the arabs under israeli occupation - 1978

The Arabs Under Israeli

Occupation

DS 127

.6 0 3 4 A83

Institute for Palestine Studies

THE ARABS UNDER ISRAELI OCCUPATION

1978

prepared by Annual Series Section

INSTITUTE FOR PALESTINE STUDIES BEIRUT

1979

The Institute for Palestine Studies is an independent non-profit Arab research organization 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 of public information. They represent the free expression of their authors and do not necessarily indicate the judgement or opinions of the Institute.

Copyright ©1979, by the Institute for Palestine Studies, Beirut

INSTITUTE FOR PALESTINE STUDIES Anis Nsouli Street, Verdun, P.O. Box 11-7164

Beirut, Lebanon

CONTENTS

I INTRODUCTION

II CHRONOLOGY A - Major trends in Israeli policy towards the Occupied

Territories B - Israeli Practices in the Occupied Territories C - Palestinian National Movement

Annex A - Report on the Prisons Annex B — Report on Bir Zeit Annex C — Demolition of houses in Silwad and Kfar Kalil Annex D - Desecration of Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron

9 23 51 64 74 82 87

III DOCUMENTS Documents A — Palestinian National Movement 91 Documents B — Israeli Policy 104 Document C — Report of the National Lawyers Guild 111

IV UNITED NATIONS RESOLUTIONS AND SPECIAL REPORTS General Assembly 121 Commission on Human Rights 125 UNESCO 127 World Health Assembly 131 Report of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices in the Occupied Territories 132

I Introduction

The changes made in the 1978 edition of The Arabs Under Israeli Occupa¬ tion, 11th in this annual series, were especially appropriate because the Camp David accords in September of that year marked a definite watershed in the lives of hundreds of thousands of Arabs under Israeli occupation since 1967 in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights.

All the major political events of 1978, whether the Begin plan first unveil¬ ed in 1977 and incorporated virtually unchanged in those major parts of the «Framework for Peace in the Middle East» signed at Camp David and affect¬ ing the West Bank and Gaza Strip, or the continued pervasive imposition of Israel’s colonial domination of these territories and the Golan, confirmed to most of the world that as far as the Israeli government was concerned, their occupation was a permanent one. While this came as no surprise to many, including readers of earlier editions in this series, it was significant in that Israel had finally and unequivocally announced its firm intention to remain permanently in the West Bank and Gaza, although this declaration was flimsily veiled in diplomatic niceties.

Alongside this dramatic change, however, there was continuity. The Begin plan for the future of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as embodied in the Camp David accords, was simply the first official Israeli consecration of the long-standing Zionist goal of annexing most, if not all, of these territories — a goal which has guided Israeli policy and practices since the occupation be¬ gan. It is thus no surprise that following Camp David nothing should change in day-to-day Israeli practices in these territories. The confiscation of land, the establishment of new colonies, the appropriation of water resources, the denial of civil, political and human rights to the population — indeed all the many and varied aspects of Israel’s efforts to finally swallow and digest the remaining portions of Palestine — these continued unabated, and indeed in some respects were accelerated. Thus there was an important measure of continuity, which is reflected in the present volume, as in its predecessors in the series.

2 THE ARABS UNDER ISRAELI OCCUPATION, 1978

It could indeed be said parenthetically that in so many essential respects did 1978 resemble preceding years that the primary element of change was the acceptance by the United States and Sadat’s Egypt of the Zionist vision for the future of Palestine, with a number of minor caveats which to date show no sign of diverting Israel from its single-minded pursuit of incorporat¬ ing the whole of mandatory Palestine into the Jewish state. It is to be hoped that the account presented below of how the Israelis have acted to achieve these aims in their treatment of the occupied territories by the «creation of facts» — a favourite Israeli description of their colonialist policy — will persuade the reader of the aptness of the above description. In the pages which follow, he will observe the way in which the Israelis have capitalized on their dominant situation on the ground, in physical control of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights, to impose their steady vision, which in its essentials has not wavered for over a decade, on the governments in Wash¬ ington and Cairo.

The Arabs Under Israeli Occupation, 1978 takes the form of a three-part chronological account, based entirely on the press, focusing in turn on the three major aspects of events in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights: the broad outlines of Israel’s policy towards the occupied terri¬ tories, its actions and practices there, and the organized resistance of the Palestinian people. This is followed by our annexes and groups of docu¬ ments, which are meant to amplify the treatment of various key points touched on in the preceding chronological sections. This new organization has been devised to replace that of earlier editions because it was felt that it more faithfully represents the broad trends taken by events in the occupied territories, and at the same time enables the reader to follow the strand of developments more clearly. There has been a focus throughout on those aspects which are most characteristic of the Israeli occupation of Arab lands. This is particularly true of the gradual subjugation of the indigenous Pales¬ tinian economy to that of Israel and of the implantation of Zionist colonies throughout the occupied territories. The treatment below of such key aspects can be usefully supplemented by other sources other than the press.

It has not been possible for us to extend our coverage to the Arab popula¬ tion of the Palestinian territories occupied in 1948. However, the com¬ munique of the Day of the Land, published here in the Documents section, gives irrefutable proof that their lot has been little different from that of the inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza. The Palestinians of Galilee, the Triangle, the Naqab and other areas occupied in 1948 have similarly been dispossessed of their land and denied their most basic rights, and their perception of this common fate has led to a radicalisation in their national consciousness which the Israeli authorities have sought to stifle by intensifi¬ ed repression.

The various facets of Israeli practices can only be understood in light of the more notable features of Zionist ideology, which have guided Jewish settlement in Palestine since the last century. These features can be seen

INTRODUCTION 3

clearly in the West Bank and Gaza, forming as they do part of the «Land of Israel)), Eretz Israel, whose resurrection the modern-day fathers of Zionism claim to be engaged in. This leads to situations seemingly out of place in the 20th century, such as the claim that freshly-arrived Jewish immigrants establishing themselves in dozens of new colonies in the West Bank are its rightful owners, and not the native proprietors, occupants and tillers of the land for centuries and perhaps millenia. Similarly, the West Bank of the Jordan is dubbed by the Begin Government «Judea and Samaria», an archaic appelation which it manages to foist on the governments of the United States and Egypt in a letter attached to the Camp David accords, and for which it sedulously tries to gain the acceptance of world public opinion.

Although much the same sort of thing has been going on in the rest of Palestine since 1948, events in the territories occupied in 1967 bring out strikingly the nature of Israel as a colonial-settler phenomenon, engaged in systematically transforming an Arab land into a Jewish one, by dispossessing its owners and establishing Jewish settlements in their place. What is worthy of note in the Israeli case is the Biblical justification unique to Zionism, for what in any other place and in our time would quite simply be described as the seizure of one people’s land by another people. Some of these features stand out perhaps more clearly in the case of the Begin government, with its full complement of zealots, fanatics and cranks, but they have always been the intellectual and spiritual backbone of the Israeli enterprise. They il¬ lustrate precisely how and why Israeli colonialism is distinct from other colonialisms, whether in Southern Africa or elsewhere, and that Israeli occupation is an entirely different phenomenon from most other occupa¬

tions. In Palestine, in the heart of the Haram al-Sharif, or of Nablus, or of Gaza, the Israeli occupier claims to be there not only by right, but by divine right. Thus the behaviour of this occupier has a distinct specificity which has been reflected as faithfully as possible in the pages below.

The year 1978 witnessed the full flowering of Likud policies for the oc¬ cupied territories. This included both differences and similarities to the Alignment/Labour policies which had been followed for the past 10 years. While Israeli governments had been assiduously establishing Jewish settle¬ ments in all the occupied territories since 1967, two general reservations had been made. Firstly, most of Sinai had been left empty of settlements, with the explicit intention of using it as a bargaining card in negotiations with Egypt/1) This tactic finally worked with Anwar Sadat, although his pre¬ decessor had been wary of it. As a result, broadly speaking, Egypt got Sinai back — albeit with limited sovereignty and numerous restrictions — and Isra¬ el got an Egyptian carte blanche to dispose of the other occupied territories as it pleased/2^

fl^The Israeli government of Levi Eshkol on June 19, 1967, reportedly took a secret Cabinet decision to inform Egypt that Israel had no intention of annexing Sinai. See A. Kapeliouk, La Fin Des Mythes (Paris: Edition Albin Michel), 1975, p. 18.

G)Abdel Nasser was clearly aware that such a deal could have been obtained 10 years earlier as can be gauged from a speech of his at Cairo University on April 25, 1968 when he declared that Israel was


Secondly, settlement in the West Bank within the context of the Allon Plan had generally avoided population centres. The plan’s objective had been to hand certain areas over to Jordan for policing, while Israel retained the lion’s share, as well as strategic control of the entire area. Nevertheless, it should be remembered that under the Eshkol, Meir and Rabin governments, settlements had been built for the same basic purpose which had guided Zionist colonialism since the beginning of modern political Zionism: to stake a claim, to «create facts», and ultimately to establish both strategic and political control as a step towards achieving full untrammeled sovereignty. The dozens of settlements scattered throughout the occupied territories when the Likud government came to power in May 1977 were proof that its predecessors had been far from lax in doing their Zionist duty.

The new elements embodied in the Likud policies can be summarized as follows: Likud aggressively advocated settlement in heavily-populated areas of the West Bank, and was slightly less worried about the consequences of annexing these territories in terms of the problems which would be posed by their large hostile Palestinian population. In implementation of its objec¬ tives, it embarked on a massive road-building effort, to criss-cross the West Bank with strategic highways tying it to Israel. At the same time, it was no less hypocritical than its predecessors in the deceptions it practiced to dis¬ guise the fact that it was establishing new settlements in the heart of areas with a heavy Arab population. Thus the world was treated to the spec¬ tacle of «military advanced posts» or «settlement points within existing military bases» being subtly transformed into «temporary military colonies», and then changing into «civilian settlements)), finally to emerge in their true guise as permanent colonies, in many cases the nuclei of planned Jewish cities. These transparent attempts to disguise Likud’s creeping colonialism were necessitated both by the active resistance of the Arab population to the sharp acceleration of Israeli settlement in heavily populated areas of Palestine after May 1977, and by the greater sensitivity of the outside world to the entire process. It is true that in the context of the Camp David accords, the Begin government obtained a political umbrella for its policy of settlement and annexation, gaining American and Egyptian assent to some basic points, leaving the rest for interminable «autonomy negotiations)), and all the while continuing to «create facts» on the ground. But it was no longer operating in the same complaisant environment of international public opinion which had enabled its predecessors to implant far more settlements over the preceding ten years.

Two important points remain to be stressed. The first is the fact that what the Begin government, in line with earlier Labour/Alignment policies, was

definitely willing to withdraw from Sinai, in return for Egyptian concessions in the West Bank, Jeru¬ salem, Gaza and Golan. See al-Watha’iq al-filistiniya al-’Arabiya li-’am 1968, (Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies), 1970, p. 273.

INTRODUCTION 5

doing in the occupied territories was not simply establishing colonial settle¬ ments on Arab land. By and of itself, this would not have sufficed for the colonisation and ultimately the annexation and absorption of the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan. Side by side with the establishment of colonies went the establishment of colonial structures enabling all-encompassing exploita¬ tion and domination of these territories. Under this rubric fell such measures as the systematic shaping of the indigenous national economy to the needs of Israel’s; the obstruction and stifling of local industry; the exploitation of the territories as a vast pool of cheap labour, and a market for Israeli con¬ sumer goods; the linking of the West Bank and Gaza electricity systems to that of Israel; the theft of West Bank water — not only by settlements in the West Bank, but also by drilling from inside the 1967 borders into aquifers entirely underneath the West Bank — with the ultimate objective of stifling West Bank agriculture by robbing it of water; and finally the obstruc¬ tion wherever possible of education in the occupied territories, combined with the policy of forcing as many graduates as possible to emigrate by restricting job opportunities, with the aim of ensuring as ignorant and docile a subject population as possible. These measures, and others like them in the fields of health, taxation, municipal services and virtually every other aspect of the life of the population under occupation, are what go to make up the concrete reality of occupation. They are the indispensable characteristics of the occupation without which Israeli settlement policy loses its full meaning.

In the face of this bleak reality, the other point which must be made carries with it a ray of hope. While confronting their 12th year of occupation by a regional super-power whose every effort was bent on their elimination as a national entity and their physical dispossession, the Palestinians under occupation continued to grow in organization, political maturity and defiant confidence in the face of their oppressors. In addition, they forged even stronger links with their exiled fellow countrymen, with their Palestinian brethren in Galilee and the other parts of Palestine occupied in 1948, and with the PLO. Moreover, in the wake of Camp David, the role for the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the nearly 4 million Palestinians throughout the world, was reaffirmed spectacularly, signifying the first major defeat for the U.S.-Israeli-Egyptian accords.

The countervailing reality, one of the most important to emerge in 1978, can be followed in section C below, and in the numerous documents of the Palestinian national movement printed in full at the end bf the volume. Through the lines of these documents, and in the facts which are chronicled

G)of the 850 million of water annually available to the West Bank, approximately 620 million m^

are used, with the rest exceedingly difficult to exploit. Over 500 million m^ are used inside Israel through sideways drilling into West Bank aquifers, while only 105 million m3 is left for Palestinian Arab use, and the Israelis use a further 15 million m^ for their West Bank Settlements. (The Guardian 23/5/1979, p. 6.)


in section C of the Chronology, can be read the determination of an entire people to resist the creeping colonisation of the Israelis, and to withstand the blow* to their most basic human and national aspirations embodied in Anwar Sadat’s trip to Jerusalem and his acceptance of the outlines of the Begin plan at Camp David. Seen in the context of the adherence to Israel’s basic theories about the occupied territories by the United States, the united and resolute Palestinian stand is all the more admirable, and all the more preg¬ nant with meaning for the future. Even if the United States, Israel and the Sadat regime claim to have come to agreement on the broad outlines for the determination of the future of the Palestinian people, it is without their participation, and with scant concern for their assent, their interests or their rights. The unanimous and universally scornful rejection of this sham peace at their expense by all Palestinians wherever they are, including those under occupation, is a sign that this is a «settlement» on a very shaky foundation.

Thus, although this volume remains an attempt to chronicle the facts of a dehumanizing and grinding occupation by one of the most tenacious colonial movements in history, it embodies at the same time an affirmation that the human spirit cannot be bound by the barbed wire of Zionist settlements, any more than it can be killed by the cluster bombs, fragmentation shells and other ordnance which fell on the Palestinians and Lebanese in South Leba¬ non in March 1978 and afterwards. In the massive popular uprising in the West Bank and Gaza which took place in response to the victory of Palestini¬ an steadfastness in the «10-day war» of March 1978 is the proof, if further proof were needed, that the Palestinian people are a unified, single whole, a national entity which decades of exile, colonisation, occupation and division have failed to break.

A few words on the organization and principles of selection followed in the compilation of this volume: While each of the three sections of the Chronology has its own chronological sequence, there is an interdependence between them with, for example, the Israeli statements on colonisation in section A matching the Palestinian responses cited in section C. The three parts of the Chronology form an indissociable whole, and in some cases the reader will want to review an earlier section to place certain events or state¬ ments in perspective.

The criteria for choosing events have been the following: 1. Each event cited has been authenticated on the basis of more than one source. 2. Each event has been presented in its totality, beginning with the first reference to it in the sources used. This permits the reader to follow up those developments such as uprisings or the establishment of new settlements which went on for a period of time, without turning from page to page in the Chronology.

INTRODUCTION 7

3. The number of events chosen within the context of each theme treated is strictly in conformance with the relative importance of this theme during the year. Thus, for example, the extensive treatment of colonisation is justified by the importance of this theme throughout 1978.

A few remarks on sources are also in order. The basic sources relied upon have been the Israeli press, the Arab press in East Jerusalem, and the foreign press (a list of sources can be found below). Because of restrictions imposed by the occupation authorities, it was impossible to obtain a complete series of

al-Fajr, al-Quds, al-Shaab and al-Tali-a. Those missing were generally from the first 6 months of the year. It should be noted that the Israeli press, with the exception of al-Ittihad, omits whole categories of events, and gives a dis¬ torted view of others. Torture, for.example, is hardly ever mentioned, while the versions of demonstrations are usually those of the Israeli military spokesman. Where necessary, this bias has been mentioned in notes to the text.

Another problem with regard to sources was the failure of the New York Times to appear from 10 August to 5 November due to a strike, and the halt in printing of The Times of London since November. For these and other reasons, it has been necessary to refer repeatedly to certain sources, without any references to others in the coverage of certain periods. Nevertheless, this did not affect the care with which the facts are presented, nor their ac¬ curacy.

At times, it was necessary to have recourse to sources other than the press, particularly with regard to the measures taken by Israel with regard to the Arab economy, where reference was made to the report of the National Lawyer’s Guild, or for facts regarding the prisons, where use was made of reports by the Israeli lawyers Lea Tsemel and Felicia Langer furnished by the Committee for the Defence of Palestinian Detainees. Similar considerations led to use of an interview with the Dean of Bir Zeit University published in Palestine magazine and of an interview with Karim Khalaf in the Bulletin of the Palestinian Human Rights Campaign.


LIST OF SOURCES WITH ABBREVIATIONS

Palestinian press

al-Tali’a Arabic East Jerusalem weekly al T

al-Quds Arabic East Jerusalem daily al Q

al-Fajr Arabic East Jerusalem daily al F

al-Sha ’ab Arabic East Jerusalem daily al Sh

Israeli press

al Ittihad Arabic Haifa twice weekly al I

Yediot Aharanot Hebrew Tel Aviv daily YA

Davar Hebrew Tel Aviv daily D

Ha’aretz Hebrew Tel Aviv daily H

Ma ’ariv Hebrew Tel Aviv daily M

Hat sofeh Hebrew Tel Aviv daily Hat

Al-Hamishmar Hebrew Tel Aviv daily al H

Zu Haderekh Hebrew Tel Aviv weekly ZuH

Jerusalem Post English West Jerusalem daily JP

New Outlook English Tel Aviv monthly N Out

International Press

Le Monde French Paris daily LeM

Le Monde French Paris monthly MD

Diplomatique

Le Nouvel French Paris weekly N Ob

Observateur

New York Times English New York daily NYT

Time English New York weekly Tm

The Times English London daily TheT

The Sunday Times English London weekly ST

The Guardian English Manchester weekly GW

Weekly The Economist English London weekly TheE

New Statesman English London weekly NS

International English Paris daily IHT

Herald Tribune Newsweek English New York weekly Nw

Middle East English London monthly MEI

International

Other Abbreviations

Israeli League for Human Rights ILHR Committee for the Defence of Palestinian

Prisoners and Detainees in Israeli prisons CDPD

9

II Chronology

A. MAJOR TRENDS IN ISRAELI POLICY TOWARDS THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

Israel implemented its policy towards the Occupied Territories in 1978 in three main spheres: the continuation of colonisation, and specifically the establishment of further settlements; major declarations and political decisions taken on the Cabinet level regarding the future of these territories, and new laws and decrees directly affecting the life of the inhabitants. The principal Israeli political declarations cited in the chronology until the month of September were made against the background of the various phases of the negotiations, which, under the aegis of the United States, culminated in the Camp David Summit. They contain constant references to the Israeli plan for «administrative autonomy» for the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, laid down in December 1977, showing clearly the extent to which Israel’s annexationist and colonialist goals have been enshrined in the Camp David Accords. In the course of the chronology, the three major aspects of Israel’s settle¬ ments policy will become apparent: the declarations bearing on its ideologi¬ cal, strategic and economic basis; the plans elaborated by the various parties concerned (those of the Ministries of Agriculture and Defence, the Jewish Agency, the World Zionist Organization and the Gush Emunim will be quoted); and the budgets drawn up for them. As far as the legal basis of Israeli policy towards the Occupied Territories is concerned, the essential source remains the Israeli Emergency Laws.

1 Jan. — Moshe Dayan, Minister of Foreign Affairs, declares on Israeli tele¬ vision that the settlements established in the Occupied Territories will re-


main under Israeli control. He affirms: «I believe that we have taken adequate measures not only to ensure the permanence of the settlements, but also to retain the question of their security in Israeli hands and to pre¬ serve their links with Israel ... In my opinion colonisation is one of the fundamental factors ... for the establishment of settlements is of the very essence of Zionism.» (al H 1/1/78.)

8 Jan. — Menahem Begin, Prime Minister of Israel, declares before the Cen¬ tral Committee of the Herut party that Israel will not evacuate the West Bank and the'Gaza Strip. He adds that even after the transition period en¬ visaged in the Israeli peace plan, the Gaza settlements will be maintained and defended by Israeli forces. (JP 9/1/78, p. 1.)

23 Jan. — Gideon Patt, Housing Minister, declares to the settlers of Katzrin that the Golan Heights, having become de facto an integral part of the State of Israel, will one day achieve de jure status. (NYT 24/1/78, p. 1.)

25 Jan. - The State budget for the fiscal year 1978/1979 is set at IL 179,000 million (M 25/1/78): IL 54,000 million for defence; 209 million for im¬ migration (!) (against 142 million in 1977), not counting the contribution of 43.6 million from the Jewish Agency; and 778 million for settlements (against 600 million in 1977). The sum set aside for the «strengthening» of existing settlements and the creation of new settlements in the Occupied Territories sees an increase of 56% compared with 1977. (H 18/1/78.)

1 Feb. — Dayan declares before the Knesset that in September 1977 he said to President Carter: «... The policy of all the Israeli governments in the future, like that of their predecessors, will be to continue establishing settle¬ ments in the West Bank.» He adds: «I also said that in consideration of the peace negotiations (with Egypt)... new settlements would only be created in the framework of military camps during the coming few months (of 1977).» (IHT 2/2/78,p. 2). Dayan was refuting claims in the Israeli press that he had promised Carter that Israel would establish no more settlements in the West Bank. (Le M 3/2/78, p. 3.)

12 Feb. — Government communique issued in response to Cyrus Vance’s declaration on settlements <2>. The communique stresses the fact that the

(Djhe Head of the Immigration Department of the Jewish Agency, Yehuda Doments, declared that there were 26,000 new immigrants in 1978, against 21,400 in 1977 with 35,000 expected in 1979 (D 2/1/79, p.l)

^The American Secretary of State had declared on 10/2 that the Israeli settlements are «contrary to international law» and that they «ought not exist». (N Ob No. 693, 20-26/2/78, p. 35)

CHRONOLOGY 11

settlements are «legal, legitimate and necessary». The Israeli argument is that since the settlements were created within military camps, they are not in contravention of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. This article stipulates that «The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own population into the territory it occupies.» (Tm 27/2/78, p. 30.)

22 Feb. — The- Settlement Department of the World Zionist Organization presents a plan for the establishment, in four years, of 57 new settlements, 31 of them in the occupied territories. These settlements will be of various kinds: 21 industrial settlements in Galilee and the Golan; 19 agricultural set¬ tlements in the south of Israel and Rafah; 17 of both kinds in the West Bank. (JP 23/2/78, p. 3). Another project is under consideration by the Jewish Agency to establish 14 settlements in the Jordan Valley in addition to those envisaged in the project submitted to the Zionist Congress. (H 20/2/78, p. 1.)

27 Feb. — The Jewish Agency announces the publication of its new booklet entitled, «They say there is a Country» (3) on a new settlement project. The plan calls for the establishment of 49 new settlements in the occupied ter¬ ritories before 1992: 10 in the Golan; 15 in the West Bank; 20.in Gaza and Rafah, and 4 in the Sinai. (H 27/2/78, p. 1, and 6/4/78, p. 9.)(4)

28 Feb. — A communique is issued by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs con¬ taining Dayan’s declaration before the Zionist Congress «that no settlement has been established since the Begin government came topower(Jqne 1977).» Dayan also affirms that «the policy followed by the government is not to create new settlements,». (5) adding that «the government has decided to create only three settlements in the West Bank, in the'framework of military camps. (6) One has already been set up, and the two others will follow in due course, as the government has decided to go ahead with their establishment.» (H 1/3/78, p. 2.)

(3)p0pular song of the first Zionist settlers.

(‘b'rhe booklet states that the Jewish Agency has established 76 settlements in the occupied terri¬ tories, with nearly 6,500 settlers: 25 settlements in the Golan; 21 in the Jordan Valley; 7 in Gush Ttziyon; 17 at Rafah; 3 at Ramat Shlome, and 3 in other locations.

(^The Israeli government in fact decided to establish a number of settlements, quite apart from those set up by one of the settler movements, the Gush Emunim, and later approved by the government. Note the following government decisions to establish new settlements: 1. The secret decision of 23/10/77, not revealed until 30/4/78, to create ten new settlements in the West Bank: Pezak, Dotan, Tertasih, Haris, Tepuah, Silet el-Zaher, Shiloh, Adurim, Rehan Bet and Ma-aleh Horon. (A1 H 30/4/78, p. 2.) j2. The decision taken by the Ministerial Defence Committee, of 26/6/78, and finally revealed in the government communique of 13/8/78, to set up five «outposts» along the Jordan Valley (D 14/8/78, p. 1.) Two of these effective settlements were to be established - one in the region of Jiftlik, near the Damiyya Bridge, two in the Jericho region; and one near Kalia, north of the Dead Sea. (H 15/8/78, p. 3.)

(^Tepuah, Silet el-Zaherf and Haris, which took priority for «security reasons)), (al H op. cit.) In fact the government decision to create these three settlements was ratified on 10/1/78 by the Knesset


1 Mar. — Declaration by Ariel Sharon, Minister of Agriculture, before the Ministerial Finance Committee, meeting to vote on his ministry’s budget, (7> outlining the ministry’s settlement policy and its economic and ideological basis: «The policy of my ministry is: to extend colonization, to create new settlements and to develop existing ones; to promote and expand the sources of export; to harness water resources; to take control of cultivable lands.» Sharon adds that, «the economic viability of the settlements is also impor¬ tant; to a great extent the settlements have satisfied the needs of local con¬ sumption, and have recorded a net rise in their exports. Still their principal merit is to have allowed the realisation of «national goals»: settling the land; assuring optimum distribution of the population; guaranteeing the security of the frontiers ... The Ministry will make every effort for settlement in its various forms, and it will undertake wide-ranging and long term measures to develop the water resources...» (H 2/3/78, p. 4.)

3 Mar. — Dayan, at a debate held in Tel Aviv on the political and social situa¬ tion, recommends the unilateral application of certain points of the Israeli plan for administrative autonomy for the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. He proposes to maintain the authority of the Military Government to ensure Israel’s «security and ideological interests,)) the latter being understood as «Israel’s right to acquire land, to establish settlements and to enjoy free pas¬ sage in the occupied territories.» (The T 4/3/78, p. 4.)

8 Mar. — Declaration by Ezer Weizman, Minister of Defence, during his visit to Washington regarding Israel’s refusal to evacuate the West Bank even in the event of peace with Egypt: «There is a consensus that the Jordan River is one of Israel’s secure frontiers.» (H 9/3/78.)

26 Mar. — The Israeli government meets to hear Begin’s report on his Wash¬ ington talks (21 - 22/3). The final communique declares that «the Israeli peace plan ... is an appropriate basis for negotiations with the Arab states)). In the course of the debate, Begin states his opposition to organising a referendum in the West Bank (and the Gaza Strip) for fear that it will culminate in the creation of a Palestinian State. (D 27/3/78, p. 1). In Washington, Begin had refused to order a freeze on settlement in the occupi¬ ed territories and to recognize that Security Council Resolution 242 calls on

Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee (IHT 11/1/78, p. 1). However, in none of the three is there a military camp; the camps exist only in the decisions taken by the government. (D Supplement, 17/2/78). According to the plans, Haris is to be an agricultural and industrial village, and the two others are to become towns. (M 31/1/78, p. 16.)

(^The Ministry of Agriculture devoted IL 415 million of its budget for the fiscal year 1978/79 to gov¬ ernment approved settlements: IL 81 million for the Golan; 69 million for the Jordan Valley; 142 mil¬ lion for Gush Itziyon; 95 million for Rafah; 28 million to prepare the terrain for sites earmarked for settlement. (H 13/6/78, p. 5.) Cf. Documents - B, «Budget for the settlements)).

CHRONOLOGY 13

Israel to withdraw from all the territories occupied in 1967. (NYT 27/3/78, p. 1). In a speech before the Knesset, assembled on 29/3 to hear his report' on his Washington visit, Begin declares that a «so-called Palestinian State* will never be set up in the West Bank and Gaza.» (M 30/3/78.)

29 Mar. — Declaration by Shmuel Tamir, Minister for Justice, on the «necessity» to populate Jerusalem with Jews, and «most particularly the eastern

sector of the city» (occupied East Jerusalem). (Hat 29/3/78, p. 6.)

16 Apr. — Dayan submits to the Council of Ministers the directives given to Israel’s representatives abroad on how to present the Israeli position on Security Council Resolution 242. Among other things, these directives main¬ tain that the Israeli plan for administrative autonomy for the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is in accordance with the principles of Resolution 242. (GW 23/4/78, p. 7.) As far as the West Bank is concerned, Israel refuses any modification in the existing frontiers, categorically refuses a return to the 1967 frontiers, and is opposed to any partition of this region. (H 18/4/78.)

18 Apr. — According to a government source, the number of settlers in the occupied territories is approaching 14,000: 4,700 in the West Bank — 1,500 of these in Gush ’Itsiyon, nearly 1,700 in Kiryat Arba’ and 1,500 in the Jordan Valley —; 2,600 in the Rafah Heights; 1,100 at Mirhav Shlomo; and 4,000 in the Golan. (H 19/4/78, p. 10.)

23 Apr. — At a press conference in Tel Aviv, spokesmen for the Gush Emunim (g) (Bloc of the Faithful) reveal the existence of a new settlement plan envisaging the implantation of a million settlers in the West Bank by the year 2000. The plan, whose aim is to establish Jewish demographic superi¬ ority, calls for the creation of dozens of agricultural and industrial colonies, while still favoring the principle of large urban centres preferred by Weiz- man. These colonies would be set up on what the Gush, and also the government, classifies as «State Lands», meaning land not registered in the administrative records, or in other words, more than half of the land in the West Bank, (al H 24/4/78, p. 1, and D 24/4/78, p. 3.) On 6/7, the Gush Emunim announces at a press conference held in Jerusalem that its plan, further elaborated with the assistance of army experts and lead¬ ing members of the settlement department of the Jewish Agency, is to serve as the basis for a government plan for settlement in the West Bank. The Gush state that their final plan envisages the distribution of one and a quarter

(^The goals of this movement, as defined by Hanan Porath, one of its leading members, are: to gather all the Jews in the world in the «Land of Israel)), defined as all of Palestine, which means - in his view - populating it completely, preventing all foreign intervention in Israel’s affairs, achieving peace be¬ tween Israel and Israel)). (Hat 25/4/78, p. 2.)


million settlers in 40 settlements, some of which have already been establish¬ ed, and that in the short term the Jewish population in the West Bank should reach' 100,000. There are now 1,850 settlers living in the 16 Gush Emunim settlements!9> . The settlements will comprise: two large urban centres — Kiryat Arba’ and another south of Nablus — each with a population of 60,000 two towns — including Shiloh — of 20,000 settlers; agricultural settlements with a population of 10,000; and others of between four and seven thousand settlers. A road network will link them to the centre of Israel and to the coast. The full realisation of the plan requires that most of the land in the West Bank should be immediately expropriated. (YA 7/7/78, p. 2, and H 7/7/78, p. 14.) The programme for 1978/79 calls for: a) - The establishment of 5 new settlements: Edurim (on the Hebron — Beersheba road); Harabta (in the south-west of the Nablus region); a new settlement to the east of Rantis (on the road to Nabi Saleh); Pezak (to the south-east of Jenin); Tertasih (on the road between Nablus and the Damiyya Bridge).!101 b) — Laying down the infrastmcture for 10 other settlements, c) — The construction of 5 major roads, not counting the Hutseh-Shomron road which is to be completed. d) — The construction of permanent dwellings at Beit El, whose population should be made up to the projected 500 families (40 are now living there).

e) — The creation of pioneer groups for the «Jewish City of Nablus», which will be linked to Nablus Elon Moreh and will have a population of 60,000 settlers; this will involve recruiting members from the Gush Emunim settle¬ ment of Kaddum and deploying them on the site to be prepared. The laying down of roads (13 planned), and the establishment of settlements, both cor¬ responding to the logistical requirements, has the additional aim of isolating the various Arab regions of the West Bank by fragmenting them as much as possible. In the introduction to their plan, the Gush Emunim state quite plainly that «Zionism, since its very origins, has been party to the principle that the colonisation of «Eretz Israel» (The Land of Israel) will open the way to political sovereignty)). (YA Supplement, 8/9/78.) On 10/7, the Gush Emunim meet with Begin and present their plan to him

! ^Hanan Porath announces on 23/4, that these 16 settlements were established in the space of the preceding six months. (YA 24/4/78 p. 4.) The Defence Ministry states on 24/4 that there were only 8. The 8 Gush Emunim settlements whose establishment in the last six months was acknowledged by the Ministry are : — 6 settlements set up in military camps: Shomron (140 settlers), Sanur (60 settlers), Beit El (120 settlers), Giv-on (52 settlers), Nabi Saleh (60 settlers), Beit Horon(58 settlers); — and 2 settlements independent of military camps: Karnei Shomron (53 families) and Shiloh (30 settlers). Ac¬ cording to Davar’s list 25/4/78 p. 5, the Gush has 19 settlements in the West Bank, excluding its pro¬ ject to create «the Jewish City of Nablus», with pioneer groups living at Elon Moreh, «once and for all to exclude all options in favour of giving back the West Bank».

!101The settlements of Tertasih, Pezak and Edurim were previously decided on by the government on 23/10/77.

CHRONOLOGY 15

(al I 14/7/78, p. 3), after announcing that they cannot put it into practise without government assistance. (Le M 12/7/78, p. 6.)

10 May — In an interview, Dayan calls for the annexation of the communi¬ ties surrounding Jerusalem. He declares: «Unified Jerusalem is and will re¬ main the capital of Israel ... The question of the Holy Places, and the ques¬ tion of the Arab towns surrounding Jerusalem will be the subject of negotia¬ tions. The towns of Ramallah and Bethlehem, the villages of el-Ayzariyeh and Sha’afat are an integral part of Jerusalem ...» Dayan also presses the government to take an appropriate decision on the Holy Places. (YA 10/5/78, p. 1.)

17 May — The Weizman plan for the creation of six urban centres O Gin the West Bank, and the implantation of 38,000 families is submitted to the joint settlement committee of the government and the Jewish Agency by Abraham Tamir, chief of the State Planning Department. The towns to be established are: Giv’on (to accommodate 5,000 families); Ma’aleh Adumim (7,000 families); Gush Ttsiyon (Efrat) (7,000 families); Haris (14,000 families); Kamei Shomron (2,000 families); and Neve Tsuf (2,000 families). (H 19/5/78, p. 1). In all the plan calls for the settlement of nearly 160,000 persons, 10,000 of them in the course of the coming three years. (ST 21/5/78, p. 1). Most of the selected sites are either in or on the edge of «military camps», or else on land allotted to Gush Emunim settlers. In addi¬ tion to these urban centres, the plan recommends the establishment of a number of other installations of less importance, in the form, of Nahalim (para-military outposts, partly agricultural and partly for the defence of frontier zones), or else earmarked for new «camps for the army». (LeM 21-22/5/78, p. 1.) The principal aim behind the creation of these six towns is to implant «tens

of thousands» of settlers in the West Bank. This «requires individual initiative on the levels of Housing and Labour, as well as the exploitation of vast tracts of land». As most of the land where the towns are to be built are «State lands» or «uncultivated», G 2> «allegedly only a bare minimum would

(ll)Weizman has clearly indicated on a number of occasions that he is in favour of «organised settlement», implying above all the creation of actual towns, and that he is against the popular view which favours the creation of a large number of small settlements to be inhabited by a cluster of families, or even just a handful of settlers. And so we see Weizman, on the eve of his departure for Washington, summarising his views on the question of (new) settlements before the assembled leaders of the Gush Emunim, and declaring that he is not against settlement per se, but that he wants «organised colonisation». (H 13/3/78, p. 10.)

(^Government sources declare to the Jerusalem Post (of 23/5/78, p. 1) that more than 90% of the, land required for the creation of the six towns comes under these two categories. However, they «do not specify how much of this 90% in fact belongs to the local inhabitants)).


be seized from the local inhabitants)). (H 22/5/78, p. 2). Thus, Haris will be built on uncultivated land» (5,000 dunums), as will Giv’on (2,500 dunums); Neve Tsuf will occupy 1,200 dunums of «State land» and 1,500 dunums of «uncultivated land». The others will be built on «State land»: Gush ’Itsiyon (Efrat) (7,000 dunums) (JP op. cit.): Kamei Shomron (3,000 dunums); and Ma’aleh Adumim (4,000 dunums). (H 19/5/78, p.l, and 13/3/78, p. 10.)

The precise location of the various urban centres is very clearly the outcome of a deliberate strategy and well defined policy. (Le M op. cit.). Their ex¬ istence in these locations would be a determining factor in any negotiations over the permanent status of the West Bank, and in particular would allow Israel to enter into negotiations over the eastern sector of the West Bank from a consolidated position, inasmuch as the towns to be created will be situated in the west, (where the Palestinian population is concentrated). Giv’on, Ma’aleh Adumim and Gush ’Itsiyon are situated in the suburbs around Jerusalem, and Haris, Kamei Shomron and Neve Tsuf are all in the

northern half of the West Bank, in the region overlooking the coastal plain. The Weizman plan, designed as a response to urgent political and strategic considerations, reflects «two fundamental principles underlying the colonisa¬ tion of the West Bank: the first is based on the need to reinforce the Jewish presence in Jerusalem, and particularly in its suburbs, as well as in the west¬ ern region of the West Bank which borders the Green Line»; the second demands ((reducing to a minumim any contact)) with the Palestinian popula¬ tion, by creating road networks which would link each of these towns to the coastal plain, and would also link Jerusalem to its outlying suburbs. (H 22/5/78, p. 1.)

23 May — Weizman, speaking before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, «denies» that any land has ever been seized by the mili¬ tary authorities; he declares: «I have never expropriated anything)) from the inhabitants of the West Bank, «not one grape, not even an olive.» He adds, however, that 800 dunums have been seized at four settlement sites — Haris, Tepuah, Nebi Saleh and Kamei Shomron — but that this only involved ((uncultivated land», one section being ((State land», and the ownership of the remaining sectors being ((undetermined)) db (M 24/5/78). Weizman also denies that the government has any intention of seizing thousands of dunums for the purpose of expanding the Gush Emunim settlements (al H 24/5/78, p. 1). The previous day, the Deputy Minister of Defence, Mordechai Zippori, had given orders that a study be made concerning just such a possibility. During a tour round the Gush Emunim.settlements he had

(13>A/Hamishmar (24/5/78, p. 1) draws attention to this question of «undeterrmned» ownership: «It is estimated that a significant portion of the land in the West Bank is not recorded in the Land Register, but we cannot surmise from that that these lands belong to nobody, and that we can make use of them for our own purposes)).

