This Time the Shocks Come From Within : Israel Awakes to an Internal War Between Arabs and Jews

In October, 1973, Egypt, Syria and other Arab states attacked Israel in a conflict that was to become known as the Yom Kippur War. We Israelis were not prepared, and the country was caught by surprise.

It was a long and bloody war, costing Israel thousands of casualties. But more than anything else it was a great psychological shock. Accustomed to swift victories on the battlefield, Israel was left in a state of almost total confusion. The Arab countries had managed to surprise us in a humiliating manner.

Gershom Shocken, the editor of the respected Hebrew-language daily Haaretz, referred to the Yom Kippur War as an “earthquake.”

Based on the psychological effect on both Palestinians and Israelis, the current violence in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem can be viewed as a new edition of the Yom Kippur War. This new “earthquake” has also spread to the Israeli-Arab population centers in the Galilee, and even to the backyard of the Jewish state, near Tel Aviv. The main difference is that in 1973 the war was an externally generated tremor; now the shocks come from within.

For many Israeli Jews the violence had aroused old feelings of being surrounded by a hostile and belligerent enemy whose goal is to uproot us from this region.

As the violence unfolded, a rare understanding was reached between the two main components of the national-unity coalition government--the right-wing Likud bloc and the centrist Labor alignment. Both called for a harsh response. Besides the shootings, which have left at least 36 dead and hundreds wounded, more than 2,000 demonstrators were arrested. Most were tried by military courts, and four Palestinian activists--residents of the occupied territories--were deported. Five more are expected to follow as soon as their appeals have been exhausted.

But while Israel was shocked by the violence, the Palestinian reaction was a mixture of pride and self-confidence. Sometimes, especially during the first days of the riots, it was almost an intoxication, as if the demonstrators were saying: “We made it! We are much stronger than we thought, and an independent Palestinian state is on its way!”

Not only Israelis were caught by surprise. So were Palestine Liberation Organization leaders, both outside and inside Israel, who were not prepared for such an unprecedented wave of riots. They merely followed it up with encouragement for more protests. An attempt to start a civil-disobedience campaign, launched by some PLO supporters in East Jerusalem, has so far failed to gather much steam.

Most Israeli Jews still do not grasp the riots’ true meaning. It has a lot to do with our self-image. The words rebellion , revolt and uprising are usually used in the context of oppression and tyranny. This is why most of us prefer words like disturbances or, at the most, riots to describe the events in the territories.

In our own eyes we think that we are an enlightened democracy--the beacon of freedom and equality in the whole region. After more than 20 years as an occupying power we are still not accustomed to our true image.

For most of us the Arabs in the occupied territories live far away, up there in the “Himalayas” of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. We hardly see them. We hardly make any contact with them. The only exception is when they come to work in our factories, workshops and fields.

The riots reflect deep despair and frustration among the Palestinians over continuous Israeli rule since 1967. The message is: “We are sick and tired of your occupation. It has been too long and exhausting. Now we have nothing to lose. So we may as well die.”

It will take more time--months, perhaps, or even years--for Israeli Jews to understand that instead of an external war between Israel and the Arab countries we are dealing with an internal war between Jews and Arabs.

A political solution--be it a confederation between the Palestinians and the Jordanians, an independent Palestinian state in the territories or even an annexation and the granting of all political rights to the Palestinians--is the only answer.

Without such a solution we are doomed to continue the internal war in which each side has its own set of rules. Each will try to win by escalation, leading to more bloodshed. And, just as in the jungle, it may become a savage war of survival.