Arabs, Israelis in a Test of Wills : West Bank Strife Becomes Grinding War of Attrition

JALAZOUN CAMP, Israeli-Occupied West Bank — Miriam Zaid has been out of this refugee camp only once since the Palestinian uprising turned life upside down more than three months ago. On that occasion, she said, she tried without success to sign up for free flour from a relief agency in nearby Al Birah.

Her husband, stone mason Ali Zaid Araisi, has not worked in two months. Along with their four daughters, the Zaids are surviving on handouts from the United Nations plus the help of friends and their skill at making a little go a long way.

Miriam Zaid, 52, bakes a dozen loaves of bread every other day in a rusty “Palestinian oven,” a three-tiered sort of appliance about the size of a footstool. Firewood at the bottom heats rocks in the middle and food on top.

“Before, we used to buy a chicken once a week,” she said, “but now we go for two or three weeks without one. Instead, we buy lentils and potatoes.”

The Zaids did not have much to start with, but, like most West Bank and Gaza Strip Palestinians these days, they are learning to make do with less in anticipation of harder times to come.

They are representative of the latest phase in the continuing anti-Israeli unrest, a potentially pivotal phase that Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin has compared to the so-called war of attrition that Israel waged across the Suez Canal in 1969 and 1970. The outcome, Rabin said, will depend on which side is exhausted first.

It is a grinding contest--not as dramatic as the street demonstrations, which continue on a smaller but no less lethal scale--but deadly serious nonetheless.

The goal of the Palestinians is to make the cost of occupying the territories greater than the Israelis are willing to bear. The authorities appear to be equally determined to restore order, certain that any appearance of weakness will invite future disaster.

Israel has stepped up its pressure considerably this week, halting most shipments of gasoline and heating oil to the West Bank, imposing the first-ever territory-wide curfew on the Gaza Strip, banning travel by Palestinians between the West Bank and Gaza and cutting international telephone links to the territories.

The nightly curfew, from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m., and the unprecedented travel restrictions are meant to make it more difficult for organizers of the unrest to function, security sources say. But they are also expected to isolate Gazans from important agricultural markets in Jordan and to crimp commercial ties between Gazans and West Bank residents.

Policemen Resign

The new steps follow an accelerating Palestinian campaign against Arabs accused of collaborating with the Israeli authorities and mass resignations by Arab policemen in the territories.

“We will not let anarchy prevail,” Shaike Erez, head of the West Bank civil administration, told Israel Radio over the weekend. “We will not let people working with us get hurt.”

The authorities apparently hope to wrench the initiative away from the self-styled and anonymous Unified National Leadership for the Uprising in the Occupied Territories, which is influenced by the Palestine Liberation Organization. The group’s periodic directives, in pamphlet form, have an important influence on the day-to-day lives of Palestinians and some Israelis as well.

When there is a call for a general strike, as there was Tuesday and Wednesday, the Palestinians buy whatever supplies they can the day before. Public transportation ceases during a general strike, and the only stores open in the territories are pharmacies and newspaper stands.

On other days, the leaflets call for a partial strike. Merchants are instructed to open for business during a specified few hours a day. Stores in mostly Arab East Jerusalem are open from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., in Bethlehem from 9 a.m. until noon. Shoppers adjust their buying accordingly.

Ease Impact on Palestinians

The staggered hours were designed to ease the impact of the strikes on the Palestinians, but the authorities see them as a challenge to army authority. On Thursday, the authorities reportedly intervened in several locations, preventing merchants from opening as planned during the morning hours and in some cases sealing storefronts.

Israel Radio said the move was intended to “break the power of the underground Palestinian leadership” and establish that it will be the army that sets business hours.

There is an almost surreal quality about the underground instructions. “Nobody knows where the leaflets are coming from,” a Palestinian journalist said. “Nobody knows this leadership. They’re invisible. It’s enough that the PLO is behind it.”

Ironically, the pamphlets too are increasingly invisible, whether because of successful Israeli raids on the shops where they are printed or for some other reason. But that seems to make little difference. The word is passed by word of mouth or over pro-PLO radio stations broadcasting from Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, and Monte Carlo.