CHRONOLOGY 17

been given a memorandum demanding that 500 to 1,000 dunums be immediately requisitioned for each of the settlements of Elon Moreh, Giv’on and Mes-ha, and ultimately for the other Gush settlements. As they consider 80 to 90% of the land surrounding their settlements to be «State land», such a demand was seen to be justified. (M 22/5/78, p. 1.)

1 June — The Minister of Housing allots IL 80 million for the construction of temporary dwellings in the new West Bank settlements, taken from his budgetary reserves of IL 170 million laid aside for settlements. In addition, he allots IL 37^ million to the housing of «pioneer groups)) in «temporary camps)) in Rafah. (H 6/6/78, p. 10.)

17 June - Israeli government response to American questions on «the per¬ manent status)) of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Israel stipulates that after five years of administrative autonomy, «the nature of the relations will be examined and approved in accordance with the suggestions put forward by both sides)). (Le M 20/6/78, p. 3). On 19/6, the Knesset votes in favour of this position (59 for, 37 against with 10 abstentions). (H 20/6/78). Dayan states before the Knesset that the phrase «nature of relations)) does not imply any change in the question of control over these territories, and that, as far as Israel is concerned, administrative autonomy is their permanent status. (JP 20/6/78, p. 1.)

3 July - Declaration by Sharon during a tour round the new settlements in the West Bank on the strategic goals of settlement. He argues that «far from arousing hate», on the contrary, the establishment of settlements will achieve «a: peace based on security ... A peace stemming only from an agree¬ ment and nothing more has no value as long as conditions do not exist which can prevent the conflict with the Arabs continuing ... However, settlement creates just such conditions ... [The policy of settlement] has been establish¬ ed in accordance with Israel’s security needs. It does not spring from my initiative, or anybody’s initiative, rather it is planned and executed with the approval of the government.» (14> Sharon announces that 15 new settlements were built in 1977, with a total population of 2,200. These settlements, he adds, have wiped the «Green Line)) off the map, giving the overpopulated coastal plain a strategic depth. (YA 4/7/78, p. 6.)

H4)sharon has affirmed categorically on numerous occasions that the establishment of settlements in the occupied territories is not a series of isolated individual efforts, as disingenuous Israeli policy statements and the government’s obscurantism would have one believe. Thus, it is worth noting one of his previous statements, published by Davar (17/1/78, p. 1) in which he declared, confronting his detractors: «A11 that has been and is now being undertaken, all that will be undertaken in the future, takes place with the full knowledge of the government, with its approval, and in accordance with its decisions.»


7 Aug. — Sharon declares, during a tour round the new settlements in the West Bank, that the task of populating the settlements situated along the road traversing the centre of the West Bank will soon be undertaken. (D 8/8/78, p. 3.)

11 Aug. — Dayan denies that the government is going ahead in secret with the creation of new settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. He claims that «the only work in progress at the moment is the strengthening of already existing settlements, not the establishment of new ones». (LeM 11/8/78, p. 4.)

15 Aug. — Sharon lays down for Israeli radio the main outlines of his «settlement ideology»: First of all take possession of the land and establish incon- travertibly that Israel has all but completed a phase of development which it would be extremely difficult for her to go back on — Sharon adds that the importance of the settlements now established in the northern sector of the West Bank far outweighs the import of any subsequent communique or deci¬ sion. The second key imperative is immediately to establish on the ridges to the west of the chain of mountains in the West Bank’s northern sector a line of settlements running parallel to the coastal plain, which Sharon terms the «line of the road axes». This zone of settlements, with its concentration of Jewish-population, is designed to isolate the following two «demographic concentrations)): one formed by the Palestinian villages situated just inside the «Green Line)), along the Ara valley, from Kfar Qasim and el-Tireh, and the other made up of the Palestinian villages spread out along the crest of mountains running from Jenin, through Jerusalem and down to the hills of Hebron. (We should note that Sharon divides 'Eretz Israel)) — The Land of Israel - into several «demographic sectors)).} The line of new settlements would assure the overpopulated coastal plain strategic depth and a demo¬

graphic extension. A number of highways would link it to the coastal plain, among others, that of Houtseh-Shomron presently under construction. (H 15/8/78, p. 11.) Without this line of new settlements, Sharon declares, «demographic complications and problems of security will end up asphyxiat¬ ing the Jewish centres situated along the coastal strip.)) (ST 20/8/78, p. 10.) Sharon’s modes of operation are legion. The Israeli press (H op cit-) notes that, to achieve «his ends» (15 \ Sharon establishes new settlements on «State land» or else lands seized for so-called security reasons; he also «strengthens» existing settlements by adding to their complement a sizeable number of new families; another ploy is, under the pretext of resiting a settlement in a more propitious location, to create one (or more) new settlements with the same name as the first one.(16>

(15>cf. note 14, p. 17.

(^Several other «Sharon principles* for the colonisation of the West Bank have been revealed by the press:

CHRONOLOGY 19

25 Aug. — Ra’anan Weitz’s plan for the creation of agricultural settlements and urban centres exposed in his booklet, «Peace and Settlements)), and sub¬ mitted to Begin and the President of the Jewish Agency,. (D 25/8/78, p. 2). Weitz proposes: to increase the number of settlements in the Jordan Valley from 21 to 38 in the coming 5 years; to establish, in five years, 102 rural settlements for 9,900 families (nearly half of these settlements will be in the occupied territories); to increase the urban population in 30 «selected» regions, including the Jerusalem area, the Galilee and 13 «development towns». The plan speaks of the necessity of reinforcing the Israeli presence along the Jordan Valley, in order to guarantee the «demilitarisation» of any Arab entity in the West Bank. (JP 27/8/78, p. 1.)

1 Sept. — Begin and Peres officially agree on five points the day before the Prime Minister leaves for Camp David: Jerusalem is the eternal, undivided capital of Israel; no return to the 1967 frontiers; rejection of any minor modification of existing frontiers; the Israeli army will guard the Jordan River; the Israeli army will be stationed in the West Bank. (D 1/9/78, p. 1.)

3 Sept. — The Knesset ratifies the bill on the «Israeli Emergency Laws» presented by Shmuel Tamir, who suggests maintaining the rule on adminis¬ trative detention stipulated in article III of the Emergency Laws of 1945, inherited from the British Mandate. Anyone can be detained as a «security measure)), on the orders of the Minister of Defence (in place of the regional military governor) for a period of six months, which can be indefinitely post¬ poned. The person detained does have the right of appeal to the Central Tribunal of Israel or to the Supreme Court of Justice, however these two bodies themselves have the right to hold a closed session to hear the lawyer representing the Minister of Defence, in the absence of the lawyer of the «administrative detainee)). Moreover, if the order is issued for the «needs of the security of the state or for the public weal», it is irrevocable. In practice, the enforcement of the administrative detention regulations remains the same under the Israelis as under the British Mandate.

Sealing off with new settlements the «corridors» envisaged by the «AUon Plan» (in the Jericho region) connecting the East Bank and the West Bank of the Jordan River, and designed to keep open the possibility of a regional accord with Jordan (al H 14/8/78, p. 1). (Cf. Sharon declaration of 3/7/78).

Safeguarding the concept of«Eretz Israel», and trying to make it a reality by creating extensive Jewish settlement complexes in regions of dense Arab population, in an attempt to isolate them. The decision of 28/6/78 to create 5 new settlements in the Jordan Valley (cf. note 5, p. 11) is in accordance with this principle. (D 14/8/78, p. 1.) So too were Sharon’s settlement activities in Gaza; from 1967 to 1973, Sharon, then in charge of the Southern Command, faced with the dense demographic concentra¬ tion in Gaza established a number of settlements in the centre of the region with a view to annexing it. (D 11/9/78, p. 8.)

Putting up very small settlements, but «on every hill» as the biblical injunction goes (Le M 21-22/5/78, p. 1), an almost too literal application of Chaim Weizman’s exhortation: «another goat and another acre».


Tamir’s bill also calls for the annulment of Article 112 of the 1945 Emergency Laws which accords the authorities the right to expel any in¬ habitant under their jurisdiction, without his being charged or brought to trial. The annulment of this article is compensated for by the freedom of manoeuvre left the occupation authorities by the rule on administrative detention and by the articles of the 1945 Emergency Laws relative to the assignation of forced residence, exile, «closed zones» and military tribunals, all articles retained in Tamir’s bill. (Bulletin of the Committee for the Defence of Palestinian Detainees) of 19/9/78, p. 1.)

17 Sept. — The Camp David accords (ratified by the Cabinet on 24/9, and by the Knesset on 27/9). In his speech<4 7 ^before the Knesset (25/9), Begin lists the proposals which Israel succeeded in preventing being included in the Ac¬ cords: the organisation of a referendum in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip; the creation of a Palestinian State; the participation of the PLO in any nego¬ tiations. Begin declares that Israel maintained that unified Jerusalem is its capital, in accordance with the decision taken by the Israeli government in July 1967; he gives assurances that settlements will continue to be establish¬ ed in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights; he states that the expression «Palestinian people», employed in the text of the accords, will be translated according to the Israeli terminology into the «Arabs of Eretz Israel» (Land of Israel). Cg)(M 26/9/78, p. 17.)

20 Sept. — Begin declares before the American Jewish Community that Is¬ rael will maintain its military presence in the West Bank and Gaza beyond the period of five years set down in the Camp David Accords, and will never evacuate the Golan Heights (IHT 22/9/78, p. 1.) He discloses that, at Camp David, Israel refused to sign a document forbidding the acquisition of ter¬ ritory by force, because «when territory is occupied as the result of a de¬ fensive war, as was the case in the six-day war,» he adds, «that means that regional modifications are not only inevitable, but also necessary». (D 21/9/78, p. 1.) He reaffirms that, with or without international recog¬ nition, Jerusalem will remain the undivided capital of Israel. (M 21/9/78, p. 1.)

25 Sept.— Dayan declares before the Mifdal: «There need be no fear of the government dismantling any settlements, be they in the West Bank or in Gaza». (H 26/9/78, p. 1.)

(17) Cf. Documents - B.

(18) In an interview granted to Ma’ariv after the signing of the accords. Begin took it upon himself to explain in these very same terms the expression Mights of the Palestinian people», adding that Presi¬ dent Carter had agreed to signify as much for him in writing. He also explains that in the expression ({legitimate rights*, the adjective adds nothing and is merely a repetition of the term itself. (M 20/9/78, p. 1.) Begin will broach this question again in another interview granted the same daily. (M 1/10/78, p. 13.)

CHRONOLOGY 21

1 Oct. — Begin affirms in an interview that, thanks to the Camp David Accords, the creation of a Palestinian State would be unacceptable, and that the Israeli army which will be retained in the West Bank and Gaza will have the function of preventing such an eventuality. He reassures the settlers in the West Bank and the Golan that the evacuation of the Sinai settlements will not constitute a precedent, and pledges that the establishment of settle¬ ments will be continued. (M 1/10/78, p. 13.)

1 Oct. — Begin, relating to the daily Yediot Aharonot O 9>some of the dif¬ ficulties faced at Camp David., states that Israel made it quite clear that after the five year period envisaged for administrative autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza it would claim sovereignty over these territories. (YA 1/10/78, p. 5) (Cf. Documents — B.)

9 Oct. — Dayan reiterates before the United Nations General Assembly Is¬ rael’s determination to retain East Jerusalem and to continue to establish settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip: «... We do not consider ourselves strangers in these regions. The Israeli settle¬ ments in Judea, in Samaria and in Gaza are there because they have the right to be there. It would be inconceivable for us that Jews should be forbidden to settle and live in Judea and Samaria, the very heart of our homeland ... One of the subjects that will be- discussed between the parties will certainly treat the questions concerning Jerusalem ... the one ... eternal capital of Is¬ rael ... whether it is generally recognised as such or not ... We are resolved never again to compromise the unity of Jerusalem.» (UN Document A/33/PV 26.)

25 Oct. — The government accepts in principle the peace treaty plan elabo¬ rated in Washington, and at the same time decides to «strengthen» the settle¬ ments in the Golan and the West Bank (IHT 26/10/78, p. 1.) Begin an¬ nounces his intention to transfer his offices from West to East Jerusalem (The T 26/10/78, p. 1.) Commenting on the settlement decision, on the eve of his departure for Washington with Weizman, Dayan affirms that «Israel has the right to «strengthen» the settlements even before the autonomous regime is institut- ed» (YA 26/10/78, p. 1.) Begin himself states before the Likud party mem¬ bers in Tel Aviv that this decision is based on the «inalienable right» of the Jewish people to settle in the West Bank and Gaza. He discloses that he said to Carter at Camp David that Israel would implant «hundreds of new families in the settlements)). (H 27/10/78, p. 1.) Accordingly, on 29/10 the government votes unanimously that the decision to «strengthen» the settlements is not contrary to the Camp David Accords,

(19)cf. Documents — B.


and that adding «a few hundred families to already established settlements)) does not violate the freeze on settlements which, according to Israel’s inter¬ pretation, is in force for a three month period starting from the date of the signing of the Accords. (D 30/10/78, p. 1.)

On 31/10, the Ministerial Committee responsible for the strengthening of settlements (made up of Begin, president, and the ministers of Agriculture, the Interior and Finance) decides to construct 1,021 new housing units, 791 in the West Bank and 230 in the Golan, and votes to allot a budget of IL 600 million to «strengthening» settlements. This sum is in addition to IL 60 mil¬ lion set aside for the construction of a road crossing the middle of the West Bank. (D 8/11/78, p. 4.) The Ministerial Settlement Committee consequently decides to increase by IL 160 million the budget for the development of the settlements in the Golan. The purpose of this increase is that the Jewish population of the Golan should reach 10,000 settlers in the next two or three years. (D 16/11/78, p. 1.)

12 Nov. — Sharon announces his decision to create a ccregional centre)) in Gaza which would stretch parallel to the slope rising up from the Gaza Strip to the Rafah Heights, to the west of Khan Yunis, 700 dunums of this area being suitahle for construction (D 13/11/78, p. 2.)

21 Nov. — The government approves the plans for a peace treaty with Egypt, but refuses to establish a precise timetable for the institution of self-rule in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. (NYT 2/11/78, p. 1.)

29 Nov. — The Settlement Department of the Jewish Agency publishes a plan to establish 84 new settlements in the West Bank in a five year period, and to implant 27,000 new families, 16,000 in settlements to be built and 11,000 in already existing settlements to reinforce them. The project will cost IL 54,000 million, 32,000 million of which will go to the new settle¬ ments (D 29/11/78, p. 3). The settlers are to work in industry, tourism and services, and to a very small extent in intensive agriculture (D14/12/78,p. 3). The Jewish Agency presents a parallel plan to instal 44,000 settlers in the Golan during the next few years, more than half of whom to be distributed in 33 new agricultural settlements, and the remainder being attached to Katzrin. The realisation of this project requires taking control of 24,000 dunums of land and harnessing 36,000 m3 of water for the first phase of in¬ stalling 14,000 settlers. At present, 4,300 settlers live in the Golan, 700 of them at Katzrin. (H 30/11/78, p. 4.)

30 Nov. — Shmuel Tamir declares, at a conference held at the «Club de l’Arche» in Paris, in relation to accusations of torture levelled against Israel in the occupied territories: «There is no torture; not even beatings or brutal treatment.» (Le M 2/12/78, p. 3.)

CHRONOLOGY 23

5 Dec. — The commission detailed to study the institution of autonomy (led by Eliahu Ben Elissar, head of the Prime Minister’s office) recommends limit¬ ing the legislative powers of the «autonomous authority)) and «retaining Is¬ rael’s right to establish settlements and own land.» (JP 6/12/78, p. 1.)

29 Dec. — Begin declares that new settlements will be established in the West Bank now that the period of the freeze on settlement stipulated at Camp David has expired. Dayan declares that 20 new settlements will be establish¬ ed in the West Bank in the course of the next four years. (NYT 30/12/78, p. 9.)

B - ISRAELI PRACTICES IN THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

In addition to features it shares with any occupation, such as mass arrests, collective punishment, torture, demolition of houses, and various forms of cultural, political and economic repression, the Israeli occupation displays its own special characteristics, notably colonial implantation and the desecra¬ tion of Holy Places. Our examination of the colonial aspect of the Israeli occupation will here be confined to recording the number of settlements established in 1978, innova¬ tions made to existing settlements and the formation of nuclei for future settlements. A lack of adequate material has prevented us from being able to examine the economic impact of this colonial policy on the indigenous Pales¬ tinian population of the occupied territories, including factors such as the exploitation of their natural resources, the labour situation and the lines of dependence being drawn between Israel and these territories. (20> The siting of the nine new settlements (7 in the West Bank, 2 in Gaza), reveals a deliberate concern to establish an Israeli colonial presence in dense¬ ly populated Palestinian areas. This is particularly true for the new West Bank settlements, four of which were established in the Nablus region (Kamei Shomron, Haris, Silet al-Zaher, Tepuah), one in the Ramallah region (Shiloh), one in the Tulkarm region (Sal’it) and one in the suburbs of Jerusalem (the town of Ma’aleh Adumin). Innovations were made to 20 settlements: 11 in the Golan', 8 in the West Bank, and one in Gaza. These innovations took the following forms:

1 — Change in status of settlements originally established as «outposts» or «paramilitary settlements)), but accorded the status of «civilian settlements)) in 1978. (KefarDarom in Gaza, and Neve Tsuf and Beit El in the West Bank).

G0>Cf. Documents -C, the chapter on «The development of a colonial economy* in the report published in 1978 by the commission of inquiry of the National Lawyers Guild (US), based on research undertaken in the occupied territories in 1977.


2 - Final, definitive siting of settlements. Settlers temporarily based in mili¬ tary camps or other settlements move into their «permanent settlement)) in 1978. (Keshet, Ortal and Avne Itan in the Golan; Ma’aleh Efrayim, Tomer and Elon Moreh in the West Bank). 3 — Reinforcement of settlements. The addition of new settlers and new structural installations serves to consolidate already established settlements (el-Rom, Katzrin, Har Odem, Sha’al, Geshur Bet, Yonatan, Gamla, Neve Ativ, in the Golan; Yitav, Na’aran and Gilgal in the West Bank). The formation of nuclei for future settlements (14 noted; 13 in the Golan, one in the West Bank) is by no means the only indication of the number of settlements soon to be added to the already lengthy list of colonial implanta¬ tions in the occupied territories. Admittedly, the attempts to establish new settlements in the suburbs of Jerusalem, and a new town in the Nablus region, were in some measure unsuccessful. However, the elaborate deceits and obscurantism accompanying the establishment of certain settlements make it more than likely, as we shall see, that these setbacks are only of a temporary nature.

It should finally be noted that the various modalities of the establishment of new settlements, and the extension and reinforcement of existing ones, is invariably accompanied by the seizure of Arab-owned land, which in turn arouses vigorous popular and offical protest on the part of the Palestinian population. The other unique characteristic of the Israeli occupation, the attempts to transform Muslim and Christian Holy Places into synagogues, affects Jeru¬ salem and the al-Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron. The examples given of repressive measures characteristic of any occupation are closely tied in with the political context. Thus, most of the individual arrests and dismissals (as well as certain cases of torture, in particular those of students at Bir Zeit), will be seen to have some connection with the sign¬ ing of the Camp David Accords, revealing as they do the authorities’ deter¬ mination at all costs to impose their own conception of the future of the occupied territories. These repressive measures are directed against two im¬ portant groups in particular: the students and schoolchildren, and the mayors and other personalities, such as lawyers, journalists, intellectuals, capable of playing an active and articulate role in the struggle against the Israeli administrative autonomy plan. In this context, cultural repression takes on an added significance, as do the repressive measures taken against the health services, particularly in Nablus, and the demolition of houses. With relation to the subject of prison conditions, it should be stressed that the cases of torture cited (Suleiman Madi, the Kalandiya schoolchildren, Nader al-Afouri, the students of Bir Zeit) and the protest action taken by the political prisoners detained at Neve Tirza and Beersheba are not the only such events to have taken place in Israeli prisons in 1978. That they filtered through to the press at all can be accounted for by various factors, notably the efforts of their relatives and defence attorneys. These cases are merely

CHRONOLOGY 25

examples, and in no way constitute a complete inventory. By contrast, care has been taken to provide just such an inventory for all facts and occurrences relative to settlements, the seizure of land and the desecration of Muslim and Christian Holy Places.

a - The West Bank and the Gaza Strip

1-2 Jan. — Creation of Karnei Shomron (Nablus region). Members of the Gush Emunim move into the camp recently constructed by the army at Abu al-Qarnein on the road from Qalqilya to Nablus. The decision to create Karnei Shomron had been taken in secret at the end of the month of September 1977 by the Ministerial Settlement Committee. It was revealed for the first time on 2/1/78 in a statement delivered by Ariah Naor, Cabinet Secretary. The «nucleus» for Karnei Shomron had been living until then in Kaddum, itself near Nablus. (JP 3/1/78, p. 1 and Le M 4/1/78, p. 4.) On 24/4, Karnei Shomron is officially declared a «civilian settlement)) during a ceremony organized by the Gush Emunim, and in the presence of the Minister of Education and Culture Zevulon Hammer, who reiterates that the intention of the Begin government is to retain the entire «Land of Israel.» The new settlement, where 40 prefabricated houses have been installed on the hill of Abu al-Qarnein, will receive a further 100 housing units in a second phase. (Hat 26/4/78, p. 1.) On the same day the government issues denials that there is any official plan to transform it into a «permanent settlement)). They argue that Karnei Shomron was created solely as a«military outpost»32 O (al H 25/4/78, p. 1.) The various long-term settlement plans, including Weizman’s, speak of turn¬ ing Karnei Shomron into an urban centre with 2,000 families. (H 13/3/78, p. 10.) On 20/6. in the course of a tour round the West Bank, Weizman promises the settlers at Karnei Shomron that he will make every effort to turn it into a «permanent settlement)). (M 21/6/78, p. 3.) Towards the end of the year the Israeli press announces that construction work is in progress there. (JP 1/11/78, p. 1.)

Obit should be noted that Karnei Shomron is not one of the six settlements the Israeli government decided in 1977 to establish in the framework of military camps (Sanour, Shomron, Beit El, Nabi Saleh, Giv-on and Mevo Horon, all Gush Emunim settlements). Setting aside the symbolic military unit posted to guard it at the time of its creation, Karnei Shomron is not, by any stretch of the imagina¬ tion, a military camp, and is not even considered as being a «military zone». (al H op. cit.) Criticising the fact that military camps are only created with the obvious intention of furnjshing an excuse for civilian settlement, Time magazine writes: «At Karnei Shomron, where civilians have been living for the past week, the military facilities consist only of a simple guard post and two barracks, designed to accommodate 10 to 20 reservists)). (Tin 27/2/78, p. 30.)


Development of Israeli settlements in the West Bank in 1978

JOR

DA

N

CHRONOLOGY 27

8 Jan. — The settlement of Shiloh (to the north-west of Ramallah) by members of the Gush Emunim, «nucleus» for the projected settlement, decided upon in secret by the government on 23/10/77. Despite the existence of this deci¬ sion, revealed to the press by a government source on 30/4/78, the govern¬ ment maintains that at Shiloh the settlers are doing no more than carrying out «archaeological surveys»322> (al H 30/4/78, p. 2.) On the day the set¬ tlers first arrive, young people from the nearby village of Turmus Aya demonstrate in protest. (N Ob op. cit. in footnote.) The direct cause of the protest is that the settlers have established themselves on land belonging to the villagers, in excess of the land assigned to them. (H op. cit. in footnote.) On 23/1 the cornerstone for the projected town of Shiloh is laid in a cere¬ mony attended by deputies, various personalities and hundreds of Gush Emunim members (al H 24/1/78, p. 2.) In this town, halfway between the militant Palestinian towns of Nablus and Ramallah, the Gush Emunim plans to settle 40,000 persons. At the moment ten families are living there; a school for forty pupils has been opened by the movement in the building left by the Danish mission. (NYT 24/1/78, p. 3.) On 26/1, the Mukhtars of Silwad and other neighbouring villages protest violently against the seizure of their land which the West Bank military gov¬ ernment intends to carry out for the construction of the town of Shiloh. (H 27/1/78, p. 1.) By early February, the settlers, who are continuing to commute to work in Jerusalem, have already installed prefabricated houses and cleared a road leading to their settlement. As a preliminary step they plan to launch a small industrial enterprise. (The T 6/2/78, p. 5.) The Gush in fact have plans to set up a number of industries at Shiloh, which of course will involve new seizures of land. The land near Shiloh, it should be noted, is neither «State land» or «uncultivated»; it belongs to the inhabitants of the villages of Turmus Aya and Qaryut.-Finally, influential members of the government have assured the Gush Emunim that Shiloh will never be dis¬ mantled. (H 23/5/78, p. 1.)

(22)lsrael continues to insist on presenting Shiloh as an «archaeological mission*. This is the reply which Begin gave to President Carter when he affirmed that Shiloh was an illegal settlement. (JP 2/2/78, p. 1.) For obvious tactical reasons, asHa’aretz notes (H 10/2/78, p. 13), «the government is using this cover so as not to aggravate the Americans)). The daily also makes note of several significant facts such as «the omission of any licence authorising the settlers to undertake sur¬ veys; this omission shows clearly that Shiloh is in no sense an archaeological camp, and in every sense a new settlement.)) The newspaper reveals furthermore that long after work on the settlement at Shiloh was under way, when the government «thought about» the necessary licence, it came up against the categorical refusal of the Department of Archaeology to issue one. A licence was eventually obtained, but only through the influence of the military authorities. Among the numerous testimonies invalidat¬ ing the government version is that of Professor Benjamin Mazar, an archaeologist of worldwide repute, who declares that «everything (of archaeological interest at Shiloh) was brought to light more than forty years ago ... by a Danish archaeological team.)) Finally Hanan Porath, the Gush Emunim spokes¬ man, declares quite candidly that: «If the Begin government wishes to hide behind an archaeological screen that is their business. Our business is to reconstruct the ancient Jewish city of Shiloh.)) (N Ob No 693, 20-26/2/78, p. 36.) On 23/4 Hanan Porath reaffirms categorically that «no archaeological work is taking place at Shiloh.» (YA 24/4/78, p. 4.)


On 23/5, Weizman denies that the government has any intention of turning Shiloh into a «permanent settlement)) (JP 24/5/78, p. 1.); however, it is at his request that on 30/5, the Knesset decides not to consider the evacuation

of Shiloh. (2 3> (D 31/5/78, p. 2.) Towards the end of the year, the press announces that the Israeli government will soon recognise Shiloh as a «permanent settlements(IHT 28/12/78, p. 1 and LeM 28/12/78, p. 28.)

Development of Israeli settlements

in Gaza in 1978

• new settlements ■ settlements with changed status

(23)such an evacuation had been proposed by the Labour Deputy, Yossi Sarid, who declared that «those are not and there never will be any archaeological surveys at Shiloh... where so little archaeo¬ logy is going on, and in which far too much politics is involved.)) (idem).

CHRONOLOGY 29

8 Jan. — Creation of Katif and Katif Bet (Gaza):Work on the infrastructure of Katif begins after the access road has been completed. In the neighbouring settlement of Katif Bet earth moving work begins. (JP 9/1/78, p. 1.)

12 Jan. — Torture of students from Bir Zeit: The administration of Bir Zeit University delivers a protest to the military governor of the West Bank, Major- General David Hagoel, concerning beatings inflicted on two students during the course of their interrogation. Hagoel replies that the students had left in «good health», but two British professors testified that Khalil Muhammad Abd Rabbo found it difficult to walk as a result of his interrogation, and that Muhammad Ibrahim Shtiyeh had marks on his body showing clearly that he had been beaten. (NYT 13/1/78, p. 5.) They had been summoned to the office of the military governor of Ramallah for questioning concerning an incident in which stones were thrown at a military vehicle. (all 17/1/78, p. 2.)

January — A pioneer group is formed for Mehula B, in the northern sector of the Jordan Valley near the settlement of Mehula. It will be attached to the Hapoel Hamizrahi movement. (H 18/1/78, p. 8.)

January — Kfar Darom settlement (Gaza): Created as a military outpost be¬ fore 1948, it has recently been accorded the status of «civilian settlement)). Its «conversion» has the effect of extending by nearly 5 km. the line of settlements extending from the northern Sinai to the moshav Netzer Hazani, parallel to Khan Yunis. (JP 15/1/78, p. 2.) A spokesman for the Jewish Agency declares that the families living at Kefar Darom could eventually be resituated in one of the two civilian settlements planned to be built near Netzer Hazani at the same time as three others which would be situated be¬ tween Khan Yunis and Rafah. (JP 1/2/78, p. 3.)

18 Jan.— Release of Taysir al-Aruri, a lecturer at Bir Zeit University, after more than 45 months of administrative detention, (al I 20/1/78, p. 1.)

January — Judaization of East Jerusalem: Ruhi al-Khatib, former mayor of Jerusalem, announces that the occupation authorities have recently under¬ taken to transform the «Bab al-Maghariba,» one of the gates leading into the Haram al-Sharif, site of the al-Aqsa Mosque, into a Jewish holy site. (alR 24/1/78, p. 7.)

January — Establishment of Sal’it (in the Tulkarem area). Two Nahal groups from the Betar movement have been working for two weeks on the establish¬ ment of the new settlement of Sal’it, to the east of the Tulkarem-Qalqilya road, and 4.5 km north of the settlement of Tsour Natan, just inside the «Green Line». It is planned to turn Sal’it into a «civilian settlement)) of ah


agricultural and industrial orientation. It will comprise 200 houses. (M 25/1/78, p. 6.)

1 Jan. — Establishment of Haris (Nablus region) S2 4) Members of the Gush Emunim start work on the infrastructure of this new settlement situated on the Ramallah-Nablus road. The decision to build it was taken by the Cabinet and approved by the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee at the same time as the settlements of Tepuah and Silet al-Zahar.(JP 10/2/78,p. 1.) The Ministry of Housing plans a large scale construction project at Haris: 900 housing units will be built in a preliminary phase; a budget of IL 40 mil¬ lion has been allocated to the ministry to this effect, (al H 7/3/78, p. 1.) In May the Municipal Councillor of Haris, Abdel Jalil Saleh, sends an official protest to the military governor of Nablus against the seizure of 10,000 dunums of his village’s land, which has been closed off and worked on by earth moving machines to prepare for the construction of the new settle¬ ment. Israeli sources claim that only 1,000 dunums have been seized. (H 19/5/78, p. 1.) On 17/8/78 the Gush Emunim celebrates the foundation of Haris; 40 families, working for the most part in military industries, are established there. (D 18/8/78, p. 1.) Haris provides an illustration of one of the subterfuges used by the Israeli government to avoid criticism of their policy of colonisation. Represented as being a «military camp», Haris is in fact the embryo of a town for 50,000 persons. (NW 28/8/78, p. 18.)

7 Feb. — Mass arrests in the West Bank: A military spokesman announces that 45 Palestinians accused of belonging to various organisations of the Re¬ sistance have recently been arrested in the West Bank. (H 8/2/78, p. 2.)

February — Several students are arrested in Bethlehem on suspicion of be¬ longing to the Resistance, following the discovery of explosive charges in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. (YA 28/2/78, p. 7.)

2 Mar. — Torture of Suleiman Madi: Defence Attorney Felicia Langer testifies before the Supreme Court of Justice that torture has been inflicted on her client, Suleiman Madi, a 50-year-old businessman from Salfit. Sum¬ moned for questioning by the Tulkarem police on 21/1/78, he was subjected to systematic beatings all over his body, and his life was threatened if he did not admit to having made contacts with the Palestinian Resistance during his business trips abroad; a number of shots were fired near him in order further to frighten him. Released the same day, he submitted himself for a medical examination. The report attested that he had lost the hearing in his left ear as a result of perforation of the eardrum. One week later he was once more summoned by the police, (al I 3/3/78, p. 1.)

(24)cf note 5, p. 11.

CHRONOLOGY 31

in court, the military Procurator General contests the veracity of the medical certificates<2 5> presented by Langer, that effectively indicate that Suleiman Madi had been tortured, (al I 5/5/78, p. 2.)

4 Mar. — The case of al-Tali’a: The distribution of the first issue of the week¬ ly, al-Tali’a, published in East Jerusalem, is forbidden in the West Bank under the pretext that no request for permission to distribute has been pre¬ sented to the military authorities. (D 5/3/78, p. 2.) In fact a request was pre¬ sented, dated 1/3; the military government is to wait until the end of August before finally rejecting it. Al-Tali’a appeals to the Supreme Court, (al T No 35, 2/11/78, p. 8.)

8 Mar. — Sentencing of six school students from East Jerusalem by the Lod Military Court to 15 months imprisonment, 9 of which suspended. They are charged with belonging to an «illegal organisation)) and having undergone «military training)) two years previously. The attorney for the defence, Felicia Langer, protests that the sentence is based on insufficient evidence. The students — Hatim al-Taher, Azmi Kishk, Muhammad Abu Khudeir, Aouni Qadmani, Muhammad al-Sha’er and Mahmoud al-Ziyadi — are all between 16 and 18 years old. (al I 17/3/78, p. 1.)

10 Mar. — Strike at Beersheba prison by Palestinian political detainees from the occupied territories demanding an improvement in their living condi¬ tions. The strike is put down in a particularly violent fashion. The prison administration calls in the Border Guards and the police, in force, who' proceed to attack the prisoners using clubs and tear gas. The authorities subsequently announce that i: they have «quelled the revolt)) and transfer¬ red the ringleaders, 88 prisoners, to Tulkarem prison, (al I 17/3/78, p. 1 and 18/4/78, p. 2.)

The strike continues for six months; the repeated false promises of the administration to meet their demands finally lead the prisoners to organise another general strike in October, (al I 10/10/78, p. 10.) In May the relations of the prisoners at Beersheba and Tulkarem organise a sit-in on the premises of the Nablus municipality in protest against the prisoners’ treatment. The Mayor of Nablus, Bassam Shaka’a asks the ICRC (International Commission of the Red Cross) to obtain visiting permission for the families of the prisoners, (al F. 20/4/78, p. 1.) In June, the families of the prisoners, in particular those of Beersheba, send

(25) The case of Suleiman Madi is cited in the annual report of the United Nations Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied Terri¬ tories (UN Document A/33/356/para 120).The report publishes as an annexe two medical certificates from doctors who examined Suleiman Madi after his interrogation.

(26) xhe court fixes 12/2/79 as the final date for its decision, (al T No 45,11/1/79, p. 2.)


letters to Kurt Waldheim (Secretary General of the UN), to the Red Cross and other humanitarian organisations demanding the formation of a commis¬ sion of inquiry, and that Palestinian political prisoners be accorded the status of prisoners of war. (Document of the CDPD.) In July the Israeli lawyer, Leah Tsemel, launches an appeal on behalf of the prisoners, noting that the origins of the unanimous call to strike by the 800 political prisoners in Beersheba in March lay in the decision of the prison administration to «examine the books and textbooks» of the detainees. The prisoners, who realised from experience that this would involve confiscation pure and simple, burned all their material and submitted to the prison governor a petition reiterating their demands. Tsemel lists the measures of collective repression taken to break the prisoners’ strike (detention in isola¬ tion cells, cancellation of daily exercise, beatings ...), and criticises the obstinate refusal of the prison administration to meet the prisoners’ just de- mands327l (Bulletin of the CDPD Ref. p-73, 31/10/78). She also attacks the discrimination to which they are subjected by comparison with their Jewish counterparts. (Report of Leah Tsemel, Nov. 1978.)

15 Mar. — Establishment of Silet al-Zaher (in the Nablus area): It is report¬ ed that a Nahal unit has moved into Silet al-Zaher on the Nablus-Jenin road. (28> (JP 15/3/78, p. 3.) (Note that on 9/1, the Cabinet decision to create this settlement was approved by the Knesset Foreign Affairs and De¬ fence Committee.) In April, the press reveals that construction work is in progress at Silet al- Zaher. (al I 4/4/78, p. 1.)

21 Mar. — Six Palestinians are arrested in their village of al-Obeyda, near Bethlehem, on suspicion of belonging to the Resistance. They describe to Felicia Langer the torture they were subjected to in the Moscobiya Prison in Jerusalem (also known as the «Russian Compound))), including systematic beating on their genitals and repeated blows to the stomach while being hung upside down from the heels. Their names and ages: Shawkeh (25); Ali Hassan (25); Taha Hassan (26); Daoud Assad (24) all of the al-Obeyda family; Najib Omar Abu Hassan (19) and Yunis Ali Ja’afar (27). (al I 18/4/78, p. 2.) Daoud Obey da is eventually sentenced to 4 years in prison, Shawkeh Obeyda to 4 years with 2 years suspended, (al T No 36, 9/11/78, p. 2.)

23 Mar. — Arbitrary arrest and detention of Raymonda Tawil,(29l a journal¬ ist based in Ramallah. The Israeli press points out that her «crime» is to have

<27>Cf. Annexe A, the texts of the letters sent by the prisoners’ families, and of Tsemel’s appeal.

(28>cf. note 5, p. 11 of A. The reader is also referred to the establishment of the settlements of Tepuah and Haris.

(29)Her case is also cited in UN. Doc., op. cit., par. 113.

CHRONOLOGY 33

taken photographs of the brutalities committed by the Israeli security forces at the time of the March demonstrations against Israel’s invasion of South Lebanon. (Le M 30/3/78, p. 4.) Her lawyer, Amnon Zikhroni, registers a protest with Weizman against the circumstances of her arrest and interrogation. He affirms that she was kept in solitary confinement and continually threatened by her interrogators.

(D 7/4/78, p. 2.) It is not until 10/4 that the military governor of the West Bank, Major Gen¬ eral Hagoel, gives the order to place her under «administrative detention)) for a month. She is released on 7/5. (Le M 13/4/78, p. 6 and 10/5/78, p. 4.)

March — Additional settlers for Ma’aleh Efrayim (Jordan Valley): This civilian settlement was established in 1972 on the Aqraba-Fasayel road. The first settlers are now reported to have moved into their «permanent settlement». (D 29/3/78, p. 3.) By the end of May nearly 50 prefabricated houses are in place, and structural work is in progress to transform the settlement into a regional centre. It is planned formally to inaugurate it in the near future,. (JP 1/6/78, p. 2.) By July the number of families living there reaches 35. (M 9/7/78, p. 6.)

