Israel to Deport 9 for ‘Incitement’ : Despite U.S. Protests, Palestinians to Be Expelled in Wake of Unrest

Ignoring strong and repeated U.S. protests, the Israeli government Sunday ordered the expulsion of nine Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, accusing them of “incitement and subversive activity on behalf of the terrorist organizations.”

Expulsion orders were served on the nine by instruction of Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin and without trials under provisions of a 1945 “emergency regulation,” dating from the period when Britain ruled the area under a mandate from the long-defunct League of Nations. The expulsions were reportedly endorsed at Sunday’s regular meeting of the Israeli Cabinet.

Under Israeli rules, the deportees can appeal their expulsion orders to an advisory committee headed by a military court judge and then to the Israeli High Court of Justice. However, in the only known past instance in which the High Court has urged that an expulsion order be reconsidered, the government ignored the recommendation.

Triggered by Unrest

The expulsions follow a period of the most widespread unrest in the occupied territories since the Israeli army captured them in the Six-Day War of 1967, and critics charged that they could serve to inflame the situation once more.

However, Lt. Col. Raanan Gissin, acting as army spokesman, told reporters at a briefing: “We have come to the conclusion that (the deportees’) presence outside the territories will be more congenial to the maintenance of public order than their presence in the territories.”

The expulsion orders, which in at least three cases involve individuals admittedly not involved in the recent disorders, are expected to exacerbate U.S.-Israeli relations already strained by what Washington considers to be the army’s excessive use of lethal force in putting down the disturbances.

On Sunday, a soldier shot to death a 25-year-old woman from the village of Ram, just north of Jerusalem, bringing to 23 the number of confirmed fatal victims of army gunfire since the trouble began Dec. 9. More than 160 other Palestinians have suffered gunshot wounds.

Pressure From Washington

American officials had been engaged for several days in what were described as “intense” contacts with Israeli counterparts “at all kinds of levels” in hopes of heading off the expulsions. Washington considers the administrative expulsion of Palestinians from the occupied territories to be a violation of due process and of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949.

That convention, which Israel has signed, prohibits the expulsion “for any reason whatsoever” of civilians from an area under military occupation.

Israel argues, however, that the Geneva Convention was intended to outlaw mass deportations for such purposes as forced labor, torture or extermination. The government here contends that the rule does not bar the expulsion of individuals or small groups for the purpose of ensuring public order and security.

According to Israeli media, some security officials wanted to expel “hundreds” of Palestinians in the wake of the recent disturbances, and as recently as 10 days ago, informed sources said that Rabin was weighing a proposal to deport up to 20 individuals. It thus appeared that American objections, which gained backing from some Israeli government ministers, may have resulted in a reduction in the expulsion list.

However, public U.S. criticism appeared only to annoy many other Israeli officials. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir told a meeting of U.S. and Israeli businessmen Friday: “It is impossible to dictate to someone from afar how to defend oneself against anarchy, riots, attacks on the state, its citizens, its peace and security.”

Shamir added, “It seems to me that the American public needs to understand the problems of a democratic state defending itself against anti-democratic elements that want to destroy it.”

The army has arrested as many as two dozen other leading Palestinian nationalists in recent days, and some analysts have suggested that they, too, could be candidates for expulsion.

Gissin refused under longstanding government policy to reveal the name of the country to which Israel expects to deport the men.

In this case, however, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon have all said that they will not accept the expelled persons, expressions intended to try to press Israel not to go through with the expulsions.

Gissin said that the nine could not be tried for their alleged activities because the evidence against them “is of such a nature that it could not be elaborated in open court. . . . There are security considerations because of the sources of the information.”

Palestinian Informants

The army relies for much of its information in the territories on informants recruited from among Palestinian residents, often in return for favors such as permission to travel abroad.

Of the nine under expulsion orders, five are reported to be activists in Yasser Arafat’s dominant Fatah wing of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Three others are Muslim fundamentalists from the Gaza Strip, and one is reputedly a senior operative in George Habash’s Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Two of the nine were among 1,150 prisoners released from long sentences in May, 1985, under terms of a controversial exchange for three Israelis captured by Muslim elements during Israel’s 1982 war in Lebanon.

The army identified the nine as follows:

-- Husam Hadar, 26, accused of being a Fatah activist who helped instigate disturbances in the Balata refugee camp outside Nablus where soldiers killed three Palestinians on Dec. 11. Hadar was reportedly wounded in the foot during the clashes.

-- Adil (Bashir) Hamad, 27, said to be the organizer of a militant Fatah youth group in the Kalandia refugee camp near Ramallah and recently appointed correspondent for the Arabic-language Al Fajr newspaper.

-- Jamal Jabara, 28, accused of helping to organize violent demonstrations Dec. 21 in his home town of Kalkilya. He previously served six years of an 18-year sentence for terrorist activity before being released in the 1985 exchange.

-- Bashir Khayri, 45, an attorney from Ramallah described as a senior operative in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who previously spent 15 years in prison for setting a bomb “which killed several people.”

-- Furayj Khayri, 39, an engineer from Gaza apparently not related to Bashir Khayri, who previously served more than eight years in prison under two different terms for Fatah organizing activities. He is a member of the executive committee of the Gaza Engineers Union.

-- Khalil Kuka, 39, a teacher from Gaza and chairman of a Muslim fundamentalist group said to have been responsible for inflammatory sermons delivered in local mosques.

-- Jibril Rajub, 34, the business manager for a Palestinian women’s magazine who previously served 15 years of a life sentence for membership in a terrorist cell blamed for carrying out 10 attacks. He was released in the May, 1985, exchange and went to work for the Center for Palestinian Studies, whose head, Faisal Husseini, is currently under administrative arrest.

-- Mohammed Samara, 26, a recently married student at Gaza’s Islamic University who has been arrested and jailed four times since 1983 for anti-Israeli activities. He reportedly began a hunger strike Sunday to protest against his ordered expulsion.

-- Hasan Abu Shakra, 37, described as “a radical religious fundamentalist” from Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip who allegedly incited crowds to attack the army during disturbances last month.

The army has expelled 19 West Bank and Gaza Strip residents since reinstituting that form of punishment in August, 1985, after a long hiatus.

Eighteen other Palestinians were expelled after being released in the 1985 prisoner exchange, but they were not natives of the West Bank or Gaza Strip.

Israel has expelled more than 1,000 Palestinians since 1968, soon after capturing the territories, but the vast majority of those expulsions occurred in the first decade of the occupation.

In 1980, the High Court of Justice recommended, unsuccessfully, that the government overturn the deportation of the late Fahd Kawasmeh, deposed mayor of Hebron, and Mohammed Milhem, deposed mayor of Halhoul. Earlier that same year, then-Defense Minister Ezer Weizman on his own authority canceled a deportation order he had signed a few days earlier against deposed Nablus Mayor Bassam Shaka.