Wait for Instructions

Even if they have never seen one, Palestinians wait for instructions in the leaflets, which are numbered sequentially. “Is No. 11 out yet?” they will ask when they meet. They know the PLO is escalating the struggle, and, given the stepped-up pressure on collaborators, they do not want to be out of step.

Increasingly, the Palestinian community on the West Bank and Gaza Strip resembles something that has gone into hibernation. All activity has been suspended except for what is necessary to existence.

“Gas Stations on West Bank Closed; Some Switching to Donkeys,” a headline said Wednesday in Hadashot, the popular Hebrew-language daily.

Schools throughout the territories have been closed for more than a month because they were focal points of unrest. Youngsters here in the Jalazoun camp are often seen playing in an uneven dirt lot, kicking a small rubber ball in a kind of soccer game.

Workers Stay Away

According to Israeli estimates, the number of workers from the territories showing up for jobs in Israel proper has dropped by 20% to 40%--by half, Palestinians say.

The Israeli owner of a West Jerusalem restaurant apologized to two diners Tuesday for the unusually poor service. He said that most of his Arab help had joined the general strike and that he had drafted inexperienced members of his family to fill in for them.

Israel Radio reported this week that value-added tax receipts from the territories are down by 20% since the uprising began, indicating the extent of the decline in commercial activity there.

People buy little except food, and they sleep a lot. “The streets are empty after 6 or 7 at night,” said a man from Deir Dibwan, a prosperous village northeast of Jerusalem. “I wind up sleeping 10 or 12 hours a day.”

A lawyer said he has earned the equivalent of only $330 in the last three months, compared to his normal $600 to $900 a month.

‘Returned to the Fields’

Mohammed abu Hashem, 39, a contractor from the West Bank village of Dura, said he and his neighbors have “returned to the fields” to raise more of their own food. He said his wife is teaching their five children how to prepare and appreciate more natural foods. “It’s going to last for a long time,” he said.

A grocer in Beit Hanina, north of Jerusalem, said shoppers have cut back on sweets and other nonessentials in preparation for “the black days” ahead. Also, they are replacing Israeli products with locally produced Palestinian products where possible.

Hashem Juneidi, owner of Juneidi Milk Products Co. in Hebron, said his sales last month were 20% to 25% higher than in the previous year, even as Palestinians sharply reduced their overall spending.

The minister of economic planning, Gad Yaacobi, said the other day that the unrest has cost the Israeli economy several hundred million dollars. It is not clear whether this includes the cost of replacing Israeli workers--army reservists who have had to serve additional time on active duty because of the unrest.

Psychological Toll

There is a clear psychological toll as well, on Israelis and Palestinians alike.

Jewish settlers on the West Bank, who experience the unrest in what amounts to the front lines, say they are tired of having their cars stoned by Arab youths, endangering them and their families. Some have mounted vigilante raids against Palestinian refugee camps and villages in response.

Hadashot reported Wednesday that sales of new apartments in several West Bank settlements are off as much as 80%.

An Israeli bank manager, depressed by the seeming intractability of the conflict, told a customer, “I’m going to have to find a new place for my family.”

“Another town?” the customer asked.

“Another country,” he replied. “I’m serious. This is just the beginning. And I know one thing: I don’t want my son to die in a war.” His son is 5 years old.

Palestinians Weary, Too

Some Palestinians, too, say they have about reached the end of their rope. “This is really getting old,” an East Jerusalem businessman complained to a friend the other day as he waited for 3 p.m., when the strike rules allow him to open. “I barely make enough to meet costs.” He, too, talked of leaving.

“Nobody likes the situation we’re in,” the Palestinian journalist said. “The debate goes on everywhere: We’re sacrificing our livelihood, our children. Are we going to get anything out of it?”

Miriam Zaid knows what she wants out of it. “We don’t want the Jews,” she said. “Let them get out of here and we’ll be happy. We’d be willing to eat dirt.”

A neighbor did not want to talk with a reporter. Citing an old Arab proverb, he said, “Complaining to anyone other than God is humiliating.”