April — The state of the health services in Nablus: The military governor of Nablus decides to reduce the medical staff in the town’s hospitals and clinics for «fxnancial reasons)) J3 01 The doctors protest and threaten mass resignation. A military spokesman announces that the decision merely involves better «distribution» of the medical personnel in the various services. (H 9/4/78, p. 2.)

April — Cultural repression: 319 Arabic books, among them those of the Palestinian poet Fadwa Tuqan, who herself lives in Nablus, are banned. The books in question, which continued to be distributed even after the Israeli occupation, cover a wide range of subjects, including history, geography, science, art, literature, (al F 12/4/78, p. 1.) The enforcement of this novel brand of cultural repression by the Israeli authorities is characteristically thorough. Owners of bookshops and all marketers of books are obliged regularly to present a complete list of their stock of books to the military authorities, who compare it with their own «secret» list. If they decide to blacklist a book, that is an irrevocable deci¬ sion, and not subject to appeal. All the bookshops in the West Bank were warned in March and April that any infraction of the authorities’ ruling would be punished by severe reprisals. Even some Arabic books printed in Is¬ rael are banned, despite the fact that they have passed the Israeli military censorship, which is far stricter towards Arabic publications than those

l3®ht should be noted that this decision was preceded by a ruling on the part of the military authori¬ ties by which they arrogated to themselves the right to issue licences for medical practice ((without regard for what is stipulated in every other law in this domain.)) (al I 14/3/78, p. 1.)


written in Hebrew. The two most common targets of the authorities’ axe are poetry and any book discussing contemporary Arab society. (Communique issued by the Israeli League for Human Rights on 4/5/78.) In June, the military governor of Nablus announces to the booksellers in the town that the works of the Palestinian poets, Tewfiq Zayyad and Mahmoud Darwish are banned, (al I 2/6/78, p. 1.)

April — Tax increases in East Jerusalem for the fiscal year 1978/79. This increase is of the order of 50% to 80% on net transactions, 100% for gross, in addition to a 50% rise in rates. The Arab Chamber of Commerce lodges a protest against this unjust measure, (al F 13/4/78, p. 2.) Income tax is also raised for those employed in the liberal professions (doctors, lawyers, engi¬ neers ...). The professional associations and the Chamber of Commerce protest to the Minister of Finance in the form of a memorandum sent to his office, (all 6/10/78, p. 3.)

13 Apr. - Settlement of Neve Tsuf (Ramallah region): Neve Tsuf was established in 1977 as a «military outpost» in a police station dating from the British Mandate near the village of Nabi Saleh. Construction work on the «civilian settlement)) of Neve Tsuf begins with Cabinet approval. The 100 dunums of land lying to the west of the police station are bulldozed, follow¬ ing their seizure from the villagers of NabiiSaleh and Deir Nizam, who call on foreign governments and the Red Cross to intervene and put a stop to the work. The authorities declare that the seized land is «State land». In the settlement’s first phase, 50 housingunits will be built there. (JP 19/4/78, p. 2.) Neve Tsuf is among the settlements that Dayan promised Carter would be established only in the form of military camps. It is also one of the six sites approved by the Cabinet in September 1977, in a compromise deal with the Gush Emunim who wanted to put up 12 settlements. (IHT 22-23/4/78, p. 2.) Its projected surface area is to be 600 dunums, but to begin with it will only occupy the above-mentioned 100 dunums, (al I 25/4/78, p. 3.) On 19/5, six villagers from Nebi Saleh and Deir Nizam appeal to the Su¬ preme Court of Justice against the recent closure by the army of 200 dunums of their land for the settlement of Neve Tsuf, and against their having been forbidden entry to their land after the wheat harvest.!31) (H 21/5/78, p. 3.)

(31)xhere exist some discrepancies in the figures quoted in the press relating to the area of the land belonging to these six villagers. The JP (26/5/78, p. 1) and the IHT (18/4/78, p. 1) state that the area involved is 100 dunums (25 acres); similarly al I (18/7/78, p. 3) writes that on 18/3 a military decree was issued ordering the closure of 90 dunums at Nabi Saleh. However, the ST, (21/5/78, p. 10), Le M (op. cit.)and MEI (Sept. 1978, p. 10) quote the figure of 200 dunums (=50 acres; 9 ha). Whatever the reasons for the discrepancy, the reader should note that according to Le M (No 286, Jan 78, p. 7), 450 dunums had already been seized at Nabi Saleh by 19/11/77.

CHRONOLOGY 35

On 25/5, the court orders work suspended — or rather an interruption in the construction of the access road, while retaining the 2 km or so of barbed wire put in place by the army. The lawyer representing the Minister of De¬ fence declares that the lands seized are «State lands» and that the occupa¬ tion authorities are entitled to make use of them in accordance with the «relevant international conventions, especially when, as here, it is a case of reasons of security.» (Le M 28-29/5/78, p. 5.) The court also demands of the Minister of Defence that he show cause with¬ in 40 days why work should continue. (The T 26/5/78, p. 5.) The Gush Emunim subsequently publish a communique, asserting that it is a foregone conclusion that it will be «proved» that the land in question does not belong to the villagers, and that a flourishing settlement will unquestion¬ ably come into being on the site. (NS 9/6/78, p. 769.) In July, the Court decides that «since the site of Nabi Saleh is of considera¬ ble strategic importance, the military government had the right to seize it and dispose of the land as it saw fit». (Le M 9/7/78, p. 6.) The case of Nabi Saleh is especially significant in that it marks the first time that a court case against the confiscation of land has been undertaken.

16 Apr. — Curfew at Salfit following an attack on an empty Israeli bus. Forty arrests are made. (D 18/4/78, p. 3.)

19 Apr. — Mass arrest in the West Bank: A military spokesman announces that 5 Resistance cells have been uncovered in the West Bank. 30 people have been arrested, including 10 adolescents from Kalandiya (north of Jeru¬ salem) suspected of having thrown Molotov cocktails and stones at military vehicles, and burning tyres on the Jerusalem-Ramallah road. (Hat 20/4/78, p. 1.)

24 Apr. — A curfew is imposed on Nablus following an attack on an Israeli bus. (JP 2/5/78, p. 3.) The curfew is maintained until 2/5, and is accompani¬ ed by house-to-house searches conducted with a degree of brutality which leads the mayor of the town to lodge a vigorous protest with Weizman. (all 9/5/78, p. 3.)

27 Apr. — Demolition at Abour: On the orders of the military governor of Ramallah three shops and a small dwelling belonging to Sami Yusef are destroyed without warning, (al Sh 30/4/78.)

28 Apr. — The Friday prayer is forbidden at the Nabi Musa mosque in Ramallah (al Q 27/4/78, p. 2.)

1 May — Festivities planned for May Day are forbidden in order to ensure that they do not turn into «political subversion)). (M 2/5/78, p. 6.) Checkpoints and patrols are reinforced as a «pre-emptive measure)). (al I 2/5/78, p. 1.)


16 May — Torture of ten adolescents from Kalandiya aged between 13 and 15 and detained in the Moscobiya prison. They admit to their lawyer, Mr. Abd Asli, to having signed false confessions under torture, showing him their wounds to confirm their stories/32) Ibrahim Khalil Abdel Mu’ti (131/2), Muhammad Ahmed Abdullah Matir (1 3i/2 ), Yusef Abdel Ghafur Muham¬ mad Abdel Rahman (14), Muhammad Fariri Ali Abu al-Rab (131/2), Muhammad Khalid Mahmoud Nafe’ Ahmed Salameh (131/2), Khalid Muhammad Mustafa (14), Ahmad Shukri Ferran (141/2), Samir Abdel Hadi (151 /2) — all from Kalandiya — and Mahmoud Said (15) from Jerusalem «confessed» to having thrown molotov cocktails and stones at military vehi¬ cles, (al I 23/5/78, p. 2.)

12 May — The settlement of Beit El (Ramallah region): Like Neve Tsuf, Beit El began as an «outpost» sited in a military camp, subsequently trans¬ formed into a «permanent civilian settlement)). The Israeli Cabinet first decided to establish a «civilian settlement)) at Beit El in October 1977. 12/5/78 marks the beginning of the work on the infrastructure of this new Gush Emunim settlement designed for 300 families. (ST 21/5/78, p. 10.) The «pioneer group)) for Beit El had previously been authorised by Sharon to establish their permanent settlement on 150 dunums of land lying outside the camp where they were temporarily living, (al H 6/3/78, p. 1.) On 17/7, the military governor of the district of Ramallah and el-Bireh issues a decree forbidding any construction on an area of 3,500 dunums lying td the north of al-Bireh — for ccreasons of security)). This new land confiscation order has the effect of sealing off the town from every direction. In 1977,

(32>cf Annexe A; the account given to Asli by five of the adolescents. Al-Ittihad (9/1/78, p. 2) announces, without specifying whether the group listed above are involved, that 15 schoolchildren — the entire eighth grade of the Kalandiya Primary School - have been accused of leaving their classroom in order to throw stones at military vehicles. Several are also accused of throwing Molotov cocktails and being affiliated to an «illegal organisation.)) Langer manages to prevent their being forced to appear before a military tribunal — as would be the normal practice under the 1945 Emergency Laws - and on 9/10/78, the Juvenile Court in Jerusalem sentence three of them to eight month prison terms, and ten others to six month terms. It decides to release two of the children, both less than 14 years old. They are all ordered to pay fines of IL 10,000 as well as IL 3,000 for damage caused to the vehicles. However, the military Procurator General, considering these sentences «too lenient)), has recourse to the Higher Juvenile Court which, on 18/12, decides to increase the sentences of three of the students from eight months to two years, and to'adjourn proceedings on the ten others for six months. Additional evidence from the United Nations Special Committee (op. cit., para. 115) shows that, in all likelihood, the ten adolescents detained in the Moscobiyeh prison are among the 15 whose trial 0/- Ittihad reports. The UN report, which cites the names of four of them, states that they appeared with others before the Juvenile Court of Jerusalem. J . . __ It should also be noted that another group of adolescents from Kalandiya was detained in Damoun prison under the same charges (throwing stones and Molotov cocktails), and also subjected to torture. Felicia Langer’s testimony on the case is printed in Zu Haderech (7/5/78): «The fresh wounds on their bodies had an explanation - Israeli common law prisoners had attacked them. The work of the torturers’ clubs is completed by others.)) Her complaints are met witji the response that «there is nothing we can do; that is how things are in prison.))

CHRONOLOGY 37

military governor had ordered the closure of nearly 3,000 dunums lying to the east of the town and stretching to the outskirts of Ramallah, splitting up what is practically a conurbation. Two months before the new decree 300 dunums to the north-west had been closed off. (al I 21/7/78, p. 1.) At a press conference, the mayor of al-Bireh, Jamil al-Tariki, denounces these successive confiscations, and qualifies the latest — 40,000 dunums — as col¬ lective repression)). He further denounces the fact that the military government has been using the cover of «reasons of security)) to seize all this land in order to establish a new settlement near the Beit El camp. Tariki finally points out that the effective encirclement of al-Bireh has been advanced a further stage by a recently issued decree by the military authorities stipulat¬ ing that the land'lying south of the town will hence come under the jurisdic¬ tion of the City of Jerusalem Municipality. In a letter of protest addressed to Weizman the al-Bireh municipality affirms that the military government has in no sense taken into account the town’s development needs, nor the families living on the confiscated land, some of whom have spent consider¬ able sums of money on authorised construction projects. (H 20/7/78, p. 8.) On 10/9, twelve landowners from al-Bireh appeal to the Supreme Court to order a halt on construction work at Beit El, because their lands (2,400 dunums) which had been seized in 1970 for «military purposes)) are now being used for the civilian settlement of Beit El. (JP 18/8/78, p. 2.) On 17/9, the Supreme Court orders a provisional halt on work at Beit El and asks the Minister of Defence and the military governor of the West Bank to show cause why work should be continued on the civilian settlement. (IHT 18/9/78, p. 1.) During the court proceedings held on 23/11, the lawyer representing the Defence Ministry, Attorney-General Gavriel Bach, declares that «the history of Israel is filled with similar examples of settlements being an important factor in safeguarding the security of the State.» He adds that «the 2,400 dunums that have been seized will serve as the basis of a settlement which is vital to the security of the Israeli army in the region ... », concluding with the observation that «the confiscation of land is not contrary to Internation¬ al Law.» Bach demands that the court regard the whole affair as a political question over which it does not have jurisdiction/3 31

The lawyer speaking for the defence, Elie Khoury, denies that there can be any legal validity to the military confiscation order because of the very fact that the authorities wanted to pay the owners compensation; military con¬ fiscation of land has its legal foundation in the provision that the land will be returned to the owner as soon as the conditions necessitating seizure cease to obtain. Khoury also affirms that, contrary to what Bach claims, the Fourth

*73)Bach notes that his arguments are equally valid for the case of Tubas. The villagers of Tubas, in the Jordan Valley, had also appealed to the Supreme Court; their lands were seized in 1975 «for rea¬ sons of security)) and subsequently used for the establishment of a civilian settlement.


Geneva Convention Relative to Civilians in Time of War (1949) applies to the occupied Palestinian and Arab Territories.!34HD 24/11/78, p. 2.)

15 May — The establishment of Tepuah, (Nablus region) about 12 km south of Nablus. Land clearing work begins, with the approval of the military au¬ thorities who, a few months previously, put up a camp nearby for the set¬ tlers. (JP 16/5/78, p. 2.) On 21/5, ten Gush Emunim members move into Tepuah, one of the three settlements which the Cabinet decided upon four months ago, the two others being Haris, 4 km east of Tepuah, and Silet al-Zaher, close to Nablus. (M 22/5/78, p. 6.) On 17/8, the Gush Emunim celebrates the occasion of the founding of Tepuah, which will be a moshav. By now 12 families have moved in (D 18/8/78, p. 1.) According to the plans, it will provide living space for 150 families and will be the first settlement whose economic base will be the diamond industry. (D 8/8/78, p. 3.)

26 May — Settlers move into Tomer (Jordan Valley): Members of the Moshav movement, living temporarily in the settlement of Ma’aleh Efrayim, move into their permanent settlement of Tomer, established in 1976. (JP 1/6/78, p. 2.)

31 May — Expropriation at Ramallah: Yehuda Etzion, the representative of the Gush Emunim settlement of Ofra, to the east of Ramallah, discloses that, three to four months ago, the Ministry of Housing approved the expropria¬ tion of 500 dunums of privately owned land in the region. Without this ex¬ propriation, he adds,’Ofra would «suffocate». (JP op cit.) Ofra was estab¬ lished in 1975 on 100 dunums seized from the village of Ain Yabrud and 250 dunums seized from the village of Silwad. At present, nearly 250 settlers live there.

June - Land fraud in the West Bank: The Beduin tribes living in al-Obeydiy- ya, south-east of Jerusalem, issue a complaint: Two years ago, 60,000 dunums of their land was sold to the Land Department without their knowl¬ edge. (al H 22/6/78, p. 2.)

(34)on 15/3/79, the Court decides unanimously to reject the appeals of the 25 landowners of Beit El and Tubas, and admits the validity of Bach’s arguments. It declares that the settlements established on the confiscated land are necessary to Israeli security in these regions «which the army considers of considerable strategic importance,» and concludes by upholding the «legality» of the settlements. In his summing up speech, Judge Witkon states that «it is a well known fact that settlements contribute greatly towards maintaining security in a region.» Like Bach, he too denies that the Geneva Conven¬ tion applies to the occupied territories and argues that Article 46 of the 1906 Hague Convention, which forbids the «confiscation of private property», does not apply in this case because the lands in question were merely «requisitioned» by the army, in accordance with article 26 of the same Conven¬ tion which permits the seizure of property if it is dictated by imperatives of war.» (JP 19/3/79, p. 7.)

CHRONOLOGY 39

29 June — The sentencing of Beshara Daoud, mayor of Beit Jala. Accused, together with three members of the Beit Jala Municipal Council, of assault¬ ing police officers in the course of carrying out their duty in an incident which took place in August 1977, Beshara Daoud is sentenced by the Ramal- lah military court to 2 years imprisonment, six months of which effective, and his colleagues are sentenced to 15-month terms, three months effective. They are furthermore each ordered to pay a fine of IL 10,000. (D 30/6/78, p. 1.) The sentencing of a mayor is without precedent, and accordingly the court decided to treat the case as one of exceptional gravity. However, a more direct cause of the court’s severity lies in the prominence it accorded to the nature of the spontaneous demonstration that took place after the incident. The court’s decision includes the observation that «... the accused marched at the head of the crowd after having raised the (Palestinian) flag». On 4/7, the mayor and the three councillors are stripped of their posts, while under the concerted pressure of the West Bank mayors and at the demand of the lawyer for the defence, Elie Khoury, their sentences are suspended. (Hat 4/7/78, p. 1&2.) Beshara Daoud declares that the dismissal of elected municipal representatives is illegal and constitutes a «collective punishment)) inflicted on the citizens of the town. (Hat 5/7/78, p. 6.) On 20/^9, the Supreme Court of Justice rejects their appeal and upholds the destitution order of the military authorities. (Hat 21/9/78, p. 6.) We shall see that this decision, coming on the heels of the signing of the Camp David Accords, aroused widespread protest among the West Bank mayors. The other members of the Beit Jala Council demonstrate their protest by resign¬ ing en masse. The occupation authorities accordingly appoint a new council, which the West Bank mayors boycott, affirming in a communique that they «consider the municipal council elected under Beshara Daoud in his capacity as mayor to be the sole legitimate council of the Beit Jala Municipality)), (al I 31/10/78, p. 1.)

July — Construction work begins on a road which is to slice across the West Bank from east to west. It is the third in the network of major roads planned to criss cross the region. The first road, completed in 1970, stretches from Beit She’an, in the north of Israel, to Jericho. The second, the Allon Road, runs down parallel to the hills of the northern half of the West Bank. The new road will run from Mes-ha and will pass through Tepuah and Haris, to the north of Ramallah, terminating at a point just south of the Damiyya Bridge in the Jordan Valley. The strategic importance of this project equals, or even surpasses that of the settlements themselves. (Cf. Map - The E 19/8/78, p. 44.) The expropriation of land is an inevitable accessory to the execution of such a project, and accordingly in April Israeli radio announced the decision of the Land Department to expropriate land in the Nablus region for the construction of this road, (al F 19/7/78, p. 1.) On 31/10, the Ministerial Committee for strengthening settlements (headed by Begin) decides to

4 s THE ARABS UNDER ISRAELI OCCUPATION, 1978

Roads constructed by the Israeli occupier in the north of the West Bank

under construction

CHRONOLOGY 41

increase by IL 60 millions the budget set aside for the road (D 8/11/78, p. 14.) This budget, originally set at IL 220 million, was adjudged to be in¬ sufficient as the total cost of the project was estimated at IL 300 million. (H 15/5/78, p. 2.)

July — Land fraud in East Jerusalem: Dr. Daoud Michel registers an official complaint that 405 dunums of his land in Sheikh al-Jarrah, in East Jerusalem on the Ramallah road, have been sold to a Jewish society without his know- edge. (M 18/7/78, p. 15.)

July — Mass arrest in Gaza of 29 Palestinians accused of belonging to a Resistance organisation. (Hat 25/7/78, p. 1.)

August — The settlement of Elon Moreh (Nablus region): Elon Moreh was established «temporarily» in 1975 in a military camp and on 300 dunums of land seized from the villagers of Kafr Qaddum. In 1978 it was decided to move the settlers into a «permanent site» to be established near the camp. In early August, 40 families move into the settlement which, according to Sharon, will house 300 families in all. (D 8/8/78, p. 3.) The arrival of the first settlers must be seen in the context of the announce¬ ment made in May to the effect that «the permanent settlement of Elon Moreh will be established on 150 dunums of land situated near the camp». (alH 24/5/78, p. 1.) In January, the Israeli press had announced that the Ministry of Housing was planning to level the land lying to the east of the camp for the construction of 60 housing units. (M 15/1/78, p. 1.)

August — Mass arrest in the West Bank of dozens of people following the an¬ nouncement that 5 cells of the Resistance have been dismantled. (D 8/8/78, p. 1.)

August — Torture of Nader al-Afouri from Nablus: Arrested in mid-August under suspicion of belonging to a Resistance organisation, he is taken to Ramleh prison. The brutal interrogation he is subjected to at the hands of the Shin-Beth leaves his mental faculties severely affected. (Report of Felicia Langerf35), 29/1/78.) The order placing him under administrative detention is taken despite his grave medical condition (al I 23/1/79, p. 4.)

August — Release of Hilmi al-Salaymeh, a student from East Jerusalem, after Felicia Langer manages to prevent the further renewal of an administrative detention order against him, which has been continually extended since the time of his arbitrary arrest on 7/5/76. The release was only secured after

(35)cf Annexe A.


Langer obtained from the Supreme Court an order staying the expulsion of her client; the authorities had proposed that he either personally sign the order for his deportation or else see his detention extended indefinitely, (all 18/8/78, p. 1 and 28/2/78, p. 1.)

30 Aug. — Dismissal of Dr. Samir Katbeh, head of the pediatric section of the government hospital at Ramallah, on the charge of «inciting his col¬ leagues to refuse to ‘co-operate’ with the military authorities)). As, in the eyes of the authorities, this charge signifies «incitement to provocation)), his arrest is justified «on security grounds)). In fact the reason for his dismissal was the testimony he gave before the Commission of Inquiry of the World Health Organisation, which had recently visited the occupied territories. The West Bank mayors lodge a vigorous protest against Dr. Katbeh’s arrest and dismissal. (JP 31/8/78, p. 2.)

3 Sept. — Terror tactics in Ramallah. Without warning or explanation, Israeli soldiers round up a considerable number of local citizens in the central square of the town, force them to take off their shoes and raise their hands and then proceed to search them in a brutal fashion. The same process is repeated in the afternoon. Observers note that the purpose of the operation is to intimidate any popular movement against the Israeli administrative autonomy scheme, (al I 5/9/78, p. 6.)

3 Sept. — The case of Abed al-Hashimi, a lawyer from Kfar Qana. The Supreme Court refuses to permit him to join the Lawyers’ Guild, from which he was expelled at the time of his arrest in 1971, when he was charged with belonging to a Resistance organisation. Sentenced to seven years imprison¬ ment, he was released in July 1978, but prevented from resuming his practice. (M 4/9/78, p. 12.)

4 Sept. — Arrest of notables: Jad Michel, a municipal councillor in Ramallah, and Dr. IMunzar Sharif, a doctor of good repute, also of Ramallah, are arrest¬ ed for «security offences)). (H 5/9/78, p. 1.) Jad Michel is to be detained arbitrarily until November, (al T No. 35, 2/11/78, p. 2.) Dr. Sharif is finally sentenced by the military court in Ramallah to 16 months in prison, (al T No. 37, 16/11/78, p. 6.)

4 Sept. — Confiscation of land at Betunia: Seventy families are prevented from cultivating their land — 2,400 dunums — lying to the south of their village in the districts of Jafar and Wadi Taqa. (al I 5/9/78, p. 6.)

21 Sept. — Plan for an urban centre (Nablus region): The Gush Emunim have made several attempts to create a Jewish town to the east of Nablus, the pioneer groups for which are now living at Elon Moreh. Each attempt has met with opposition from the government; however it is a mistake to con-

CHRONOLOGY 43

sider that this necessarily signifies government opposition to the project it¬ self. In this context it is only necessary to recall the long list of projects initially opposed by the government, which have eventually become the faits accomplis of the occupier. Thus, on 21/9 the government details the army to evacuate the 60 Gush Emunim members who had set up a camp on a hill to the east of Nablus on 19/9. This move by the Gush was also intended as a token of their opposi¬ tion to what they saw as the capitulations of Camp David, notably Begin’s agreement to a freeze on settlement, albeit a freeze of only three months ac¬ cording to his interpretation. (The T 20 and 22/9/78, p. 7.) On 31/12, 25 families belonging to the Gush Emunim try once more to establish themselves in the Hawara region. They too are evacuated by the

army. (JP 1/1/79, p. 1.)

25 Oct. — Restrictions on freedom of expression: The weekly al-Tali’a an¬ nounces that, as most of its political articles have been censored, it will not be appearing. (JP 26/10/78, p. 2.)

28 Oct. — Collective repression at Neveh Tirza, the women’s prison at Ramleh. A political detainee tries, herself, to turn on the light which, for no apparent reason a guard has switched off before the usual time. The adminis¬ tration calls in the guards, who proceed to explode tear gas cannisters in all the cells (report of Leah TsemeK36), November 1978). The Israeli press (M 26/11/78, p. 1.) for its part reports that this repressive measure was carri¬ ed out by the guards of the neighbouring men’s prison after one detainee looked out of the window despite being forbidden to do so.

1 Nov. — Additions to the Jordan Valley settlements, following the govern¬ ment’s decision to «strengthen» the settlements in the West Bank and the Golan. 30 new families and 15 reservists are soon to move into each of the fol¬ lowing settlements: Yitav (established in 1970), Na’aran (1970) and Gilgal (1969). (D 1/11/78, p. 3.)

5 Nov. — Sentencing of Yusef Mirar, a member of the Jericho municipal council, to two years imprisonment, suspended, with a fine of IL 5,000. He is charged with «causing a disturbance.» (al T No 37, 16/11/78, p. 2) and (all 14/11/78, p. 3.)

8 Nov. — Creation of the town (37>of Ma’aleh Adumim (Jerusalem region). Work on the infrastructure begins (D 9/11/78, p. 3) for the construction of a

(36) cf Annexe A.

(37) The Israeli government has denied on numerous occasions that it intends to create urban centres in the occupied territories — for example Yadin’sstatement on 1/3.(YA 2/3/78, p. 5.) However, 1978 in fact marked a significant turning point in Israel’s settlement policy, inasmuch as the creation of urban centres was encouraged and accelerated. Aside from the various settlement projects, such as that


«new site» for the existing settlement of the same name, whose function will be to «strengthen» the Jewish suburbs around Jerusalem. (YA 7/5/78, p. 8.) This project, proposed by the Cabinet, was approved on 5/7 by the Minis¬ terial Settlement Committee, which stated that the new town would be built on the lands of the village of Ayzariyeh, 10 km east of Jerusalem, and, in its first phase, would comprise 5,000 housing units occupying 500 dunums, (al H 6/7/78, p. 2.) According to the declaration made by the Minister of Industry on 22/5 in the course of a tour round the region, the Adumim areal381 is planned to become «a large scale industrial centre linked to Jerusalem ... where large tracts of land now being used for industry can be liberated (for housing)!3 9)» (D 23/5/78, p. 3.) One of the reasons behind the recent decision to resite Ma’aleh Adumim, presently situated halfway down the Jerusalem-Jericho road, on a new spot in the Ayzariyeh suburbs is to prevent the spread of Arab construction. This has prompted the Ministry of Agriculture to set up a special unit called the «Land Patrol». (The E 19/8/78, p. 44.) The town of Ma’aleh Adumim will not be built exclusively on the lands of el- Ayzariyeh.

In September, 4,650 dunums of the lands of the village of Anata, to the east of Jerusalem, were seized «for military reasons». On 23/10, the owners of the land affirm that it has been set aside for Ma’aleh Adumim. Forty-one of them, in possession of 1,700 dunums, appeal to the Supreme Court which decides provisionally to call a halt to work on the land while a decision is reached on their appeal.

of Weizntan, advocating this kind of development, we would note the three particular cases of project¬ ed towns at Shiloh, Efrat and Ma-aleh Adumim, discussed herein. The events at Shiloh are described in this section under 8/1, and as for Efrat, in brief, the Israeli press announce that its establishment is decided on by the Cabinet on 28/6, then approved by the Planning Department of the Ministry of Defence (D 29/6/78, p. 1) and the Ministerial Settlement Committee. Efrat is designed to house 600 Jewish families coming for the most part from the United States and South Africa. (Hat 30/6/78, p. 2.) Weizman’s claim, on 4/7, that Efrat is merely an «extension» of Gush Ttzion (al H 5/7/78, p. 1) is refuted by the revelation in the press that on 9/11/77 the Ministerial Settlement Committee had indeed decided to expand the region of Gush Ttzion, but that this would in fact involve the establish¬ ment of the new town of Efrat, 10 km away from Gush Ttzion on the Sheikh Abdallah Ibrahim hill to the south of Barak Suleiman. (H 4/7/78, p. 11.) A similar ploy, as we shall see, is used at Ma-aleh Adumim.

(38>xhe settlement of Mitspeh Yarihu, about 8 km down the Jerusalem-Jericho road has been envisag¬ ed as a residential suburb of the Ma-aleh Adumin complex. (D 3/7/78, p. 8.)

(39)xhe transfer of industry to the suburbs of Jerusalem is an integral part of the project to construct the «City of Jerusalem)) according to the plan elaborated in 1976 and the decision taken by the gov¬ ernment in 1973, which envisaged the population of Jerusalem reaching 451,000 by 1982, 337,000 Jews and 114,000 non-Jews. The project also envisions unified Jerusalem in its capacity as capital of Israel being linked to all the other regions by a vast communications network, whose principal axis,

Ma-aleh - Beit Horon, is already in the process of being established. Having accepted this plan in principle in May 1977, the Jerusalem Municipality gives it its official ap¬ proval on 16/4/78. (al Q 18/4/78 p. 1.)

CHRONOLOGY 45

On 17/12, the Court upholds the confiscation order, having decided that «the Israeli army needed the land to build a military camp in the region.» The lawyer for the defence, Elie Khoury, protests in the name of the Hague Convention and International Law and shows the Court’s arguments to be invalid by pointing out that the construction of a military camp does not necessitate the seizure of such a large area of land. (D 24/10/78, p. 2; 14/12/78, p. 3; and 18/12/78, p. 2.)

November — Dismissal of teachers. The officer in charge of education in Ramallah lets the teachers Hazem al-Rimawi and Awatef Subhi know that their applications have been rejected. This is in spite of the fact that they have both been teaching since the beginning of the school year. (al T No 36, 9/11/78, p. 10.)

22 Nov. — Demolition at Jebel al-Mukabbar(4 0)(to the south of Jerusalem) of the house of Jamal Kara’in by officials from the Land Department, (al I 28/11/78, p. 6.) They arrive in the village, armed, and then proceed to destroy the house with a bulldozer. (JP 24/11/78, p. 2.)

27 Nov. — Harrassment of Bir Zeit University. Young people from East Jeru¬

salem protest against the ongoing wave of arrests in the West Bank, particu¬ larly among the students of Bir Zeit, and against the brutality of the police interrogations. Bir Zeit students tell foreign journalists that they have been interrogated about political activity against the Israeli administrative autonomy plan. (D 28/11/78, p. 3.) On 1/12, the directors of Bir Zeit University hold a press conference. Gaby Baramki, vice-president of the university — the president was deported in 1974 — supplies a list of the students arrested in a documentalistating the precise dates and circumstances of their being summoned. Baramki affirms that torture was inflicted on several of the students. One of them, Hassan Ibrahim, interrogated from 20/11 to 24/11 in Jenin, declares that he was beaten with fists and clubs. He also states that some of his comrades were

GO a number of cases of expropriation seem also to have taken place at Jebel al-Mukabbar. On 7/6, seven families from the village are summoned to appear before a tribunal to «prove their rights of ownership over their property)), houses they have lived in since 1914 and land they have been cultivat¬ ing for dozens of years. The case comes up after some Jewish families claim to have bought the land in question in 1934 without knowing its exact location; this has recently been established for them by an Israeli urban planner. Residents of East Jerusalem point out that the case has all the markings of another ploy to expropriate Arab land, (al I 20/6/78, p. 6.)

(41)(X The communique issued by the University administration on 1/12/78, quoted in Annexe B, pp. 74-82. The harassment of the students at Bir Zeit is not confined to their being arrested on the basis of political activity. Among the difficulties they encounter as they try to complete their university education are arrests on the basis of strictly academic activities, as the Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Dr. Muhammad Hallaj, points out in an interview he granted the American periodical Palestine in October 1978 discussing the situation at Bir Zeit (cf. Annexe B).


laid out naked on a table and beaten on their genitals. Baramki lays emphasis on the fact that the current rash of arrests is of a relatively new nature in that the interrogators seem to be principally interested in extracting informa¬ tion on the areas of most active opposition to the autonomy plan. Felicia Langer declares that she found traces of blows to the face of one of her clients who has had difficulty hearing since his interrogation.!42) She sends a protest to the Minister of Defence. (Le M 3 - 4/12/78, p. 4.) An Is¬ raeli military spokesman denies that the arrests of Palestinians, usually made for «security reasons)) because of suspicion that they may be engaged in «terrorist activity)), has anything to do with «political motives)). (IHT 28/11/78,p. 1)

27/11 Arrest in Ramallah of six members of the Greek Orthodox com¬ munity in the town for openly expressing their opposition to the Israeli administrative autonomy plan. (IHT op. cit.)

4 Dec. — Demolition of two houses!4 3) in the villages of Kfar Kalil, near Nablus, and Silwad!4 4), near Ramallah. At dawn these villages are sealed off by the Israeli army, a curfew is imposed and the bulldozers set to work after the families living in the houses are evacuated. In Kfar Kalil the whole house is razed to the ground. (Zu Haderech, 13/12/78 and 3/l/79.)!45)The demoli¬ tion of the house in Silwad, which belongs to Abdel Rahim Abdel Fattah, whose son, Akram, is in'prison (for political reasons), takes place in spite of the existence of an order nisi from the Supreme Court of Justice, dated 3/12, to stay the execution of the decision taken by the military administra¬ tion. The order also refers to three other houses in Silwad and one in al- Bireh. The lawyer for the defence, Felicia Langer, had sent notification of the order’s existence to the Legal Advisor to the military government, Colonel Hamati, who, however, being «absent)), did not receive it until after the demolition had taken place. (H 5/12/78, p. 2.) Langer affirms that in any case the demolition should not have gone ahead as it did because the villagers had notified the military authorities that a court process was under way. Langer’s original appeal for the granting of an order nisi was based on the fact that such reprisal measures represent collective punishment and thus constitute an infraction of the Geneva Convention. (Le M 6/12/78, p. 3.)

!42)Cf. Lawyers’ report on the case of the students arrested on 29/11/78, in Annexe B, PP- 79-80.

(^General Avraham Orly, government co-ordinator with the military administration in the occupied territories, states with reference to the demolition of houses that it «certainly provides an effective deterrent measure.» (Le M 28/12/78, p. 28.)

!44)Nineteen houses have been demolished in Silwad since the Israeli occupation began. (Le M 6/12/78, p. 3.)

!45)Cf. Annexe C.

CHRONOLOGY 47

On 5/12, the municipality of Silwad calls a press conference to denounce the circumstances of the demolitions, in the course of which Langer declares that the military administration could not possibly have been unaware of the Court’s decision as the East Jerusalem newspapers of 4/12 which announced it had been censored. She adds that it was no coincidence that the demoli¬ tion took place at dawn on 4/12. (al I 8/12/78, p. 1.) In a letter(46) addressed to the military commander of the West Bank, Langer vigorously protests against the fact that the military administration hastened to go ahead with the demolition before the «written injunction)) could be handed over, so that it could claim that the injunction was over¬ ruled because its existence was unknown. On 6-7/12, a general strike is observed in Ramallah, al-Bireh, Silwad and Kalandiya. The accompanying demonstrations against the demolitions and the recent sealing up of a house, are suppressed with the usual violence, (al I op. cit.)

7 Dec. - Trial of Ma’mun al-Sayyed, editor of the East Jerusalem daily al- Fajr. He is charged with distributing al Tali’a in Nablus. His colleagues af¬ firm that indeed he had distributed al-Tali’a in Nablus, but that was a year ago, or before the military authorities banned its distribution in the West Bank. (Hat 7/12/78, p. 6.)

17 Dec. — Arrest of Ismail Ajweh, a journalist, for being found in possession of certain «tracts hostile to Israel)). (Le M 19/12/78, p. 6.)

27 Dec. — Establishment of settlements (suburbs of Jerusalem). The Gush Emunim move several families into sites at Tel Hadassa and Nabi Tsamu’el, near the settlement of Giv’on. (M 27/12/78, p. 1.) The army evicts the settlers, who had fenced off an area of land after putting up their camp.

(NYT 28/12/78, p. 9.)

December — Repressive measures taken against the students at the Halhul secondary school. On the orders of the military governor they are distributed among the schools in a number of outlying villages. The municipality sends a telegram to the military governor of the West Bank demanding that the transfer order be annulled, (al T No. 43, 28/12/78, p. 8.)

(46>cf Annexe C. On 12/12, Langer writes another letter to the military governor of Nablus concerning the house of Adiba Hassan Ali Amer which was demolished in Kfar Kalil. She states that «the mis¬ demeanours attributed to Abdel Rahman, the son of my client, absent since June 15, 1978, served as a pretext for the demolition of the house ... There is no relation between the house of my client and the misdemeanours attributed to his son. It is he alone who stands to be punished if duly tried and proved guilty.»


30 Dec. — Attack in Hebron on the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the Ibrahimi Mosque by 300 settlers from Kiryat Arba’. (H 31/12/78, p. 1.) This attack is one more incident in a series of desecrations whose aim is to transform this Muslim holy place into a synagogue/47)

b — Golan

23 Jan. — The town of Katzrin is officially inaugurated in the presence of Housing Minister, Gideon Patt, whose ministry intends to invest IL 100 million!48) in this town’s development in 1978. The decision to create it was taken in 1973, but no one lived there until members of the Gush Emunim moved in in 1977, and by the end of that year its population had reached 400t49); according to long term plans, 10,000 settlers will live there. (NYT 24/1/78, p. 3.) Its population grows in March with the arrival of 120 families, soon to be followed by 130 more. Several pottery workshops and kilns have recently been opened there, and other workshops and factories are under construc¬ tion over an area of 7,000 m2; Katzrin is planned to become the industrial centre of the Golan. Thirteen industrial projects have been approved by the government, including steel, chemicals, woodwork and mineral water, and eight residential centres are planned. (D 9/3/78, p. 3 and 25/6/78, p. 3.)

In April, the Ministry of Housing announces its decision to build a residential centre comprising 250 new apartments, (al F 19/4/78, p. 1.)

March — Expropriation. Landowners in several Golan villages receive expro¬ priation orders bearing on a total of 30,000 dunums. The compensation of¬ fered is an insulting and derisory IL 5 per dunum, (al I 3/3/78, p. 8.)

