by Noam Chomsky
* The same error is made by commentators who should know better, for example, Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, who describes the terms “Judea” and “Samaria” as those that “the Likud and its sympathizers prefer,” in an interchange that exhausts the usual range of tolerable opinion: Hertzberg (with the assent of Irving Howe) representing the position of “Jewish moderates, headed by the Labor Party,” and Ivan Novick, President of the
2.3.1 Attitudes under Occupation The attitudes of the indigenous population are generally ignored in the U.S., on the assumption—racist in essence—that they simply do not count. In the early years of the occupation, the Labor government refused to permit any independent political expression on the part of the population, even rejecting the request of pro-Jordanian “notables” to form an anti-PLO grouping, a fact revealed in 1974 by the former military commander of the West Bank, General (now President) Chaim Herzog (breaking government censorship), and arousing no concern among American liberals and democratic socialists, firm supporters of the Labor Alignment.37
In 1976, relatively free elections were permitted for municipalities in the West Bank. The elected candidates soon made it clear that they regarded the PLO as their sole legitimate representative. In recent years, the Begin government and others have attributed this outcome to PLO
Zionist Organization of America, representing the Likud position. pressure and intimidation. No such claims were made at the time. On the contrary, the elections were regarded as a crowning achievement of the “benign occupation.” There was, in fact, interference in the electoral process, namely, by Israel, in favor of more conservative elements. Two nationalist candidates were expelled in violation of the governing military regulations, to ensure the election of more acceptable opponents. The PLO took no position with regard to the elections, Amnon Kapeliouk observes in a detailed commentary on them.38 He also points out that a significant political structure arose in the territories at the time, regarding the PLO as its representative and prepared to reach a political settlement with Israel. Instead of recognizing the Palestinian right to self-determination alongside of Israel, however, “the Rabin [Labor] government opened the door to Gush Emunim,” the fanatic religiouschauvinist settlers in the occupied territories.
Since that time the inhabitants of the occupied territories have made known their support for the PLO, and for an independent Palestinian state, on every possible occasion. To cite only two of many examples, the mayors of West Bank towns sent a letter to Secretary of State Cyrus Vance when he toured the area in 1977, stating that the Palestinian people had chosen as “its sole legal representative, irrespective of the place…the PLO under the leadership of Mr. Arafat,”39 an act of no small courage given the nature of the occupation—people generally regarded as moderates had been expelled for much less. Turning to the present, after the PLO had been evacuated from Beirut in September 1982 (so that alleged PLO intimidation was now a thing of the past), a group of “Palestinian personalities” in the occupied territories were asked for their evaluation of the outlook, among them Elias Freij (the last remaining mayor of a major town, the others having been dismissed by Israel) and Rashad Shawa (the conservative and pro-Jordanian dismissed mayor of Gaza); Freij and Shawa are represented here as leading figures of the “moderate” nationalist alternative to the PLO. They were uniform, including Freij and Shawa, in their support for the PLO, some holding that support for the PLO had in fact increased as a result of the Lebanon invasion (Shawa).40
An indication of current opinion in the West Bank (no one doubts that the results would be similar in the Gaza Strip) is given by the results of a poll undertaken by the PORI Institute, a leading public opinion research organization in Israel, in March 1982.41 The results will come as no surprise to people who have been following developments in the occupied territories since 1967.* 98% were in favor of an independent Palestinian state, and 86% said that they wanted this state to be run solely by the PLO. Of other figures, the most popular (68% support) was Nablus Mayor Bassam Shak’a, dismissed shortly before by West Bank “Civilian Administrator” Menachem Milson as part of his general attack on free political expression. Other pro-PLO figures on the West Bank received various degrees of support. At the very bottom was Mustafa Dudin, who received the support of 0.2% of the population. Among Arab
* The actual wording of the questions is not given. Therefore one does not know exactly how to interpret the Time paraphrase: “As might be expected, 98% of the respondents said that they favored the creation of a Palestinian state. Yet only 59% agree with the P.L.O. that such a state should encompass ‘all of Palestine’ (i.e., including Israel); 27% seem ready to accept a Palestinian state made up only of the West Bank and Gaza Strip” (the actual PLO position, for several years). Surely, however, no sensible person can have much doubt that whatever the preferences of the population, as expressed in the Israeli poll, they would be more than willing to be relieved of Israeli or Jordanian occupation and to exercise their right of self-determination in an independent state—for the large majority of them, a state organized by the PLO—set up alongside of Israel and coexisting with it.
