the arabs under israeli occupation - 1975

THE

ARABS

UNDER ISRAELI

OCCUPATION

1975

Prepared by :

THE LEBANESE ASSOCIATION FOR

INFORMATION ON PALESTINE 127

,6 0 3 A83 1975

THE INSTITUTE FOR PALESTINE

STUDIES

PUBLISHED BY THE INSTITUTE FOR PALESTINE STUDIES

THE

ARABS

UNDER ISRAELI

OCCUPATION

1975

JiBRASt diversity slPstrate ORASRAK**^”01 ARABIA

THE INSTITUTE FOR PALESTINE STUDIES

The Institute for Palestine Studies is an independent non-profit Arab research organisation not affiliated to

any government, political party or group, devoted to a better understanding of the Palestine problem. Books in

the Institute series are published in the interest ofpublic information. They represent the free expression of their

authors and do not necessarily indicate the judgement or opinions of the Institute.

Copyright © 1977, by The Institute for Palestine Studies, Beirut

THE INSTITUTE FOR PALESTINE STUDIES

Anis Nsouli Street, Verdun, P.O. Box 11-7164 Beirut, Lebanon

TABLE OF CONTENTS 1975

SOURCES

INTRODUCTION to 1975 Edition

CHAPTER 1: Treatment of Prisoners and Torture

CHAPTER 2: Change of Status — De-Arabization

CHAPTER 3: Arrests and Intimidation

CHAPTER 4: Reprisals and Discrimination

CHAPTER 5: Protests

APPENDIX I: Prison Charges and Sentences

APPENDIX II: UN Resolutions on Palestine APPENDIX III: Reprints from the Journal of Palestine Studies

PHOTOGRAPHIC SUPPLEMENT

Sources

Direct quotations from newspapers and periodicals are indicated by the use of quotation

marks. In other cases, the information is a paraphrase of that which appeared in the

press.

Below is a list of newspapers used in the compilation of this collection, with the language in

which they appear, and their place and frequency of publication.

Al Hamishmar (Hebrew)

bulletin of the Institute for Palestine Studies (Arabic)

The Daily Telegraph (English)

Davar (Hebrew) The Financial Times (English)

The Guardian (English)

Haaret\ (Hebrew)

Hat^ofeh (Hebrew) International Herald Tribune (English)

Israel and Palestine (English)

al-Ittihad (Arabic)

The Jerusalem Post (English)

Maariv (Hebrew)

Le Monde (French)

Le Nouvel Observateur (French)

L’Orient-Le Jour (French)

Palestine en Lutte (French)

Time (English)

The Times (English)

Yediot Aharonot (Hebrew)

Tel Aviv daily

Beirut fortnightly

London daily

Tel Aviv daily

London daily

Manchester daily

Tel Aviv daily

Tel Aviv daily

Paris daily

Paris monthly

Haifa twice a week

Jerusalem daily

Tel Aviv daily

Paris daily

Paris weekly

Beirut daily

Brussels fortnightly

New York weekly

London daily

Tel Aviv daily

RESISTANCE ORGANIZATIONS MENTIONED:

Fateh: Palestine Liberation Movement

PDFLP: Popular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine

PFLP: Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine

PLO: Palestine Liberation Organization PNF: Palestine National Front

Introduction to 1975 Edition

The Arabs Under Israeli Occupation is an annual publication that deals with the

conditions which prevail in the Arab territories occupied by Israel in 1967 . It is not

a reference document so much as a day-to-day account of the more overt contra¬

ventions and oppressive measures practiced by the Israeli military occupation,

which are principally aimed at intimidating the Arab civilian population into

submission.

The expansionist character of the Zionist state is emphasized by detailing the

expropriation of Arab lands, the expulsion of the indigenous population and the

systematic de-Arabization of the area, practices which are an integral part of Israeli

policy in the occupied territories, as they have been in the Israeli state established in

pre-1948 Palestine.

The document is in the form of a folder with every chapter and appendix a self-

contained, yet complementary, pamphlet. Each chapter considers the violations by

the Israeli authorities of specific articles and terms of the Geneva Conventions and

of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, extracted from daily newspapers

and periodicals, and presented in chronological order. This format is expected to

facilitate the use of the document by providing evidence of the particular contra¬

ventions cited, thus presenting a total picture of occupation.

The Arabs Under Israeli Occupation is intended, through the citations provided, to

make the reader interested in studying the subject in greater depth and in a more

conclusive manner. Though the document hopes to serve as an introduction to

the plight of the Palestinians under occupation and to belie the Israeli contention

that theirs is a benign occupation, the ultimate objective is that the concept of

the Israeli occupation itself should be rendered entirely unacceptable to the

international community.

Chapter 1

Treatment of Prisoners and Torture

“No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment

or punishment.”

(Universal Declaration of Human Rights,

Article 5)

“Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. Any unlawful act or

omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously endangering the health

of a prisoner of war is prohibited and will be regarded as a serious breach of the

present Convention...

Likewise, prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of

violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity.”

(Geneva Convention relative to the

Treatment of Prisoners of War of

August 12, 1949, Article 13)

“No physical or mental torture nor any other form of coercion may be inflicted on

prisoners of war to secure from them any information of any kind whatever.

Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to

any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind...”


Treatment of Prisoners of War of

August 12, 1949, Article 17)

1975

Chapter 1

Some 27,000 Palestinians have passed through Israeli prisons since 1967. Of these,

hundreds have been kept in administrative detention for months or even years, without

being either charged or brought to trial. And hundreds of Palestinians have been

subjected to brutalities, particularly during interrogation, which extend to systematized

torture.

For some years, lawyers who defend Palestinian prisoners, as well as a number of

independent observers, have accused the Israeli state of systematically torturing interned

Palestinians. Their testimonies and appeals have gone unheeded and the Israelis have not

been brought to account by world opinion and the international guardians of human

rights. There is at last a small ray of hope for Palestinian prisoners, however, for as this

issue of the Arabs Under Israeli Occupation goes to press, a comprehensive and detailed

report on the torture of Arabs in Israeli prisons has just been published in the June 19,

1977 issue of the London Sunday Times.

With regard to the body of laws applied to the Palestinian people in both the 1948 and

the 1967 occupied territories, the regulations in force are those first elaborated and

applied by the British Mandatory authorities in Palestine, subsequently adopted by the

Israeli authorities, from the time of the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948 up to the

present.

In his book, Democratic Freedoms in Israel,* Sabri Jiryis outlines the origins of these

regulations—the Defence (Emergency) Regulations, 1945—and describes how they cover

every aspect of the daily life of the Palestinian people:

“These Emergency Regulations comprise some 200 pages and include dozens of

articles and sections. A rapid glance at them is enough to show that there is not a

single aspect of everyday life they do not cover. For example, they provide for the

imposition of censorship on letters, parcels and the press, and the restriction of

freedom of movement, opinion and political activity. They also authorize control

of means of communication, arrest, expulsion, confiscation of property, demolition

of houses, and banishment from the country. They also provide for the

establishment of military courts to try offenders against the regulations.”

Treatment of Prisoners and Torture

During the trial of Khalid Ashhab of East Jerusalem, the defence counsel, Felicia

Langer, told the court that his confession was made under duress and was therefore

invalid. She said that she had protested to the High Court of Justice that he had been

tortured during interrogation.

al-Ittihad, January 7, 1975

* Sabri Jiryis, Democratic Freedoms in Israel. Translated by Meric Dobson (Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1972, p. 28).

3

Archbishop Hilarion Capucci has renewed his hunger strike in protest against his

treatment in Kfar Youna prison. He has been isolated from other Arab prisoners and

kept in solitary confinement.


Defence lawyer Felicia Langer told the military court in Nablus that her clients, five

young men accused of belonging to the Palestine National Front, had been beaten and

tortured while in prison by secret service men.


Muhammad Za’reen has served five years of his twelve-year prison term in the Ramleh

prison. Throughout his internment, he has been suffering from a shrapnel wound in his

leg, but has received no medical treatment. The prison physician, whom he was finally

able to see, told him he must either walk on his leg or it would be amputated.


About 70 Arabs, mostly from the West Bank, are being held as administrative detainees,

said Meir Shagmar, Israel’s attorney-general. Most of them were arrested last April in a

round-up of suspected members of the Palestine National Front, a West Bank affiliate of

the Palestine Liberation Organization. Defence Minister, Shimon Peres, was challenged

by the new Communist Party when deciding to extend the periods of detention for a

further six months without reference to Parliament. Mr. Peres said the detainees were

being held to protect the lives of women and children and to ensure the welfare of Arabs

as well as Jews.

The Times, February 5, 1975

In Jerusalem, Maher Abdel Hamid al-Anani and Tewfiq Mahmoud Amir were recently

arrested for “security reasons.”

On January 26, the defence lawyer, Felicia Langer, was allowed to visit them. She found

that the defendant, Maher, was unable to move his jaw because of the beatings he had

received on his face. He also said that he had been placed in solitary confinement for two

weeks. The other prisoner, Tewfiq, said that he had been threatened with transfer to

Beersheba prison where he would be subjected to sexual assault.

al-Ittihad, February 7, 1975

About 20 of 60 West Bank Palestinians held in administrative detention by the Israeli

authorities have been on hunger strike for nine days and some are being forcibly fed on

medical advice.

The detainees are protesting against the recent extension of their confinement without

trial for another six months. Demonstrations by wives, mothers and sisters are being

held throughout the West Bank in support of the men.

After a sit-in outside the office of the International Committee of the Red Cross in

Jerusalem on March 4, a petition calling for Red Cross intervention on behalf of the

detainees was handed to an official.

A sister of one of the detainees said: “Some of our menfolk have been held in prison

without being charged with any offence since last April [1974] and now their detention

has been extended for six more months. We are demanding that they should be freed or

put on trial.”

4

The petition alleged that the situation of the detainees was deteriorating and asked the

Red Cross to take up the detainees’ case with the Israeli government. It claimed that the

Arabs were subjected to “very bad treatment” in prison

The Arabic newspaper al-Shaab (published in East Jerusalem), reported that the situation

in Nablus jail, one of the four where detainees are on hunger strike, was getting worse.

All prisoners stopped work on March 4 in sympathy with the hunger strikers, and in

protest against the prison governor’s refusal to receive a collective delegation of the

detainees who had intended to demand that they should either be put on trial, or released.

Prison guards at Nablus had confiscated prisoners’ clothing and stopped the issue of

cigarettes, al- Shaab claimed. The administrative detainees had been isolated from

others and put in the women’s wing. One prisoner was reported to be suffering from asthma.

Mr. Arieh Nir, the commissioner of prisons, has confirmed that the detainees on hunger

strike are under medical supervision and that when doctors advise it, they are force-fed.

This is understood to mean forcible feeding through the mouth. Most of the prisoners

are suspected of being members of the banned Palestine National Front.

The Times, March 5, 1975

OXFAM (Oxford Committee for Famine Relief) official, Derek Cooper, sent out a

cabled report on three young Palestinians, two of whom are supported by OXFAM, and

who have been imprisoned by the Israeli authorities. Mr. Cooper’s report gave the

following information:

Qasem Mansour Mohammad Kafi, 20years old, OXFAM sponsored. Is doing his last

year of training at Ramallah College. He was arrested on February 9, 1975, is now in

Tulkarm prison awaiting trial. Cannot afford legal defence, and is not allowed to have

books to continue his studies. I visited* him on March 22, and was not allowed to give

him sweets, cigarettes or money. His family is allowed to visit him once a month. He

has written five letters to his classmates, but no letters were received. Was unable to talk

much in front of the [Israeli] sergeant. He was charged with being a member of PLO—

which he denied. Was also charged with possessing powder suitable for explosives.

Omar Ibrahim Salman Tahoun, 18 years old, OXFAM sponsored-UNRWA Qalandia

student. Is now in Tulkarm prison awaiting trial, no specific charges. His family lives in

the Tulkarm refugee camp and he has no legal defence.

MohammadTysserIrsanTwair. Was picked up at the UNRWA school in Tulkarm. Is

very young and the eldest of a family of nine. Saw family in Tulkarm camp, very poor.

Mr. Cooper went on to say that if the two OXFAM students are to have legal defence, it

must be paid from outside. He added that the headmaster of the vocational training

college where Qasem boards had explained that the technique of the Israeli authorities

was to arrest boys, with or without reason, to hold them after securing a signature to a

confession of association with, or membership of, a group, obtained through the use of

various forms of maltreatment according to the sophistication of the boy, and then after

a few months or a year, to let them out. Subsequently, the boys are liable to be arrested

once more when they will be told that they will be held again unless they inform against

their comrades. Sometimes they are offered bribes. Each prison governor is a law unto

himself with absolute power.

Derek Cooper, Jerusalem, March 23, 1975

5

Dr. Ibrahim Abu Hilal, a dentist from Abu Diss in the Jerusalem area of the occupied

West Bank, has been tortured and beaten while in the fjtebron Central Prison. He has

also been forbidden visits by his family and relative^ who have protested to the

International Committee of the Red Cross. al-lttihady April 25, 1975

Following is a summarized account of a trial attended by Eric Rouleau, special

correspondent of Le Monde, and published in two articles he wrote after an investigation

he conducted in Israel and the occupied territories:

Muhammad Yassin, engineer, approximately 30 years of age, is on trial, accused of

“belonging to the military wing of the Jordanian Communist Party, called the Palestine

National Front, of attempting to recruit the Azizi brothers into the Front, and of

receiving training in the handling of firearms in the Soviet Union.” Yassin denied ever

having received military training.

The prosecution refuted his denial by referring to Yassin’s confession in which he had

admitted most of the charges.

“They extorted the so-called confession under torture”, Yassin replied, pointing to the

scars on his face, neck, and other parts of his body, which he attributed to cigarette

burns. His lawyer, Mrs. Felicia Langer, then told the court that her client “remained

two months in the hands of the Shin Beth [Israeli secret service] before being allowed to

make contact with a lawyer or with his parents.” She then described the torture to which

Yassin had been subjected for 20 consecutive days, giving dates and naming the

torturers. She went on to insist on a preliminary hearing, provided for under the British

law which is still in force in Israel.

The presiding judge refused this demand. His decision was without precedent,

Mrs. Langer insisted. In the many cases of torture in the occupied territories, ».iie judge

had never before forbidden the opening of inquiries. Members of the Shin Beth, some

identified as Yassin’s torturers, were present in the court, as was Yassin’s elderly mother,

who was seated not far from those accused of torturing her son.

Mrs. Langer tried for the last time to save her client: “You cannot condemn this man,”

she declared, “since the prosecution has produced no evidence other than the extorted

confession and suspect witnesses, probably police agents. In any case, you are not

accusing my client of any act of violence. He is a man involved in politics whose only

crime is resisting the occupation of his country.”

“Even if Yassin has not committed acts of violence”, replied the prosecuting lawyer,

“he is nevertheless very dangerous to Israel and harmful to his own community, whose

life is being disrupted; he should therefore be neutralized.”

The court pronounced its verdict: eight years in prison.

Yassin’s two companions, the Azizi brothers, aged 22 and 24 years, accused of not

denouncing Yassin to the authorities, although they had refused to join the ranks of the

Palestine Liberation Army, were sentenced to seven months each. The objective of these

sentences, explained the judge, is to “dissuade” the accused. Le Monde, May 21, 1975

A staunch defender of the Palestinian cause and a veteran member of the Communist

party, Israeli defence lawyer Mrs. Felicia Langer charges only token fees for her services

because, she said, most of her clients cannot afford more.

6

Miss Muzna Nikola, an Israeli Arab midwife, Mrs. Langer’s latest client, was arrested in

March when she returned to Israel from Britain to visit her parents. A preliminary

hearing is underway to determine the validity of Miss Nicola’s alleged confession to the

police. Mrs. Langer has charged in court that the statement was extracted under duress.

, International Herald Tribune, June 25, 1975

The following are excerpts from a letter to the Times from Mrs. Felicia Langer, the Israeli

defence lawyer:

“I have seen many times marks on my clients during all those years. Recently I have

seen such marks on the faces of Ayad Nemer (May 8), Khadijah Abu Arkoub, and on

the feet and bodies of Suleiman al-Najib and Khalid Hejazi (July 2). I have seen black

and broken nails on the feet of Atallah Rashmawi (July 4). I have complained to the

Minister of Police about all these cases, and I am awaiting an answer from him...

“I have complained to the Minister of Police about the maltreatment of Mr. Mohammad

Salman Atnan. I am enclosing herewith a copy of my complaint of June 11 (in Hebrew),

an answer from the Minister to me, and the medical report of Mr. Atnan. I have to stress

that Mr. Atnan was visited by a representative of the International Red Cross, who will

confirm it, and complained before him about the maltreatment... I am very sorry to state

that the maltreatments are continuing. The progressive Israeli public opinion is now

aware of it, and is protesting against it. Only by denouncing such acts can one contribute

to the cause of peace.” The Times, July 20, 1975

Twelve administrative detainees who have been on a hunger strike in Nablus prison for

three weeks were moved to Ramleh prison for on-going medical supervision. The men

are protesting the military government’s failure either to bring them to trial or release

them. During the strike, a military judge extended their period of detention.

Jerusalem Post, August 3, 1975

In a letter to al-Ittihad, Mrs. Jamila Darwish said that her son, Samir, interned in Ramleh

prison, was not allowed to see his lawyer, Walid Fahoum. She also complained that her

son was not allowed books and had been placed in solitary confinement.

al-Ittihad, September 2, 1975

In an interview with Palestine en lutte, three deported Palestinians spoke about their

treatment in Israeli prisons. The following are summarized extracts from the interview:

Husni Haddad, Khalil Hijazi and Hussein Kamel Abu Gharbiyeh, are all members of the

Palestine National Front, a member organization of the PLO, functioning in the

occupied territories. They met in Beirut with a member of the Comite National de

Belgique, a few days after their expulsion from their country by the Zionist authorities.

Since Khalil Hijazi and Hussein Abu Gharbiyeh speak Arabic only, Husni Haddad took

on the responsibility of giving all the information relating to the tortures to which all

had been subjected. \

Husni Haddad is an engineer from Bethlehem who constructed a small factory for

heating materials in the neighbouring village of Beit Jala, a locality that was partly

expropriated by the occupation authorities to establish a Nahal settlement. He is a

militant in the Jordanian Communist Party. Under the Zionist occupation, he was for¬

bidden to go to Amman. He was under constant surveillance by the Zionist secret

service until the day he was arrested and imprisoned on April 22, 1974, charged with

7

belonging to an “armed terrorist organization” [a reference to the PNF], and ordered to

confess. Determined to establish the legality of the PNF, Haddad maintained that he was

being illegally arrested, and refused to speak except in court, insisting upon being tried

immediately. His request was rejected and he was condemned to 3 months preventive

detention, then to a further two stretches of six months each for “completion of

inquiry”. While in preventive detention, he was transferred from the prison to which he

had first been taken to a secret military prison where he was subjected to various forms

of torture. This lasted 72 days, 32 of which were spent in the secret prison where his

hands were constantly tied and he was not allowed to wash. Whenever he was taken out

of his cell for interrogation, his head was covered with a thick hood. During these

32 days, his daily food ration consisted of a small piece of salami, two pieces of bread, and

a little water. His weight, according to his prison card, dropped by 10*4 kilos. The

following is his statement to the Comite National de Belgique:

“Like my friends, I was subjected to different kinds of torture. For example, I was

forced to advance on my knees on stony ground. My head was covered with a hood and

my hands tied behind my neck. The wounds in my knees were very painful. For two

consecutive days I had to walk bare-foot on these sharp stones. Lighted cigarettes were

placed under my feet. The wounds and burns were, of course, not treated. I was beaten

to the point of having several ribs broken...

“During the 72 days I spent in the military prison, no one visited me, not even the Red

Cross delegate. In this same "special’ prison, the Syrian prisoners taken during the

October War were detained and tortured. Some of them scribbled their names and dates

on the walls. This prison was "discovered’ by the lawyer Felicia Langer. This Israeli

lawyer, who is a staunch supporter of Palestinian prisoners, has started an international

campaign denouncing the use of torture in Zionist prisons*. Among the bodies she

contacted was the British parliament, and her campaign has succeeded in forcing the

Israeli authorities to close down that prison. Thanks to Mrs. Langer and her friends, my

torture, and that of some of my friends, ended. Mrs. Langer has been threatened by

Zionist terrorists; she is only worried about her son whom she has sent outside Israel to

complete his studies.”

Mr. Haddad then enumerated the various forms of torture practiced on Arab prisoners

in Israeli prisons.

Prisoners are suspended by their hands, the tip of their toes barely touching the ground,

with the body hanging painfully. In this position, the prisoners are beaten, especially on

the genitals. A prisoner suffering from hemorrhoids is beaten on the anal region...

Sensitive areas of the body, such as the breasts, are burned with a corrosive spray. These

"specialists’ take turns in torturing prisoners. They systematically beat the stomach

region, causing the prisoner to vomit blood. Another form of torture currently practiced

is the pulling out of nails. Certain cells measure 80 * 80 cms, others 55 * 55 cms., and

none are higher than 1.5m.

In the Hebron prison where Husni Haddad had been detained, he met Mustapha Abu

Sneneh, who was dealt two violent blows on the jaw during his interrogation, resulting

in three fractures. As he was allowed no medical attention, his jaw healed in such a way

that he was unable to eat properly or speak coherently.

* See interview with Felicia Langer, Palestine en Lutte, n° 14, January 1974.

8

Hussein Abu Gharbiyeh described another torture to which one of his friends, Adel al-

Burudi, was subjected in Ramallah prison. One end of a plastic hose was introduced into

his anus, while the other end was attached to a watertap; everything he had in his

digestive system came out of his mouth.

He told of other prisoners interned in Nablus: Mohammad Zareme, one of whose legs

became paralysed as a result of the tortures to which he was subjected, and who was left

without treatment; Rajah Abu Ghanem, 57, charged with belonging to the National

Front, who is in a very bad physical state, and has been left without treatment.

Hussein Abu Gharbiyeh, a merchant tailor from Jerusalem, then spoke about his own

case. He is a member of the PNF. He was arrested about a year ago and taken to Kfar

Youna prison in the occupied territories. He was neither charged nor tried, in spite of

his many protests. “This proves the illegality of the arrest of members of the PNF which

the Zionist authorities try to disguise. They try with all means to discourage Palestinians

from joining the Front and expel those who legally resist the occupation, contrary to the

Geneva Convention relative to the rights of people under occupation and in time of war

to resist.”

Last May 17, Husni Haddad and Khalil Hijazi, who works in a textile factory in Nablus,

as well as two other prisoners, Othman Abu Asi and Abed Aoudi al-Zurayi, were

suddenly told that they were to leave their respective prisons. Each was led blindfolded

to an unknown destination and then taken to Kfar Youna, where Hussein Abu

Gharbiyeh joined them. Still blindfolded, with their hands tied behind their backs, they

were transported at night by pick-up to the region of Nakoura (former frontier post

between Palestine and Lebanon). While their guards ate and rested, the prisoners

remained in the vehicle, at a loss to know what to expect. The next day, May 18, they

moved on until they reached a point where they were set free and told, “On the other

side of the barbed wire is the village of Rmeish— in Lebanon. Go!” Then an expulsion

order was read to them which they were told to sign. They protested against their

expulsion and refused to sign the order but were finally forced to move towards the

border and to cross it.

At the end of the interview, the Palestinian deportees thanked the Comite National de

Belgique for their support of the Palestine cause, and urged all solidarity organizations to

intervene on behalf of the Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons by denoucing the brutal

and illegal measures applied by the Zionist authorities against the Palestinian population,

in particular the expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland.

Palestine en lutte, No. 29, September 1975

In an interview with Anthony McDermott of The Guardian, Felicia Langer, the Israeli

lawyer, in Britain for the publication of her book. With My Own Eyes, spoke about her

book and her observations. The book lists instances of torture, extradition, and the

blowing-up of houses, and describes prison conditions, trials, the treatment of Israeli

conscientious objectors, and above all, the harsh conditions of the Israeli occupation of

the Golan Heights, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Mrs. Langer estimates that there are now 4,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails, and that since

1967, about 27,000 Palestinians have passed through the Israeli prison system.

Eight years of handling cases have enabled Mrs. Langer to build up a sufficient pattern of

names, places, the timing of arrests and statements, a description of methods and

investigators, and the state of mind of her clients, for her to be convinced that torture

9

takes place. Initially, in 1967 and 1968, she believed torture came from too much zeal in

the lower ranks, but, “after dealing with the same investigators and comparing the

statements of clients over the years, I have come to the conclusion that torture is

systematic,” and is carried out to extract evidence and to intimidate others.

The Guardian, October 29, 1975

The Israeli authorities have expressed shock at the publication of a personal letter from

the Pope to Archbishop Hilarion Capucci, serving a 12-year prison sentence in Israel.

The letter is said by the newspaper, Haaret%, to express warm friendly feelings and

sympathy to the Archbishop, who is in a Jerusalem jail.

Although the Israeli Cabinet had decided not to mention the Capucci affair, the Pope’s

letter will undoubtedly lead to a change in this attitude because of the likelihood that the

Vatican intends to initiate action for the Archbishop’s release.

The Daily Telegraph, November 5, 1975

The Vatican yesterday confirmed Israeli reports that the Pope had written to Archbishop

Hilarion Capucci, former head of the Greek Catholic Church in Jerusalem and now

serving a 12-year sentence in a Jerusalem jail.

The Israeli press reported that Archbishop Capucci has also written letters complaining

about his treatment in prison to several leading Israelis, and other world figures.

The Daily Telegraph, November 6, 1975

The UN General Assembly’s Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting

Human Rights in the Occupied Territories said, on November 3, that prison conditions

in Israeli-held Arab territory “worsened as a result of the marked increase in the number

of persons imprisoned during 1975,” and that the predicament of the civilian population

has deteriorated.

Jerusalem Post, November 5, 1975

Observer correspondent, Colin Legum, investigated allegations of torture in Israel’s

prisons. He deliberately chose Ramleh prison because an escaped prisoner had told him

about torture there. On his arrival, he spoke to William Naguib Nassar, who told him

that prisoners had been punished for talking politics before the 1973 war. “We were sent

into solitary confinement, denied canteen privileges, or put into dungeons. Some,

including myself, were sent to a special punishment prison at Ashkelon where we were

made to kneel, forced to address prison officers as fSir’, and where we were beaten as

many as three times a day. Nothing like that has happened here, but I am told it still

goes on in Ashkelon,” said Nassar.

Ali Mohammad Jeddah said, “I was beaten when I was caught, but not tortured. The

situation now is very different. I came here in 1969 when conditions were very difficult.

If things now are a little better, it is not because they have changed their policy or

because they believe in human rights; it is because of all the outside pressure backed up

by our own hunger strikes.”

Mr. Legum reports that the Red Cross is allowed to visit detainees in Israeli prisons—

but only 18 days after the prisoner has been interrogated, and then only in the presence

of a prison official.

The Observer, December 14, 1975

10

Chapter 2

Change of Status De-Arabization

“The occupying power may not alter the status of public officials or judges in the

occupied territories, or in any way apply sanctions to or take any measures of

coercion or discrimination against them, should they abstain from fulfilling their

functions for reasons of conscience.”

(Geneva Convention, relative to the

Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War

of August 12, 1914, Article 54)

Nothing in the present Covenant may be interpreted as implying for any State, group

or person any right to engage in any activity or perform any act aimed at the

destruction of any of the rights and freedoms recognized herein or at their limitation

to a greater extent than is provided for in the present Covenant.

(UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966,

Article 5(1))

1975

Chapter 2

The diplomatic successes of the Palestinians at the United Nation General Assembly in

November 1974 triggered off relentless moves on the part of the Israeli government in 1975

to establish new Zionist settlements in the occupied territories, and accelerated further

activity in the de-Arabization of these territories, and especially of the annexed city of

Jerusalem.

The establishment of settlements has two underlying objectives: to establish Jewish buffer

zones in all areas of Arab concentration (the Rafah Salient in the Gaza Strip, for example,

and the West Bank); and, to create concrete f Tacts” so as to render more difficult the return

of the occupied territories to their original inhabitants, the Palestinian Arab people, in the

event of a negotiated settlement.

This second objective is the raison d'etre of the Gush Emunim movement, a principal

component of the Greater Israel Movement, which has become increasingly active in its

militant attempts to establish Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The first steps towards implementing the settlement policy are the expulsion of the local

Arab population, preceded or accompanied by the expropriation of Arab land.

Within its 1948 boundaries, Israel aims to alter drastically the demographic make-up of the

country by implementing the plan to establish a Jewish majority everywhere, especially in

Upper Galilee. To facilitate its task, the Israeli government has consistently exploited land

laws dating from the period of the British Mandate in Palestine, in order to carry out its

expropriations under a pseudo-legal cover. To date, thousands of dunums of Arab lands

have been expropriated, Arab villages have been destroyed, and some 80 Jewish settlements

have been established in strategic sites all over the occupied territories, including Sinai and

the Golan Heights.

Change of Status — De-Arabization

Israeli Premier Yitzhak Rabin declared that “settling Jews in Maalei Adumim [Arab Khan

al-Ahmar on the Jerusalem-Jericho road] is a vital necessity to fortify Jewish

Jerusalem . . . and will be given top priority.”

Maariv, January 1, 1975

A fourth Nahal [para-military] settlement has been set up in the Rafah Approaches in the

occupied Gaza Strip. Davary January 1, 1975

A Jewish Agency spokesman announced that five new industrial settlements are to be set up

within the coming two years. They will be established in the occupied Golan Heights,

Galilee and Kfar Etzion.


Haim Kovarsky, Director-General of the Ministry of the Interior, stressed the national and

political significance of establishing Jewish settlements in Galilee. The government aims to

2

change the demographic distribution by creating a Jewish majority in the region. The

population target for 1993 is 800 thousand, the majority of which is to be Jews.

Al Hamishmar, January 8. 1975

An allocation of IL 10 million has been made by the Ministry of Trade and Industry for

the execution of industrial projects in Maalei Adumim.

Yediot Aharonot, January 12, 1975

The site of the labour settlement, Maalei Aphraim, was chosen in co-ordination with the

Israeli Army after studying security imperative.

Maariv, January 13, 1975

The Israeli government, in controversial move, has just allocated 10 million Israeli

pounds for the first stage of a new industrial area for Jerusalem at Maalei Adumim,

halfway between Jerusalem and Jericho.

The Financial Times, 13 January 1975

The Israeli government has approved a first-year appropriation of IL 727,000 to construct a

Jewish industrial suburb of Jerusalem on the occupied West Bank of Jordan, nine miles east

of the city, a Cabinet spokesman said. Last November, the Cabinet authorized the building

of a park of 17,500 acres which will include provision for housing. Government sources

said the land was state property originally reserved by the Jordanian government for public

use before Israel captured the West Bank in 1967.

The Guardian, January 13, 1975

The Times correspondent inTel Aviv reports that theHerut movement was holding its 12th

annual convention in Kiryat Arba near Hebron, notwithstanding protests by Israeli “new

leftists” and Arabs who claim that the holding of the convention in occupied Arab territory

is a provocation. President Katzir attended the convention in spite of criticism.

The Times, January 13, 1975

A conflict appears to be likely over the Israeli government’s decision to go ahead with the

development of an industrial estate at Maalei Adumim, a site on the West Bank located half¬

way between Jerusalem and Jericho.

If it does not look as though there is a chance of a peace settlement with a Jordan ready to

live on good-neighbourly terms with Israel, then the strengthening of the Israeli presence

on the West Bank and the construction of the estate on the vital Jerusalem/Jericho axis is of

strategic importance.

A decision to establish a residential centre, with an initial 350 housing units linked to a

vocational training centre and various workshops, on a site in the Jordan Valley, fits into the

same pattern.

The Financial Times, 14 January 1975

In taking the decision to hold its 12th convention at Kiryat Arba, the newly-created Jewish

quarter on the outskirts of Hebron in the occupied territories, the Herut Party intended to

provoke the Arabs. It further set a precedent since this is the first time that a political party

has held its national convention in the occupied territories.

In gathering the 900 delegates in Hebron—“From where we will not leave”, declared

many speakers — the party of Menahem Begin has aroused deep resentment among the

Arab population and added a new element to the Israeli political scene.

Le Monde, January 14, 1975

3

Israel has set up 50 settlements, mostly in occupied Arab areas, since the 1967 war.

Eighteen have been established on the Golan Heights facing Syria. A string of 20

settlements has been established in the occupied West Bank overlooking the Jordan and

stretching to the Gulf of Eilat. Ten settlements are being established in north-east Sinai at

the southern tip of the Gaza Strip. Here Israel has also started to build a new port, Yamit.

American and Russian immigrants are being brought here to live and work.

The Daily Telegraph, January 14, 1975

Five new settlements, a regional centre and a labour settlement— Maalei Aphraim — are to

be established on the occupied West Bank, north of the Dead Sea.