18 Mar. — Sheikh Kamal Abu Saleh is detained in prison in order to prevent his attending a meeting organised by the Druze Initiative Committee, to commemorate the death of the Lebanese leader Kamal Junblat. (all 21/3/78,p. 2.)

15 May — Creation of pioneer groups for Natour, by the United Kibbutz Movement, Hashomer Hatzair. The new settlement will be established near Geshur, a settlement founded in 1969. (al H 16/5/78, p. 8.) In August it is announced that work to clear the land — 200 dunums — has been completed. (H 2/8/78, p. 1.)

(47>Cf. The letter of the President of the Islamic Commission in Jerusalem of 12/12/78, in Annexe D.

!48>Up until 1977, IL 193,500,000 had been invested in Katzrin. (al H 23/12/78, p. 9.)

<49)alH 12/12/77, p. 8.

CHRONOLOGY 49

Development of Israeli settlements

in the Golan in 1978

A reinforced settlements

A settlements fixed as permanent sites


June — Settlers move into Ortal where 40 housing units have already been built. This settlement will be based on the rearing of livestock and agri¬ culture. Later, an industrial project will be undertaken. (H 6/6/78, p. 3.) On 4/9, at a founding ceremony for the Ortal Kibbutz, representatives of the Israeli government pledge to continue populating the territories occupied since 1967. The settlers began work on the site in March.(LeM 7/9/78,p. 3.) By August, 350 dunums of land had been cleared for the settlement of Ortal, the 27th to be established in the Golan. (H 2/8/78, p. 1.)

15 June — Construction work is in progress on the following five settle¬ ments: Har Odem (established in 1976), Sha’al (1976), Geshur Bet, Yonatan (1975), and Gamala (1976). Plans for Bogata and Birket Ram are almost complete. (D 15/6/78, p. 3.) In August clearing work on 250 dunums at Yonatan, and 150 dunums at Har Odem, is completed. (H 2/8/78, p. 1.)

13 July — House arrest is imposed on several inhabitants of Majdel Shams, among them Ahmed Ali Qadmani and Munir Abu Saleh, until 1/7/79. (al I 14/7/78, p. 1.)

August — The settlement of Neve Ativ, established in 1971 on land belong¬ ing to the village of Jabi’it al-Zeit. It is decided to add another 50 dunums to this settlement for growing apple trees, over and above the existing 200 dunums; a further 100 dunums is to be added for an avocado plantation and 5 hothouses for flowers. (D 18/8/78, p. 4.)

28 Aug. — The settlement of Avne Itan, established in 1976 in the south of the Golan. This religious moshav’s foundation is celebrated in a ceremony at¬ tended by the Minister of the Interior. For four years, the families assigned to it lived in the nearby settlement of Nov. Avne Itan occupies 4,000 dunums of agricultural land (D 29/8/78, p. 1 and 3/9/78, p. 8.)

1 Nov. — Additions made to settlements, following the government’s deci¬ sion to «strengthen» the settlements in the West Bank and the Golan. Thirty new families and fifteen reservists are «mobilised» for the settlements of Ortal and el-Rom, both established in 1971. (D 1/11/78, p. 3.)

13 Nov. — The settlement of Keshet. The members of this moshav, set up in 1974 by the Gush Emunim, hold a ceremony to inaugurate their «permanent site» situated 2 km south of Musniya, near Atliya. (JP 14/11/78, p. 2.)

15 Nov. — The creation of pioneer settlement groups. At their first Congress, held in East Jerusalem, the «Zionist Construction Groups»(5 0)announce the formation of twelve pioneer groups for settlement in the Golan. (D 16/11/78, p. 1.)

(50>This new settlement movement was formed six months previously with the aim of mobilising Jewish youth around the world to induce them to emigrate to Israel. The movement is affiliated to the World Zionist Organisation. (D op. cit.)

CHRONOLOGY 51

C - PALESTINIAN NATIONAL MOVEMENT

The struggle of the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to win their legitimate rights, the right of return for those who have been expelled, the right to self-determination, and the right to an independent,sovereign and national state, has been waged against Israel’s policy of settlement, annexa¬ tion and land expropriation. The struggle involved protests against the Camp David Accords and against the commemoration of such determining events in the history of the Palestinian people as the creation of the State of Israel, and on occasions such as the United Nations-organized International Day for Palestine. The aims of the Palestinian National Movement under occupation are clearly defined not only in the texts of the numerous communiques issued, but also in the course of repeated popular demonstrations and upris¬ ings.

1 Jan. - A communique issued by the mayors and the representatives of professional associations and various popular organizations in the West Bank, meeting at Kalandiya, affirms that the PLO is the sole legitimate representa¬ tive of the Palestinian people, (al I 3/1/78, p. 1.)

10 Jan. — Palestinians in the West Bank reject the military government’s decision to apply Israeli legislation to medical insurance, since this con¬ stitutes a new step towards annexation of the occupied territories, (all 13/1/78, p. 1.)

26 Jan. - 9 Feb. — Demonstration in the Nablus region against the establish¬ ment of settlements. Starting in the town of Nablus itself, the demonstrations continue unabated from 5/2 until 9/2, spreading to Jenin and the surrounding Palestinian refu¬ gee camps.

The particular issues against which the demonstrators are protesting have their origins in the Cabinet decision to establish three new «military outposts» in the vicinity of Nablus, a decision ratified on 10/1 by the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee. (IHT 11/1/78, p. 1.) These «outposts» are in fact the projected settlements of Tepuah (10 km south of Nablus on the road to Ramallah), Silet al-Dhahar (to the north-east) and Haris (to the west), (M 31/1/78, p. 16), and they effectively encircle the town, not counting the establishment in January of Kamei Shomron on the Nablus-Qalqilya raod. The demonstrations also embody the popular protest against the government’s intention to go ahead with new land seizures in the region, as expressed in Sharon’s announcement in January that land would be seized by the army for «reasons of security)) and put at the settlers’ disposal for the establishment of the four above-mentioned settlements. (JP 10/1/78, p. 2.)


These land seizures were indeed effected (see Weizman’s statement of 23/5.) On 26/1, communiques are distributed in Nablus, and slogans in the name

of the PLO are written on the walls of the town calling the population out on strike and to demonstrate in protest against the establishment of settle¬ ments in the West Bank. (M 27/1/78, p. 12.) On 27/1, a general strike is observed. Demonstrations by school students are violently repressed with three wounded and numerous arrests. An employee of the Israeli Land Authority fires on the crowd, wounding one more person and justifies his action under the pretext that his car was stoned. The next day the schools continue their strike as a mark of protest.(al I 31/1/78, p. 1.,) Demonstrators go out on the streets again on 5/2, with the support of a par¬ tial commercial strike. (D 6/2/78, p. 3.) School students displaying the Palestinian flag oppose the onslaught of Is¬ raeli army vehicles with barricades of burning tyres, (al I 7/2/78, p. 1.) The troops do not hesitate to pursue the students even into their classrooms; such is the fate of the al-Salihiyeh secondary school in Nablus, where violent confrontations take place on 6/2 (D 7/2/78, p. 2.) Numerous arrests are made, and on 6/2 alone 37 students are apprehended. On 9/2 and 10/2, 50 more are arrested on the charge of incitement to agitation and disturbing the peace, while dozens are arrested in Jenin. The demonstrations cease on 10/2, but the arrests continue; on 11/2, 11 arrests are made on the same charge in Nablus (all 14/2/78, p. 1.)

15-21 Mar. — Popular uprising in the West Bank and Gaza against the Israeli aggression in Southen Lebanon^51) On 15/3, large bodies of school students stage demonstrations in Nablus and Ramallah, where the main street is blocked by barricades of stones. (D 16/3/78, p. 4.) On 16/3 there are demonstrations in nearly all the towns and villages of the West Bank, principal among them Ramallah, Nablus, al-Bireh, Bethlehem, Halhul, Jenin and Tulkarem. (The T 17/3/78, p. 8.) In East Jerusalem, and particularly in the old city, hundreds of students and schoolchildren mostly aged between 15 and 17 demonstrate their protest by marching, throwing stones, setting up barricades and burning tyres. Brutal repressive measures culminate in a large number of arrests. There is a partial closure of shops, and a strike is observed by Palestinain workers in the city. In Gaza, a strike by workers employed in Israeli enterprises provokes intensified patrols along the coast and in the towns and refugee camps, while checkpoints are set up at the entrances to settlements. (D 17/3/78, p. 3.) On 18/3, demonstrations and Israeli reprisal measures culminate in three deaths, hundreds wounded and hundreds more arrested in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

(5Uj'he Israeli invasion of Southern Lebanon began on 14/3, continuing effectively until 21/3. It followed a Knesset decision to «exterminate)) the Palestinian organisations.

CHRONOLOGY 53

In the Askar refugee camp near Nablus, Muhammad Khalil Abu Ghadib (8 years old) and Basim Farhat (16) are knocked down and killed by a military vehicle. (D 19/3/78, p. 3; and JP 19/3/78, p. 2.) The authorities claim that it was an accident caused by the truck going out of control when the driver was hit on the head by a rock. Local Palestinian leaders affirm that it was murder (IHT 31/3/78, p. 2.) In Ramallah, 30 schoolchildren are hospitalised as a result of the effects of tear gas. In al-Bireh, dozens of students and several teachers are pulled in for interrogation. Similarly in Bethlehem, a number of secondary school students who demon¬ strated are arrested. In Halhul, a major demonstration is dispersed by security forces, while in Bir Zeit, a mass demonstration organised by the students culminates in a rash of arrests, and in East Jerusalem a number of stone throwing demonstrators near two secondary schools are arrested. (D 19/3/78, p. 3.) Omar Abdel Salem (37) of the Jabalia camp, just north of the town of Gaza, dies after being shot by an Israeli soldier. (JP 19/3/78, p. 1.) On 19/3, the strikes and demonstrations continue in Gaza and the West Bank. A Palestinian source affirms that so far 100 arrests have been made, 70 in Gaza, 9 in East Jerusalem, the rest coming from various towns in the West Bank — Nablus, Hebron, Bethlehem, Ramallah and Jericho. In Khan Yunis, in the Gaza Strip, two schoolchildren and one adult are wounded by shots fired by Israeli soldiers. (JP 20/3/78, p. 2.) On 20/3, units of border guards are called in as reinforcements to suppress demonstrations in Hebron, Ramallah, al-Bireh and Nablus where a total strike in the schools and a commercial strike are in force. In the Jerusalem region — in particular in Sha’fat, Kalandiya, Beit Hanina and Antout — school students stage demonstrations resulting in 9 arrests. In Gaza, the town’s main street in blocked, and Khan Yunis witnesses some particularly violent demonstrations and attendant repressive measures. (YA. 21/3/78, p. 7.) The Gaza military court orders 40 schoolchildren to pay fines ranging between IL 6,000 and 9,000 in addition to handing out 4 to 6 month suspended prison sentences. (JP 21/3/78, p. 2.) On 21/3, a partial strike is observed in the shops and schools of the West Bank. In Gaza, school students throw stones and bum tyres, but are dispers¬ ed by troops. (JP 22/3/78, p. 2.) On this day, one of the most ignominious instances in the wave of repressive measures taken by Israeli security forces against Palestinian civilians and school-children occurs. A unit of soldiers led by Nissim Cohen, deputy to the military governor of BethlehemO 2 ) storms the Iskandar Khoury school in Beit Jala; the soldiers drive the children up into their classrooms on the first floor, order them to shut the doors, and explode tear gas cannisters in the

<52>al I 5/5/78, p. 8.


classrooms. (5 3) A number of the children panic and jump out of the win¬ dows, many sustaining serious injuries including fractured limbs.(Tm 3/4/78, p. 32.) Time Magazine, where the incident is first reported, mentions another similar attack against the Beit Sahour School (but does not give a precise date), the arrest of 26 students at Bethlehem University, where tear gas is directed against demonstrators, and cases of harrassment against at least five villages in the vicinity of Ramallah. All the men over thirteen years old are arrested and forced to stand out in the street or to do exercises for hours on end. One group of a hundred men is taken to the regional military headquarters and ordered to weed the premises for the whole day. Time adds that the students arrested had their hair cut off by security forces/5 4 > Elsewhere, military courts condemn 16 students in Bethlehem to pay fines of IL 6,000 each, and another to pay IL 10,000; the fines are accompanied by six-month suspended prison sentences. Similar sentences are passed against 40 students from Ramallah, El Bireh and Bir Zeit. (al I 24/3/78, p. 1.) Other incidents and facts related to the wave of demonstrations in the oc¬ cupied territories in protest against the Israeli aggression in Southern Leba¬ non: - The final tally of arrests: 300. (IHT 31/3/78, p. 2.) - On 9/4, four school students in Ramallah are condemned to six months in

prison, or to pay fines of IL 10,000 within 24 hours, (al I 11/4/78, p. 1.) - Six Bir Zeit students are condemned to either three months imprisonment,

or to one year susupended sentences with fines of IL 8,000. (al Q 14/4/78, p. 2.)

- On 13/4, the military governor of Ramallah refuses to cancel exorbitant fines imposed on students from the region. He also refuses to release a number of citizens of al-Bireh arrested en masse, among them Selim al- Bast, secretary of the Town Library, (al F 14/4/78, p. 2.)

29 Mar. — A communique calling for a general strike to commemorate the «Day of the Land» is distributed in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and

(53>It should be noted that, faced with the extensive coverage given the Beit Jala incident in the inter¬ national press, and in order to preserve their standing in the eyes of world opinion with relation to such well-peddled fictions as «the benevolent occupation)), the Israeli authorities, after first denying that the incident occurred, eventually recognised it, and, in May, dismissed the military governor of the West Bank, Maj-Gen. David Hagoel. However, this measure was not taken so much in order to apportion the blame for the incident as to penalise Hagoel for the alleged false report he submitted to the authorities and on which they based their statements on the incident. As for Nissim Cohen, who actually led the assault, the court contented itself with naming him as culpable and reprimanding him (as reported by al I 9/5/78, p. 1.) The Israeli press, after originally acting as spokesman for the military authorities, ended up recognising that the incident occurred, and published interviews with some of the injured schoolchildren (e.g. M 4/5/78, p. 3.) It should further be noted that the military com¬ munique had claimed that the series of incidents which took place in the occupied territories from March 15-25 had been dealt with using the bare «minimum of violence,)) in view of the IDF’s «well known respect for human life.)) (D 13/4/78, p. 8.)

(54)xhis intimidatory measure was also reported by Davar (op. cit.).

CHRONOLOGY 55

Gaza.(55) Five people are arrested in Nablus, and thirty in East Jerusalem, while checkpoints are erected at the entrances to all major towns. On 30/3, demonstrations take place in Nablus, where schools and shops observe a strike. (M 30/3/78, p. 16 and 31/3/78, p. 4; D 31/3/78, p. 3.)

15 Mar. — A general strike is observed on the occasion of the 31st anniver¬ sary of the creation of the State of Israel. The day is marked by numerous demonstrations in, among other towns and villages, Jenin, Ramallah, al-Bireh, Ya’bid and Nablus. A total commercial strike is observed in Nablus and Ramallah. (al I 16/5/78, p. 6.) On the previous day, a number of «pre- emptive» arrests were made, and in Nablus, for instance, a major house-to- house and personal search operation was undertaken. (D 15/5/78, p. 2.)

May — Popular protest against the amendment of the «Order on Abandoned Property»;(56) This amendment comes into effect following the extension of the Israeli definition of «absentees». This new interpretation is revealed in May by Palestinian lawyers and the East Jerusalem newspapers. ^4/ TalVa, on 11/5, announces that the military authorities have decided to annul the affidavit signed by West Bankers who have emigrated to countries other than Arab countries, giving power of attorney by proxy over their property to their relatives who have remained in the West Bank. Their property will henceforth come under the responsibility of the «Officer-in-Charge of Absentee Property» — who previously only had control over the property of Palestinians who had left for Arab countries. Al-TalVa notes that this means that a considerable portion of the property in Ramallah, al-Bireh, Beth¬ lehem, Beit Jala and numerous villages in the West Bank will be transferred to the officer, also referred to as the «Custodian». The original decree stipulates the transfer of the property of anyone who left the West Bank before or after 7/6/67, whatever the cause of their departure or the date on which they left, and could just as well apply to someone who left years before June 1967. Lawyers undertaking property transactions in the name of Palestinian emi¬ grants are informed that such transactions cannot go through. They reveal to the press the explanations they are given.

(55)Cf. Documents - A.

^^^This decree, no 58, issued on 23/7/67 and retroactively valid from 7/6/67, stipulates that any property «the legal owner or occupier of which left the region on or before the appointed date (7/6/67) or subsequently thereto» is defined as «absentee property.» (H 26/5/78, p. 13.) It confers upon the « Officer-in-Charge of Absentee Property)) the right to seize «abandoned property.)) (D 1/6/78, p. 7.) The interpretation of «absentees)) in the decree is based on the «Absentee Property Law)) issued in 1948 which considers as absent «any person living in an enemy country. The West Bank Palestinians, refugees or resident in Arab countries saw their property confiscated by the «Officer-in-Charge.)) How¬ ever, as Le Monde (25/5/78, p. 7) makes clear the large number of West Bankers who emigrated to the United States or Europe were able legally to continue to administer their property by proxy.


For instance, the lawyer Aziz Shehadeh tells Haaretz that a number of of¬ ficials in the military administration have confirmed to him that any person residing in a non-Arab country is henceforth to be considered as an «absentee» — in the same way that anyone residing in an Arab country is considered an absentee. This amendment of Order no. 58 affects 70% of the property — land and buildings — in Ramallah. (H 21/5/78, p. 3.) On 21/5, sources from the Land Department and the military administration confirm the effectiveness of the amendment, despite published denials that this is so. (H 22/5/78, p. 2.) As an immediate reaction to the new measure, several municipalities send telegrams of protest to the military governor. (alT op.cit.) Protest meetings are held in several West Bank towns. (Le M op. cit.) At the most important of these, held in Bethlehem on 23/5 and attended by a number of correspond¬ ents from the international press, the members of the Municipal Council of Bethlehem and Beit Jala express the profound feeling of discontent among citizens of the West BankJ57> They affirm that the authorities’ denials, which claim that the order to cancel the powers of attorney only concerns the «absentees» from Jerusalem/5 8) are contradicted by the fact that the «Custodian of Absentee Property)) is continuing to bar all transactions of land coming under its domain. The speakers note that the first transaction to be barred was on 12/4/78, and many others have since followed. Elias Freij, Mayor of Bethlehem demands that a Commission of Inquiry be formed to investigate the validity of the official denials. He declares to foreign reporters that this new measure has its roots in political considerations, «for it is not entirely unrelated to the Israeli plan for administrative autonomy which denies the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.» The mayor, drawing attention to the importance of the property owned by «absentees», adds that «after the authorities have taken 430,000 dunums and 11,000 buildings, what is left for the Palestinian people to establish their independent state on?» (al T 25/5/78.)

The Minister of Defence finally issues a communique declaring that nothing has changed in the ruling on the «absentees». «However, this communique remains ambiguous. It states — as if this eventuality was not excluded — that any modification depended on the gov¬ ernment itself». (Le M 25/5/78, p. 7.)

<57>The tension caused in the West Bank by this affair was further aggravated by the announcement of new expropriations of land designed to permit the expansion of already established settlements. (Le M op. cit.) Cf. in Section A, Weizman’s declaration on 23/5 and his settlement plan published on 17/5.

(58)As East Jerusalem has been subject to Israeli law ever since its annexation in 1967, Decree No. 58 has created a special difficulty for inhabitants of the West Bank who own property in Jerusalem, but reside outside (in Bethlehem for example). They have been considered to be «absentees» even though living in the West Bank, and their property has been transferred to the «Officer-in-Charge of Absentee Property.» (D 1/6/78, p. 7.)

CHRONOLOGY 57

June — The West Bank mayors send a petition to the Minister of Defence demanding the immediate release of all administrative detainees.!5 9> (Bul¬ letin of the CDPD. Ref. Ap 14/7/78.)

July - A number of mayors and leading figures in the West Bank send tele¬ grams to the Minister of Defence and the military governor of the West Bank, demanding that all inhabitants of the region expelled since 1967 should be allowed to return. (Le M 25/7/78, p. 4.)

18 Sept, onwards — Rejection of the Camp David Accords: The high state of tension obtaining in the West Bank from September 18 and 19 onwards, and marked by strikes in schools and colleges, demonstrations by school students in Hebron, Ramallah and Halhul and attacks on military vehicles (Le M 20 and 21/9/78, p. 3), has turned into a generalised movement of protest by September 20. The principle forms Palestinian opposition to the Camp David Accords takes in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are strikes, demonstra¬ tions and a series of national congresses. On September 20, responding to the appeal launched by the PLO, the towns of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip go on strike despite tightened security measures. In Nablus, where a total strike is observed for two consecutive days, the people stage mass demonstrations, clearly expressing their will with slogans of «Yes to the PLO» and «No to administrative autonomy)). Attempts by troops to break the strike are sternly resisted. In East Jerusalem, teachers and students organise a sit-in at the Dar al-Awlad school, before being arrested en masse by Israeli security forces who break into the school premises. In Jenin, Ramallah, Halhul, Hebron, Beit Hanina, Bethlehem and the Gaza Strip, striking school students confront the occupation forces. A large number of arrests are made. Bethlehem is surrounded as a sizeable force of Israeli troops takes up positions around the town’s university, (al I 22/9/78, p. 1.) A curfew is imposed on Halhul, where, braving the repressive measures, school students throw stones at military vehicles passing through the town on the Hebron-Jerusalem road. (M 22/9/78, p. 11.) On the same day a strike is observed in all the West Bank municipal adminis¬ trations to protest against the definitive suspension of Beshara Daoud, the mayor of Beit Jala. The wider significance of the strike is indicated in the joint communique issued by the mayors, which denounces «the pressures pre¬ sently being exerted by the Israeli military government to impose its plan for administrative autonomy in the West Bank.)) The mayors charge the Israeli authorities with attempting to place representatives favourable to the «Begin plan)) in influential positions/60) (Le M 23/9/78, p. 3.)

(59) cf Documents - A.

(60) xhe political significance of this suspension is made fully clear in the communique issued in October (cf. Documents - A)- in which the West Bank mayors announce their refusal to recognise the Municipal Council installed by the Israeli authorities. The dismissal of the elected Mayor of Beit Jala is described in Section B, coming at the end of a long legal process which began with his sentencing on 29/6.


The Mayor of Ramallah, Karim Khalaf, expresses the position of most of the West Bank mayors on the Camp David Accords in a communique!61) in which he declares: «We only deceive ourselves if we believe that peace is near... The Camp David Agreements left the main issue unresolved — the future of the Palestinians and the participation of the PLO, the sole repre¬ sentative of the Palestinian people... May I also note that the platform on which we have been elected by our people to run the municipal affairs of the cities and towns in the occupied territories, states, in part, that the PLO is the sole representative of the Palestinian people and that those who opposed us on a different platform (in the 1976 municipal elections) were defeated.» Khalaf reaffirms that the Palestinian people will continue their struggle against the Israeli occupation, and the so-called autonomous regime, and to attain their legitimate rights, recognised by the United Nations and by most countries around the world. In the course of a press conference he also demonstrates that these accords constitute a denial of human rights, and he backs a general denunciation of Israeli policy in the West Bank with numerous examples/6 21 On 28/9, representatives of various professional guilds and organisations in East Jerusalem as well as a number of the city’s notables issue a communique condemning «the treacherous Camp David Accords which constitute an attack on the Palestinian cause,» and which «nowhere refer to the PLO, the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.» The communique calls for a solution of the Palestinian question based on «Israeli withdrawal from all the occupied Arab territories and the recognition of the right of the Palestinian people to establish a national and independent state.» It pro¬ claims that «there can be no peace in the region without the establishment of Palestinian sovereignty in Jerusalem, in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip», and calls on the Palestinian population of the occupied territories «to unite in order to confront the attempts now being made to force them into accepting the autonomy plan laid down in the Camp David Accords, and to oppose any sign of co-operation' with the scheme.» (al I 29/9/78, p. 1.) On 29/9, most of the mayors of the West Bank reject invitations to meet with Alfred Atherton, affirming in their message addressed to the American envoy that the PLO is the only body qualified to conduct political discus¬ sions with foreign governments on behalf of the Palestinian people.

On 1/10, the Jerusalem National Congress is held. Nearly a hundred and fifty leading personalities and political representatives from the West Bank and Gaza meet in order «officially to bring to the attention of Begin, Carter and Sadat their categorical rejection and formal condemnation of the Camp

(61) lhe communique was issued during his visit to Washington where he participated in the «Congress for the rights of the Palestinian people)) organised by the Palestine Human Rights Campaign.

(62) cf. Documents - A. The theme of the conference held in Washington was «Human Rights and S elf-deter mination.»

CHRONOLOGY 59

David Accords.» Taking part in the Congress are the mayors and municipal council representatives of seventeen West Bank towns — among them Bassam Shaka’a, Karim Khalaf and Hilmi Hanoun, mayors of Nablus, Ramallah and Tulkarem respectively — representatives of the Chambers of Commerce and various professional and cultural associations, together with a number of religious personalities, Muslim and Christian, including the president of the Islamic Supreme Council, Sheikh Hilmi al-Muhtasib, and the Melkite Arch¬ bishop of Jerusalem, the successor to Archbishop Hilarion Capucci. The resulting nine-point communique - denounces these Accords «which con¬ stitute a separate peace between Egypt and Israel)), and reaffirms that the PLO is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, underlin¬ ing the fact that one of the principal goals of the Accords is to create a new form of political representation in the occupied territories. (6 3)

(Le M 2/12/78, p. 6.) Following the Congress, those taking part send tele¬ grams of support to the PLO and the countries of the Steadfastness Front. (H 4/10/78, p. 8.) On 2/10, The Bir Zeit National Congress is held. The speakers, for the most part mayors of the principal West Bank towns, follow one another to the rostrum to denounce the «Camp David conspiracy)). The speeches are ap¬ plauded with the slogan, «No to autonomy, Yes to national unity, Yes to the PLO». (Le M 6/10/78, p. 5.) The final communique reaffirms «the deter¬ mination of the Palestinian masses to continue their struggle to block the Camp David Accords and to guarantee the national rights of the Palestinian people including the right to self-determination and the right to establish an independent and sovereign state.» The communique also launches an appeal to boycott the elections envisaged within the framework of the administra¬ tive autonomy plan, while underlining the fact that «the PLO, the sole legiti¬ mate representative of the Palestinian people, embodies the aspirations of this people to liberty, independence and sovereignty.» (al I 6/10/78, p. 1.) On 12/10, a strike is observed by the municipalities of the West Bank. A mass demonstration is staged in Ramallah, during which demonstrators raise the Palestinian flag, shout slogans hostile to Camp David, bum tyres, and throw stones at Israeli security forces. Demonstrations also occur in several other West Bank towns. (D 13/10/78, p. 3.) On 16/10, a Congress is held at Bethlehem. Most of the West Bank mayors give speeches in which they condemn the Camp David Accords, proclaim their absolute adherence to the PLO and attack any collaborators. (JP 17/10/78, p. 2.)

On 20/10 Gaza National Congress is held. More than 1,000 persons, made up of mayors, municipal councillors, and representatives of professional andcul-

(63)cf. the complete text of the communique in Documents - A. Communiques denouncing the Camp David Accords were also issued by the Islamic Supteme Council (2/10), the Palestinian Communist Party in the occupied territories (30/10) and the General Union of Palestinian Workers in the West Bank (al I 3/10/78, p. 1 and 6/11/78, p. 5.)


tural organisations from all over the Gaza Strip adopt nine resolutions!6 41 at¬ tacking the Camp David Accords and the attempts to pass over the PLO. The military authorities prevent the delegations from the West Bank from entering the Gaza Strip. Nevertheless, the speakers emphasise the indivisible unity of the two territories, (al I 24/10/78, p. 1.) On 7/11, Nablus National Congress is held. Seven thousand participants, repre¬ senting all the factions of the Palestinian people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip not only reaffirm the resolutions taken by the previous congresses, but call for concrete measures to be taken to achieve national unity under the aegis of the PLO. Finally they declare their support for the resolutions of the Baghdad Summit, which condemned the Camp David Accords, (all 10/11/78, p. 1.)

Following this series of congresses, and in an attempt to stifle all manifesta¬ tions of Palestinian nationalism, the military authorities take new restrictive measures. First they circulate round all local administrations a notice forbidding offi¬ cials and employees from attending any public meetings without prior authorisation. Heads of department are obliged to sign this notice and thus are required to oversee the implementation of this new measure, on pain of reprisal. (alT No 37, 16/11/78, p. 2.) On 17/11, the military governor of the West Bank summons the mayors of Ramallah, Nablus and Hebron, and announces to them that he will not tolerate «any action hostile to Israel,» and that from now on, no public meeting will take place without the prior authorisation of the military authorities. In Gaza, the military governor forbids Dr. Khalil al-Budeiri to deliver a lecture on the Camp David Accords. On 18/11, Zippori declares on Israeli television that the military government will forbid any meeting of a «subversive character)) or which would be «an incitement toviolence» from taking place in the West Bank. (D 19/11/78, p. 2.) On 19/11, school students in Ramallah and Nablus hold demonstrations against the Camp David Accords. There are also disturbances in other towns. (IHT 20/11/78, p. 1.)

29 Nov. — In response to an appeal launched by the PLO on the occasion of the United Nations sponsored «Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian Peo- ple», a strike is observed by merchants in the main towns of the West Bank, and Bir Zeit University also holds a strike. School students stage demonstra¬ tions in several towns and villages, notably in Halhul and Ramallah. (Le M 1/12/78, p. 1.) These take place in spite of special measures taken by the security forces the day before. (M 29/11/78, p. 1.)

!64)Documents — A.

CHRONOLOGY 61

The students of Bir Zeit declare that the military authorities have forbidden a series of lectures, meetings and press conferences being organised to mark ^Palestine week». They also declare that six students, arrested the previous week, have not yet been released. (JP 30/11/78, p. 3.)

12-20 Dec. — Demonstrations against land seizures in Hebron and Beit Sa¬ il our: On 12/2 decrees are issued placing 2,500 dunums of land in the regions of Hebron and Beit Sahour under the control of the army, «for reasons of security.» The land has been fenced off and all construction forbidden on it. The future of the families now living on the confiscated land has not been determined.

In Hebron, most of the 1,250 dunums seized belongs to the al-Ja’abari family. (YA 13/12/78, p. 4.) The mayor of the town, Fahd Kawasma, declares to the delegations which have come to Hebron to show their solida¬ rity that the confiscation order, issued in 1970, has not been made public until now, and that the municipality intends to go to court over the confis¬ cation becuase the lands seized come under its jurisdiction, (al T No 43, 28/12/78, p. 2.) He also declares that the prupose of these measures is to enable the extension of Kiryat Arba, a large urban settlement built in the suburbs of Hebron at the beginning of the Israeli occupation. (Le M 15/12/78, p. 4.) In fact, for a few days now bulldozers have been at work clearing a site designed for a large commercial centre which will be establish¬ ed under the auspices of the Ministry of Housing, (al T No 41, 14/12/78, p. 2.) This expansion follows a long string of promises made to the settlers by the government. On 24/4, Begin had told them in a speech given to mark the 10th anniversary of the settlement’s founding, that it would be «developed» by the arrival of hundreds of new families. On the same occasion, the Gush Emunim representative, in his speech, called on the government to expropriate land on the outskirts of Kiryat Arba in order to make room for its expansion. (NYT 25/4/78, p. 3.) Later, on 20/6, in the course of a tour round the West Bank, Weizman promised the settlers of Kiryat Arba he would «study the possibility)) of seizing Arab lands in order to «develop)) the settlement by establishing a commercial centre there as well as setting up industries. (M 21/6/78, p. 3.) The government moreover has invested IL 45,000 in existing industries in the settlement, and projected new ones. (H 13/8/78, p. 3.)

In Beit Sahour, of the 1,240 dunums of land confiscated, 240 dunums belong to the municipality. (YA op. cit.) On 11/12, the day after receiving the confiscation order the municipality issues a communique demanding that the ban on construction be immediately lifted, drawing attention to the fact that the land at their disposal is even now largely insufficient given the annual increase in population. The communique also declares that this measure constitutes an attack on the prerogatives accorded the municipality in the


1955 Law, constituting at the same time an attack on the rights of the population who have always payed their taxes for municipal services, (al T No 41, 14/12/78, p. 8.)

The municipality also sends telegrams to Weizman and to U.N. Secretary General Dr. Kurt Waldheim, protesting against the seizure of more than 2,000 dunums of land at Beit Sahour — not 1,240 — pointing out that the lands situated to the east of Beit Sahour belong to the municipality and have been recognised as such by the military government for years. As for the lands lying to the north east of the town in the district of Hasa, in 1972, Dayan, then Minister of Defence, had permitted agriculture and construction to go on there, (al T op. cit.p., 1.) The mayor of Beit Sahour, Hanna al- Atrash, calls on the West Bank mayors to take collective action. Elias Freij, mayor of Bethlehem, in a harshly-worded communique, denounces this policy of expropriation which, he affirms, violates the Charter of Inter¬ national Law. (YA 13/12/78, p. 4.) It should be noted that there are 140 families living on the land confiscated at Beit Sahour, a total of about a thousand people. The population of the West Bank considers this new seizure to be clearly linked to the question of the lands at Beit El and Tubas, to the demolition of houses, and most direct¬ ly to the forthcoming «resumption» of settlement activities after the Camp David-stipulated freeze comes to an end on December 17, and accordingly a wave of protest sweeps the region, (al H 14/12/78, p. 8.) This wave of unrest reaches its peak on December 16 and 18 with student demonstrations in Bethlehem, Beit Sahour and Hebron. The Palestinian flag is raised in many places in Bethlehem, the main street of Beit Sahour is blocked with burning tyres and stones, and anti-Sadat graffiti appears on the walls of Kalandiya. Is¬ raeli Border Guards repeatedly disperse the demonstrators with the help of tear gas. (H 19/12/78, p. 1.) On 16/12, a curfew is imposed on Halhul. The following day a number of arrests are made «for reasons of security», notably in Bethlehem and Ramal- lah. The exact number of arrests is not known, but they mostly involve students, and particularly those of Bir Zeit, already hard hit in the previous wave of arrests at the end of November. Those arrested are «suspected of belonging to illegal organisations)), or of «inciting demonstrations)). (Le M 19/12/78, p. 6.) A number of mayors, together with the Supreme Islamic Council and the Arab Chamber of Commerce, send telegrams to the military government, to the United Nations and foreign ambassadors, protesting against the new landconfiscation(65)- (H 17/12/78, p. 3.) Elias Freij, mayor of Bethlehem, declares in an interview that an «atmosphere of anger and tension)) reigns in the West Bank in response to the avowed Israeli plans to establish new settlements. (NYT 17/12/78, p. 3.) On December 20, the military governor of the West Bank lifts the confiscation order on the municipal lands at Beit Sahour (240 dunums), having «discovered» that they

(65)cf Documents — A; the telegram sent by the mayors of Ramallah and al-Bireh.

CHRONOLOGY 63

were requisitioned by mistake and that they came effectively under the juris¬ diction of the municipality of the town. (YA 21/12/78, p. 4.) The confisca¬ tion of the remaining 1,760 dunums at Beit Sahour, as well as the land at Hebron, remains in effect for «reasons of security)).

December — A communique is issued by a number of mayors and popular as¬ sociations in the West Bank protesting Israeli policy of the demolition of homes of persons suspected of «terrorist activities)) which constitutes a vio¬ lation of international Charters and Conventions.» The communique also protests against the wave of arrests made in the West Bank since the signing of the Camp David Accords. It declares that the intention of these measures is to «stifle all opposition to these accords and to the administrative auton¬ omy plan which our people have rejected time and time again.» The communique reaffirms «the right of our Palestinian people to return, to self- determination and to the creation of its national independent state on its national soil and under the leadership of the PLO, its sole legitimate repre¬

sentative.» (al I 2/1/79, p. 1.)


ANNEX A - REPORT ON THE PRISONS

BEERSHEBA

The Special Committee received a report by Mrs. Lea Tsemel on condi¬ tions at Beersheba prison in September 1978, based on information com¬ municated by prisoners held there. According to these reports, measures were being taken in reprisal against prisoners who had been on strike since March 1978. The allegation is made that Arab security prisoners are dis¬ criminated against in favour of Jewish criminal prisoners. The prisoners' demands include adequate medical care and an extension of the present one hour walk per day. A )

An appeal from Israeli lawyer Leah Tsemel on behalf of political prisoners held in Beersheba prison; July 1978.

On top of an artificial mound inside the walls of the Beersheba prison there stand a number of long barracks. The barracks are very narrowly spaced, and the entire mound is surrounded by fences and barbed wire. In this crowded, grey and dismal setup inside the walls of the Beersheba jail lived until a few months ago some 800 Palestinian Arab prisoners, residents of the post-1967 occupied territories. During the single hour in the day in which they were allowed out of their barracks for a walk, they could see from the narrow courtyard attached to their barracks the gardens, the foot¬ ball and basket-ball grounds, the lawns and the neat flower-beds, the enormously spaced open barracks, the dining halls and the culture rooms — all reserved for the exclusive use of the few Israeli criminal prisoners in the jail, people convicted for robbery, theft, rape and different other crimes. Political prisoners, on the other hand, have for their use overcrowded bar¬ racks, barbed wire fences and a narrow shapeless courtyard completely de¬ void of any greenery. The Beersheba jail was built some time after 1967 in order to house political prisoners (from the occupied territories). It was built largely by the labour of criminal prisoners and was designated from the beginning to be a prison for political prisoners where Jewish criminal prisoners would serve as supple-

(DlJN Doc, 0p cjt'f para. 107.

(2)The reports of the lawyers Tsemel and Langer quoted in the various annexes were supplied by the CDPP.

