October 1990, Page 9, 80

Special Report

The Passing of Yitzhak Rabin, Whose "Iron Fist" Fueled the Intifada

By Stephen J. Sosebee

The formation of a right-wing, Likud-led government this spring ended Yitzhak Rabin's six-year reign as Israeli defense minister. Like the terms of presidents in the U.S., the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip is divided into eras characterized by policies formulated under the ministers of defense of the Israeli government. The Rabin era was perhaps the most significant period in the modern history of the Palestine-Israel dispute, for it witnessed the birth of one of the most unique revolutions of the 20th century: the intifada.

The intifada as a mass popular uprising against foreign domination, of course, is not finished, and it seems clear that Mr. Rabin's star has not disappeared in the ever-unpredictable world of Israeli politics. Due to the completion of his reign as defense minister, however, Rabin's rule deserves particular examination, for his contribution to the nature of the Israeli occupation may have left a lasting mark on future prospects for peace in the Middle East.

A Hated Name

Though the lack of political or civil rights of the Palestinians made the mass uprising a matter of time, it is the name "Rabin" that most young Palestinians spit out as the Israeli most responsible for their current suffering. Though few remember his stints as prime minister and chief of staff, occupied Palestinians recognize that his rule as the defense minister greatly influenced their lives during the mid-1980s.

It was, in fact, Rabin's policies that gave direction to the timing, scope, and intensity of the intifada. Furthermore, the intifada's domestic political effect on Israel has been the collapse of the second Likud-Labor coalition government, resulting from a deep lack of consensus between the two parties in dealing with the Palestinians. As a result of the collapse, Rabin, who arrogantly threatened, and tried for more than two years, to crush the revolt, has been chalked up as the intifada's greatest victim.

The Rabin era in the occupied territories began in 1984, with the formation of the first Likud-Labor coalition government. While most Middle East observers at this time were watching the slow and bloody Israeli withdrawal from central Lebanon, the new defense minister from the Labor Party initiated a policy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip called the "iron fist."

Though the Israeli occupation has never been anything but planned and formalized misery for the Palestinians, the "iron fist" in 1985 turned the screws further by increasing administrative and collective measures carried out by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) against the civilian population. Rabin was quoted then as saying the purpose of these new measures was "to make life so difficult for the Arabs that they leave the territories."

The basic error of Rabin and the Israeli government at this time was to underestimate the determination of the Arabs to stay, rather than making the mistake of leaving Palestine as they did in 1948 and 1967. Remaining in Palestine despite inflicted misery became the basic form of resistance to the "iron fist." That changed, however, in December 1987, when a spark in Gaza ignited pent-up mass frustrations, creating an unexpected and unprecedented revolt.

The documented human rights abuses of the IDF in the occupied territories after 1984 reveal significant increases in the level of mass collective and indiscriminate punishments. Before 1985, the demolition of homes-a form of collective punishment illegal under international law and used nowhere else in the world except by the state of Israel in its occupied lands-was confined basically to cases where Palestinians were suspected of killing or wounding Israeli soldiers or settlers. In 1982, for example, the Israelis destroyed 17 Arab homes for this reason. In the second year of Rabin's rule, however, the IDF blew up or bulldozed more than 102 houses for "security-related" charges which included non-violent resistance to Israel's occupation and virtually anything concerning manifestations of Palestinian national identity.

No Trial Required

For Arab home owners, the occupation authorities do not require a trial to prove a suspect's actual guilt. Nor did Rabin at that time seem overly concerned with the fact that many innocent family members (including children) were and still are instantly made homeless for the suspected acts of an individual, sometimes a teen-aged member of an extended family living in the house. It is such indiscriminate and collective reprisals which built up mass frustrations against an occupation that was already horribly oppressive. These frustrations later were channeled into the intensity and determination of Palestinian youths which has provided the staying power of the intifada.

Rabin also brought back the use of deportation and transfer, another administrative punishment that had fallen out of use by the IDF during the late 1970s. Like the Palestinians whose homes are demolished, Palestinians who are deported are never actually tried in court to prove their guilt. Between August 1985 and April 1986, 36 Palestinians were deported from the land in which they were born by a defense minister who, ironically, emigrated to the coutnry as a young man from Europe. Again, this fueled mounting frustration and rage among the occupied.

Other measures employed as part of the "iron fist" include imprisonment without trial, town and house arrest, torture during interrogation, curfews, settler violence, and permissive IDF policies for the use of live ammunition against unarmed demonstrators. These measures are still employed by the Israelis against the Palestinians in the intifada, though they violate the Fourth Geneva Convention and a variety of other basic human rights laws. The use of deportation by an occupying power was, in fact, defined as "a war crime" at Nuremburg.