leaders, King Hussein of Jordan ranked low, admired by 4%. King Hussein is the U.S. choice for representative of the inhabitants of the West Bank, while Dudin is the choice of the government of Israel and its supporters here. He is the head of the “Village Leagues” created by Israel in an effort to replace the elected leadership, and is claimed to represent the rural majority of the population—the “silent majority.” He is regularly described in the U.S. press as a “moderate,” and it is claimed that only PLO terror prevents the population from supporting him openly; evidently, fear of the PLO is so great that close to 100% of the population were afraid to state their support for Dudin secretly and anonymously in an Israeli-run poll.
Perhaps we might pause for a moment to consider the two personalities who are, respectively, the most popular (apart from the PLO) and the least popular in the West Bank: dismissed Mayor Bassam Shak’a and Mustafa Dudin. Shak’a was the victim of a terrorist attack in June 1980 in which both of his legs were blown off by an IDF bomb. No progress has been made towards discovering the identity of the assailants, though it seemed a relatively straightforward matter as several Israeli journalists pointed out, if only because the army had records of people who had access to the sophisticated type of explosives used. It is generally assumed that the terrorists were Jewish settlers in the area (see, for example, the comments of the Ha’aretz journalist cited above, chapter 2, section 1). When violent acts are carried out against Jewish settlers, houses of families of suspects are demolished, curfews imposed, subjects interrogated (and, they allege, often tortured), etc., while U.S. journals fulminate about Arab terrorism. In fact, even stone throwing can lead to curfews and other punishments, as, for example, the Times casually observes in reporting an incident in which yet another Arab youth was killed by Israeli soldiers42 firing at his feet.* But in the case of the attack on Mayor Shak’a and others, it was difficult to detect even signs of an investigation, and obvious clues were not pursued.43 Ze’ev Schiff wrote at the time in Ha’aretz that it would be politically impossible for the government to arrest and convict the guilty parties because these West Bank settlers had too much political support.44Ha’aretz also reported that the suspects were believed to be Jewish extremists who used sophisticated IDF equipment, citing intelligence sources. The bombings (Mayor Karim Khalef of Ramallah was also seriously injured; both were subsequently dismissed by the Milson administration) were praised in the journal Nekudah of the religious West Bank settlers, and the spokesman for American Rabbi Kahane’s Kach Party announced at a press conference that they were in retaliation for the murder of Israeli settlers in Hebron a few weeks earlier. Six Jewish suspects were under investigation by the Israeli secret police (Shin Bet), but according to Knesset Member Shulamith Aloni, they said that “the Jews responsible are part of a close-knit group that has been impenetrable.” Stories about the affair a
re routinely censored in the Israeli press. Many journalists following the case, including Danny
* The report states that Samir Ghazal Taflak, 19 years old, was killed by a bullet in the chest (another youth was seriously injured) when, according to an army spokesman, Israeli soldiers “had fired at the feet of youths who had hurled rocks at an Israeli bus, smashing one window.” Hundreds of students were protesting a curfew imposed on a camp of 12,000 people “after youths threw rocks at Israeli vehicles in the area,” one of a series of curfews in the past two months. “The students waved the flag of the Palestine Liberation Organization and photos of its leader, Yasir Arafat, the sources said.” “About seven weeks ago a 14-year-old Nablus youth was shot and killed by a [Jewish] settler of nearby Elon Moreh after he had stoned the settler’s car.”