CHRONOLOGY 65

mentary and substitute jailors... The prison was built in the desert, south of Beersheba and is surrounded by a high concrete wall and guard towers. On the 12 March 1978 the prison was disrupted by a large-scale prisoners’ strike. Two days earlier the prison authorities announced that they intended to examine all prisoners’ books and copybooks. The prisoners refused to submit their books and copybooks to the authorities. They knew from repeated past experience that the material would not be returned to them and that it would be taken away from them for the sole purpose of destroy¬ ing their courses of study and obstructing their programs of political discus¬ sions. All the political prisoners organized in the various resistance organiza¬ tions unanimously resolved not to submit the written material in their pos¬ session to their jailors and on 12.3.1978 they set their books and copybooks on fire. Friday the 1st of July was the‘in on thly visiting day of the families of the prisoners. Political prisoners in the Beersheba jail, as in all other jails in the occupied territories, are allowed one family visit a month. Israeli criminal prisoners in all jails in Israel are allowed two family visits a month. The prisoners refused to go out and meet their families and submitted a petition t to the Prison Director demanding to make improvements in their conditions. The Prison Director refused to meet a delegation of the prisoners, and the political prisoners spent the day singing Palestinian songs. Their families demanded to see their jailed relatives and called out against the prison au¬ thorities. The prisoners were then taken down into the dungeons and were beaten by the jailors. Mr. Naif al-Sawidi, as well as some other prisoners now suffer from fractured arms as result of this brutal beating. Later the Prison Com¬ missioner himself, Mr. Levi was present and oversaw the «pacification» actions taken by the prison authorities against the striking prisoners. The [Israeli] media reported on the «rioting» of prisoners’ families at the jail. The prison authorities were under public pressure and had to offer some kind of an explanation. The Director of the Beersheba jail presented before journalists at a press conference a transistor radio found in one of the cells as well as weapons made of cardboard and wood. But according to the pri¬ soners he just forgot to mention when these were found and confiscated from their cells. The transistor radio was found and confiscated one year ago, as were the cardboard «weapons)). The prisoners say that it is well known throughout the jail that in their leisure time prisoners make model weapons out of wood and cardboard as a pastime, and that this was done openly and was a subject of jokes passed between the prisoners and their jailors. The press conference, say the prisoners, was sheer propaganda and an attempt to fabricate justification for the brutal treatment to which the prisoners were subjected at the time, namely, beatings, humiliation and confinement to the

dungeons. On Monday an extensive search was carried out in the cells ot the. political prisoners, and subsequently 85 prisoners who were considered to be the leaders of the strike were transferred to the Tulkarem jail. Among them


were: Muhammad Kanjo Sharkas Hilal, Ahmad Khalid Nazzal, Yunis Salim Rajjub, Adrian Ahmad Washah, Younis Jaddu. The over-crowdedness which was one of the worse problems in the Beer- sheba jail thus found its «solution». Before the strike some 100 prisoners were stacked into each barrack. In this crowded barrack they spend 23 hours of the day. One hour a day only is allocated for the daily walk in the narrow courtyard. The rest of the time the prisoners are confined to their badly overcrowded barracks where they sleep, eat, study, read and pray, about 80 people to one barrack. Immediately after the strike was announced the prison authorities attempted to break up the prison population. In addition to sending some 85 prisoners to the Tulkarem jail many prisoners were sent to confinement in the dungeons, three prisoners in each dungeon (1.50 m by 2.00 m). The one hour daily walk was cancelled and the prisoners are now confined for 24 hours a day in their barracks. The petition drafted by the prisoners demanding improvements in their con¬ ditions was rejected by the prison authorities and the prisoners announced a strike in protest. The prisoners have repeatedly announced that they intend to carry out a non-violent strike and that the only means available to them to draw public attention to their condition is by imposing upon themselves further suffering, since in their present situation they have nothing to lose. The demands put forward by the prisoners to the prison authorities in their petition were simple and elementary.

1. Attaching an Arab prisoner to the Hebrew speaking medical warden so that the political prisoners who require medical attention would be able to communicate their pain and be fully and sympathetically understood. 2. The provision of adequate medical treatment to all political prisoners, even if this entails operations and hospitalization. The prisoners say that some 150 of their people are very seriously ill and that they are denied adequate medical treatment. By way of illustration they point to the case of one of the prisoners by the name of Abu Sati who was told that he would be operated on and in fact was hospitalized for a few days but then sent back to prison without receiving any surgical treatment. He suffered agoniz¬ ing pain and the entire barrack of 80 prisoners could do nothing except watch him helplessly while he was cringing in pain. 3. The prisoners demand that their daily one hour walk not be reduced, but that on the contrary, it be increased. The prison authorities indicated their intention to reduce the daily walk to a mere one half hour a day. 4. The prisoners further demand improvements in the quality of their food and the increase of their food rations which are now insufficient and keep them in constant state of undernourishment and frequent hunger. 5. The prisoners demand to receive newspapers and books freely. The prison authorities at Beersheba jail allow only one newspaper into the prison, the semi-official Arabic Al-Anba. The general and main demand of the prisoners is an improvement in the attitude of the jailors towards them. The normal attitude of the jailors to the

CHRONOLOGY 67

simplest and most elementary requests put forward by the prisoners is that of cruel indifference. The political prisoners who are confined to a separate «ghetto» inside the walls of the Beersheba prisons depend completely on their jailors for every request, be it an additional broom, an extra piece of paper or the supply of a pencil.

The prisoners are allowed to purchase goods in the Canteen in the sum of up to IL 100 (approx $ 5.00) per month. This sum can purchase a mere pittance and is quite inadequate to meet the need of the prisoners in the supply of tea and sugar — not to speak of cigarettes. The prisoners complain bitterly against the procedure of their transfer from one jail to another, or from jail to court appearances. The jailors in charge of the «Post» (the closed lorry used for this transport) regularly beat them and humiliate their prisoner passengers. A few weeks after the announcement of the strike the management of the prison promised to receive a delegation of the prisoners for a hearing. The delegation, including Ya’qub Duana and Abu Nasir was brought from Tul¬ karem prison, but upon arrival to the Beersheba jail they were informed that the Director of the prison refused to see them and would not consider their demands. The only way available to the prisoners to express their dissent is to strike and inflict suffering upon themselves. They have been denying themselves family visits since March for over five months. They refuse to shop in the Canteen, to purchase pencils and copybooks, to write letters and to take their daily walk. They say that so long as the nature of the walk, the selec¬ tion at the Canteen and the family visits remain unaltered it is better to reject them altogether. The attempts of the prisoners to stop arbitrary con¬ finement in the dungeons in terrible and completely inhuman conditions have failed, and a number of prisoners have recently removed the mattresses in their dungeons claiming that conditions are so bad that the mattresses or the absence of a mattress make no difference. On July 20th or thereabouts some 10 prisoners were brutally beaten for their refusal to obey the order of their jailors to enter into the solitary con¬ finement cells. The prisoners were immediately attacked with teargas and were cruelly beaten. Among those injured are: Azmi Hamdan, Amir Dakhlallah, Umar Ja’ara, Abd Al-Rauf Salih. Ali As’ad Jama’in, age 28, is held in complete solitary confinement. He was beaten and injured and in protest held three hunger strikes of two days each. The prisoners are firm in their decision to continue the strike until their demands are met. They have been on strike now for 5 months, but it seems that the management of the Beersheba jail prefers to keep the jail in its present condition rather than enter into negotiations with the striking pri¬ soners. It was reported to me that as their last step the prisoners will declare a hunger strike the last weapon available to them. There have been in various West Bank jails solidarity strikes with the strike


of the prisoners of the Beersheba prison. The Israeli information media have ignored these strikes as well as consistently neglecting to report on the strike in the Beersheba prison. The prisoners in the Beersheba jail turn to every enlightened person to raise his or her voice on their behalf, in support of their demands and to assist them in their struggle in every possible way.

Letter sent by the families of Palestinian detainees from the occupied ter¬ ritories; June 22, 1978.U)

We inform you all that our children in the Beersheba and other prisons are in danger of death and collective liquidation as a result of the inhuman treat¬ ment, repression, humiliation and insults to human dignity to which they have been subjected. This treatment reached its lowest point when the prison administration called out about 500 soldiers and frontier guards who beat the detainees mercilessly inside their cells. Most suffered severe wounds and fractures. As a result, 85 detainees were removed to an unknown destination. The rest were so antagonized that they went on a hunger strike and refused to see their relatives from February 18, 1978 and up to the present day. On Friday, June 16, 1978, the Red Cross informed the relatives of the detainees that a visit to Beersheba prison was to take place. We went there and were startled to find that our children refused to see us. Upon the insistence of everyone, the prison administration allowed one detainee to see his aged father under guard in an individual cell with feeble lights where one could not see very well. The father, however, was able to see the extreme weakness of his son. The detainees stated that they were all in danger of being collectively liquidated by the Prison administration which was treating them with un¬ paralleled brutality, giving them bad food and was holding one hundred detainees per cell, causing suffocation and disease. The army troops beat, repress and humiliate them daily. The colleagues who were removed were now in Tulkarem prison, subjected to torture of various kinds. They too have gone on a hunger strike and refuse to see their relatives. We strongly protest against this foul treatment and we call on the conscience of the world and on free men everywhere to support the Palestinian people and to call for improved conditions and treatment of the detainees as prisoners of war in accordance with the international agreements and with the Geneva convention. We further request that the Committee for Human

C)Addressed to: UN Secretary-General The International Commission of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent Society The Commission for Human Rights Free-minded advocates and men of law The free press

Text supplied by the CDPD

CHRONOLOGY 69

Rights and the International Red Cross should investigate the conditions of Palestinian detainees in the occupation prisons.

N.B. Fourteen children, aged between 12 and 15 years, are languishing in Damun prison where they have been prevented from sitting for their final examinations since they have been detained for 65 days. We call upon officials to investigate their case. Their health is in danger, especially during interrogation.

NEVE TIRZA

In her testimony before the Special Committee (from 15 to 17 March 1978). Miss Fatma Barnawi gave a detailed description of the conditions of detention in Ramie prison (the women’s wing is known as Neve Tirza), where she had served a 10-year prison term (she was arrested and impri¬ soned in October 1967and released on 10 November 1977). According to these descriptions, Ramie prison is seriously over-crowded (a cell 3 by 4 meters large is shared by six detainees); the Arab women security detainees are held together with Jewish women who are «common criminals». Miss Barnawi described the difficulties in relations between the two categories of detainees. Arab detainees do not have the same prison conditions as Jewish detainees; working conditions are different, as are facilities for visits by relatives, study and access to reading material. Security detainees are punished severely when they refuse to undertake certain work imposed on them (such as sewing military uniforms); the punishment consists mostly of the suspension from classes and of visits of relatives; harsher treatment is inflicted by the prison authorities following complaints by inmates to journalists. Requests to meet ICRC delegates are not always granted. Strikes were staged as a result of these conditions. These strikes usually resulted in the transfer of the leaders to other prisons (Rasmiya Odeh was transferred in that context to Gaza prison))^

Report by Leah Tsemel on the collective repression at Neve Tirza prison, November 1978.

The women’s prison Neve Tirza affiliated to the Ramleh prison is considered to be a tranquil one. But it seems that the smallest problem with the political prisoners (around 40) provokes very strong reactions from the side of the prison authorities.

On October 28, 1978 the women were sitting in their locked cells when two hours before the scheduled time for the guards to switch off the lights, a

(4>UN Doc. op. cit., para. 108.


police woman, named Silvia, for no apparent reason decided to switch off the light in one of the cells of the Palestinian women. The women then called upon a sergeant, named Betty. This Betty then promised them to switch off the light every day. Upon this one of the prisoners tried to switch on the light herself. The result of this was that after a very short interval soldiers and warders were called into the women’s prison and they threw teargas into the locked cell (cell no 44), which was still in darkness. A prisoner from Nablus, Zaha Freiteken, got skin bums from the gas. After a slight pause soldiers, all of them border police, entered the cell with clubs and started to beat the women around. They called Yusra Ahmad Mahmoud Frigat and beated her all over her body with their clubs. They dragged Amal Abu Nusi around by her legs. They banged the heads of some of the girls against the door. Later, two women were taken to isolated confinement, where they were put on the floor, without mattresses and without covers. The women in the other cells, worried about what was going on, started to shout. The soldiers then went from cell to cell and put teargas in them (about 12 cells), while cursing the women with dirty words in the meantime. Besides Zaha Freiteken also Terry Fleener, an American political prisoner, got skin bums from the gas on her face. After these events the women went on a partial hunger strike.

THE CHILDREN OF KALANDIYA

According to several reports appearing in the Israeli press and other information reaching the Special Committee, a group of boys from Kalandiya refugee camp, arrested and charged with attacking a military vehicle, were allegedly tortured by police during interrogation. On 16 May 1978 (i.e. approximately four weeks after their arrest) they were visited by their lawyer Mr. A. El Assaly, who attested to marks of ill-treatment on Ibrahim Khalil Abdel Muati, 13 1/2, Youssef Abdel Jafer Mohammad Abdel Rahman, 14, Mohammed Fakhri Ali Abu-El-Rub, 13 1/2, and Khaled Mohammed Mustafa, 14. Arraigned in a military tribunal, their trial was moved to a Jerusalem Juvenile Court after a successful plea to the High Court of Justice of non¬ competence of military tribunals on minors. Mr. El Assaly stated that the boys had been coerced into making confessions by the severe treatment they had suffered. <5)

U)uN Document, op. tit., para. 115.

CHRONOLOGY 71

Following is the account given to Abd al-Assali by five children from Kalandia refugee camp when he visited them on 16/5/78 in the Moscobiyeh prison where they were detained.(61

1. Ibrahim Khalil Abd al Muati, 131/2 imprisoned 22/4/78. «Then, they took me to the Ramallah prison where many interrogators questioned me. I remember the names of Sami and Yossi. They were the ones who beat my testicles and genitals with truncheons. They hit me on the head with a stick as well as with their- large fists which rained down on my face continuously. They wanted to make me admit that it was I who threw some stones and molotov cocktails at a bus and ajeepinKalandiya camp. «I denied these accusations since I had not done those things. The inter¬ rogators did not believe me and they continued to beat me, now on the stomach and on the legs. I was suffering from pain in many parts of my body. In the end, the interrogators threatened to bring my mother and sister to the prison.» (When Mr. Assali asked the reason they were to bring them, Ibrahim shuddered and said, «They threatened to rape them in front of me. That is why I said that it was I who had thrown the molotov cocktails.»).

2. Yussef Abdel Jaafar (Ghafour)(7) Muhammad Abdel Rahman, 14 yrs, student, arrested 22/4/78. «I confessed to having thrown a molotov cocktail at a jeep. After I confessed, they continued to beat me, on the feet and the head. Sami and Yossi inter¬ rogated me. When I told them that I had pains in my stomach, they purpose¬ ly hit me on the stomach. They put me in a cell and after midnight they would come to get me and beat me. Look at these marks, they are from truncheons. They also hit me on the ears with a stick. My ears bled a lot and they still hurt me. From time to time I feel ill and dizzy.»

3. Muhammed Fakhri (Fariri) Ali Abdel Rub, 13 1/2 yrs., student from Kalandiya arrested 16/4/78. «When they arrested me they began to question me about an act of sabotage against a bus and a jeep, and I denied having anything to do with it — then they forced me to stay for half an hour with my head upside down and my legs leaning against a window. They closed my mouth and my nose for a minute or so with adhesive tape, then they took it off. They did this twice until I fainted. Then they took a bottle of petrol and threw it over my head»

(6)The text, supplied to us by the CDPD, also includes the accounts of five other children from Kalan¬ diya: Muhammad Ahmed Abdullah Matir, 131/2; Muhammad Khalid Mahmoud Abdullah, 13;Muham- mad Hamdan Zahran, 15; Nabil, Mahmoud Nate' Ahmad Salameh, 131/2; Ahmad Shukri Farran, 141/2. Al-Ittihad (23/5/18, p. 2) also published the accounts of several of these children.

<71Al-Ittihad, 23/5/78, p. 2.


(In response to the question, who did that?, he said, «the interrogators, Sami, Yossi and Abu Ghazaleh.») «The interrogator then lit a match and threatened to bum me, but he did not do it. I remember that they put something burning close to my testicles. That burnt and it hurt. This did not satisfy them and they then beat my testicles and made me lie on my stomach, walked on my back kicking me, and I lost my breath; I fainted a second time. They got me a doctor. They also had a tmncheon with spikes; they used it to beat my legs (he took off his trousers and showed the marks made by the spikes). Finally I said that I had premeditatedly executed the act of sabotage and the throwing of the molotov cocktail at the jeep.»

4. Khaled Muhammed Mustapha, 14 yrs., student from Kalandiya, arrested

19/4/78. «After arresting me, on the way to Ramallah prison, the soldiers would beat me with their guns. When we arrived, they made me undress and began to beat me. They put me in an isolated cell and ordered me to stay standing all night. They tied my hands behind my back to beat me. They stuck me with something burning near the testicles which was indescribably painful. (He showed Mr. Assali the marks of recent blows on his legs.) The food is disgusting and we are treated like dogs, not like human beings. I slept on a

metal bed without a mattress or covers.»

5. Samir Abdel Hadi, 151/2 yrs., from Kalandiya, arrested 24/4/78. «I passed 7 days alone in a cell. The interrogators were Sami, Yossi and Abu Ghazaleh. The latter tied my hands behind my back and the others beat me on the stomach and kicked me all over my body. Here, in Moscobiyeh, even after my interrogation, the policemen Sanje and Eli beat me then re¬ turned me to my cell. There, I was not interrogated. In Ramallah, during the interrogation, they made me eat hair. Sanje,from Moscobiyeh, tried to lift me up by my hair. They brought somebody who had been tortured to testify against me. They threatened me with administrative detention; they beat me

savagely and said: ‘Confess’. Even on the day of the explosion, I was working elsewhere with my father. I saw nothing of the act of sabotage, but after the beatings and the torture, I said that I did something which I had not done. The interrogators broke a stick over our lieads, mine and that of Khaled Muhammed Mustapha.» In the presence of Mr. Assali and the policeman Eli, Samir complained of blows he had received and accused the policeman Eli. Mr. Assali asked for his number of identification. It is: 45025.

CHRONOLOGY 73

THE CASE OF NADER FAYIZ EL AFOURI, 27, FROM NABLUS.

Report of Defence Attorney Felicia Langer; 29 November, 1978

«A new climax in mistreating political prisoners in Israeli prisons.»

It was around the middle of August 1978, when I heard from my clients who were in Ramleh prison, that a prisoner from Nablus, Mr. Nader Fayiz el Afouri, was seen by them in the same prison in a very miserable state. He was almost unable to move, unconscious of his surroundings — areal wreck of a human being. I was told that Nader was a victim of a cruel interrogation by the Shin Bet. It was only some months after Mr. Afouri’s arrest that his wife, who is in an advanced stage of pregnancy, was allowed to see her husband, who is now held in Nablus prison. Mrs. Afouri was shocked to find that her husband, trembling and wide-eyed, did not recognize her. He was unable to move by himself and was supported by two of his fellow prisoners. On the 24th of October Mrs. Afouri visited me to ask me to represent her husband. Her first concern was that I should try and see him as soon as possible. Mrs. Afouri clearly stated that prior to his arrest on August 30th 1978, her husband had been a healthy man in all respects. On November 12th, after a delay of many days, I finally was allowed to see Mr. Afouri. He was brought to the room, supported by two prisoners. He did not recognize me, although I had been his lawyer in the past, in the course of his previous arrest. His eyes were expressionless, his lips had a twist, and he did not react to my efforts to communicate. The prisoners told me that his cell-mates had to look after him, feed and wash him; that he does not speak, sleeps a lot and was totally out of touch. In letters dated November 12th and addressed to Military Governor of the occupied West Bank, the I.C.R.C., Amnesty International, and to the Mayor of Nablus, Mr. Bassam Shaqq’a I stated: «... what is as important, or even more... urgent (than to investigate the true events that brought about Mr. Afouri’s condition) is to grant him immediate medical aid by transferring him to a mental hospital and not to the Ramleh prison, which is not a solution at all. It is the duty of the authorities ac¬ cording to the Geneva Convention, and I very much hope that with your assistance he will be transferred there.»

On the 27th November I was in the prison of Nablus, in order to appeal on behalf of other clients before Advisory Appeals Commission for Adminis¬ trative Detainees. I was surprised to see amongst the administrative detainees Mr. Nader el Afouri. This is a new record, a new peak in the attitude and treatment which political prisoners get from the authorities. A person whose mental condition is such as I have described, is by arbitrary order declared an administrative detainee. Needless to say, neither I, nor his family, had any


previous knowledge of the authorities’ decision.He was brought.to the room, and he did not react at all to what was happening around him, as if he was not present at all.

I told the commission that this act of declaring a mentally-ill prisoner an administrative detainee, and then bringing him in front of a commission of appeal, when he is unable to utter a word is a mockery and a shameful act. It is like asking a wall to appeal to those who have smeared it with slogans.

This is nothing but exploitation of the fact that Mr. Afouri cannot react at all against his detention. Even I, as his lawyer, was unable to defend him against suspicions raised against him, due to total lack of contact with him. So far the authorities have not allowed a psychiatrist from the Bethlehem mental hospital to see Mr. Afouri. «The Ramleh prison doctor does not think it is necessary», I was told.

Since there is no evidence against Mr. Afouri, who was unable to answer the Military Judge, whether or not he had been a member of an illegal organisa¬ tion and had recruited 3 members to that organisation, I hereby demand: 1. That Mr. Afouri be set free or transferred to a mental hospital. 2. That an investigation committee be set to reveal the truth, and find those

responsible. 3. That those responsible for damaging Mr. Afouri’s mental faculties be

• punished.

ANNEX B - REPORT ON BIR ZEIT.

Interview with Dr. Muhammad Hallaj, Dean of Bir Zeit’s Faculty of Arts;

October 1978^

Q. What kind of difficulties do you experience in operating a University under foreign military occupation?

Hallaj. We face many problems as a result of the occupation. Financially, we have lost our tax-exempt status and Israeli taxes now take a good percentage of our budget. As to scholarship, we face many limitations on academic free¬ dom. Censorship for example: whether a faculty member is doing a| paper or a book, or whether it is a student paper, everything that we produce for publication is censored. Also books we import are censored, and it is ex¬ tremely difficult to get books and journals from outside, especially works in Arabic. Faculty recruitment has become difficult. Many Palestinians who would be interested in coming to the West Bank to teach at Bir Zeit may not be given the necessary work and residence permits.

Palestine, October 1978 (a periodical published in New York by the ((Palestine Solidarity Cam- paign.»).

CHRONOLOGY 75

The occupation also affects classroom work; students sometimes get into trouble for doing certain types of research. We were teaching a course last year on the economy of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and the instruc¬ tor had difficulty teaching it properly because there is not much data on the subject. So he and his students designed little research projects aimed at collecting economic data. One project was an industrial survey, and they prepared a questionnaire which groups of students took to various establish¬ ments in the occupied areas. One student was put into prison for four months for doing this, and when he was released the Israeli authorities told him not to do this sort of thing again.

Q. How does Israeli military occupation affect student life at Bir Zeit

University ?

Hallaj. The most tragic sort of influence is that we constantly have students in prison, sometimes for a brief period of detention without trial, other times they are sentenced. Our students are subjected to arrest very often simply for being students. The Israeli military authorities instinctively think students are responsible for agitation, responsible for unrest. They practice collective punishment against the students. The second day after the invasion of Lebanon (March 17, 1978), there were demonstrations in Bir Zeit, like in every other place in the West Bank. The Israelis didn’t send troops to Bir Zeit, but rather put a checkpoint on the road leading to Ramallah. Twenty-three students going home from the University in. a bus were stopped at the checkpoint, and were taken to prison. Maybe they participated in demonstrations, maybe not. But the Israeli idea is that university students are troublesome, that they are good candidates for prison and detention.

Q. Has the Israeli Army ever intervened inside the University campus itself?

Hallaj. Yes. A most flagrant case was (on March 10, 1976) preceding the municipal elections on the West Bank and the Land Day in the Galilee; it was a period of general unrest. A large Israeli military force came into Bir Zeit village, where there was a demonstration. The Israelis left alone the students demonstrating in the streets — maybe because they had rocks with them — and attacked the students in the dormitory who were not demonstrating. The soldiers broke the doors of the dormitory and of the student rooms with the butts of their rifles and their boots; they turned beds over, destroyed

furniture; they beat up many students. The soldiers also went around the campus shooting, mostly in the air. We had to send 18 students to the

hospital. In the schools located in the cities such things happen more often. Hashe- miyyah High School in A1 Bireh is probably the best example. The school is located in a bad place - in the middle of the town; the authorities apparent¬ ly feel that a school can contaminate a town by being in the midst of it. One


of the things I think helps us at Bir Zeit sometimes is the fact that we are located in a very small village.

The Israelis, however, are very unpredictable with their repression. This uncertainty of life is one of the difficulties we face under occupation. You don’t have known rights and known obligations. It’s government by personal whim. There are no rules that I can find out, that tell me I can go this far and no further. Even if you had the intention of abiding by the limits, you don’t know what the limits are. It leads to a feeling of total insecurity. One day you can talk and get away with it, you can demonstrate and get away with it. The next day, you can sneeze and get into trouble.

Q. Has this type of repression stopped political life on the campus?

Hallaj: On the contrary. One thing that hurts the Israelis in terms of their ability to condition our behavior, to control us, is the fact that one can get hurt for nothing. For example, Taisir al Aruri (a professor at Bir Zeit) spent 45 months in prison, and we have never been able to find out why. He had not done anything. I am sure that if he had done anything they would have put him on trial. The closest thing we were able to get towards an explana¬ tion from the authorities of why Taisir spent so many months in prison was that he was thinking of doing something. If -you can spend 45 months of your life in prison for this sort of crime — because somebody thinks that you are thinking of doing something — you lose fear. If I can be in prison for nothing, I might as well do something and make it worth the stay. Our students and people in general tend to have this attitude.

Students see that a person can be beaten up, can be expelled, can be impri¬ soned for doing nothing, and that the same thing happens if they do some¬ thing, so prison and beatings become less of a deterrent. There are other reasons, but this is one reason why the students are not restrained. Every time something happens they call a meeting in the assembly and they sit there and discuss and make speeches and slogans and issue statements and even invite the press. The students have not been inhibited, because they feel that we have reached rock bottom. This feeling of desperation sometimes makes people brave. We have a saying in Arabic that is not easy to translate, something like, «He who is impaled will curse the Sultan.»

Q. What difficulties has the occupation caused Bir Zeit students in finding appropriate jobs upon graduation?

Hallaj. This is a problem. Because there is no economic development going on in the West Bank, and no creation of jobs, college graduates find it very difficult to get jobs here. Teaching is almost the only outlet for them: most of our graduates work in the school system. Although 50 to 60,000 West

CHRONOLOGY 77

Bankers go into Israel to work, college graduates from the West Bank can’t work in Israel even if they want to; Israelis are not interested in hiring skilled laborers and educated people from the West Bank. They employ West Bankers only as unskilled manual labor, mostly in construction or on farms. We face a serious problem. Are we educating people who will find it increas¬ ingly necessary to leave the West Bank to find work? We are trying to mini¬ mize this possibility by developing the programs of the University to suit the local needs of our community. This is difficult, because we have no decision¬ making power beyond the University.

Q. In your planning now, what economic fields do you envision will be available for employment for college graduates, besides teaching?

Hallaj. Some of the professions. We have done the feasibility study for a school of engineering, to aid what small industry does exist in the West Bank. The area needs people who would supervise workers in a plant, or on a construction site, surveyors, various types of engineers. There is also a plan to start a program of medical technologies, in nursing, pharmacy and lab technology. West Bank hospitals are very much in need of lab technicians, for example. But it will not be easy to keep the University functioning within this frame¬ work. If the occupation lasts for a very long time, then eventually, no matter how careful we are, we are going to find many students leaving, simply because, as a result of the economic stagnation in the West Bank, they can’t find jobs.

Q. Is there already a serious brain drain from the West Bank?

Hallaj. Yes. Last year statistics showed that 19,000 people left the West Bank, and quite a few of them are graduates of vocational schools, people who learned to be electricians and carpenters. Most of these people can’t find jobs on the West Bank, and the Israelis are not interested in hiring them. This is a serious problem because it’s not just a matter of the numbers - 19,000 people yes, but look at who they are. You find that they are the sort of people who really build up a community anywhere in the world. This is part of our overall tragedy.

Q. Do you see a coherent political purpose in Israel’s inhibiting economic development in the VIest Bank?

Hallaj. Yes, definitely. Their short-range aim is to exploit us, and they are exploiting us, the thousands of Arabs working for lower wages and no fringe benefits. But their long-range plan is for these people to go somewhere else and make room for Israeli settlers. We live toward the end of the 20th century. And that probably means that the more crude methods of expulsion are less practical; one finds more sophisticated techniques to accomplish this end. To world public opinion,


the Israelis can say that when an Arab leaves the West Bank to go work in Kuwait and drags his family with him, «Well, he’s interested in money, nobody made him leave.» But in fact he is made to leave. I know a lot of people who leave, not because there is a differential of pay between what he can get in the West Bank and what he can get in Kuwait. He leaves because it’s the difference between starving to death and living. He can’t in reality be considered to have freely emigrated; he was driven out.

Q. Besides trying to slow down emigration, how else does Bir Zeit see itself serving community needs?

Hallaj. Bir Zeit University is really more than just an academic institution. It serves some of the functions that are usually the responsibility of govern¬ ments in other countries. For example, since we in the West Bank and Gaza are not allowed to govern ourselves, we have no agencies to collect data about ourselves. So last year Bir Zeit established a documentation research office which is designed primarily to collect data about our society, our people, population trends, economic data, labor conditions, resources. Also we have done research on illiteracy in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and we have opened literacy centers and trained teachers to work in these programs. Such functions are carried out by public agencies in other coun¬ tries. But since we do not have a government, we find the University doing them. Also Bir Zeit helps to unify our community. We Palestinians face a problem of fragmentation. Sometimes you would think that we are 10 different nations instead of one: the Palestinians living within the 1948 Israeli borders, those conquered in 1967, the refugees in the various countries. Bir Zeit draws students from all these sectors of the Palestinian people; we have students from the Galilee, from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, from the refugee communities outside. It is one of the only places where you find representatives of all these groups in one place working together, interacting with each other.

Q. Could you explain the University’s community work program?

Hallaj. The community work program is one of the most interesting things about Bir Zeit life. All students are required to do 120 hours of labor in the community before they can graduate. The students operate the program. It’s usually manual work in service of villages or refugee camps or towns in the West Bank. For example, one day they decide to go into a Jalazone refugee camp near Bir Zeit and to clean up the schools, painting them, improving playgrounds. Sometimes the students plant trees, build sidewalks. They help farmers at harvest. The West Bank is primarily an olive producing area and the students help farmers pick their olives. Sometimes the students sweep streets, clean up a town.

CHRONOLOGY 79

Report by Felicia Langer on student arrests; 29/11/78

I was requested by Bir Zeit University authorities to represent students de¬ tained by Israeli police in Ramallah, Jerusalem, and Bir Zeit. The first arrested with whom I attempted to speak was Mahmoud Ahmad Khalasi, a third year student in Middle Eastern Studies. He was arrested on November 24th. I was allowed to see him only after an entire day of delays, evasions, and lies, on November 26th, on the condition that I would not speak with him concerning his interrogation. My meeting with him was at 6 p.m. at Moscobiyeh Compound in Jerusalem and he was so scared that he didn’t speak at all. He had been recently operated on for a kidney ailment and only had one kidney left and there was a danger to his life. Finally on November 28th we were able to secure his release on bail because of his medical condition. At 11 a.m. I arrived at Ramallah Prison, where I saw Mr. Rizik Shukeir Matayie, Semaan Khoury, Ribhi Awad Aruri, Hatem Hassan Kadri, Abdel Hakim Kanaan, and Youssef Joubeh. Rizik told me that he had been interrogated about political activities at Bir Zeit University and membership in the D.F.L.P. He had difficulty in hearing because he had been beaten on his ear and he told me he could hardly hear me. He had a small wound on his left cheek that he said was a few days old and he said it was a result of being beaten with a stick on his left cheek. He had been hung by his hands from the wall and he also complained that they had strangled his throat and they had pressed on his throat glands which were aching and had beaten his genitals and he is still in solitary confinement. Semaan Khoury spoke about being interrogated about the same thing when I saw him. He still had pains in his left ribs as a result of beatings he said he received. He complained that the investigators opened his mouth by force and spat into it and when he spat it on the floor they compelled him to lick it up and swallow it. He said they pulled his hair, shook his head violently causing him headaches and dizzyness. They also kicked him all over his body. Aruri told me he was interrogated about the same political activities and that he had been beaten all over his body with sticks. He also said that he had been forced to lay flat while being beaten on the soles of his feet. The basis for interrogation of all the students was their purely political activities within Bir Zeit University. I have submitted a complaint in Hebrew about the matter to Ezer Weizman. While at the Prison, I also visited Youssef Joubeh. He is a trade unionist in the West Bank whom I know personally. He was arrested and charged with opposing the Camp David Accords and agitating about this within the Trade Unions on the West Bank. I was astonished that he hardly spoke to me when I first saw him. He explained that his throat had been strangled and he felt sharp pains in his larynx and throat glands and it was painful to swallow. It was difficult for him to stand. He claimed that he had been beaten on his legs and genitals. He showed me his left wrist on which I saw five round


wounds. He told me they were the result of the handcuff digging into his wrist because he had been hung by his hands. I immediately advised the prison authorities and showed them the wounds on his hands. While we were speaking, the Shin Bet investigator passed by and saw me with Joubeh. He started yelling that I was not allowed to see him because it was forbidden for him to be taken out of solitary confinement.

These deeds I have described ab'ove are contradictory of any humane ap¬ proach and are creating an abyss of hatred between the Israeli and Palestini¬ an peoples. Whoever is striving for a just peace in the Middle East has to protest such violations of human rights of the Palestinians.

Communique issued by the University administration protesting against renewed harassment by the Israeli military authorities; 1/12/78.

During the past few weeks Bir Zeit University has been subjected to yet another wave of harassment by the Israeli military authorities. Eighteen of our students have been seized or summoned, often in the middle of the night, for interrogation at military headquarters throughout the West Bank (see_ attached chronology). To date, none has been charged with any crime, though six remain under detention. Some of the eighteen have been beaten and several tortured. Hundreds of BZU students on their way to and from the University are being stopped at military checkpoints. Their academic books and class notes are being checked and sometimes destroyed. During the recent Palestine Week held at BZU, special academic lectures were cancelled and a folk singer was forbidden to appear at the University on orders of the military authorities. The Israeli authorities are using methods of thought control, the confisca¬ tion of legally permitted literature, beating and torture to create an atmosphere of terror which makes a free university education virtually im¬ possible. There has emerged a new pattern in the interrogation of the students seized in this most recent round-up. They are being asked to provide specific information concerning the position of individual BZU students and faculty members on the Israeli-sponsored «autonomy plan» for the West Bank and Gaza territories. Students under interrogation report being told they must decide to be «with us or against us»; that they do not have the choice of being neutral. If the students choose to «cooperate», they are required to provide the Israeli military authorities with regular reports on the political opinions or suspect¬ ed opinions of any members of the BZU community. The promised rewards for such services include money and «girls».

(^Supplied by Bir Zeit University.

CHRONOLOGY 81

What is happening at this moment to BZU is only part of a general pattern of harassment and intimidation directed against Arabs throughout Palestine. The military occupation authorities, however, seem determined to abuse BZU in particular, to find and thwart suspected opponents of the «auton¬ omy plan». As a national university, BZU has been singled out for exemplary punishment to provide a warning to Arabs throughout Palestine. No univer¬ sity, either in Palestine or in any other place in the world, can survive, let alone continue its legitimate educational functions, if its internationally recognised rights of academic freedom and independence are grossly abused

in this fashion. We strongly protest this pattern of intolerable repression, harassment, and intimidation of members of the BZU community by the Israeli military occupiers. We call upon all universities and concerned institutions and individuals everywhere to support BZU’s struggle to maintian its vital academic freedom and independence.

A brief chronology of the facts:

Oct. 26: Samir Hilelen seized from his home in Ramallah at night. Still under

detention. Oct. 30: Daud Ahmad Hassan taken off a student bus at a checkpoint in Ramallah while on his way to the University. A BZU library book temporari¬ ly confiscated from him. Released the same day but subsequently recalled three times for interrogation. Nov. l:Adnan Umran summoned to Nablus military headquarters. Detained

and interrogated for sixteen days. Nov. 2: Oudeh Ahmad Mustapha detained at Moscobiyeh interrogation cen¬ ter in Jerusalem. Nov. 9: Hassan Abu-Libdeh detained and interrogated in Jenin for 48 hours. Nov. 19: Imam ’Alayan summoned for interrogation in Ramallah. Nov. 19: Ismail El-Bitar detained and interrogated for three days at Mosco-

biyeh. Nov. 20: Hassan Abu-Libdeh summoned again for interrogation in Jenin. Nov. 21: Salam El-Saleh, President of the Student Council, summoned to Beit-El by Mr. Karmon, Advisor on Arab Affairs to the Military Governor of

the West Bank. Nov. 22: Sim-an Khoury seized at his home in El-Bireh at night. Still under detention in Ramallah. Nov. 22: Hassan Abu-Libdeh again summoned for interrogation in Jenin. Nov. 23: Eight students seized at night from their homes or places of resi¬ dence in Ramallah and Bir Zeit: Mahmoud Ahmad Halaseh interrogated intensively at Moscobiyeh in spite of precarious health condition. Released on bail November 29 after strenuous legal efforts. Rizk Shuqair still under detention in Ramallah.


Hakam Qadri still under detention in Ramallah. Ribhi El-Aruri still under detention in Ramallah. Muhammad Baransi detained for a few hours and then released on a road at 1.00 a.m. several kilometers from home. Shukri Nafe’ detained for a few hours and then released on a road at 1.00 a.m. several kilometers from home. Yasin Sarsour detained for a few hours and then released on a road at 1.00 a.m. several kilometers from home. Basim Zubaydi detained for a few hours and then released on a road at 1.00 a.m. several kilometers from home. Nov. 20-25: Palestine Week at BZU. Special lectures cancelled and folk singer Samir Hafez forbidden to come to the University. Nov. 26: Abdul-Hakim Kan-an seized at night from Rabah Hotel in Ramal¬ lah (an official university hostel). Still under detention in Ramallah.

The following students were arrested and sentenced during the past academic year and are now in prison:

Farid Murra, Ibrahim Khalil, Nazmi El-Ju-behh Mahmoud Abdel-Qader, Ahmad Abu Ghosh.

ANNEX C - DEMOLITION OF HOUSES AT KFAR KALIL AND SILWAD

Letter sent by Felicia Langer to the Military Commander of the West Bank; Beit El, 5/12/78.

Concern: The destruction of the house of Abd el Rahman Abd el Fath Ahmad Hammad, from Silwad village, Ramallah district, at 04.30 hours on the 4th of December.

