Word: gaza
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...money and clout to respond to the Palestinians' needs. The P.L.O. has sent dozens of radio and telephone messages to its friends inside the territories urging them to join in the unrest. P.L.O. officials say they have provided food, medical equipment and money to the inhabitants of the Gaza refugee camps, though camp residents deny it. "The P.L.O. is the only institution these people can go to when they're in trouble or when they need help," says Nabil Sha'ath, a member of the P.L.O. central council. Still, the veteran P.L.O. leadership has found itself for the most part...
Like a swelling number of other young people in the Middle East, the Palestinians have instead begun to turn to Islamic fundamentalism for their ideological sustenance. The fundamentalists are especially strong in Gaza, where the teeming refugee camps have become a fertile breeding ground for the message of the Islamic sheiks. Islam is also gaining strength in the camps and universities of the West Bank. Says Efraim Sneh, an Israeli brigadier general who recently resigned as head of the West Bank Civil Administration: "Islam is moving into the void, and it's much more difficult to combat that kind...
Ironically, the Israelis, far from cracking down on fundamentalist activity, had until recently raised no objection to it, hoping it would turn the youth of the territories away from the P.L.O. In Gaza the military allowed the fundamentalists to establish kindergartens, youth clubs, sports organizations and, in 1978, an Islamic college. They also permitted the building of mosques, whose number in Gaza rose from 70 in 1967 to nearly 180 today. They even allowed the Islamic sheiks to bring in money from abroad, mostly from Saudi Arabia, to support their activities...
After allowing the seeds to be sown, Israel is now reaping the harvest of fundamentalist hatred. Islamic teachers have been some of the main cheerleaders of the rioting, blaring their call to resistance from loudspeakers attached to mosques in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. They substitute Islamic slogans for the old P.L.O. themes, chanting "Allah helps those who help themselves" or "Palestine is our Holy Land." Their call to the barricades is made more effective by Islam's reverence for martyrdom. For now, the voice of Islam speaks from a small base, with the various local groups like...
...also continues to insist with more fervor than ever that Israel will never give up the West Bank, and never consider altering the settlement policy that has allowed 65,000 Jews to set up homes in the West Bank and 2,700 more to do so in Gaza. Foreign Minister Peres, who switched jobs with Shamir in October 1986, has once again begun talking up his proposal for an international conference, and says he intends to reactivate the peace process "soon." Yet few believe, even in the face of the worst Palestinian violence in 20 years, that Israel's politically...