Yediot Aharonot, January 15, 1975

A new 45-kilometre road is to be constructed in the occupied West Bank. The road follows

a plan by Vice-Premier Yigal Allon and will begin from the settlement of Gattit through the

lands belonging to the village of Ain Sarnia on its way to the Jerusalem-Jericho road. Along

the road a series of Jewish settlements will be established.

The Israeli government has allowed Israelis to settle in the town of Hebron, while in Beit

Jala tracts of land belonging to the Arab inhabitants of the town have been expropriated and

fenced in with barbed-wire.


A feasibility study for the establishment of a third Israeli Mediterranean port in northern

Sinai, south of Gaza, is being prepared by the Ports Authority for the Israeli government. If

the government decides on construction of the third deep sea port at Yamit, there will be no

need to enlarge Ashdod port beyond its present breakwater.

The government has already decided on an immediate start to detailed planning for an

extension of the present rail network to Eilat. The existence of a direct Mediterranean-Red

Sea link would produce a viable alternative to the Suez Canal for oil, container and bulk

cargoes.

The Financial Times, January 28, 1975

The Israeli press published reports that military fortifications continue to be established in

occupied Sinai. To date IL 400 million have been expended on the fortifications, while the

total cost is expected to need IL 1,000 million more.


The Bedouin Arabs of the Negev have been officially notified that their lands have been

expropriated by the Israeli occupation authorities. Mr. Toledano, Arab Affairs Adviser

to the Prime Minister, signed the notification. The Israeli government has set as

compensation a nominal sum not exceeding IL 200-600 per dunum.

By expropriating the land, the Israeli occupation aims to divert the Bedouins from working

their land to providing cheap labour for Israel.


In a further step towards surrounding Jerusalem with a belt of Jewish settlements, the

Israeli government has built a Jewish quarter in Hebron called “Kiryat Arba”.

To consolidate Jewish presence in the Hebron area, the military governor of the West Bank

issued two directives ordering that the “municipal affairs of Kirykt Arba be administered in

accordance with the Israeli system and laws.” The second directive stipulates that any

4

owner of a flat or building in Kiryat Arba whose property rights are not established by

registration of the land, is, nevertheless, free to dispose of it as he wishes.

Haaret^ February 2, 1975

A meeting of about 150 Arab leaders from the Hebron Hills area in the southern part of the

West Bank has strongly denounced plans for the expansion of the Jewish town of Kiryat

Arba alongside Hebron, and the expropriation of land for this purpose and for the building

of a four-lane highway linking Kiryat Arba with Jerusalem. The meeting was convened by

Sheikh Mohammad Ali Ja’abari, the mayor of Hebron, and marks a clear deterioration in

the relations between Arabs and Jews in the area.

The Timesy February 5, 1975

Dany Rubenstein reports that the Jewish settlers of the Kiryat Arba quarter in Hebron

“wish to transform their quarter into a Jewish capital by eradicating the Arab-Moslem

character of Hebron.”

Davar, February 7, 1975

Abraham Offer, Israeli Minister of Housing, announced that 62 settlements have been

established in the occupied territories. He added that Jewish settlements should continue to

spread all over the occupied territories: Golan Heights, Jordan Valley, Rafah and the

Araba Valley. al-Ittihad, February 11, 1975

A report on the expropriation of land in the Rafah Approaches by the Israeli occupation

authorities, refers to the strategic importance of the area which comprises “about a million

dunums of arable land. ” The report also notes that the salient, which stretches from Rafah

to al-Auja in the south, and al-Arish in the west, “separates the Gaza Strip from any outlet

to Egypt”, and through it pass all major roads that allow access to northern Sinai. The

Rafah Approaches also constitute a first-class“security barrier” to maintain calm in the Strip

and the Negev settlements.

The report also refers to the methods of pressure exerted by the Israeli government on the

Bedouins to relinquish their lands. “Those that give up their land willingly are allowed a

permit to enter the land and plough it,” the report states. Other means of pressure include

cutting off the food rations provided by CARE and if this proves ineffective, the

uncooperative are sent to jail on the least pretext.

Concerning the discrimination in the treatment of Arabs and Jews, the report says that,

whereas the Israeli authorities allocated eight million pounds for eight Arab conglomerates

in the Rafah Approaches comprising a population of 30 thousand, the costs of one kibbutz

alone amount to 10 million pounds. A bedouin, if compensated for his land, is given five

dunums elsewhere, while a Jewish settler is given 25-30 dunums. This means that a

Bedouin living in proximity to a Jew has to live on one tenth of what the Jew lives on, and

can only subsist by working for the Jew to supplement his income. This situation will

ultimately lead to the kind of conditions that exist in South Africa.

Hotam-Al Hamishmar, February 14, 1975

The occupation forces have cleared large tracts of fruit trees owned by local Arabs in Rafah

in the occupied Gaza Strip in preparation for establishing a settlement. The area was first

declared closed and the residents evicted from houses lying within a 300-metre radius on

both sides of the road. Among the buildings razed were a school and a mosque.

5

The military authorities have further attempted to force the population to accept meagre

compensation for the land of which they have been dispossessed. Those who refuse to be

pressurised into accepting compensation are deemed enemies of the Israeli state.


Jewish settlement activities are concentrated in three areas of strategic and military

importance—Galilee and the Golan Heights in the north, the Jerusalem area, and the

Rafah Approaches in the south.

The Jewish Agency settlement plan includes the setting up of 80 new settlements, divided

as follows:

— The Golan: a municipal centre, four industrial settlements, a kibbutz and two

settlements under consideration.

— Jordan Valley: a regional centre, two settlements, a kibbutz and four settlements under

study.

— Three Etzion settlements, one near Bethlehem.

— Central Galilee: nine settlements, Tifin, Gourin, Sagat, and Miron.

— Rafah Approaches: two settlements, a kibbutz and eight settlements under

consideration.

— Negev: a kibbutz and two settlements. In Araba, a kibbutz, regional centre and nine

new settlements.

— West Bank: a settlement near Jenin and one in Latrun.

The plan also calls for 15 Nahal [ paramilitary ] settlements: eight in the Gaza Strip and

Rafah Approaches, and seven in the West Bank and the Golan Heights.

Haaret%, February 17, 1975

Israeli Premier, Yitzhak Rabin, told settlers in the occupied Golan Heights that “Israeli

governments have not built permanent settlements in the Golan Heights to abandon them.

We have not built settlements on the land except for them to remain, under any

circumstances, within the boundaries of Israel.”

Yediot Aharonot, February 18, 1975

Premier Rabin said that Israel intended to maintain its civilian settlements on the Golan

Heights as a sign of its determination to hold on to the occupied Syrian territory.

He told an audience of settlers in the kibbutz of Merom Golan: “The government of Israel

did not establish the Golan Heights’ settlements in order to have them evacuated or so as

not to have them included in the Jewish state. ” He said that the settlements “have a limited

role in the event of confrontation. But the outposts more than anything else express a

determined decision to hold on to the Golan Heights.”

International Herald Tribune, February 18, 1975

Populating and establishing new industries around Jerusalem is one of Israel’s absolute

priorities, declared Israeli Defence Minister, Shimon Peres. He insisted that Israel, faced

with Arab dynamism in the areas surrounding Jerusalem, must multiply its efforts to

establish an industrial zone in this area. Identical efforts should also be undertaken in

Galilee and Rafah.

HOrient-Le Jour, February 20, 1975

6

Talking about the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem, Guardian correspondent,

David Hirst, writes that, although no more than 20% of the buildings there were Jewish-

owned (105 out of 700 buildings), since the 1967 war, the Israelis have been busy taking

over the lot from the 5,500 Arabs who live there, many of them in houses that have been

handed down to them from generation to generation.

According to official Israeli sources, 900 Arab families have so far been evicted from the Jewish Quarter. Another 70 are on the list to go. They were all served notice in 1968.

These moves are being carried out in accordance with a British Mandate Law called the Land Acquisition for Public Purposes Ordinance of 1943, which, Mr. Hirst points out, is

being twisted to suit the Israeli objective which is to turn out the Arabs and replace them

with Jews.

Mr. Hirst further states that, in the end, this relentless Judaization of Jerusalem may well turn out to be the main obstacle to a peaceful settlement in the Middle East. Nevertheless,

the Israelis are pressing on with it at an almost frantic pace and in a world-defying spirit. They are apt to respond to diplomatic set-backs with the unveiling of ever more extravagant

plans for turning Jerusalem into what the Housing Minister describes as an “emphatically

Jewish city.” There are many ways in which the city is being affected, but the most

important and obvious are the physical and demographic ones which, eating into the Arab

character of the city, are almost impossible to undo.

The demolition of the Moghrabi Quarter (in the Old City of Jerusalem) making way for the

Wailing Wall esplanade, was the first and most drastic violation (of the status quo agreement

and mutual adjustments that govern relations between the three faiths, endorsed by the League of Nations in 1950). But all excavations around the Noble Sanctuary, the raised

platform where the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosques are located, are also

violations. And how much more so, then, if the Israelis start penetrating under the

Sanctuary itself, the place where before the Mosques, the Temple is said to have risen, and

where, some Israelis say, it should rise again.

In 1971, because of a tunnel which the Ministry of Religious Affairs was digging to trace the

northerly extension of the Wailing Wall, the Ribat al-Kurdi, an ancient structure under

which the tunnel ran, threatened to collapse. Then, early last year, another adjoining

structure, the Jawahiryah School, began to disintegrate too so dangerously that the

municipality ordered the evacuation of four of its rooms. Notices were posted with the

warning: “Dangerous Building, Entry Forbidden.” The Khatib family were ordered to

evacuate, but refused as they have lived in Jawahiryah for generations.

The Guardian, March 1, 1975

Commenting on the eviction of Bedouins from the Rafah Approaches, Arieh Avneri said

that the compensation offered by the Israeli government is conditional on the Bedouins

giving up their property rights. He adds that only 180 families have accepted to do so, while

none have accepted alternative land elsewhere. This is because the land offered them had

also been expropriated by the Israeli military authorities.

According to Avneri, the meagre financial compensation of IL 7,500 is given to all,

regardless of whether their land amounts to 40-50 dunums or 5-10 dunums.

Davar, March 3, 1975

7

Jewish settlers will be moving by July into the [occupied] West Bank area of Maalei

Adumim [Khan al-Ahmar] on the Jericho road, which is being developed as an extra

industrial zone for Jerusalem. The Housing Minister, Mr. Abraham Offer, disclosed that

industrial plants on the site will employ Jews only, and that the Maalei Adumim enterprises

were “not meant to attract Arabs. ” The government was solidly united in the belief that

Jerusalem must be buttressed on all sides.

About 150 acres were being levelled initially for the industrial infrastructure, the site of

which had been chosen from four alternatives because no land for industrial development

was available within Jerusalem’s boundaries. Pre-fabricated units had been ordered for

housing and other facilities. The critics of this project argued that the government was not

doing enough to settle the West Bank on the one hand, and on the other, that the creation

of a Jewish industrial zone on the West Bank would hamper peace negotiations.

The Timesy March 6, 1975

Representatives of Jewish settlers on a site north of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank

protested angrily their forcible removal by security forces from the site. It was the third

such settlement attempt in two weeks in an Arab area. About 80 supporters of the Gush

Emunim settlement movement had taken up temporary residence during the night in old

Jordanian Army bunkers close to biblical Shiloh. When the settlers refused to leave

voluntarily, soldiers broke through an iron gate to remove them. Leaders of the settlement

group plan a march through Samaria, in the northern part of the West Bank, during

Passover. The settlement attempt was partly motivated by opposition to Dr. Kissinger’s

mediation mission. General Ariel Sharon of the reserves, has called for a settlement attempt

every day during Dr. Kissinger’s mission. He also called for ‘interference’ with the mission.


According to Al Hamishmar, the Bedouins of the Rafah Approaches, in the occupied Gaza

Strip, are threatened with expulsion and dispossession by the military occupation. Their

permits for residing on their own land, which is in the vicinity of the planned Jewish town

of Yamit, will not be renewed.

al-lttihad, March 18, 1975

Orthodox groups in Israel, and supporters of the centre-right opposition Likud Party,

claim the right of Jews to settle anywhere in the biblical land of Palestine. But the

government has ruled that Jewish settlements will be permitted only in authorized areas.


Al Hamishmar reported that a group of retired navy personnel intend to establish a

settlement in the occupied Golan Heights.

It also reported that the Ministerial Settlement Committee plans to set up four new

settlements in the Golan, and will soon begin construction of a town to be called Katzrine.

In Sinai, the military occupation has expropriated 36 thousand dunums belonging to the

Sawarka Bedouins and forced them to move into al-Arish.

al-lttihad, March 25, 1975

The idea for dotting the Rafah Approaches with Jewish settlements goes back to the June

1967 war when the Israeli government decided that the one million dunum area should

constitute the western boundary of Israel with Egypt.

8

To date, 133,000 dunums have been expropriated, 20 thousand of which were almond and

other fruit orchards, 49 thousand dunums were planted with palm trees and 58 thousand

with cereals.


Troops and police were needed to guard Jewish marchers as they moved deeper into the

Arab territory of the West Bank. The marchers, mostly young religious families with small

children and even babes in arms, halted at Sebastia, the ruined Roman town near Nablus,

where they held a rally to demonstrate the right of Jews to establish settlements throughout

the occupied areas. The march was a climax to a series of settlement attempts by the Gush

Emunim Movement to stake a claim to various areas near Jericho, Ramallah and Nablus, the

main towns in Samaria [occupied West Bank].

Around 20,000 people crossed the fgreen line’ between Israel and the West Bank near the

Arab town of Tulkarm, chanting fSamaria is all ours’ and f Jericho belongs to Israel’. One,

asked on Israel radio about Arab reaction to the march, replied in a Brooklyn accent:“They

have to get used to the idea that these areas belong to us. They are not allowing us to be

here. We are allowing them to stay.”

The Times, April 1, 1975

An estimated 20,000 Israelis converged on the ancient Judean capital of Sebastia on the

occupied West Bank of the Jordan on March 31, to dramatize their call for more Jewish

settlements in the area. It was the first of their many demonstrations to be sanctioned by the

government.

The settlers’ march focussed on Sebastia, the biblical Samaria, which served as the royal

citadel of Ahab, a king of ancient Israel, eight centuries before Christ. The town was later

ruled by Assyrian, Persian and Hellenistic governors, and twice destroyed.

“In Sebastia itself, which has a population of about 7,000 Arabs, the residents seemed

confused by the march and nervous. This is the fourth time in 11 months that the would-be

settlers have descended on their town, although never before in such numbers. And most of

them are puzzled as to why.”

International Herald Tribune, April 1, 1975

To date about 1,530 Bedouin families have been evicted from their lands and homes in the

Rafah Approaches.

Davar, April 4, 1975

In the aftermath of the Rabat Conference which recognized the PLO as the legitimate and

sole representative of the Palestinian people, Yediot Aharonot on April 4,1975, reported that

Defence Minister Shimon Peres had prepared a detailed plan giving the population of the

occupied territories wider administrative prerogatives.

The Peres plan calls for an autonomous administration in the occupied territories and the

holding of local elections under the aegis of the military occupation. The plan hopes to

encourage the emergence of a local leadership which will eventually take over from the PLO

as the legitimate representative of the Palestinians and be prepared to accept Israeli policy.

However, the consensus of opinion within Israel about the plan as reflected in the Israeli

press is that “it is too late for such a step to be effective. ” It is meeting with stiff resistance

from the Arab population and opposition from the Palestinian leadership on which the

9

occupation is depending for its implementation. [This resistance clearly stems from the

West Bank Arabs’ awareness of the real intentions behind these Israeli moves.]

LP.S. Bulletin, p. 53, 1975

The village of Toufaniyah in the Deir al-Assad area of Central Galilee, comprising

36 thousand dunums, has been expropriated and its name changed to f Tifin’, while lands

belonging to al-Shaghour in the same area have been expropriated to establish fCarmael\

al-lttihady April 11, 1975

The military governor of Bethlehem announced that the Israeli occupation forces have

expropriated thousands of dunums of land belonging to the villages of Azariyah and Abu

Diss in the area stretching towards Khan al-Ahmar on the Jerusalem-Jericho road. The

requisitioned land was declared a closed military area last year.

al-lttihady April 15, 1975

International Herald Tribune correspondent, Terence Smith, wrote about the Israeli

government’s project to evict progressively the Arab population of the Old City of

Jerusalem, and replace it by Jews. The following is a summarized version of his article:

For 40 of his 41 years, Ayub Hamis Tutunji has lived in a house with an extraordinary view.

From his windows, he can look down on the Wailing Wall, the al-Aqsa Mosque and the

Dome of the Rock. Now, because of the situation of his home, Mr. Tutungi, his wife and

their six children are under an eviction order issued by the Israeli government.

They have been ordered to move out because their seven-room home stands in the way of

one of the most controversial building projects in Jerusalem—the reconstruction and

repopulation of the historic Jewish quarter inside the walled Old City.

The 10-year, multi-million dollar project has already caused the eviction of 5,000 to 6,000

Arabs from their homes during the last four years. Mr. Tutungi, like hundreds of other

Arabs, has lived there all his life and has family ties to the area that date back more than 100

years. All are resisting the eviction orders.

In place of the evicted Arabs, about 1,500 Israelis have moved into renovated and re-built

apartments. Israeli government plans call for a Jewish population of some 4,000 in the

quarter by 1980.

This direct substitution of populations—Jewish for Arab—has led to controversy over the

project.

The eviction of the Arab residents, the demolition of their homes, the construction of new

buildings and the repopulation have all been carried out under the terms of a special public

purpose law passed by the British Mandate government in 1943 and retained by the Israeli

government.

This law empowers the government to expropriate land and evict residents when such

action is deemed to serve the “public purpose.” The law does not define that term.

“The concept itself is offensive,” said Arnold Spaer, a prominent Jerusalem lawyer who has

volunteered his services to some of the evicted Arabs. “I fail to see how it can be defined as a

public purpose to move out an Arab family and replace it with Jews. ” Mr. Spaer went on,

“They are creating an Arabrein (a place free of Arabs) that is morally no more defensible

than the Judenrein in Europe before the war. It is altogether wrong from my point of view. ”

10

Michael Price, the director of the American Friends office, contends that""eviction for the

purpose of repopulation” is a contravention of Article 47 of the Geneva Convention, which

prohibits any occupying power from making material changes, based on the internal laws of

the occupying force, in the lives of the inhabitants of the occupied areas.

Terence Smith, International Herald Tribune, April 21, 1975

The Israeli government has decided to build nine more settlements in the territories

occupied in the 1967 war, despite Arab pressure for an Israeli withdrawal from these

territories.

The Jewish National Fund, which finances and carries out the groundwork for new

settlements, announced that this year it intended to establish new ones in the Golan Heights,

the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank overlooking the Jordan River.

The Daily Telegraph, April 22, 1975

For many reasons, the establishment of Jewish settlements in the [occupied] Rafah area

dividing the Gaza Strip from Sinai is being accelerated. It is intended to build six new

settlements there in the next few years. These are regarded as vital to act as a buffer from

Sinai. Agitation for speedier Jewish settlement is partly responsible for Arab unrest in

Samaria [northern part of the West Bank], and Jerusalem.

The Times, May 14, 1975

There are 18 permanent Jewish settlements in the occupied Golan Heights and the

construction of three more is planned, pending a final choice of location.

Yediot Aharonot, May 15, 1975

Giant bulldozers are uprooting millions of blossoming fruit trees in parts of the region

known as the Rafah Salient in northeast Sinai. The Arab owners of these groves were

expelled from their land, and their houses destroyed, to make way for Jewish settlers. After

the trees, the school and the mosque of the locality were eliminated.

It is ironic: women and children returning to their land, gather almond and pomegranate

branches from trees they had tended for years to make faggots. Mr. Oded, a member of a

neighbouring kibbutz, who sees the plight of the dispossessed, has commented:""Here, the

expelled inhabitants, whose houses and belongings have been destroyed, come back to their

land to work as daily workers for the settlers that have dispossessed them.” At one time, a

few Israelis, indignant at this cynicism, decided not to employ the Arabs expelled from their

own land ""for security reasons.” But the new inhabitants would not give up such cheap

labour, and hundreds of Arab labourers continue to work in their fields and buildings.

The settlers enjoy important financial advantages and make big profits.

The colonization of the Rafah Salient began in 1969 with the expropriation of 1,500 hectares.

Confiscation of bigger plots took place in January 1972, when the soldiers of General

Sharon evicted nearly 10,000 Bedouins or peasants, destroying their houses with bulldozers

or dynamite, uprooting their tents, destroying their harvest and contaminating their water

wells. And the injustice has never been righted.

During the October War, while all eyes were turned toward the Golan and Suez fronts,

Israeli soldiers arrived in the Rafah Salient, arrested Sheikh Hassan Ali al-Sawarka and

expelled him to al-Arish. For three days while the war was raging, one thousand members

of his tribe were chased from the al-Jora region, and 36,000 hectares of fertile land were

11

confiscated and immediately encircled with barbed wire. After the expulsions, the

authorities tried to force the landowners to sell. When they refused, various sanctions were

applied, such as preventing the distribution of food supplies that came from the American

philanthropic organization — CARE.

In the Rafah Salient, the construction of the town of Yamit goes on. Yamit will spread in

the direction of the sea, but there is one obstacle: a stretch of about two kilometres between

the town and the beach is still populated by tens of thousands of Arabs... They live from

the cultivation of vegetables, mangos and dates, and from raising sheep and poultry. The

land is saturated with artesian wells... This oasis will be depopulated of the Arabs

according to the plans of the occupation forces. The inhabitants have received green cards

allowing them to stay until May 15, 1975, after which the village of Abou Chanar, as so

many others, will be erased from the map.

“We were governed successively”, said on old man, “by the Ottomans, the British and the

Egyptians, but none have dared touch our land. But as for the Israelis, their principal

activity consists of expropriating Arab lands.”

Te Monde, May 15, 1975

Israeli Minister of Housing, Abraham Offer, announced that the government will soon

complete the construction of 500 housing units in fOfira’, the occupied Egyptian town of

Sharm al-Sheikh.

Another 80 units have been built in Kiryat Arba, which was established on lands belonging

to Hebron in the occupied West Bank.

al-lttihad, May 20, 1975

The Israeli Land Administration and the Keren Kayemet [Jewish Development Fund]

have begun opening a new road in the Hebron region in preparation for new settlements.

Yediot Aharonoty May 22, 1975

The Israeli Housing Minister said that, since 1967, 75 new Israeli settlements have been

established, 65 of them in the occupied territories. He urged Jews to settle in Galilee,

the south, and in the Negev.

Hat^ofehy May 30, 1975

The plans to increase appreciably the Jewish population in Galilee require the expropriation

of more than 10 thousand dunums of land around the town of Nazareth and other Arab

towns and villages.

MaariVy June 3, 1975

Radio Israel announced that requests for ownership of homes in Yamit are now open to

Israelis who wish to settle there. Yamit was recently established on the coast near the town

of Rafah in the occupied Gaza Strip.

al-lttihad, June 3, 1975

International Herald Tribune correspondent, Paul Goldenberger, writes on the changing face

of the city of Jerusalem since its annexation by the Israeli occupation authorities. The

following are extracts from his article:

“The Israeli government has reacted to the unification of Jerusalem with zeal, thrusting

enormous new housing projects into occupied Jordanian territory and, not incidentally,

12

building for the first time on many of the unspoiled hills to the north and south. It was a

cogent reminder that architecture is often at bottom a political tool: the government’s desire

was not so much to improve housing conditions as it was to establish a significant presence

in captured territory.

“As a result many of the projects were erected hastily and with little care...”

Paul Goldenberger, International Herald Tribune, June 9, 1975

The Gush Emunim Movement has set up a new settlement on occupied Arab land north¬

east of Ramallah in the West Bank, with the encouragement of Defence Minister Shimon

Peres, and with the foreknowledge of the responsible departments, but without a

government decree. The residents work on government reclamation projects on occupied

Arab lands.

al-Ittihad, June 10, 1975

The Jewish Agency has allocated one and a half billion dollars for a five-year plan to settle

and accommodate 100 thousand Jews in Galilee.

Al Hamishmar, June 11, 1975

Work has begun on building a civilian industrial centre at Katzrine in the occupied Golan

Heights. The first residential quarter will have 700 housing units.

Maariv, June 12, 1975

On the occasion of the eighth anniversary of the occupation of Jerusalem by the Israelis, Eric

Marsden writes that “a new Jerusalem was created by force of arms, as a unified city instead

of the separate Jewish and Arab municipalities divided by barbed wire and check points.

Since then development has been at breakneck speed, with the avowed aim of integrating

the city as Israel’s capital by settling Jews in new estates.” New hotels sprang up, the

Hebrew University was expanded and the Old City Jewish Quarter was restored...”

Mr. Marsden states that half of the 36,000 Jewish immigrants who have been absorbed

since 1967, mostly in the city’s new suburbs, are Russians. The other half include

Americans, Europeans, South Africans and Latin Americans. He reports that Teddy

Kollek, the Israeli Mayor of Jerusalem, cannot contemplate any surrender of sovereignty or

re-division of the city. “1 think everybody in Israel would fight for Jerusalem,” he says. He

is a basic Zionist who thinks that“within Jerusalem boundaries a solution can be found for

80,000 Arabs without dividing the city.”

Mr. Marsden says that Jerusalem’s present population is about 350,000, compared with

268,000 for the combined Jewish and Arab town in 1967.

To date the six Jewish estates in former Arab areas are only one-third full, with about 25,000

new residents. In five years’ time, if there are no drastic political changes, they will have

reached their capacity of more than 100,000. This, Arab leaders point out, is more than the

total Arab population. They protest that while Jews who have often had no previous

connection with, or feelings for, Jerusalem are brought in, Jerusalem-born Arabs with

families and properties in the city are refused permission to return.

The Times, June 12, 1975

In reply to dovish accusations that the government was behaving in an underhand manner

in order to effect a creeping settlement policy. Defence Minister, Shimon Peres, told the

Knesset that the establishment of military and civilian installations at Ba’al Hatzor near

13

Ramallah followed a government decision, and that since the installations had to operate

round the clock, it was preferable for civilian staff to sleep there.

Jerusalem Post, June 18, 1975

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and his Labour party colleagues have adopted as government

policy a designation of Israeli frontiers that involves annexation of the Golan Heights and

the Gaza Strip. The definition of the ""permanent” borders will be part of the Israeli stand in

any negociations with the Arab states.

The plan does not mention Jerusalem because the Arab section of the Holy City has already

been annexed by Israel.

The secretary-general of the Labour party said the plan was the “clear, final map” which

critics here and abroad have called on the government to produce, showing the borders that

Israel wants in a peace settlement.

Labour party spokesman Zvi Harmor said, however, that it was a ""word map”, or set of

policies, not an actual chart with frontiers drawn on paper.

In peace negotiations, he said, there could be give and take about exact locations, and

concessions could be made over a few kilometres ""even on the Golan Heights— but it is

clear that we will not go down from the whole Golan.”

International Herald Tribune, June 20, 1975

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said that Israel is determined to maintain a military presence

on the occupied West Bank of the Jordan in any peace agreement.

In a recent interview published in the Maariv newspaper, he said he told Mr. Ford that

Israel needs control of Sharm al-Sheikh, at the tip of the peninsula, and a land corridor

connecting the strategic naval base to Israel’s old borders. Also, he said, ""I explained that

even under a final peace treaty we will not be able to leave the Golan Heights, although there

is a chance for adjustments of the frontlines with Syria.”

As to the West Bank, Mr. Rabin said, he favoured Foreign Minister Yigal Allon’s plan for

confederation with Jordan, ""based on a united, Israeli Jerusalem, open borders with

Jordan, Israeli control of security and Jewish rights to settlement.”

International Herald Tribune, June 21-22, 1975

The Israeli radio carried a special programme about the problems of Ofira [the occupied

town of Sharm al-Sheikh], an Israeli settlement at the southern tip of the Sinai

Peninsula.

Political criticism has come from the Israeli left, which is generally opposed to building

civilian settlements in Arab territories occupied in the 1967 war. The government’s motive

in founding Ofira was to underscore its determination to retain a presence at Sharm al-

Sheikh, regardless of what political compromise may be reached elsewhere in the Sinai

Desert.

International Herald Tribune, June 21-22, 1975

When lawyer Felicia Langer spoke at Haifa University recently about Israel’s seizure of

Arab land, ""several students shouted that if I uttered the word "occupation’ once more, they

would kill me. I repeated the word scores of times, and told them they were cowards.”

Mrs. Langer, who became acquainted with the Palestinian problem after joining Rakah,

and meeting with Arab members, went on, ""I started travelling through the country, and

discovered abandoned Arab villages. I wanted to know the truth.

14

“After the Six-Day war I became convinced, not only as a communist but as a lawyer, that

every people has a right to oppose occupation,” she recalled.

Mrs. Langer believes that the occupation of Arab lands can only trigger more hostility and

rebellion, and that the solution is to be found in the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian

state alongside Israel.

International Herald Tribune, June 25, 1975

At a Paris press conference held on June 24, Dr. Israel Shahak, President of the Israeli

League for Human and Civil Rights, condemned what he calls the "colonization” of

occupied territories, and affirmed that racial tendencies are increasingly surfacing in Israel.

Dr. Shahak enumerated the principal Israeli settlements in the West Bank of the Jordan, the

Gaza Strip, Sinai and the Golan Heights, as well as to the north and south of Jerusalem. The

new Jewish settlements are linked by roads and even railways, he affirmed...

The Gaza Strip is already divided into three parts by two zones of Jewish settlement. In the

Sinai, besides the colonization of the Rafah Salient, a new Israeli colony is being established

on the Gulf of Aqaba between Aqaba and Sharm al-Sheikh. On the Golan Heights, a new

town Katzrine, is to be built. “A process of Nazification, of terrorism and of racism” is

taking place in Israel, Dr. Shahak added.

Le Monde, June 26-27, 1975

The plan for the Judaization of Jerusalem and its suburbs includes the building of Jewish

settlements in a belt that will begin south of the city boundaries, and extend towards the

Latrun area as far as Ras al-Ain in the north-west, and to the Dead Sea in the east.

“The political map,” according to the Israeli Housing Minister, Abraham Offer, “will be

established within secure borders, and it is therefore necessary to create and populate

settlements in these areas. All efforts must be exerted to create a new map for Jerusalem and

its suburbs.”


Large areas of land have been expropriated by the Israeli occupation in Jerusalem. In Khan

al-Ahmar, on the Jerusalem-Jericho road, 30,000 dunums have been expropriated for the

industrial complex of Maalei Adumim. This land is part of the 70,000 dunums which were

sealed off for fsecurity reasons’ for three years.

Davar, July 9, 1975

The occupation authorities have expropriated 30 thousand dunums in the Khan al-Ahmar

region of the occupied West Bank on the Jerusalem-Jericho road. The land is a part of a

70 thousand dunum area that had been designated by the Israeli occupation forces as a closed

military zone. However, Haaret% reported that the sequestered land is to be incorporated

into the planned settlement of Maalei Adumim.

al-Ittihad, July 11, 1975

Middle Hast International magazine editor, Michael Adams, contributed an article to The

Guardian on the pattern of Israeli settlement in the occupied territories. The following is

extracted from his article:

“Israelis and others who favour an eventual overall settlement are worried about the Israeli

government’s continued policy of establishing Jewish settlements in the occupied

territories.

15

“There are more than 50 such settlements and it is felt that to abandon these could be even

more difficult, psychologically and politically, for Mr. Rabin than giving up the Sinai Passes.

Indeed the settlers who are carrying out his ambitious plan of colonization (the word is

constantly used in Israel by both supporters and critics) make it very plain to the visitor that

they believe they are there to stay.”

“The most striking current developments are in the northeastern Sinai,” writes Mr.

Adams. “Here I visited last month the complex of civilian settlements which is being

created in the ‘Rafah Approaches’ with the express purpose of interposing a Jewish buffer

between Egypt and the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Already four moshavim (agricultural

cooperatives), each with a population of some 50 families have been planted around the

nucleus of the new city of Yamit, for which an eventual population of250,000 is projected. ”

The fact that these are all civilian settlements, although under the aegis of the Israeli military

government in Sinai, is significant in terms of international law. Under the terms of Article

49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (of which Israel is a signatory), ‘the occupying power

shall not deport or transfer part of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies. ’

Elsewhere, and notably on the Golan Heights and the West Bank, the settlements are mostly

Nahals. These are para-military settlements, where conscripts combine military and

agricultural service in border areas. It is possible for the Israeli government to argue that

their presence is justified by considerations of security.

No such claim could be sustained on behalf of the civilians who will be moving into the first

200 housing units at Yamit in about a month’s time, or on behalf of those already in

residence at Moshav Sadot, where the visitor gets the impression of permanence from the

high quality roads and buildings, among them a “community centre” with an auditorium

where, on the day of Mr. Adam’s visit, a play was being staged before an audience of several

hundred people.