Sir, On the 3rd of December 1978, the High Court of Justice issued an interim order, signed by the Honourable Judge Mrs. M. Ben Porat (see file No. 819/78), prohibiting the Minister of Defence and/or his representatives from confiscating and/or sealing and/or destroying the houses belonging to five applicants, four of them from Silwad village and the fifth from El-Bireh, and including the house of Abd el Rahman Hammad. On the same evening, advocate Abed Assali, acting on my behalf, informed the house of Colonel A. Haramati that an injunction has been issued in Jeru¬ salem . A person who maintains close relations with the Military Governor office phoned me to my Tel-Aviv home twice, at 19.00 hours and at 22.00 hours.

CHRONOLOGY 83

and told me that the Military High Command has received information that the injunction had been issued, and that this information gave rise to nervousness and discontent there. On the same evening, of the 3rd of December, a news-item about the injunc¬ tion, including the names of the applicants, the content of the injunction, and that of the application, was sent by two Jerusalem newspapers, Al-Fajr and Al-Sha’ab, to be censored. The news-item was declared by the censor as «prohibited for publication)). The rubber stamp prohibiting the publication carried the censor’s number 37. The Jerusalem editors were astonished to find that a news-item containing an injunction issued by the Supreme Court of the State of Israel, and addressed to the Minister of Defence could be declared ((prohibited for publication)) by the censor. (The censors are employees of the same ministry). Indeed, in view of the above mentioned facts, it is clear beyond any doubt that Your Honour, and those representing you, knew of the injunction prohibiting the destruction of the houses belonging to the applicants, even though the injunction has not been officially handed due to the late hour, and the absence of the High Court officials who could therefore not type and stamp the order as requested by law. (The order was issued at 17.00

hours, though it was first requested at 12.30, since no judge was available at the time:) Yet, in spite of the fact that your authorities had prior knowledge of the injunction issued, and as a deliberate wish to evade this decision of the Supreme Court, IDF and ((Border Police)) forces, headed by the District Military Governor of Ramallah, entered Silwad village, imposed a curfew on the entire area, cut the telephone line to the village and destroyed the house owned by the above mentioned applicant. Furthermore, the Mukhtar of Silwad informed the Military Governor of Ramallah who led this ‘operation’ that an injunction issued by the High Court of Justice prohibiting the destruction of the house had been issued. The Mukhtar also referred to a promise given a day earlier, by the regional officer Mr. Mansour, that no house will be destroyed. All this was in vain, and the house was destroyed. Mrs. Mariam Ahmad Hammad, a housewife, complained to me that she and other members of the family, and even a baby, were forcefully evicted, and that she was beaten and pulled by her hair. She also showed me a number of containers which had contained sugar and flour, which were crushed, and torn clothes which were under the ruins. A cupboard full of clothes, and 8 canisters full of olive oil were buried likewise under the ruins, together with school uniforms of the children, shoes and other things. Mariam told me that she was not allowed to take even her valuables, 600 Jordanian Dinars, and gold which were buried under the ruins. Her husband, who suffers a heart disease, complained that he too was hit. The hasty manner in which destruction was executed in darkness, under curfew, shows that y-ou and your representatives chose to conclude Lie act of destruction of at least one house, during the early morning hours, before


the actual injunction, in writing, could be handed and baseless claims to the effect that the existence of the injunction is unknown will be outruled. In view of the above, it is clear that you had known all along about the injunction prohibiting the destruction of the house owned by my client, the applicant, and yet you issued and signed the destruction order. (The order was «issued on Dec. 4th, for execution at 05.00 hours»). This was done after you, together with General Orly promised, on the very same day, to Mr. Karim Khalaf, the Mayor of Ramallah, that no houses will be destroyed and that «being in the process of peace-making, we cannot do such a thing». The destruction of the house is an act of collective punishment; it is said that the house belongs to Akram Hamed, a suspect detained in the Ramallah prison. This is a lie, since the house belongs to his father, in whose name the deed of ownership is registered. The act of destruction is an act of cruel revenge against an entire family which is innocent; only the son should be punished, if found guilty. I therefore protest vigorously, on behalf of my client and his family, to this act of destruction, which was meant to obstruct the decision of the judicial authority in the State, and is violating basic human rights. I hereby inform you that I intend to demand compensation for the damage caused to my client, as well as demand that a permit be issued to build a house there instead of the one you destroyed.

«From my Journal» by Felicia Langer

The Ruins of Silwad( 10)

She sits barefooted on the ruins as on a grave and scans her surround¬ ings. Several hours ago a house was standing on this — a house, which enveloped a whole family life. Dented oil cans. A container with a bit of sugar. Tom down olive trees. Rocks strewn about and bent steel rods which seem to grow out of the mins. Remains of walls painted green. She wears a torn white scarf. She removes it from her head and says: «Look at it, I saved it from the ruins». And she continues, her strong voice drown¬ ing out the cries of the children: «They pulled me by my hair and beat me, because I refused to move», she says pointing to her braid. «They beat my husband, and he’s sick; you know, I was afraid that he would die in their hands. The governor himself was present, the highest ranking officer. He also had a hand in the beating. Even this baby, my grandchild, they threw out of bed. What kind of regime is this? Neither the Turks nor the British did things

like that».

Haderech, 13/12/78.

CHRONOLOGY 85

And she suddenly remembers: «Ten cans of oil have been spoiled intact. You know what that means, and it costs money, six hundred Jordanian Dinars. And the childrens’ clothes that were in the cupboard)). I look around and see odd shoes thrown about, a pair of tom trousers, a child’s shirt. «Don’t think that it’s nothing, these were the children’s school clothes: How will they go to school. How?)> Suddenly her eyes rest on the olive trees. «They don’t know how long these trees have been cultivated. They came with the bulldozer and knocked them down. And I spat in the face of their big of¬ ficer)). She repeats it again and spits on the ground. The children gather around her, as if the house was still standing and she was in it. The television cameras flash, the journalists write and she continues to talk about the flour and the sugar and the oil. I stand next to her and make all sorts of vows to myself about these mins, the most important one being that a house will be rebuilt here. And something inside me cracks when 1 think that I could not stop these destructive hands, as I did in other cases in the past. They thanked me just now for the fact that a part of the roof was left intact. The women of the village demonstrate and sing: «Abu-Amar — We are all Fedayin, from the youngest 10 the oldest!)) The eyes of the boys spit green fire. If a «Hate-meter» was gauging the atmosphere here, its register would just go higher and higher. One of the adults utters: «This is their autonomy ...» The nickname of the deputy governor, Dudik, is on the lips of many. He is young, but he knows well how to command this mission. When they asked the soldiers why are they destroying the house they said: «If you’ll act like human beings, we won’t touch you». They finished their work and went looking for a warm shelter after the cold night and the wind. Then the curfew was called off and the contact with the world was reestablished. The work had been com¬ pleted... The photographers snap shots of the house owner. His face is of the color of lime stone. The fingers of the boys make a «V» sign. The demonstrating women recount in one voice, how the Jews came and demolished a house. Someone points to me and notes: «She is also Jewish)). Now they sing of Palestine, with passion and longing. We leave behind the ruins, like soldiers marching away. They are young, the soldiers, how many of them were in Silwad?

The Buried House.(11)

Sometimes I am amazed at the persistence of archeologists to unearth the past: Relentlessly they reconstruct the mosaic of the period. Thousands of museums throughout the world are full of findings displaying how people worked, dressed and how our forefathers were buried. The archeologists of

Haderech, 3/1/79


the future will probably not forego the village of Kalil near Nablus: Their digging will come up with a demolished house. They will investigate how a demolished house came to be placed in that place where no natural disaster had occurred. They will, in all likelihood, dis¬ cover that the demolition was carried out by man, civilized man. The tool they used will be discovered to have been a bulldozer which was normally used for strengthening the land so that a building could be constructed, something that was very important for so many homeless people in that period. They will discover, to their amazement, that, in fact, a new house wa^ demolished and buried here. And only with the aid of the historians will they be able to find out that during the Israeli occupation of Arab lands thousands of houses were demolished, and on the eleventh year of occupa¬ tion a new method was introduced for the first time in a small village near Nablus. The village of Kalil is a pretty one: The houses are built on the slope of a mountain, whose peak seems to touch the blue sky. Large expanses of grass, olive and fig trees. One could just admire the landscape if this was just a visit and not a funeral. «They were looking for my son». She tells me, «he left the house and didn’t come back. The officer beat me on my head till I felt dizzy. I thought that

he was about to shoot me. They wanted me to inform on my son, but I don’t know where he is. And if I did know, I would give my soul in order to protect him. My one and only boy, my eyes, I raised him up without a father since he was ten, when I became a widow. Our poor home could barely contain us. It was a pitiful sight during the winter rains and winds. We moved into my father’s house, and lived very uncomfortably while we began to build a house. We spent years constructing it and dreamt of the day when we would move into it, myself, my son and my young daughter. And then, when my son did not come back, they searched for him both in my father’s house and in our new house and didn’t find him». «Didn’t they warn you that they would demolish the new house?!» — «No, not a word was said». She replies and leads me to the site. The earth looks as if it was straightened. If it wasn’t for the bent rods sticking out of the rocks in strange shapes, it would have been difficult to guess that a house stood erect here. «They came at dawn to my father’s house and demanded the keys. When I came here with the Mukhtar they said: «What a grand house! But we are going to tear it down because your son is a criminal and we know it, even though we couldn’t find him. And then I understood what they would have done to him had they found him and said that my son is worth a thousand houses. Their bulldozer, driven by a young soldier, began tearing down the trees and my heart sank. They closed down the street and ordered a curfew in the village. The bulldozer worked and my hopes died out one after another, that in this house my son will live and here he shall marry and beget children and I shall forget my widowed fate ... I did not cry, I just shouted at them: «destroy as much as you want, it is for

CHRONOLOGY 87

the cause of Palestine! ... » She goes silent — and anger shows from her eyes. One of the eye witnesses continues her story: «When she shouted about Pales¬ tine, they could not bear it. They hate that word and they wanted to beat her in order to silence her, and then she said: «I will chop off the hand of whoever touches me ...» her voice was so angry and powerful, we had never noticed something like this in her, and one of them said: «leave that madwoman alone». They continued with their work. The job took many hours, from the break of dawn to the afternoon. When they finished, and the house was demolished we thought they would leave, But they didn’t and she suddenly turned to them and asked them to leave her one door and one window. They stared at her mockingly and we said: «Woman, everything has been destroyed and you want a door. What will you do with it?». The bulldozer began to dig a large pit in the ground and we stood around shock-stricken. When the digging was over it began to bury everything that had remained from the house, pieces of walls, doors, windows, electricity pipes and covered everything with earth. Here underneath us, the whole house is buried. The man winds off and I can feel as if I am stepping on something live. She looks at me and says: «If they would allow me to dig, I

would find many things. Exactly where you are standing, a fig tree lies buried». She sighs. «Yes, this is exactly how people used to bury their dead, with all their belongings» — I think. Someone next to me remarks dryly: «They behave like criminals trying to cover up their deeds». The others shake their heads in assent. From the «wadi» a hill of rocky earth which was removed from the site can be seen. The December sky is as blue as the sky in spring. Near the site of the ruined house, one can see a part of a tree with a few green leaves still on it. The villagers will help the widow to survive. Their language is one, their hate is one, their anger is one. If the, demolishers only knew how strongly buried houses can unite living people.

ANNEX D - DESECRATION OF IBRAHIMI MOSQUE IN HEBRON

Letter dated 12 December 1978 from the Chairman of the Islamic Commis¬ sion in Jerusalem concerning the Mosque of Hebron (Al-Haram Al-Ibrahimi Ash-Sharif) O 1)

The subject is Al-Haram Al-Ibrahimi. This Mosque is considered one of the most sacred sites of the Islamic world. In its history of 14 centuries as an Islamic Mosque it was never for one day a Jewish synagogue, nor were the Jews allowed entrance to it during all these centuries.

*' - 7/A Special Unit on Palestinian Rights, Bulletin No 3, 79-10773, p. 32.


What has become of it now is the result of Israeli practices since the occupa¬ tion in 1967. In spite of protestation and complaints, Al-Haram Ash-Sharif

had been transformed into a synagogue by all means. Every day the settlers of Qiryat Arba in Hebron, and with them large numbers of Israelis, commit new aggression and foul practices in all parts of the Mosque. They molest people coming to pray and pronounce foul language at the recitations of the Qura’an and at the teachers during classes. They molest the guards and prevent them from performing their duties. They deny us Al-Azan (the call for prayer) with no consideration in regard to the feelings of Muslims in their prayers. They storm the gates and the walls of Al-Haram day and night. All this takes place with the encouragement and protection of the occupation forces and their superiors. After every incident of aggression, a meeting of protestation is held with the Military Governor of Hebron by the Sharia Judge and with him the Mayor of Hebron, the Director of Awqaf and the guardian of Al-Haram Al-Ibrahimi. Also the Council of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs in Jerusalem filed numerous protestations and complaints with the Military Governor. The Islamic Commission issued many statements explaining to public opinion, inside and

outside, the new sad situation of the transformation of Al-Haram Ash-Sharif by the authorities into a Jewish synagogue by all means. Following the violent events in Al-Haram Ash-Sharif in October 1976, along with the desecration of the Holy Qura’ans, the institution of curfews in the City of Hebron, the prevention of Muslims from entering Al-Haram Ash- Sharif, which fell into the hands of the authorities and the settlers, it was discovered, after the seige had been lifted, that the Israelis had desecrated the contents of the Mosque and burned the office of its guardian. A Committee to carry out an inventory of the contents was formed, headed by the Sharia Justice of Hebron and the membership of the Director of Awqaf in Hebron, representing the municipality of the city and other Awqaf of¬ ficials. The Committee began its work under the supervision of the Chairman of the

Awqaf Council and Islamic Affairs, Sheikh Hilmi Al-Muhtaseb, and the Director-General of Awqaf in Jerusalem, Mr. Hassan Tahboub. It started the inventory on 3 January and ended on 8 March 1977. It discovered that priceless articles had disappeared sometime after the Muslims were denied entrance to Al-Haram Ash-Sharif and during the curfew, which lasted 17 days. The Committee reported to the Chairman of the Awqaf Council concerning the missing articles, who in turn wrote to the Military Governor on 28 June 1977 with a list of the missing articles. The Chairman requested that the articles be returned, but the Military Governor never replied. Again, the Chairman wrote on 24 September 1977 to the Military Governor and, despite the frequent requests for an answer concerning the persons responsi¬ ble for the missing articles, no reply was forthcoming from the Governor, except unfulfilled promises that the matter was still under investigation. This

CHRONOLOGY 89

indicates an attempt on the part of the authorities to relieve itself of any responsibility and to bring the case to an end without results. Over a period of two months, an intensified campaign was begun by the Israeli settlers, under the protection of the occupation troops in Al-Haram Al-Ibrahimi, to create a situation by which they would complete transforma¬ tion of the Sacred Mosque into a synagogue and prevent the Muslims even from praying on time, especially on Saturdays. They brought chairs, tables and articles of worship into the main court of the Mosque (in addition, they brought and set up in all parts of the Mosque, including the sanctuary of Ibrahim, Ya’qub and Yusof and the main court, the Jewish prayer books and Torah Cabinets). This, in addition to the desecration of the building itself and the removal of some of the centuries-old marble decorating the pillars, thus removing its Islamic character. Add to this the firing of bullets by the soldiers in an attempt to terrorize the Muslim guards and servants of the Mosque, one of whom was wounded in the foot. The leaders of the Islamic Awqaf in Hebron repeatedly protested to the Military Governor, who hinted to them that every time these Israelis take some action in Al-Haram Ash-Sharif, they are creating a new fact. This, in fact, is a robbery of rights and an attempt to change the situation, by which the Mosque would be transformed into a synagogue. The Chairman of the Council of Awqaf sent a letter to the Minister of Defence explaining the latest desecration of the Mosque and requesting an end to it. This was on 22 October 1978. The desecration did not stop, but in fact increased. Again the Chairman of the Council wrote to the Minister of Defence on 19 November 1978 explaining to him the worsening of the situation day after day. A copy of the letter was sent to the Military Governor-General of the West Bank. Also the Mayor of Hebron wrote a similar complaint to the Minister of Defence deploring the events taking place in Al-Haram, reaffirming the complaints by the Chairman of the Awqaf Council and demanding an end to these practices and provocations.

... We assure you that Al-Haram Al-Ibrahimi is on its way to being lost and transformed into a synagogue before the eyes and ears of the world.

91

III Documents

A. THE PALESTINIAN NATIONAL MOVEMENT

Communique calling for a general strike in commemoration of the «Day of

the Land»(D

Palestinian masses, For thirty years our Arab Palestinian people have been subjected to diverse

conspiracies beginning with exile and ending with the continuing expropria¬ tion of Arab lands.

If we examine the facts carefully with the aim of determining how best to defend our land, we would find that exile and expulsion from our homeland are still going on. The expropriation of lands in the region of Tis-a, the establishment of the so-called settlements of Nahal ’Atsmon, Beit Rimon and Peten ip Galilee, the demolition operations in Majd al-Kurum and Iksal, the vicious assault on Baqa al-Gharbiya, Jath, Jaljulya and Kafr Qasem, the expulsion of the Arabs of Mafjar, the settlement schemes in occupied Arab territories, the slaughtering of sheep in the Naqab and the confinement of our brethren the Beduins in specific locations — all these are clear proof of the determination of the authorities to escalate the policy of judaization and settlement of Arab lands.

We call upon our masses to unite their ranks in order to foil the schemes of the racist authorities. The thirtieth of March, which brought out all our people’s hidden potential, still awaits the decisive and effective decisions that can restore morale to our masses once again following the inactivity which our masses fell into after the glorious Day of the Land, on which six martyrs fell.

In honour of these noble martyrs and of our just cause, we must once again repeat the accomplishment of March 1976 when our masses stood united following the general strike of that year. Masses of our people,

)Wafa (Beirut), March 29,1978, p. 7. - «Tis-a» means «nine» in Arabic; a number of regions in Galilee have been declared military zones since 1948 and are considered «closed» on the basis of Article 125 of the 1945 Emergency Defence Laws. These zones were accorded numbers, and thus Tis-a signifies «closed zone no. 9», situated in Lower Galilee. - The «Arabs of Mafjar» is the name of a Bedouin tribe whose main centre is the village of Mafjar, near al-Khodeyrat. They were expelled at the beginning of 1978 under the pretext that their lands and village were needed for the installation of a central power station between Tel Aviv and Haifa, (ed. note.)


The campaign of expropriation, demolition and judaization is still going on. It is part of a total scheme of liquidation which our Arab Palestinian people are being subjected to in their various localities. In order to confront these schemes of liquidation, we must stand against them in total unity, affirming our determination to continue the struggle. Our masses will not hesitate to adopt, once more, the stand they adopted on March 30, 1976. Long live the general strike of March 30. Glory and eternal life to our noble martyrs.

Petition from West Bank mayors and public figures demanding the im¬ mediate release of administrative detainees^)

To the Israeli Minister of Defence, We the undersigned, representing citizens, private and national institutions,

and on behalf of jurists and professional Unions of the West Bank totally condemn administrative arrest as being a flagrant violation of the dignity and rights of man, and as an act of utter humiliation and suppression of the citi¬ zen’s freedom... We, therefore request either the immediate release of all administrative detainees held in the occupation’s [sic] or that they should have an immediate trial.

We wish to mention several points concerning administrative detention: 1. The authorities resort to administrative arrests in cases where they do not possess ample or concrete proof against the arrested citizen. This act, in it¬ self, constitutes overt oppression and a violation of international norms, laws, and charters. It is a blatant violation of the Geneva Conventions and the UN Declaration of Human Rights. 2. Administrative detention is a repressive method and blatant violation of the citizen’s rights; it is resorted to when the authorities feel that the detainee is about to stand trial or be released. In a clear determination to violate international laws and norms and human rights, the authorities apply this repression in order to impose pyschological and physical torture, and terrorize the citizens of the occupied territories. 3. Administrative detention is a remnant of the 1945 emergency laws applied under the British mandate in Palestine. The reactivation qf this measure by the occupation authorities at present, constitutes brutality and barbarity and an aggression against human values and ideals. 4. All laws of the civilized world which respect and sanctify human freedoms and rights have abolished the idea of administrative detention of citizens without trial. What do the occupation authorities have in mind by overtly violating and flaunting human rights during human rights year?

^Bulletin of the CDPD, ref. AP-14/7/78.

DOCUMENTS 93

5. The number of those administratively detained has passed the thirty mark. Some of them have spent more than six months, others three years, in jail without trial, when the authorities do not possess one single piece of evidence against them. 6. Among the detainees are heads of large families, intellectuals, and univer¬ sity students, whose relatives are in need of their vital support.

As we totally condemn administrative detention as being an act against humanity, justice, and fairness, we request again the immediate release of all administrative detainees, or that they should stand trial so that their fate might be known. In accordance with our full belief that our people should exercise their rights according to the Geneva Convention and UN human rights declarations and conventions, we plead with you to intervene with the aim of setting free all Palestinian administrative detainees in Israeli jails.

June 1978

Signed by Municipality of Beit Jala, Al-Bira Municipal Council, Municipality of Bethlehem, Beit Sahur Municipality, An-Nahda Women’s Association- Ramallah, Bir Zeit University, Jordan Red Cross Society-Ramallah, Ortho¬ dox Club-Ramallah, Qalqilyah Municipal Council, Hebron Municipal Coun¬ cil, Halhul Municipal Council, Jenin Benevolent Association, Nablus Munici¬ pal Council, Yaabed Municipal Council, Silfeet Municipal Council, Atara Municipal Council, Jenin Municipal Council, Labor Union for Al-Bira and Ramallah, Toubas Municipal Council, Al-Mazra Shargiya Council, Tulkarem Municipal Council, Ramallah Scouts Troup.

Press conference statements by Karim Khalaf, Mayor of Ramallah, on «Human Rights and Self-determination)/3)

Respect for human rights is now internationally recognized as a legal obliga¬ tion. In tackling the question of the human rights of Palestinian Arabs under Israeli Occupation, I propose to give a glimpse of the daily life of Palestinians under occupation, based mainly on knowledge acquired in the process of performing my duties as Mayor of Ramallah and as a private citizen living under occupation.

Though most of the matters I will be dealing with are applicable in both Gaza and the West Bank, I will be talking specifically of the situation in the West Bank.

U)Palestine Human Rights Bulletin (Washington), No 12 (December 1978). The violation of human rights by the Israeli authorities in the occupied territories, denounced in this press conference, can be considered as a common cause among the West Bank Mayors. In this light we have included these excerpts as a document for the Palestinian National Movement, (ed. note.)


I will address the question under a number of headings/4!

Jerusalem Foremost among the measures taken by the Israelis in 1967, and the cause of

great pain and bitterness, was the illegal annexation of the Old City of Jeru¬ salem.

The annexation of Jerusalem severed it politically, administratively, econo¬

mically and educationally from the other territories occupied in 1967, and incorporated it within the Israeli system. Israel then proceeded to expropri¬ ate lands and buildings, demolish some of the ‘historical’ buildings in the Old City, excavate beneath the A1 Aqsa Mosque, desecrate the holy places and encircle the town with buildings whose structural design completely ruined the well-known Jerusalem sky-line and its special architectural style. Hand in hand with this went the process of displacing some of Jerusalem’s original inhabitants and replacing them with Jewish immigrants and settlers with a view to achieving 2/3 Jewish and 1/3 Arab population. Many Palestinian refugees were compelled to leave their homes in Jerusalem in 1967, as a result of the hostilities, intimidation and expulsion. According to the International Red Cross, the figure is around 7000. The Commissioner General of UNRWA commented about the exclusion of these Jerusalemites from the 1967 repatriation scheme. He is reported to have said, «Among those permitted to return, it appears there were very few former inhabitants of the Old City of Jerusalem)). Refusal of repatriation of Palestinian Refu¬ gees to their homes was coupled with acceleration of settlement of Jewish settlers in Jerusalem resulting in the housing of 50,000 Israelis in East Jeru¬ salem.

The objections of the local inhabitants and the International Community to the various measures taken in Jerusalem have gone unheeded and the process of judaization is continuing.

The Arabs of Jerusalem though, still see their future and that of Jerusalem in an Arab perspective. As a result of this attitude, Jerusalem has remained demographically, socially and even geographically divided in spite of its an¬ nexation.

Education

In Jerusalem, the Israeli Syllabus has been implemented in the schools pre¬ viously run by the Jordanian Government. This has resulted in the alienation of the students from the Arab educational system. It has caused them to be barred from admission to Arab universities and employment in Arab coun¬ tries. The Government schools in the West Bank on the other hand have continued following the Jordanian Syllabus. As a result, many Jerusalemites

U>The sections we have not included are on: the economy, the establishment of settlements and land expropriation, demolition of houses, deportation, imprisonment and torture, self-determination, (ed. note.)

DOCUMENTS 95

prefer to have their children enrolled in West Bank schools where the Jordan Syllabus is followed. This, however, is opposed by the military authorities. This year the Military Officer of Education passed a ruling that 170 children enrolled in the first elementary grade in Ramallah schools, 100 pupils who had completed the elementary grade and 46 students who had completed the preparatory grade, were not to be allowed to remain in Ramallah schools and that any other Jerusalem pupils and students would have to leave on com¬ pletion of the grade they are presently in.

Though the Jordan Government Syllabus is the one officially followed in Government schools in the West Bank, the curriculum content has been affected through the prohibition of certain parts from others. The omissions have not been only of historical and political texts. Matters dealing with traditional and cultural values have also often been omitted. As recently as January 1977, the Israeli Military Officer of Education prohibited 1,188 books. Even UNESCO/UNRWA schools for Palestine Refugees in the occupi¬ ed territories, are prohibited from importing a number of textbooks though approved by UNESCO.

In addition to this effecting changes in the curriculum, the Israeli policy seems to have been to ‘freeze’ the education services by restricting them within stringent budget limitations. The ‘development’ in the educational field has, therefore, not met the growing requirements of student enrollment and has consequently resulted in deterioration of educational standards.

A further deterioration in the educational standards has resulted from the general unrest and strikes in schools as a reaction to occupation and the various measures taken by the Israelis. Retaliatory action by the Israelis in the form of arrests, interrogation, payment of fines and, at times, closure of schools for varying lengths of time only triggers more strikes - and so the vicious cycle goes on with students losing about 25 percent of their school days in each academic year.

Though none of the three universities on the West Bank is financed or run by the Israeli Authorities, this has not exempted the universities from inter¬ ference by the Israeli authorities in all sorts of matters under the guise of ‘security.’

The pattern of this interference goes back to the end of 1967 when univer¬ sities and higher institutes of education had to submit all books for approval. Israeli approval has to be sought for importing books and journals, particular¬ ly Arabic ones. For example, Bir Zeit University recently selected journals in Arabic from the Hebrew University catalogues. The request was turned down though the journals, by and large, were not political ones and were available in the Hebrew University. A month or so ago 13,000 books in English — donated by an educational institute in the United States to Bethlehem University — could not be cleared, since a list of the books was not available. To the best of my knowledge the books have not been released to date.

Another serious problem facing the universities is recruitment of teaching staff. Lecturers at university level are hard to Find on the West Bank. Many Palestinians living outside the West Bank are willing to come, but are barred


from doing so by the Israeli authorities. Professors and lecturers with foreign passports stand a better chance of being given work permits, but have to live with the uncertainty as to whether their work permits would be renewed. Eight professors at Bir Zeit University who have foreign passports were deni¬ ed renewal of work permits for the coming scholastic year and, to the best of my knowledge, the matter has yet to be resolved. Summoning of students for questioning about university activities, staff members and other students, coupled with intimidation and threats, is not uncommon, neither is the summoning of administrative officers of universi¬ ties to the Military Governor’s Office.

The President of Bethlehem University says that his basic complaint against the Military Governor of Bethlehem is: «his constant prying into the internal affairs of the University and thus interfering with the academic process and diverting too much of the time of the Rector from academic matters». The Military Governor, he says, «appears to want to control activities that he considers not directly connected with a specific subject by demanding that his approval be sought for student assemblies, guest lecturers, student activities such as exhibits and fairs, school magazine and articles for notice boards, and purchase of school equipment from overseas especially science equipment.))

In short, the atmosphere of academic freedom necessary for the develop¬ ment of universities is nonexistent.

Health Though internationally acknowledged that the development of services

ought to go hand in hand with the needs of the community, health services on the West Bank since occupation have not fared any better than education. Normal development in the establishment of new hospitals or new sections, man power expansion, improvement of the quality and quantity of equip¬ ment and facilities has been stunted.

In 1967, there were eleven Government hospitals and three were due for opening. Now, and after eleven years of occupation, there are only ten hospitals including Jerusalem which, as a result of its annexation, has been detached from the West Bank.

In 1967, the total number of beds in these hospitals was 1,023, now it is only 943 i.e. 80 beds less resulting in lowering the general bed per 100 population from 1.5 in 1967 to 1.37 in 1975. Furthermore, though the number of admissions has increased during this period, hospital occupancy has decreased to 70 percent due to the unavailability of sufficient nursing staff, necessitating the closing down of some rooms, and the unavailability of facilities for laboratory examinations. Furthermore, whereas Government hospitalization prior to 1967 entailed only the payment of a minimal amount in private rooms and was free in wards, now patients in wards are charged IL 100.00 per day which is more than what the labourer gets per day.

DOCUMENTS 97

Of the medical services affected, the cause of most concern to all are the pediatric services provided to infants who constitute 84.2 percent of the total population of the West Bank. An example of this is the services provid¬ ed in this field in Ramallah.

The number of pediatric beds available in 1967 was cut down by twenty when the Ramallah Field Hospital was closed down by the Israelis and its equipment, furniture and facilities confiscated. There was a further drop in the number of pediatric beds from 32 to 23 when the Old and New Ramal¬ lah hospitals were amalgamated even though the number of admissions to pediatrics increased from 840 in 1971 to 1,200 in 1975.

According to Dr. Samir Katbeh - the pediatrician at Ramallah Hospital who has recently been dismissed from his post by the authorities on the basis of statements given and reports submitted in his capacity as President of the Jordan Medical Council on the West Bank: «The disproportion between the pediatric services offered and the real basic needs of the children resulted in an increase in infant mortality.

From infant mortality official statistics (albeit their dubiousness) we find the figure has risen from 30.7 in 1974 to 38.1 in 1978.»

Dr. Katbeh goes on to say, «Furthermore, neonatal mortality (death of infants up to the age of 30 days) had increased from 238 in 1972 to 303 in 1975 and those from one month to one year have increased from 430 in 1972 to 864 in 1975.»

How badly Government hospitals on the West Bank are faring, can best be illustrated by comparing their allotments per patient and per bed with those of a middle standard hospital in Israel — the per person expenditure in the Israeli hospitals is sevenfold and the per bed allotment tenfold that of West Bank hospitals. This difference in standard of medical services had made Arab patients and doctors dependent on referring patients to Israel for hospitalization.

The payable rate per bed per day in Israeli hospitals during 1977 was around IL 1000.00. In cases of West Bank Government Hospital referral, the incumbent pays 1/3 of the expense from his own pocket while the remaining 2/3 is deducted from the West Bank Health Budget resulting, on the average, in a 30 percent deduction from West Bank Government’s meager budget. ...

Other Facets of the Occupation

...The daily strain of living under occupation can further be illustrated by the relationship between the military authorities and the municipalities whereby even routine and daily matters become time consuming and complicated as a result of Israeli insistence on having all matters cleared by them. The prob¬ lem is further compounded when the military authorities are ‘unavailable’ to Mayors and Municipal Councils as an expression of disapproval and dis¬ pleasure for statements given, strikes by town residents and demonstrations by students for which, ultimately, the authorities hold the municipalities responsible.


Put in a nut shell, the municipalities are given no authority whatsoever even in purely municipal matters, making them practically impotent in most areas.

To begin with, the funds at their disposal are very limited and, not only have

not developed to meet the growing needs of the towns and their people, but have not even retained their pre-1971 level. The fuel tax, for example, provided the Ramallah Municipality with an income of 40 to 50 thousand Jordan Dinars prior to 1967. Now, eleven years later, all the Municipality gets in fuel tax is equivalent to JD. 13,000. Though assistance is extended by various Arab states, the municipalities are not free to dispose of them as they see fit. Justifications have to be given to the authorities in order to obtain permission to get the money from Amman Banks and, in the past, there were many cases where much needed funds lay dormant because approval was denied by the authorities.

Permission has to be obtained even for such matters as mechanization of roads and sewage projects. The Sewage Project of Ramallah, though initially approved, was halted because, according to the plan, it passed close to an Israeli settlement. So permission was granted and permission was rescinded — all orally with nothing written to prove it.

The position the municipalities find themselves in is practically impossible — on the one hand town residents, in the absence of a national and civil authority, turn to the municipalities with their problems and plead for inter¬ vention in arrests, payment of fines for children participating in demonstra¬ tions, deportation of relatives, homes destroyed etc. — all the municipalities can do is serve as helpless ‘listening posts.’

More dangerous than all this are the measures being taken by the authori¬ ties to incorporate the Occupied Territories into Israel by making them de¬ pendent on Israel for certain services.

An example of this is the linking of the telephone, electric power system and water supplies to those of Israel even though possibilities exist for the development of the projects on an independent, self-sufficient basis. The Jerusalem Electricity Company, for example, is taxed heavily though its Balance Sheets, more often than not, show a loss. Furthermore, permission is not granted for importing new generators. This has resulted in the necessity of its relying on Israel for 90 percent of the electricity requirements of the area.

As far as water is concerned, not only has the development of new sources by Palestinians been hampered, but deep Israeli drilling around existing water wells for use by the settlers is allowed, thus affecting Arab water sup¬ plies. In Beitein in the Ramallah district the water company was instructed to provide the new Israeli settlement with its supplies. Opposition to this on the basis of its affecting the water supplies only resulted in water being ‘stolen’ through unauthorized insertion of pipes. Objections raised by the water company have been to no avail.

The linking of these services with those of Israel are like a whip in the hand

DOCUMENTS 99

of the authorities to keep the people in subjugation, and disruption of these services as a disciplinary measure is a threat looming over the inhabitants.

The pattern that emerges from all this is that Israeli long range planning is to get rid of as many Palestinians as possible and incorporate the Occupied Territories into Israel without annexing them formally for fear that the birth rate amongst Palestinians would result in the secular democratic state that Israel fears and opposes.

Statement by the National Congress in the West Bank; Jerusalem, October 1, 1978(5)

On Sunday October 1, 1978, a national congress was held in Jerusalem at the trade union headquarters attended by Islamic and Christian religious notables, mayors and members of municipalities and representatives of trade unions, clubs, national institutions and other notables in Jerusalem and the occupied territories.

The participants discussed the consequences of the Camp David summit, including the various agreements, interpretations, exchanges of letters and statements made by the signatories.

The meeting began at 11.00 a.m. and ended at 3.30, during which discus¬ sions were held in which everyone took part. Shaikh Hilmi al-Muhtasib, Father Lutfi Lahham, Karim Khalaf, Bassam al-Shak’a and Engineer Ibrahim al-Daqqaq, all spoke at the meeting. The participants unanimously agreed upon the following: 1. To reject and oppose these agreements with all their documents, interpre¬ tations and annexes, in whole and part. 2. The Camp David agreements are in conflict with the national character of the battle since they constitute, in reality, a separate peace between Egypt and Israel. This will result in Egypt’s departure from the Arab arena in order that Arab and African liberation movements can be singled out and dealt with. 3. The agreements are an obvious violation of the resolutions of the Arab summit conferences in general and of the Algerian and Rabat summits in particular. These resolutions clearly spelled out the rejection of separate settlements, calling upon confrontation forces to work in unison in all fields. 4. The agreements violate the UN General Assembly resolutions on the Pales¬ tine question and constitute a flagrant violation of the will of the intema-

(5)Filastin al-Thawra (Beirut) no. 255, October 9,1978, p. 24.


tional community as well as a violation of the natural rights of the Palestini¬ an people. 5. The agreements deny the rights of the Palestinian people, ignore their just cause, which is the crux of the conflict in the Middle East, make no mention of their usurped rights and of their right.to self-determination on their land and ignore their legitimate leadership, the PLO, the sole and legitimate leadership of the Arab Palestinian people. In fact, they attempt to setup an alternative leadership under the shadow of occupation by establishing an administrative self-rule which all sectors of our people have repeatedly and finally rejected. 6. The struggle of the Palestinian people has been and remains an inseparable part of the struggle of the Arab people for their freedom, unity and progress and of the world struggle for liberation. The Palestinian people, inside and outside the occupied homeland, are one and inseparable. 7. There can be no peace in the region without total and real withdrawal of Israeli troops from all occupied Arab territories and without granting the Palestinian people their right to return, to self-determination and to the creation of their free and independent state on their soil and land with Jeru¬ salem as its capital. 8. The scheme for administrative autonomy is rejected in form as well as substance. We see it as an entrenchment of the occupation, a prolongation of oppression of our people, a violation of their legitimate rights and an obvious plot to circumvent the aspirations of our people and their right to their homeland and to self-determination. 9. From this place, from beloved Jerusalem, the very heart of Palestine, we call upon Arab masses everywhere to adhere to their national unity, both at home and abroad, to reaffirm their loyalty to their legitimate leadership, the PLO, and to stand fully united against all attempts to implement the propos¬ ed administrative autonomy scheme and other capitulationist settlements.

We take this opportunity to salute our Palestinian people, at home and abroad, the memory of our heroic martyrs and those imprisoned in «Israeli» jails. We salute the Front for Steadfastness and Confrontation as well as its resolutions at the Tripoli and Damascus summits, which we consider an extension of the Arab policy of struggle as followed by the Arab nation throughout history. We salute all friendly and allied states in the world for their frank support of our rights.

Resolutions of the National Congress of Gaza (6)

On October 16 and 18,1978, a meeting was held by the municipalities, village councils, charitable and trade union societies, chambers of commerce and industry and business establishments in the Gaza Strip, at which the Camp David agreements and their attached documents were discussed.

(6)Al-Ittihad, October 24,1978, p. 6.

