TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/070191/0701005.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.7 KB | 119 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 40

MIDDLE EAST

The Good Life in Gaza


Luring settlers with cheap housing, Shamir strengthens his grip
on the territories and erects a barrier to peace

By JON D. HULL/NEVE DEKALIM


    Michel Bloch wanted to retire to a quiet Jewish community
with cheap housing and excellent security. Five months ago, he
found what he was looking for in an enclave amid 750,000 largely
destitute and rebellious Palestinians in one of the most densely
populated areas in the world: the Gaza Strip. "There is no place
else like this," says Bloch, 57, as he tends the spacious
sea-view garden of his $70,000 two-bedroom duplex. "It's a real
paradise."

    That illusion is shared by 3,000 other Jewish settlers in
the posh enclosures who rely on barbed wire, army roadblocks
and heavy government subsidies to make a point: they want the
Gaza Strip to remain under Israeli control and insist that
their Palestinian neighbors living under military occupation
learn to love it -- or leave it.

    Nearly 230,000 Jews are now ensconced in the occupied
territories. If Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir gets his way, tens
of thousands more will soon follow. As the U.S. struggles to
nurse a postwar peace process into life, Shamir has countered
by launching what is one of the largest Jewish settlement drives
since Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza
Strip and the Golan Heights in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
Ostensibly, the building boom is needed to house a growing
settler population. But it is really meant to strengthen the
Jewish state's claim to the territories prior to any
negotiations. If Shamir can stall long enough, he hopes to make
Israel's presence in the territories irreversible before peace
talks even begin. Says Dedi Zucker, a left-wing Knesset member:
"The idea is simply to destroy any chance that Israel will have
to give up land for peace."

    Since the gulf war ended, three new settlements have been
established in the West Bank, each coinciding with one of
Secretary of State James Baker's visits to the region. Last week
the Peace Now group charged that the government is secretly
planning to build nearly 30,000 additional units in the West
Bank and Gaza. Housing Minister Ariel Sharon insists that the
figure is closer to 13,000 new units over the next two years --
which will still increase the Jewish population in the
territories about 50%. He has also pledged to double the number
of settlers from 12,000 to 24,000 in the Golan Heights, which
Israel annexed in 1981, and to expand Jewish neighborhoods in
volatile East Jerusalem.

    Last month Baker responded to Shamir's latest snub by
calling settlements the biggest "obstacle to peace." President
Bush followed up by warning that he might withhold $10 billion
in U.S. loan guarantees that Israel wants to help absorb Soviet
Jews unless Jerusalem agrees to a settlement freeze. As usual,
Shamir was unimpressed by the threats. Speaking at the West Bank
settlement of Beit Arieh last week, he dismissed any connection
to peace talks and vowed that the construction drive "cannot be
stopped."

    The Prime Minister's willingness to defy Washington is a
well-calculated risk. Since 1968, the U.S. has criticized
Israeli settlements while significantly increasing financial
aid. Last week the House of Representatives overwhelmingly
rejected an amendment to cut $82.5 million -- the amount the
State Department estimates Israel spent last year on settlements
-- from the annual $3 billion aid package. Shamir expects that
Congress will be increasingly reluctant to tangle with Israel
as attention turns to the 1992 elections.

    The Likud Party leader also has a fallback position. If
the U.S. pushes him too hard, the far-right members of his
ruling coalition will revolt. "My party is poised to topple the
government if it comes to that," says Elyakim Ha'etzni, a member
of the extremist Tehiya Party and a West Bank settler. If that
happens, the peace process would languish while Israel prepared
for new elections, which could well produce an even more
hard-line government.

    The housing surge has been fed by an influx of 258,000
Soviet Jews since 1990. Though only an estimated 4% of the
immigrants have moved beyond Israel's pre-1967 borders, their
presence has caused a housing shortage throughout the country,
inducing thousands more Israelis to head for the territories.
"People realize we have the upper hand over the intifadeh," says
Dov Keinan, a settler spokesman in the West Bank, "and that
there is very little chance of a territorial compromise."

    Shamir's insistence that Soviet Jews are not being
directed to the territories is partly disingenuous. While free
to choose where they live, poorer Soviet Jews as well as native
Israelis are being lured to the territories by special tax
breaks and heavily subsidized mortgages. "We'd like to live
somewhere else, but we can't afford to," says Boris Gamov, who
emigrated from Moldavia seven months ago with his wife Ulga, and
now rents a three-room caravan in a Gaza settlement for $40 a
month. "We simply have no choice."

    Israeli hawks contend that the settlements actually help
the peace process by putting pressure on the Arabs while making
Jews feel more secure. Palestinians see the continuing land
confiscations and de facto annexation as proof that Israel does
not intend to make any compromises. Whether Shamir can keep
altering the status quo in Israel's favor without paying any
price depends almost entirely on Washington. So far, Shamir
appears unconvinced that Bush has to be taken seriously.