Message to Rebellious Arabs: ‘It’s Tit for Tat’ : Israeli Settlers Waging ‘Antifada’

The weapons--rocks and gasoline bombs--are familiar, although these crude arms are often supplemented by submachine guns, rifles and pistols.

In some ways, the message of the violence is also the same: “We are here. This land is ours. Drive on the highways at your own risk.”

But these are not rebellious Palestinians trying to throw off Israeli rule. They are Israeli settlers trying to draw attention--and military reinforcements--to their homes in hostile territory.

More and more incidents of settler vigilantism are occurring in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israelis have begun to refer to an “antifada,” a response to the Arab intifada , the uprising that is making the settlers increasingly nervous.

‘We Strike Back’

“We react,” said David Ramati, a former U.S. Marine who emigrated 22 years ago and settled in this hilltop enclave in the West Bank town of Hebron. “If someone throws a stone at us, we strike back. It’s tit for tat.”

Ramati has organized vigilante squads that patrol the streets outside the perimeter of the housing complex and occasionally raid the homes of suspected stone throwers in adjacent neighborhoods.

“I’m not living in conquered territory,” he told a reporter. “I’m at home and have the right to feel at home.”

Kiryat Arba is not the only place where settlers are striking at Arab communities. On Friday, there were at least three settler attacks on Arab villages. Settlers raided the West Bank villages of Deir es Sudan, Arura and Abwein, damaging water tanks, houses and cars with gunshot and stones. In Arura, settlers shot and wounded at least four teen-agers, according to Israel Radio. A third resident was wounded in the face by rubber bullets in a clash with Israeli soldiers.

Earlier last week, settlers rampaged through the village of Eizariya for the second night in a row in response to a serious stone-throwing attack. A driver from the nearby settlement of Maaleh Adumim lost control of his car and crashed; his wife and children were injured.

Settlers from Ariel in the central West Bank have raided numerous villages along the road from Ariel to the coast in retaliation for rock attacks. They have smashed windows in Arab houses and hurled stones at Arab-owned cars.

Last Monday, a Palestinian was killed when he was hit in the head with a rock while driving back to Hebron from his job in Israel. The incident occurred inside Israel, where stone-throwing attacks began after the body of an abducted soldier was found in a remote grave near the town of Ashkelon.

Last month in Hebron, a settler shot and killed a 13-year-old boy he said was throwing stones at his car. The gunman was released after questioning.

Israeli officials are expressing concern at the aggressiveness of the settlers. Last Wednesday, Lt. Gen. Dan Shomron, the army chief of staff, told a parliamentary committee that attacks by settlers on Arabs are “a dangerous innovation.”

Atty. Gen. Yosef Harish warned settlers that “this phenomenon will be uprooted.”

“Civilians,” he said, “will not be allowed to take the law into their own hands, whether under the pretext of a military action instead of the Israel Defense Forces or in addition to the actions taken by the military.”

In an article Friday in the newspaper Haaretz, military analyst Zeev Schiff said the Israeli army “is on the verge of losing control over inflamed settlers in the territories.”

Leftist Legislators Complain

Two leftist members of Parliament say the attacks by Jewish settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank are the work of a “very efficient and well-armed” militia. The legislators sent a complaint to Atty. Gen. Harish last month after 40 settlers stormed into a Palestinian mayor’s office to protest rock attacks on Israeli cars.

“We are calling on the attorney general to break up this militia,” said Yossi Sarid, who drafted the complaint. “Today, we are already talking about a militia. They are well organized and we are seeing increased cooperation between settlers in different settlements. They say that as far as they are concerned, the army is not fulfilling its mission, and they have no choice but to fulfill the mission.”

Agitation among settlers has sharpened in recent weeks as the army has reduced its round-the-clock presence in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, turning instead to hit-and-run roundups of Palestinian activists. Only the main roads of the occupied lands are patrolled consistently.

Diplomacy Discounted

The settlers also view the diplomatic steps aimed at settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as imperiling their stay on the land.

“We would die rather than give up these homes,” said Ramati, the patrol organizer in Kiryat Arba, the first settlement to employ them.

Kiryat Arba is home to 7,000 settlers Ramati described as religious Zionists who stake their claim to the land on the basis of the Bible. Hebron, for instance, is the site of the tomb of the Prophet Abraham, a patriarch revered by Jews and Muslims alike.

Sometimes the settlers patrol in cars and jeeps, often accompanying public buses. Sometimes they descend on neighborhoods in response to someone throwing stones or a gasoline bomb. When a fracas breaks out, the army often intervenes to separate Arab and Israeli.

Ramati, 42, said that since his group began operating, the army has stepped up its patrols in Hebron--to his pleasure, because it keeps rebellious Arabs indoors.

“We made some noise, and the army stopped ignoring us,” he said.

Earlier this month, Secretary of State James A. Baker III called on Israel to stop the settlement program. Washington, which wants Israel to give up occupied land in exchange for peace, considers the settlements an obstacle to peace.

Ramati responded, with a defiance not uncommon in the settler communities, that U.S. pressure to halt the settlement process should be ignored.

He said: “People have been saying this kind of thing for 2,000 years, that the Jews don’t need a homeland, that they should get along somewhere else. Well, we’re not listening.”