DOCUMENTS 101

Those attending affirmed the concern of the Palestinian Arab people in the Gaza Strip that a just peace should prevail in the Middle East. Wishing all causes and effects of war to disappear so that all peoples in the region can live in permanent peace, and desiring the fulfillment of the national aspira¬ tions of the Palestinian Arab people, those attending the meeting came to the following conclusions, in a positive, constructive and objective spirit: 1. The Camp David agreement denies the legitimate rights of the Palestinian Arab people, their right to freedom, self-determination and the establish¬ ment of their national and independent state on their land and violates the UN Charter, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the provisions of inter¬ national law. 2. The agreement violates Arab consensus as formulated at the various Arab summit conferences, especially the resolutions of the Algiers and Rabat summits. 3. The agreement contravenes the resolutions of the UN General Assembly, especially resolution 3236 of November 22, 1974, and 3375 of November 10, 1975. 4. The agreement enshrines Israeli occupation indefinitely and gives it legality while shattering the unity of the Palestinian Arab people at home and abroad. It creates a new status quo and new facts that contravene the interests of the Palestinian Arab people in an essential and basic sense. In addition, it does not specify the dismantling of settlements established in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. 5. The agreement ignores the future of Arab Jerusalem. This was done deliberately and constitutes a grave threat to its Islamic and Christian sacred sites as well as to the rights of its Palestinian Arab inhabitants. 6. A just settlement of the Palestinian question can be achieved only when the rights of the Palestinian Arab people to their homeland are respected, when they exercise their natural right to freedom, justice and self-determina¬ tion and when there is complete and immediate withdrawal of Israeli troops from all occupied Arab territories. 7. The participants affirm that the PLO is the sole and legitimate representa¬ tive of the Palestinian Arab people and that their participation on a footing of equality with all other parties is an essential prerequisite for a just settle¬ ment of the Palestinian question. To ignore this deliberately does no service to the cause of peace in the Middle East. 8. Administrative autonomy according to the Camp David agreement has no content or substance since it does not provide even the minimum demands and rights of the Palestinian Arab people nor is it the correct way for the Palestinian Arab people to exercise their right to freedom and self-determina¬ tion. It is vague, ambiguous and complex. It contains no real or specific guarantees which provide them with freedom, return and self-determination on their soil and homeland. 9. In light of the above, those participating condemn the Camp David agreement. They call upon all forces that love peace and justice in the world,


upon the Arab and Islamic worlds, world public opinion and the UN to support the Palestinian Arab people to obtain their just rights and to put an end to their continuing tragedy. Those participating in the meeting assert that they fully support a just peace and that the Palestinian Arab people aspire to this just peace. Of all peoples in the world, they need and desire this peace most of all in order to be rid of their painful tribulations imposed on them against their will. They assert that they have always been the victims of continuous wars having been denied their natural rights to free¬ dom and a dignified life in their homeland.

Statement issued by the West Bank municipalities condemning dismissal of Beit Jala Mayor Bishara Daoud O)

Due to the difficult circumstances experienced by the Municipality of Beit Jala — the latest of which was the trial of the Mayor Bishara Daoud together with three other members of the Council before a military tribunal on trumped up charges — on the orders issued by the occupying authorities, Mayor Daoud and the three other members were dismissed from their posts, which led the other members to tender their resignation in protest. The municipal councils of the West Bank reiterate their stand as declared in their meeting of September 30 to the effect that we still consider the elected municipal council under the chairmanship of Bishara Daoud to be the sole and legitimate municipal council of Beit Jala and do not recognize its sub¬ stitute.

This statement was signed by the mayors of the municipalities of Hebron, Halhul, Dura, Beit Sahour, Ramallah, Bira, Bir Zeit, Jericho, Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarm, Qalqilya, Salfit, Deir Dibwan, Silwad, Beitunia.

Cable from the municipalities of the Ramallah and al-Bira regions protest¬ ing against land confiscation W

We, the heads and members of the municipal councils of the Ramallah and al-Bira regions, present this letter of condemnation and protest against the actions of the military authorities, such as the expropriation of land and the prohibition of construction on other lands belonging to citizens who have rights to them. The latest of these actions was the expropriation of 4500 dunums of the lands of the village of Anata and the prohibition of construc¬ tion in an area of approximately 700 dunums in the towns of Baitunia, 2000 dunums in Silwad, 400 dunums in al-Bira and other land in the West Bank. This was the consequence of a policy of the «Israeli» government which

OWafa (Beirut), October 31,1978, p. 11.

(8)Wafa (Beirut), November 3, 1978, p. 7. This cable was addressed to the UN Secretary-General, the Israeli Minister of Defence and to the Military Governor of the West Bank.

DOCUMENTS 103

contravenes the most basic international laws, directly affecting the econom¬ ic and social life of the citizens in addition to denying them their natural rights, all of which go against the present current of opinion that supports civil rights.

We call upon you to take speedy measures to rescind the orders of land expropriation and of the prohibition of construction on these vast areas of land and to remove all manifestations of changing the nature of these lands. For if these orders are not rescinded, this would constitute a flagrant and continuing violation of the natural rights of citizens and a denial of our people’s rights to its homeland.

(Signed) Municipality of Silwad (Musa Muhammad Musa — Mayor) Municipality of Deir Dibwan, Municipality of al-Bira (Ibrahim

Sulaiman al-Tawil — Mayor) Municipality of Bir Zeit, Municipality of Beitunia, Municipality of Ramallah (Karim Khalaf — Mayor).


B. ISRAELI POLICY.

Budget for the settlements <9)

The following information is taken directly from (Ariel Sharon’s) Ministry of Agriculture’s budget manual for 1978, from the chapter on new settle¬ ments (pages 119-120). This, of course, was published before the signing of the Camp David Agreements, and before the decision to remove the settle¬ ments in Sinai, and to allocate IL 600 million additional funds for «thicken- ing».

This plan contains the estimated expenses for the establishment of new settlements across the Green Line. The establishment of these settlements is an activity of the Settlement Department of the Zionist Movement and of the government ministries. The financing of these activities comes from the national budget. The main government ministries which are active in this area are: the Ministry of Housing and Construction, the Ministry of Agri¬ culture, the Ministry of Commerce and Tourism, and the Communications Ministry.

Proposed Budget for 1978 The proposed budget for 1978 adds up to IL 426 million, which compares

with an estimated budget of IL 267 million which was expended in 1977; the real growth in this sum reaches about 30%. (Incidentally, this is one of

the few items in the overall budget which shows any real growth.) The main part of this growth is aimed at the establishment of new settlements, and the absorption of new settlers in the existing settlements... It was decided in the course of 1977 to establish a number of additional temporary outposts, mainly in Judea and Samaria. The establishment of these outposts, their character, and the rapid rate of their development, accompanied by the fact that they lack a foundation and the possibility of development through conventional means of production, creates a greater budgetary obligation than that which existed in previous years.

To summarize, we can say, that the 1978 budget enables us to establish the new settlements which were decided upon, and to enable a significant population increase in the new and existing settlements on the other side of the Green Line.

«Previous Obligations» — «Gush Emunim» In addition, the proposed budget contains a return of previous obligations

— for permits — totalling IL 43 million, which stems mainly from the plan to

^9)New Outlook, Nov.-Dee. 1978, pp. 40-41.

DOCUMENTS 105

establish 13 temporary camps for settlement nuclei in 1977.» (This is a reference to the «Gush Emunim» settlements, such as Kadum and Ophra, which were established without a governmental decision, and this grants «Gush Emunim» retrospective financing at the expense of the budget to establish new settlements.) «These settlements were not budgeted in the original plan, and the means for their establishment required 1L 30 million in ready cash, and the rest is intended for permits necessary for the 1978 budgetary year.

Proposed New Settlements In 1978 we plan to establish 28 new settlements. The proposed budget

guarantees finances for the establishment of 11 settlements which have already been confirmed by the Settlement Committee. A decision has not yet been made concerning the execution of the plan to establish the 17 remaining settlements. A decision to establish them will require an additional budget.

In the year 1977 the Settlement Committee was caring for the following settlements: 27 in the Golan Heights; 20 in the Rafiah Salient and Sinai; 17 in the Jordan Valley; and 27 in Judea and Samaria. Altogether, there are 91 settlements on the other side of the Green Line. Another 24 settlements are in the process of being established.

New settlements whose establishment have been confirmed for 1978 include: 3 on the Golan Heights; 3 in Judea and Samaria; 5 in the Rafiah Salient and Sinai. Altogether, a total of 11 settlements.

We should note that since the second half of the budgetary year of 1977 (since the Likud came to power) 13 new settlements are in the process of being established; 12 of them in Judea and Samaria, and one in Sinai.

Population in the Settlements According to the census which was carried out in September 1977, the

population in the settlements (on the other side of the Green Line) numbers 8900 people, which includes 1680 families together with 2920 children, as well as 2600 singles and Nachlaim (soldiers who are doing their army service in agricultural outposts). In 1976 the population of the new settlements was 7550.

The Cost The investments in settlements on the other side of the Green Line have

been: 1967-1973 - IL 140 million; 1974/75 - IL 94.3 million; 1975/76 - IL 142.4 million; 1976/77 - IL 163.7 million; 1977/78 - IL 277 million; 1978/79 - IL 426 million.

(This is what is written in the Ministry of Agriculture’s budget. If we trans¬ late the sum total of investments made in the agricultural settlements on the other side of the Green Line (this doesn’t include investments in Hebron, Ma-alei Adomin, the Sinai Peninsula, Yamit, and Katzarin in the Golan) to


todays prices, those of 1978 — we will discover that the Ministry of Agricul¬ ture has invested IL 3 billion in the 91 agricultural settlements in the past ten years. In addition, the Ministry of Housing and Construction has invested another IL 2 billion in the construction of houses, infrastructure, and public buildings — which adds up to IL 5 billion. Therefore, every one of the families that is living on the other side of the Green Line has cost the Israeli tax payers about IL 3 million each.)

Speech made by Israeli Prime Minister Begin in the Knesset during the debate on the Camp David agreements (1Q)

The Knesset approves the Camp David agreements signed by the Prime Minister in the White House on September 19, 1978. If agreement is reached during negotiations regarding a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel and with respect to all issues pertaining to the treaty, and if this agreement is embodied in a written document, the Knesset empowers the government to evacuate Sinai from its settlers and to relocate them.

The basis of the agreement — I refer to the framework agreement pertain¬ ing to Judea, Samaria and Gaza — is our scheme for administrative autonomy as we submitted it in December of last year. Therefore our proposal is as follows: military government, together with its civilian administration, is abolished. The Arab inhabitants will themselves elect an administrative council and we .shall not interfere in the running of their daily affairs. As for our national security, the basic issue is that the Israeli army will remain in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

I would like to emphasize the earlier proposals submitted to us in this agreement that we succeeded in ruling out: 1. There will be no plebiscite in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. We had to remind our friends in the conference of what Meinerzhagen had written in his memoirs. In the twenties, he proposed to Arthur James Balfour that a plebiscite be held regarding the Land of Israel. The British Foreign Secretary then answered him: If a plebiscite is held regarding the Land of Israel, all Jews throughout the world ought to participate in it. That proposal fell through. Agreement will come from the elected representatives of the inhabitants. 2. Under no circumstances whatsoever will there be a Palestinian state. 3. The organisation known as the PLO does not and shall not constitute a party to any negotiations.

(^Maariv, September 26,1978, p. 17.

DOCUMENTS 107

I must also explain other issues — to begin with, Jerusalem. One day at Camp David an offer was made to us that an Arab flag should be raised on the Temple Mount but we utterly refused and the flag was lowered even before it was raised.

In the last day of the conference, the draft of a letter which was to be sent to me and President Sadat was shown to me regarding the status of Jeru¬ salem. We told the US representatives that if this letter were to remain in force and be sent to us, we would not sign any agreement. So the letter was withdrawn and another was sent in its stead to which I responded as follows: «Dear Mr. President, I am honoured to inform you that on June 28, 1967, the Israeli Knesset passed a law to the effect that the government is entitled, in accordance with a decree, to apply the law, judiciary and administration to every part of the land of Israel, as specified in the decree. In accordance with this law, the government of Israel issued a decree in July, 1967, specify¬ ing that Jerusalem is a united city, indivisible, and the capital of Israel.

President Carter sent a letter to Mr. Sadat and President Sadat sent an¬ other letter to Mr. Carter. But what I wrote on behalf of the state of Israel will be enforced: Jerusalem is the capital of Israel for ever, indivisible, for all generations and for ever and ever.

As regards an increase in the manpower of existing settlements, there is no problem. We shall reinforce these settlements in Judea, Samaria and the Golan Heights with more families. As regards Judea, Samaria and Gaza, I had no doubts about this.

I promised President Carter that we would not create new civilian settle¬ ments while negotiations for a peace treaty were in progress — today, we face single and solitary negotiations with Egypt — i.e., during a period estimated to last 3 months. This question has led to some misunderstanding. Therefore, and although I had no doubt whatever about the substance of this promise, we, together with the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defence and Prof. Aharon Barak, discussed all the documents and written notes on Sabbath eve. On the basis of these notes and observations, it became evident that the matter was as I had explained it. Accordingly, this week I intend to write an appropriate letter to President Carter.

As regards terminology, I received the approval of President Carter regarding it as used in the original English text and as we understand it. President Carter wrote me the following: «I hereby confirm that you have informed me of the following: throughout the framework agreement, your interpretation and understanding of the phrases ‘Palestine’ and the ‘Pales¬ tinian people’ will refer to the ‘Arabs of the Land of Israel.’ In every place where the phrases the ‘West Bank’ is used, this will mean, for the government of Israel. ‘Judea and Samaria.’»


Press interview statements by Israeli Prime Minister Begin following signing of the Camp David accords (11 >

Q. What were the most critical moments in Camp David? A. There were some critical moments, one of which had to do with the

phrase taken from the preamble to Security Council resolution 242. The phrase in question states: «The Security Council reaffirms the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory through war.» For four or five days, the Egyptians and the Americans as well insisted on including this phrase in all the documents to be signed at Camp David. We rejected this out of hand, above all else because of international law. Secondly, we said that this specific phrase which is a kind of preamble, is not an inseparable part of the resolution itself. If the Arabs and Americans are truly convinced that the preamble is an independent (phrase) then it would be a principle which has only one connotation: a war of aggression. For if what is meant is the inadmissibility of acquiring territory in an absolute sense, its meaning can only be that of a war of aggression. If this prohibition holds for all wars, including wars of self-defence or national defence, then it would be neces¬ sary to redraw the entire map of Europe at once. Is it not a fact that all the territorial changes with their long term effects that took place in Europe after World War II were the result of War? Why did victors over Germany acquire vast areas of German lands? Because Germany was the aggressor while the other states were defending themselves. The only clear and logical conclusion to be, derived from this is that territorial changes in the wake of such wars are not only admissible but necessary. Otherwise, the aggressor would lose nothing since he is safe on all sides: if he wins, he gains vast territories and if he loses he regains what he lost. The six day war was a war of self-defence.... All US Presidents in their official communications with us have stated that this war was forced upon us. It was purely a defensive war. In the Camp David talks, and with regards to this problem, we proceeded from the principle of the admissibility of territorial changes. We laboured to solve this problem but the circumstances did not help us, because the Egyp¬ tians and Americans held firm.

Q. How did this issue end, Mr. Premier? A. I will tell you exactly. One evening, I went to see President Carter for

private talks. I said to him: Mr. President, what exactly are we discussing here in Camp David? First, as regards Sinai, are we now asking for one square kilometer of Sinai? You know we are not. True, we do have the problem of the settlements, but we are not asking to incorporate even a single kilometre of Sinai into Israel. As regards Judea, Samaria and Gaza, we propose an autonomy for five years. After the end of this period, we shall demand

C^Yediot Aharonot, October 1,1978, p. 5.

DOCUMENTS 109

Israeli sovereignty over Judea, Samaria and Gaza because this is our land and we have full right to ask for sovereignty over it. In order to arrive at an agree¬ ment with Egypt, we proposed to keep the question of sovereignty over Judea and Samaria open in order to facilitate the peace process. Put simply: there is now no question of acquiring land as regards Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Why then do you and the Egyptians ask us to be committed to the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory? I said to President Carter that the answer is because you want to pressure us. You are asking us on this ceremonial occasion to sign a commitment which can only mean abandon¬ ment of the Golan Heights and withdrawal from Judea, Samaria and Gaza. I said to him: Mr. President, there is no power on earth that can make us sign a commitment of this kind. At this point, I quoted, for the first and last time, the phrase: «If I forget thee O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its cunning.» The fact of the matter is that the question of incorporating the phrase which asks us to adhere to the non-acquisition of territory into the text of the agreement was finally dropped from the agenda. If the Egyptians and the Americans had insisted on incorporating this phrase into the two Camp David agreements, the conference would have failed.

Q. Were there any other crises during the Camp David conference? A. Yes. One day, when we were almost finished with the talks, a new

Egyptian demand was put forward. They wanted to fly the flag of an Arab state over the holy place in Jerusalem.... At this point, I explained to two American friends, who shall remain nameless, how King Solomon built the First Temple which was destroyed by the Babylonians and how 70 years later we built the Second Temple which was destroyed by the Romans. What do we have left. The holy Wailing Wall. But the holy of holies of the people of Israel is the Temple Mount. The Muslims had captured it and built two mosques on it and we can do nothing about this. These places are holy in the Islamic religion and we respect this.... I repeatedly explained to the Americans that we respect mosques but that the Temple Mount itself be¬ longs to the Jewish people and raising an Islamic flag over it would mean recognition that the Mount belongs to the Muslims and we shall not recog¬ nise this at all. Apparently the Americans understood my explanation since one of them asked me: Perhaps there are other monuments in Jerusalem where one can fly the flag of a Muslim state? I answered NO, we have no monuments over which we can accept an Arab flag to fly. When I told this to Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan he laughed and said: Mr. Begin, you are mistaken, we do have an appropriate monument. When I asked him which one, he said laughing: the Knesset building. In the end the entire topic was dropped from the agenda.

The most difficult moments for me in Camp David came in the very last day when the Americans submitted to us a truly frightful document the principal words of which were: (Jerusalem is an occupied region.» Yes, this was only a few hours'before the final agreement was signed. We told the


Americans we were not only unwilling to receive this letter but that we would refuse to sign any other document. If you persist in this definition, the conference will break up. I told the Americans that we had not come to Camp David to redivide Jerusalem but to make peace with the Egyptians. In the end, the letter was withdrawn and I stated in a memo to President Car¬ ter that Jerusalem was and shall always be one city and the eternal capital of Israel and cannot be divided at all.... Three hours later, President Carter, Sadat and myself left by helicopter for Washington....

DOCUMENTS 111

C. REPORT OF THE NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILDU 2)

The nature of the Israeli economic regime in the Occupied Territories is colonialist: direct and indirect exploitation of a cheap labor force, domina¬ tion of the local markets, investment of money in and employment of a small section of petty bourgeois and reactionary elements.

Israel needs the West Bank and Gaza as markets for its goods. It also needs their people as a labor force to do work for which there are not enough Is¬ raelis, or which Israelis are unwilling to do.

The goal seems to be to attach the inhabitants of the occupied areas to the Israeli economy — making these areas economically dependent upon Israel regardless of any potential political solution. A so-called «economic revival» in the Territories has occurred with no effort being made toward developing the local economies. It has resulted primarily from employment in Israel it¬ self, as a substitute for a strategy of development. As Brian Van Arkadie, in his 1977 book, concluded, Palestinians from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip «have not participated in the political process that has set the major economic policies affecting them or that has supervised the overall im¬ plementation of those policies.»G 3)

The Israeli economy, more advanced technologically than that of its neighbors, has reached a point at which its domestic population can no longer consume all the goods it produces. It therefore needs foreign markets for its production. The West Bank and Gaza have provided a convenient captive market for Israeli products. The West Bank and Gaza obtain 90% of their imports from Israel (1973 figures)/14) Israel, in that year, obtained 2% of its imports from the West Bank and Gaza/15) Since the start of the occupation Israel has increased six-fold its exports to the West Bank and Gaza, making those territories Israel’s second largest export market, second only after the United States. Israel has built up a tremendous trade surplus

(12) The report of the delegation of the National Lawyers Guild which visited the Middle East in 1977 has been published with the title ((Treatment of Palestinians in Israeli-Occupied West Bank and Gaza.» The book’s twelve chapters are divided into the following four parts: 1. Territorial Deprivation; 2. Sup¬ pression of Efforts at Self-Determination; 3. Suppression of Resistance; 4. Mistreatment of Detainees. The chapter which we reproduce here, entitled Development of a Colonial Economy, comes in the

second part (pp. 3544). Unless otherwise indicated, all footnotes are original, (ed. note.)

(13) Brian Van Arkadie, Benefits, and Burdens: A Report on the West Bank and Gaza Strip Economies Since 1967 (New York; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1977), p. 40.

(14) Jamil Hilal, ((Class Transformation in the West Bank and Gaza,» MERIP Reports, No. 53 (Decem¬

ber 1976), p. 10.

(15) /dem.


with the West Bank and Gaza — $513 million from 1967 to 1974.(16> Israel’s more advanced industry has given it the opportunity to purchase

the manufactured products of the West Bank and Gaza’s small industrial capacity, thereby rendering Palestinian industries dependent on Israeli purchases. This aspect of economic relations between Israel and the Terri¬ tories was discussed in a 1975 report of the Bank of Israel, which described various ways in which the West Bank and Gaza economies had become dependent on Israel. A summary of the Bank’s report said:

... the dependence of the territories on the Israeli economy goes much further... A substantial part of the modest industry existing in the territories is working on jobbing orders placed by Israeli manufacturers and merchants, and would be unable to find alternative markets.!17)

At the same time, due to its more advanced industry, Israel needs more workers. One of the first things the Israeli Government did after occupying the West Bank and Gaza was to establish employment agencies to recruit Palestinian workers for jobs nr Israel. In December 1968, the Israeli Ministry of Labor, which maintains these employment agencies/18) reported that 44% of the workers hired through them were directed to jobs in the West Bank; by March 1971,99% were employed in Israel.!19) The Israel Economist com¬ mented:

The Israeli government is channelling Palestinian workers into the lowest ranks of the Israeli proletariat by denying work permits to persons from the occupied territories for any job deemed appropriate for unemployed Israelis and by referring workers from the occupied territories only to unskilled or semi-skilled jobs.!201

The delegation believes that this practice violates Article 52 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which reads, in pertinent part:

(16)/^, See also Bank of Israel Research Department, The Economy of the Administered Areas in 1971, Jerusalem, 1972, p. 31, which, citing the Central Bureau of Statistics, provides the following statistics on exports from the West Bank and Gaza to Israel, and imports from Israel into the West

Bank and Gaza: 1968

exports imports West Bank 45 319 Gaza 9 50

1969 exports imports

45 179 7 82


68 191 8 100


82 228 19 128

!17)Jerusalem Post, January 29, 1975.

(lg)By the end of 1968, seven Labor Exchanges were set up in the West Bank with another five in Gaza. By 1975, there were 24 in the West Bank and 12 in Gaza and Sinai. Elie Rekhess, «The Employ¬ ment in Israel of Arab Labourers from the Administered Areas,» in 5 Israel Yearbook on Human Rights 389, 394. Prof. Rekhess is head of the Israeli-Arab Desk, Shiloah Centre for Middle Eastern and

African Studies, Tel Aviv University.

(!9)Israel Economist, October 1971; according to Davar, August 9, 1977, 43,000 workers from the Occupied Territories were active inside Israel through official Labor Exchanges, during 1976-1977,

working some 10 million work-days.

(20)Israel Economist, October 1971.

DOCUMENTS 113

All measures aiming at creating unemployment or at restricting the opportunities

offered to workers in an occupied territory, in order to induce them to work for

the Occupying Power, are prohibited.

...Year after year the number of Palestinians working in Israel has increas¬ ed. While unemployment in the West Bank and Gaza has been reduced drama¬ tically 21) this has occurred because of increased employment within the Isra¬ eli economy, rather than because of advancements in the economies of the occupied areas. Local income has not risen; the increase in income results from work inside Israel.(2 2)

From the West Bank and Gaza, Israel has succeeded in providing itself with a large force of Palestinian labor. The total number of West Bank and Gaza Palestinians working in Israel jumped from only 9,000 in 1969 to 70,000 in 1974.(23) Of the total number of Palestinian wage workers (119,000), fully 50% worked inside Israel/24)

In the crisis-ridden Israeli economy, West Bank and Gaza workers are expendable labor during periods of economic downturn. The 1975 Bank of Israel report notes this advantage to Israel of West Bank and Gaza workers, indicating that as they are employed in Israel on a day-to-day basis, they are

GL|jnempioyment in the West Bank fell from 13% in 1968 to 0.9% in 1974; unemployment in Gaza fell from 43% to approximately 1%. [Anne Sinai and Allen Pollack, Editors, The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the West Bank: A Handbook (New York: American Academic Association for Peace in the Middle East, 1977), p. 226]confirmed in Danny Rubinstein, «The Recession in the Israeli Economy Emphasizes the Importance of the Workers from the Territories,» Davar, May 18, 1976. Rubinstein goes on to point out, however, that many thousands of Palestinians, not counted in the official statistics as unemployed, have actually ceased employment: «Those who stopped working were mostly Arab women who, in the past, went to work in Israel and in the territories only when demand for labour was great. This year, many women returned to their housework in the Arab village; the same applies to many children who used to be part of the labour force in the past (mainly in agriculture).»

(2-)xhe 1978 State Department Report, pp. 368-369, cited above in Note 6 to Introduction, stated that the economy of the occupied areas themselves «has remained relatively stagnant.» The Bank of Israel Research Department, The Economy of the Administered Areas in 1972, Jerusalem, 1974, p. 30, states:

The rise in employment is accounted for entirely by the rise of employment in Israel, whereas the number of persons employed in the administered areas themselves dropped by some 5 per¬ cent. In 1971 too, the rise in the employment of area residents in Israel led to a 5 percent de¬ cline in the number of persons employed in the administered areas themselves.

(23)pjijai, p. io cited above in Note 2. Ma’ariv put the «real figure» at 80,000 in a September 5, 1974, report. According to Danny Rubinstein, «The Recession in the Israeli Economy Emphasizes the Importance of the Workers from the Territories,» cited above in Note 9, the average figure was 68,500 for 1974, and 66.000 in 1975. Prof. Rekhess, p. 402, cited above in Note 6, provided the following statistics from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, Family Survey, 1968-1975, concerning the number of Palestinians employed in Israel (p. 402):

1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 West Bank 4.0 10.0 14.7 25.6 34.9 38.6 42.6 Gaza 1.0 2.0 5.9 8.2 17.5 22.7 26.1 Total 5.0 12.0 20.6 33.8 52.4 61.3 68.7

(in thousands)

GUnilal, p. 11, cited above in Note 2.


the first to be affected by slowdowns.!25) Davar’s Danny Rubinstein was similarly impressed by this situation:

...an Arab worker is extremely movable, one can fire him at any moment and trans¬

fer him from one place to another; he does not strike and he has no «claims)) as the

Israeli worker has. In short, in many economic respects, the workers of the terri¬

tories are a treasure for the Israeli economy.(26)

Palestinians are recruited to the lowest-paying jobs. But the very lowest paid of the West Bank and Gaza laborers in Israel are those unable to find jobs through ordinary channels and who participate in «illegal» labor ex¬

changes, gathering «every morning in a series of agreed upon junctions and meeting places ... These are part of the thirty thousand unorganized workers, whose gathering every morning constitutes the stock-exchange of manual labor.»<27)

Some of them are kept on a semi-permanent, slave-like basis at the Israeli factories where they work. Reporter Ary eh Egozi described their plight:

Every evening the doors of the warehouses, which have turned into improvised living quarters, are locked; thousands of laborers from the occupied territories, who

work in a variety of factories within the green line, are kept inside. The doors re¬

main locked until the early morning hours, a short time before the beginning of the

work day. This phenomenon, well-known to the police and civilian patrols that make the

rounds nightly in the areas of concentrated Arab laborers, was brought to the general public’s attention as a result of the blaze that broke out two nights ago in a

small mattress factory in Tel Aviv. After extinguishing the fire, the firemen rushed

into the structure that was completely destroyed and found three cremated bodies. A brief investigation brought to light that the victims were young laborers from

the Gaza Strip, who worked in the factory and slept there at night.

...thepoliceinvestigationrevealed that the three were not able to escape from the room

in which they were sleeping, because the door had been locked from the outside.

...the phenomenon of locking doors of rooms, leading to where workers from the

occupied territories are billeted,is widespread.^28)

(25) Rubinstein, Davar, May 18, 1976, cited above in Note 9, noted this same phenomenon: «... If a certain factory was in trouble, the workers from the territories were first to be fired.»

(26) May 18, 1976.

(27) Danny Rubinstein, «Hard Times for Arab Workers,» Davar, January 31, 1975.

(28) Aryeh Egozi, «Slaves atNight - Workers During the Day,» Yediot Aharonot, March 16,1976 addi¬ tional reports in Nathan Dunvitz, «People and Values Go Up in Flames,)) Ha’aretz, March 19, 1976, and London Economist, March 20, 1976. This is not the only example of such conditions. According to Al-Hamishmar, August 25, 1977:

Several serious accidents have happened, and various Arab workers have burned to death, because they could not get away when fire broke out. The day before yesterday, a further horrible catastrophe was reported from Jaffa, when an Arab worker burned to death in a locked work-shop. [Another newspaper story said that this incident only caused serious injury, but no deaths.] These terrible incidents have social, political and economic aspects, and it is impossible to exaggerate their seriousness. And Danny Rubinstein commented: «... the social conditions of the workers from the territories

can’t stand comparison with those of the Israeli workers...» Davar, May 18, 1976, cited above in Note 9.

DOCUMENTS 115

Further exacerbating the exploitation of these low-paid workers, the Israeli Government deducts up to 40% of their wages for insurance funds — far more than the portion deducted from an Israeli worker’s wage. !2 9 ^The West Bank or Gaza laborer also does not enjoy such benefits given Israeli workers as paid holidays, medical insurance, unemployment insurance, and retire¬ ment pensions.

The Palestinian worker is thus forced to pay a tribute to Israel for the privilege of employment, over and above the surplus value extracted by Israeli capital. The total of this tribute, which accrues to the Israeli treasury, has been estimated for the period 1968-1974 at $260 million (based on 1973 value of Israeli Pound).!3 °)

All the above has had a devastating impact on the economies of the West Bank and Gaza. Between 1969 and 1973, the number of Palestinian workers in Gaza and the West Bank declined by 11,000, while the number working in Israel increased by 50,300.(31> Currently, most West Bank and Gaza wage earners work in Israel. As early as 1972, a count revealed that 50% of all West Bank and Gaza wage workers were employed in Israel <3 21 and that count did not include the 30,000 «illegals.»

Construction is one Palestinian industry that has suffered as a result of this labor displacement. In 1969, 11,700 workers were employed in con¬ struction in the West Bank and Gaza, while 4,600 worked in construction in Israel. By 1973, the situation had reversed itself, with only 5,800 Palestinian

According to Davar, September 9, 1977, Saul Ben-Simhon, Chairman of the Histadrut Labor Federation Committee created to control labor safety conditions of workers from Gaza and the West Bank, declared before the Labor Commission of the Knesset: most non-organized workers are employ¬ ed in small workshops, where safety conditions are nil.

d^Ha’aretz, August 8, 1969, reported statistics of gross pay and amounts deducted for Palestinian workers which amounted to this percentage. In 1972, according to Prof. Rekhess, p. 408, cited above in Note 6, 41,000 Palestinians from the Territories were employed through Labor Exchanges, labor costs were 244 million Israeli Pounds, but net income to these Palestinians was only 164 million Israeli pounds (30% being deducted for tax and social benefits). For 1977, Davar, September 9, 1977, report¬ ed: «The amounts taken by the Employment Agency from salaries paid by employers to Arab workers from the Occupied Territories are no less than 126 million [Israeli Pounds] a year»

Subsequent to the «equalization» decision, Yediot Aharonot, August 16, 1977, reported, «At this stage, the [Government] Spokesman said, no plan exists to implement Social Security for the Terri¬ tories. On the other hand, tax collection will be ‘deepened’.))

!30^Hilal , pp. 11 and 15, cited above in Note 2.

^^Hilal, p. 12, cited above in Note 2; see Bank of Israel Research Department, The Economy of the Administered Areas, First Half 1970, Jerusalem (December 1970), p. 5, which says: «As a result of the considerable employment in Israel labor shortages began to appear in various places in the territories.)) On September 5, 1974, Ma’ariv reported that the West Bank was suffering from a shortage of labor. Prof. Rekhess, cited above in Note 6, after relating statistics as to the numbers of Palestinians employ¬ ed in Israel, commented: «It is no wonder that employment in the areas themselves dropped at an annual average of 3.5 per cent between 1969 and 1973.» (p. 402)

(32)Davar, October 4,1972.

1 16 THE ARABS UNDER ISRAELI OCCUPATION, 1978

construction workers employed in the West Bank and Gaza and 30,000 em¬ ployed in Israel/33}

Israeli corporations have been given substantial financial inducements to penetrate the West Bank and Gaza economies. The highest corporate income tax payable in Gaza is 33%, as compared to Israel’s 80%; loans are granted on easy terms, and buildings are provided by the Israeli Government practically rent free. Employers in Gaza are not made to contribute towards workers’ social insurance, on the ground that Egyptian law contained no such provi¬

sion. The dependence of the West Bank and Gaza on Israel’s economy is also

manifested in the Palestinian agricultural sector, where Israel has imposed a dependent specialization: production of agricultural inputs for Israeli indus¬ try, and production of produce for the Israeli domestic and export markets.3 4

Israeli authorities have restricted exports to Israel of competitive agri¬ cultural products from the West Bank and Gaza. Thus, while vegetable grow¬ ing has greatly expanded in the West Bank and Gaza, the Jerusalem Post re¬ ported in 1975f3 5) that «acreage under watermelons has decreased to a fifth of its previous size.»(36) More recent statistics indicate the watermelon crop, traditionally important in West Bank agriculture, has suffered a 90% decline from former levels; the purpose for this decline is to prevent the West Bank watermelon crop from competing with extensive areas in the Negev (in Is¬ rael) which have been developed for melon production/3 7)

(33) Hilal, p. 12, cited above in Note 2.

(34) According to Bank of Israel Research Department, cited above in Note 10, there was a growing trend, in 1972,

towards changing the composition of crops ... in an attempt to encompass all three economies - namely, those of Israel, Judaea and Samaria, and the Gaza Strip - in a single over-all planning framework. The results of these changes in the structure of production were expressed in 1972, as plots devoted to water melons and the like, for example, gave way to export crops such as peppers, eggplants, marrows, celery, and onions destined for overseas markets, as well as to crops destined for export and industry in Israel, such as tomatoes ... cucumbers, okra, beans and maize.

The Bank of Israel, on p. 18, continues: ... crops for industry and export went up considerably in both the Gaza Strip and ... Judaea and Samaria. Some vegetables were selected for their high yields when out of season in Israel. The trend towards overall planning for all three agricultural systems [Israel, West Bank and Gaza] was encouraged and directed by Israeli instructors...

G5)january 29,1975.

(3 Vjdem.

G7)interview with West Bank economist A.R. Husseini, MERIP Reports, No. 60 (September 1977), p. 21. In fact, the Bank of Israel Report, cited above in Note 10, noted that watermelons are now even being imported from Israel to the occupied areas: «Watermelons and the like have largely-yielded their place to more profitable crops such as ground nuts and vegetables for export... [T] he demand for watermelons and melons in both the Gaza Strip and Judaea and Samaria was supplemented by imports from Israel.» (p. 18)

DOCUMENTS 117

West Bank economist A.R. Husseini writes that Israel’s Department of Agriculture is «anxious to promote certain crops for the benefit of Israeli exporters,)) thereby creating «production patterns along lines which are not compatible with the long-term interests of West Bank agriculture.)) Husseini comments that Agrexco (the Israeli food exporting company)

...promotes labor-intensive crops which command high prices abroad, and if

Agrexco were to stop this ... these farmers would be in a difficult position because these crops are not marketable on the West Bank.(38)

West Bank and Gaza agriculture has been hurt by competition from Israel, where the government provides farmers a 15%-30% subsidy plus credit ad¬ vantages to facilitate modernization.^39) As a result, not only have West Bank and Gaza farmers experienced difficulty selling their products, but West

Bank and Gaza farmers have been drawn into the Israeli agricultural labor force. Agricultural employment dropped 12% in the Gaza Strip from 1969 to 1973. In the West Bank, it fell from 10,400 in 1969 to 3,900 in 1973. During that same period, West Bank farm workers employed by Israeli farmers in Israel increased from 1,700 to 3,40034°)

All this has caused farming in the West Bank to become prohibitively ex¬ pensive, with many farmers abandoning their land and becoming workers in Israel.^41)

To further worsen the situation of West Bank and Gaza inhabitants, the value of wages earned and products grown and manufactured has been seriously eroded by Israeli inflation. The consumer price index in Israel in October 1974, was 305% of its 1969 level342) The most rapid inflation has been in food, so it has hit poor families the hardest.

08)Idem.

(39) Ibid., p. 22. In addition, Israeli goods can be marketed freely in the West Bank and Gaza, while no goods from those areas can be marketed inside Israel unless a permit is first obtained. (Interview with Paul Quiring.)

(40) Hiial, p. 12, cited above in Note 2; see also Bank of Israel Report, cited above in Note 10, which said: «The increase in employment opportunities in Israel led to a further decline in the number of persons engaged in domestic agriculture.» (p. 20) The London Economist, March 18,1972, reported on a farm of the Arab Development Society near Jericho:

...It was once the biggest dairy and poultry farm in the region. It has had to cut its herds because its principal former customers, the big hotels in East Jerusalem, are now obliged to buy Israeli milk. It used to supply the whole West Bank with day-old chicks and broilers. Now it can no longer do so because it could not compete with similar Israeli products subsidized by the Government that were dumped in the West Bank at half the normal price during its necessarily short trading season. So the ADS was put out of the poultry business...»

G* ^London Economist, March 18, 1972.

(42)proni june 1967 through February 1972, the cost of living rose 300%. (London Economist, March 18, 1972); between January 1973 and May 1974, the inflation rate was 44% (New York Times, May 24, 1974, p. 5); between April 1974 and April 1976, the intlation rate was 120% (New York Times, April 19, 1976, p. 5); during 1976, the rate was 38% (New York Times, February 22, 1977, p. 45, citing Israel Central Bank Governor Arnon Gafni); Minister of Finance Simcha Ehrlich predicted a, 1977 inflation of 38% (New York Times, October 31, 1977, p. 1) and a 30% rate for 1978 (New York Times, January 10, 1978, p. 5).


All these developments have not been without certain benefits to the West Bank and Gaza. Israeli statistics are that between 1968 and 1975, tomato production in Gaza tripled, citrus production more than doubled, and in the West Bank, wheat production rose 50%, banana production more than dou¬ bled, and poultry production more than tripled.!4 3) However, because of demographic, land ownership, and other changes since 1967, the benefits of these production increases often have not accrued to Palestinians.