Once the mass revolt broke out in Gaza, Rabin predictably dealt with dissent the only way he understood; through the use of lethal and overwhelming force. As his efforts failed, new tactics were employed, such as the assassination of young activists by Shin Bet and military death squads, and month-long curfews. Considering that the Palestinians are an unarmed civilian population and the IDF is trained to fight other armies, the "iron fist" against the intifada has evolved into a "dirty war," along the lines made familiar by repressive right-wing governments in Latin America, due to the IDF's use of excessive force and brutality.

Policies of a "Dirty War"

A clear indication that the "iron fist" is now a "dirty war" was the infamous declaration by Rabin in January 1988 that the IDF would crush the uprising through "force, might, and beatings." In effect, Rabin had ordered his troops to systematically break the bones of suspected and often innocent civilians after they had been apprehended.

Another "dirty war" policy of Rabin concerned the use of firearms against unarmed civilians. The IDF open-fire policy was liberalized after it became clear the uprising was more than a short-term revolt. In September 1988 Rabin announced that a new "plastic bullet" was to be employed against the intifada. Up to that time, the IDF had killed more than 150 unarmed civilians with live M-16 bullets. Though the world's impression was that this new "plastic" bullet would decrease the level of bloodshed, Rabin declared that the "aim" of the "plastic" bullets was "to increase the number of injured, but not kill them." Within four weeks UNRWA recorded a six-fold increase in the number of injured and dead Palestinians from IDF gunfire.

In January 1989, Rabin permitted IDF soldiers to shoot at anyone near a roadblock or demonstration. Again casualties among the Palestinians increased. In July 1989, Rabin granted IDF soldiers the authority to open fire at anyone whose face was masked. Such orders have, in effect, provided a license to shoot any Arab, without determining if that person was doing anything "illegal."

It was Rabin's personal battle with the West Bank Christian village of Beit Sahour, site of Bethlehem's "shepherds' fields," that proved to be the biggest blow to the Labor Party hard-liner. In an act of collective civil disobedience, the residents of Beit Sahour refused in the fall of 1989 to pay taxes until they had legitimate political representation.

In October 1989, Rabin vowed in the Knesset that there would be "no nonpayment of taxes" in Beit Sahour. "We will teach them there is a price for refusing the laws of Israel," the defense minister vowed. He clamped a 40-day curfew on the village and began confiscations of household property as a means to collect revenues. Beit Sahour stood firm and eventually, under great pressure from Western Europeans, many of whom joined their consular representatives in trying to break through the siege lines, Rabin was forced to end the siege and the confiscation of household properties.

Rabin's Mark in History

The intifada has ensured that Yitzhak Rabin's mark in history will be as the man who tried but failed to crush a civilian uprising with overwhelming military force. During Rabin's 28-month effort, the IDF recorded the following statistics: Over 800 Palestinian civilians shot, gassed or beaten to death; at least another 60,000 injured; over 400 homes destroyed; over 90 people deported from their homeland without trial; thousands of dunums of Arab land confiscated; the closure of all universities; the torture deaths of more than a dozen political prisoners; the closure of all West Bank schools for over a year; the forced separation of over 250 families; and the detention of nearly 10,000 people without trial. (These figures do not include Palestinians killed by Jewish settlers, or other deaths and woundings not recorded or admitted by the Israeli Defense Forces.) It is important also to remember that the Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza Strip is only about 1.7 million people.

The "iron fist" of Yitzhak Rabin in the occupied territories did great damage to any future possibilities of peaceful coexistence in the Middle East. By demanding a "correction" of the Palestinian "problem," the intifada both created unprecedented opportunities for negotiations and recognition, and a collapse of the coalition government. Being to some extent responsible for creating many of the conditions that gave birth to the uprising, Rabin is, in effect, a victim of his own monster. This is almost certainly how history will remember him.

Meanwhile, the new defense minister, Moshe Arens (who held the post previously, in the early 1980s), has promised to deal with the Palestinians in the same fashion as Rabin. Arens has also agreed to establish a "civilian guard" in the territories, composed mainly of Jewish settlers.

Such policies suggest that there will be little change in the level of bloodshed and misery in occupied Palestine in the near future, and in the number of human beings senselessly killed and wounded, before the failure of the occupation becomes obvious.

Stephen J. Sosebee of Kent, Ohio, is a free-lance writer living in Gaza and Jerusalem.