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Though anti-Israeli demonstrations by West Bank Arabs had been increasing since February, the march clearly provoked last week's riots. Israeli Premier Yitzhak Rabin called Gush Emunin's action a challenge to government authority and a needless affront to Arab sensitivities. Still, the government has been ambivalent about the extremist group's wish to settle on West Bank soil. It has been unable—or unwilling—to prevent the zealots from stealthily moving tents and equipment into the occupied territories and staking out three sites that are now existing communities. While condemning these illegal settlements, the government itself has sanctioned 58 Jewish paramilitary settlements, 16 of them in the Jordan Valley —despite arguments by the U.S. that these communities will make more difficult the return of captured lands in any Middle East peace agreement.
In fact, the Rabin government may privately welcome the Gush Emunin's dramatic demonstrations for Jewish settlements; Jerusalem can then explain to Washington that it cannot oppose the people's will. On the day after the march, the Premier toured the official settlements along the Jordan River and declared that "the establishment of settlements along this line makes it the defense line of Israel."