Taking the Pulse
On Israel's Military Incursion into Palestinian Areas
By Michele Chabin
(April 14, 2002)

Israeli Public Opinion

At a time when the entire world seems to be putting pressure on Israel to withdraw its troops from Palestinian areas in the West Bank, Israelis remain steadfast in their support of the army's efforts to root out terrorists.

In an April 4 survey by pollster Hanoch Smith, a whopping 72 percent of Israelis supported the government's decision "to wage a wide scale war in the territories."
Only 17 percent expressed opposition while 11 percent were undecided.
One third (36 percent) said they would like to see Yasser Arafat "expelled" from the West Bank and Gaza; another 23 percent wanted him "eliminated," while 19 percent said he needs to be "isolated."
Just 15 percent said that the Palestinian leader should be negotiated with, and another 7 percent expressed no opinion.

Why are Israelis so firm in their support for the military option when millions of pro-Palestinian demonstrators virulently condemn Israel in rallies all over the world, the European Union is threatening economic sanctions and when the U.S. is demanding nothing less than a full and immediate pullout?

Hanoch Smith, the pollster, says that Israelis feel more beleagured
than they have in decades.
"To some degree, there's a parallel [to how Americans reacted] to
September 11," Smith says. "There's the sense that the Palestinians have it coming to them. Since the beginning of the intifada," he notes, "people have been supporting the hardline. The public is very angry and hawkish. The horrendous attack [at the Netanya hotel] at Pesach time just intensified the feeling. The polls findings didn't surprise me."
Nor did they surprise other Israelis.
After 18 months of relentless attacks against Israeli civilians -- and especially after the month of March, when Palestinian terrorists murdered more than 100 civilians and injured hundreds of others at a seder, a supermarket, on buses, in the street -- people here feel they are in a fight for survival.

On the Israeli Street

This view is shared by Meir Shoshani, the owner of the Kapulski
restaurant in Jerusalem's quaint German Colony, which is all-but-empty -- business has been way down due to the intifada. The restaurateur explains what prompted his transition from left-winger to "realist":
"There are a lot of people like me who, a year-and-a-half ago, thought there could be peace, but the events that followed have made us feel differently. How can you have peace when cafes are blowing up all over the place? I don't know anyone who is left-wing at the moment, and I know a lot of people."
Taking a moment to listen to the news flash playing on the radio in the background -- a report that 13 Israelis soldiers had been killed in a booby-trapped house in Jenin -- Shoshani grows increasingly agitated.
"I believe in two states, one Palestinian and one Israeli, but I'm not willing to be murdered in my own home," he says adamently.
"The army needs to be in the territories right now. If you come back in a month and ask me whether we should stay there, I'll probably say no. But right now this military operation is vital. We're in a war for our very existence."

Palestinian Christian Opinion

Members of the indigenous Christian population -- who identify themselves first and foremost as Palestinians -- view the Palestinian militants are heroes and "freedom fighters."
But many other, non-Palestinian Christians believe that the gunmen are terrorists, and that Israel has every right to protect its
citizens by rooting out terrorists, some of whom are directly affiliated with Yasser Arafat.

Those Who Support the Intifada

Palestinian Christians deny that their armed brethren, virtually all of them Muslim, are terrorists, and insist that any means employed to end the "occupation" are justified.
"The Arab Palestinian Christians are part and parcel of the Palestinian people and the Palestinians' suffering is the suffering of the Arab Christians," said Anglican Bishop Riah Abu El Assal. "The hopes and aspirations of the Palestinian people are also our hopes and aspirations."
The bishop said that the Holy Land churches must be a safe haven for all, even those who are armed.
"The churches have always been places of refuge for those who sought it. It was true for the Jewish people in the 1940s. Why should it not be true for the Palestininans who consider the Church of the Nativity their own?"
Abu El Assal noted that local Christians have been wounded and killed in recent days. Like the Muslim residents of Bethlehem and other areas under Israeli siege, they have been subjected to curfews and house-to-house searches by Israeli soldiers seeking terrorists, he said.
Like other Palestinians, the bishop blamed Israel for all of the problems.
"All of the pain and suffering stems from the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. As long as there is an occupation," he said,
the Palestinians "will resist."

Other Christian Perspectives

Other local Christians, however, blame the Palestinian Authority
for the continuing violence.
Writing in his organization's electronic newsletter, Rev. Malcolm Hedding, executive director of the International Christian Embassy, a large Jerusalem-based evangelical organization, strongly condemned "the deliberate and provocative exploitation by armed Palestinian elements of the landmark Church of the Nativity and other religious sites in Bethlehem as a safe haven, along with their use of innocent civilians as human shields."
Hedding called the Bethlehem standoff "a premeditated offense by militant outlaws who know it is a place central to our faith and thus would provide them unquestioned refuge." Christians everywhere "should be outraged by this action and join in condemning it," he said.
The newsletter asserted that the Palestinian Authority has actively encouraged armed gunmen to use the Manger Square area and its Christian places as a shelter and base for terrorist operations in recent months.
"Such tactics are shocking but not surprising," the ICEJ said, "since the PLO systematically defiled and destroyed churches and
other Christian properties in Lebanon after sparking that nation's
long civil war."

Points to Ponder:

1 Some Israelis see parallels between the ongoing suicide bombings in Israel to the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center in New York.
What similarities do you see?
What differences?

2 Anglican Bishop Riah Abu El Assal cites the ancient tradition of sanctuary in support of Palestinian gunmen holed up in Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity.
Rev. Malcolm Hedding calls it :
"... a deliberate and provocative exploitation by armed Palestinian elements."
Who better represents your own religious values?

3 Rev. Malcolm Hedding points out that the PLO:
"...systematically defiled and destroyed churches and other Christian properties in Lebanon."
What does this tell you about the PLO's attitude towards Christianity and Christian shrines?

4 When Joshua conquered Canaan, he offered the inhabitants three choices: to make peace, to flee or to fight.
How does this apply to the IDF and the residents of Bethlehem - and what parallels are there in the outcomes?