Within days after the Six-Day War ended in June 1967, a young man who was still a student of the Hebrew language and Semitic philology at Hebrew University opened Israel's first municipal office in East Jerusalem, the section of the city just captured from Jordan. Thus began Rafik Halabi's 15-year association with the politics of the West Bank. He has served there as deputy administrator of East Jerusalem affairs, as an Israeli soldier, and since 1974 as a reporter for Israel Television. In the last capacity especially, he has covered the area's major events and gotten to know the key participants, both Israeli and Arab.
That writing a comprehensive account of the West Bank under Israeli rule poses little challenge to Halabi is therefore hardly surprising. Far more difficult, though, is understanding this controversial territory's passions and significance, and here he does an outstanding job.
Halabi's own background facilitates the task. A native of the Carmel Hills south of Haifa, the author does not wholly belong to either party in the disputed territory because he is a Druse, a member of one of the world's smallest and most peculiar religions. (Its story in a nutshell: An 11th-century Egyptian caliph acted so mad that he attracted disciples who thought him divinely inspired; his subsequent disappearance in the desert confirmed their faith. Moslems hounded the new sect out of Egypt, so its adherents sought refuge in the Levantine hills, where they evolved a religion apart from Islam. Its tenets remained secret to all except a few elders until a French Orientalist published the Druse holy books in 1830. The late Kamal Jumblatt led the sect's community in Lebanon.)
Although Arabic is their mother tongue, the Druse emphasize religious affiliation over language. They occupy an exceptional position in Israel, where alone of the Arabic-speaking native population they have volunteered to serve in the armed forces. Since 1956, they have had a distinguished role in the military, forming their own units and often taking on especially dangerous missions. By accepting the burden of military service, the Druse became full members of Israeli society, a unique step for a non-Jewish people that enables Halabi to begin his account: "I am an Israeli patriot, though I am not a Jew."
Indeed, he perhaps personifies the success and limitations of Zionism. He feels a part of the two cultures in conflict and in fact has ties to each. He also draws abuse from Israelis who wish him to prove his allegiance through uncritical support of government actions, and from Arabs who view him as a traitor. But out of his anguish comes a humane, compassionate and decent book.
The West Bank Story recounts what has happened during the last 15 years in a sliver of land 80 miles long and 30 miles wide, with a population of not much more than one million. Like Alsace-Lorraine and Macedonia earlier, it focuses international attention, excites rancor and may decide the fate of nations.
Coming into existence only in 1948, the West Bank was one of two sections of British Palestine not brought under Israel's control (the other being Gaza). King Abdullah of Transjordan took advantage of a power vacuum to partially fulfill a long-nursed dream and annex the strip (in the process dropping the first syllable of his country's name). For 19 years he and his grandson, King Hussein, worked to bind the West Bank to the rest of their kingdom (the East Bank) with considerable success. After all, no major cultural or political differences distinguished West Bankers from East Bankers, and Transjordan itself had first been created in 1922 by the British Colonial Office.
The region's relative calm was shattered in 1967, when Hussein launched an attack on Israel that cost him the entire West Bank. Now the territory lurched into the limelight: Israel annexed East Jerusalem, tore sections of it down and smashed terrorist networks; Jordan lost its standing to the PLO in the eyes of West Bank residents, who became radicalized, and a new generation of local leaders emerged.
The book's most important contribution is its analysis of the impact of Israel's occupation on victor and vanquished. Halabi reaches an arresting conclusion that he supports with ample evidence: While the occupation has uniformly injured Israelis, it has had beneficial as well as evil consequences for West Bankers.
In the case of the Israelis, there is the irony of a people who recently experienced the suppression of their own nationalist movement today feeling compelled to repress that of another people. The moral corruption wrought by this change disturbs the author.
One vivid example is taken from a television report Halabi did on Israeli exploitation of child labor. Even some of the outstanding kibbutzim have come to rely on Arab children to pick their crops, in blatant defiance of the country's labor laws. The pay for a day's toil in the tomato fields, he discovered, comes to about 25 cents. Not employing Arabs to do the dirty work had been a point of pride among the early Zionists (however little sense this made economically), but an abundance of cheap labor from the West Bank and Gaza has overwhelmed these principles. Halabi envisions the possibility of dependence on Arab farm hands growing to the point that Israeli landowners "end up leasing out the land and conducting their enterprises as if they were kulaks or effendis [the pre-Zionist landlords of Palestine]."
The corrosion on the Arab side centers on terrorism, widely condemned by West Bankers in the first years after 1967 yet now almost universally condoned. Halabi tells a depressing story of a mother who turned over her two sons to the police after hearing that they had killed a man whom she had nursed when he was an infant; she then assumed a new identity and went to live in another part of the country. In such an environment, ethical values increasingly fall victim to extremist impulses, producing grave social and spiritual results.
At the same time, Halabi notes, the Arabs have gained from close contact with Israel. The West Bank has experienced an economic boom, a near doubling in education and the beginnings of social modernization. Moreover, living under the occupation has galvanized a disparate group of towns into a protonational unit and transformed their small-time mayors into a national leadership.
The emphasis on Israel's essential role in strengthening its own enemies is the book's most telling observation. Halabi contends that Israeli policies "in effect paved the way for the advent of a fiercely nationalist leadership in the West Bank." As contributing factors he cites the increased repression, the hopeless attempts to stamp out nationalist expression (including closing down galleries showing "political" art), the double standards of justice (one for Israelis, another for Arabs), and the Jewish settlements (which usually make no pretense about wanting their Arab neighbors out). In response, West Bankers have developed a fervent sense of political camaraderie and expectation that did not exist before Israeli rule.
The author resists the temptation to propose solutions – restricting himself to a cri de coeur for rationality and moderation – but he plainly believes that Israel's best course lies in relinquishing the West Bank. Continued occupation multiplies dangers; for example, an occupied West Bank radicalizes the Arab citizens of Israel proper and raises questions about their future in a manner unthinkable only a few years ago.
Originally published in Hebrew and directed toward an Israeli audience, The West Bank Story provides a well-written and sensible vision of a small trouble spot capable of causing enormous mischief. Halabi implies that the Israelis still can act to save their interests, though time grows short.
Historian, University of Chicago; author, Slave Soldiers and Islam.
