Police Disperse Students Protesting Hebron Policy and Goldmann-nasser Decision

Hundreds of Israeli youths clashed with police and soldiers yesterday in their second demonstration in four days against allegedly expansionist, inflammatory and anti-peace policies of the Israel Government. Eight students were arrested and four of them, including a girl, were treated for minor injuries after a small group of demonstrators scaled the wall surrounding Premier Golda Meir’s home. The rest battled steal-helmeted police outside the wall. The police, carrying metal shields, dispersed the youngsters with clubs and high pressure water hoses. Some reports said mounted troopers took part in the melee. Last Wednesday, five persons were hurt–three requiring hospitalization–as police broke up what was described as a peaceful sit down demonstration on a main intersection outside of Premier Meir’s office.

The demonstrators on both days protested the government’s rejection of a plan for Dr. Nahum Goldmann, president of the World Jewish Congress, to go to Cairo to meet with President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt. Yesterday’s demonstrators also denounced a plan, recently approved by the Cabinet, to settle some 250 Jews in the all Arab town of Hebron on the occupied West Bank, The demonstrations began with a march of about 150 on Hebron which was blocked by Israeli troops as cars and trucks filled with students entered the occupied zone near Bethlehem. The youngsters carried signs demanding, “Let The Hebron Settlers Go to the Negev;” “Let Goldman go to Cairo;” “Send Golda to the Old-Aged Home.” A brief clash ensued when soldiers attempted to grab the signs. The youngsters were confronted at the roadblock by the Military Governor, known as “General Ghandi,” who told them “Sometimes I doubt your Jewishness.”

The State-owned radio today described the demonstrators as “peaceniks.” Other sources said they were mainly members of Communist and leftist factions. The youths described themselves as Israel’s “New Left.” Most in today’s clashes were Hebrew University students, joined by some faculty members and by other youngsters from Tel Aviv and various kibbutzim. According to one report, the demonstrators were applauded by Arabs in a passing bus as they confronted the soldiers outside of Bethlehem. Arab Christian anna brought them water. Unable to proceed to Hebron, the youngsters. returned to Jerusalem where they massed outside of Mrs. Meir’s home in the fashionable Rehavia section. The 72-year-old Prime Minister was eating lunch at the time. Aides said she took no notice of the turmoil outside. One observer remarked that President Nixon watches football games on television and Premier Meir eats lunch when peace demonstrators appear outside their residences.

ISRAELI AND ARAB REPRESENTATIVES MEET TO DISCUSS PEACE

Charges of police brutality were made by a few demonstrators. One Hebrew University mathematics professor said bruises on his face were caused by police using a club with a nail protruding. District police commander David Ofer denied this. He said only truncheons and water cannon were used. The water was dyed blue, apparently to enable police to pick demonstrators out of the crowd for arrest. But no arrests were made apart from the eight youngsters who scaled Mrs. Meir’s wall. Wednesday’s demonstrations involved an estimated 400 youths said to be members of “Peace and Security,” Hashomer Hatzair. “New Left,” Haolam Hazeh and Communist factions. Their sit-down followed a call to action by Dahn Ben-Amotz, a popular entertainer and author. Prof. Yebosbua Ariell, of the Hebrew University told them, “This government must go. As long as it exists there can be no effective initiative for peace.” He referred to the aborted Goldmann mission to Cairo.

While the core of the demonstrators appeared to be mainly from leftist splinter groups, the Goldmann affair, according to observers, exposed widespread discontent and frustration in Israel over the lack of progress toward peace. The observers said that Israelis are far from desperate over the continuing war of attrition and its mounting casualties or the economic dislocations as yet barely felt, but are weary of the apparently unbreakable deadlock and the futility so far of the government’s approach toward peace with the Arabs. The Cabinet’s veto of the Goldmann-Nasser meeting, though overwhelmingly endorsed by the Knesset last week, aroused a storm of criticism here over the way the government, especially Mrs. Meir, handled the affair.

Israel’s mass circulation newspaper Maariv reported yesterday that a senior Israeli representative met this week with a senior Arab representative to discuss the possibility of advancing peace prospects and restoring the cease-fire agreement. The report was signed by Moshe Zak, one of the editors of Maariv who is regarded as one of Israel’s best informed journalists. Zak said the meeting was kept top secret because the government believes that a strict ban on publicity is necessary to maintain contacts between Arabs and Israeli personalities. He said Foreign Minister Abba Eban’s Knesset speech last week contained obvious allusions that Nahum Goldmann’s reported invitation to Cairo was just a “marginal occurrence” and “only one of many diverse contacts between Israeli and Arab representatives designed to pave the way for direct talks.” Mr. Eban claimed that Dr. Goldmann could not represent Israel even in such marginal endeavors because his political views are diametrically opposed to official government policy. By linking the Goldmann affair with the Hebron plans, yesterday’s demonstrators were expressing views held by Israeli “doves” that the government was not only quashing a peace move but was bent on creating “faits accomplish” in the occupied territories that would remove them from the area of negotiations should the Arabs ever agree to talk peace with Israel. Hebron is regarded by religious Jews as a holy city, the purported site of the Patriarchs’ tombs.