Israeli Cabinet Hears Defense of Crackdown

The Israeli government Sunday defended a new military crackdown on Palestinian protesters as a general strike closed down most of the occupied territories.

The crackdown has caused record casualties, with at least 18 Palestinians being killed in the past 10 days and 52 admitted to hospital with gunshot wounds on Thursday and Friday alone.

“The prime minister (Yitzhak Shamir) expressed on behalf of the whole government support for the policy of the army in the (occupied) areas,” Cabinet Secretary Eliakim Rubinstein told reporters after the weekly government meeting.

“This is a policy which is endorsed by the government, which is under instructions from the government and which is in the framework of the law,” he said.

But the League for Human and Civil Rights has petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court for an injunction against Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s instructions allowing some soldiers to fire plastic bullets at Arabs throwing rocks, burning tires, blocking roads or fleeing from troops.

And Parliament Member Amnon Rubinstein of the centrist Shinui opposition party urged soldiers to disobey the new army orders to fire the bullets at Palestinians.

“Killing as a punishment, or as deterrence, is illegal and therefore the new instructions are patently illegal and, according to the law, should not be obeyed,” the Jerusalem Post quoted him as saying.

But Police Minister Chaim Bar-Lev of the Labor Party warned that it was an “illegal act for a member of Parliament to encourage soldiers not to obey orders.”

Atty. Gen. Yosef Harish told the ministers at the closed meeting that the new regulations are legal, Israel Radio said.

Speaking on Israel Television after the Cabinet met, Finance Minister Shimon Peres defended use of the plastic bullets.

“Why do we use plastic bullets? Not because it gives us great pleasure, but because regular bullets cause more deaths,” he said.

In other action, the Cabinet, reversing an earlier decision, decided that President Chaim Herzog should attend the funeral next month of Japan’s Emperor Hirohito. Israel had announced earlier this month that Herzog would not attend. Officials said privately that the government was reluctant to send the head of state in view of Hirohito’s World War II role.

In the occupied territories, most shopkeepers closed stores to observe the strike, called by the Muslim fundamentalist Hamas movement, and the army imposed curfews that confined about 180,000 Arabs to their homes in several Gaza Strip refugee camps.

Also in the Gaza Strip, assailants presumed to be Palestinians hurled two firebombs at a bus full of Arab workers breaking the general strike by reporting to jobs in Israel. No one was injured.