Village Sees Itself as Tiny ‘Independent State’ : Palestinians Hail ‘Liberated Zone’

The 3,000 residents of this Arab village would not approve of this dateline. To them, Burqa is not occupied territory, but a “liberated zone.”

“This has always been a (Palestinian) nationalist stronghold,” said Sami, a young man who spoke for the village leaders during a reporter’s recent visit to Burqa, an ancient town sitting high on a hillside 10 miles northwest of Nablus.

“We never accepted Jordan as our ruler and we will never accept Israeli rule,” he said. “We are Palestinians forever. Of course we are liberated.”

Since the Palestinian uprising began Dec. 9, several villages in the occupied territories have declared themselves to be “liberated zones,” the vanguard of what they say will become an independent Palestinian nation.

Mostly Wishful Thinking

But for most of these areas, the designation is more an exercise in wishful thinking than reality, usually made that way by the determined efforts of the Israeli army to retain control.

Burqa, however, has maintained its image as a sort of tiny “independent state” through a combination of determination, geography, organization and, in a perverse way, Israeli policy.

“We have volunteer committees for everything,” said Sami during a tour of the village, which is an odd mixture of the ancient and the modern with TV antennas swaying over stone buildings dating back to its founding 1,300 years ago.

“We clean our own streets, we opened our own agricultural roads, and when we are under curfew, we smuggle in food and supplies and distribute them. We make our own electricity because the Israelis cut off the wires, but we have to ration it because we can’t always get the fuel . . . to run the generators,” Sami said.

Impressive Defense

More impressive than the civic work of the committees which, judging from the garbage in the street and the smell of human and animal waste, isn’t all that effective, is the defense organization.

“We have extensive night patrols and a signal system to warn us when the soldiers are coming,” said Seid, another village leader who wouldn’t give his full name but appeared to be about 25 years old.

The role of geography was obvious. There is only one real road into Burqa, which sits about a mile and a half from the main highway and commands a view for several miles.

And in the way of experienced battlefield commanders, Sami, Seid and others who plot battle strategy, have established a line of defense that starts with scouts who send signals of impending invasion.

These are often little boys or old men who appear to be working in the fields below the village.

Then anyone coming in encounters hulks of old cars, boulders and telephone poles. The main defense points are on the edge of the village itself, where hundreds of men deploy for major resistance, armed with grapefruit-size stones and large sling shots that can fire a rock the size of a baseball 50 yards with fair accuracy.

Part of the success in maintaining a semblance of independence comes from the Israelis themselves.

First, the army has cut the road to the main highway, leaving Burqa physically isolated but also preventing the Israelis from using vehicles to carry large forces into the village.

The army also has banned the villagers from traveling outside the West Bank, except for the 100 or so who work in Israel proper, and in an effort at collective punishment, has cut off all municipal services.

All of this has forced the village to rely on its own devices. In Burqa, this has meant development of both a spirit and a system of self-reliance.

And perhaps a sense of bravado. “The army is afraid to come in here,” said Sami. “If we weren’t really interested in peace we would massacre them.”

Not exactly. The army does come in, almost every day, or at least it tries to. But it doesn’t always succeed in cowing Burqa as it does other villages.

The town has been fighting the Israelis steadily since the current uprising began Dec. 9. The latest battle began last Tuesday when a convoy of troops, including Gen. Amram Mitzna, Israeli commander of the West Bank, was severely stoned as it drove by, laboring up a steep grade.

In retaliation, 40 Israeli troops walked into the village the next night, according to Sami. “They broke into some houses to try and arrest me and some others they had on a list. But when they couldn’t find us, they took some kids as hostages.

“By then we knew they were there, and we trapped 12 soldiers in an alley. They said if we let them go, they would let the hostages go. We showed them they can’t control us with just a few soldiers like the past. They have to come in in a large force and even then they can’t stay for long because they know we will fight them.”

Military spokesmen say that Burqa has been a constant and tough problem for the army and they acknowledge that it has not cooperated, but they deny it can be considered a “liberated zone.”

“There is no such thing,” a spokesman said. “We are in control.”

Perhaps so. But one recent afternoon, a foreign journalist witnessed an attempt by about 100 soldiers to enter the village. They were driven back, even though the troopers fired rubber bullets and live ammunition at the men behind the barricades who had battered the Israelis with stones. After an hour or so, the soldiers withdrew.

The army version of the incident was that the troops had stopped demonstrators from blocking the main highway. In Burqa, however, it was taken as another sign of its “liberation.”