No Violence, Arrests; Only Calls for Israelis to Go : Arabs Defy Army, Rally in W. Bank Town

The people of this Arab village had been warned not to demonstrate Friday. They were told to take a lesson from what had happened here last week when Israeli soldiers had beaten and arrested dozens of young men during a rock-throwing protest march.

However, on a day when most other expected demonstrations on the West Bank and Gaza Strip to honor the memory of Palestinians killed in clashes with the Israelis fizzled out either through fear, disinterest or military pressure, more than 1,000 people marched on the mud-clogged streets of Beit Furik in an open challenge to army orders. And they got away with it.

Nothing happened. No soldiers came. There were no arrests, no beatings, no stone-throwing nor burning tire barricades. There was only a well-organized and loud demand that Israel give up its occupation of land taken from its Arab enemies in the Six-Day War of 1967.

‘Save Our Martyrs’

“We’re going to save our martyrs with our hands and our blood,” read one poster. “We will not surrender,” read another “We will continue our march to Jerusalem.”

“We proved we don’t take orders from the Israelis,” said Issam Nassasreh, a 26-year-old tile worker and one of the leaders of the demonstration.

That seemed to be the case. On Thursday night, an Israeli patrol had entered Beit Furik, about four miles east of Nablus, and told the town elders that the people would be punished if they held a demonstration.

The defiance entailed more than just the 90-minute demonstration. The young leaders carried flags of the Palestine Liberation Organization, waved large pictures of PLO leader Yasser Arafat and shouted slogans calling for an independent Palestinian state under the rule of the PLO--all declared illegal acts by Israel.

It was, several protest leaders told American journalists, also a sign that the PLO is moving to organize and regain control of what had become a movement of young people who had no allegiance to Arafat and, in fact, were challenging him for not doing enough to end the 20-year Israeli occupation.

The demonstration was clearly in the hands of PLO supporters. Although the march began immediately after noon prayers at the town mosque and ended there after snaking through the winding streets, the thrust of the posters, slogans and chanting was that Arafat was the leader.

“Congratulations to the PLO, to Arafat!” shouted one organizer as the demonstrators stood before the mosque after the march. They responded with cheers and rhythmic clapping that grew louder and faster as the leather-jacketed leader began intoning, “Arafat, we are behind you to liberation.”

All of this, plus the well-ordered nature of the demonstration, was in sharp contrast to last week’s riot, according to several townspeople.

“Last Friday was bigger and more spontaneous,” said one young man who identified himself only as Nasser. “Then, there were almost no pictures of Arafat and no PLO flags.” There also was no journalist present, an unimaginable lapse for the publicity-hungry PLO.

And it was also largely the work of teen-agers egged on by Islamic clergy during the Friday noon prayers. This Friday, the PLO control was palpable and the religious factor clearly subordinate.

Instead of leading and inciting the protesters, leaders of the mosque engaged in a sort of exchange with the young man directing the chanting.

“Greetings to the sons of Arafat, this is your day,” said a man from within the mosque over loudspeakers. “This uprising is filling the land.”

This was answered by the demonstration leader: “God make me a martyr.”

--”We shall go to Nablus to help, to Jerusalem.”

--”God make me a martyr.”

--”Now you can rise up.”

--”God make me a martyr.”

The PLO and the religious leaders also made certain to play to the teen-agers, who are often described as the real instigators and motivators for the weeks of demonstrations and confrontation with Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

‘Children of the Stones’

“Greetings to the children of the stones” was a chant repeated over and over in praise of the young people who have challenged the Israeli army with rocks.

“This is all significant--significant that they are using the mosque and having the exchange between the PLO supporters and the mosque, “ said one town leader. “It is a sign that the mosque has been liberated from the old Jordan control,” a reference to the 20 years that the West Bank was under the conservative rule of Jordan.

Beit Furik is a farming community with a hundred or so people who travel into Israel proper to work. Until a week ago, it had been quiet, not collaborating with the Israeli government but not resisting either.

But as the recent disturbances spread from Gaza to the West Bank, the news crept into Beit Furik, particularly through reports from the PLO radio in Baghdad, Iraq, and a new station called The Voice of Jerusalem that is broadcasting from either southern Lebanon or Syria.

All of this, combined with increasing bitterness over the aggressive Israeli tactics to end the protests though fear and intimidation, served to galvanize the once-passive community.

“We have waited 20 years to be released from their (the Israelis’) prison,” Ahmed Saleh, a 67-year-old World War II veteran of the British army, said when asked if he approved of the violent tactics of the young people. “Now it is clear that we should do everything to achieve that release.”