All this is in Egyptian Sinai, on land from which the Bedouin inhabitants have first been

expelled (the rump of the Arab village of Abou Chanar survives precariously in a grove of

palm trees between the prefabs of Yamit and the sea), causing vociferous protests from the

liberal elements inside Israel. The government overrode the protest and has allocated

67.6 million Israeli pounds (about L 5 million) for the building of housing here and in the

nearby Gaza Strip during 1975; of this, according to the newspaper Davar, 50 million Israeli

pounds had already been spent by the beginning of April on Yamit alone.”

“When I asked a young immigrant from Canada,” Mr. Adams continues, “whether she did

not feel that the presence of the settlers made nonsense of Israel’s professed desire for a

negotiated agreement with the Egyptians, she shrugged her shoulders. These were

questions for the politicians; as far as she was concerned, this was home and she liked it and

there could be no question of leaving. Others reminded me of Mr. Rabin’s recent

statement: ‘We have not established settlements in order to abandon them. ’ ”

Elsewhere in the occupied territories the pattern of colonization is only a little less

ostentatious. In the Gaza Strip, three kibbutzim have been strategically placed to

separate and control the main areas of Arab habitation.

“Overlooking Hebron, the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba now contains 250 apart¬

ments, with another 250 under construction — although the government is experiencing

difficulty in finding occupants for them and most of the existing residents in fact commute to

16

work in Jerusalem, abandoning the industries, specially established for them on the spot, to

Arab workers.

“At Kfar Etzion, between Hebron and Bethlehem, a fourth settlement has been added to

the three already established since 1967, and two or three miles further north, on the road to

Bethlehem, yet another is almost ready for occupation, although no mention has been

made of it publicly.

“Out of a score of earlier settlements on the West Bank, the majority are Nahals strung

along the Jordan Valley, but the latest and most controversial project is for the creation of

an industrial zone at the site known as Maalei Adumim between Jerusalem and Jericho.

Here elaborate preparations are underway in the form of road building, the levelling and

clearance of the site, and the laying of water mains, for a major undertaking which seems to

be the signal to the right-wing opposition in Israel that even here no withdrawal is

contemplated.

“On the Golan Heights, the original chain of Nahals is gradually giving way to a pattern of

civilian settlements, and work began in January of this year for the construction of a new

town, with a projected population of 20,000, near Kushiyah, in the central sector.

“With more than 50 settlements already established, and with the process of colonization

accelerating throughout the occupied territories, many Israelis are uneasily aware of the

inconsistency between what their government is saying and what it is doing about reaching

a political agreement with the Arabs. Lord Caradon, who visited Israel last month to

explore the possibilities of such an agreement, has called these 50 settlements *50 signposts

to destruction.’ They are also 50 classic examples of the way the State of Israel has been

constructed; but if the objective is to ensure the survival of the State itself, the Israelis will

sooner or later have to abandon these outposts beyond their borders — even if it means

reversing the course of Zionist history.”

Michael Adams, The Guardian, July 12, 1975

The Israeli Housing Minister, Abraham Offer, said that the amounts expended on

developing the Jewish Quarter in the occupied Old City of Jerusalem amounted to IL 170

million. He explained that the costs include demolishing the existing buildings and

compensating the evicted residents.

To date, 225 housing units have been built in the Quarter and 160 others are under

construction.


The Keren Kayemet has expropriated Arab lands in the Ramallah, Beit Hanina, Beit Jala,

Mar Elias and Beit Safafa areas of the occupied West Bank.

Haaret%, July 22, 1975

The Israeli military governor informed the Ramallah water authority that the occupation

forces intend to divert water from the main station. The water will be used by a Jewish

settlement which has been established in the occupied West Bank, near Ramallah.


The President of Israel, Ephraim Katzir, said that he strongly believes in the need to Judaize

Galilee. He expressed his concern that the Jews were a minority in Galilee and encouraged

the establishment of Jewish settlements all over the region.

17

Katzir was speaking at a kibbutz set up on the site of the totally razed Arab village of al-

Zeeb.

al-lttihad, August 5, 1975

Writing in The Guardian, David Landau outlined the latest arrangements ordered by the

Israeli military authorities for the partition of the Tomb of the Patriarch in Hebron. The

following is summarized from his article:

The Supreme Moslem Council, meeting in special session in Jerusalem, described the new

arrangements ordered by the military authorities for Jewish and Moslem prayers at the

Tomb of the Patriarch in Hebron, as a step in the transformation of a mosque into a

synagogue by the Israeli occupation forces.

The new arrangements were promulgated after a recent decision. The aim is to divide the

Tomb — a shrine sacred to both religions — in terms of space rather than by a time division

as before.

Until now, Jewish prayers were limited to specific times of day, while Moslem prayers

continued around the clock. The Jewish settlers in Kiryat Arba, a town being developed on

the outskirts of Hebron, constantly complained of these limitations.

There were a number of incidents, and last week, the Defence Minister, Mr. Peres, went to

Hebron to inspect the site and talk to both sides. The proposals he made for the mosque

encountered a good deal of opposition and, moreover, seemed an unjustified concession to

the Jewish settlers who had deliberately provoked trouble at the Tomb without regard for

political repercussions. It was pointed out that the Tomb still remained in Moslem

ownership — in spite of the demands of some settlers that it should be appropriated by the

Israeli authorities.

David Landau, The Guardian, August 6, 1975

The Israeli authorities have taken a further step towards consolidating the occupation by

creating new facts in the town of Hebron involving the Ibrahimi Mosque. They have

divided the Mosque between the native population and the new Jewish settlers. This

partition was preceded by a campaign conducted by the settlers of Kiryat Arba supported by

the rightists and religious elements in the Israeli state. The campaign concentrated on

“protecting the rights of the Jews”, the “necessity for rebuilding the ancestral town”, and

incitement against the Arab population of Hebron by accusing them of having defiled

Jewish religious books.

With regard to the latter accusation, Natan Yelin-More (Haaret%, August 7,1975) explained

that the books, far from being defiled, had been buried according to Jewish tradition.

I.P.S. bulletin, p. 426, August 8, 1975

Arab leaders in the West Bank are planning to seek support from Muslim authorities

throughout the world for their protest against an Israeli government decision to reserve

parts of the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron exclusively for Jews. The Arab leaders allege that

this will effectively turn part of the mosque into a synagogue. Mr. Shimon Peres, the Israeli

Minister of Defence, disclosed the changes after a week of disturbances at the mosque.

These began when Jewish settlers from the fortified estate of Kiryat Arba nearby began a

sit-in at the mosque demanding that they should be allowed to use it at any time on the same

basis as Hebron’s 50,000 Muslims. Since 1967, when Israeli troops captured Hebron, Jews

have been allowed to pray at specific times at the Tomb.

18

Several Labour and Mapam ministers opposed this move as an unwarranted change of

religious status quo, and accused Peres of surrender to a relatively small number (700) of

fanatics. Haaret\ said that the precedent was extremely dangerous.

The Times, August 8, 1975

The Israeli Settlement Map for the occupied Golan Heights includes 21 settlements, most of

which are spread over the Central region on the Quneitra-Massada road and the

Qubeitra-Rafeed-Ham road.

The minimum conditions specified by the Jewish Agency and the Israeli government for the

establishment of settlements in the Golan are:

1. agricultural land

2. the availability of water resources

3. security provided by the proximity of Israeli military domination

4. a five-km. separation from Syrian presence.

Maariv, August 8, 1975

Saudi Arabia said that Islamic nations will soon take concerted measures to counter Israel’s

partitioning of a sacred Moslem mosque in Hebron [the Ibrahimi Mosque] for worship by

both Moslems and Jews.

The Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Saud Ben Faisal, said that the Israeli government’s

action was an aggression against a holy Islamic shrine.”

International Herald Tribune, August 20, 1975

Populating the town of Yamit in the occupied Gaza Strip with Jewish settlers has begun. It

is expected to reach 25 thousand people in the near future.

In this regard, Israeli Housing Minister, Abraham Offer, ordered the Israeli occupation

army to expel the Bedouins living in the vicinity of Yamit in the Nakheel area and all along

the coast. Al Hamishmar, August 22, 1975

The attempts by the Israeli government to sequester lands belonging to Arabs in the Negev

continue unabated despite opposition from the local population. According to the most

recent plan presented by Dr. Toledano, Adviser on Arab Affairs to the Israeli Prime

Minister, the landowners will be given one dunum in exchange for every 100 dunums

elsewhere, and will be paid 20 % of the value of the land to be evaluated by the government.

al-Ittihad, August 22, 1975

A scheme in Mamillah [quarter of East Jerusalem] which includes a parking structure at the

Old City’s Jaffa Gate, and two other large-scale projects, one at the Wailing Wall in the

Old City and one immediately outside the walls in the Russian Compound, are being

submitted for planning permission, while five high-rise, high-rent projects unanimously

condemned by the Jerusalem Committee in 1973, and which provide exactly the kind of

luxury office and hotel accommodation which Jerusalem does not need have recently begun

construction. The Mamillah and Wailing Wall schemes involve the total clearance of their

sites, requiring the demolition of many sound buildings, including some of historical and

architectural value. The Mamillah scheme, with its underground garage for 2,000 cars at

Jaffa Gate, would generate a fourfold increase in traffic converging on the area, and has

provoked sharp public opposition.

19

The building activity and the clearly visible damage to the Old City’s skyline and landscape

are considered by many Israelis to be a disgrace, and an act of cultural vandalism on the part

of the government.

Time, August 25, 1975

The occupation authorities have expropriated 500 dunums of land belonging to Suleiman

Saleh of Toubass, allegedly for security reasons and military fortifications. Earlier they had

expropriated 6,000 dunums in the area, and demolished 27 water pumps belonging to

Suleiman Saleh. al-lttihad, August 26, 1975

The Israeli government has decided to expropriate 4,650 dunums of land in the Nazareth

area in Upper Galilee.

The Arab population have signed a protest against the expropriations.


The Arab residents of the village of Abou Chanar in the occupied Gaza Strip, close to the

Rafah Approaches, have been notified for the third time that they must be evicted from their

homes and give up their lands. The area is to be incorporated into the new Israeli town of

Yamit.

Earlier, the Israeli Housing Minister, Abraham Offer, said that his Ministry is coordinating

with the military authorities in expelling the local population.


Eighteen Jewish settlements have been established in the territories seized from Syria in

1967 and more are being established.

Since the Six-Day war, Israeli governments have contended that the Golan Heights cannot

be returned to Syria.

Since the Israeli-Syrian disengagement agreement of last year, when the ruins of Quneitra

reverted to Syria, Israeli settlers have waged a political offensive to retain what is left.

Leaders of the settlers are being received this week by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and his

Cabinet to plead the case for the retention of all land under Jewish cultivation.

Even more significant, perhaps, the new settlements that are being established have the

express purpose of populating as much of the present cease-fire line as possible and making

it even more difficult for the government to withdraw.

International Herald Tribune, September 1, 1975

A committee of experts has recommended the construction of a 300-megawatt hydro¬

electric plant on the Dead Sea which would produce power by pumping water from the

Mediterranean Sea to the Dead Sea, and which could supply 10 per cent of the peak hour

electricity demand in ten years. The plant would be located at the end of a tunnel beginning

south of Ashdod and ending near Ain Fashkha, on the northwestern bank of the Dead Sea,

in the occupied territories.

Jerusalem Post, September 22, 1975

The Keren Kayemet [Jewish Development Fund] has reclaimed 10 thousand dunums of

land in the occupied Rafah Approaches and in Sinai for the Jewish settlements that are, and

will be, established there.

al-lttihad, September 23, 1975

20

Protesting against any consideration of withdrawal from the Golan, some 3,000 Herut

Young Guard and Betar members and sympathizers took part in a march from Birkat Ram

to Qal’at Namrud. Before the march, the organizers began recruiting volunteers for a new

settlement the Herut plan to establish at Har Odem, “with Government approval or

without it. ”

A number of mayors of towns in the north have set up a committee to assist Golan settlers in

their political struggle.


The Israeli plan for surrounding Jerusalem with a belt of Jewish settlements includes the

establishment of 13 settlements in the environs of the city. Three of these will be large

settlements with an average population of 40 thousand. They will be on occupied Arab

land.


At a meeting of the central committee of the Kibbutz Meuhad Movement, Minister without

Portfolio Yisrael Galili, chairman of the Ministerial Committee on Settlements, said the

government should strengthen the kibbutzim on the Golan Heights. Resolutions taken

called for more intensive development of Golan settlements (with some speakers leaving

open the possibility of future withdrawal “when real peace comes”). Other resolutions

called for the development of the town of Katzrine as the Golan’s regional centre, rejecting

“any efforts to delay such development,” and called for a drive to explain to the public how

essential it was to settle the Heights. Any agreement, one of the resolutions said, should be

based on refusal to withdraw from any settlements or land the settlers required for their

living.

Three new settlements scheduled by the meeting for the coming year are in the Jordan Rift,

the central Negev and central Galilee.

Jerusalem Posty October 9, 1975

Israel continues to develop the Golan Heights in spite of talk of possible withdrawal under a

new agreement with Syria. Settlers have plans for agricultural and industrial development

there, and a fruit-packing factory is being built at Merom Hagolan, which strategically

overlooks Quneitra. Kibbutzim Hanu and Elrom are engaged in light industry. There is

currently a housing shortage, but the Ministry of Housing is building homes in the Golan.

In two or three weeks, ground will be prepared for the construction of 50 housing units into

which the Keshet settlement group expects to move in two or three years, by which time,

according to Aharon Na’amani, director of the Galilee district of the World Zionist

Organization, 80 housing units will be needed. The Gar’in Yonathan group has settled in

Tel Faraj in the central region, so far without government authorization.

Jerusalem Post, October 14, 1975

A vanguard of Jewish settlers have set up a temporary camp in the Jordan Valley pending

the establishment of a settlement at Naran, east of the road from Jericho to Juljal

settlement.

Davar, October 20, 1975

Part of the vale of Hinnon [Wadi al-Rababah] was dedicated by Prime Minister Rabin on

October 19 as a Jerusalem park.

21

Sixty dunums of land, “site of the former quarter of Shama’a, almost all of which was razed

to make way for planting,” will be part of the national park being developed round the Old

City. Shama’a was considered “one of the more picturesque parts of the City. ” Of the few

original buildings of the quarter still remaining, “one will house a cinema and film archive

and another will serve as headquarters for the Jerusalem Youth Orchestra.”


Commenting on Peres’ statement concerning an autonomous administration for the

occupied West Bank, Mordechai Urou wrote that Peres wishes to annex the West Bank and

Gaza Strip to Israel by creating an “Israeli Federation.”

Al Hamishmar, October 23, 1975

A Maariv report says that the Israeli government plans to establish an Arab quarter outside

the limits of Jerusalem in which it intends to relocate Arabs at present living within the Old

City.

al-Ittihad, October 24, 1975

As a part of the plan to give the occupied West Bank greater autonomy, the Israeli Military

occupation held the first phase of local municipal elections.

Davar, October 28, 1975

At a press conference on October 27, Golan Heights’ settlers demanded government

approval for more settlements on the Heights, and called on the government to make it clear

to the Syrians that “a war of attrition on the Golan is out of the question because of the

presence of civilians.” Yitzhak Ness, chairman of the Committee of Golan settlements, was

concerned that the government had not given its approval for the establishment of five new

settlements, in spite of the army’s recommendations of seven locations for civilian

settlement in the central region. Ness said that the Gar’in Yonathan settlement group had

moved to Tel Faraj without government approval, and four other settlement groups are

similarly ready to move into the central region. He added that, although there was much

more settlement on the Golan than before, the settlers wanted the pace to be doubled.

At a meeting in kibbutz Amiad in Upper Galilee, the Central Committee of the Ihud

Hakvotzot Ve’haakibutzim (Labour-affiliated) kibbutz movement also demanded further

settlement in the area and the “safeguarding” of existing settlements. A resolution adopted

by the Committee stated that “settlement on the Golan was a pioneering act, and was based

on decisions by the government and settlement authorities. ” It was also decided to seek the

establishment of a fourth Ihud kibbutz on the Golan.


At a conference of the Yad Ben Zvi meeting in Safad, Aharon Na’amani, responsible for

Galilee development for the Jewish Agency, called for new settlements housing up to 150

families, instead of 30 to 60 families as previously. He said some 1.5 million dunums of

agriculturally inferior land in Galilee should be used for industrially based settlements.

Larger villages should also be founded with the help of technology.


At a meeting of the Mapam Political Committee on October 29, Meir Talmi, Secretary-

General of Mapam, expressed concern at the decline since 1961 in the ratio of Jews among

the 520,000 inhabitants of northern Israel. He said: “It is our national and Zionist duty to

make sure Jews do not become a minority there.”

22

At the meeting, Meri Ya’ari observed, “We want the Jews to be a majority in all parts of

Israel.”


The Palestinian Arab town of Beit Safafa was partitioned by the 1949 Truce Agreement,

with one part under Israeli, and the other part under Jordanian, administration. After the

Israeli occupation of the West Bank began in 1967, the Jordanian part of the town was

incorporated into the Israeli part, and a Jewish settlement — Shakhanot Bet — was

established there. Now the Israeli authorities have decided to take over the remainder of the

town and to construct 4,000 housing units for Jewish settlers.

al-Ittihad, November 11, 1975

Eric Silver visited the new town of Yamit on the Mediterranean in northern Sinai, the first

urban settlement established by the Israelis in the territory occupied during the 1967 war.

Mr. Silver noted that the town is strategically designed as a barrier between Sinai and the

Gaza Strip. Other such settlements will follow on the Golan Heights and the Jerusalem-

Jericho road.

For the emigrant settlers, mostly from the United States, populating Yamit and other new

settlements in Sinai is a sure way of keeping the occupied territories.

The Guardian, November 15, 1975

Israel is fortifying the Golan Heights as never before, determined to prevent another Syrian

attack, which might result in the liberation of territory Israel intends to keep. Israel has

vowed never to withdraw from the Heights, and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin has said that

only “cosmetic” changes in the Golan frontier would be considered. Since the 1973 war, an

entire defence infrastructure has been created behind the Israeli line. New roads have been

paved and others widened to provide speedier access to the front by mechanized infantry

and support units.

Military censorship forbids the description of other defensive work.

International Herald Tribune, November 18, 1975

The military governor of Bethlehem informed the residents of Beit Sakarieh village that

their village will be encircled with barbed wire with only one exit. He further told them that

they are expected to evacuate the village within a two-year period and will not be allowed to

work their land.


Religious Affairs Minister, Yitzhak Raphael, disclosed on November 19 that the

government and the Jewish Agency would soon decide on the establishment of 30 new

settlements in all parts of Eretz Israel during the next two years.

Speaking to the Haifa branch of his Unity and Change faction of the National Religious

Party (NRP), he said that this would be Israel’s answer to the UN attack on Zionism.


Six new kibbutzim are to be established in Galilee according to Yitzhak Sela, director of the

Agriculture Ministry’s Galilee department. The settlements, each to take 100 families and

to be founded by the three big kibbutz movements, are planned for the Tifin region in

Central Galilee.


23

Referring to the District Planning Commission’s decision to approve residential

construction on the north-east slope of Government House Hill, Mayor Kollek stated that

such a development would not only affect the landscape, but would also lead to “a great deal

more of Arab building all round it.”

Likud Deputy-Mayor Yehoshua Matza said that his aim in advocating the construction

proposal was “to close the gap between Jewish construction at East Talpiot to the south¬

east of the City, and Mount Scopus to the north-east, thereby forestalling any possibility of

an Arab-controlled corridor between the Old City and the West Bank.


Yamit, a controversial new “city” that Israel is building on the Sinai coast, just south of the

Gaza Strip, is beginning to take shape.

Conceived by a former Defence Minister, Moshe Dayan, as a city of250,000 persons, Yamit

is the most ambitious of the 55 new settlements that Israel has constructed during the last

eight years on territory seized from Syria, Jordan and Egypt-during the 1967 war.

These settlements may be seen as the tangible evidence of Israel’s determination to carve

new borders in the territory taken in 1967.

Three successive U.S. administrations have argued vainly since 1967 that each new

settlement established on Arab land constitutes another obstacle to a compromise peace

agreement based on territorial concessions.

Nonetheless, Israel has continued to build.

“Look at the chain of settlements on the map,” Israeli officials say privately, “and

you will see what we intend to be the future borders of Israel.” It is clear that the

settlements are there to stay.

Yamit may be considered as a cornerstone of the Israeli settlement policy. The site of the new

town, which is a few miles from the southern border of the Gaza Strip and therefore within

Egypt proper, has strategic, economic and political value. It sits astride the traditional

coastal route to Sinai, which armies have used for centuries, and is also an ideal location for

Israel’s much-needed third Mediterranean port. Politically, Israeli planners see it as a

valuable “buffer” between the heavily populated Gaza Strip and the Sinai. Yamit would be

retained, they say, even if the Gaza Strip were returned to Arab autonomy.

International Herald Tribune, November 24, 1975

Commerce and Industry Minister Haim Bar-Lev, has been put in charge of Galilee

development. The master-plan for Galilee’s development calls for a Jewish population

increase from the present 289,000 to 416,000 by 1985, and to 520,000 by 1993.

Jerusalem Post} November 27, 1975

Hanan Porat, a Gush Emunim settlement leader, when interviewed at the Sebastia rail

station on November 25 said: “Jewish settlement there is the only alternative to a

Palestinian state. Forced evacuation of the settlers is an invitation to the PLO.” Zehuven

Hammer, Social Welfare Minister (National Religious Party), is reported to have said: “It

seems to me there exists a recommendation to the government not yet approved,

concerning Jewish settlement anywhere in Eret% Israel. Approval of this plan is being held

up. This delay is leading to frustration among prospective settlers, especially at a time like

this when there is need to forestall options by the PLO (to establish a Palestinian state in

24

Judea and Samaria). Why shouldn’t the government act now to approve Jewish settlement

in Samaria?”

Jerusalem Post, December 1, 1975

The Housing Ministry has proposed the construction of 10,000 housing units between

Neveh Ya’cov and French Hill [in occupied Jerusalem]. However, the local planning

commission was told that the proposed building area on the desert fringe to the east of the

Jerusalem-Ramallah road has “exceptional visual values and should be preserved as a

landscape area.” There is pressure to build on this area for political reasons.


The Gush Emunim movement has mobilized about 2,000 Jewish settlers to colonize by

force Massoudieh, near Nablus, in the occupied West Bank.

al-Ittihad, December 2, 1975

The creation of four new Jewish settlements in the occupied Golan Heights “will be the first

positive response to the Security Council Resolution” for extending the mandate of UNEF,

and for its invitation to the PLO to attend its debates on the Palestine question.

Maariv, December 2, 1975

The Israeli Cabinet has empowered a ministerial committee to decide on the “establishment

of additional settlements in the Golan Heights.” There are already 17 Israeli settlements

there, established since the 1967 war. Four more settlements are expected to be established

at once in reply to the recent anti-Zionist resolution of the United Nations. These are

expected to be announced next week as part of a programme of establishing 17 new

settlements within the old borders as well as in the occupied areas.

The Daily Telegraph, December 2, 1975

A party of unauthorized Jewish settlers spent their third day at Sebastia, in a disused railway

station near the West Bank Arab town of Nablus. The original 1,500 demonstrators joined

by another 400 after token attempts by the army to stop them, have begun clearing paths

and setting up installations.

The Guardian, December 3, 1975

The Israeli Government Ministerial Committee on Settlements formally approved, on

December 2, the creation of four new settlements on the Golan Heights, three in north-

central Golan near the border, and one in southern Golan. Small industry will form the

economic basis of most of them. There are at present 18 settlements in the Golan.

Gideon Hauser (Independent Liberal) said that political considerations now dictated the

creation of four settlements as a Zionist reaction to this week’s Security Council resolution.


“Every week the Druzes of the Golan Heights gather by the dozen on the gentle slopes of

the valley beneath the mountain village of Majdal Shams. There, separated by thick coils of

barbed wire and a minefield, they try with the aid of bullhorns and binoculars to re-establish

the family ties that we^e severed eight years ago by the Six-Day war. It is a poignant and

pathetic sight. Brothers and sisters, fathers and daughters cty o :t to on. another across the

heavily guarded Israeli-Syrian frontier. Their anguished amplified voices echo across the

valley.

25

“The Druzes on the Heights, who are estimated to number 10,000 and who were born and

raised as Syrians, were cut off from their relatives in the east when Israel captured the area in

June 1967. For seven years they had no contact with their families in Syria except for heavily

censored mail that is passed back and forth by the Red Cross. As a result of the Israeli-Syrian

disengagement accord concluded in June 1974 ... the divided families that had not been

permitted near the frontier found that they could see one another and talk, albeit over a

distance of several hundred yards.”

International Herald Tribune, December 3, 1975

In the Knesset, Defence Minister Peres said that “no principle had ever been laid down

banning settlement in Judea and Samaria.” Times and places were under debate, not the

idea itself. New settlements had been created in the Jordan Valley, the Rafah Approaches,

the Jerusalem area and the Golan Heights.

In Golan, in addition to the four settlements approved this week, another five villages were

in the planning stage.


The construction of the Yamit industrial zone in the occupied Gaza Strip was launched on

December 3 at a cornerstone-laying ceremony. A number of projects have been approved

for inclusion in the 60-dunum first-stage area.


A clash occurred between the local inhabitants of Anabta and Gush Emunim members

attempting to settle in Sebastia. The Israeli government has authorized settlements in the

[occupied] Jordan Valley and the Hebron area only. Gush Emunim leaders said they

believed the government found it awkward to evict them now because of the wave of

nationalist feeling in the country.

The Times, December 5, 1975

Israel plans to establish 30 new settlements over the next two years. Some 17 of these will be

in territory occupied during the 1967 war. The programme was announced at a conference

of world Jewish leaders, called by Yitzhak Rabin, in response to last month’s anti-Zionist

resolution at the UN. A spokesman for the Jewish Agency, which will be responsible for

putting up the settlements and recruiting their settlers, confirmed that these outposts were

additional to those already announced by the government. Five will be located on the Golan

Heights, where the government only this week gave approval to another four. Five more

will be established in the Jordan Valley, three in the Etzion Block near Hebron, and four in

the Rafah Approaches south-west of the Gaza Strip.


Several prefabricated buildings were put up at Mazra’at Quneitra (December 4), one of the

four government-approved Golan settlement sites. Work was also begun on laying roads

and putting up barbed wire fencing.


Israeli Prime Minister, Mr. Rabin, on December 5 rejected an appeal to allow unauthorized

Jewish settlers to stay at Sebastia on the occupied West Bank. He told 170 Jewish leaders,

“We are for settlements, the more the better, but they should be in places that serve our

strategic and political goal.”


26

The Prime Minister’s Adviser on Arab Affairs, Shmuel Toledano, told the Knesset

Economic Committee that “the government was willing to pay the Bedouins far more than

the law prescribed, as long as the tribes accepted a final package deal”, [related to

compensation for the expropriation of their lands]. Several sheikhs complained that

discrimination was practiced by the Land Administration in leasing areas seasonally for

grain crops, and that in the 1950’s some tribes had been edged off their lands, and had

received no compensation.


Moshe Rivlin, Director-General of the Jewish Agency, told reporters in Jerusalem on

December 7, that 14 of the 30 new settlements discussed during the Jerusalem Solidarity

Conference had been approved by the Zionist Executive. Four will be in the Golan, one

each in the Gilboa Hills, the Jordan Valley and the Pi that Rafah, and the rest in Galilee. He

also added that A^liyah (immigration) would “see better days soon.”


An uneasy compromise has temporarily extricated the Israeli government from its dilemma

over the illegal Jewish settlement near Nablus in the West Bank. But it has left the religious

settlers in angry dispute and the surrounding Arabs restive. The settlers have been told that

their request to stay in the area will be reviewed. Most of the 1,500 settlers will go, but a

nucleus of 30 families will stay in an army camp. Arab leaders see this as a parallel with what

happened in Hebron on the southern West Bank four years ago; after forbidding Jews to

settle in the town, the previous government gave them shelter in the military government

compound.

The parallel is even closer as the man who led the Kiryat Arba campaign, Rabbi Moshe

Levinger, is leading the settlers at Sebastia.


The Mayor of Beit Jala in the occupied West Bank said that Israel annexed 5,000 dunums of

land in 1967 belonging to the people of Beit Jala, ostensibly to expand the Jerusalem area.

Now the Israeli authorities are attempting to establish a Jewish suburb on 800 dunums

which are the private property of people from Beit Jala.

Haaret%, December 10, 1975

A new Nahal settlement called Haruvit was established in northern Sinai. It is situated

between Rafah and al-Arish. Speaking at the ceremony, Mr. A.M. Sharir stressed the

“importance of Jewish settlement in the coastal strip of the northern Sinai, which has served

as a corridor for invading armies since ancient times.”


In order to depopulate the Old City of Jerusalem of its Arab residents, the Israeli Housing

Minister intends to evict them from their homes and transfer them to a new suburb near the

village of Azariyeh on the Jericho road.

Maariv, December 20, 1975

Eric Silver, writing in the Guardian about an anti-Gush Emunim movement by the

Orthodox Jews, says that the settlement movement is less concerned with pioneering than

with politics. There are, as the Prime Minister Mr. Rabin pointed out last week, plenty of

empty spaces in Israel proper that could do with peopling and cultivating. Gush Emunim’s

27

aim is to foreclose the option of restoring Judea and Samaria to Arab sovereignty in any

further peace agreement.


Housing Minister, Abraham Offer, announced that construction in Jerusalem for the

coming year would be concentrated in the four large suburbs —Ramot, Gilo, Neveh

Yakov and East Talpiot — being erected across the former “green line”. The total number

of units to be constructed in Jerusalem for the coming year is 3,000. Offer said: ""I see top

priority in the strengthening of Jewish settlement in Jerusalem and its surroundings.”


28

Chapter 3

Arrests and

Intimidation

“All measures of intimidation or terrorism are prohibited.”

“Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.”




ffNo one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention.”

(UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,

1966,

Article 9)

1975

Chapter 3

‘Precautionary arrest and detention” was the concept conceived by the Israeli military

occupation in 1975 in order to carry out a wide campaign of arrests among the civilian

population in the occupied territories in that year. This was introduced whenever the

anniversary of significant events in the history of the Palestinian struggle was expected to

result in demonstrations, or other manifestations of resistance by the Palestinians to the

occupation. It was similarly introduced as a means of checking the expected resistance to the

Israeli government’s policy of aggression against the rights and properties of the

Palestinians, notably in such cases as the partitioning of the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron;

the expulsion of the inhabitants of the Rafah Salient and the expropriation of their lands;

and the government-sponsored move towards requisitioning vast tracts of land in Upper

Galilee for increased Jewish settlement.

The incidence of such arbitrary arrests was particularly high in 1975, and further

aggravated Palestinian popular resentment of the policies of the Israeli occupation

authorities. One Western commentator, Eric Rouleau, writing in Le Monde on May 21,

1975, noted the growing resistance to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza

Strip, and described the Israeli response:

“In the face of the mounting agitation [against the Israeli occupation], collective sanctions

have just been taken against two West Bank towns, Ramallah and al-Bireh. Many shops

have been closed by the [Israeli] authorities. Residents no longer have the right to go to the

East Bank or to receive visitors, parents or friends coming from Arab countries.

“The situation in the occupied territories is preoccupying the Israeli authorities. After a

lull that lasted from 1970 until the October War of 1973, the resistance movement was

reborn in the form of the Palestine National Front. Founded in mid-August 1973, the PNF,

which is an integral part of the PLO, rapidly became a popular organization. The Central

Committee includes representatives of all political parties of the fedayeen organizations,

professional associations, cultural and religious institutions, landowners and notables. The

commando organizations devoted to armed struggle were paralysed after the arrest or the

physical liquidation of their members. Learning from this hard blow, the PNF has

massively invested in all types of political action. Created on the initiative of the Jordanian

Communist Party, it supplied it with valuable cadres trained during decades of clandestine

activity, and with organizational planning. The Front has achieved a respectable record of

success.

“It was in compliance with directives from the PNF that Palestinian workers abstained

from working for Israeli enterprises during the duration of the October War; that the

majority of Arabs of Jerusalem boycotted the municipal elections in December 1973; that a

manifesto proclaiming the PLO as the “sole representative of the Palestinian people” was

signed by 180 personalities of the occupied territories and given to Yasser Arafat on the eve

of the Rabat Summit last October. It was also the PNF that revived, organized and directed

the ‘popular rebellion’ from 13-23 November, 1974, on the occasion of the admission of the

3

PLO to the United Nations, and during which strikes, marches, demonstrations, acts of

civil disobedience, attacks against the forces of order, multiplied in towns and villages of the West Bank.

“The response of the Israeli authorities was overwhelming. Last April, on the occasion of

the appearance of the first issue of the PNF publication Falesteen, many hundreds of arrests,

in particular from the ranks of the Communist Party, were made for preventive reasons’ .

“The repression following the November riots was more widespread, more brutal and

more diversified: summary arrests, quick trials, administrative detentions [arrests without

charge], deportations, withdrawal of passports, closure of educational establishments,

imposition of curfews, economic sanctions, establishment of strict censorship on the Arab

press.

