Torn Apart

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Inside and Outside
At the U.N. food distribution center in the Gaza Strip's Tuffah neighborhood earlier this spring, Palestinians clutched small, pink ration slips for the emergency foodstuffs the U.N. Relief and Works Agency hands out to refugees who have been unable to commute to work in Israel during the intifadeh. Abu Amira had already collected his ration and loaded it onto his cart. He was sweaty, dirty and angry. He came early, but it was hot even at 8 a.m. First, he pressed through a crowd of men to hand his ticket to a clerk behind a chicken-wire grill. The clerk stamped his ticket and Abu Amira jockeyed at another window for the second stamp required for him to collect his meager ration for the month. His battered donkey cart was loaded with enough milk, oil, sugar and rice to last his family of five for a week. A few yards away, a man shoving to get to the clerk in his steamy booth threw a punch before others in the crowd held him back.

These refugees have the greatest anger for Arafat's Palestinian Authority. None of those jostling for handouts were among the elite who returned with Arafat from exile in Tunis in 1994. These refugees lived here and struggled against Israel's occupation through the first intifadeh. They expected Arafat to share the wealth on his return, to spread the billions of dollars pumped in by international supporters. Instead, they have seen it hogged by "the Tunisians." "I spit on the day they came," Abu Amira says. "I'd like to see them all shot in the street." This is more than just resentment of riches; it is a driving force for the intifadeh. No matter how much they might want to manipulate the intifadeh to pressure Israel, the "Outsiders" who arrived with Arafat from Tunis don't want to press so hard that Israel demolishes the Palestinian Authority's institutions and, with them, their power base. The "Insiders," leaders who were jailed by Israel or who remained underground during the first intifadeh, felt they didn't get a fair share of the wealth and position doled out by Arafat. So when this intifadeh began, many of the Insiders decided they had little to lose if they brought Arafat's system down on their heads. They figured they might be able to carve local power centers out of the general chaos.

The difference between Inside and Outside is more than just money. Insiders want reform, free elections and a level economic playing field, or, in some cases, just to be cut in on the corruption. Outsiders want to hold onto their power, squash the press and keep their business monopolies. The lawlessness of the intifadeh has made the squabbles more coldly violent. In February, Abu Amr, the owner of the Beach Hotel in Gaza City, invited Hisham Mikki, the head of the official Palestinian television station, to sit with him in his empty restaurant, smoking a water pipe and looking out over the Mediterranean. Mikki came back from exile with Arafat and amassed a fortune from corrupt deals. He began to puff on a nargileh filled with apple-scented Bahraini tobacco. Barely was the pipe lit when a man walked quickly toward him. Before Mikki could move, the gunman killed him with a three-shot combination known to hit men as "Mozambique style"--a bullet to the forehead and one in each breast. It was a local power play--a battle over cash that may have been spun off by a corrupt deal--but an example of the kinds of Palestinian-on-Palestinian violence that corrode the cause.

The Town Against the Tribe
At the top of Madbassa Street near Bethlehem's old souk, a group of peddlers recently set out wares at the side of the road. The intifadeh has hit the economy hard, and this was a chance for locals to buy good quality cheaply--all the goods were stolen. There was everything from jewelry to potted plants. A pair of "Nike" sneakers was $3. Shoppers jostled for bargains. From the rooftops all around, gunmen kept watch.

A Palestinian police officer arrived with his squad, all armed. The peddlers were trading illegally, so the officer told them to leave. But immediately the men came down from the rooftops and surrounded him. Paid by the peddlers for protection, they were armed with Kalashnikov and M-16 rifles. These were men from the Ta'amra tribe. Thought to be descendants of medieval Crusaders, they dwelled in goat-hair tents until a few decades ago, but in the 1960s they settled in villages on the edge of the Judean Desert and began to take over local farmlands. In the past few years, the Ta'amra have filled most of the jobs in Arafat's security services in Bethlehem. They have used the lack of central control during the intifadeh to cement their fiefdoms, pull in protection money and ride over townspeople. When the policeman showed up, it was time for the Ta'amra to show their muscle. "You have five minutes to leave," the police officer told the peddlers. The Ta'amra laughed. "You have three minutes to leave," one of them crowed at the cop. Then he delivered a hard slap to the officer's face. In the crowded street, the policeman sized up the dangers of a bloody gun battle and retreated.