‘Now the War Is Inside Palestine’

BETHLEHEM, West Bank —  Mohammed abu Gosh is happy to acknowledge that he was part of an angry mob of students who heckled and threw stones at French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin six weeks ago at Birzeit University in the West Bank.

It was the aftermath that stunned Abu Gosh. Like dozens of other students, he was nabbed by Palestinian security agents, hauled off to a cell and held without charge for days. He says that he was beaten repeatedly and that one agent threatened to rape him.

The Birzeit protest and the Palestinian Authority’s crackdown on the protesters unleashed a level of anger not seen here for years. The arrest of dozens of people, along with the reported beating of many, was followed by a wave of hunger strikes and demonstrations that swept university campuses throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

And each time, at campuses that were once the center of resistance to Israeli rule, the focus was not the Jewish state but the regime of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat.

“Now the war has shifted locations,” said the 23-year-old Abu Gosh. “Now the war is inside Palestine.”

The protests reflected a wider discontent simmering in the land that Arafat rules, Palestinian analysts say. It is fueled, they say, by frustration over a flawed peace process with Israel; the rising influence of Islamic fundamentalist organizations, which have grown over the years and now are in a position to exploit trouble; and grave doubts about Arafat’s ability to build a state less than six months before he intends to declare its birth.

Arafat has consistently responded to problems like the university demonstrations not with political solutions but with heavy-handed security measures. His tactics have won praise from Israeli military officials, who are watching closely to gauge Arafat’s ability to “control the street,” as one officer put it, and prevent terrorism. But Palestinian protesters, human rights activists, academics and numerous politicians are highly critical.

“We won’t support a state if we think we’re going to get another Middle East dictatorship,” Abu Gosh said during an interview at Bethlehem University several days after he got out of jail. After his release, intelligence agents paid a visit to his parents and warned him not to speak about his treatment in prison, he said.

The crackdown at Birzeit was conducted by agents of Arafat’s Preventive Security and General Intelligence services, who deployed on the campus in violation of rules that supposedly keep universities free from police intervention. In fact, the secret services often infiltrate student bodies to keep tabs on dissent. They especially target the militant Hamas organization, which opposes peace agreements with Israel and, over the years, has won control of a number of student councils.

Toufiq Atirawi, head of the intelligence service in the West Bank, dismissed the charges that security forces acted brutally, and suggested that students who complained of beatings made up the stories to defame the reputation of the Palestinian Authority at the behest of its enemies.

But Abu Gosh and leading Palestinian human rights organizations said that unless Arafat makes political and social reforms, he risks an even greater outburst that could turn inward on Palestinian society or outward toward Israel.

“Instead of adopting a nation-building policy of empowerment by democratic means and the rule of law, the Palestinian Authority is contributing to internal discontent by its own lack of accountability and persistent violations,” said Hanan Mikhail-Ashrawi, a Palestinian legislator and head of a human rights advocacy group. “The powder keg is in place. Any spark may produce an instant explosion. . . . Next time, the eruption may not be so containable, and the consequences may be far-reaching and long-lasting.”