Leftist-Settler Clash Brings New Charges of Israeli Double Standard on West Bank

JERUSALEM — Jewish settlers blocked a main West Bank roadway the other day and roughed up people trying to attend a meeting of the leftist Peace Now movement, leading to new charges that the Israeli authorities apply different standards to Jewish and Arab lawbreakers in the occupied territories.

The army finally rescued the leftists from the scores of settlers who took part in the incident, which occurred last Monday, but it did not use tear gas or any other form of force, as it often does against Arab demonstrators--and as it did that same day against Arab students a few miles away.

Commenting on the situation, the Jerusalem Post said in an editorial: “The double standard so often applied by the security forces cannot but be taken as confirmation of the settlers’ claim (to the) right to lay down their own law for the territories. And the settlers’ law . . . delegitimizes--indeed, criminalizes--any bid by Israelis to discuss options for a negotiated settlement for the territories with peace-minded Palestinians.”

Complaints Filed

Two leftist members of the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, who were among those abused by the settlers have filed formal police complaints. One of them, Shulamit Aloni, who represents the Citizens Rights Movement, said in a statement to the Knesset that the attackers were “armed savages” and “Jewish terrorists.”

The settlers were protesting a meeting between Israeli and Palestinian Arab representatives in Hebron that had been called to discuss mutual recognition between the two peoples and self-determination for the Palestinians. The meeting place was Hebron’s Park Hotel, a political landmark where Jewish activists first attempted to establish a West Bank presence after Israel captured the territory in the 1967 Middle East War.

Peace Now, a leftist Israeli group opposed to the settlers, organized the meeting to counter a convention in Kiryat Arba, just outside of Hebron, of the right-wing political party Tehiya (Renaissance), which advocates annexation of the West Bank. Among Peace Now’s invited guests were at least three Knesset members and several Palestinian notables, some of whom identify politically with the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Disruption Plans

The settlers admit that they drafted elaborate plans to disrupt the meeting, which they viewed as treasonous collaboration with the PLO and dangerous incitement of the local Arab population. The military-style plan included lookouts with radios, code names such as “Independence” and “Chicken” and a series of code words for prearranged steps to be taken.

“Whoever comes here to hug them (the Arabs) is in effect creating a united front of terrorists and Jews,” said Eliakim Haetzni, the Kiryat Arba settlement leader. “This is tantamount to stabbing us in the heart.”

The settlers from Kiryat Arba and Hebron are among the movement’s most militant. They consider the West Bank to be part of the greater “Land of Israel” and have threatened armed resistance if there is an attempt to give any of it up in a “land-for-peace” agreement with the Arabs.

Otniel Schneller, chairman of the Council of Settlements in Judea and Samaria (the Biblical names for the West Bank used by the settlers), said: “We wanted to show that this kind of meeting--Jewish people meeting with the PLO and talking about how to throw the Jewish people from Israel--we think is very, very dangerous. And nobody can agree to something like that.”

Schneller was accused of having organized the settlers’ action in criminal charges filed by Aloni and another member of the Knesset, Yossi Sarid. But he said in a telephone interview that all he knows about the complaints is what he has heard in radio news reports.

The settlers blocked the main Jerusalem-Hebron road just north of the meeting place, then shoved, cursed and spat on would-be guests at the barricade. One man smashed the windshield of Knesset member Matti Peled’s car with a stone, an army spokesman said. Only three settlers were detained at the time, although the spokesman said that four others were charged later.

In contrast, the army announced that a soldier had shot and killed a 22-year-old Palestinian and wounded his companion after they stoned a bus near Ramallah last Wednesday night. The army spokesman said the soldier had followed normal procedure, firing only after the two Palestinians ignored first a call to stop and then warning shots.

‘Inflammatory Material’

Also, on the morning the settlers blocked the Hebron Road, the army broke up a student demonstration at Hebron Polytechnic school, using tear gas and warning shots in the air. A spokesman said that students hurled stones and gasoline bombs at the troops and that “large quantities of inflammatory material and a stock of Molotov cocktails” (gasoline bombs) were found on the premises.

On Thursday, the army ordered the school closed for a month.

An army spokesman defended the military’s conduct in both the settlers’ and the students’ actions, saying that the Arab youths constituted a more significant physical threat than did the Kiryat Arba demonstrators, who stopped short of any serious violence. Nevertheless, he conceded that there is a double standard on the West Bank.

He said that West Bank Jewish settlers fall under the jurisdiction of Israeli law while the Palestinian residents are subject to military regulation. That gives the settlers protection against such punishment as administrative arrest, which is used against Arabs. Also, military courts generally impose prison terms for infractions such as stone throwing while Israeli civilian courts often let an offender off with a fine.

‘Different Rules’

But the spokesman said that more than the legal difference is involved.

“You can say,” he said, “there’s a double standard--well, yes, there is a double standard, because there are two different types of population, (for) which there are different rules and different norms.” He related this state of affairs to “difference of their makeup” and “difference in the communities” as well as difference under the law.

“With regard to whether the law against Israeli settlers is enforced or is not enforced--that’s a different question,” the spokesman said. “And no doubt the whole political atmosphere and the whole political debate on the issue affects the extent to which there is law enforcement on that. I’m not denying it.”

The spokesman said the army was “caught in the middle” by settler protests. He repeatedly stressed the danger of a confrontation between Jews. Such a confrontation, he said, would have “very critical political ramifications.”

“We didn’t want to create a situation where we will have to use force and create a confrontation on that road,” the spokesman said, “not only because of fighting between Jews but also because the Arabs were sitting on the (nearby) scaffolding and watching. It’s a very delicate situation.”

He said the army’s orders were to secure the safety of the Peace Now meeting, which had been cleared beforehand with Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

“At the same time,” he said, “we had to design it in such a way as to prevent confrontation, either between soldiers and the settlers or between the settlers and the Peace Now movement.”

To have used force or even to have made mass detentions “would have inflamed the situation,” the spokesman said. But he said that in addition to the seven settlers already charged, the authorities are reviewing photographs of the confrontation with an eye toward additional legal action.

Meanwhile, Peace Now said it will not be satisfied if a few settlers are put on trial. “We demand that the settler leaders who incited for days before the meeting be put on trial,” a spokesman said.