TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/013089/01308900.042

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 9.3 KB | 189 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 32

ISRAEL

A Moral Dilemma


Conflicting demands rend the army: be humane but also crush the
Palestinian uprising

By Johanna McGeary


    "he basic values we grew up on are changed whether we like
it or not during our service here. Every day children are being
hurt. The Chief of Staff said it would take time. But the time
is long, and the price is high."

    "I find myself acting violently toward people to make them
afraid of me. This is my duty, but I feel humiliated by my
conduct."

    "It wears me down as a person. It breaks me. These are not
the values I grew up on."

    "It tears us apart and strengthens the Arabs. Only a
political solution will save us from this insult."

    These are the candid, plangent voices of Israel's soldiers,
angry reservists confronting Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir last
week in a makeshift encampment outside Nablus, the largest and
most turbulent Arab city on the occupied West Bank. Nothing
since the 1982 war in Lebanon has eaten into the heart of
Israel's most revered institution, the Israel Defense Forces, as
the past 14 months of bitter war against children and stones has
done. Seemingly impervious to Israel's iron fist, the
Palestinian uprising rages on, and that is exacting a price
from the I.D.F. measured less in injuries than in anguish. The
army faces not military defeat but moral erosion, and its
troops, the young men of Israel, find themselves charged with
an impossible task: end the intifadeh but be humane; solve the
Palestinian problem but do not jeopardize Israel's security.

    The past four weeks have been the bloodiest so far. At least
40 Arabs have died, and more than 500 have been wounded as
Palestinians, galvanized perhaps by the U.S. decision to talk to
the Palestine Liberation Organization, have kept up a steady
barrage of rocks and fire bombs. Nearly 90% of the violence
involves stones, and most of the throwers are children. Strikes
to protest the surge in deaths led only to more lethal
encounters with Israeli troops.

    For the soldiers, the moral dilemma only deepened as the
determined government of Shamir ordered yet another military
crackdown. "We will increase the punishment so there is a higher
price to pay for throwing stones," explained army Chief of Staff
Dan Shomron. A new kind of ammunition has been introduced: a
round, rubber-clad metal ball advertised as nonlethal but
responsible for nearly half a dozen deaths so far this month.
Soldiers are permitted to fire supposedly less lethal plastic
bullets more readily, including at the backs of fleeing
protesters. Stone throwers can be jailed for five years, their
parents fined $1,000 or more, their family's property
confiscated, even their houses destroyed.

    A visibly irate Shamir defended these and all of the other
measures the I.D.F. has employed against the uprising by blaming
the Palestinians. "They force us to take guns and do things you
don't like to do," he told the reservists. "We hate those P.L.O.
people because they make us kill Arab children. But you must do
that to survive."

    The proud and powerful I.D.F. will, of course, survive. But
the damaging consequences of this unwinnable war are already
being felt. Middle-aged reservists trained to fight against
tanks and grenades now chase children through the rubble-strewn
alleys of refugee camps. When the taunts and the stones become
unbearable, they open fire. "I don't feel that I'm fighting
against Palestinian terrorists," says a 28-year-old reserve
captain on duty in the West Bank. "My enemy is a
twelve-year-old."

    If some soldiers suffer misgivings over their mission,
others feel hamstrung by bothersome regulations to go easy. On
patrol in Gaza, a young army private named Shmuel complained,
"Three weeks ago, when we tried to be lenient on them, it
didn't work.  The only thing they understand is an iron fist."
Retired Major General Shlomo Gazit admitted, "I would say that
a very strong majority would like to see more force used."

    Probably the most vocal calls for harsher measures come from
the Jewish settlers in the territories, who have increasingly
become the main target of Palestinian stones. For months the
70,000 settlers, who claim the West Bank as their biblical
right, have complained that the army is failing to protect them.
 When Shamir started to speak at a memorial service this month
for two Israeli victims of the intifadeh, mourners yelled, "You
are doing nothing!" Nor did the new battle order satisfy the
settlers, who have demanded such extreme reprisals as shooting
all stone throwers on sight. "For them (the Palestinians) it's
a festival, for us a continuous Yom Kippur," said Rehavam Ze'evi
of the far-right Homeland Party, referring to the solemn day of
atonement.

