Israeli Authorities Concerned About Vigilantism by Settlers

Israeli authorities are concerned about the growing vigilantism by Jewish settlers in the West Bank, which has erupted in response to recent terrorist acts by Arabs.

Settlers who rampaged through Arab towns this week, causing extensive property damage, have been admonished by Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, Defense Minister Moshe Arens and other government officials not to take the law into their own hands.

The main targets were Ramallah, El-Birch, Halhoul and Hebron, where settlers smashed windows of Arab homes and cars.

The settlers justify their actions, as they have many times in the past, by accusing the Israel Defense Force of lax security measures and being too soft on Palestinian activists.

The army, which denies the allegations, nevertheless treats the settlers gently. It suggested that the acts of violence are the work of a misguided minority.

Gen. Danny Yatom, commander of the central sector, which embraces the West Bank, met over the weekend with leaders of the militant settlers movement. He urged them not to become involved in illegal acts and to leave the maintenance of law and order to the competent authorities.

A senior IDF officer claimed Monday that “extremist groups” representing a minority of the settlers were responsible for unlawful acts and that the IDF was in full control of the situation.

The officer singled out for praise a leaflet distributed by a rabbi at one of the settlements urging the Jewish population in the West Bank not to violate the law and not to confront the army.

As reassurance to the settlers, the IDF officer enumerated the latest measures taken to prevent terrorist attacks and the numerous successes scored against terrorist groups.

550 ARABS ARRESTED RECENTLY

The movement of Arabs along the main highways in the West Bank has been restricted to prevent ambushes. The refugee camp at Askar, near Nablus, was raided and inhabitants suspected of anti-Israel acts were arrested, the officer said.

He disclosed that in the last two months, security forces have arrested 550 Arabs.

They are suspected of membership in Al Fatah, the main branch of the Palestine Liberation Organization; the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine; the Islamic fundamentalist Hamas movement; and the extremist Islamic Jihad.

In addition, the officer reported, the General Security Services, known as Shin Bet, have worked with the IDF and Israeli police to uncover 100 terrorist cells responsible for 200 attacks. Large quantities of weapons were confiscated, the officer said.

He observed that while the PLO ostensibly supports the Arab-Israeli peace talks now taking place in Washington, armed Al Fatah members are operating in the West Bank.

Anger continued to simmer in Silwan, an Arab enclave in East Jerusalem, where Jewish militants recently took over five Arab-occupied buildings, claiming legal ownership.

Although tension prevails in the streets, where about 150 Arab protesters marched Monday, a see-saw battle is being waged in the courts.

MAGISTRATE’S ORDER OVERRULED

A Jerusalem magistrate decided Monday that one of the evicted Arab families, the Kara’ins, could return to their flat for the time being. But he was promptly overruled by a district court judge acting on an appeal by a Jewish settler.

By then, the family was back in the home. The Attorney General’s Office and the police are pondering what further action to take.

Finally, a new political storm is brewing over a statement released by the Attorney General’s Office, which could be the Attorney General’s Office, which could be interpreted as an acknowledgment that Jewish settlements in the administered territories are temporary.

Settlers and their supporters in the Knesset were enraged by the state prosecution’s response to an appeal by the Peace Now movement asking the High Court of Justice to declare the settlements illegal.

The response offered by Assistant Attorney General Nili Arad on behalf of Attorney General Yosef Harish, sought to show that the settlements conformed to the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, with regard to the rights of inhabitants of military-occupied territories, and to Article 55 of The Hague Convention.

Arad argued that the settlements do not cause damage to the land, which the state is mandated to preserve, and that the state has honored the rule not to make “permanent changes” to the land under its control.

Article 55 entitles the occupying power to enjoy the products of the land even if it lacks legal ownership.

Finally, the prosecutor conceded that “international law will determine the fate of the settlements in the territories.”

Yossi Sarid, a Knesset member of the dovish Citizens Rights Movement, praised the response.

But National Religious Party Knesset member Yitzhak Levy said he was “shocked” that the Attorney General’s Office failed to assert Israel’s right to ownership of the territory.

Levy demanded an immediate meeting with Shamir on the issue. He said if the prosecution’s statement is allowed to stand, supporters of “Eretz Yisrael” (Greater Israel) would not be able to participate in the government.