Rubinstein of Davar, suspect that a high-ranking government official was involved and that the Shin Bet is part of a cover-up. “Most Israelis were indifferent to the mayors’ fates after the attacks anyway,” and “there was no public outcry or pressure on the government to conduct a fullscale inquiry.”45
After the terrorist attack and his subsequent dismissal, Shak’a was subjected to considerable government harassment. He was refused permission to travel to Holland on the grounds that “he will use the visit for the dissemination of false information about Israel and will present Israel as oppressing public figures in the [occupied] territories,” according to representatives of the security forces. There have been many other examples, another recent one being the denial of an exit visa to his daughter to enable her to resume her studies at North Carolina State University in October 1982.46 At the same time, Shak’a’s Israeli guards refused to permit journalists from Ha’aretz and the Jerusalem Post to interview him. A week later, there had been no action by the newspapers or the Press Association, leading one outraged Israeli citizen to compare this “shocking incident” to what happens in the USSR.47
2.3.2 The Carrot and the Stick Let us turn now to the least popular personality in the West Bank, Menachem Milson’s protegé Mustafa Dudin, head of the Village Leagues. It should be noted at once that journalists who cover the West Bank for the Hebrew press have no illusions about the support for Milson’s Village Leagues. Danny Rubinstein of Davar writes that “The vast majority of the Arab population, led by city mayors, leaders of unions and other public figures in the West Bank, recognized the Israeli attempt to undermine the P.L.O.’s authority [by establishing the Leagues], and denounced it in the East Jerusalem newspapers, in conferences and in declarations.” He describes the measures adopted by the Sharon-Milson administration to impose the rule of the Leagues by giving them “vast financial support” and compelling inhabitants to turn to them for the needs of daily life.48
Exploiting its military success in Lebanon, Israel expanded the Village Leagues and formed them into a regional organization, assigning them the role of representative of the Palestinians in the occupied territories for dealings with Israel. On the invitation of the Israeli authorities in charge, Danny Rubinstein attended the meeting in Hebron where this “political task” was announced publicly for the first time. The representatives came armed and substantial Israeli military forces surrounded the area. Dozens of villagers outside stood up to cheer on command. The speakers praised former Civilian Administrator Menachem Milson, who was responsible for the worst atrocities in the West Bank, for “his service to the inhabitants of the West Bank…his outstanding personality and warm compassion, all in eloquent rhetoric,” some so effusive that the audience burst out in laughter. It was, Rubinstein writes, “a sad and oppressive day in Hebron.”49
Meanwhile in the Boston Globe, we read only that Milson “received thunderous ovations at the first conference of the West Bank ‘Village Leagues’ he helped foster,” referring to the same meeting, a sure sign of his great popularity and the support for the Leagues on the West Bank— the immense popularity shown by the PORI Institute poll for the head of the Leagues, Mustafa Dudin, is still another sign. Milson is referred to in the Globe as a “Mideast Maverick,” who “calls for a Palestinian role in the West Bank,” a leading partisan of the oppressed Palestinians, evidently.50
This is surely the appropriate characterization, as 1984 approaches, for the man who along with General Sharon initiated the most brutal period of repression in the West Bank, “a reign of terror,” in the words of the Israeli dove Uri Avneri, who describes Milson as a poor copy of “his former master, Ariel Sharon”: “So far as compulsive lying, boasting and impudence are concerned, he is merely Sharon’s pocket edition,” Avneri continues, going on to recall the measures he instituted in an effort to break the will of the Palestinians, including formation of “the hated ‘Leagues,’ which became the representatives of the Israeli conquest for the public,” “armed gangs of quislings” largely constituted of “the human refuse of the villages, known hooligans and criminals, who received weapons from the military government in order to create an atmosphere of terror.”51 In short, a true “Mideast Maverick,” much to be admired for his defense of Palestinian rights.
To illustrate Avneri’s description, Professor Milson, in his Globe interview, states that “partly due to my influence, the fact is that no house was demolished in the West Bank.” In fact, two weeks after his November 1, 1981 takeover, on November 16, four houses were destroyed in Beit Sahur in a collective punishment, and one house was destroyed in Bethlehem, the home of a man suspected of throwing a molotov cocktail at a bus.52 Milson assumed, correctly no doubt, that his statement would pass unchallenged in the United States, where he is presented as an advocate of peace and conciliation. He might, however, have argued correctly that the Labor Party resorted to this technique of collective punishment in the case of people suspected of some act of violence (or resistance, depending on one’s point of view) far more extensively than he did.
