Special JTA Analysis Behind the West Bank Elections

The huge turnout in the West Bank’s northern region municipal elections last week and the quiet atmosphere in which they were held was noted by Israeli officials with satisfaction at their ability to have imposed effective Israeli rule over the local population there. However, observers less influenced by official thinking say that the reason is different: a sense of frustration and resignation on the West Bank. Palestinian Arabs have been the main victims of the political disputes in the area since 1948 when the Arab sovereign states attacked Israel ostensibly with the purpose of restoring Palestinian land to the Palestinians.

The practical result was, however, that between 1948 and 1967 the land that was captured by the Arab armies remained under the rule of the states that captured it. Some Arab villages near Lake Tiberias became part of Syria; the Gaza Strip was ruled by an Egyptian military governor; and the West Bank annexed by Jordan became a district economically discriminated against much as the Catholic parts of Northern Ireland under the Unionist government.

Riots and unrest under King Hussein’s regime were frequent until 1967. Then came the war and Israeli rule under which the Arabs were given a measure of autonomy in local matters. They did not accept this as final. However, their expected saviours all failed them: the United Nations did not make Israel budge, none of the Arab states would again take up arms in their behalf, and the Palestinian terrorists brought Israeli reprisals upon the West Bank population so that they had to make up their minds about what and whom they feared more.

ISRAEL CAN RETAIN HOLD ON WEST BANK

When the terrorists were routed last year by Hussein on the east bank their minds were made up for them; They resigned themselves to Israeli rule. The fact that Israel’s military rule is enlightened and has a low profile may have contributed to the large turnout–some 13,720 Arabs. But the threat of reprisal if they did not go to the polls as indicated by Israel’s barring Nablus traffic from crossing the bridges to the east bank early last week was probably one of the more important reasons for their decision. This has been more weighty than Jordan’s half-hearted attempts from across the Jordan River to clamp down on candidates.

Another reason is that municipal office on the West Bank with its social structure of clans and families means jobs for relations, farming out of city contracts to uncles and cousins and the power of patronage in many important fields. A military officer governing the townships would have prevented all this.

The result of the election means that Israel can probably keep its hold on the West Bank until some political solution is arrived at between Israel and the Arab states in the area. However, it does not change the basic factor regarding the West Bank. Its population seeks some form of Arab rule. In fact, except for a small and powerless minority of intellectuals, they would apparently prefer even a dictatorial Arab regime to the most enlightened of Jewish governments. In the meantime, they bow with some measure of Arab fatalism to the facts which they cannot change.