Israel Denounces Arranged Visits : U.S. Jew Samples Life With Palestinians

During the 10 days she lived with Majid Sharif and his family in this Palestinian village between Hebron and Jerusalem, Washingtonian Alice Winkler talked with them about many things.

The intifada, or Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, was the main topic, of course, but they also spoke about child-rearing and the changing role of women in this society. What they did not discuss--what Winkler, 25, did not tell her Arab hosts--was that she is Jewish.

She was not afraid, the editorial researcher for a Washington-based radio station stressed. She just felt she would get a truer picture of Palestinian attitudes toward Jews if she kept her own Jewish heritage secret.

Little Racism

Winkler discovered plenty of hostility toward the Israeli occupation, she said, but only one case of what she considered racism--a Muslim fundamentalist who saw in the current situation a continuation of “the way the Jews have been for thousands of years.”

That is part of the message that Winkler said in an interview she now intends to take back to America under a new and controversial “Eyewitness Israel” program sponsored by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, which organized her trip.

She said the rest of the message boils down to this: “The conditions of occupation are abysmal. The intifada brought attention to this, though the conditions predate it. Occupation has forced Israel to become more and more repressive. And I don’t think that a Palestinian state is as much of a threat to Israel as the occupation itself.”

Winkler is one of dozens of American observers who have so far visited the occupied territories under the program. It put them, according to a brochure promoting the effort, “in a unique position to gather accurate information and first-hand accounts about the daily abuses under Israel’s military occupation, and to furnish that data to the American public, to the media, and to human rights organizations throughout the country.”

Damaging Israel’s Image

Not so, according to Israeli officials, who say that the program only helps the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee damage the country’s image with biased and distorted accounts of the conflict.

Based on a lengthy interview with Winkler and shorter talks with a dozen other members of the delegation, it appears that the program is neither the purely humanitarian effort suggested by the American-Arab committee nor the venal propaganda ploy depicted by the Israelis.

By actually staying with families in the territories for up to two weeks, the American observers do enjoy a degree of exposure to everyday life there that is rare for an outsider. While they may spend considerable time several days a week on the West Bank and Gaza, even Western journalists based here generally return to their Jerusalem or Tel Aviv homes each night. Rarely do they have nearly as sustained an exposure as do the “eyewitnesses.”

One-Sided View

On the other hand, the observers do get a one-sided view of the conflict. And their final reports are particularly flawed in that they do not clearly differentiate between those events that the participants actually witnessed and those which they are reporting based on hearsay.

The American-Arab committee gave priority in choosing applicants to those affiliated with human rights organizations and “a demonstrated record of activism.” It particularly invited professionals from medicine, journalism, law and religion to apply.

Winkler’s group included representatives from all those fields and more. They came from 14 states.

The committee partially finances the “eyewitnesses,” with participants charged $500 each for a package including travel, accommodations and food. Each observer also has at least one local sponsor, some of whom help defray the cost. Among local groups who have supported the effort: the Los Angeles Humanitarian Law Project, Pacifica Radio, the New Jewish Agenda, Tucson’s Palestine Solidarity Committee, Middle East Cultural and Information Center of San Diego, and Rainbow Coalition chapters in three locations.

3 in Group Jewish

Three of the 16 delegates in Winkler’s group were Jewish; only one was Arab-American. They ranged in age from 25 to 60. Most had no special knowledge of the Middle East, though several had previously been active in human rights causes, especially in Central America. And several said they were motivated to come out of a sense of “moral obligation.”

All of those interviewed were sharply critical of Israeli policy and activity in the territories.

“The Israelis have declared a Palestinian problem,” said Kenneth Weare, a native of Studio City in Los Angeles who teaches theology at St. Mary of the Woods College in Indiana. “And the Palestinian problem is that Israel wants Palestine without Palestinians.”

The Rev. Carlos Jayne, a Methodist minister from Des Moines, said he joined the delegation because he felt “there’s a Palestinian side that hasn’t been told, and the other side has been heavily weighted.” Particularly because of the solid support for Israel among fundamentalist Christian congregations, Jayne said, he wants the “main-line churches . . . starting with my denomination, to begin addressing this issue more aggressively.”

‘Systematic Brutality’

In their final statement, Winkler’s group described conditions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as “characterized by systematic brutality and dehumanizing practices against the Palestinian.”

They listed a number of specific abuses, some of which--beatings, house demolitions, use of tear gas in enclosed areas, curfews, administrative detentions, and deportations--have been well documented. Others of the group’s charges are familiar to journalists and other observers here but are believed never to have been confirmed by any independent source. These include allegations that Israeli troops have injected Palestinians with an unidentified liquid, and that they have used a special, red-colored nerve gas and dum-dum (hollow point) bullets against the intifada .

Winkler’s description of an army action she saw at Hebron’s Hussein High School suggested the danger of exaggeration that even trained observers face in reporting violence.

Initially, she said it involved “hundreds of soldiers who came into the schoolyard and started shooting tear gas, and then bullets into the school.” She added: “From all accounts, afterwards they beat every single student in the school. . . . From interviews I did later with doctors and ambulance drivers, there were 40 people injured badly enough to go to clinics and hospitals.”

Scales Back Figure

Later, however, she said she “probably saw 100” soldiers and that she was relying on Palestinian friends who estimated that 300-400 were involved. She said she believed the troops were firing live, rather than rubber bullets because her friends said they could tell the difference by the sound of the report. She did not see any of the bullets hit, however.

(Initial army and Palestinian accounts of the incident said troops used only tear gas and rubber bullets, but not live ammunition, to break up student protests.)

As for the beatings, Winkler said she could see from her vantage point on a nearby hill troops leading the last eight boys out of the school at the end of the action. “It looked to me from where I was standing that they were beating the boys on the bus,” she said. She added that she had not seen any of the youths who were reportedly treated in hospitals or clinics.

Clashes aside, Winkler said, “in some ways even more than the direct violence the general level of harassment and humiliation (of Palestinians) is more difficult to take.” She referred to random identity checks, forcible late-night house searches, insults and other well-documented practices used by the military in the territories.

The youngest of three children in a family she described as “active in civil rights issues,” Winkler said her next step is “to make presentations and just talk to people” about what she saw. “Because I’m Jewish, I have some credibility that others don’t have,” she said.