“The PNF, known to be the political arm’ of the PLO in the occupied territories, has never

claimed responsibility for one hostile act. But not one night passes without a hand-made

bomb exploding somewhere or other, in a bank or in a tourist office, without a stone or a

Molotov cocktail bomb being thrown at a building or a military vehicle, without a railway

being sabotaged by one or the other of the organizations belonging to the PNF.

Instructions are to avoid casualties among the civilian population... The challenge

sometimes takes a mild form: a Palestinian flag is suddenly raised in the full light of day in a

popular quarter. The gathering that follows provokes a spirit of combat in the hearts of the

forces of order: the quarter is besieged; dozens, or rather hundreds, of persons are

summoned and interrogated for “identity verification”. The authorities are obliged to

escalate precautionary measures. Mobile patrols, fingers on the trigger, go through the

towns of the West Bank... Preventive arrests are current practice.

“ fWe have the feeling of living in a permanent nightmare. ’ These words were repeated in

all the conversations that we had with Palestinians of all social classes, from East Jerusalem,

Hebron, Ramallah, Nablus, Gaza...”

Arrests and Intimidation

On December 28, 1974, the Israeli police arrested Najib Lati from Amman while he was

spending the first night of his honeymoon in a Jaffa hotel. He had come to Jaffa from

Jordan on a special permit issued by the Israeli government to visit relatives and get

married. His brother Andre was also arrested two days later. The whereabouts of the Lati

brothers remains unknown.


Amnon Linn (Likud) and David Koren (Alignment) feel a deterrent law is urgently needed

to prevent ultra-nationalist elements in the Arab community from undermining morale

among their law-abiding fellow Arabs by active promotion of the Fateh cause.

They also feel that measures should be taken against those extreme leftists among the Jewish

community, especially on campuses, who try to win support for Arafat. Linn told the Post

that the bill would enable anyone convicted of publicly advocating Fateh ends to be sacked

from the Civil Service, including the teaching profession, or expelled from university.

Jerusalem Posty January 28, 1975

4

The seminar organized by the Arab Students’ Committee at Tel Aviv University on the

Palestine Question had to be held in the open air. The University administration and the

[Israeli] Student Association which is controlled by members of the Likud, refused to

assign a room for the seminar.


Security forces in Gaza fatally wounded a suspect believed to be carrying a suspicious

object, who fled when called to halt... He was about 35... An examination revealed that he

had not been carrying a weapon.

Jerusalem Post, January 29, 1975

An Arab citizen was killed in Gaza by the Israeli armed forces for not obeying an order to

stop.

Dozens of young men have been arrested in Gaza recently following the discovery of a

network of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Al Hamishmarfjt January 29, 1975

Eight Gaza citizens have been arrested within the past month on suspicion of belonging to

resistance organizations. Among those arrested, 57 are members of the PFLP and the rest of

Fateh. Some of those arrested had recently been released from a Gaza prison, where they

had been held on similar charges.

Maariv, February 4, 1975

Fifty-seven members of the PPUP, including their commander, as well as 20 Fateh

members, including members of a cell in Khan Yunis, have been arrested. Most of those

arrested are young people, several of whom have already served prison terms for“terrorist”

activities.

In Nablus, the Security Forces have detained all six members of a cell of the Syrian Bafath

Party, led by Afisha Hala Abdul Rahman al-Taher, 27, a school teacher. She is accused of

establishing the cell as well as recruiting for SaTqa.

Jerusalem Post, February 4, 1975

Shortly before an explosive device was discovered in an apartment building in northern

Jerusalem, two men were picked up by the police for acting suspiciously as they wandered

through the neighbourhood. They are being held for questioning.

Jerusalem Posty February 4, 1975

According to information from Israeli military sources, 77 persons were arrested in the

Gaza Strip during the month of January. The authorities suspect them of committing acts

of sabotage and of recruiting for Palestinian organizations.

Le Monde, February 5, 1975

A year ago, Yussef [Joe] Nasser, publisher of the East Jerusalem daily, al-Fajr, was

kidnapped. His whereabouts remain unknown.

Nasser is a graduate of the University of Illinois. On his return to Jerusalem he taught at

Rashidiyah School, but in 1967 the Israeli occupation suspended his appointment and

arrested him.

In April 1972, he published al-Fajr. He was arrested again in April 1973 for the leading

5

article he wrote on the assassination of Kamal Nasser, Yussuf Najar and Kamal Adwan,

during the Israeli raid on Beirut on April 10 of that year.


According to the Arabic newspaper al-Shaab, of East Jerusalem, Israeli security forces

arrested 14 young men from East Jerusalem ranging in age from 20 to 30 years. They were

accused of attempting many acts of sabotage. Seven arrests were also made in Hebron.

UOrient-Le Jour, February 10, 1975

Two Israeli Bedouins from the Arab area of Ashkalon, Saleh Abu Attawneh and Awad Abu

Sabeileh, wqjre remanded on charges of belonging to the Fateh organization. Police

declared that they were “also suspected of illegal possession of arms. ” The two men have

denied the charges, and said they were the victims of informers.


The Israeli newspaper, Maariv, reported that a Fateh network had been broken up and its 12

members arrested in a Palestinian refugee camp close to Tulkarm.


The Israeli occupation forces have been conducting a wide-scale campaign of arrests in the

occupied territories during the past week. Among those arrested are nine young men from

the Daheesha camp near Bethlehem — seven of whom are students. All were accused of

belonging to the Popular Struggle Front. In Jerusalem, 16 people were arrested, one of

them a young woman, allegedly for “subversive activities. ”

Two students were also arrested in Nablus.


More than 30 young Arabs have been arrested in the occupied West Bank during the past

few days. They have been accused of belonging to subversive cells and carrying out

sabotage activities.


The Israeli newspaper, Haaretreported that dozens of young inhabitants of East

Jerusalem, Jericho, Nablus, Hebron, and a refugee camp near Bethlehem have been

arrested. They are suspected of having attempted to establish subversive networks. Some

of them are college students. Another 80 young Arabs were arrested in Gaza for belonging

to resistance organizations.


A suspected “terrorist’’, Ajaj al-Auna, 55, of Jaba village, on the wanted list for five years,

was arrested near Jenin. He was “armed and carried a hand grenade at the time of his arrest

by security services.” Neither the circumstances of his arrest nor his suspected activities

have been made public.


Fifteen suspects have been detained in connection with an incident in which two young

Arabs were blown up when they were reportedly attempting to prepare a bomb in a field

near the Mandelbaum Gate in Jerusalem. Most of those arrested are reported to be relatives

or schoolmates of the pair.


6

Fifteen suspects, all college students, have been arrested by the Jerusalem police. Crossing

the Jordan Bridge into Jordan has recently been forbidden to young people from E^st

Jerusalem or the West Bank.

L’Orient-Le Jour, February 20, 1975

Arabs in the Petah Tikva area have been subjected to a wave of arrest and search operations

following the discovery of a machine gun in the town suburbs.

Al Hamishmar, February 21, 1975

Thirty Arab labourers were arrested in Petah Tikva after an explosion in the town market.


Twenty-nine Arab men from the refugee camp at Tulkarm in the occupied West Bank have

been arrested by security forces. They are alleged to belong to two commando cells — the

PFLP and PDFLP.


“The radical Arabic newspapers of East Jerusalem have been experiencing more trouble

than usual with the military censors. Al-Fajr (The Dawn) appeared today without its

leading article and with several blank spaces where headlines should have been. Al-Shaab

(The People) published a leader so mutilated that it was almost unintelligible. ”


“Thirty-six Arabs are still under arrest following an explosion in a bus and the discovery of

a number of charges in various places in Jaffa in the past two days.”

The Daily Telegraph, March 1, 1975

Two hundred and fifty Israeli Arabs were apprehended after the explosion of a grenade in

one of the main streets of Jaffa, and the discovery of a charge with a detonator in the

toilets of the military centre in the town.

The number of arrests in Israel has escalated recently, reaching three to four daily.

Le Monde, March 2-3, 1975

Six young men from two villages in the occupied Golan Heights have been arrested by the

Israeli military authorities.

They have been accused of issuing threats to Syrians collaborating with the military

occupation in matters related to the setting up of local councils.

al-Ittihad, March 7, 1975

Security forces held about 20 people for questioning when an explosive went off in Nablus

damaging a lorry used to transport workers across the green line [which divides the area

occupied in 1948 and 1967].No one was injured.

Jerusalem Post, March 11, 1975

Ten people have been arrested by the Israeli military occupation in the Gaza Strip for

allegedly planning to attack a Jewish settlement. They are suspected of being members of

the PFLP.

On the other hand, it is reported that 50 other arrests have been made in the Gaza Strip

during the past two weeks, as part of a “preventive arrests” campaign.


7

Four Fateh “terrorists” were captured near Jericho, allegedly shortly after crossing into

Israel from Jordan. The Israeli defence forces’ spokesman stated that this was the first case

of “terrorist” infiltration into the West Bank from Jordan reported in over 7 months.


City officials in Nablus [occupied West Bank] were trying to restore order following a

warning by the military authorities that they would close any school where disturbances

continued. Students were protesting against the recent march by supporters of Jewish

settlement in the West Bank. Classes in a number of schools were disrupted, but the unrest

was confined to school courtyards as the police prevented students from taking to the

streets.

Last December, two schools were closed by the [occupation] authorities for a few weeks

following disturbances. Jerusalem Post, April 3, 1975

In the wake of the latest wave of arrests in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military

occupation has warned young men from the region against crossing into Jordan.

al-Ittihad, April 8, 1975

Muzna Nikola, 28, from the village of Yafa near Nazareth, is shortly to be indicted as a

member of Fateh. She was arrested 3 weeks ago atBen-Gurion Airport when she arrived

from London, but her arrest- has just been made public.

[Miss Nikola was later sentenced to four years imprisonment]

Jerusalem Post, April 10, 1975

“Collective punishment” is being practiced against Arabs in the occupied West Bank. This

measure includes forbidding Arabs from travelling to Jordan, not allowing them to visit

their relatives in the Arab countries, and the closure of shops.

Al Hamishmar, April 20, 1975

Israeli Defence Minister Shimon Peres said in Qalqilya that severe measures will be taken

against people who endanger law and order in the West Bank.


Twenty people have been arrested in Hebron and Bethlehem for belonging to a resistance

network. Among those arrested is a dentist, Ibrahim Hilal.


The Israeli police have rounded up dozens of young Palestinians from the village of Tamra

for questioning, following an attempt to set fire to an “Egged” bus.

al-Ittihad, April 25, 1975

A sixteen-year-old girl, Amira Abu Jabal, from the occupied Golan town of Majdal Shams,

has been arrested by the Israeli military forces. One of her brothers was killed for

attempting to infiltrate into Syria, while her father and another brother are serving sentences

of 30 years and 15 years respectively in Israeli prisons. r al-Ittihad, May 1, 1975

Some thirty persons were picked up by police for questioning shortly after a heavy explosive

device went off in the Baq’a quarter of Jerusalem, wounding 4 persons, one of them

seriously. Jerusalem Post, May 5, 1975

8

Dozens of people have been arrested in the region of Jenin following the killing of an Israeli

driver. A number of villages in the area have been cordoned off and a curfew imposed while

a house-to-house search was conducted for the suspects.

al-Ittihad, May 9, 1975

It is reported that an average of 40 people are arrested each month in the occupied Gaza

Strip by the military authorities. Those arrested are accused of subversive activities against

the occupation.


Eric Silver talked to two young Palestinians in Gaza, who called themselves Ahmad and

Salim. His contact had warned him that the young men were afraid to talk to him. “If the

Israelis knew about the things they have to tell” the contact said, “it would be very bad. A

month ago, a student we know was arrested because the army had caught a Terrorist’ who

gave them his name. This student didn’t know that his friend was a commando. My friends

think that if the Israelis read what you write and know who you talked to they will arrest

us.”

The Guardian, May 13, 1975

“Large numbers of Arabs have been arrested in the West Bank and Gaza in the past week,

mainly as a precautionary measure with the approach of May 15, ... the anniversary of

Israel’s statehood, and the Palestinians’ loss of part of their homeland in 1948. ” The number

of those arrested has not been disclosed. Apart from a relatively small number in East

Jerusalem and Bethlehem, most of the arrests were in Nablus, Jenin, Ramallah and other

towns in the northern part of the West Bank. In Gaza, where an average of 40 “preventive

arrests” are made every month, dozens of arrests are reported to have been made for

“plotting sabotage” against Israel.


Five Arabs were arrested in the Nazareth area on suspicion of “organizing sabotage and

hostile acts.”

The Daily Telegraph, May 19, 1975

Sixty-nine persons believed to be members of four different “terrorist” organizations were

arrested in the Jenin area. Weapons and sabotage material were confiscated from the

suspects, who are said to be linked to a group of 5 Arabs arrested in Nazareth last week on

suspicion of conspiring to commit acts of sabotage.

Jerusalem Post, May 19, 1975

A new wave of arrests in the occupied territories began ten days ago. At the outset this was a

“preventive” measure adopted by the military occupation as a deterrent to resistance

activities related to the May 15 celebrations.


During a search for two alleged saboteurs, Israeli troops and police, on 19 May, arrested 69

Arabs in the town of Jenin and the surrounding villages in the northern part of the occupied

West Bank. The arrests, mostly carried out by raids on homes in the middle of the night,

have increased tension in the West Bank. Five Israeli Arabs were also arrested in Nazareth

the previous week.


9

Mahmoud Ghazalin, 38, deputy chairman of the local council of Yafa; Yahya Mar'i and

Khalil al-Hariri, both 27, of Nazareth; Mousa Mahmoud Halaf, 28, and Hassan Haj Ajri, 26,

both of Yafa, were remanded in custody for 15 days, suspected of being “terrorists. ”


Mr. Peres, the Israeli Defence Minister, said that “stern measures” would be taken against

continued acts of terrorism in the West Bank.

Further arrests have been reported from several towns. In the Ramallah district six Arabs

have been detained on suspicion of involvement in terrorist acts. The newspaper Maariv

disclosed that about 2,400 young Arabs are held in Israeli prisons. Of these 707 are under

arrest, 1,700 have been sentenced, and 60 are in administrative detention.


Since the beginning of May, about 100 Arabs have been arrested and will be brought to

trial. Another five Arabs from Nazareth, under Israeli occupation, have already been

charged. They are alleged to have cooperated with the biggest group across the old border,

in the West Bank town of Jenin, where about 70 suspects have been detained. An

unspecified number of arrests was also reported from the Gaza Strip. About 16 Arabs from

the Ramallah area are among those arrested during the past fortnight.


Twenty alleged members of a guerilla cell active in the Bethlehem-Hebron area were

arrested by Israeli security forces. They have been held since the end of March, but their

arrest has only just been revealed.

The Daily Telegraph, May 22, 1975

The administrative detention order against Khalil Rishmawi of Bethlehem has been

extended for another three months. Rishmawi, who had been detained for nine months, is a

teacher at Bethlehem College.

al-lttihad, May 23, 1975

Four men, reportedly found in possession of 2 hand grenades and suspected of having

carried out 4 bombing incidents in Jerusalem and Hebron between August 1974 and April

1975, have been detained.


Seven Arabs, reportedly members of Fateh, four from Ramallah, two from Jenin and one

from Nablus, have been arrested by security forces.


The press manager of an East Jerusalem newspaper was arrested on 30 May, after printing

pamphlets for the Israeli Arab Students' Committee calling for a demonstration outside the

Prime Minister's office on 1 June. Mathia Nasser, manager of the al-Fajr printing press,

was released after being questioned about the paper's financial sources.

The pamphlets, which called on Arab students to demonstrate against “seizure of lands in

Arab villages under the slogan fJudaization of Galilee’, without considering the Arab

residents who own the land”, were confiscated, but the students had another batch printed

elsewhere.


10

“Precautionary arrests’’ have been made by the occupation authorities on the anniversary of

the June war. Search barricades have been put up on the main roads leading to the occupied

West Bank and army patrols have been reinforced.


Police cordoned off an area of East Jerusalem and arrested 8 people after a grenade was

tossed at a group of policemen and Haga Civil Defence guards engaged in setting up a road

barrier, near the District Court, as part of the precautions being taken on the anniversary of

the 1967 war.


Security forces immediately rounded up 50 Arab workers, later releasing all but one, a 27-

year-old resident of al-Arish, after an explosive charge went off in Sa’ir village in the

Hebron area, killing a resident.


Khadija Abu Arqoub, from the village of Doura near Hebron in the occupied West Bank,

has been arrested once again by the military authorities. She has been arrested and released a

number of times since the 1967 Israeli occupation.

al-lttihad, June 10, 1975

Security forces arrested 10 alleged members of a Fateh sabotage ring, believed responsible

for a large number of “terrorist” acts in Jerusalem. All are from the Hebron area.


Eric Silver, reporting from Jerusalem on 12 June, writes: “Security check posts are more

conspicuous than before in the Jerusalem area. On the past two nights, my car was stopped

at police roadblocks. Over the past three weeks, the military and the police have arrested

not only... ten Fateh men from Hebron, but four Arabs accused of chalking slogans further

north in Jenin, and five members of a sabotage cell in Gaza. They have also shot dead a

senior member of the guerrilla movement, on the wanted list in the Gaza Strip.”

The Guardian, June 13, 1975

Afaf Ajluni, the sister of the kidnapped East Jerusalem editor of al-Fajr, Joe [Yussef]

Nasser, said she had reliable information that her brother was still alive and held prisoner

somewhere on the West Bank.

Mrs. Ajluni, now a resident of the U. S., charged that the Israeli authorities were dragging

their feet on the case for political reasons, despite the conviction a month ago of Yasser al-

Karaki, a Hebron bus driver, for participation in the kidnapping.

Mrs. Ajluni said she and her husband, who owns a small shopping centre on Long Island,

would continue to finance publication of al-Fajr. “The paper will continue to come out

until we know where Joe is,” she said. “It’s his voice. It’s my way of rebelling. I want my

brother.” Jerusalem Post, June 13, 1975

In Jerusalem, police declared the arrest of four young men in connection with an alleged

plan to attack targets in the Arab, Israeli-annexed sector of the city.


11

Among the some 100 suspects rounded up by security forces in the West Bank and allegedly

in possession of Israel Army equipment, was a prominent resident of Beit Jala, Dr. Antoun

Sansour, rector of Beit Jala College, as well as high school pupils, and West Bank students

of universities in Arab countries and Europe who had come home for summer visits.


Radio Israel announced that the occupation authorities have arrested a number of people

from the districts of Nablus and Hebron in the occupied West Bank over the previous

week.

An Israeli military spokesman announced the arrest of Muhammed Suleiman Qatamesh, 30,

from Ramallah, for reportedly belonging to the Jordanian Communist Party.


Seven men, from Deir al-Balah in the Gaza Strip, were arrested as suspected members of

Fateh.

Jerusalem Post, July 9, 1975

Some 26 suspects were detained following the explosion of a small charge in crowded

Sderot Weizmann, which caused no damage or injuries. Police closed off the immediate

area, which also includes a supermarket and the Histadrut financial offices:


An order was issued by the Israeli government forbidding Kamal Hammoud from entry

into the occupied territories for a*whole year.


Nine Palestinians have been under administrative detention in Nablus prison for over 15

months. They are Labeeb Fakhreddin, 50; Khaldun Abdul Haq, 48; Muhammad Abbas

Abdul Haq, 38; Dr. Farhan Abu Lail, 38; Jamal Freitekh 42; Abdul Basset Khayyat, 39;

Muhammad Yussef Baghdadi, 44; Ahmad Deeb Dahdoul, 43; and the popular poet Raji

Ghunaim.

All were detained because of their political beliefs and have had no charge brought against

them. al-Ittihad, July 15, 1975

A number of people were arrested when a small explosive charge went off under a car

belonging to the manager of a Bank Leumi branch in Ramallah. No one was hurt and

damage to the car was slight. Security forces immediately closed off the area.


“Police are still holding six suspects in connection with Monday’s bomb in downtown

Netanya.” [Nathania].

Thirty persons were rounded up after the explosion, which caused no damage, and all but

six were released after preliminary questioning. Jerusalem Post, July 16, 1975

Eight Arab labourers were still being held by police in connection with an explosive charge

which went off in the yard of an apartment house in Azour near Tel Aviv, two days earlier.

There were no injuries, but the blast caused slight damage to the walls of the building and

shattered a few windows. _ Jerusalem Post, July 20, 1975

12

Thirty-three people have been arrested by Israeli security forces, who claim to have broken

up “three terrorist groups operating on the West Bank of the Jordan.”

The Daily Telegraph, July 22, 1975

Security forces claim to have cracked a “terrorist” ring, composed of Israel Arabs and led by

a 24-year-old woman student at Bar-Ilan University. Police said that seven persons aged 20-

30 had been arrested, including the ring-leader and another woman. Police claimed the cell

belonged to Fateh. ^ Jerusalem Tost, August 1, 1975

Twenty-one Palestinians interned by the Israeli authorities in prisons in Nablus and

Ramallah have been on a hunger strike for three weeks. The condition of three of them in

Nablus prison is serious. They have been detained without charge or trial for over a year,

and their detention is to be further extended by an administrative order issued in July.

The Palestinian daily paper, al- Fajr, was not allowed to print an editorial appealing for the

release of the detainees by the Israeli authorities. In theory, the Arabic language press is

subject to the same laws of censorship as the Hebrew one, but in practice this is not so. The

twenty-one Palestinians are among some 200 who were placed under administrative

detention during the months of April and May, 1974. The majority have since been released

and many have been deported to Lebanon. Most of them belonged to the Palestine National

Front.

To justify the arbitrary arrests of Palestinians, the Israeli authorities have reactivated

emergency legislation promulgated in 1945 by the British Commission in Palestine.

Victor Cygielman, Le Nouvel Observateur, August 4, 1975

The Israeli prison administration has issued new regulations covering the visits of defence

lawyers to their clients. Under the terms of these regulations, the prisoner must address a

letter to the prison warden requesting his lawyer to visit him. If the prison authorities agree

to the request, an Israeli policeman, fluent in Arabic, will attend the meeting between the

lawyer and the defendant.

al-Ittihady August 5, 1975

The police of Nathania (north of Tel Aviv) arrested seven Israeli Arab students.

Le Monde, August 7, 1975

There are now some 50 people under administrative detention in Israeli prisons who have

had no charge brought against them, as well as several thousand other persons who are

being detained for “investigation.”

In addition, 470 arrests have been made recently in Jenin and Nablus. Those arrested are

believed to belong to the Palestine National Front.


Nasser Daoud, an East Jerusalem resident suspected of membership of a “terrorist” group,

was remanded in police custody for 15 days by the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court. According

to police, Daoud’s interrogation was likely to lead to further arrests.


The Israeli occupation has reinforced its military presence in the Hebron district. The

occupation authorities have set up barricades on roads leading to the area and entry is

forbidden to anyone from outside the district, even to newspapermen.

13

Reinforcements have also been stationed around the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem and

at its gates.

These measures were taken to counter any demonstrations by Palestinians in the dispute

over the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron.

al-lttihadAugust 19, 1975

Ten Arabs, allegedly belonging to the Popular Struggle Front were arrested, solving,

according to the police, a long string of “terrorist” bombings in the Jerusalem area.


Two “terrorist” cells, discovered in Dahariya and Bani Naim in the Hebron area, have been

broken up by the security forces who have arrested 25 of their members. They are suspected

of belonging to Fateh.


Twelve suspected members of a Fateh ring have been arrested in the Nablus area.


Several suspects were taken into custody in the Ramallah area following an explosion at the

entrance of a tourist office in the town’s Clock Square, which injured a local sanitation

worker.


An undisclosed number of suspected “terrorists” have been rounded up in the Bethlehem

area over the past few weeks. The arrests were made in the course of searches for

“terrorists” believed responsible for planting a bomb one month earlier at an intersection

frequented by hitch-hiking soldiers on the southern outskirts of Jerusalem. The suspects

are believed to belong to Ahmad JibriPs Popular Front — General Command.


Several people from the town of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank were arrested

following an explosion in front of a tourist office on August 26. Twenty-one shops in

Ramallah have been ordered to shut down.


Vegetable and fruit vendors from the occupied Gaza Strip have been forbidden by the

Israeli occupation forces to sell their goods in Beersheba. Only persons issued a military

pass were allowed into the town.

al-lttihad\ September 2, 1975

Among those arrested recently in al-Bireh and Ramallah in the occupied West Bank are

Muharram Barghuti, a union member, and Emile Tubassi, a pharmacist and a brother of

Dr. Alfred Tubassi, who was deported by the Israeli occupation authorities last year.


Eric Marsden writes from Gaza:

“About 4,200 Palestinian Arabs studying at Egyptian universities arrived in Gaza under the

auspices of the International Red Cross several weeks ago to visit their families in Gaza. But

not all will be going back. An undisclosed number is being held by police after

investigations into allegations that students have been recruited in Cairo by Palestinian

guerilla groups.

14

Many of the students were arrested soon after their arrival in Red Cross buses under the

annual scheme for summer visits. Some were questioned briefly at their homes but others

were taken into custody and held for extended periods, according to parents and Arab

lawyers, who claimed that up to a week ago more than 40 per cent of the students had been

held for at least two weeks...

“A prominent Gaza lawyer, Mr. Abu Rahma, said that he understood none of the students

so far had been charged with any offence. He estimated that several hundred had been

detained.

“Other lawyers and a doctor told me that the Gaza prison, which has a normal capacity of

400, was overcrowded with twice that many.

Parents also alleged that some students had been severely beaten and forced to stand for

several hours while under interrogation to induce them to confess.”

Despite this massive evidence, Israeli officials persist in denying all charges of ill-treatment.

Eric Marsden, The Times, September 19, 1975

Several students from the occupied Gaza Strip have been arrested for questioning. All are

studying in the Arab countries and returned to the Strip for the summer holidays.

According to a military spokesman, the arrests involved dozens and not hundreds of

students, and are in keeping with a practice adopted annually by the military occupation.


Security forces have detained 31 “terrorist” suspects in the occupied West Bank. They are

suspected of being members of various cells connected with Fateh, the PFLP and the

Popular Struggle Front. Among the group are persons believed responsible for placing an

explosive charge inside an Egged bus on October 27, 1974, and aiming a bazooka at the

Military Government building in Nablus on September 5, 1975.


Two young men from Kafr Qana were given a 30-month jail sentence for infiltrating into

Lebanon in May and “conspiring to join a terrorist organization.” A third man was shot

dead when attempting to cross at the same time.


Mohammad Mahmoud Gazalin, 37 former deputy chairman of the local council of Yafa near

Nazareth, is to be tried for “suspected membership of a terrorist organization, attempted

preparation of sabotage material and possession of five detonators.” He is also alleged to

have formed a cell. , , ^ ___ Jerusalem Post, October 12, 1975

An Israeli army spokesman said that two Syrian shepherds were shot dead by an Israeli

patrol when they infiltrated Israeli-held territory on the Golan Heights (14.10.75).

Although stating initially that the shepherds had merely been wounded, the spokesman later

said they were killed when “harassment shots” were fired near them.


The Israeli occupation authorities arrested Elias Abdel Fattah Natshi of Jerusalem on

September 21 for belonging to the Ba’ath Party. Natshi, who is a fourth-year student at

Baghdad University, was visiting his family during the summer holidays.


15

Five commandos accused of being responsible for the booby-trapped car which blew up

outside the Eyal Hotel in Jerusalem, were arrested by the security services and the police in

Artas, south of Bethlehem. Also arrested were the owner of the car from East Jerusalem

and her fiance from Nazareth, both of whom were remanded in custody for 15 days by the

Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court. The names of the suspects, who were reported to have

confessed, were not released.


A number of school children were detained by security forces in Ramallah and al-Bireh

when they stayed away from school to demonstrate against Defence Minister Peres’

proposal for “self-rule” on the West Bank and against the Israeli-Egyptian interim

settlement in Sinai.


“Israeli troops forcibly broke up demonstrations in support of the PLO in Arab schools in

Ramallah in the occupied West Bank of the Jordan. They entered classrooms and dragged

out boys and girls who w^re chanting slogans against the Israeli occupation and who

refused orders to go home.”

The Times, November 11, 1975

Ten Ramallah school pupils, all under 18, were detained on November 11 for stoning

soldiers outside a school in protest against Peres’ proposal for “civil administration under

Israeli aegis” in the West Bank. The soldiers “fired in the air to disperse a group of students

attempting to organize a street rally intended to coincide with the anti-Israel vote at the

UN.”


After closing a girls’ teacher training college in Ramallah earlier in the week, the Judea and

Samaria Command ordered the closing of a second college on November 12. This was in

retaliation lor the support the colleges gave to school demonstrations against Defence

Minister Peres’ so-called civil administration plan, and in support of the UN anti-Zionist

vote. The Military Governor of Jenin threatened, on November 12, to close any school in

the town which became involved in the disturbances.


One hundred and six children have so far been brought to summary trial in various West

Bank towns, mainly in Ramallah. All were fined, some of them thousands of pounds. The

parents of 143 other pupils were ordered to post bail of up to IL 2,000.


Israeli forces with firearms and truncheons have surrounded schools and other institutions

of learning in the West Bank, arresting a number of students and forcing their way inside the

premises to repress demonstrations against the occupation and in support of the PLO.

According to Haaret%, a number of students and teachers at the Halhoul Secondary School

were injured when they clashed with members of the occupation forces. Sixty students were

arrested, brought before a court and fined.


The Israeli government is to maintain the presence of Border Guards in Jerusalem. It has

also introduced reinforced security measures which will isolate Jerusalem from the

16

neighbouring areas by setting up armed barricades at all entry points to the city from the

occupied West Bank in order to search everyone coming in. These measures were adopted

following the recent explosion in Zion Square. Armed soldiers and police have been

patrolling the streets of the occupied city, searching people and summarily arresting non¬

residents, and any one else considered “suspicious”. Buses, taxis and private cars carrying

Arabs have been attacked by Jews residing in areas between Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

At the same time, the Israeli occupation authorities have refused all permits for young

Arabs to cross into Jordan from the occupied West Bank.

al-lttihady November 18, 1975

Housing Minister Abraham Offer warned Nazareth residents on November 18 that the

outcome of the next month’s municipal elections would determine whether his ministry

would offer help to the town. He said: “If the new city council works for the solution of the

city’s problems, we will cooperate with them. But if it concentrates on politics and

undermining the State, the residents will be the victims of the political actions of Rakah.”

He also implied that Housing Ministry plans to build 48 housing units in Nazareth next year

similarly depended on the attitude of the new city council.

Jerusalem Post, November 19,1975

Radio Israel announced that the Ministry of the Interior has refused to issue a licence

allowing Hanna Sanyoura the right to continue publishing the East Jerusalem daily, al-

Fajr. The owner and publisher of the paper, Yussef [Joe] Nasser, disappeared after he was

kidnapped a year ago.

Al-Fajr is known for its opposition to any attempts by the Israelis to set up a local

administration under the occupation.

al-lttihad, November 25, 1975

Two men from Hebron in the occupied West Bank have been detained by the military

occupation without being charged.

al-lttihady November 25, 1975

In Nablus, on December 17, “an undisclosed number of local residents were arrested... in

an apparent bid to thwart attempts at inciting further anti-State riots in the towns.”

The arrests were part of a “large-scale crackdown on subversive elements” said to be

planning a civil disobedience campaign before next month’s Security Council Middle East

debate. Schools were closed when students walked out because of the reinforced security

patrols in Nablus.

Jerusalem Posty December 18, 1975

The West Bank town of Nablus has taken on the appearance of a large military camp. Israeli

armed forces have infiltrated the entire town and have taken positions on roofs following

the popular unrest resulting from attempts by Jews to set up new settlements in the Nablus

region.

The military governor threatened town leaders that unless calm was established and all signs

of resistance repressed, the occupation forces would take drastic collective punishment

measures. These would include closure of shops, closing the Damya Bridge leading to the

town, and compelling detained students to appear before a military tribunal.

17

Davar further reported that the military governor has warned against allowing visitors from

Jordan or other Arab countries into Nablus.

al-lttihad, December 19, 1975

Eric Marsden writes:

“The Israel Government’s decision to allow illegal Jewish settlers to camp out in the West

Bank under army protection has led to unrest in the Nablus area...

“Heavily armed troop patrols guarded streets leading to secondary schools in Nablus today,

preventing demonstrations by pupils returning to classes after the four-day Id al-Haj, the

Moslem Festival of the Pilgrimage. During the holiday the pupils had taken to the streets to

protest against the settlement attempt at Sabastiya, north of Nablus.

“The military governor yesterday called in Haj Azzous al-Masri, the mayor of Nablus, to

warn him that further demonstrations would result in increased fines on parents, and

schools would be closed. The mayor later told councillors that there was a danger of the

Jordan bridges being closed as a punishment.

“Hundreds of families in West Bank towns are in debt after raising sums varying from £200

to £600 from relatives and friends to pay fines imposed on pupils who demonstrated in

favour of the Palestine Liberation Organization last month.