The West Bank correspondent of Ha’aretz, Zvi Barel, reports General Sharon’s statement that the League members “are not collaborators in the usual sense of the word.” Barel agrees, on the grounds that “no past collaborators had enjoyed such wide government support as these people receive.” He describes how they are not only provided with arms to terrorize the population, but are even given “the privilege of making the [Israeli] civil administration commit illegal acts to praise the name of the Village Leagues,” describing how the administration acts to serve “their desire for revenge.” Barel also illustrates how West Bank inhabitants are compelled to submit to the rule of the Milson-Dudin Leagues in order to survive, citing the case of Abu Adnan of the West Bank town of Halhul, whose mayor, Muhammed Milhem (who had called for a peaceful two-state political settlement), was also dismissed by the Milson administration. Adnan had sent his son (born and educated in the West Bank) to Greece for medical studies. His son was not permitted to return on the pretext that he was away when a census was taken; removal of the educated population has been a standard procedure of the occupation since the beginning. Requests to permit his son at least to visit were denied by the Milson administration. Finally, Adnan turned to the Village Leagues, signing a form stating his request to become a member, and offering a “donation” of 500 Israeli shekels. He at once received permission for his son to visit.53 The Hebrew press contains many similar examples illustrating how the Leagues gain their popularity.
In testimony before Congress, a member of an American study group returning from a Middle East tour reported that “the vast majority” of the population “dislike the Unions” (the Village Leagues) but “feel forced to deal with them” because of the arrangements imposed by the Military Government. The Leagues are “widely feared and are dealt with only as individuals and groups feel pressured to do so.” “The greatest fear of West Bankers is that these Union of Villages officials will be selected by the Israelis as the ‘moderate’ Palestinians who will ‘negotiate’ autonomy under the Camp David accords, and thus give the appearance of legitimacy to an autonomy agreement.” It is this fear that was realized
in the subsequent meeting that Rubinstein reported. “Shlomo Gazit, former Chief of Israeli Intelligence, has stated that the setting up of the Village Leagues established a network of quislings to serve the purposes of the government and was not in the interest of Israeli security. He has called for the dissolution of the Village League program.”54 It is good to know that Congress was well-informed when it increased the enormous subsidy to Israel to still higher levels to pay for these admirable measures.
The civilian administration of “Mideast Maverick” Menachem Milson, which gave Dudin a position of power in the occupied territories and a position of prominence as a noted moderate in the United States, began on November 1, 1981. The “reign of terror” that began at once received considerable press coverage in the United States at the time, but, memories being short and prejudices strong, the facts were quickly forgotten. The Israeli Black Book (see note 52) gives a detailed account of the first six months, along with testimony by Palestinians and Israeli soldiers. “The civil administration orchestrated by Professor Milson,” it reports, “is nothing but another attempt to revive an old, well-known colonial method in a new ‘original’ Israeli form,” laying the basis for “an Israeli Bantustan, which imposes on the Palestinians the role of hewers of wood and drawers of water for Israeli society.” It “intends to destroy every social institution in the occupied territories in two ways: first, by harassing municipal councils, labor unions, and universities which mold national-political culture, and second, by constructing what seems to be an alternative power center in the shape of the Village Leagues,” basing itself on the assumption that the Palestinians are “primitive ‘natives’ who are easily pacified when the occupier buys off a few notables in their villages.” Its techniques are these: “leaders and activists are arrested, inhabitants are expelled, meetings are banned, demonstrators are detained, and the demonstrations themselves are brutally dispersed; curfews and confinements are imposed, houses are blown up, and quislings from the Village Leagues are used in a terror campaign against the population; universities and newspapers are shut down, journalists are detained or prevented from interviewing leaders, who, in turn, are not allowed to be interviewed anyway; censorship is applied to both newspapers and books, and humiliation, harassment, and terror are inflicted on the population by the Jewish settlers in towns and villages alike.” The Black Book then presents extensive evidence, in a virtually day-by-day account. These practices, in fact, go back to the earliest days of the occupation, but there is no doubt that they escalated to new levels of violence under the regime of the “Mideast Maverick” and his chosen instrument. Small wonder that Dudin’s support in the West Bank amounted to 0.2% by March 1982, after six months of Milson’s beneficence. We return to the historical context, and some specific illustrations, in the next chapter.