And the cool feeling is mutual.

The repeal was “primarily a success for the United Nations itself, in cleansing itself of the stain that so shamefully stuck to it,” said Israeli President Chaim Herzog, who, as U.N. ambassador in 1975, ceremoniously ripped up a copy of the resolution after its passage.

In fact, two resolutions condemning Israel passed heartily in the General Assembly just hours before the repeal vote.

Israeli diplomats say the reality of their role at the United Nations lies between the extremes of Monday’s second-ever repeal and business-as-usual condemnation. And while the atmosphere at the United Nations has indeed improved, progress is slow.

The change in Israel’s status at the United Nations stems from the same factors which made possible the repeal: the collapse of the Communist bloc and the fracturing of Arab solidarity in the wake of the Persian Gulf War.

‘A LOVELY CALL’ FROM SHAMIR

Underlying Monday’s victory, Israelis stress, was high-pressure American diplomacy, particularly during the past two weeks.

It is a level of diplomacy not likely to recur on routine issues, particularly if disputes arise during the peace negotiations.

Also extraordinary was the cordiality of President Bush’s statement that he had “received a lovely call from Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir” thanking the United States for its efforts.

The fact. however, that a pro-Israel — or at least anti-anti-Israel — resolution could pass by this majority represents a watershed.

For most of 111 countries voting for the repeal, “it was the first time in U.N. history they voted for a pro-Israel resolution,” said Ambassador Asher Naim, the Israeli representative to the General Assembly committee where the racism resolution was first introduced 16 years ago.

“They have crossed a psychological barrier,” he said.

Additionally, the vote demonstrated just how weak the Arab position has become.

“The Arab world cannot hold the United Nations hostage anymore,” said Naim. “There was a saying by Abba Eban that if they make a decision that the Earth is flat, they will have the votes to pass the resolution. That era has passed.”

Indeed, the Arab nations can no longer reach consensus even on their opposition of Israel, as evidenced by the fact that Egypt, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Morocco and Tunisia elected not to cast votes Monday.

But while the 1975 vote was seen as a reflection of Arab strength in the years immediately following the oil embargo, it in fact reflected the dynamics of the Cold War United Nations.

As U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) observed in a Washington Post op-ed piece in September, Resolution 3379 was not Arab in origin, but was of Soviet manufacture.

NO EXPANDED U.N. ROLE

Moynihan, who as U.S. envoy to the United Nations in 1975 led the unsuccessful fight against the motion, stressed that it reflected longstanding Soviet anti-Zionism.

He speculated that policy may have resulted out of fear that Jewish ethnic pride in the wake of the Six Day War could lead to similar agitations from other ethnic groups in the Soviet Union.

At the United Nations, Soviet opposition to Zionism and Israel proved a convenient way to deflect all talk on human rights.

It is perhaps fitting, then, that the Soviet Union seems unlikely to outlast Resolution 3379 by more than a matter of days.

But even though the dispute in the Middle East has now assumed what Naim has called its “proper role,” and even though Israelis are no longer shunned in U.N. halls, they remain adamant that Bush’s statement saying that the repeal “will make the U.N. much more effective” does not mean that they welcome its role as a mediator.

Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy made that point after casting his country’s repeal vote. He emphasized that Monday’s move does not mean the United Nations can now expect an expanded role in the current Middle East peace process.

And when the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Thomas Pickering, was asked if the vote would lead to such a heightened U.N. role, he said: “I don’t think you can automatically translate it, like a nickel in a slot machine.”

Naim noted that this year the General Assembly has passed resolutions “completely at odds” with the current peace process, such as calling for an international peace conference and demanding representation of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

On Monday, a resolution condemning Israel’s annexation of Jerusalem passed with 152 votes against Israel’s lone nay. The United States and three Caribbean nations abstained.

A more sweeping measure was passed despite American and Western opposition. It declared the question of Palestine the core of the conflict in the Middle East, demanded total Israeli withdrawal from the territories and the creation of a Palestinian state, and implicitly condemned the Camp David accords.

The vote was 93-27, with 37 abstentions.

(JTA correspondents David Friedman in Washington and David Landau in Jerusalem contributed to this report.)