Israeli statistics also show that unemployment in the West Bank fell from 13% to 0.9% between 1968 and 1974, and in Gaza from 43% to 1%.!44^ In 1976, six times as many households in the West Bank (and nine times as many in Gaza) owned refrigerators as in 1967345>

However, as Jamil Hilal pointed out in 1976: Temporary or permanent increase in purchasing power among the Palestinian

population has largely accrued to the most privileged segments, the bourgeoisie and the professionals. They have generally spent increases in income on Israeli consumer goods rather than on savings and investment. Thus the number of families with a television on the West Bank went from 2% to 21% of the population, while those with refrigerators went from 5% to 21% . Likewise the number of private auto¬ mobiles increased sharply, from 2,100 at the end of 1971 to 3,800 in the middle of 1973 in the West Bank. The great majority of the people were not able to afford such luxuries, of course. Families without electricity, for example, remained at 65% of the population in the West Bank and 77% in Gaza; those without running water in. their homes were 81% in the West Bank and 92% in Gaza; those without bath¬ rooms in their homes were 84% in the West Bank and 87% in Gaza, and so on...(46)

The gains in consumption have come at the price, as indicated above, not only of extreme exploitation of the Palestinian work force but also the sub-

^■^Information Briefing 362, cited above in Note 10 to Chapter III; according to a 1971 newspaper article, income from growing citrus crops in Gaza decreased by half between 1967 and 1971. «Grow- ers of citrus crops can sell their produce only to Israeli government cooperatives, who pay the citrus grower half the price they received prior to June, 1967.» R. Amling, «Gaza 1971 — An Eye-witness Account,» Daily Star of Beirut, March 28, 1971. In a letter to the United Nations Special Committee, dated July 29, 1970, the United Arab Repub¬ lic (Egyptian) Government claimed that the interference of the Israeli occupation authorities had virtually ruined the citrus fruit business in Gaza. Doc. A/8089 (1970), para. 136, p. 59. The letter cites the following, among other things, as evidence: (1) prohibition from export to Europe, even where contractual obligations existed, (2) by fixing the picking season, the earlier ripening Gaza crop lost its competitive edge, (3) requiring the waxing of fruit, (4) export duties, and (5) irrigation regulations which affected the productivity of the land. U.A.R. letter of July 19, 1970, reprinted in Annex V, p. 21, of Doc. A/8089.

(4^Sinai an(j Pollack, The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the West Bank, p. 226 .cited above in Note 50 to Chapter I.

(^Information Briefing 362, cited above in Note 10 to Chapter III; see also Information Briefing,

Human Rights in the Administered Areas, Israel Information Centre, Jerusalem (August 1976), p. 9, which provides similar statistics concerning the ownership of durable goods.

(46)Hiial, Note 7, p. 15, cited above in Note 2. In any case, former Finance Minister Pinhas Sapii noted: «... those who believe that an improved living standard can compensate for national aspirations have not learned the lessons of history.» Cited by Eric Rouleau in Le Monde, January 9-13, 1973.

DOCUMENTS 119

stantial incorporation of the West Bank and Gaza economies into that of Israel. In the West Bank and Gaza economies there is a clash between two economies — between Israel’s grant-aided, intensely capitalized and broadly protected agriculture, and the traditional Palestinian type, which is labor- intensive, manually skilled, but vulnerable and unorganized. As the U.N. Special Committee wrote in 1972:

...the alleged improvement is merely the natural consequence of an underdeveloped economy being brought into a close relationship with and placed unavoidably in a position of dependence on a more developed economy. In such circumstances it is to be expected that the standard of living, wages, prices, etc. in the weaker econo-

. my would increase as the impact on it of the stronger economy came to be felt/47)

In 1972, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan said that, in his opinion, «eco- nomics was the fly-wheel that kept Israel and the [occupied] areas connect¬ ed.»4 8

In 1973, the Jerusalem Post indicated the economies of Israel and the Oc¬ cupied Territories had become so dependent on each other that restoration of the former borders would harm the economies of both Israel and the oc¬ cupied territories.)) The report stated that Israel’s economic growth «is now vitally dependent on the productive resources of the territories and they are no longer viable without the connection with Israel.»(4 9) The Post added that Israeli economic activities in the Territories are treated like extensions of the Israeli economy. Referring to the influx of laborers from the West Bank

and Gaza, the report stated: This involves social and national strains and problems, but should this process be

reversed - or even stopped — the Israeli economy would be severely handicapped. It is no less evident that the restoration of the Green Line as a frontier obstructing the free movement of goods and people would cause an economic collapse in the territories which have by now become an adjunct to the Israeli economy, even though their inhabitants may resent it ... [A] together one may estimate that close to one half of the territories’ income now depends on ties with Israel/50)

G7)u.N. Special Committee Report, Doc. A/8828 (1972), para. 75, p. 37; there is no doubt that the underdevelopment imposed upon the West Bank and Gaza by Jordan and Egypt, respectively, was severe:

Eighteen years of Jordanian Hashemite rule left eastern Palestine — the West Bank region of the Jordan River - severely underdeveloped. The West Bank economy suffered not only from the general crisis of the Jordanian economy but also from the Hashemite regime’s policy of discrimination against the area which prevented the development of its productive forces. Deprived of any real industrial or agricultural investment, the region had an extremely high rate of unemployment during these eighteen years. [Hilal, p. 9,cited above in Note 20.]

G8)Jerusalem Post, December 14, 1972.

(49)£ee also Allen Gerson, «Trustee - Occupant: The Legal Status of Israel’s Presence in the West Bank,» 14 Harvard International Law Journal 1,47 (1973): «... in the long run a pattern may develop in which Israel becomes dependent on the West Bank as a captive market and a source of unskilled labor.»

^°)Jerusalem Post, March 26,1973; soon after the «equalization)) decision. Chairmen of the Chambers of Commerce in the West Bank appealed to the Military Govern¬ ment to cancel economic unification of the Occupied Territories and Israel, and to go back —


The U.N. Special Committee, in 1972, described the relationship between Israel and the Occupied Territories as a

...classic pattern of colonial economic dominance and exploitation. Such a policy, if given free rein, would reduce the economy of the Occupied Territories to a posi¬ tion of almost entire dependence on the economy of the Occupying Power for a long time after the end of the occupation. In this sense, the Special Committee has come to the conclusion that the occupation is causing undue interference in the economic life of the Occupied Territories and even if, for the sake of argument, it is conceded that certain short-term benefits are accruing to the population of the Occupied Territories the situation could in the long run prove irreversible and, therefore, prove detrimental to the economic future of these territories.(51)

For Israel, the gains have been immense. Israel thus has a tremendous economic motivation for retaining its hold on the West Bank and Gaza. This fact is of great significance in determining the Israeli Government opposition to giving up these areas. It is also key in creating the need for Israel to in¬ corporate the West Bank and Gaza into Israel.

economically - to the former border-lines, so that Israeli economy should not determine the economic situation in the Territories .... They asked to have a check-post set up on the former border («The Green Line») and to prevent free commerce, as it exists now. {Davar, November

2,1977.]

U.N. Special Committee Report, Doc. A/8828 (1972), para. 77, p. 38.

121

IV United Nations Resolutions and Special Reports(1)

GENERAL ASSEMBLY

Resolution No 33/28 A, of 7 December 1978

Reaffirming that a just and lasting peace cannot be achieved in the mid¬

dle EAST WITHOUT A JUST SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM OF PALESTINE BASED ON THE

ATTAINMENT OF THE INALIENABLE RIGHTS OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE

The General Assembly,... 1. Expresses its grave concern that no just solution to the problem of

Palestine has been achieved and that this problem therefore continues to ag¬ gravate the Middle East conflict, of which it is the core, and to endanger international peace and security;

2. Reaffirms that a just and lasting peace in the Middle East cannot be established without the achievement, inter alia, of a just solution of the problem of Palestine on the basis of the attainment of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including the right of return and the right to na¬ tional independence and sovereignty in Palestine, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations;

3. Calls once more for the invitation of the Palestine Liberation Organiza¬ tion, the representative of the Palestinian people, to participate, on the basis of General Assembly resolution 3236 (XXIII), in all efforts, deliberations and conferences on the Middle East which are held under the auspices of the United Nations, on an equal footing with other parties;

4. Declares that the validity of agreements purporting to solve the prob¬ lem of Palestine requires that they be within the framework of the United Nations and its Charter and its resolutions on the basis of the full attainment and exercise of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including the right of return and the right to national independence and sovereignty in Palestine, and with the participation of the Palestine Liberation Organization;

U^For the complete text of the resolutions, see United Nations Resolutions on Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1978 (Beirut, Institute for Palestine Studies and Centre for Research and Docu¬ mentation at Abu Dhabi, 1979).


Resolution No 33/29 of 7 December 1978

Condemning Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian territory and CALLING FOR A COMPREHENSIVE SETTLEMENT

The General Assembly, Having discussed the item entitled «The situation in the Middle East», Recalling its previous resolutions on the subject, in particular resolutions

3414 (XXX) of 5 December .1975, 31/61 of 9 December 1976, 32/20 of 25 November 1977 and 33/28 of 7 December 1978,

Taking into account the decisions of the Conference of Ministers for Foreign Affairs of Non-Aligned Countries, held at Belgrade from 25 to 30 July 1978 concerning the situation in the Middle East and the question of Palestine,

Deeply concerned that the Arab territories occupied since 1967 have con¬ tinued, for more than eleven years, to be under illegal Israeli occupation and that the Palestinian people, after three decades, is still deprived of the ex¬ ercise of its inalienable national rights,

Reaffirming that the acquisition of territory by force is inadmissible and that all territories thus occupied must be returned,

Reaffirming also the urgent necessity of the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the region, based on full respect for the principles of the Charter of the United Nations as well as for its resolutions concerning the problem of the Middle East including the question of Palestine,

Convinced that the early convening of the Peace Conference on the Mid¬ dle East with the participation of all parties concerned, including the Pales¬ tine Liberation Organization, in accordance with relevant resolutions of the General Assembly, is essential for the realization of a just and lasting settle¬ ment in the region,

1. Condemns Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian and other Arab territories, in violation of the charter of the United Nations, the principles of international law and repeated resolutions of the United Nations;

2. Declares that peace is indivisible and that a just and lasting settlement of the Middle East problem must be based on a comprehensive solution, under the auspices of the United Nations, which takes into account all aspects of the Arab-Israeli conflict, in particular the attainment by the Palestinian people of all its inalienable national rights and the Israeli with¬ drawal from all the occupied Palestinian and other Arab territories;

3. Reaffirms that until Israel withdraws from all occupied Palestinian and other Arab territories, and until the Palestinian people attains and exercises its inalienable national rights, a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East, in which all countries and peoples in the region live in peace and security within recognized and secure boundaries, will not be achieved;

4. Calls anew for the early convening of the Peace Conference on the Middle East, under the auspices of the United Nations and the co-chairmanship of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States of

UNITED NATIONS RESOLUTIONS 123

America, with the participation on an equal footing of all parties concerned, including the Palestine Liberation Organization in accordance with General Assembly resolution 3375 (XXX) of 10 November 1975;

Resolution 33/112 E,F of 18 December 1978 ON PALESTINE REFUGEES

E

The General Assembly ...

1. Calls once more upon Israel (a) To take effective steps immediately for the return of the refugees con¬

cerned to the camps from which they were removed in the Gaza Strip and to provide adequate shelters for their accommodation;

(b) To desist from further removal of refugees and destruction of their shelters;

2. Requests the Secretary-General after consulting with the Commissioner- General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, to report to the General Assembly by the open¬ ing of its thirty-fourth session on Israel’s compliance with paragraph 1 of the present resolution.

F

The General Assembly ...

1. Reaffirms the inalienable right of all the displaced inhabitants to return to their homes or former places of residence in the territories occupied by Is¬ rael since 1967, and declares that any attempt to restrict or to attach con¬ ditions to, the free exercise of the right of return by any displaced person is inconsistent with that inalienable right and inadmissible;

2. Deplores the continued refusal of the Israeli authorities to take steps for the return of the displaced inhabitants;

3. Calls once more upon Israel:

(a) To take immediate steps for the return of all the displaced inhabitants; (b) To desist from all measures that obstruct the return of the displaced

inhabitants including measures affecting the physical and demographic struc¬ ture of the occupied territories.


Resolution 33/113 C of 18 December 1978

Condemning Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the population OF THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

The General Assembly. 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 Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949, as well as of other relevant conventions and regulations,

Recalling all its resolutions on the subject in particular resolutions 32/91 B and C of 13 December 1977, as well as those adopted by the Security Council, the Commission on Human Rights and other United Nations Organs concerned and by the specialized agencies,

Having considered the report of the Special Committee to Investigate Is¬ raeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupi¬ ed Territories, which contains, inter alia, public statements made by leaders of the government of Israel,

1. Commends the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Af¬ fecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied Territories for its efforts in performing the tasks assigned to it by the General Assembly and for its thoroughness and impartiality;

2. Deplores the continued refusal by Israel to allow the Special Committee access to the occupied territories;

3. Calls again upon Israel to allow the Special Committee access to the oc¬ cupied territories;

4. Deplores the continued and persistent 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 international instruments, and con¬ demns in particular those violations which that Convention designates as «grave breaches)) thereof;

5. Condemns the following Israeli policies and practices: (a) Annexation of parts of the occupied territories; (b) Establishment of new Israeli settlements and expansion of the existing

settlements on private and public Arab lands, and transfer of an alien popula¬ tion thereto;

(c) Evacuation, deportation, expulsion, displacement and transfer of Arab inhabitants of the occupied territories and denial of their right to return;

(d) Confiscation and expropriation of private and public Arab property in the occupied territories and all other transactions for the acquisition of land involving the Israeli authorities, institutions or nationals on the one hand, and the inhabitants or institutions of the occupied territories on the other;

(e) Destruction and demolition of Arab houses;


(f) Mass arrests, administrative detention and ill-treatment of the Arab population;

(g) Ill-treatment and torture of persons under detention; (h) Pillaging of archaeological and cultural property; (i) Interference with religious freedoms and practices as well as family

rights and customs; (j) Illegal exploitation of the natural wealth, resources and population of

the occupied territories; 6. Reaffirms that all measures taken by Israel to change the physical

character, demographic composition, institutional structure or status of the occupied territories, or any part thereof, including Jerusalem, are null and void, and that Israel’s policy of settling parts of its population and new immigrants in the occupied territories constitutes a flagrant violation of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and of the relevant United Nations resolutions,

7. Demands that Israel desist forthwith from the policies and practices referred to in paragraphs 5 and 6 of the present resolution,

8. Reiterates its call upon all States, in particular those States parties to the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, in accordance with article 1 of that Convention, and upon inter¬ national organizations and the specialized agencies not to recognize any changes carried out by Israel in the occupied territories and to avoid actions, including those in the field of aid, which might be used by Israel in its pursuit of the policies of annexation and colonization or any of the other policies and practices referred to in the present resolution;

COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS

Resolution I,A (XXXIV) of 14 February 1978

Concerning the violation of human rights in the occupied arab terri¬ tories

The Commission on Human Rights ... 1. Expresses its grave anxiety and concern over the deteriorating serious

situation in the occupied Arab territories as a result of continued Israeli oc¬ cupation and aggression, in particular:

(a) The intensification of the establishment of settlers’ colonies; (b) The continued and increasing use of arbitrary detention, torture, ill-

treatment and cruel treatment of Arab detainees and prisoners; 2. Calls upon Israel to take immediate steps for the return of the Pales¬

tinians and the other displaced inhabitants of the occupied Arab territories to their homes;


3. Declares that Israel’s grave breaches of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949 are war crimes and an affront to humanity;

4. Condemns the following Israeli policies and practices: (a) The annexation of parts of the occupied territories; (b) The establishment of Israeli settlements therein and the transfer of an

alien population thereto; (c) The evacuation, deportation, expulsion, displacement and transfer of

Arab inhabitants of the occupied territories, and the denial of their right to return;

(d) The confiscation and expropriation of Arab property in the occupied territories and all other transactions for the acquisition of land involving Israeli authorities, institutions or nationals on the one hand, and inhabitants or institutions of the occupied territories on the other;

(e) The destruction and demolition of Arab houses; (f) Mass arrests, administrative detention and ill-treatment of the Arab

population; (g) The ill-treatment and torture of persons under detention; (h) The pillaging of archaeological and cultural property;

(i) The interference with religious freedoms and practices as well as family rights and customs;

O') The illegal exploitation of the natural wealth, resources and population of the occupied territories;

5. Further condemns administrative and legislative measures by the Israeli authorities to encourage, promote and expand the establishment of settlers’ colonies in the occupied territories, which further demonstrate Israel’s deter¬ mination to annex those territories;

6. Reaffirms that all measures taken by Israel to change the physical character, demographic composition, institutional structure or status of the occupied territories, or any part thereof, including Jerusalem, are null and void, and that Israel’s policy of settling parts of its population and new settlers in the occupied territories constitutes a flagrant violation of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and of the relevant United Nations resolutions;

7. Demands that Israel desist forthwith from the policies and practices referred to in paragraphs 4,5 and 6 above;

8 .Demands that Israel cease forthwith all acts of torture-and ill-treatment of Arab detainees and prisoners;

9. Calls upon Israel to release all Arabs detained or imprisoned as a result of their struggle for self-determination and the liberation of their territories, and to accord to them, pending their release, the protection envisaged in the relevant provisions concerning the treatment of prisoners of war;


Resolution 2 (XXXIV) of 14 February 1978

Affirming the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-deter¬ mination

The Commission on Human Rights, 1. Affirms the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determina¬

tion without external interference and the establishment of a fully inde¬ pendent and sovereign State in Palestine;

2. Reaffirms the inalienable right of the Palestinians to return to their homes and property from which they have b*een displaced and uprooted, and calls for their return in the exercise of their right to self-determination;

3. Recognizes the right of the Palestinian people to regain their rights by all means in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations;

4. Urges all States and international organizations to extend their support to the Palestinian people through their representative, the Palestine Libera¬ tion Organization, in its struggle to restore its rights in accordance with the Charter;

5. Requests the Secretary-General to make available to the Commission on Human Rights and to the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities the reports, studies and publications prepared by the Special Unit on Palestinian Rights, which was established by General Assembly resolution 3 2/40 B.

UNESCO

Resolution No 20C/14.1 of 27 November 1978

Inviting the director-general to take all measures necessary for the IMPLEMENTATION of 18 C/RESOLUTION 13.1 AND 19 C/RESOLUTION 15.1 CONCERNING EDUCATIONAL AND CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS IN THE OCCUPIED ARAB TERRITORIES

The General Conference, Considering that in its resolution 13.1 which it adopted at its eighteenth

session, after examining document 18C/16 entitled ‘Report by the Director- General on the Situation of the National Education and the Cultural Life of Peoples in the Occupied Arab Territories’, the General Conference:

Considering that in resolution 15.1, which it adopted at its nineteenth session, after examining document 19C/13, the General Conference


2. Makes a final urgent appeal to Israel finally to co-operate in normalizing this situation and in so doing cease to incur general disapproval for its intolerable defiance of the community of nations;

Reaffirming that access to national education and culture is one of the fundamental human rights which are enshrined in the United Nations Charter and the Constitituon of Unesco,

Recalling that the military occupation of territories by foreign troops represents a permanent threat to peace and human rights,

Condemning as contrary to human rights and fundamental freedoms all violations, resulting from Israeli occupation, of the rights of the populations living in all the occupied Arab territories to national education and cultural life, and particularly the policy of systematic cultural assimilation,

Having taken note of the report (20C/133) submitted by the Director- General containing the reports of the members of the fact-finding mission on the educational and cultural situation in the Arab territories occupied by

Israel, 1. Warmly thanks the Director-General for the intensive efforts he has

made since the eighteenth session of the General Conference; 2. Regrets that the mission was not in a position to carry out its task with

respect to Jerusalem; 3. Also expresses its severe disapproval of the Israeli authorities’ statement

that they will not comply with the resolutions adopted by Unesco since the eighteenth session of the General Conference;

5. Reaffirms resolutions 18C/13.1 and 19C/15.1 and invites the Director- General to take all the necessary measures to secure the complete and effec¬ tive implementation of the letter and spirit of these resolutions and of the recommendations mentioned in the foregoing paragraph;

Resolution No 20C/7.6 of 28 November 1978

Condemning Israel for changing and judaizing the historic and cultural CONFIGURATIONS OF JERUSALEM

The General Conference, Considering the importance of the role played by Unesco, in accordance

with its Constitution, in the protection and preservation of the world heritage of monuments of historic or scientific value,

Considering the exceptional importance of the cultural property in the Old City of Jerusalem, not only to the countries directly concerned but to all humanity, on account of its unique cultural, historical and religious value,


Recalling Article 32 of the Recommendation on International Principles Applicable to Archaeological Excavations, adopted by the General Con¬ ference at its ninth session (New Delhi, 1956), which stipulates that, in the event of armed conflict, any Member State occupying the territory of another State should refrain from carrying out archaeological excavations in the occupied territory,

Considering that Israel, taking advantage of its military occupation of the territory, has unilaterally and in defiance of all accepted laws, taken upon itself to alter the configuration and status of the City of Jerusalem,

Considering that such a situation, resulting from an act of force which offends the conscience of the international community as a whole, jeopar¬ dizes the chances of restoring the peace for which it is Unesco’s task to work, and has incurred the reprobation of the community of nations.

Considering that in its resolutions 2253 (ES-V) of 4 July 1967, 2254

(ES-V) of 14 July 1967, and 32/5 of 28 October 1977, the United Nations General Assembly reaffirmed that the changes undertaken by Israel in the City of Jerusalem are unlawful, and called upon Israel to rescind all such measures already taken and to desist from taking any action which would alter the status of Jerusalem,

Considering that the United Nations Security Council noted, in its resolu¬ tions 252 (1968) of 21 May 1968 and 267 (1969) of 3 July 1969, that the measures taken by Israel which tend to change the status of Jerusalem are invalid and cannot change that status, and called upon Israel to rescind forth¬ with all measures taken by it and in future to refrain from all action likely to alter the status of Jerusalem,

Recalling that since the fifteenth session of the General Conference (1968) Unesco has urgently called on Israel to desist from any archaeological excavations in the City of Jerusalem and from any alteration of its features or its cultural and historical character, particularly with regard to Christian and Islamic religious sites (15C/Resolution 3.342 and 3.343, EX/Decision 4.4.2, 83 EX/Decision 4.3.1, 88 EX/Decision 4.3.1, 89 EX/Decision 4.4.1, 17C/Resolution 3.422, 18C/Resolution 3.427 and 19C/Resolution 4.129),

Bearing in mind that, at its seventeenth session, the General Conference, in resolution 3.422,

(a) noted ‘that Israel persists in not complying with the relevant resolu¬ tions and that its attitude prevents this Organization from undertaking the mission which is incumbent upon it under the terms of the Constitution’,

(b) invited ‘the Director-General to continue his efforts to establish the

effective presence of Unesco in the City of Jerusalem and thus make possible the actual implementation of the resolutions adopted by the General Con¬ ference and the Executive Board for that purpose’,

Considering that it is most legitimately that, on the basis of these very clear resolutions, reiterated with a constant patience dictated_by the need to preserve peace, and in compliance with the letter and spirit of the aforemen¬ tioned resolutions of the General Assembly and the Security Council of the


United Nations, the General Conference of Unesco, at its eighteenth session, after recalling and reaffirming the relevant resolutions it had previously adopted, in resolution 3.427 ‘condemns Israel for its attitude which is con¬ tradictory to the aims of the Organization as stated in its Constitution by its persistence in altering the historical features of the City of Jerusalem and by undertaking excavations which constitute a danger to its monuments, sub¬ sequent to its illegal occupation of this city’ and ‘invites the Director-General to withhold assistance from Israel in the fields of education, science and culture until such time as it scrupulously respects the aforementioned resolu¬ tions and decisions’,

Considering that the lifting of the restrictions which the Director-General was thus invited to apply depends solely upon the will of Israel,

Considering that this challenge, which is intolerable for the dignity of the other Member States, prevents the Organization from properly discharging the mission laid upon it by its Constitution,

Affirming solemnly the right of every people not to be deprived of the significant evidence of its past on the pretext of searching for vestiges of another culture.

Considering that Member States as a whole can but deplore and, as the United Nations General Assemhly did in its resolution 3525 (XXX) of 15 December 1975, ‘condemn... the following Israeli policies and practices: the annexation of parts of the occupied territories;... the destruction and demoli¬ tion of Arab houses;... the pillaging of archaeological and cultural pro¬ perty...’,

Noting, in the light of the report of the Director-General contained in document 20C/19 Add., that Israel has not changed its attitude with regard to the aforementioned resolutions of the United Nations and of Unesco, and that it has not undertaken to desist finally from undertaking excavations,

Guided by the previous decisions adopted by the General Conference since its fourteenth session (14C/Resolution 11, 15C/Resolution 9.12 and 9.14, 16C/Resolution 8, 17C/Resolution 10.1, 18C/Resolution 3.427 and 19C/Resolution 4.129),

1. Warmly thanks the Director-General for his efforts with a view to the implementation of resolution 4.129 adopted by the General Conference at its nineteenth session;

2. Reaffirms the aforementioned resolutions adopted by the General Conference of Unesco concerning Jerusalem, particularly 18C/Resolution 3.427, and insists that they be put into effect;

3. Condemns the Israeli occupying authorities for having infringed the resolutions adopted by the United Nations and by Unesco, and for having continued, from the beginning of the occupation until the present, to change and Judaize the historic and cultural configuration of Jerusalem;

4. Issues an urgent and firm appeal to Israel to desist forthwith and finally from continuing the excavations unlawfully undertaken and from taking steps which are altering the character and status of the City of Jerusalem;


5. Requests the Director-General to report to the Executive Board at its 107th session on the implementation of this resolution.

Adopted at the 27th plenary meeting.

WORLD HEALTH ASSEMBLY

Resolution 31.38 of 23 May 1978

Calling on Israel to desist from changing the legal status of the MEDICAL PROFESSIONS IN THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

The World Health Assembly...

Ill

1. Expresses its deep concern at the poor health and psychological condi¬ tions suffered by the inhabitants of the occupied Arab territories;

2. Condemns the inhuman practices to which Arab prisoners and detainees are subjected in Israeli prisons, resulting in the deterioration of their health, psychological and mental conditions;

3. Condemns Israel for its refusal to implement World Health Assembly resolutions calling upon it to allow refugees and displaced persons to return to their homes;

4. Condemns Israel for its refusal to apply the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949;

5. Calls upon Israel to desist forthwith from the establishment of settle¬ ments in the occupied Arab territories and from requisitioning and confiscat¬ ing Arab lands for the establishment of these settlements, as the establish¬ ment of these settlements deprives the inhabitants of the occupied territories of their rights to their land and property and the enjoyment of their natural resources, thereby affecting the health, psychological and social conditions of those inhabitants;

6. Considers that the persistence of Israeli occupying authorities in their arbitrary practices affecting the physical, social and psychological health conditions of the Arab inhabitants, changing the structure of the occupied Arab territories is a matter that necessitates Member States to consider the application of the measures stipulated in the Consitutiton of the World Health Organization;


IV

Denouncing the military Order 745 of 4 January 1978 issued by the Is¬ raeli Military Commander of the West Bank Zone, concerning the practising and the licensing of medical and health professions in the West Bank of the occupied Arab territories, thus further changing the legal structure of the institutions of the occupied territories, in particular:

(a) granting, withholding or withdrawing licences, contrary to existing and accepted professional rules;

(b) forcing the migration of Arab medical and health personnel, and imposing restrictive conditions on the inhabitants as regards the practice of the medical and health professions;

Calls upon Israel to desist forthwith from changing the legal status of medical and health professions in the occupied Arab territories, and to im¬ mediately nullify the aforementioned military Order and any other similar orders.

SPECIAL REPORT

Report of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied Territories (conclusion)(2)

126. The information gathered by the Special Committee during the period covered by this report is reflected in the preceding two sections. In this, the concluding section, the Committee assesses this information in the light of its mandate.

127. In general, the Special Committee has not noted any significant changes in the human rights situation of the civilian population of the oc¬ cupied territories from that recorded in previous years and reflected in its past nine reports.

128. The Government of Israel continues to.implement a policy of settle¬ ment and annexation of the occupied territories. Recent unequivocal state¬ ments by the Prime Minister and other members of the Government of Israel prove that such a policy exists and that its application is being accelerated. The Special Committee took note of reports concerning the future of the Egyptian territory occupied by Israel in June 1967. Furthermore, the Special Committee considers it most regrettable that the Government of Israel is perpetuating the occupation of the other territories and is intensifying its efforts aimed at their annexation. In section IV above, the Special Commit¬ tee has given a representative cross-section of information showing beyond any doubt the Israeli Government’s stated aim to retain the other occupied territories. The Special Committee has noted in past reports that the Gov¬ ernment of Israel bases its policy of annexation and settlement on the so- called «homeland» doctrine, that is, that the territories occupied in June

G)uN Document A/33/356.


1967 from part of the Jewish homeland. The Special Committee considers that, regardless of the political aspects of the Middle East situation, the Government of Israel, by following such a policy, is denying the Palestinian people their fundamental right to self-determination. The restitution of the Palestinian people’s fundamental rights is therefore contingent upon the end of the military occupation. By the same token, the Government of Israel should not persist in denying the right to return to the civilians who fled the territories during and immediately after the June 1967 hostilities. Rather than safeguard the rights of the people under their military occupation, the Government of Israel claims that its settlements in these territories are established as of right. In a statement made in the General Assembly on 9 October 1978, the Foreign Minister of Israel, Mr. Dayan, stated that «the Israeli settlements in Judaea, Samaria and the Gaza district are there as of right. It is inconceivable to us that Jews should be prohibited from settling and living in Judaea and Samaria, which are the heart of our homeland)) (A/33/PV. 26, p. 42). Again, on 31 October 1978, the Jerusalem Post report¬ ed a statement by the Prime Minister, Mr. Begin, according to which, «the Jewish people’s right to settle in all parts of the land of Israel is inalienable. This right has been carried out in the past, and will be in the future)). In the circumstances, the Special Committee cannot but conclude that the Gov¬ ernment of Israel consciously follows a policy which is in violation of the fourth Geneva Convention, in particular, article 47 which prohibits annexa¬ tion of territories under military occupation by the occupying Power and article 49 which prohibits the transfer of citizens of the occupying Power into the occupied territories.

The Special Committee notes that this policy is implemented largely through the financial support of the Jewish National Fund whose purpose it is «to make the land of Israel the inalienable property of Jewish people)) (J.N.F. Questions and Answers, published by the Jewish National Fund, London). Thus, the Special Committee notes that measures continue to be taken in the occupied territories designed to consolidate their annexation. The map attached to this report (annex I) illustrates the extent to which settlements have been established by the Israeli authorities in the occupied territories in pursuance of this policy.

129. The Special Committee has stated, from its very first report, that the fundamental violation of human rights lies in the very fact of occupation. This is itself the direct cause of a day-to-day pattern affecting the life and liberty of the civilians in the occupied territories. Their life is marked with a pattern of incidents involving various forms of violence and repercussions of these incidents. The number of arrests recorded by the Special Committee during the period covered by the report amounts to 1,192. This is but a minimum figure since it is based on reports in the Israeli press which is subject to censorship. To this number must be added those cases that go unreported and several other reports which refer to the arrest of «several» or «dozens» or «a large number)) of persons (the Committee observed over 20


such reports during the year). The same considerations apply to the in¬ formation concerning incidents: 319 specific reports of incidents were recorded by the Committee. Several of these arrests and trials are the consequence of the incidents referred to, although a large proportion of the trials reported concerned non-violent offences. The pressure caused by the large number of arrests on the military tribunals Sis evidenced by the fact that a second tribunal has been established in Nablus to reduce the large number of outstanding trials. Compared to the figures for arrests and trials (1,035 recorded by the Special Committee), the record of releases is relatively small (316 persons, including 73 on religious holidays but not including 300 secondary school students who were arrested during demonstrations in March 1978 and subsequently released). The Special Committee notes that during the period covered by this report, 34 persons were still incarcerated without charges, by virtue of administrative order.

130. The policies and practices followed by the Government of Israel with regard to the population are complementary to those followed by the Government of Israel with regard to the establishment of settlements in these territories. These policies and practices are reflected in the measures taken by Israeli authorities with regard to civilians. These measures, purport¬ edly taken in an effort to maintain order, fit more logically into the general context of the Israeli «homeland» policy, since their main purpose is to demoralize the civilian population by putting it before the constant reality of being a people under military subjugation. The Special Committee has noted several instances which would confirm this view. For example, the Committee has noted the practice in military courts of ordering the payment of fines or the serving of imprisonment sentences on parents for security offences committed by their minor children and for which the children have been tried and convicted. This is contrary to articles 33 and 67 of the fourth Geneva Convention which provide for the principle of individual responsi¬ bility (article 33) and that the penalty should be proportionate to the of¬ fence. The vast range of security offences of which a civilian of the occupied territories may find himself guilty is a reflection of the arbitrary nature of the military orders which purport to lay down the law governing his con¬ duct. For example, the Special Committee notes that several persons are charged and convicted of the offence of «membership of an illegal organization» or acts of a non-violent nature. Vague military orders lend themselves to a wide interpretation and render the average civilian inhabitant of the occupied territories liable to prosecution before the military tribunal. Such vague offences are usually accompanied by equally imprecise provisions as regards punishment. For example, a civilian may be sentenced to up to seven years’ imprisonment for «membership of an illegal organization)). Civilians are still subject to arbitrary measures such as reprisals on their property even when they are only suspects. In its annual report for 1977, the International Committee of the Red Cross stated: «The destruction of a number of houses, all of them on the West Bank, were reported to the ICRC in 1977. These


cases consisted in the destruction of three houses, three shops, the wall of one house, one apartment and two rooms. The ICRC reiterated its request to the Israeli authorities that they desist from such measures, which are contrary to article 53 of the fourth Convention)). The same applies to the treatment of civilians at large; for example, at Ramallah, Beit Jala and other towns, the behaviour of Israeli troops purporting to control student mani¬ festations against the occupation resulted in serious injuries to several youngsters. Indeed, as a consequence of the Beit Jala incidents the Defence Minister dismissed the military Commander of the West Bank for allegedly abetting the falsification of reports on the behaviour of the Israeli troops in an effort to hide the reality.

131. The Special Committee noted that the Government of Israel continues to adopt other measures that reflect its policy of annexation and settlement of the occupied territories. Examples of such measures are con¬ tained in reports of expropriation of property by various methods, such as the arbitrary resort to reasons of military security for the purposes of the establishment of settlements, as has been the case in the El-Bireh area and several parts of the northern West Bank. Another example of such measures is reflected in the exploitation of the natural resources of the occupied ter¬ ritories, such as that of the petroleum resources of the Sinai and that of the water-table of the northern West Bank from which the occupying Power currently takes more than half of its water requirements.

132. The Special Committee is of the view that the policy of the Govern¬ ment of Israel referred to in the preceding paragraphs has provoked a pattern of resistance on the part of the civilian population. The frequency of the occurrence of incidents, amply illustrated in section IV C, reflects the civilian population’s determination to oppose this Israeli policy and to assert its right to self-determination. The resistance thus manifested produces an ever-increasing prison population. In section V, the Special Committee sets out the information received by it on prison conditions and on the treatment of detainees. This information shows that prison conditions in general have continued to deteriorize; there is no evidence, on the other hand, of efforts at improvement. The periodic expressions of concern by which certain Israeli officials acknowledge the adverse prison conditions (reflected in sect. V) have not resulted in any measures being taken to improve them. Reports continue to reach the Special Committee of serious overcrowding and lack of adequate medical attention.

133. The testimony of Mr. Abed El-Assaly, based on his first-hand experi¬ ence as counsel for civilians accused of security offences, confirms the allega¬ tions that persons under interrogation are ill-treated and that no adequate remedies exist to safeguard such persons from abuse. The revision of the arrangements for ICRC delegates to visit persons under interrogation, an¬ nounced on 6 December 1977 has not brought any significant diminution in the serious allegations of ill treatment of detainees.

134. In the circumstances, the Special Committee cannot but express its


profound concern at the continuation of the military occupation and con¬ tinued deprivation of human rights of the civilian population. The Commit¬ tee would appeal once more to the international community, through the General Assembly, to assume its responsibilities to end the occupation, thereby safeguarding the most fundamental of the human rights of the population of the occupied territories. Pending the early termination of the occupation, the Committee recommends that a suitable mechanism be estab¬ lished to safeguard the human rights of the civilian population who have been exposed for such a long time to military occupation. In this context the Committee would refer to the proposal made by it since its first report. In addition, and in view of the serious deterioration in the situation of de¬ tainees, the Committee would urge the General Assembly to ensure that a mechanism similar to that suggested by ICRC of establishing commissions of inquiry be setup (ICRC Press Release No 1303 of 19 September 1977).

(■^The Special Committee, in each of its reports, has recommended: «(a) That the States whose territory is occupied by Israel appoint immediately either a neutral State

or States, or an international organization which offers all guarantees of impartiality and effectiveness, to safeguard the human rights of the population of the occupied territories;

«(b) That suitable arrangements be made for the proper representation of the interests of the large population in the occupied territories which has not yet been given the opportunity of exercising the right of self-determination; and

«(c) That a neutral State or international organization, as described in (a) above, be nominated by Israel and be associated in this arrangement.))

Under this arrangement, the State or States or international organization so nominated might be authorized to undertake the following activities:

«(a) To secure the scrupulous implementation of the provisions relating to human rights contained in the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, of 12 August 1949, and the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, and in particular to investigate and determine the facts in the case of allegations of the violation of the human rights provisions of these Conventions or of other applicable international instruments;

«(b) To ensure that the population of the occupied territories is treated in accordance with the ap¬

plicable law; «(c) To report to the States concerned and to the General Assembly of the United Nations on its

work.»

THE EGYPTIAN-ISRAELI TREATY: TEXT AND SELECTED DOCUMENTS

The signing of the Egyptian-Israeli treaty at the White House on 26 March

1979 formally ushered in a new political reality in the Middle East. This

documentary volume published by the IPS examines the dangers and chal¬ lenges the pact constitutes to the Palestinian cause and the Arab national

objectives in general. The text of the treaty is printed in full, together with the appendices and

letters exchanged by the three co-signatories and the resolutions approving the treaty passed by the Egyptian People’s Assembly and the Israeli Knesset.

There follows a comprehensive presentation of the Palestinian and official Arab response to the treaty, including the boycott measures taken against the Egyptian regime. The book also presents selected international reactions

to the treaty.

124 pp. rr U.S. $3.00

INSTITUTE FOR PALESTINE STUDIES

P.O.Box 11-7101 Beirut LEBANON

4l*

L.L. 9.00 U.S. S3.00