“Mr. Karim Khalaf, the mayor of Ramallah, told me today that three fathers had been

arrested in the town a fortnight ago when the time limit for payment expired. He cited the

case of a labourer, Mr. Hamad Kadim, who was fined £350 because his 15-year-old son had

taken part in a demonstration in support of the PLO. Mr. Kadim earned on average £2 a

day.”


Fully-armed Israeli forces supported by tanks and armoured cars are, for the eleventh

consecutive day, surrounding public buildings, schools and other strategic positions in the

occupied West Bank town of Nablus. This is part of a campaign to repress popular

demonstrations against Jewish settlement in the occupied territories.

al-lttihad, December 23, 1975

Rival demonstrations of Arab and Jewish students at the Hebrew University took place on

campus today. The issue was the University’s order to seven Arab students to leave campus

dormitories for refusing to take turns in guarding them. The Arabs said that, as proud

Palestinians, they would be willing to perform other services not connected with security,

and offered to serve as orderlies in a first aid station, while the Jewish students insisted they

served in first aid night patrols.


18

Chapter 4

Reprisals and Discrimination

“Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons

from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other

country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.”




“No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country.”

(UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,

Article 12)

“No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.”


Article 9)

Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging

individually or collectively to private persons, or to the State, or to other public

authorities, or to social or cooperative organizations, is prohibited, except where

such destruction is rendered necessary by military operations.”




“Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.”




“Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are

prohibited.”




1975

Chapter 4

The reprisals practiced by the Israeli state against the Palestinian Arabs of the occupied West

Bank and Gaza Strip are frequent, harsh, and intended quite specifically to intimidate the

population of the occupied territories into a state of docile submission to Israeli rule. The

acts of reprisal carried out by the Israeli occupying authorities as part of officially-

sanctioned government policy are in direct contravention to the terms of the Geneva

Convention relative to the Protection of Civilians in Time of War of August 12, 1949, of

which Israel is a signatory, and to those of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Reprisals include the destruction of property belonging to or inhabited by a person — or

relative of a person — suspected of opposing the Israeli occupation; the forcible transfer of

individuals and sometimes of entire villages in order to make way for further Israeli

settlement; the deportation of persons either immediately after arrest, or after a period of

imprisonment extending on occasion into years; collective penalties such as the imposition

of curfews, the closure of shops and businesses, or other sanctions, directed against entire

villages, towns, or areas in which opposition to the Israeli occupation has taken place, or is

suspected of being about to take place.

With regard to Israeli discriminatory measures against the Arab inhabitants of the Israeli

state, and the Palestinian Arabs of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, these are so

frequent as to be standard practice. Arabs suffer discrimination in virtually every area of

daily life. They are discriminated against economically, socially, educationally and

professionally. Their opportunities in every domain are limited as part of Israel’s policy to

attempt to compel Palestinian Arabs — and particularly the young educated members of the

population — into emigration in search of the possibility to extend their studies, to live free

of harassment, or find employment suiting their professional capabilities.

Reprisals and Discrimination

Reprisals

The house of Abdul Rahman Yussef Zaghlul in the village of Zababdeh, in the district of

Jenin, was demolished by the Israeli occupation forces. Zaghlul’s son, Mahmud, is in

prison for his alleged part in the attack on Rihaniya.


The Israeli occupation forces demolished the home of Azzam Kaaleek in Nablus. Living

in the house were 15 persons, among them Kaaleek’s wife, Laila. The family was

allowed half an hour in which to evacuate the premises. Kaaleek is in prison charged

with carrying explosives.


The Israeli authorities have expelled two inhabitants of the West Bank, Ahmad al-Djamal

and a young woman, Lutfiya Hawari, to Jordan. Both had just been released after having

served prison sentences for alleged subversive activities.

L'Orient-Le Jour, February 10, 1975

3

Two homes in the Hebron district, one in the village of Sa’ir and the other in an adjacent

village, were blown up by Israeli occupation forces. Members of the families living in the

houses were accused of subversive acts against the occupation.


The village of Deir Sharaf in the Nablus region of the [occupied] West Bank was cordoned

off by the Israeli army, police and border guards, and a thorough search operation was

conducted. This followed an attack on an Israeli soldier by an unidentified person.


Security forces yesterday demolished the house of a man who allegedly planted a bomb in

Mishmar Hagvul in Jerusalem’s Ramat Eshkol Quarter last November. The bomb

exploded but no one was hurt. The “terrorist”, who was caught a few weeks ago together

with a number of other persons, lives in Beit Dukko village south-west of Ramallah.


Five Arabs said to have planned, organized and carried out terrorist activities have been

removed from Israeli prisons and expelled across the Lebanese border, military

headquarters said in Tel Aviv.

The deportees, who were described as functionaries of the Palestine National Front, were

identified as Suliman Rashid Najib, of Ramallah, accused of sabotage; Abdallah Sunani, of

Jerusalem, said to have organized strikes and demonstrations; Mahmoud Shakurat, of

Jerusalem, said to have been recruiting for terrorist organizations. The other deportees

were Toufiq Beni Hassan, who completed a seven-year prison sentence for “infiltration,”

and Hassan Sawalha, said to have been involved in bombing a filling station and a military

vehicle in the Gaza Strip.


Israel has expelled five Arabs from the occupied areas across the Lebanese borders. All had

been held in Israeli prisons: three had been in detention, one had served a seven-year prison

term, and the fifth man was awaiting trial. This is the fourth time since the Yom Kippur

War that Israel has deported small groups. The expulsions are usually meant as a

warning to the Arabs in the occupied territories that the military authorities are still in

control.


The military authorities have expelled five Arabs to Lebanon. The deportees were Abdallah

Besour Sunani, and Mahmoud Abed Alayan Shakurat of East Jerusalem; Suliman Rashid

Najib of Ramallah; Mahmoud Toufiq Beni Hassan of the West Bank village of Arbouni, and Hassan Hamad Sawalha of Gaza.

Sunani, Shakurat and Najib were reported to be members of the military wing of the West

Bank “Palestine National Front.” The deportation of these three men followed a general

week-long hunger strike which some 40 Arabs in administrative detention have been

holding in various Israeli jails.

All the deportees but Beni Hassan were themselves under administrative detention prior to

their expulsion. Hassan had served a seven-year term for “infiltrating with a.terrorist cell m

Jordan to carry out sabotage in the northern West Bank district.”


4

Three houses belonging to the Rayyan tamily in Beit Dukko near Ramallah in the occupied

West Bank were blown up by Israeli forces. Members of the family were accused of

undertaking “sabotage operations.”


Security forces blew up two houses belonging to “terrorists” in the Sedjaieh Quarter of

Gaza.


Simultaneous with the recent wave of mass arrests carried out in the occupied territories by

the occupation forces, the West Bank towns of Jericho and Ramallah have been placed

under curfew.


Five Arab residents from the “administered” territories and East Jerusalem were deported

to Lebanon tor incitement against the Israeli authorities. The five had all been held for a

time under administrative detention. They were, Husm Elias Haddad of Bethlehem,

Khaled Hija2i of Nablus, Abed Odeh and Othman Abu Assi, both of Gaza, and Husm Abu

Gharbiyeh of East Jerusalem. All were reported to have been members of the communist-

controlled Palestine National Front.


Mr. Justice Cohen, a supreme court judge in Jerusalem issued an order barring the

expulsion of 28 Arab political prisoners from Israel until May 12. Mrs. Felicia Langer,

counsel for the Arab prisoners, said her clients had been detained without trial by

administrative order.

The Times, April 21, 1975

There is resentment in the West Bank towns of Ramallah and neighbouring al-Bireh over

collective punishments such as the refusal of trading permits to merchants. The mayors of

both towns have cabled to the West Bank military governor to rescind these restrictions.


The Israeli military government has imposed sanctions on the twin towns of Ramallah and

al-Bireh, north of Jersualem. The authorities have curtailed journeys by local residents

across the Allenby Bridge to Jordan, and are limiting the number of visitors from the Arab

countries coming to see relatives in Ramallah. In addition, fifteen businesses in Ramallah

have been ordered to close.


After security forces arrested ten men from the Hebron area suspected of guerrilla activities,

the Israeli military governor of the West Bank issued an order banning Arabs between the

ages of 16 and 25 from travelling to Arab states for periods of less than six months. This

measure is believed to be aimed at ensuring that young men who cross the bridges [over the

Jordan River] do so for genuine educational reasons, as well as to prevent the exploitation

of short term visits by guerrilla groups.

The Times, June 13, 1975

The Israeli military authorities have imposed new restrictions this week on young men

crossing the Allenby Bridge to Amman and other capitals. Males between the ages of 16 and

5

25 will still be able to cross the Jordan, but they will have to stay out of the country for at

least six months before they are allowed to return.

The six-month restriction is one of a number of measures adopted by the Israelis to counter

a continuing wave of sabotage operations in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Ten shops

have been compulsorily closed for nearly a month in Ramallah, north of Jerusalem, as a

reprisal for attacks on Israeli vehicles. A coffee shop in Nablus, the biggest and most

nationalistic town on the West Bank, has also been closed.


Security forces demolished three buildings in Dura village near Hebron belonging to

arrested “terror” suspects, and sealed two more.


The home of Mrs. Thuraya Abdul Rassul De’es in Dura in the Hebron district has been

demolished by the Israeli occupation forces. She is accused of belonging to a Palestinian

underground movement.

Three other houses in the village have been destroyed within the past fortnight.

al-lttihad, July 18, 1975

Many of the Nablus stores, which had been ordered closed by the military authorities in the

wake of a rash of “terrorist bomb blasts” in the town, were allowed t^re-open4t the end of

last week. The storekeepers in the town’s market place, however, have not yet been

permitted to re-open for business.


The military government may reimpose a number of restrictions on residents of the West

Bank. These restrictions — such as a ban on crossing the Jordan bridges, or inviting visits

from relatives living in Arab states — had been imposed in the past and were lifted recently

when local notables promised to see that public order would be maintained.


Three houses in the village of Yatta in the Hebron district have been bulldozed by the Israeli

occupation forces. Their owners are alleged to have participated in acts against the

occupation.

In addition, the occupation forces sealed off a house in Nablus, after evacuating the family

and cutting off the water and electricity supplies. The son of the owner, Imad Yafish, 19, is

accused of hostile activities at Ben-Gurion airport a month earlier.


Using bulldozers and explosives, Israeli troops destroyed four houses in a village two miles

south of Bethlehem. They were the homes of the young men arrested on suspicion of

planting a bomb which exploded in Jerusalem on October 27. None of the men have so far

been tried for the alleged offence. Four of them lived in the houses blown up, but none was

the house-owner. The reprisal raid was the biggest for several years in the Bethlehem area.

Mr. Elias Freij, the mayor of Bethlehem, commented bitterly, “The Israelis talk to us of

coexistence, but after eight years of occupation they are still blowing up Arab houses.”


6

The home of Abu Mohammad al-Afghani, in the refugee camp of Breij in the Gaza Strip,

was systematically destroyed by members of the Israeli occupation forces. The make-shift

abode was put up by al-Afghani 27 years ago when he sought refuge in the Strip from Jaffa.

The occupants, consisting of his wife, mother, and eight children, were allowed 30 minutes

in which to evacuate the premises and remove their belongings. Al-Afghani’s son,

Mohammad, is under arrest in an Israeli prison for belonging to a Palestinian organization.

Felicia Langer, al-Ittihad, December 23, 1975

Discrimination

Arab students at both Tel Aviv and Bar Ilan universities have formed an association of their

own to protest what they consider discrimination and harassment. The students held a

campus demonstration to denounce police harassment. They say the police wake them up

during the night to conduct surprise searches of their rooms, looking for sabotage material

or hidden Arabs from the occupied territories. There are fewer than 100 Arab students at

Bar Ilanf In the last student elections they ran on a separate list and failed to attract enough

votes to gain representation in the Students’ Union. They say that since only Jewish

students are represented on the Students’ Union Council, they feel their interests will not be

looked after and a separate union is essential.

The Arab students’ chief complaint is difficulty in finding housing. They say that many

home-owners will not rent them rooms once they find out that they are Arabs.

Jerusalem Post, January 23, 1975

The UN Commission on Human Rights has adopted two resolutions accusing Israel of

violating the “basic norms of international law”, thedesecration of Moslem and Christian

shrines”, and “disrespect of religious leaders and violations of rights of worship.”

International Herald Tribune, February 23, 1975

It was never easy for an Arab to rent a room in a Jewish city or neighbourhood. After 1973,

this became almost impossible; totally so if the Shabak security men frowned on a certain

Arab youngster. All non-subservient Arabs are frowned on by Shabak.

The Arab students’ plight is particularly unbearable. Between the authorities and an Israeli

Students’ Association almost wholly taken over by Likud militants, the Israeli Arab

students are ostracized, insulted, persecuted. They cannot find rooms in Tel Aviv, and most

of them have to sleep in campus dormitories.

These are now regularly searched by Special Branch policemen. The students are awakened

at night, stood in a row, slapped, insulted, then left to their own devices till the next control

visit.

On the campus, the rightist-controlled Students’ Association refuses to recognize the Arab

students’ elementary right to organize in a students’ chapter of their own. In consequence,

Arab students are also denied the use of public halls for their meetings.

7

Last month, Arab students joined Jewish students belonging to radical groups such as

Moked and Siach, and even liberal ones from Mapam. Together, Jews and Arabs organized

a protest meeting on the campus lawn. The right wing majority came — and tried to make

trouble, first by singing independence and war songs, so as to stop the speakers. When this

failed, they used violence. Minor clashes occurred. Now there is tension on the campus.

Police, so promptly aware of the danger which sleeping Arabs represent, failed to curb the

antics of Likud’s hoodlums.

Maxim Ghilan, Israel and Palestine, No. 37, March 1975, p. 12

Following a speech he gave at Haifa University, Education Minister Asher Yadlin, in

response to questions from Arab students about the Shin Beth’s interference in academic

matters and the nomination of any Arab teacher seeking employment, angrily denied that

such interference existed. Certainly Mr. Yadlin, as Minister of Education, must have

known the case of Muhammad Maari who was recommended for a teaching post by his

Jewish lecturer. Maari was surprised when his application was rejected for “security

considerations.” He complained to his lecturer who became quite angry and decided to

hght it out. Security men, as it turned out, had contused Maari with another Muhammad

Maari, a lawyer, who had been a member of al-Ard, an Arab nationalistic group. And yet.

Minister Yadlin denied discrimination and secret service interference in university affairs.

In fact all Arab students know that the secret services are not only in control of their ability

to get a teaching job, but even interfere with their being accepted as students. And later on,

no non-Jew^can dream of getting a job, even the simplest of jobs, without Shin Beth’s

approval.

Israel and Palestine, No. 38 April 1975, p. 6

A group of residents in the prestige quarter of Jewish Upper Nazareth forcibly prevented

their neighbour from letting his apartment to an Arab family. The mayor, Mordechai

Allon, said he would discuss the problem of housing shortages in Nazareth and the Arab

vicinity with the Housing Minister, as this, he believed, was what drove residents to seek

housing in the upper city.


International Herald Tribune correspondent, Terence Smith, wrote of discrimination in the

Israeli state. The following are summarized extracts from his article;

Israel’s Arabs are neither oppressed nor fully tree to express themselves as they would be in

an Arab state. Theirs is a unique status, without parallel in the Middle East and perhaps

anywhere, and that status has undergone a dramatic evolution in the last 27 years.

Legally, the Arabs are full-fledged Israeli citizens with the same rights and duties as the

2.6 million Jewish residents of the state of Israel.

There are two exceptions to this legal equality: Israeli Arabs are not called to serve in the

armed forces and their kin are not entitled to automatic citizenship as Jews are,

under the Law of Return.

But the legal status of the Israeli Arabs is only part of the story. In practical, economic,

human and social terms, they are demonstrably second-class citizens.

Their per capita income is significantly less than the average of Jewish Israelis, and their

educational level is far inferior. Although they represent 14 per cent of the total population,

8

they constitute only 3 per cent of the university population. Politically, they won the right

to join the ruling Labour party only three years ago, and today only about 4,000 of the

300,000 party members are Israeli Arabs. In the 120-seat parliament, there are five Israeli

Arabs. There are no Israeli Arabs among the top business, financial or educational figures

in the country.

Arabic is an official language in Israel along with Hebrew, but few Israeli government

officials speak it. There is no university level instruction in Arabic. If an Israeli Arab wishes

to get on, he must know Hebrew. Significantly, the public telephone directories are issued

in Hebrew and English, but not Arabic.

Although technically the Arab Israelis are full and equal citizens, there are benefits and

advantages provided by the government to the Jewish residents for which Israeli Arabs, as a

practical matter, cannot apply.

Terence Smith, International Herald Tribune, November 20, 1975,

With regard to Arabs leaving the occupied territories, Guardian correspondent Eric Silver

quotes a Jerusalem Arabic daily paper as putting the blame for the emigration on Israel’s

economic crisis: “Due to the suspension of work in many building projects, as well as the

unrealistic taxation system, many physicians are leaving for the East Bank or the Arabian

Gulf. ”

Economic and political grievances are meshed together. A study published recently by an

East Jerusalem Arab journalist, Adel Samara, found that Arab labourers worked 12 hours a

day compared with an average of eight hours a day for Jewish workers. Arab workers

usually did the hard physical labour, were paid less, and had inferior social conditions. They

felt doubly exploited: they had to pay Israeli taxes and buy Israeli goods.


An Arab law student was evicted from a hostel at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

tonight after refusing to take his turn on compulsory guard duty. Ibrahim Nassar, 24, went

quietly ahead of schedule because he feared that a Jewish student demonstration, called

for tomorrow, would provoke violence.

The Arab students argue that to do guard duty would risk bringing them into confrontation

with their own people. They suspect that the university authorities are trying to impose this

on them.


In the wake of the Rakah (New Communist) election victory in Nazareth, several Jewish

industrial plants in Upper Nazareth are to dismiss a number of Arab workers from

Nazareth. Although Upper Nazareth Labour Council said that dismissals were a result of

production cut-backs, Nazareth residents feel that the action is a retaliation for their voting

communist.


'The Histadrut has been ordered to pay court costs of IL 5,000 after the High Court of

Justice found that it had dismissed an Arab employee, Salman Salman of Ibillin, near Haifa,

for political reasons, in violation of the Labour federation’s constitution. ” The justification

of his dismissal was given as “shortage of work”, although it was in fact because his political

activities ran counter to Labour party policy. (Salman’s faction of the local council was

9

negotiating a coalition with Rakah). In spite of the Court’s ruling, made after Salman’s 6-

year battle before various Histadrut committees and labour courts, Salman still does not

have his job back.


The eight Arab students at the Hebrew University who received eviction notices a month

ago for refusing to do guard duty are to be evicted today, unless they sign a statement saying

they will perform some kind of service in connection with guard duty.


10

Chapter 5

Protests

“Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an

independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and

obligations and of any criminal charge against him.”


Article 10)

“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes

freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart

information and ideas through any media and regardless to frontiers.”


Article 19)

1. “ Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or

through freely chosen representatives.

2. “Evryone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.

3. “The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will

shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and

equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting

procedure.”


Article 21)

1975

Chapter 5

The year 1975 was notable for the escalation of Palestinian civilian resistance to the Israeli

occupation, especially in the West Bank. This was, in part, a direct result of the recognition

of the Palestine Liberation Organization as the sole representative of the Palestinian people

at the Rabat summit conference of October 1974, and the appearance of the PLO under its

leader Yasser Arafat at the United Nations General Assembly in November 1974.

Continued Israeli intransigence, as expressed at the international level in their disregard

for all UN recommendations and resolutions, and at the local level in their maintaining the

same repressive policies within the occupied territories, only accelerated the resistance of a

people whose national pride had been reinforced. The most violent and persistent manifes¬

tations of Palestinian protest against the Israeli occupation during 1975 revolved around

four major issues:

— the issue of ‘‘administrative detention” whereby Palestinians are imprisoned, in many

cases for periods of over one year, without being either charged or tried. The protests

involved a demand for the release or trial of the detainees.

— the Peres’ plan for limited administrative ‘ ‘ self-government” in the occupied territories.

The Palestinians reacted to this proposal with a categoric “No”, seeing in it an attempt

by the Israeli government to avoid the real issue of the right of the Palestinian people to

self-determination, and a negation of the legitimate role of the PLO as spokesman for all

Palestinians. The plan may also be seen as an Israeli attempt to persuade the United

States that there exists an alternative to negotiating with either the PLO or Jordan.

— the continued establishment of Jewish settlements in the occupied Arab territories,

especially in the West Bank, and the emergence of the fanatical Gush Emunim

movement, a part of the Greater Israel Movement, which believes in a divinely-

accorded right to establish Jewish colonies in any part of Palestine.

— the new regulations issued by the Israeli government with regard to Jewish rights to

pray in the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, one of the sacred sites of Islam, seen as a

devious attempt by the Zionists to further de-Arabize Palestine by encroaching on its

religious institutions.

These issues are but four current examples of the policies of oppression, harassment and

denial of rights practiced by the Israeli occupation authorities.

3

Protests

The national movement in the occupied territories is appealing to local and international

public opinion for the release of Arab detainees in Israeli prisons. The detainees have been

interned for nine months without being charged or brought to trial. Their detention order is

now to be extended for another six months. Mothers, sisters and wives of the detainees

staged a sit-in strike at the headquarters of the International Red Cross in Jerusalem to

protest against the continued internment of their relatives. An appeal signed by 51 women

was issued.

al-lttihad, January 17, 1975

Two bus loads of Arab women from Nablus went to visit their detained sons, brothers and

husbands at Beersheba prison. Before leaving, they sent a memorandum to the UN

Secretary-General, to the UN Human Rights Commission, to the International Committee

of the Red Cross and other international bodies, requesting their intervention with the

Israeli government for the immediate release of the detainees.

Other popular demonstrations are being planned to demand an end to “administrative

detention”, staged trials, and repression in the occupied territories.


Two hundred and fifteen students at Bir Zeit College signed a memorandum addressed to

the military governor of the Ramallah district in the occupied West Bank, demanding the

release of their professor, Taissir Arun, who has been held under administrative detention

for nine months.


At a meeting of the Young Communists in Nazareth, members resolved to show solidarity

with the political detainees in the occupied territories, and demanded an end to torture and

staged trials, such as the recent trial of Basheer Barghuti, a Palestinian writer and journalist.


The residents of the village of Mas’ada in the occupied Golan Heights signed a petition

demanding that the occupation authorities desist from their attempts to pressure the

population into accepting the establishment of a local council under the control of the Israeli

occupation.

The Israeli military governor called on a number of notables to remove their signatures

from the petition.


The women of Kafr Yassif in the occupied West Bank held a general meeting during which

they sent a cable to the Israeli Minister of Defence, demanding an end to administrative

detention in the occupied tentones .They also demanded the repeal of the order issued by the

Israeli authorities extending the administrative detention period for over 50 Arab detainees.


4

In response to an appeal by members of the Israeli Communist Party, Rakah, a number of

Arabs demonstrated in front of the Knesset to protest against the trial of members of the

Palestine National Front. The demonstrators carried posters written in English and

Hebrew saying “Liberate the fighters for freedom,” and “End oppression in the occupied territories. ”

UOrient- Le Jour, February 4, 1975

In protest against the new regulations allowing Jews of Kiryat Arba [a Jewish settlement in

the suburbs of Hebron] to become property owners in the region of Hebron, the mayor of

Hebron and other town notables threatened to exclude from the Arab community any Arab

who continues to work in the Kiryat Arba settlement.

Le Monde, February 5, 1975

The mayors and municipal councils of the Hebron district held a meeting in protest against

the expansion of the Kiryat Arba Jewish settlement in Hebron, and the granting of

municipal status to it by the Israeli authorities.


The wives of Palestinians held under administrative detention in Israeli prisons, without

charge or trial for over a year, sent a memorandum to some members of the Knesset. They

demanded an inquiry into this contravention of human rights, and asked that the Knesset

members intervene to obtain the release of the detainees.


A delegation of Arab women, representing the families of 50 administrative detainees from

Judea and Samaria in the occupied West Bank, asked Knesset member, Benjamin Halevi, to

help effect their release.

The women said the men had been arrested over nine months ago and were still being held,

despite the recommendation of an advisory committee to the Military Government that

they be freed after nine months.


About 70 Arab women and children demonstrated in Nablus in support of 38 of their

menfolk who have been on hunger strike for the past five days in Israeli prisons. All of them

are being held in detention and some have been in prison without trial for more than a year.

The detainees are demanding that the Israelis either charge or release them. Their families,

who appealed today to the International Red Cross and the United Nations, claimed that

neither they nor the men’s lawyers had been able to visit them since the strike began.


Wives and sisters of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons staged a sit-in strike at the French

Consulate in Jersualem. In a memorandum to the Consul, they demanded the release or trial

of those held under administrative detention, the improvement of the conditions and

treatment of all Arab prisoners, and an end to the deportation of Palestinians by the Israeli

occupation authorities.


Students disrupted classes in Nablus for the second day running in protest against the march

earlier this week by supporters of Jewish settlement in Samaria.

5

City officials tried to restore order following a warning by the military authorities that they

would close any schools where disturbances continued.

Classes in a number of schools were disrupted, but the unrest was confined to school

courtyards as the police prevented students from taking to the streets.

Last December, two schools were closed by the Israeli authorities for a few weeks following

disturbances.


There is a general consensus among the Palestinians of the occupied territories against the

Peres plan for granting them limited administrative self-rule.

al-lttihad, April 11, 1975

Some 400 people demonstrated in Tel Aviv protesting alleged discrimination against 1,600

Arab students in universities. Arab students at the Tel Aviv and the Orthodox Bar Ilan

universities complained of harassment.

Leaflets circulated by them demanded full equality with their Jewish counterparts, re¬

cognition of separate Arab student unions, no discrimination against Arab applicants for

admission to universities, accommodation for Arab students, and suitable employment for

graduates.

Jerusalem Post, April 23, 1975)

The mayors of Ramallah and neighbouring al-Bireh have protested that the authorities are

curtailing the visits by local residents to Jordan. The authorities have also limited permits to

summer visitors from Arab countries to visit relatives in the town.


National organizations in Nablus sent a memorandum to the military governor of the

occupied West Bank protesting the “continued administrative detention of a number of

West Bank intellectuals.” They also demanded an “immediate investigation of their

situation,” and their release or trial.

The detainees have been in prison for one year and three months without being charged or

tried.


About 100 women held a sit-in strike at the offices of the International Red Cross in

Jerusalem to protest the continued internment of Palestinians in Israeli prisons under an

administrative detention order. Letters of protest were presented to the Red Cross

representative and to the military governor of the West Bank, while a cable was sent to the

Ministers of Defence and Police.


The Moslem Higher Council in Jerusalem issued a statement rejecting the recent re¬

gulations announced by the Israeli government regarding the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron.

[The Israeli authorities have partitioned the Mosque, giving over a part to Jewish rites. The

Jews, however, had been steadily encroaching on Arab rights, demanding larger parts of the

Mosque, wanting more time for prayers and ultimately demanding that the Mosque in its

entirety be given over to them.]

Al Hamishmar, August 6, 1975

6

The mayor of Hebron,in a statement objecting to the new Israeli regulations for prayer at the

Ibrahimi Mosque, said that the Tomb is a Moslem shrine and that only Moslems can hold

religious services in it.

The mayors of al-Bireh and Ramallah have sent letters of protest against the regulations to

the Israeli military governor of the West Bank.

Haaret^y August 7, 1975

The Moslem Higher Council in Jerusalem issued a statement against the partitioning of the

Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron by the Israeli occupation authorities. It declared that the

sanctuary is a Moslem mosque and rejected all regulations and proposals for transforming it

into a Jewish synagogue.

Friday, August 15, was declared Ibrahimi Mosque day.


A popular demonstration took place in the town of Hebron in protest against the new Israeli

regulations for the Ibrahimi Mosque. The security forces arrested eleven demonstrators.

Yediot Aharonoty August 10, 1975

A large demonstration against the Israeli decision to partition the Ibrahimi Mosque

followed Friday prayers in Hebron.

On Sunday, emergency meetings were held in the towns of Hebron, Nablus and Tulkarm

for the same purpose.

The municipal councils of Jericho, al-Bireh, Ramallah, Tulkarm and Nablus sent letters of

protest to a number of international organizations regarding this matter.

al-Ittihady August 12, 1975

Parents and relatives of Palestinians held under administrative detention in Nablus prison

cabled the military governor. They reminded him of the promise made by the Defence

Minister to the Mayor of Nablus that he would expedite the release of the detainees or have

them brought to trial.


The Arabic daily press in the occupied West Bank has been carrying a number of editorials,

commentaries and leading articles opposing the limited self-administration offered the

occupied territories under the Peres plan.


The students at Bir Zeit College in the occupied West Bank demonstrated against the

proposed “civil administration” plan, which they consider to be a conspiracy by the Israeli

government against the population of the occupied territories. They sent a cable to the

Secretary-General of the United Nations expressing their opposition to the plan, and

affirming the PLO as sole representative of the Palestinian people.


Demonstrating students in Ramallah were dispersed by the Israeli security forces. They

were expressing their support of the UN debate on Palestine at the United Nations, and

opposition to Israeli-imposed “self-government.” They were also calling for an end to

Israeli occupation.

Yediot Aharonot, November 9, 1975

7

Classes at theTeachers Training College in Ramallah were suspended and the school closed

down by the Israeli occupation forces after students staged a demonstration in support of

the PLO, and against any form of administrative self-rule proposed by the Israeli govern¬

ment.

Yediot Aharonot, November 11, 1975

The popular unrest in the occupied West Bank against the Israeli plan for administrative

self-rule spread to all major towns including Jenin, Jericho and Bethlehem. In Jenin, 62 girl

students were arrested by Israeli security forces during a demonstration in which they

carried the Palestinian flag.

Haaret%, November 13, 1975

Thirteen Nablus school children were detained for rioting in school courtyards when

security patrols were stoned. Four schools participated in the wave of protest, which spread

from Ramallah to Nablus, against the Israeli-proposed West Bank “civil administration”

plan.


Student strikes and organized demonstrations by secondary school students in the towns of

Ramallah and al-Bireh, which have been going on since the beginning of the week, spread to

most of the big towns of the occupied West Bank. The Israeli authorities foresee the

extension of the protest movement to the whole of the region occupied in 1967, which could

lead to the participation of other elements of the population.

The students were protesting the proposal by Shimon Peres to initiate administrative

autonomy in the West Bank under the aegis of the occupation authorities. The students

were clearly rejecting the proposal in favour of alliance with the PLO, and an end to the

Israeli occupation.

Andre Scemama, Le Monde, November 14, 1975

Nablus pupils rioted in several schools on November 15, shouting anti-Israeli slogans. “An

undisclosed number were detained by the security forces which cordoned off the trouble

spots.” Pupils in Beit Jala, near Bethlehem, staged a sit-in strike at a school over the

weekend, denouncing Defence Minister Peres’ proposal for civil administration in the

occupied territories.


Student demonstrations continued in the West Bank. Security reinforcements were sent to

Ramallah after an explosion at a local government office; and in Halhul, near Hebron, a

violent student protest demonstration was dispersed by security forces after a rally in which

students shouted anti-Israeli slogans. Other brief disturbances took place in some Nablus

schools.


School demonstrations against Israel’s plan for limited self-government for Arabs in the

occupied West Bank spread to Jerusalem and its schools. The worst weekend incident

occurred in Halhul, near Hebron, where several pupils and teachers were injured in clashes

with troops who broke up the demonstrations. Some soldiers chased the pupils into the

high school and further scuffles broke out in which sticks and gun butts were used. Later, 60

8

students were arrested and hned heavily by military courts. The demonstrations began two

weeks ago in Ramallah, where nearly 100 high school boys and girls were hned.

The demonstrations point to the failure to win support for the plan for limited autonomy,

which is an attempt to persuade the United States that there is an alternative to negotiations

with either the Palestinians or Jordan.


Shopkeepers in the old city of Jerusalem have threatened to go on strike unless the streets of

the city are repaired.

In letters of protest to the responsible occupation authorities, they pointed out that the

streets had been left unrepaired alter they had been dug up a year and a halt ago.

aTlttihad, November 21, 1975

In conjunction with International Women’s Year, a large number of women from the

occupied West Bank held a conference at the Arab Women’s Union in Jerusalem. Among

the resolutions adopted was one expressing opposition to the Israeli plan for giving the

occupied territories limited administrative self-rule.

In Beit Jala, students demonstrated against the administrative self-rule plan, while in

Nablus, fines estimated to be in the range of half a million Israeli po nds were imposed on

parents whose children joined a demonstration for the same purpose.

aTlttihad, November 25, 1975

Arab students have refused to take their turn at guard duty, a task required of all students

living in the residential quarter of the university the implication being to guard against

attempts at sabotage by Palestinians. The Arab students declared that their conscience

would not permit them to take sides against Palestinians by participating in the protection of

the university, but that they were ready to perform any other task that would benefit the

collective need.

