Local Arab Leaders Vow to Defy Israeli Bid to Dissolve Grass-Roots Committees

Leaders of local committee said Friday they will defy Israeli attempts to stamp out the informal system of self-rule that has sprung up during the 8-month-old Palestinian uprising.

Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin declared the “popular committees” illegal on Thursday and threatened to deport prominent activists.

On Friday, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir said: “These committees incited disturbances and brought a lot of suffering upon the (Arab) population. We had to stop their activities.”

Palestinian intellectuals said the grass-roots organization is far too extensive to be broken.

‘A Way of Life Now’

“It’s a way of life now,” said Saeb Erakat, a professor at An Najah University in Nablus, which has been closed. “I don’t think Rabin, with all the military might at his disposal, can do anything about it except cause more suffering.”

Hundreds of committees have been formed in villages and towns of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, and on almost every city block.

Organizing began last spring in response to leaflets issued by the clandestine United National Leadership of the Uprising, which is linked to Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization.

In the mainly Christian town of Beit Sahur, organizers said groups of 40 to 70 families sent one representative each to neighborhood centers.

Neighborhood representatives elected committees of seven or eight members, but Israeli authorities arrested eight prominent Palestinians who tried to form an independent town council.

“The local committees provide an alternative authority to occupation, and their ultimate aim is to cut ties between the people and Israel’s military government,” said a 50-year-old teacher who has been jailed several times for political activism.