Palestinian 'children of occupation' nurse bitter hatred for Israelis

Press, 12 January 1987, Page 16

Palestinian 'children of occupation' nurse bitter hatred for Israelis

ROBIN LUSTIG, the "Observer’s 0 Middle East correspondent, visited the West Bank recently and found the new generation of Palestinians much more hostile to Israel than their parents.

A Palestinian died and went to heaven. When he met the Almighty, he asked: “Lord, when will Palestine be free?” God paused, shook his head, and finally replied: “Not in my time.” We were sitting in a smart, stripped-pine hamburger joint in the bustling town of Ramallah, north of Jerusalem on the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The glamorous, fashionably-dressed girls who told me the joke as a Christmas tree twinkled in the corner were Palestinian students at Bir Zeit University, where two weeks ago two of their colleagues were shot dead by Israeli soldiers.

These girls were not typical Palestinian students. Wealthy, privileged, more interested in parties than politics, they are part of a group known derisively on campus as Kit Kats, after the imported chocolate they are supposed to prefer over the locallymade variety. But their views — and the deep despair of the joke they recounted — provide an insight into the attitudes of young, nonpolitical Palestinian students in the aftermath of some of the worst violence in the area for several years. “I hate being called a Kit Kat,” said Jeannie, a 19-year-old first-year student wearing pink plastic ear-rings and blue eyeliner. “They think we don’t give a damn about what happens, but it’s not true. We do care.” The girls, all of whom were educated in expensive private schools in Arab east Jerusalem, are as vehement in their antiIsraeli sentiments as the most radicalised of student political activists. Virtually their only contact with Israelis is at military checkpoints where, they say, soldiers regularly harass and humiliate them. “At school, I was very protected, but at Bir Zeit I have had to start facing the problems,” said Mona, a 21-year-old linguistics student. “I have started to hate these people (Israelis) — I really do hate them now. Once some soldiers stopped me and a friend and asked us for information about the student council. ‘We know you’re Kit Kats,’ they

said. ‘You’re not really interested in politics.’ They were right: I’m not, but I do know that the Israelis are my enemies.” On another occasion, Mona

was stopped and, she says, humiliated for half an hour by soldiers “who just wanted to have some fun.” Another time, some soldiers, told her they hoped there would soon be a demonstration, so that they would be able to shoot “three or four” of her friends. She wouldn’t talk to Israelis now even if she had the opportunity, she says. “If we start talking to them, people would say: ‘You see, the Palestinians are happy living together with the Jews’.” Sentiments such as these have led some Israeli commentators to warn that the continuing occupa-

tion. is likely to turn an entire new generation of Palestinians — the so-called “1967 generation,” bom at about the time of the Six-Day War and. who have known no other life than* under Israeli rule — into implacable foes of the Jewish State. “We are the children of the occupation," said Sana, a striking 22-year-old in tight black trousers and a wide red leather belt. "We can never forget we live under occupation: no student in Europe or the United States goes out in the morning not knowing whether or not he’ll come home that night.” The deaths of the two Bir Zeit students-and the wounding of 16 others in the worst episode of violence at the university since 1967 sparked a wave of unrest throughout the occupied territories. Two other young Palestinians — one aged 14, the other 12 — were also killed during the disturbances. In all cases, the authorities said the victims had been throwing rocks at Israeli patrols. Last month, Ramallah was put under curfew after an Israeli soldier was injured by an axe-wielding Palestinian Arab. During a range of conversations last week with students at Bir Zeit, both political activists and “Kit Kats,” it became evident that the views of this new generation are considerably more hostile to Israel than those of their parents. “My father used to be political, but then he quit getting involved,” said Samir, aged 22, a business management

student from nearby el-Bireh. “He sent me off to the States to keep me out of trouble,’ but I got involved in Palestinian student politics in San Francisco and decided I wanted to come back.” On December 4, the day his two fellow-students were shot dead, Samir, as he put it, “found himself throwing stones again,” just as he had been at the age of 15. Analysts believe much of the recent violence stems from a

build-up of anger and frustration at the apparent hopelessness of the West Bankers’ situation. The young Palestinians are also affected by developments such as a recent spate of anti-Arab violence in Jerusalem after the fatal stabbing of a Jewish religious seminary student in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City. “When you have massacres of Palestinians in Lebanon, or attacks against the camps, it is an issue that concerns the students and they want to show that they don’t like it,” said a Bir Zeit University spokesman, Mr Albert Aghazarian. “But whenever the students want to express their feelings, the militaty sets up

roadblocks. There has been a steady build-up of anger, humiliation, resentment and frustration.” Even the Bir Zeit Kit Kats, who would no more attend a demonstration than wear outdated clothes, say they feel this sense of outrage. "You try to avoid problems, but it gets to the point where you just can’t take it any more,” said Jeannie. “It really does get to me sometimes. I would like to be able to talk to some Israelis, but I know that the situation is going to get much worse. All they want is chance to shoot us: it’s simple hatred.” Copyright—London Observer Service.

'There has been a steady build-up of anger, resentment, frustration’