Andre Scemama, Le Monde, November 26, 1975

The Arab population in Samaria [West Bank] expressed its opposition to Gush Emunim

attempts to settle in Mas’udiya.

Hundreds of Arab school .children in Nablus stoned soldiers, blockaded roads and set fire to

tyres. Security forces went into several schools and the City Hall in pursuit of the student

demonstrators. Seven were arrested, four of whom were later released. Nablus shops were

closed.

Dr Hatem Abu Ghazaleh, PLO supporter and former Jordanian Parliament member, said

the settlement attempt “deepens the local population’s nationalism”, and makes them aware

of the “real intention behind Israeli occupation which is colonization of these areas by

creating settlements here and there.”


In Nablus, Israeli troops firing guns in the air quelled about 1,000 Arab youths protesting

Jewish settlement in the West Bank in one of the worst outbreaks of unrest in the region in

six years.

Dozens of young people were collared by the troops who kicked and clubbed some of them

before throwing them into wTaitmg jeeps.

International Herald Tribune, December 9, 1975

9

Popular opposition to the continued Jewish settlement of the West Bank has been gaining

momentum on all levels and in all areas of the occupied territory. The most notable

manifestation took place in Nablus where a general strike was observed and large de¬

monstrations took place. A United Press report says that these manifestations were brutally

repressed by Israeli border guards and army units supported by tanks and armoured cars.

In the town of al-Bireh, students held a sit-in strike in front of the Hashimiyeh School and

submitted a memorandum to the mayors of the town and of Ramallah, protesting against

Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank. al-lttihad, December 11, 1975

Heavily armed troop patrols guarded streets leading to secondary schools in Nablus,

preventing demonstrations by pupils coming back from holidays during which they

demonstrated in protest against settlement attempts at Sebastia, north of Nablus. Some 30

families of Jewish settlers are still under army protection near Sebastia until the Israeli

Cabinet decides their future. _ 7he Times, December 18, 1975

Arab students demonstrated at the Hebrew University on December 23 in protest against

eviction orders against 8 Arab students for failing to do guard duty.

Leaflets distributed by some 200 demonstrators said: “We deplore the fact that the

University is carrying out the policy of extremist circles, whose aim is the removal of Arab

students from the campus.” The Arabs were supported by Jewish leftist students. There

was also a counter-demonstration.

The University had insisted that this year all Arabs do guard duty. Arab students suggested

certain compromises which included paid watchmen, or allowing leftist Jewish students to

volunteer in their place, or working in the University libraries, telephone exchanges,

restaurants or internal postal services for double the hours required for guard duty. These

suggestions were rejected by the University Administration.

The Arab students demand an end to discrimination, citing “the fact that Arab students are

not admitted to courses in physical geography which involve mapping, field trips and

cooperation with the Army,” and that they are forbidden to share a dormitory room with

Jewish students, which they consider “undemocratic and contradictory to the declared

policy of integrating Israeli Arabs into the life of the country.” Arab students at

Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan held a two-hour protest strike in sympathy.


10

Appendix I

Prison Charges and Sentences

1975

Khal

id A

shhab

Jeru

sale

m

—

Mem

ber

ship

of

PN

F

15 y

ears

al- I

ttih

ad,

Januar

y 7

, 19

75

Nab

eel

Ab

u S

anin

eh

Jeru

sale

m

—

Mem

ber

ship

of

PN

F

9 yea

rs

al-I

ttih

ad,

Januar

y 7

, 19

75

Sam

ir J

a’ba

Jeru

sale

m

—

Mem

ber

ship

of

PN

F

6 yea

rs

al-I

ttih

ad,

Januar

y 7

, 19

75

Far

is A

li Y

ehie

h

Ara

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7

Appendix II

UN Resolutions on Palestine

1975

The following UN resolutions are reprinted from United Nations Resolutions on Palestine

and the Arab-Israeli Conflict 1975, published by the Institute for Palestine Studies, Beirut,

and the Centre for Documentation and Studies, Abu Dhabi, 1977.

GENERAL ASSEMBLY

Resolution No. 3379 (XXX)

of 10 November 1975

On the elimination of all forms of

RACIAL DISCRIMINATION

The General Assembly,

Recalling its resolution 1904 (XVIII) of

20 November 1963, proclaiming the

United Nations Declaration on the Elim¬

ination of All Forms of Racial Discrimi¬

nation, and in particular its affirmation

that "any doctrine of racial differentiation

or superiority is scientifically false, morally

condemnable, socially unjust and dan¬

gerous” and its expression of alarm at "the

manifestations of racial discrimination still

in evidence in some areas in the world,

some of which are imposed by certain

Governments by means of legislative, ad¬

ministrative or other measures.”

Recalling also that, in its resolution 3151

G (XXVIII) of 14 December 1973, the

General Assembly condemned, inter alia,

the unholy alliance between South African

racism and Zionism,

Taking note of the Declaration of Mexico

on the Equality of Women and their Con¬

tribution to Development and Peace,1 pro¬

1 E/5725, part one, sect. I.

claimed by the World Conference of the

International Women’s Year, held at

Mexico City from 19 June to 2 July 1975,

which promulgated the principle that "in¬

ternational cooperation and peace require

the achievement of national liberation and

independence, the elimination of col¬

onialism and neo-colonialism, foreign oc¬

cupation, Zionism, apartheid and racial

discrimination in all its forms, as well as

the recognition of the dignity of peoples

and their right to self-determination,”

Taking note also of resolution 77 (XII)

adopted by the Assembly of Heads of State

and Government of the Organization of

African Unity at its twelfth ordinary ses¬

sion,2 held at Kampala from 28 July to 1

August 1975, which considered "that the

racist regime in occupied Palestine and the

racist regimes in Zimbabwe and South

Africa have a common imperialist origin,

forming a whole and having the same

racist structure and being organically

linked in their policy aimed at repression

of the dignity and integrity of the human

being,”

Taking note also of the Political De¬

claration and Strategy to Strengthen In-

2 See A/10297, annex II.

3

ternational Peace and Security and to In¬

tensify Solidarity and Mutual Assistance

among Non-Aligned Countries,3 adopted

at the Conference of Ministers for Foreign

Affairs of Non-Aligned Countries held at

Lima from 25 to 30 August 1975, which

most severely condemned Zionism as a

threat to world peace and security and

called upon all countries to oppose this

racist and imperialist ideology,

Determines that Zionism is a form of

racism and racial discrimination.

Adopted at the 2400th plenary meeting:

In favour: 12

Against: 35

Abstained: 32


of 15 December 1975

Permanent sovereignty over national

RESOURCES IN THE OCCUPIED ARAB. TER¬

RITORIES


Recalling its resolution 3336 (XXIX) of

17 December 1974, entitled Permanent

sovereignty over national resources in the

occupied Arab territories,” paragraph 5 of

which requested the Secretary-General,

with the assistance of relevant specialized

agencies and United Nations organs, in¬

cluding the United Nations Conference on

Trade and Development, to prepare a re¬

port on the adverse economic effects on

the Arab States and peoples, resulting

from repeated Israeli aggression and con¬

tinued occupation of their territories;

Recalling the statement4 made on behalf

of the co-sponsors in introducing the re¬

vised draft resolution,5 underlining the

need to seek the assistance of relevant Un¬

ited Nations organizations in preparing

3 A/10217 and Corr.l, annex p. 3.

4 See A/C. 2/SR. 1635.

3 A/C. 2/L. 1372/Rev. 1.

the report requested of the Secretary-

General as these organizations had the

machinery needed to carry out studies and

research which would be useful in prepar¬

ing the report,

Recalling further the statements sub¬

mitted by the Secretary-General,6 in which

he proposed that the report would be pre¬

pared on the basis of inquiries from and

visits to the States concerned and con¬

sultations with the relevant specialized

agencies and United Nations organs, in¬

cluding the United Nations Conference on

Trade and Development,

Recalling also that, in his two statements,

the Secretary-General indicated that a

large part of the work involved would be

carried out in co-operation with the Econ¬

omic Commission for Western Asia, and

that the Commission would require four

economists, appointed for six months

each, and General Service secretariat sup¬

port as well as travel funds for the prepara¬

tion of the report,

Noting that, in view of the staffing pro¬

posals for the Economic Commission for

Western Asia, the Advisory Committee on

Administrative and Budgetary Questions

recommended7 an additional provision in

the amount of $37,000 to cover the cost of

two economists only for a period of six

months each and that the General As¬

sembly approved this additional appro¬

priation to supplement the staff and re¬

sources of the Commission in the work

involved in the preparation of the report,

Noting also that the report of the

Secretary-General8 was not prepared in

conformity with paragraph 5 of General

Assembly resolution 3336 (XXIX), the

related statements made on behalf of the

co-sponsors and by the Secretary-General,

and the administrative and financial impli-

6 A/C. 2/L. 1385 and A/C. 5/1649.

7 A/9978/Add. 1.

8 A/10290.

4

cations and provisions approved by the

Assembly, but contained only annexes set¬

ting forth information available to

Governments and to some of the relevant

specialized agencies and United Nations

organs which were not involved in the

preparation of substantive studies related

to the report,

1. Notes that the report of the

Secretary-General is inadequate as it did

not incorporate the necessary substantive

and comprehensive studies required in

conformity with paragraph 5 of General

Assembly resolution 3336 (XXIX) and

related documents, including A/C.2/SR.

1635, A/C.2/L.1385, A/C.5/1649 and

A/9978/Add. 1;

2. Requests the heads of the relevant

specialized agencies and United Nations

organs, particularly the United Nations

Conference on Trade and Development

and the Economic Commission for Wes¬

tern Asia, to co-operate actively and

adequately with the Secretary-General in

the preparation of a final and compre¬

hensive report;

3. Requests the Secretary-General to

submit to the General Assembly at its

thirty-first session his final comprehensive

report, which should fulfil the above-

mentioned requirements.

Adopted at the 2441st plenary meeting:

In favour: 100

Against: 2

Abstained: 30


of 15 December 1975

WOMEN’S PARTICIPATION IN THE STRENGTH¬

ENING OF INTERNATIONAL PEACE AND

SECURITY AND IN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST

COLONIALISM, RACISM, RACIAL DISCRIMIN¬

ATION, FOREIGN AGGRESSION, OCCUPATION

AND ALL FORMS OF FOREIGN DOMINATION


Recalling its resolution 3276 (XXIX) of

10 December 1974,

Considering the report of the World Con¬

ference of the International Women’s

Year,9 in particular the Declaration of

Mexico on the Equality of Women and

their Contribution to Development and

Peace, 1975,10 the World Plan of Action for

the Implementation of the Objectives of

the International Women’s Year11 and the

resolutions contained in the report of the

Conference,12

Appreciating that the Conference em¬

phasized the important role women must

play in the strengthening of international

peace and security and the expansion of co¬

operation among States, irrespective of

their social and economic systems, on the

principles of peaceful coexistence in ac¬

cordance with the Charter of the United

Nations.

indorsing the statement of the Con¬

ference that international co-operation

and peace require the achievement of na¬

tional liberation and independence, the pre -

servation of sovereignty and territorial in¬

tegrity, the elimination of colonialism and

neo-colonialism, aggression and foreign

occupation, apartheid and racial discrimi¬

nation in all its forms, as well as the re¬

cognition of the dignity of peoples and

their right to self-determination,

Noting with satisfaction the opinion ex¬

pressed by the Conference that peace re¬

quires that women as well as men reject

any type of intervention in the domestic

affairs of the States, openly or covertly

carried out by other States or by trans¬

national corporations, that women as well

as men also promote the respect for the

9 E/5725 and Add. 1.

10 E/5725, part one, sect. I.

11 Ibid., sect. II. A.

12 Ibid., sect. III.

5

sovereign right of a State to establish its

own economic, social and political system,

without political and economic pressures

or coercion of any type,

Taking into account the view of the Con¬

ference that the Charter of Economic

Rights and Duties of States13 confirms, in¬

ter alia, the obligation of all States to pro¬

mote the implementation of general and

complete disarmament and to use the

funds saved for economic and social de¬

velopment and provide part of them for

the needs of the developing countries,

Noting with satisfaction the positive chan¬

ges which have taken place during the last

few years in international relations, such as

the elimination of the dangerous sources

of war in Viet-Nam and the results of the

Conference on Security and Co-operation

in Europe, and noting also the importance

of deepening the process of international

detente and strengthening international

just peace based on full respect for the

Charter of the United Nations and the

interests of all States, large and small,

Emphasising the grave concern that in some

regions of the world colonialism, apartheid\

racial discrimination and foreign ag¬

gression yet exist and territories are still

occupied, which represents a most serious

infringement of the principles of the Char¬

ter of the United Nations and of human

rights of both men and women, and of the

peoples’ right to self-determination,

1. Reaffirms the principles promul¬

gated in the Declaration of Mexico on

the Equality of Women and their Contri¬

bution to Development and Peace, 1975;

2. Reaffirms that the strengthening of

international peace and security, co¬

operation among all States irrespective of

their social and economic systems, based

on the principle of peaceful coexistence,

and the elimination of the remaining ves¬

tiges of colonialism, neo -colonialism, apar-

13 General Assembly resolution 3281 (XXIX).

theid, all forms of racism and racial discri¬

mination, alien domination, foreign ag¬

gression and occupation are indispensable

for the safeguarding of the fundamental

human rights of both men and women;

3. Calls upon all Governments, in¬

tergovernmental and non-governmental

organizations, particularly women’s orga¬

nizations and women’s groups, to in¬

tensify their efforts to strengthen peace, to

expand and deepen the process of in¬

ternational detente and make it irrever¬

sible, to eliminate completely and de¬

finitely all forms of colonialism and to put

an end to the policy and practice of apar¬

theid, all forms of racism, racial discrimi¬

nation, aggression, occupation and for¬

eign domination;

4. Urges all Governments to take effective

measures towards bringing about general

and complete disarmament and convening

the World Disarmament Conference as

soon as possible;

5. Expresses its solidarity with and its

assistance for women who contribute to¬

wards the struggle of the peoples for their

national liberation;

6. Invites the Secretary-General to sub¬

mit a comprehensive report on the im¬

plementation of the present resolution to

the General Assembly at its thirty-second

session.


In favour: 90

Against: 21

Abstained: 22

Resolution No. 3525 A, B, C, D (XXX)

of 15 December 1975

Report of the Special Committee to

Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting

the Human Rights of the Population of

the Occupied Territories

6

A


Guided by the purposes and principles

of the Charter of the United Nations as

well as the principles and provisions of

the Universal Declaration of Human

Rights,

Bearing in mind the provisions of the

Geneva Convention relative to the Pro¬

tection of Civilian Persons in Time of War,

of 12 August 1949,14 as well as of other

relevant conventions and regulations.

Recalling its resolutions on the subject,

as well as those adopted by the Security

Council, the Commission on Human

Rights and other United Nations bodies

concerned and by specialized agencies,

Having considered the report of the Special

Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices

Affecting the Human Rights of the

Population of the Occupied Terri¬

tories,15 which contains, inter alia, public

statements made by leaders of the Israeli

Government,

1. Commends the Special Committee to

Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the

Human Rights of the Population of the

Occupied Territories for its efforts in per¬

forming the tasks assigned to it by the

General Assembly;

2. Deplores the continued refusal by Is¬

rael to allow the Special Committee access

to the occupied territories;

.3. Calls again upon Israel to allow the

Special Committee access to the occupied

territories;

4. Deplores the continued and per¬

sistent violation by Israel of the Geneva

Convention relative to the Protection of

Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12

August 1949, and other applicable in¬

ternational instruments;

5. Condemns, in particular, the follow¬

ing Israeli policies and practices: (a) The annexation of parts of the oc¬

cupied territories;

(b) The establishment of Israeli settle¬

ments therein and the transfer of an alien

population thereto;

(c) The destruction and demolition of

Arab houses;

(d) The confiscation and expropriation

of Arab property in the occupied ter¬

ritories and all other transactions for the

acquisition of land involving the Israeli

authorities, institutions or nationals, on

the one hand, and the inhabitants or in¬

stitutions of the occupied territories, on

the other;

(e) The evacuation, deportation, ex¬

pulsion, displacement and transfer of Arab

inhabitants of the occupied territories and

the denial of their right to return;

(f) Mass arrests, administrative de¬

tention and ill-treatment of the Arab pop¬

ulation ;

(g) The pillaging of archaeological and

cultural property;

(h) The interference with religious

freedoms and practices, as well as family

rights and customs;

(i) The illegal exploitation of the nat¬

ural wealth, resources and population of

the occupied territories;

6. Declares that those policies and prac¬

tices of Israel constitute grave violations of

the Charter of the United Nations, in parti¬

cular the principles of sovereignty and ter¬

ritorial integrity, and the principles and

provisions of international law concerning

occupation, as well as constitute an im¬

pediment to the establishment of a just and

lasting peace;

7. Reaffirms that all measures taken by

Israel to change the physical character,

14 United Nations, Treaty Series, Vol. 75, No. 973.

p. 287.

15 A/10272.

demographic composition, institutional structure or status of the occupied ter¬

ritories, or any part thereof, are null and void;

8. Reaffirms further that Israel’s policy

of settling parts of its population and new

immigrants in the occupied territories is a

flagrant violation of the Geneva Con¬

vention relative to the Protection of Civ¬

ilian Persons in Time of War and of re¬

levant United Nations resolutions, and

urges all States to refrain from any action

which Israel will exploit in carrying out its

policy of colonizing the occupied ter¬ ritories ;

9. Demands that Israel desist forthwith

from the annexation and colonization of

the occupied Arab territories as well as

from all the policies and practices referred to in paragraph 5 above;

10. Reiterates its call upon all States,

international organizations and specialized

agencies not to recognize any changes car¬

ried out by Israel in the occupied ter¬

ritories and to avoid actions, including

actions in the field of aid, which might be

used by Israel in its pursuit of the policies

and practices referred to in the present resolution;

11. Requests the Special Committee,

pending the early termination of the Israeli

occupation, to continue to investigate Is¬

raeli policies and practices in the Arab

territories occupied by Israel since 1967, to

consult, as appropriate, with the In¬

ternational Committee of the Red Cross in

order to ensure the safeguarding of the

welfare and human rights of the pop¬

ulation of the occupied territories, and to

report to the Secretary-General as soon as possible and whenever the need arises thereafter;

12. Requests the Secretary-General:

(a) To render all necessary facilities to

the Special Committee, including those re¬

quired for its visits to the occupied ter¬

ritories with a view to investigating Israeli

policies and practices referred to in the present resolution;

(b) To make available additional staff

as may be necessary to assist the Special

Committee in the performance of its tasks;

(c) To ensure the widest circulation of

the reports of the Special Committee, and

of information regarding its activities and

findings, by all means available through

the Office of Public Information of the Secretariat;

(d) To report to the General Assembly

at its thirty-first session on the tasks en¬ trusted to him;

13. Decides to include in the provisional

agenda of its thirty-first session the item

entitled "Report of the Special Committee

to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting

the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied Territories.”

Adopted at the 2441stplenary meeting:

In favour: 87

Against: 7

Abstained: 26

B


Recalling its resolutions 3092 A

(XXVIII) of 7 December 1973 and 3240 B

(XXIX) of 29 November 1974,

Considering that the promotion of respect

for the obligations arising from the Char¬

ter of the United Nations and other instru¬

ments and rules of international law is

among the basic purposes and principles of the United Nations,

Bearing in mind the provisions of the Geneva Convention relative to the Pro¬

tection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949,16

16 United Nations, Treaty Series, Yol. 75, No. 973, p. 287.

8

Noting that Israel and those Arab States

whose territories have been occupied by

Israel since June 1967 are parties to that

Convention,

Taking into account that States parties to

that Convention undertake, in accordance

with article 1 thereof, not only to respect

but also to ensure respect for the Con¬

vention in all circumstances,

1. Reaffirms that the Geneva Con¬


ilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August

1949, is applicable to all the Arab ter¬

ritories occupied by Israel since 1967, in¬

cluding Jerusalem;

2. Deplores the failure of Israel to ac¬

knowledge the applicability of that Con¬

vention to the territories it has occupied

since 1967;

3. Calls once more upon Israel to acknow¬

ledge and to comply with the provisions of

that Convention in all the Arab territories

it has occupied since 1967, including

Jerusalem;

4. Urges all States parties to that Con¬

vention to exert all efforts in order to

ensure respect for and compliance with the

provisions thereof in all the Arab ter¬

ritories occupied by Israel since 1967, in¬

cluding Jerusalem.


In favour: 112

Against: 2

Abstained: 7

C


Recalling its resolution 3240 C (XXIX)

of 29 November 1974,

Having considered the report of the Special


Affecting the Human Rights of the Pop¬

ulation of the Occupied Territories,17 in

A/10272.

particular section V thereof concerning ac¬

tion by the Special Committee to imple¬

ment the provisions of paragraph 3 of

resolution 3240 C (XXIX),

Noting that the Special Committee was

not able to submit to the General As¬

sembly at its current session a full report in

accordance with the request made in para¬

graph 3 of resolution 3240 C (XXIX),

1. Requests the Special Committee to



Occupied Territories to continue its ef¬

forts to undertake a survey of the de¬

struction in Quneitra and to assess the

nature, extent and value of the damage

caused by such destruction;


continue to make available to the Special

Committee all the facilities necessary in the

performance of its tasks and to report to

the General Assembly at its thirty-first

session.


In favour: 87

Against: 2

Abstained: 32

D


Recalling its resolutions 2253 (ES-V) of

4 July 1967, 2254 (ES-V) of 14 July 1967

and 3240 (XXIX) of 29 November 1974

and Security Council resolutions 252

(1968) of 21 May 1968,267 (1969) of 3 July

1969, 271 (1969) of 15 September 1969

and 298 (1971) of 25 September 1971,

Taking note of the information contained

in the report of the Special Committee to



Occupied Territories,18

18 Ibid.

9

Noting with concern the actions of the

Israeli authorities in changing the in¬

stitutional structure and established re¬

ligious practices in the sanctuary of al-

Ibrahimi mosque in the city of al-Khalil,

Considering that these actions constitute

grave violations of human rights and re¬

ligious freedom and of the norms of in¬

ternational law, in particular article 27 of

the Geneva Convention relative to the

Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of

War, of 12 August 1949,19

Considering also that these violations of

established religious rights are a challenge

to the susceptibilities of hundreds of mil¬

lions of Muslims all over the world.

Considering furthermore that these viol¬

ations, which have already caused civil and

religious disturbances, constitute a new

threat to peace and security in the area,

1. Declares all measures taken by the

COMMISSION ON

Resolution No. 6 A, B (XXXI)

of 21 February 1975

A

Deploring Israel’s continued grave

VIOLATIONS, IN THE OCCUPIED ARAB

TERRITORIES, OF THE BASIC NORMS OF

INTERNATIONAL LAW AS WELL AS ITS

PERSISTENT DEFIANCE OF THE RELEVANT

RESOLUTIONS OF THE UNITED NATIONS AND

ITS CONTINUED POLICY OF VIOLATING THE

BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS OF THE INHABITANTS OF

THE OCCUPIED ARAB TERRITORIES

The Commission on Human Kights,

Guided by the principles and purposes of

the Charter of the United Nations, as well

19 United Nations, Treaty Series, Vol. 75, No. 973, p.287.

Israeli authorities with a view to changing

the institutional structure and established

religious practices in the sanctuary of al-

Ibrahimi mosque in the city of al-Khalil

null and void;

2. Calls upon Israel to rescind and to

desist forthwith from all such measures;

3. Requests the Secretary-General to in¬

vestigate the situation in al-Ibrahimi mos¬

que by contacting the Islamic, Arab and

other authorities concerned, and to report

as soon as possible on the implementation

of paragraph 2 above;

4. Calls upon Israel to co-operate with

the Secretary-General and to facilitate his

task.


In favour: 82

Against: 5

Abstained: 33

HUMAN RIGHTS

as the principles and provisions of the

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

and the provisions of the Geneva Con¬


ilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August

1949,20

Recalling the pertinent United Nations

resolutions on the situation in the oc¬

cupied territories and the protection of the

human rights and fundamental freedoms

of the inhabitants of the occupied Arab

territories, and in particular General As¬

sembly resolutions 3236 (XXIX), 3240

(XXIX) and 3336 (XXIX),

Taking into account that the General As¬

sembly has reaffirmed, in resolution 3236

(XXIX), the inalienable rights of the Pa¬

lestinian people in Palestine, including:

20 United Nations, Treaty Series, Vol. 75, p. 287.

10

(a) The right to self-determination

without external interference,

(b) The right to national independence

and sovereignty,

Taking note of the reports of the United

Nations and other international humani¬

tarian organizations on the situation of the

occupied Arab territories and their in¬

habitants, in particular the report of the

Special Committee to Investigate Israeli

Practices Affecting the Human Rights of

the Population of the Occupied Territories

(A/9817),

Greatly alarmed by the continuation of

the violations of human rights and fun¬

damental freedoms by Israel in the oc¬

cupied Arab territories, in particular the

continued occupation of these territories

and the measures aiming at annexation as

well as the continuing destruction of

houses, expropriation of Arab properties

and ill-treatment of prisoners,

Deeply concerned over Israel’s persistence

in establishing settlements in the occupied

Arab territories, implementing massive

programmes of immigration, continuing

the deportation and transfer of the in¬

digenous population and refusing their re¬

turn,

Recalling also resolution IX adopted by

the International Labour Conference at its

fifty-ninth session, in 1974, which declares

that any military occupation of territory

constitutes in itself a permanent violation

of basic human rights and fundamental

freedoms and in particular of trade union

and social rights,

Noting the conclusion of the Special


Affecting the Human Rights of the Pop¬

ulation of the Occupied Territories that

the Israeli occupying forces were re¬

sponsible for the deliberate and total de¬

struction of Quneitra and that this con¬

stituted a violation of article 53 of the

fourth Geneva Convention of 12 August

1949 and fell within the scope of article 147

of that Convention,

Seriously concerned that the population of

the occupied Arab territories are hindered

in the exercise of their inalienable rights to

national education and cultural life,

Taking into consideration that the General

Assembly has adopted resolution 3314

(XXIX), which qualifies as an act of ag¬

gression the invasion or attack by the ar¬

med forces of a State of the territory of

another State, or any military occupation,

however temporary, resulting from such

invasion or attack, or any annexation by

the use of force of the territory of another

State or part thereof,

1. Deplores Israel’s continued grave

violations, in the occupied Arab ter¬

ritories, of the basic norms of international

law and of the relevant international con¬

ventions, in particular the Geneva Con¬


ilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August

1949, which have been considered by the

Commission on Human Rights as war

crimes and an affront to humanity, as well

as its persistent defiance of the relevant

resolutions of the United Nations and its

continued policy of violating the basic

human rights of the inhabitants of the

occupied Arab territories;

2. Reaffirms the inalienable right of the

Arab people to return to their homes and

property from which they have been dis¬

placed and uprooted and calls for their

return,

3. Reaffirms also that Israel’s policy of

settling parts of its population and new

immigrants in the occupied territories is a

flagrant violation of the Geneva Con¬


ilian Persons in Time of War and of the

United Nations resolutions and urges all

States to refrain from any action that might

be exploited by Israel in carrying out its

policy of colonizing the occupied ter¬

ritories ;

4. Reaffirms further that all measures

11

taken by Israel to exploit the human, nat¬

ural and all other resources and wealth of

the occupied Arab territories infringe

upon the permanent sovereignty of the

Arab people over their natural resources

and calls upon Israel immediately to re¬

scind all such measures and to compensate

and make full restitution for the exploita¬

tion and depletion of their human and

natural resources;

5. Reaffirms that military occupation of

territory constitutes a grave threat to in¬

ternational peace and security and is in

itself a permanent violation of the Charter

of the United Nations and of the Universal

Declaration of Human Rights;

6. Declares that Israel’s policy of an¬

nexation, establishment of settlements and

transfer of an alien population to the oc¬

cupied territories is in contravention of the

purposes and principles of the Charter of

the United Nations, the principles and

provisions of international law, the prin¬

ciples of sovereignty and territorial in¬

tegrity and the basic human rights and

fundamental freedoms of the people;

7. Further declares that all measures

taken by Israel to change the physical char¬

acter, the demographic structure and the

status of occupied Arab territories are null

and void;

8. Censures in the strongest terms all

measures taken by Israel to change the

status of Jerusalem;

9. Condemns Israel for its deliberate de¬

struction and devastation of the town of

Quneitra and considers these acts as a

grave breach of the Geneva Convention

relative to the Protection of Civilian Per¬

sons in Time of War of 12 August 1949;

10. Calls upon Israel once more to com¬

ply with its obligations under the Charter

of the United Nations and the Universal

Declaration of Human Rights to acknow¬

ledge and abide by its obligations under

the Geneva Convention relative to the

Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of

War and to implement all the relevant

United Nations resolutions;

11. Calls upon all States to do their ut¬

most to ensure that Israel respects the pro¬

visions of the Geneva Convention relative

to the Protection of Civilian Persons in

Time of War and that it desists from all

acts and policies aimed at colonizing and

changing the physical character and de¬

mographic composition of the occupied

Arab territories, particularly through the

establishment of settlements and the de¬

portation and transfer of the indigenous

inhabitants;


bring the present resolution to the atten¬

tion of all Governments, the competent

United Nations organs, specialized agen¬

cies and regional intergovernmental or¬

ganizations and to give it the widest pos¬

sible publicity, and to report to the Com¬

mission on Human Rights at its next

session;

13. Decides to place on the provisional

agenda of its thirty-second session, as a

matter of high priority, the item entitled

“Question of the violation of human

rights in the territories occupied as a result

of hostilities in the Middle East.”

Adopted at the 1315th meeting:

In favour: 22

Against: 1

Abstained: 9

B

D EPLORINGI SRAEL’S POLICIES AND PRACTICES

OF DESECRATION OF MOSLEM AND CHRISTIAN

SHRINES, DISRESPECT AND ILL-TREATMENT OF

RELIGIOUS LEADERS AND VIOLATIONS OF

RIGHTS OF WORSHIP IN THE ARAB TERRITORIES

occupied by Israel and calling upon

Israel to ensure freedom of worship

The Commission on Human Rights,

Guided by the principles enshrined in the

Charter of the United Nations and the

12

Universal Declaration of Human Rights as

well as the other related international in¬

struments,

Deeply concerned over Israel’s continued

policies and practices of suppressing the

inhabitants of the occupied Arab ter¬

ritories in their struggle to attain their

inalienable rights, entailing arbitrary im¬

prisonment and inhumane treatment,

which did not even spare religious per¬

sonalities such as Archbishop Capucci,

Archbishop of the Greek Catholic Church

in the occupied Arab West Bank,

1. Deplores the policies and practices

of desecration of Moslem and Christian

shrines, disrespect and ill-treatment of re¬

ligious leaders and violations of rights of

worship in the Arab territories occupied

by Israel;

2. Calls upon Israel to ensure freedom of

worship and accord the esteem, regard and

protection due to the religious shrines and

personalities in accordance with the estab¬

lished traditions in the region, particularly

in Jerusalem, which have been fully res¬

pected by all authorities throughout the

centuries;

3. Further calls upon Israel to rescind its

aforementioned policies and release im¬

mediately Archbishop Capucci.

Adopted at the 1315th meeting:

In favour: 21

Against: 6

Abstained: 5

WORLD CONFERENCE OF INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S YEAR

Resolution No. 32 of June 1975

Assistance to the Palestinian and Arab

WOMEN IN THEIR STRUGGLE AGAINST ZIONISM

The World Conference of International

Women's Year,

Mindful of the objectives and goals of

International Women’s Year,

Reaffirming the fundamental principles

and purposes of the United Nations Char¬

ter, in particular the maintenance of in¬

ternational peace and world security, the

development of friendly relations among

nations,

Deeply concerned about the prevailing

conditions — political, social, demog¬

raphic and economic — of the Pales¬

tinian people and in particular, the con¬

ditions under which the Palestinian

woman lives, and recognizing the close

relationship between such conditions and

the question of Palestine,

Reaffirming the futility of speaking

about equality of human beings at a time

when millions of human beings are suffer¬

ing under the yoke of colonialism,

Considering that international co¬

operation and peace requires national in¬

dependence and liberation, the elimination

of colonialism, neo-colonialism, fascism,

Zionism, apartheid and foreign occupation,

alien domination and racial discrimination

in all its forms and also the respect of

human rights,

Deeply concerned that no just solution to

the problem of Palestine has yet been

achieved and recognizing that the problem

of Palestine and the situation in the Middle

East continue to endanger international

peace and world security,

Expressing its grave concern that the

Palestinian woman and people have been

prevented from enjoying their inalienable

rights, and in particular their right to re-

13

turn to their homes and property from

which they have been displaced and up¬

rooted, the right to self-determination and

the right to national independence and

sovereignty,

Recognising that mass uprooting from

the homeland obstructs the participation

and integration of woman in the efforts of

progress.

