West Bank Report

RAFIK HALABI is caught in the middle. He is a loyal Israeli, but not a Jew; an Arab, but not a Moslem. Halabi is a Druse, a member of a small religious sect whose members live in Israel, Syria and Lebanon. And since 1974 he has been the West Bank reporter for Israel Television. Halabi's cultural and professional credentials make him uniquely suited to provide a balanced account of the conflict between Israel and the Arabs of the West Bank. His first book, The West Bank Story, does not disappoint this expectation. In it, Halabi offers a compelling and graphic chronicle of the deteriorating relations between the West Bank's Israeli occupiers and its Arab inhabitants.

Reading The West Bank Story, we follow Halabi and his camera crew as they criss-cross the region. In Ramallah, thousands of angry demonstrators carrying Palestinian flags surge down the main street protesting the Israeli occupation. When a patrol of Israeli soldiers arrives, it is greeted by a barricade of flaming tires and a barrage of stones In Hebron. Jews from a nearby settlement roam the streets, machine guns in hand, smashing the glass from Arab cars and shop fronts In Nablus, Israeli bulldozers demolish 20 Arab houses in retaliation for a bomb blast at a Jewish shop. In Elon Moreh, illegally situated Jewish settlers set up barbed wire to resist the Israeli soldiers who have to be sent in to remove them The picture that emerges from Halabi's assembled reports is not a pleasant one. On both sides of the conflict, the trend is toward less tolerance, less listening and more violence.

When Israel gamed control of the West Bank in June 1967, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was still a fledgling group, viewed with suspicion by much of the political leadership in the West Bank Arab public officials and civil servants looked to king Hussein of Jordan as their political guardian. Today the situation has changed markedly. It an Arab public figure in the West Bank wavers in his commitment to Palestinian nationalism or tempers his support for the PLO and its strategy of terror, he risks not only his political career but also his life Among the Arabs of the West Bank. "moderate" has become a term of abuse and accusation.

To many observers, the radicalization of the West Bank was the inevitable result of events external to Israel and the occupied territories. Primarily the increasing acceptance of the PLO by the international community and the violent rift between the PLO and Hussein But many others, including Halabi, assign a major share of the responsibility for the PLO's increased control to the Israeli government Not by design, but through shortsightedness, arrogance and insensitivity the Israeli military administration has alienated and undermined the effectiveness of moderates in the West Bank, leaving the PLO without competition for the people's loyalty This is Halabi's central theme, and he documents it copiously.

Expropriation of Arab lands, deportations of Arab mayors, and collective punishment of Arab villages in response to terrorist attacks have all helped to antagonize the West Bank's inhabitants, In some cases these actions have been justifiable on security grounds; in many instance they have punished those who deserved to be punished. But in far too many cases the government's hostile actions have injured large numbers of innocent people or have been guided solely by a desire for revenge.

Even more galling to the Arab population have been the ongoing establishment of Jewish settlements in the area and the implementation of a glaring double standard of punishment for Arabs and Jews, Under the Labor Party governments that ruled Israel from 1967 to 1977. numerous Jewish settlements were established in the West Bank on sides near the Israeli border. Since Menchem Begin's coalition came into power four years ago, the number of Israeli settlements has nearly doubled, and the Jewish of the West Bank has increased fivefold. These new settlements have been located in the heart of the West Bank and frequently right next to cities with large Arab populations, And many of the new settlers have been religious Jews who do not hesitate to declare their intention to reclaim all of the Biblical land of Israel. These developments have confirmed many Arab's suspicions that the Israelis mean to keep the West Bank permanently.

Another element of Israeli policy in the West Bank that has embittered Arabs is the unequal, and sometimes brutal, enforcement of the law, For example, if Jewish settlers protesting against government actions assault Israeli soldiers, they are likely to receive little or no punishment. For a similar offense. Arab students would probably face still jail sentences or sizeable fines. Arab offenders are often verbally abused and in a few cases physically mistreated by their Israeli jailers.

HALABI CRITICIZES the government's strategy on three counts, First it is too often cruel and unjust. Second, it has made Israel into a repressive occupying power, and this new identity has damaged the moral framework of Israeli society, Finally, Israeli's policy has worked against its own greatest interest, the establishment of peace.

The behavior of the Israeli government that Halabi discusses has been described by other journalists. And his criticisms of Israel's actions have also been voiced by other writers in Israel and the United States What makes Halabi's book important reading is its combination of a passionate concern for the resolution of the West Bank conflict, and an unusual ability to see the situation from both sides Halabi confesses that he concentrates on exposing the "seamier side" of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank But he also points out the beneficial economic and social effects the occupation has had for Arabs of the region. And while he has on mistakes made by the Israeli government, he is equally critical of the inflexibility and militance of Arab leaders. Halabi criticizes Israel not with the haughty condemning tones used by the likes of Anthony Lewis, but with the anguish of a patriot who sees his country violating many of its most cherished ideals.