Democratic Palestine : 36 (ص 18)
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- Democratic Palestine : 36 (ص 18)
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Al
The Uprising’s Impact
on Zionist Security
Cl
In our last issue we began a study of the Israeli security concept in terms of the Palestinian/ Arab
threat, territory/«defensible borders,» settlements, demography,
integrity of the Zionist state.
security doctrine.
economic considerations and the
In this issue, we will examine the impact of the intifada on the Israeli
The very outbreak of the uprising was a major challenge
to Israeli security. Despite 20 years of intelligence work, the
Zionist intelligence services failed to anticipate such an
occurence. The army’s accumulation of highly sophisticated
weaponary, in the wake of the 1973 war, proved to be wse-
less in facing the enemy in Israel’s «backyard». Repression
was shown to be patently ineffective in deterring the Pates-
tinian people’s readiness to struggle to regain their rights.
As noted by Joel Greenberg, Rabin had often reiterated the
policy of «fighting terrorism» while enabling the broader
population to carry on their lives without unnecessary fric-
tion with the army, but with the uprising collective punish-
ment became the norm (Jerusalem Post International Edi-
tion, February 6, 1988).
New kind of War
The Israeli press was the first to recognize that there was a war
on, which could have broad implications. In an interview with
Newsweek (February 8, 1988), Haaretz’s military commentator
Zeev Schiff said: «We are facing serious security problems... .If
there was a war, we would have to keep important forces in the
territories to protect the Jewish settlements, roads and military
places...Our intelligence network has to be completely reor-
ganized to take into consideration 1.4. million hostile Palesti-
nians. And if we don’t act quickly to answer to the demands of
Israeli Arabs for equality of rights, the enemy will be inside the
country itself. Our security conditions could thus become very
precarious.» In contrast, it was not until April 1988 that Defense
Minister Rabin admitted that Israel was at war. By summer
1989, when West Bank Commander Mordechai began sending
in helicopters to combat the activists of the intifada on a regular
basis, this had become an established fact.
In «Gaza: This is no rebellion - itis war,» (Hair, December 18,
1987), Makram Khury Makhul described a local leader of the
uprising as foHows:«...I saw him in action, giving new orders,
receiving new information, leading thousands of people against
the army. Twice I saw the Israeli soldiers withdrawing.» Thus
began the humiliation of Israel's most prized institution.
Makhul tells how a group of soldiers were caught between burn-
ing tires and demonstrators; the soldiers escaped save one. «The
18
captured soldier was undressed... They didn’t touch him bodily
and he was set free with only his torn pants on him. They could
have killed him...Some of them began dancing with ammuni-
tion in one hand and with the other making the «V>» sign... When
I asked them what they were celebrating, they replied, «This is
the greatest humiliation of the occupation». (Race and Class,
Spring 1988). If such a thing ever happened in the course of the
Arab-Israeli wars, it went unreported.
In operational terms, the intifada moved the borders of the
conflict back to 1967. Telling about his experience in the Gaza
Strip, an Israeli soldier said, «Twenty-two years have gone by
since the Israeli army entered Gaza and took it away from the
Egyptians, and the soldiers still treat the place like enemy territ-
ory which they are involved in conquering. The fact that «the
enemy» is composed mostly of women, old people and children
does not attenuate the feeling of danger» (Haaretz, July 15,
1989). David Langsam, who stayed in Qabatiya in the summer
of 1989, while his nephew was serving in the Israeli army in the
same area, wrote: «Curiously, the Israelis - bristling with
weapons - fear the unarmed Palestinians far more than vice
versa. The tension in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is much gre-
ater than 12 months ago despite (or because of) the massive IDF
presence and it is clear that Israel does not occupy the ter-
ritories. Israel occupies small settlements on some of the hills
and for moments in time holds the roads between the settle-
ments and the highways as convoys of workers’ buses led by
jeeps speed through Arab villages. The occupied territories are
already Palestine and every soldier I spoke with who has served
there, regardless of political affiliation, agrees (Guardian, Sep-
tember 22, 1989).
Since the early days of the uprising there have been more
troops in the 1967 occupied territories than when they were con-
quered. That the borders have been moved is also tangibly evi-
denced by the increased deployment of the border guards within
the territories, in addition to elite units like the Givati and
Golani brigades, originally conceived as frontline infantry. This
occurred after the failure of the army to quell the uprising.
Reservists made up the bulk of the troops originally sent into the
territories, serving up to 65 days instead of the 47-day, pre-upris-
ing annual average; they were decmed to be easily demoralized
and too sensitive to the moral issues invotvedin combatting civi-
Democratic Palestine, December 1989 - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 36
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