During the past few weeks Israel’s security services have carried out a series of arrests among members of the Jordanian Communist Party on the West Bank. The number of arrests has not been disclosed, but Communist sources here claim that more than 50 party activists were rounded up. While Israeli officials have declined any comment on the arrests, pending the completion of the investigations, there is enough evidence to support the argument that the aim now is to break the Communist network in the West Bank, or at least to thoroughly deter its members from further hostile activity.
For more than six years the Israeli authorities chose to ignore West Bank Communist activity, which was in the main limited to the distribution of the unlicensed organ “El-Watan” (“Homeland”) and various other pamphlets and petitions. In recent months, however, the West Bank Communists had switched for the first time to sabotage operations, particularly arson, and to fierce propaganda in favor of “armed resistance.” This was done under the banner of the “Palestinian National Front” – a typical underground Communist Front organization, which embraces several other small political circles, such as George Habash’s Arab Nationalist Movement.
The switch of the Communist cells from mere “talk” to “action,” saw the end of Israel’s tolerance towards the party. Among those arrested were several well-known intellectuals, particularly from East Jerusalem, and other leading party members. The Communist press in Israel steadily denies the charges, levelled against the detainees. Rakah’s mouthpiece “E1-Ittihad” claims that the Israeli government “is running a campaign against supporters of political settlement.”
But the new militant tone of the West Bank Communists on the pages of their own new paper “Filastin” seems to refute these denials. Apparently the Communists took a decision to risk Israeli counter-measures by moving to “action,” in order to strengthen their position among the Palestinian armed organizations. The fact that the Communist Party has the only organized dissident network on the West Bank makes its potential contribution to the PLO valuable indeed.
And so they gambled, sacrificing much of their power in the West Bank to Israeli retaliation, so as to prove they are fit to be allies of the other Palestinian terrorist organizations. But the price of this gamble might prove higher than expected, while its fruits may never fall into their hands.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