Affirming the right of the Palestinian

woman to develop a strong and more ef¬

fective impetus to peace and the develop¬

ment of friendly relations among nations,

Recalling General Assembly resolution

3236 (XXIX) of 22 November 1974 and

resolution 3281 (XXIX) of 12 December

1974 adopting the Charter of Economic

Rights and Duties of States,

Recalling the final resolutions and

declarations of the regional seminars held

in Mogadishu, Kinshasa and Caracas,

Appeals to all women of the world to

proclaim their solidarity and support to

the Palestinian women and people in their

drive to put an end to flagrant violations of

fundamental human rights committed by

Israel in the occupied territories,

Appeals to all women in the world to

take the necessary measures to secure the

release of thousands of persons, fighters

for the cause of self-determination,

liberation and independence, held

arbitrarily in the prisons of the forces of

occupation,

Appeals to all States and international

organizations to extend assistance —

moral and material — to the Palestinian

and Arab woman and people in their

struggle against Zionism, foreign

occupation and alien domination, foreign

aggression, and help them restore their

inalienable rights in Palestine, and in

particular the right to return to their

homes and property from which they have

been displaced and uprooted, the right to

self-determination and the right to

national independence and sovereignty in

accordance with the United Nations

Charter.

Requests the United Nations Organiza¬

tion, its organs and specialized agencies,

as well as all national, regional and interna¬

tional women’s organizations to extend

their help — moral and material —to

the Palestinian woman and its organiza¬

tion and institutes.

14

Appendix III

Reprints from the Journal of Palestine Studies

1. “Democracy Ends at Pithat Rafah”

[reprinted from the Journal of Palestine Studies (Beirut), Vol. V, Nos. 1 & 2, Autumn

1975/Winter 1976, pp. 192-194.]

2. “A Letter From Prison”

[reprinted from the Journal of Palestine Studies (Beirut), Vol. V, Nos. 1 & 2, Autumn

1975/Winter 1976, pp.203-207.]

3. “Human Rights in Israel”

[reprinted from the Journal of Palestine Studies (Beirut), Vol. IV, No . 3, Spring 1975, pp. 161 -

171 •]

1975

DEMOCRACY ENDS AT PITH AT RAF AH

An article by Oded Lifshitz in New Out¬

look (September 1975) provided some new

information about the eviction of Bed¬

ouins from an area south of Gaza which the

Israelis are settling in order to seal off the

Gaza Strip from Sinai in the event of a

peace settlement.

“Rafah is a town at the southern end of

the Gaza Strip. What has become known

at its "Pitha’ (opening, approach) is the

area just to the southwest, in Sinai proper.

Israel’s designs to colonize the Pitha, in

fact a corridor separating Gaza from Sinai,

have resulted in the eviction and op¬

pression of many of the area’s thousands of

semi-nomadic Beduins.

“In January-February 1972, about 1500

Beduin families were evicted from an area

of 133,000 dunums, from the outskirts of

the city of Rafah southwards. The area

was closed and fenced by order of the

military government. Most of the houses

in it were destroyed by bulldozers, on top

of the property inside them, water wells

were filled, and many orchards were dam¬

aged. The order was carried out by the

southern district commander at the time,

Ariel Sharon, who was also present during

the evacuation. Also, the Minister of De¬

fence, then Moshe Dayan, knew about the

action in advance.

“The residents, men, women and child¬

ren, were evacuated violently, tents were

burned, etc. Various army officers in the

area, alarmed at what was done, reported it

to the Chief of Staff, and even before the

act was publicly known, a military inquiry

committee was formed. It found that the

deed was done without knowledge and

permission of the government or the

Commander-in-Chief. Following the

committee’s conclusions, three senior

officers were reprimanded, including Gen¬

eral Sharon, plus one government worker.

Some of them were transferred from their

positions. Among other things, the in¬

vestigation discovered that the fencing

material was taken without permission

from allotments meant for the Bar Lev

line. . .

“Details of the episode were first leaked

to the public by reservists who were shock¬

ed by the act, and afterwards by a cam¬

paign of protest by kibbutzim in the area,

which held a conference on the subject at

Nir Oz, on March 9, 1972.

“It soon became clear that despite its

condemnation of the act as a shameful

exception, the government stands behind

the act’s results, and is consolidating a plan

to turn the evacuated area into a region of

Jewish settlement.

“Reasons given by the government

and army for the evacuation were

in the category of current security;

creation of an uninhabited corridor

between Sinai and the Gaza Strip, to

prevent the movement of arms and ex¬

plosives left over from the Six Day War in

Sinai to terrorist organizations in the

Strip. This reason was thoroughly false:

Anyone crossing the area who sees the

meagre fence, broken for lengths of many

kilometres, neglected and covered with

sand dunes, understands that this was not

the reason for the eviction and clearance.

“The real reason is strategic, in long-

range considerations of Israel’s borders

after the signing of peace agreements. The

purpose is to create a corridor separating

Sinai, which will be returned to Egypt,

from the Gaza Strip. This is a legitimate

consideration, with its own internal logic,

but it could not justify the hasty and cruel

3

eviction, and certainly not the total clear¬

ance of the area. Even before the Six Day

War, Arabs dwelt in large areas of the

Negev, the Triangle, and along the Leb¬

anese border. Jewish settlements in these

areas integrated into sections inhabited by

Arabs, including areas next to the border.

“In the 'Pitha,’ the whole Beduin pop¬

ulation was evacuated. Very quickly, kib¬

butzim and moshavim are being placed on

their land, and even the city ' Yamit.’ No

effort was made to rehabilitate the local

residents or to reach a compromise by

which part of the land would be returned

to them. The absurdity and cruelty of this

approach is illustrated by the fact that the

settlement agencies claim that they need at

most 30 percent of the closed areas for the

needs of the Jewish settlements — 70 per¬

cent will remain empty.

The Legal Situation

“The state of Israel has taken upon itself

to obey international law, like the Hague

and Geneva Conventions, which lay down

rules for governing conquered territory,

including paragraphs dealing with re¬

sidents and property. These laws forbid

permanently confiscating property and

fields and exiling residents from their land.

A military government is allowed to close

an area temporarily, but only for military

requirements.

“ Thus, the government closed the area

of the 'Pitha’ temporarily, and ownership

still remained in the Beduin’s hands. Be¬

sides this, the governor’s closure orders in¬

clude a paragraph allowing the Beduins to

demand compensation for their land from

the government. This paragraph exists on

paper only.

"Legally, the conditions under which

settlements and even a city can be built on

lands not belonging to the government are

very complex. The only way out of this

complication is to buy the land from its

owners. Therefore, buying these lands has

become a prime goal of the government.

"The Beduins, who have dwelt in the

region for hundreds of years, developed

agriculture and built houses in it, do not

voluntarily agree to sell the lands to the

government. Thus, for three and one-half

years the government has employed a

series of pressures and threats, mostly il¬

legal, in order to legally justify settlement

in the 'Pitha. ’

How is the Pressure Applied?

“A boy of 9 (!) signs a document by

which he 'concedes’ his land.

" 'Negotiations’ with landowners in the

Yamit area were held while bulldozers

were stationed on the edges of the plots.

"Applicants for identity papers or li¬

cences to enter their property were re¬

quired to sign written concessions as con¬

ditions for receiving the documents.

"People who worked as teachers or in

other government service jobs were fired

because they refused to sell their land.

"A man was accused of holding 'ammu¬

nition’ (which was nothing but scrap iron

from 1956 in which he dealt with the

knowledge of the government), and was

held in prison until he conceded his land.

" 'CARE’ packages of food and welfare

payments were kept from people who re¬

fused to sell their land.

"Youths and criminal elements were

'made’ into landowners and fraudulently

received compensation from the govern¬

ment. The government, which achieved

great success in 'purchasing’ land in this

manner, closed its eyes.

"At the Avshalom crossroads, south of

Rafah, stands a modern villa, belonging to

'Id El-Baira. This Beduin, together with a

government worker in El Arish named

Morris, 'discovered’ many 'landowners’

for the government, and by this, part of

their compensation found its way to their

pockets. The two of them were arrested and

tried, mainly because they were not satis-

4

fied with forging documents for the 'good’

of the government, but also made sure to

line their pockets.

“Lately residents of the coastal area

near Yamit have been threatened with

transfer to the middle of Sinai. At night

they are brought to the authorities, group

by group, and heavy pressure is applied.

In at least one instance one man of 55 who

refused to sell his land was badly beaten,

and his teeth were broken.

“Towards sheikhs and notables the

government people adopt a policy of

temptation: They offer them money and

land in other areas way above the value of

their fPitha’ lands, on condition that they

sell their private land and convince others

of their tribe to do the same.

Democracy Stops at the Green Dine

“How is it possible to carry out deeds

like these for years, in the state of Israel ?

“According to international law, the

military governor of conquered territory is

omnipotent. He makes laws and levies

taxes, he is the judge and the policeman.

To the citizen in these areas, he is a com¬

plete dictator; he holds the powers of le¬

gislature, judiciary and executive. These

authorities are given the governor to

maintain order, security, and welfare in the

areas given to his care. In many instances,

the governor uses his authority as in¬

tended, and looks after the local pop¬

ulation quite well. In Pithat Rafah this

authority is utilized for evil; the residents

are under a regime of discrimination, ter¬

ror, and intimidation.

“This area is distant, and closed. The

average Israeli citizen does not have a clear

picture of what is being done there. There

are other factors to this situation:

“a) The communications media — the

military governor and the army spokes¬

man system control radio and television

broadcasts; in many cases, tapes and films

in which there were facts funcomfortable’

to the government were buried.

“b) The Israeli government and

Knesset members never attended to tens of

complaints and memoranda sent them by

Beduins of Pithat Rafah.

“Such was the fate of complaints sent to

the governor of the Gaza Strip, to the

Chief of Staff and to the Minister of De¬

fence .

“Only recently, after three years of pro¬

tests, a military inquiry committee was

formed, and it has begun a vigorous in¬

vestigation into the forging of land-

ownership documents and the giving of

compensation under false pretences. In¬

deed, tens of such cases were discovered

and hundreds of thousands of lirat have

been returned to the state treasury.

“c) The only body authorized to in¬

tervene in what is done in the administered

territories is the Supreme Court. In the

present matter, the Beduins turned to the

High Court of Justice, but the court

evaded judging the body of the question,

and even abstained from demanding that

the military regime estimate when the

Temporary closure’ of the Pitha land

would end.

“Democracy stops at the green line

[pre-1967 border] and beyond it in Pithat

Rafah: intimidation, pressure, and op¬

pression.”

5

A LETTER FROM PRISON

Melkite Archbishop Hilarion Capucci,

imprisoned by an Israeli court for cooper¬

ation with al-Fateh, wrote a letter in May

from his prison in Ramleh to his Patriarch

Maximos V Hakim, that attracted con¬

siderable attention in the Arab world.

“Your Beatitude:

“I have tried many times to write to

Your Beatitude to inform you fully of my

situation so as to avoid all ambiguity, but I

have not succeeded. God knows how I

long to see and talk to you, but though I

may be far from you in body, concealed as

I am in the darkness of prison, I am closer

to you than ever before in my thoughts,

my heart and my prayers. God is content

with me and my conscience is at rest, so my

morale could not be higher and I am sup¬

remely happy. In the depths of my heart I

enjoy peace and tranquillity because it was

at the guidance of divine inspiration, com¬

manding me not to oppose God Who de¬

sired that I should be led as a lamb to the

slaughter, from a desire to achieve peace

and from obedience to the dictates of my

conscience which compelled me to be of

service to the dearest of lands, our beloved

Palestine, and to love the most holy of

cities, our beloved Jerusalem, that I find

myself in prison.

“The religious leader is a man of peace

who builds and does not destroy, who

joins and does not divide, who reconciles

and does not set apart. It was my desire

that my imprisonment, which I myself

sought, should be the road to tribulation,

the price of peace, and a beacon that would

focus light for the entire world on our

cruel affliction, our unrelenting problem,

which has ruined our life and made it a

hell. What I pray for daily as I am in prison

is that with God’s help and protection, all

may unite in their efforts to ensure that the

doors of our great prison, the Middle East,

are flung open wide, so that its people may

go forth from darkness into light, from the

prison of their differences to the freedom

of the children of God; so that they may

come together in brotherly harmony and

love one another, mobilizing all their re¬

sources not for war and bloodshed but for

felicity, welfare and prosperity in all fields;

so that they may enjoy a just and per¬

manent peace which will safeguard the

rights of all, transform the area from a

gloomy prison into a luxuriant garden and

turn the lives of those who dwell in it from

a hell into a heaven.

“But inasmuch as the religious leader

also embodies the truth, because he repre¬

sents Almighty God Who is the very truth,

it is incumbent on him to combat false¬

hood, to succour the truth and to defend

the rights of peoples and individuals, es¬

pecially in vital matters affecting the des¬

tiny of nations. If he does not he is devoid

of manhood and religion knows him not.

So the religious leader must be a strong

bulwark against injustice, he must support

those who are oppressed and have suffered

injustice. He must feel with them, share

their sentiments and respond to their right¬

eous and legitimate demands or, in other

words, he must be the shield, the support

and the refuge of all. This is what God and

conscience require of every religious

leader and since God is entitled to obed¬

ience from man, I have done my duty.

And this is all the more required of me

inasmuch as, within the limits of the Pat¬

riarchate of Jerusalem, stretching from the

Gaza Strip through the West Bank, to

Caesarea of Palestine, of which I am the

6

Titular Archbishop, and lying at the gates

of Haifa, I am responsible for a land in

which right has been obliterated, a land in

which the usurper is trying, with all the

means at his disposal and in all fields, to

make slaves of those whose rights he has

usurped. All of these and their land are a

sacred trust reposed in me; the Lord will

call me to temporal account for them and

my fate on the Day of Judgement will

depend on how faithfully I have served

them. 'Come unto me... Inasmuch as you

have done it unto one of the least of my

brethren, ye have done it unto me,’ says

Christ to the elect on the Day of Judge¬

ment.

"So I have loved our dear Palestine and

its people. So I have loved my Jerusalem,

the capital of this usurped land. I have

loved it and sung of it to the world as the

Song of Songs, because it is the throbbing

heart of the children of Jesus and the

people of Muhammad. I have loved it

because it is the country of my Master,

Christ, and the cradle of my religion,

Christianity, and its land is strewn with

relics that are so holy to me. I have loved it

because it is the city of the Haram al-Sharif

and the Aqsa Mosque, the first Qibla and

the third most sacred Haram. So when I

saw it sorrowful and stricken, afflicted and

humiliated, garbed in black, I decided in

my heart that I would follow in the foot¬

steps of my Master Who bore the cross to

redeem humanity, that I would bear the

cross to redeem the land of the cross and

publish its tragedy, which is our tragedy,

to the world, making my prison the pulpit

from which I spread these tidings.

"The most precious thing in the teach¬

ings of my Master is love; this was his last

precept. I therefore believe in love and

hold sacred brotherhood and friendship

with all people, without distinction of any

kind, and I respect all religions and their

holy places as deeply as I do my own

religion and its holy places. Therefore I

have been grieved heart and soul and shock¬

ed to the very depths by the violation and

desecration of the holy places that I have

seen with my own eyes.

"I shall never forget what I have ex¬

perienced and what I have seen. And what

terrible things I, along with hundreds of

my fellow citizens, have seen in the Church

of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem! We

have seen dogs in it, and people strolling

inside it with cigarettes in their mouths, as

if they were in a museum! How we have

wept from grief and pain! The statue of the

Virgin Mary on Calvary, in the Church of

the Holy Sepulchre, was desecrated and

the crown on her head was stolen. This

was a criminal act repugnant alike to reli¬

gion and morality. The place where Christ

was born, in the [court] of the Church

of the Nativity in Bethlehem, was spat¬

tered with different coloured paints and

the Star of David was drawn on it. This

was a provocative act that aroused the

resentment of all who believe in the holy

places. A picture of Christ was hung in a

Tel Aviv showroom, surrounded by pic¬

tures of film actresses and Parisian beau¬

ties. This was a criminal act that shocked

everyone who had an atom of conscience

and honour. The attempt, under the pre¬

tence that the man who made it was mad,

to burn the Aqsa Mosque was an act that

gave rise to interminable discord and

strife. The continued excavations around

the wall of the Aqsa Mosque threaten the

cynosure of the whole Arab world with

collapse... The contempt shown to us,

religious leaders and Christians, the moc¬

kery of our appearance and the scornful

words and gestures which accompany our

customary processions, of the Via Dol¬

orosa on Fridays, for example, foster con¬

fessional tendencies and lead to grave dis¬

cord, with the most undesirable con¬

sequences. All this, unfortunately, has

happened. Our most precious land has

been desecrated and we have shuddered

7

with repulsion to see it happen.

“It is from the faithful that holy places

derive their sanctity and dignity. What

would the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

or the Aqsa Mosque be worth if there were

no Christians living near the church and no

Muslims around the mosque? Worship¬

pers are to their holy places what the soul is

to the body, they are their throbbing heart,

their life. Without them they are no more

than stones. So my grief, dismay and alarm

are redoubled by the torrent of emigration

on the part of Christians and Muslims

alike.

“I have looked around me and seen my

flock and my people, the protectors of

Nazareth, Bethlehem and the Church of

the Holy Sepulchre, and all who live

around the Via Dolorosa beginning to de¬

part. Since the declaration of the establish¬

ment of the state of Israel, the number of

Christians in these places has fallen from

150,000 to 45,000. Since the occupation of

the West Bank in 1967 the number of

Christians has diminished from 55,000 to

45,000. Today the total number of Chris¬

tians of all denominations in Palestine is

90,000 only. What will happen if this emi¬

gration continues ? The inevitable out¬

come will be that the Christians in the Holy

Land will die out altogether within half a

century at the most, while the holy places

will become mere museums, bewailed and

lamented by those to whom they are holy.

“Has not all this broken my heart ? Has

it not evoked my tears? It has indeed.

Have I not called on God to preserve the

Church of the Nativity, the Church of the

Holy Sepulchre and the Via Dolorosa for

their people? I have indeed. But when I

was overcome by despair at the tragedy I

resolved to cry out to the world, from my

heart, from here, from my prison, so that

all who have ears to hear may hear my cry:

come, rescue the children of Christ, rescue

those who believe in Him. Come rescue

the Muslims, His people, His friends and

His neighbours. Come... the torrent of

our tribulation has burst its banks.

“The Jewish people suffered all kinds

of coercion, maltreatment and torture in

Europe and with all my heart I deplore this

persecution and abhor those who carried it

out because I am the enemy of every usur¬

per, every criminal and every torturer. But

I did not expect the victim to turn into the

avenger. I did not expect that those who

had been subjected to the horrors of terror

should come to God’s Holy Land, to the

land of love and peace, to practise all kinds

of terror against my country, against my

people, against my brethren and flock, em¬

ploying a policy of aggression designed to

empty the land of its people.

“You, if anyone, Your Beatitude, who

were for more than a quarter of a century

in charge of the diocese of Acre, Haifa,

Nazareth and All Galilee, are aware of the

tragedy of this exodus and of its roots

which lie in racial discrimination, the dis¬

regard of rights in all fields and maltreat¬

ment. .. but the Arabs in Israel, in the eyes

of its rulers, and because of their decisions,

are second-class citizens.

“In the West Bank, where Christ was

born to free us from the yoke of slavery,

we live today in an atmosphere of repres¬

sion and terror, unable to exercise our

liberties even in the simplest tasks of our

daily life. Meetings are forbidden. Pro¬

tests are forbidden. Strikes of all kinds are

forbidden. Expression of opinion is for¬

bidden. Peaceful demonstrations are for¬

bidden. This is because Israel’s concern is

not ours. Israel’s concern is to stop all

mouths, to crush all revolt, to persuade

world public opinion that life in the West

Bank has returned to normal, as its people

have become oblivious to their cause, nay

that they have been fused in the Israeli

crucible, the intention being to use this

fabricated propaganda as a cover and a

pretext for perpetuating the occupation

and liquidating the problem. Therefore

8

anyone who has tried to rebel against the

interdict, to exercise his freedom to deny

these artificial manifestations, to refute

these trumped up claims and to expose

these expansionist intentions is expelled by

force from his land and severed from his

family which, deprived of its head, is left

with no one to support it. Or else he is sent

away to prison, without trial and without

being charged, until he either dies or is

released, mutilated by torture.

“Too much pressure causes an ex¬

plosion, says the proverb. And the bloody

explosion that spread throughout the West

Bank some months ago was engendered

by this constant strangling pressure that I

have described. The tumultuous de¬

monstrations and the widespread distur¬

bances that spread throughout the towns

of the West Bank were in protest against

the occupation and a clear proof that my

description of it is true.

“This indignant uprising has made it

clear to the world that the people of the

West Bank were, in the most cruel and

difficult circumstances, expressing their

unanimous determination to recover their

Palestinian identity and to decide their

own future. And as the voice of the people

is the voice of God, the voice of truth has

pierced the barrier, reaching the very con¬

science of the world and the heart of the

United Nations, which endorsed it, despite

Israel’s determination to stop up the

world’s ears so that it might not hear.

“Shall I also tell of the Arab villages

that have been blown up to the last house

and completely devastated, like Amwas,

Yalu and Beit Nuba?

“Shall I tell of the tragedy of the houses

that have been demolished in their hund¬

reds by order of the Military Governor, in

reprisal, intimidation and punishment ?

“Shall I tell of the many settlements that

have been established in various places in

the West Bank, in conformity with the

policy of the fait accompli and expansion ?

“Shall I tell of the Judaization of Jer¬

usalem ? Of the thousands of dunums of

land that have been confiscated around my

beloved Jerusalem on which fortified

buildings have been grafted, disfiguring

the peace of Jerusalem, its character, com¬

plexion and serenity and changing it into

one more American city, as if no Apostle

had lived in it, no Prophet made his Night

Journey to it?

“If this dark picture is a true repre¬

sentation of the bitter situation the people

of the West Bank are living in at present,

what future can they expect if the occu¬

pation weighs on them for long ? As long

as it continues their horizons will be dark,

their hopes no more than a mirage in the

desert and all their wishes frustrated, so

that all that will be left for them is to

emigrate.

“Shall I tell of the thousands of pilgrims

and tourists I have met when giving lec¬

tures on the Palestine problem or on many

other occasions who showed by the ques¬

tions they asked me and the discussions

following the lectures that the greater part

of them were replete with Zionist ideas to

the point of fanaticism, while the re¬

mainder knew nothing of our cause.

“It was for these bitter reasons and

others which space does not allow that I

was prompted to rise up so as to make

world public opinion aware of the facts, to

open eyes, ears and minds, to arouse con¬

sciences. .. fIt is far better that one man

should die for the people and that the

whole nation perish not.’

“I am very happy in my mind inasmuch

as my imprisonment was not imposed on

me but I chose it myself, or rather, God

imposed it on me. I spend my days, which

pass quickly, in prayer and reading. That

is why I am happy, especially as the feeling

that possesses me here is that I am not

wasting my time — I, who love work as a

fish loves water. I am working for peace,

firstly by prayers, because every true gift

9

and genuine talent descends from on high,

from Thee, Lord of Lights. Peace is a

boon from the Lord of Peace, and except

that the Lord build the house, they labour

in vain that build it. Secondly I am work¬

ing for peace by my sufferings. Peace is

above all price and the best currency with

which to buy it is suffering, whose

value is infinite. If it does not die, a grain of

wheat remains but one, but if it dies it

brings forth fruit a hundred fold.

“This does not mean the conditions of

my detention are not very harsh. I am

isolated from all other prisoners in a cell

which never sees the sun and which meas¬

ures three metres long by one and a half

metres wide. I cannot rest in it day or

night because of the noise and uproar, the

oaths, curses and obscene language, and

the fighting between the prisoners. In a

word, I am being very badly treated for

they are constantly waging against me a

cold war, a war of nerves, a war of threats,

provocation and reprisal, in the hope of

destroying my self-respect and breaking

my nerve. I reply to therewith a smile, a

smile of scorn, because God is with me.

‘He, God is with us, know ye nations and

be vanquished, for God is with us.’

“Their disgraceful conduct I accept

most willingly. What I cannot accept is

that I should be expelled from this land. I

insist on staying in my homeland, even as a

prisoner. I have lived here, loving and

loyal to my country, sharing in its con¬

struction, and trying to alleviate the trage¬

dies of its peoples. This is why I want to

stay with it and in it. To be expelled, to be

parted from my homeland, from my holy

places, from my flock, my people and my

brethren, that is the punishment that I

refuse for it would deprive me of all mean¬

ing, pleasure and object in life.

“Finally my heart and my prayers turn

towards the millions of Arabs of Palestine,

some of whom have been dispersed all over

the earth while others are suffering here, in

their homeland. All of them are strangers,

all of them in the eyes of right and truth are

martyrs for the recovery of their self-

respect and their homeland.

“[My Heart and my prayers turn] to¬

wards all our honourable Arab rulers, their

aides and their armies, in the hope that the

Lord may support them in every right

action,

TowardsHis Holiness Pope Paul VI, our

father and spiritual head, who has encom¬

passed me with his paternal sympathy in

my trial,

Towards Your Beatitude and those for

whom you are responsible, praying that

the Lord may preserve you as a treasured

possession of our Melkite Church, its

priests and its people,

Towards my brother bishops and their

beloved dioceses.

“In conclusion I thank Your Beatitude

for your insistent paternal efforts to

achieve my release and I apologize for the

trouble you have been caused. May the

Lord recompense you for what you have

done for me with abundant grace and

blessings and keep you in health and well¬

being for many years. May I request Your

Beatitude to do all you can to comfort my

dear mother. This, indeed, is my only care,

for I have been informed that despair has

almost cost her her life. This is the nature

of mothers; they are governed by com¬

passion, especially at her age.

“Include me, Your Beatitude, in your

blessings and your paternal supplications,

that I may surrender to the will of God, so

that He may do with me what He wills.

Not my will but Thine be done, O Lord. ”

10

HUMAN RIGHTS IN ISRAEL

Israel Shahak, Chairman of the Israeli

League for Human and Civil Rights, has

come under heated attack both by the Is¬

raeli establishment and by American Zion¬

ists who recently urged the Hebrew Uni¬

versity of Jerusalem to dismiss him from

his post as Professor of Organic Chem¬

istry. In Middle East International

(January 1975) he contributed an article

containing his opinions on the present

situation, prefixed by the statement of Ed¬

mund Burke that “ All that is necessary for

the triumph of evil is that good men do

nothing. ”

“During my visit abroad to Western

Europe, a concerted attack on my acti¬

vities was made in the Israeli press, es¬

pecially in Haaret%, but also in Maariv,

Yediot Aharonot, Davar, Jerusalem Post and

other papers. No attempt was made by

any paper to check (with me or my friends)

any item of the many lies they published

about me personally, and likewise nothing

of my opinions was explained in detail: I

was accused in general terms of being a

‘slanderer,’ ‘poisoner of the wells of

peace/ etc.

“I have tried to offer the following ar¬

ticle to Haaret%. It was accepted and I was

asked to shorten it. I did so to the pre¬

scribed length, and was then put off by a

succession of ridiculous excuses, the last of

which was that the manuscript was lost.

Finally after more than three weeks I was

told that no article of mine will be pub¬

lished by Haaret%. The decision was made

by the editor, Gershom Shoken. A slightly

abridged version of the original article is

printed below.

1 Dean of the Law School of Tel Aviv University —

Ed.

“There is a fact which should have

really interested the Israeli public in the

affair of the witch-hunt levelled against me

by Herzl Rosenblum, editor of Yediot

Aharonot, by the editor of Maariv, by

Amnon Rubinstein1 and by Uri Avnery2 :

it is the plain fact that none of them said

exactly what are the ‘terrible’ things of

which I am accused, what are the so-called

‘lies’ which even Rubinstein sometimes

can’t deny; in short what it is

that I really say, here in Israel as well as

abroad. And since I consider it beneath my

dignity to conduct a discussion with

people who do not even care to check the

most elementary facts about me, I do not

intend to answer here any of the ‘charges’

levelled against me. I do not see myself as a

defendant, but as an accuser, and I want to,

explain exactly of what I accuse the state of

Israel, and I mean by this term especially

the Jewish community of the state of Israel

and only after that the government which

fulfils the will of that public.

“For lack of space I will confine myself

to the occupied territories, and shall not

enter into my claims concerning dis¬

crimination within Israel itself.

“In my opinion, the Israeli occupation

regime in the conquered territories is not

only not a liberal one; it is in fact one of the

most cruel and repressive regimes in

modern times. Maybe we can start with a

simple problem: the number of

Palestinians living now in the occupied

territories is slightly above a million.

Before the Israeli conquest the number of

Palestinians living there was a million-

and-a-half, plus some three hundred

thousand more relatives working

temporarily in various countries.

2 Former Member of the Knesset, and publisher of

the magazine Haolam Ha%eh — Ed.

11

“The first thing which the occupation

authorities did was to organize by all

means, both by ways of cruel coercion and

by supposedly "humane’ ways, a mass-

expulsion of Palestinians from their

motherland. This mass-expulsion (unlike

the expulsion of individuals, about which

I’ll speak later) was carried out until King

Hussein shut the bridges against further

expulsion. There is almost no Palestinian

family where that "policy’ hasn’t caused

separation of parents from children, of

brothers from brothers and sisters, in short

human suffering which it is hard to

describe. But for the government of

Israel, for all the Zionist parties and for

undercover servants of the government

like Uri Avnery, this is not a human

problem, this is not a gross and cynical

trampling underfoot of the most

elementary values of justice — this is only

the well-known "demographic problem.’

In the "united’ Jerusalem of today also, the

very same situation prevails. The Israeli

government speaks of "reunion of families’

when it comes to Russian Jews, but does

not allow the "reunion of families’ when it

comes to Palestinians of Jerusalem. And I

talk of right, and not of some act of charity,

sometimes accomplished as a measure of

favouritism.

""People who were born, and lived most

of their life in Jerusalem are not allowed to

come back and settle in their own city, if they

are not Jews, of course; but if a Dutchman

converts to Judaism tomorrow (by way of

Orthodox Jewish conversion, indeed) he

will not only be allowed to do so at once,

he will also get an apartment in Ramat

Eshkol.

""All the arrangement known as

"summer visits’ (so praised by all sorts of

hypocrites) is essentially meant to

aggravate the problem: brother is allowed

to see brother, children to see their father.

Of course nostalgia becomes over¬

whelming, and then they are told •

You want to reunite ? Please do so. But on

the other side of the Jordan river! Thus

does false liberalism serve the real aim of

the Israeli government: the expulsion of

Palestinians from their country.

Democratic Rights

""More than seven years have elapsed

since the conquest. Let us consider what

was the situation of Nazi Germany and

Japan seven years after they were

conquered and occupied by the Allies. In

1952 there were already Japanese and

German states. They were not

spontaneously generated. They were

established by Germans and Japanese,

because, shortly after the war, the residents

of occupied territories in Germany and in

Japan were granted basic democratic

rights, that were constantly enlarged. The

right to create political parties, to write

political programmes, to hold non-violent

demonstrations, in short, the right to debate

and to decide about their future.

""The situation in the territories

occupied by Israel is just the opposite. Not

only are political parties — all political

parties — totally forbidden; even unions,

such as trade unions, student unions or

cultural associations, are forbidden. It is

not only forbidden for Palestinians to

demonstrate, it also is forbidden to go on

strike, it is even forbidden to close one’s

own shop as a sign of protest, even though

it is hard to imagine a more peaceful way of

protesting.

""I recall those facts, not only because I

condemn and oppose them very deeply,

but also to stress that there lies the root of

Palestinian terrorism. And even though I

condemn all terrorism, be it Palestinian

terrorism or Israeli terrorism — the latter

being bigger from the point of view of the

number of innocents who fall victim to

it — I place the heaviest responsibility

upon the shoulders of the Israeli

12

government. It is only natural that a

people whose existence is denied, whose

most basic family and human rights are

denied, and who are denied any right to

wage a political struggle — should choose

another from of struggle, some

manifestations of which certainly deserve

to be firmly condemned.

Violations of the Geneva Convention

“ Moreover, Israel shamelessly and

cynically violates, in the conquered

territories, all the Geneva Conventions.

The same people who have the audacity to

recall the Geneva Convention on prisoners

of war when it is violated by the Syrians

(and I have no doubt that it was indeed

violated by the Syrians in regard to our

prisoners, just as I have no doubt that

Israel violated the Convention in regard to

Syrian prisoners), the same people were

silent, and are still silent, when Israel

violates overtly, through acts committed

in broad daylight, the fourth section of the

set of Geneva Conventions of 1949, the

section which deals with the status of the

residents of occupied territories. Out of

the many violations I shall quote only

three, which are committed overtly, on the

basis of an almost unanimous agreement

inside Israel.

“Let us take as an example the blowing

up of houses and other collective

punishments. The facts are well known:

when the occupation authorities arrest a

suspect, even before he is put on trial,

sometimes even before he is f officially’

indicted, an order is issued to destroy the

house in which the suspect lived.

