with the Palestine Liberation Organization last September, the settler movement in Israel has waited for an explosive issue that could bring the accord's opponents into the streets. President Yasser Arafat's July 1 return did just that. For the first time since the DOP was signed, Jerusalem was hit by the kind of violent demonstrations that can undermine the strongest of peace accords.

By the time Arafat departed for Paris five days later, Israeli extremists had killed one Arab, injured four policemen and caused untold damage to property. Furthermore, tensions between Arabs and Jews, police and settlers, Labor and Likud, and the right and left in Israel had risen to a bitter pitch. For the Israeli right, the issue is now no less than a struggle between the two Zionist schools of thought. Their Revisionist dream of Eretz (Greater) Israel is being undermined by their own government.

The night before Arafat crossed into Gaza at Rafah, Iyad Abu Sneineh, a 31-year-old Palestinian from the Jerusalem village of Silwan, was murdered as he sat in his car at a gas station near an Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem. The settler underground that calls itself "The Sword of David" took responsibility for his killing in a call to Israel Radio. The Sword is linked to the outlawed Kach party and has claimed responsibility for several other acts of political murder since the agreement was signed. They include the massacre of three Arab brothers as they drove to work near Hebron last December. Some suspect Dr. Baruch Goldstein, who killed at least 29 Muslim men and boys at prayer in Hebron's Ibrahimi mosque last February, was part of this terror group, though the police, who have yet to arrest any Sword terrorists, deny it.

On the day Arafat addressed a welcoming crowd of 80,000 in Gaza City, settlers around Jerusalem blocked the main roads with burning tires, stoned Arab cars and clashed with police and soldiers who tried to remove them. "This is just the start of the Jewish intifada against the Rabin government," vowed Benny Rosen of the Efrat settlement south of Bethlehem.

On July 2, a demonstration against both Arafat and the Rabin government was organized in West Jerusalem by Likud Mayor Ehud Olmert. Nearly 100,000 settlers, religious Jews and Israeli youths burned pictures of Arafat and called for his death. Led by Yitzhak Shamir and Benyamin (Bibi) Netanyahu of the Likud party, the unruly crowd was worked into a frenzy until hundreds rampaged through East Jerusalem and clashed with police at the Damascus Gate.

At 3 a.m. the next day, a 24-hour Arab bakery was attacked and looted and an Arab driver injured by stone-throwing youths on the main road. "My best customers are Jews," said the distraught bakery owner to a curious crowd the next morning. "We treat everyone who comes here the same."

A Mob at the Gate

To prevent the mob from entering the Muslim Quarter of the Old City, police closed the huge iron doors at Damascus Gate. Outside Jerusalem's walls, rioters chanted "death to Arabs" as Muslim and Christian Palestinians hid behind locked doors. "I thought they would come into the house and kill my family," said Sabreen Najjar, the mother of five small children. "Didn't the Nazis do this to them?" Police used little force to control or remove the rioters and made only one arrest.

In West Jerusalem, the American consulate general was attacked and seven cars belonging to the U.S. government were damaged, including that of Consul General Edward Abington. He protested sharply to Jerusalem Mayor Olmert and the Israeli Foreign Ministry. "Olmert must take partial responsibility for the damage because he was among the organizers of the demonstration," Abington told an Israeli newspaper.

On July 4, a crowd gathered at a protesters' tent city outside the Knesset. Demonstrators banged pots and pans to disrupt a Rabin cabinet meeting and then fought with police, who arrived in force to remove them.

"You are Palestinian police, not Jewish police!" screamed Sandra Finklestein as officers tore down tents and pinned a religious demonstrator to the ground. "You should be ashamed to protect Arab terrorists and arrest Jews." Forty arrests were made, but most later were released by an Israeli judge who claimed the police used excessive force in dealing with the demonstrators, although no one was injured.

Even Yasser Arafat's visit to Jericho on July 5 was marred by settlers and their right-wing allies who closed West Bank roads leading to the tiny Palestinian oasis town in the Jordan Valley. Thousands of West Bank Palestinians who wanted to see their president were prevented from reaching Jericho by settlers who again burned tires, left sharp objects on the roads, threw stones and clashed with police.

As the Likud accused the Rabin government of near treason for allowing Arafat to return, the Labor party fought back. Prime Minister Rabin said Israeli rightists were working with Hamas against peace and the interests of the state of Israel. This led the next day to a heated debate in the Knesset in which Rabin stormed out during Netanyahu's speech condemning the government's policies. Motions of "no confidence" against the government were easily defeated, though it seemed clear that the protests were taking their toll on Rabin.

During the riots, which caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage to Arab and American property in Jerusalem, the double standard for crowd control by Israeli police and security forces was demonstrated. Not even tear gas was used to halt the rock-throwing Israelis as they damaged property and injured police. "If we used tear gas or rubber bullets there would have been many injuries, which we wanted to avoid," explained Jerusalem Police Chief Arye Amit. The Israeli government claims that all residents of the holy city are equal under its laws, but the contrasting methods used by police to deal with Arab and Israeli demonstrators indicates otherwise.

The passion that Arafat's visit stirred in the Israeli right was expected. Polls indicate that the Labor government enjoys majority support among Israelis, but the demonstrations proved the right-wing is still a significant and vocal minority capable of creating political and security problems in Jerusalem and the occupied territories.

Perhaps the depth of anger that many of the right-wing demonstrators display stems from the realization that the Labor-PLO agreement means their ideological dream of Eretz Israel is dead.

While the Labor government has finally recognized legitimate Palestinian political authority on the West Bank, the right-wing is left with unfulfilled religious-nationalist dreams of a Greater Israel stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, and including parts of Syria and Lebanon.

As the demonstrators proved, however, the extension of Palestinian sovereignty throughout the West Bank will not be peaceful. "If we have to spill blood to prevent the murdering PLO from coming here to take Jewish land, we will," said Yehud Rubinstein at the Jerusalem rally. "This is not a peace agreement but the beginning of the end of Israel." He was partially right. It may finally be the end of Eretz Israel, and the racist, bloody, illegal military occupation that came with it.

Stephen J. Sosebee, a free-lance writer, is a founder of the Palestine Children's Relief Fund.