    But each time the army toughens its measures, critics abroad
protest. In Washington, State Department spokesman Charles
Redman called the new I.D.F. guidelines "very disturbing" and
declared, "We don't believe that the use of lethal force in
non-life- threatening situations should be necessary to preserve
order." Such comments carry weight in Jerusalem at a time when
the Israeli government feels considerable pressure to pursue a
diplomatic solution.  Prime Minister Shamir is drawing up a new
peace plan to present to Washington in March that he hopes will
cool the fire in the territories by offering a modicum of
political autonomy.

    The latest crackdown has renewed the debate among Israelis
over the role of the I.D.F. in quelling the rebellion. In the
Knesset, Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin came under withering
fire from opposition parties on both the right and left.
Hard-liners charged the army was not doing enough. Doves
attacked Rabin for the mounting death toll. "This policy is not
only killing Palestinians but also the souls of Israeli
soldiers," said Yossi Sarid of the left-wing Citizen's Rights
Movement. Hecklers finally drove Rabin from the parliamentary
chamber.

    Israel's political leaders cannot seem to decide how much
force is appropriate or acceptable in the face of international
criticism. During the past year soldiers have been instructed to
beat rioters; drop gravel on them from helicopters; fire tear
gas, rubber bullets, plastic bullets. None of it has ended the
uprising. And even some Likud members doubt the new measures
will do better. "I don't think there is a lot of logic or
common sense in shooting a boy when he's already finished
throwing his stone and is running away," said Minister Without
Portfolio Ehud Olmert.

    Many political and military officials are worried the
measures will serve mainly to brutalize Israel's soldiers.
Warned Meir Pa'il, a retired colonel: "If we continue, the real
danger is that our soldiers will be turned into beasts." That is
already happening, said a lieutenant colonel in charge of one
West Bank military district: "The first time you see someone
whose face is swollen after a beating by our soldiers, you are
horrified. The second time is not so terrible anymore. The
third time, you are indifferent."

    Some military analysts are more concerned about the impact
on Israel's readiness for war. Every day some 6,000 soldiers
patrol the territories. More than 90% are reservists, who owe
the army about 60 days of service a year, twice the time served
before the intifadeh. Yet they have little time for regular
training. "We are eroding the army's resources, physically and
intellectually," said Knesset member Sarid. So many normal
training routines have been interrupted that, as a U.S.
Pentagon official put it, "we fear a deterioration of I.D.F.
military capability." American military attaches in close
contact with the Israeli army report "moral confusion" at all
levels of the I.D.F. "The operation in the occupied territories
is dividing the young from the old, the regulars from the
reservists, the officers from the politicians," said a U.S.
expert.

    Israel's top military leaders reject any suggestion that the
I.D.F.'s fighting strength has eroded. "Don't jump to any
conclusions on this point," said a senior Israeli officer. "None
of our enemies should have any illusions about a weakening of
our military capability."

    I.D.F. generals have been among the strongest advocates of a
political solution. Chief of Staff Shomron told the Knesset that
the I.D.F. could not eradicate the intifadeh because "it
expresses the struggle of nationalism." But however much the
generals yearn for a political settlement, they prefer to use
every weapon available to fight the uprising without legal and
political constraints. The army's job, Shomron added, is "to
enable the political echelon to negotiate from a position of
strength."

    The I.D.F. alone cannot possibly fulfill the conflicting
demands of a deeply divided nation. At best it can ensure that
life for the Palestinians remains extremely difficult. Only
political courage on both sides of the barricades can alter the
painful status quo. And there can be no doubt that on both
sides of the barricades, there is pain. "The Arabs are paying
the higher physical price," says Ze'ev Schiff, defense editor
of the Israeli daily Ha'aretz. "Israel pays the moral one."

-- Jon D. Hull/Jerusalem