Sometimes it is the house of his family,

sometimes not. Sometimes f refinements’

are introduced. All the inhabitants of the

village are forcibly concentrated on a

nearby hill, so as to watch the feducative

show. ’ It must be stressed that such an act

is fundamentally barbaric. People who.

even in the eyes of the authorities, are

innocent are ousted. Children, old people,

women, sick, cripples, and all of them

together are thrown into the street,

regardless of weather. This is one example

of collective punishment such as is

expressly prohibited by the Geneva

Conventions, as well as by any notion of

natural justice. More than once in the

course of my functions, I had the privilege

of sitting, together with one of such

families, on the ruins of their house, and

nothing convinced me more of the

barbaric character of our occupation than

the sight of children in the ruins of their

house. Aside from that punishment, there

is a whole set of different collective

punishments. Does one want to punish

the area of Hebron ? Grapes are not

allowed to be transported on the roads

during harvest time, until the fnotables’

finally fall on their knees before the

military governor. Does one want to

punish the city of Ramallah ? The sale of

mutton is forbidden in that town for two

months, or the municipality is not allowed

to receive contributions coming from

natives of Ramallah abroad and sent for

purposes of municipal development. Does

one want to punish the town of al-Bira?

An order is issued to take pictures of

Palestinian folklore off the walls of the city

hall, and to hide them in a cellar! I could go

on indefinitely, and give innumerable

examples of this kind.

Learning from Anti-Semites

“As a Jew, I must say that all this is

quite familiar to me. Collective

punishments inflicted upon Jews, the

belief that all Jews in the neighbourhood

are f guilty’ of this or that deed committed

by one Jew, and that they must therefore

be collectively punished, all this is quite

well known in Jewish history. All the

collective punishments and the

13

"justifications’ raised to rationalize them

only demonstrate, in my opinion, to what

extent the state of Israel is adopting

progressively all the values and opinions

of anti-Semitism. The discussion between

the Israeli government and false liberals is

only about the question of knowing

whether "it helps’ or not. In Israel one is

not allowed to say that to take an innocent

child and inflict a cruel "punishment’ upon

him is a barbaric and horrible act in itself.

This is "calumny,’ for to say this is to relate

to Palestinians, to non-Jews, as human

beings, while false liberals only deal with

the "interest of the Jews’; they only deal

with the hypocritical question: is the

oppression of Palestinians a good or a bad

thing for the Jews, in the short and in the

long run ?

Individual Expulsions

""I have spoken of the mass expulsion

that was interrupted in 1968 after King

Hussein refused to cooperate. But the

expulsion of individuals is taking place all

the time. Here again, the story is simple.

The authorities come to a man’s house in

the middle of the night. They give him a

half-hour or an hour to pack up a few

things, while making sure that neither he

nor his family get in touch with the

outside. A group of such people is taken

to the Jordan Valley, and with the help of

blows, shots (and even wounds caused by

the blows) they are forced to cross into

Jordan. The majority of the expelled

belong to the leadership of the Palestinian

nation: mayors of towns, lawyers,

engineers and intellectuals. Of course,

they are not officially charged with

anything, so that they have no possibility

to defend themselves. The day after, the

Israeli government announces that they

had "incited’ the population; and the

Israeli intellectuals, the judges, the

lawyers, the writers and others, who

shout, for instance, about the harassment

of "immigration activists’ in the USSR, do

not pronounce a single word of

condemnation against that barbaric act, in

which a person is uprooted from his

motherland, a father from his family,

without a legal charge. And, of course, to

a family thus orphaned of its father, they

say simply: Why don’t you also go and

reunite outside ? In many cases the family

rejects this sentence of "liberal’

occupation, and stays, and suffers, only so

as to prevent the success of the Israeli

authorities’ plot to expel as many

Palestinians as it can from their country.

And the well-known "calumniator,’ Israel

Shahak, with his "primitive style’

(according to Amnon Rubinstein) hereby

announces that he has more respect for

those families than for the whole Israeli

government together with its overt and

covert servants, and that he will continue

to struggle, in Israel and abroad, in order

that those people obtain justice!

Jewish Settlement in the Conquered Territories

""At the time of the sterile discussion

about "legal’ or "illegal’ settlement, there is

a tendency in Israel to forget that any

settlement of civilians of a conquering

power in the occupied territories is a

violation of section IV of the Geneva

Conventions. I regard with much greater

opposition the "legal’ settlements

authorized by the Israeli government than

the illegal settlements. Not only because

of the Geneva Convention, and not only

because it prevents or does not prevent

Peace (what Peace ?), but also because of

more essential motives: the Jewish

settlements in the occupied territories,

from their very nature, constitute a

dispossession, a discrimination and a

system of apartheid. The territories

confiscated, or acquired by pressure and

deceit for settlement, become territories

14

where only Jews are allowed to live, and

where only Jews shall be allowed to live in

the future. They are taken out of their

natural geographic context, and become

typical imperialist bases, serving the

strategic needs of the colonialist power —

in this case Israel — that has erected them.

Thus, by the way of "legal’ settlement, the

"Jordan Valley’ has become one half of the

West Bank, and almost reaches to the

eastern suburbs of Nablus. Thus the Gaza

Strip constitutes a concentration camp

(and just like a concentration camp it is

surrounded by barbed wire) "guarded’ by

the settlements of the Rafah area, and the

"Jewish fingers’ — those are the

kibbutzim which Moshe Dayan and Arik

Sharon have planted in the Strip. The

function of those settlements, clear to

anyone who consents to look at the map, is

territorial expansion, it is the enslavement

of the Palestinian population on the

occupied territories.

Is There a Jewish Terrorism ?

""I condemn and oppose all terrorism. I

have condemned in the firmest way every

Palestinian act of terrorism, and I have

done so in particular when in front of a

public which sympathizes with the Pales¬

tinians. But unlike hypocrites, I really

condemn tf// terror. Not only terror direc¬

ted against Jews, but also terror com¬

mitted by Jews and directed against

Arabs. So as to save time, I shall not speak

of the terrorism of all the Jewish under¬

ground organizations under the Mandate,

and I shall start with the existence of the

state of Israel. It seems to me that it would

not be hard to find a man more worthy of

the name of terrorist than Meir Har-Zion.

In his diaries and in the many interviews

with him in the Israeli press, that man

revealed, not only what an assassin he was,

but also how much he enjoyed — purely

and simply enjoyed — murder. How

much he enjoys killing an Arab, parti¬

cularly with a knife, because he can then

feel that he is "male’ (Haaret% weekly sup¬

plement, November 9, 1965). He then

asks his commander for permission to kill

an unarmed Arab shepherd, precisely with

a knife, and then describes with sadistic

enjoyment the way his comrade holds him

while Har-Zion plunges the knife in his

back "and the blood splashes from the

wound’ (See Meir Har-Zion’s Diaries).

Are we in need of the further description

of Har-Zion’s deeds which appears in

Moshe Sharett’s diary (Maariv, June 28,

1974) ? Sharett tells how Har-Zion, with a

group of terrorists like him, went across

the borders of Israel, got hold of six Arabs,

and killed, with a knife, five of them, one

after the other while the others watched,

and left the sixth one alive so that he could

tell... And that man is considered by the

majority of Israeli Jews as a national hero.

That man was praised, and presented as a

model to the youth by the Defence Minis¬

ter of Israel and the general in charge of the

Southern Command (Moshe Dayan and

Arik Sharon) — and no protest was raised

against that "model’, not even among

many people who talk of peace!

""I will add to this the "Beirut expe¬

dition’ of April 1973, an operation in

which were murdered, not only PLO lead¬

ers, but also a woman whose sole crime

was that she lived next to them (a murder

lauded by Uri Avnery). I will add to this

the napalm bombings in Irbid, al-Salt and

other Jordanian towns in the summer of

1968. I will add to this the summer 1974

habit of bombing refugee camps in Leb¬

anon, and on top of ordinary bombs, drop¬

ping delayed action bombs which only

explode after one hour or two, i.e., when

the families and medical squads are search¬

ing through the ruins to rescue the woun¬

ded. And one can add much more to the

list. Is not all that terror? Isn’t it just as

bad as Kiryat Shmoneh ? Do those who are

not ready to condemn the sadistic de-

15

clarations of Meir Har-Zion and the trans¬

formation of such a character into a "model

for the youth’ have any right to condemn

Ahmad Jibril ? My answer is: I have the

right to do so. They don’t. Murderers and

accomplices of murderers had better not

pose as moralists. And to those who jus¬

tify (and even enjoy) the murder of non-

Jews, to those for whom only Jewish

children bleed, and for whom, so it seems,

Arab children have water in their veins, I

will simply say: It is not you who can

preach morality to me.

Torture

“My considered opinion is that people

are tortured in Israel and in the conquered

territories. I confess: I have in the matter

no hard evidence, and I do not expect to

obtain any. I am not naive as to believe

that a torturer will stand up and announce:

I have tortured! — or that he will in¬

troduce two witnesses into the torture

chamber so that they can testify after¬

wards. But such is the situation in all

countries. There are no such testimonies

about Brazil, none about Greece under the

Colonels’ rule. Moreover, there are no

such testimonies about that which was in¬

flicted upon the Israeli prisoners in Egypt

and in Syria. All the claims — most of

which I believe — are exclusively based

upon the testimony of the victims of tor¬

ture. Therefore it is not a matter of

"proofs,’ or of "unchecked allegations. ’ It

is a matter of Jewish racism. The majority

of the Jewish public in Israel (and also out

of it) believes that only Jews are human

beings, and therefore deserve to be trust¬

ed, while the Gentiles usually lie, as stated

in most cases throughout Talmudic Law.

So that when a Jew claims that the Syrians

tortured him, we must believe him at once,

on the basis of his testimony. But when a

Palestinian claims that Jews tortured him,

we must not believe him in any way, be¬

cause he is a Gentile. I on the other hand,

claim that all men are worthy of minimal

trust, especially men who suffer, and I tend

to believe the testimonies about tortures

both when they come from Israeli prison¬

ers in Syria and when they come from

Palestinians in the conquered territories;

and I consider it my duty to publicize them

and to demand an enquiry. I see the most

striking evidence that the Israeli govern¬

ment and its agents torture systematically

thousands of people in the fact that all the

supporters of the Israeli government, be

they vocal or hidden, refuse to demand an

independent inquiry on the subject.

The Right to Check

""What is in my opinion even more ap¬

palling than the tortures themselves, a fact

which I do not doubt, is the attitude of the

majority of the Israeli public vis-a-vis the

complaints about tortures, and especially

the arrogant claim that the facts haven’t

been sufficiently checked. And how do

Rubinstein and Avnery "check’ ? They

never get in touch with the claimants or

their lawyers. They do not answer letters

demanding an interview with them, letters

demanding a chance to give the oppor¬

tunity to hear what the man himself cries

from his own pain. The inevitable con¬

clusion to be drawn from this is that when

Rubinstein and/or Avnery claim that they

have "checked,’ they mean they consulted

someone in one of the "security branches,’

and consider that the answer they got is the

truth, without hearing the other side,

without hearing the claimant at all. The

political conclusion is clear, but the human

conclusion is worse than that: in the state

of Israel the majority of the judges, the

jurists and the intellectuals, not to mention

the politicians, are indifferent to this most

basic human rule: that the claim of a man

who says he’s been mistreated must be

listened to, and must be examined objec¬

tively. That is, in my eyes, infinitely more

important than the tortures themselves,

16

for the majority of the public, and es¬

pecially the leading members of the public

have been and are guilty of that sin. And

even though I am convinced that there

have been numerous cases of torture, I

may be wrong, and if my claims were

checked, and the proof of the opposite was

made, I would stand up and admit that I

was wrong. But I am not mistaken, and I

cannot be mistaken when I claim that the

majority of the Israeli public shut their ears

to a simple human cry; that it ignores the

most fundamental political duty — the

duty of an independent enquiry — and that

this is the source of the corruption which is

being uncovered, and that will continue to

be uncovered in many diverse places.

Nullification

“Therefore I am not afraid — neither in

that field, nor in other fields, even though

certainly not in all fields — of the com¬

parison with That which befell the Ger¬

man people between the two world wars’

and I am not afraid to say publicly that

Israeli Jews, and with them most Jews

throughout the world, are undergoing a

process of Nazification. Does a people

whose official 'hero’ is Meir Har-Zion de¬

serve any other title? Would we give

another name to a people whose hero en¬

joys killing Jews with a knife and seeing

how the blood splashes ? Isn’t it the Nazi

'Horst Wessel’ who spoke of the pleasure

of Jewish blood dripping from his knife ?

“But the silence concerning other

claims is worse. It includes — exactly as it

did in Germany — not only those among

us who are in my opinion real Nazis, and

there are a lot of those, but also those who

do not protest against Jewish Nazism, so

long as they think it serves a Jewish in¬

terest. It is for instance a fact that, accord¬

ing to Jewish Talmudic law, legally valid

in Israel today, any Gentile woman is con¬

sidered as impure, a slave, a Gentile and a

whore, and when she embraces the Jewish

faith she stops being impure, slave and

Gentile, but she remains a whore. The

argumentation provided by Talmudic law

to back that judgement, when raised in the

twentieth century, can only be compared

to Julius Streicher; for instance the judge¬

ment whereby all “Gentile women” must

necessarily be prostitutes. Did a jurist in

Israel explain this sentence ? Did anyone

warn any of the famous 'female converts’

that, together with conversion, they

undertake to be 'whores’? Did anyone

raise the question of knowing whether that

law is wise and just or not ? The answer is

clear, and just for the same reason the same

jurists in Nazi Germany accepted the Nu¬

remberg Laws (which are infinitely more

moderate than the 'Gentile’ regulations in

Talmudic Law), and exactly for the same

reason, the leading Israeli jurists don’t

even want to examine the demand for en¬

quiry on tortures raised by a non-Jew.

“I can only conclude with the words of

Hugh Trevor-Roper, at the end of his

book The Last Days of Hitler, where he was

talking about Albert Speer: 'He had the

capacity to understand the forces of pol¬

itics, and the courage to resist the master

whom all others have declared irresistible.

As an administrator he was undoubtedly a

genius... His ambitions were peaceful and

constructive: he wished to rebuild Berlin

and Nuremberg, and had planned at the

cost of no more than two months’ ex¬

penditure to make them the greatest cities

in the world. Nevertheless, in a political

sense, Speer is the real criminal of Nazi

Germany, for he, more than any other,

represented that fatal philosophy which

has made havoc of Germany and nearly

shipwrecked the world. For ten years he

sat at the very centre of political power; his

keen intelligence diagnosed the nature and

observed the mutations of Nazi govern¬

ment and policy; he saw and despised the

personalities around him; he heard their

outrageous orders and understood their

17

fantastic ambitions; but he did nothing.

Supposing politics to be irrelevant he

turned aside and built roads and bridges

and factories while the logical consequen¬

ces of government by madmen emerged.

Ultimately when their emergence involv¬

ed the ruin of all his work, Speer accepted

the consequences and acted. Then it was

too late; Germany had been destroyed.’

“So far, Trevor-Roper, I am trying to

act before it is too late.”

The USA is usually regarded as a de¬

mocratic country, spurning the various

techniques of totalitarian regimes of op¬

pressing dissidents, and welcoming the

free exchange of opinions. The structure

of US institutions may allow freedom for

the expression of thought, but is the final

result really far different from that of to¬

talitarian societies in terms of the reper¬

cussion for those who challenge basic as¬

sumptions ? Shahak, who has recently

come under violent personal attack by

American Zionists, offered the following

thoughts in the journal American Jewish

Alternatives to Zionism (September 1974).

“I will admit at the beginning that I

have a personal reason to write this article:

The persecutions to which I am subjected

from the USA are much stronger and

much more dangerous for me than those

from inside my own country, Israel. It is

not merely a matter of an organized cam¬

paign by USA public figures — mostly

rabbis — demanding that the Hebrew Un¬

iversity of Jersualem should dismiss me

from my post (I am a Professor of Organic

Chemistry) solely because of opinions I

have expressed. I should add, in honesty,

that so far the administration of the Heb¬

rew University has resisted honourably

this well orchestrated demand from the

USA, with the honourable support of my

scientific colleagues in Israel.

“However I am not going to occupy

you with my troubles, merely declare my

interest. What I do want to discuss is your

general situation in respect of freedom of

opinion about both Middle East and

Jewish subjects. It is my considered opin¬

ion that on those subjects the freedom of

opinion, the simple basic human right to

say what one thinks without being pu¬

nished or persecuted for it, is severely lim¬

ited and is totally absent in many impor¬

tant sections of the USA public. In other

words: in regard to anything relating to

the Middle East or Jewish subjects the

USA has many of the characteristics of a

totalitarian country, and many of the

groups who call themselves ‘liberal’ or

‘peace camp’ or ‘radical’ and what not, are

on that subject the most intolerant, the

most totalitarian, the most dishonest and

racist. It is furthermore my opinion that all

the signs prevalent in the totalitarian soci¬

eties can be found in the attitudes of most

of the USA public, but especially of the so-

called ‘liberals,’ towards the problems of

the USA policies in the Middle East, and I

will show it by means of examples:

“(1) A totalitarian society not only

does not tolerate a freedom of opinion, but

it cultivates by all means in its power a

‘received opinion,’ which all the speakers

have to parrot, not only without checking

it but often without an understanding of

what it means. However for the purpose

of stimulating a ‘free’ discussion certain

well-circumscribed ‘grey’ areas are left,

where people are ‘allowed’ to differ, and to

criticize in what Stalin called ‘constructive

criticism.’ But woe to one who oversteps

the line which divides the ‘constructive’

from ‘fundamental’ criticism!

“Exactly the same situation prevails in

the USA with regard to the Middle East.

Who is allowed to explain in the USA what

a ‘Jewish state’ is ? About the basic discri¬

mination involved in it ? Who can explain

exactly what is the situation of the people

in the conquered territories? It is ‘per¬

mitted’ to express a generalised ‘concern’ or

‘pity’ for Palestinians, even — very rarely

18

— to express support for their ‘ rights/ but

it is strictly forbidden to mention the fact

that of the million and a half of the people who lived in the conquered territories in

1967, half a million human beings (a third

of the population!) were expelled (in

official parlance ‘left of their own free

will’) during the first year of the occu¬

pation. It is forbidden to mention the fact that most Palestinian families are divided

by force, the force of the state of Israel, and

are not allowed to be united as of right, but only in very rare examples, as an excep¬ tional act of an administrative ‘mercy.’ It

is strictly forbidden to compare this situ¬

ation to the situation of Jews in USSR,

about whose right of family reunion so

much effort is made, and to point out the

same human right applies to both. It is for¬

bidden to deal with the question of the houses which are destroyed and the chil¬

dren, the women and the old who are

thrown into the street, for no crime of their

own. It is forbidden to ask even about the

principle of collective responsibility when

applied by a ‘Jewish state,’ for punishment

and murder of people for the sole crime of

belonging to a group, whether it is by

expelling them, by putting them in prison

without an accusation or trial, or by bomb¬

ing their villages or camps from the air; in

fact it is completely forbidden to express

any other opinion about terrorism carried

out by Jewish organizations or a ‘Jewish

state,’ past, present and future, apart from

exaltation, but everyone must condemn

the same sort of terror carried out by the

other side. In fact in this particular field

the totalitarian line is drawn with an ut¬

most exactitude, and there are no ‘grey’

areas. It is strictly forbidden in the USA to

say, for example, that the killings of Kiryat

Shemona in Israel were a murder and a war-

crime, and the bombarmdent of Nabatiya

refugee camp in Lebanon was equally so,

That to put a bomb in a cinema or a

market, to kill haphazardly completely in¬

nocent people is a horrible murder, and to drop from a plane a delayed-action bomb

on a refugee camp, which is timed to ex¬ plode exactly when the rescue teams are desperately looking in the rubble for the

wounded is — if possible — even worse

murder. In fact the fate in the USA of a

man who condemns all and every terror in

the Middle East, would be exactly the fate of a man who opposes a totalitarian re¬ gime: He would be accused (and con¬

demned unheard) of the very crime of

"encouraging’ or ‘sympathizing’ with ‘Arab

terror.’ I speak here from my own ex¬

perience and I have no doubt that I will be

accused even in spite of this article of the

same crime, and that only very, very few of

those Americans who make the defence of

freedom of speech and of political rights

almost their profession, will defend me in

public. For living in a totalitarian society

as they do — they are either afraid or

totalitarian themselves, and not conscious

of it. “(2) A totalitarian society does not

admit universal standards of justice, or of

any other values which are, at least in

principle or potentially, applicable to each

and every human being. Instead of which

it employs, like in Orwell’s 1984, two contradictory standards of justice, one for

the privileged group and the other for the

rest of human beings. This is particularly

clear when some totalitarian group has in

one area a majority and the power, and in another area it is in a minority, at the same

time. It will be found always that the

totalitarians are quite capable of operating

two conflicting systems at the same time,

both of course for the benefit of their own

group, and to pass easily from one to

another. “It is exactly the same when one

compares the opinions — the only opi¬

nions allowed! — expressed about the

status of Jews in the USA and that of non-

Jews (this is the legal term in Israel!) in the

19

"Jewish state.’ In the USA the values of

individual human and political rights are

invoked. A Jew should not be punished or

discriminated in any way in the USA

because so many of his "group’ were or are

members of the "New Left,’ or even

behaved violently. He should not be

denied the legal right of buying a home

where most of the inhabitants would like

to "preserve the Christian character’ of a

neighbourhood. He should not be "mark¬

ed’ in institutions in a special way. Clubs,

organizations, companies who refuse or

merely avoid employing Jews are fought

with the most extreme stubbornness, until

they give way on that point.

""But do most people who believe in all

this in the USA, who work and struggle

for it, do it because they believe in any

universal ideas of democracy, of libera¬

lism, in short in mere human decency ? My

answer is an emphatic, "No!’ And you all

can test it for yourselves — that is if you do

not want to remain in your totalitarianism

— by seeing that every single one of the

values and decencies is either reversed, or

hidden by a well organized system of

deception when it is the "Jewish state’

which is in question. How many of the

fighters for the right of the USA Jews to

belong to American clubs know, or if they

know, care about, that most of the Israeli

institutions are strictly segregated as

regards non-Jews? And not only the

Israeli citizens, but sometimes all non-

Jews of the world ? How many Americans

are willing to discuss the fact that all Israeli

kibbutzim are apartheid institutions with

regard to the Israeli non-Jews, and most of

them will not accept any non-Jewish

human being except if he will convert to

Judaism ? (They are not very particular

about his change of belief, but, even if they

are mostly atheists, they are most parti¬

cular about the "correctness’ of the reli¬

gious ceremony!) How many will be

prepared to criticize them on that point?

How many of the numerous band of

Americans, both left and right, who feel a

duty to praise the "justice’ of the kibbutzim

without any reservation, would do the

same for any other apartheid institution,

especially for one which discriminates

against Jews, however "good’ it may be in

other respects ? Can an apartheid institu¬

tion be good ? Can such a question be

asked in the USA about a kibbutz?

""The same questions can be asked

about many other features of the "Jewish

state.’ It is a fact that all the official

statistics of Israel are officially racist.

Everything is divided into "Jewish’ and

"non-Jewish. ’ In Israel there are (official¬

ly) no Israeli babies. There are equally no

Israeli tomatoes (or potatoes, or corn or

any other produce) — there are only

tomatoes from Jewish farms, and toma¬

toes from non-Jewish farms. There is no

Israeli, or national, land in Israel. There is

Jewish land which was already "saved,’

and non-Jewish land which needs to be

"saved’ in the future. In short, there are no

individual human beings in Israel, only

members of groups, and almost the whole

position of a human being is predeter¬

mined legally, by the mere fact of his be¬

longing to "his’ group. And, exactly as was

the position of Jews before the nineteenth

century, there is no escape from "the

group’ except by religious conversion

(true or faked), which is in Israel strictly

controlled both by the police and by the

secret police! I repeat, for the benefit of

those in the USA who either believe or

make a show of believing in the virtue of

the First Amendment: Nobody can be

converted to Judaism in Israel without his

conversion being approved beforehand by

the official police and by the secret police

(Shin Beth), and this "arrangement’ was

openly admitted by the Israeli authorities

and by the Israeli Rabbinate, with only a

small minority protesting. What is more

this Israeli government control of conver-

20

sions has overflown into the USA too: as

reported in the most read Israeli paper

(Maariv, April 6, 1973, "An Explosive in

Dimona,’ by Eli Eyal), the USA Reform

Jewish movement had "agreed silently not

to perform such conversions’ as would

cause USA Blacks to "flood Israel,’ that is

not to convert USA Blacks to Judaism for

fear that the "Black Hebrews’ will use this

loophole and come to the Holy Land

claiming the Law of Return. It is character¬

istic of the totalitarian cast of mind that

this report was neither denied by the

Reform movement in Israel nor admitted,

or even discussed in the USA, but presu¬

mably it works in practice. What will not

totalitarians do when commanded, or even

asked, by authority (their own authority,

of course)!

""(3) For the smooth exercise of both

the contradictory sets of values a totalita¬

rian society must prevent people from

checking its concepts in detail, and must

instead propagate a set of generalized

propositions, each complete with its own

particular generalized "reason,’ which are

to be accepted on faith and intoned

publicly, but never under any circumstan¬

ces examined. Here the most important role

falls on the intellectuals — from writers of

academic textbooks to writers of articles,

from rabbis to public relations officers. In

a totalitarian society all these must cheat,

and as a matter of fact they do cheat, and

cheat in the special manner commanded by

the bosses in charge; and if they cheat well,

or at least do not prevent others from

cheating, they are well rewarded in the

totalitarian world. Without any exaggera¬

tion, I would claim that the majority of

American intellectuals, especially among

the liberals, who are the most totalitarian,

do behave according to the totalitarian

model in regard to all questions affecting

the "Jewish state’ or the "Jewish interest,’

and by their power and influence, and

especially by their ability to stifle free

discussion, they are influencing the whole

of the USA society in the totalitarian

direction. How many of the facts I have

listed above are even known in so called

"informed circles’ of the USA ? And who is

to blame for this situation ? Those who do

write about the situation, those traitorous

and opportunistic intellectuals — especial¬

ly if they call themselves "liberals’ or

"radicals’ or falsely invoke God and

religion, or presume to speak in the name

of "Judeo-Christian tradition’ — all the

time just cheat and deceive, deceive and

cheat. Of the infinite number of possible

examples, I will choose some regarding

the real situation in the "united’ Jerusalem,

for one can assume that the greatest

amount of the so-called "information’

given to the USA public at least touches on

this question. Let each one of you ask

himself if he has seen the following facts

reported in the USA: (1) That non-Jews

have no right to settle in Jerusalem, even

when it is a question of family reunion, (2)

That the non-Jewish inhabitants of Jeru¬

salem can be imprisoned without trial for

very long periods, or exiled permanently

without trial, or both, and many in fact

have been so treated, (3) That both Jewish

and Moslem cemeteries were desecrated in

Jersualem, and that although each and

every desecration should be condemned

yet in fact the desecration of the old (from

the thirteenth century) Moslem cemetery

of Mamilla, on most of whose grounds the

"Independence Park’ of Jerusalem is now

situated, and where I can see quite often

groups of American tourists sunning

themselves on the grass growing on the

desecrated graves, is much more extensive

than the desecration carried out on the

Jewish cemetery in the East City. I can

predict that those most obvious and

undeniable facts did not appear in most of

the USA publications known to the USA

public.

""Instead of these real and detailed facts,

21

instead of trying to understand how the

unprivileged people (i. e., non-Jews in the

‘united’ Jewish Jerusalem) live and what

they suffer, the cheating ‘experts’ expand

in the best totalitarian fashion on false

generalizations, like the right to worship.

How can you worship freely in Jerusalem

if you can be exiled without trial ? Another

is to preach on the text that ‘people live

together.’ No doubt in the slave planta¬

tions people also ‘lived together,’ mostly

‘peacefully,’ and the advocates of slavery

always pointed to this fact. It is only, in

both cases when you try — or not as the

case may be — to fill up the details, to ask

pertinent and detailed questions, only then

can one see the real situation of slavery,

both in Jerusalem now and in New

Orleans, perhaps, a hundred and twenty

years ago. But the task of the totalitarian

defenders of slavery, of all slavery, is to

prevent real discussion by cheating about

the details of the situation.

“(4) It is a. necessary characteristic of

every totalitarian society and group, to be

schizophrenically confused about their

own and their ‘enemy’s’ power, and to

represent each, at one and the same time, as

both most strong and dangerous and as so

weak that almost anything will cause

its defeat, with the resulting predictions

of both a Messianic victory, or an

Apocalyptic calamity. In both cases, of

course, no regard is paid to any factor

of real probabilities, but they are simply

demagogic tricks used very efficiently

in order to raise the enthusiasm of the

mob.

“This schizophrenia can be illustrated

in almost every opinion about Israel

expressed by the Jewish establishment in

the USA and its intellectual slaves. Israel is

at the same time considered to be immen¬

sely strong, capable of defeating and

conquering all the Arab states, if only the

superpowers would not interfere. But at

the same time the slightest ‘concession’ of

that strong state is supposed to threaten it

with an immediate calamity. The superpo¬

wer of the Middle East ‘cannot’ avoid

blowing up some houses for otherwise it is

supposed to be faced by an immediate

calamity. Why even returning the people

of Birim and Iqrit to their villages is

supposed to be most dangerous for the

‘security’ of the same state whose suppor¬

ters boast of its ability to conquer Cairo!

The same sort of schizophrenia is taken for

granted in the USA about ‘the Arabs’ (for

while it is forbidden to use the term ‘the

Jews’ for demagogic and racist purposes,

it is perfectly permitted to use the term ‘the

Arabs’ for the same purposes!) In fact the

late unlamented ‘domino theory’ about

south east Asia was never held in such an

extravagant form as various hysterical

pronouncements about the Middle East

taken seriously in the USA. To give only

one example: before the Israeli-Egyptian

cease-fire engagement, in which Israel had

agreed to withdraw from the Egyptian

territory up to the passes of Mitla and

Giddi, such a serious figure as Rabbi

Arthur Hertzberg, the president of the

American Jewish Congress, had seriously

proposed that any Israeli government who

would agree to such conditions should be

‘immediately removed and assassinated'

and that ‘Jews in the Diaspora who will

agree to this will be called traitors’

(Maariv, November 26, 1973, my empha¬

sis). Not one of his colleagues in the

American Jewish Congress had seen fit to

dissociate himself from this terroristic

proposal, for Jewish terror is very kosher

in the USA! Is this not worse in all respects

than most of the opinions expressed about

the supposed necessity of South Vietnam

for the USA ? Yet can it be imagined that a

USA figure of the same order of respecta¬

bility and importance as Rabbi Arthur

Hertzberg would propose to assassinate

any USA president who would withdraw

22

from a part of Vietnam, without this

opinion’ being at least discussed ? But in a

totalitarian society any opinion fin line’

with the pronouncements of the totalita¬

rian bosses, will be freceived.’ This

comparison will show how deeply the

USA already is totalitarian on certain

subjects.

ffThis totalitarian trait is the most

dangerous of all for the totalitarian society

itself and its dupes, in this case for both the

USA and Israel; for the US is much more

totalitarian than Israel about Israeli affairs.

The totalitarian pressure of the USA

Jewish establishment, together with its

slaves and flatterers, pushes Israel towards

extreme courses, such as it would have

never adopted by itself, alone. It is after all

much easier for the USA’s Israeli suppor¬

ters to demand Arab blood (I have heard

myself the predominantly Jewish crowd

chanting on October 14, 1973 in Madison

Square Garden: fArab blood must flow’),

than to ask that Damascus and Cairo

should be reduced to rubble and so on. It

will not be they who will bear the cost of

the blood — only the fcost’ by donations

deductible from the USA income tax! In

this way, by being made incapable both of

justice and of political concession by the

clamour of USA schizophrenics, who are

calling themselves its friends, the Jewish

community in the Middle East is really

pushed into a bad and disastrous stand¬

point. But this is the fate of all those who

trust totalitarians!”

23

Photographic Supplement

View of Al-Aqsa Mosque showing the excavation in progress

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Damage caused to the Al-Aqsa Mosque (7th Century AD) by Israeli-ordered excavations

(Distributed by WAFA)

Necessitated the building of concrete buttresses to avert a catastrophe (Daily Star, April 6, 1975)

1 V

The changing face of the occupied territories

The flattened-out area below the Damascus Gate are all that remains

of the Magharibah Quarter

dating back to medieval times

(Distributed by WAFA)

^Bulldozer making way Tor a new settlement in the Jerusalem area (Distributed by WAFA)

More apartment blocks near Jerusalem (Daily Star, April 4,

The Israeli settlement of Sadot in north-eastern Sinai {Middle East International, July 1975)

Construction work at the new town of Yamit {Middle East International, July 1975)

Israeli colonization in Sinai

pression ai estinian c:

ilitary presence in the courtyard of the Dome of the Rock

Hounding a Palestini

who demonstrated in against Jewish settlem in the West Bank (The Guardian, Decernb

Destroying Palestinian homes in reprisal (Distributed by WAFA)

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the arabs under israeli occupation - 1975

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