Israel Trying to Define Army’s Role in Suppressing Unrest

Israeli officials, responding to growing unease in the army over the military’s role in suppressing the Arab uprising in the occupied territories, are trying to define the purpose of the action and prospects for ending the unrest.

But the effort is proving difficult, leaving the military, increasingly under public criticism, to justify its actions on mainly technical grounds.

In the past few days, politicians and army officials have tried to give shape to a mission many Israelis are finding strained and pointless. The attempt to provide a rationale for Israeli policy comes at a time when no one dares predict how long the uprising will last--and whether, in the end, it will force Israel to sit at a negotiating table under unfavorable circumstances.

“This is a long and complex struggle,” Maj. Gen. Ehud Barak, deputy army chief of staff, said last week. “We are determined to fight it--and as long as it will be necessary.”

Comparing the conflict to some of Israel’s earlier prolonged struggles, Barak said the battle should not “take years” to resolve, but he declined to set a deadline.

Barak searched for words to define the conflict. “It’s not a war,” he mused. “It’s a problem with far-reaching objectives on the Palestinian side.”

Efforts to clarify the army’s role began after a recent face-off between Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and soldiers who expressed reservations about the methods used to try to put down the uprising, known in Arabic as the intifada. Military officers are reporting some resistance by soldiers to serving in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, although only 54 Israelis have refused to serve, taking a short jail term instead.

In the meantime, the Shamir government is divided over whether the intifada is to be solved politically or strictly through military means.

Ten days ago, Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, in response to harsh parliamentary attacks on his handling of the intifada, hinted that a political solution was called for. But his plan to let Arabs in the occupied lands elect their own negotiators for talks with Israeli authorities on ending the conflict was rejected not only by Palestinians but by Shamir.

In any case, Rabin’s proposal seemed intended as much to shore up the morale of Israeli troops as to interest the Arabs in a settlement. In comments to the Jerusalem Post, Rabin indicated that his proposal helps Israel claim the moral high ground, saying the use of force is justified because now it has been “accompanied by a proposal for negotiations.”

Lacking a clear government policy and saddled with an open-ended commitment to keeping order, high-ranking military officers are trying to buttress the moral standing of the troops by emphasizing the “legality” of Israel’s response to the intifada.

“First of all, the orders given during the uprising are legal. I want to emphasize that,” Brig. Gen. Amnon Strashnov, the army’s advocate general, said Saturday on a government radio broadcast.

He said the army constantly checks its orders with civilian representatives of the Justice Ministry. The justification for suppressing the intifada is usually based on regulations dating from before 1948, when Britain ruled the area.

“You have to remember we are dealing with mass provocation. You can’t put on the army a mission to quell demonstrations while their hands should be kept tied behind their backs,” Strashnov continued.

“We are a civilized country, part of the civilized world. We have to find . . . the right balance, the delicate balance between the necessity of security and the rights and civil liberties of the inhabitants of the area.”

Answering charges that children have been among the victims of army fire, Strashnov asserted that soldiers are told not to fire at Arabs under a certain age, although he declined to specify what age.

“Why are those children in those demonstrations? Why don’t those parents or guardians keep them at home if they know they endanger their lives by taking part in a demonstration?” he asked.

Strashnov denied reports that new orders permit soldiers to shoot stone throwers as they flee. But he suggested that soldiers would have to know the mind of each protester to decide whether he was leaving or just regrouping.

“(Soldiers) are not allowed to shoot against people who are running away, only . . . within the framework of the demonstration, when somebody is taking another place in order to come back and throw stones,” Strashnov said.

He estimated that about 50 Israeli soldiers and officers have been prosecuted for “using excess force or misuse of weapons.” He did not say how many were found guilty. A few hundred others were disciplined by their commanders, he added.

“The amount of casualties is regrettable, and everyone can be sorry about that. But on the other hand, (when) we do those things . . . the rules of engagement are within very strict limits,” he said.

Israel’s military policy in the West Bank and Gaza has gone through several phases since the intifada began almost 14 months ago. At first, the army went in with regular rifles to handle it as if it were a low-key military problem.

As Arab casualties mounted, Israel turned to punishing rebellious Arabs. “Force, power and blows,” Rabin called it.

But beatings and a few cases of live burials of Palestinians soon became a scandal, and the practice was abandoned.

Numerous Arab arrests and casualties last spring quieted the intifada for a few months. The army, meanwhile, searched for a technical means of putting down the uprising while maintaining authority over the Arabs. A plastic-and-metal bullet was introduced in August. Rabin predicted it would increase the number of wounded while decreasing fatalities.

At the same time, Rabin modified the rules of engagement and permitted soldiers to fire on stone throwers even when their own lives were not in danger.

The army also took the fight to the Arabs by entering villages and towns to confront even modest displays of nationalist sentiment.

Casualties--and fatalities--soon mounted, though they decreased somewhat in the late fall.

Israel continued to search for a bullet that would disperse but not kill. In January, the army put a spherical, rubber-coated metal bullet into use and further relaxed the rules of engagement. Soldiers were authorized to shoot at stone throwers fleeing the scene of a confrontation as well as at people who set tires aflame on roads, streets and alleys.

A sudden spurt of shooting deaths among teen-agers and children ignited another domestic uproar. Last week, in response to the lethal effect of plastic-metal bullets, Gen. Dan Shomron, the army chief of staff, tried to modify the orders for the use of plastic bullets.

“The plastic bullet is not meant to increase the number of wounded,” he told troops in the West Bank city of Ramallah. “But when there is no other way, and we have to control the situation, we will use this method.”

In all, about 350 Arabs have been killed and thousands wounded in the uprising. Barak said four soldiers have been killed and about 300 have been wounded. In addition, nine Israeli civilians--eight of them Jews and one an Arab--have lost their lives in the conflict.

Military officials attribute a recent high death toll to Arab excitement over the opening of talks between Washington and the Palestine Liberation Organization, as well as to recent calls by Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasser Arafat for an “escalation” of the intifada.

Arab sources blame the rising casualty figures on two factors. The first was a confrontation in Nablus on Dec. 16 when an emotionally charged funeral ended with eight Palestinians shot dead. This incident, known among Palestinians as Black Friday, ended a debate over whether to reduce street activities among Palestinians, the Arab sources say.

The other factor, the Arabs added, is the insistence of the army, operating under relaxed guidelines, to enter and break up any kind of protest in West Bank and Gaza towns, villages and refugee camps.