Middle East In the Eye Of a Revolt

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Restrictions on civil liberties grate hard against the Palestinians' self- esteem. But life under Israeli rule has had its compensations. Israel has made major improvements in living standards within the territories -- particularly in Gaza, which in 1967 was one of the most underdeveloped swatches of land in the world. Today half of Gaza's residents have running water, compared with 14% two decades ago. Nearly 80% own refrigerators and television sets, up from 3%. In the West Bank more than four-fifths of the homes have electricity, in contrast to one-quarter 20 years ago. Per capita income rose in the West Bank from $300 in 1968 to $1,400 today, and in Gaza from $100 to about $1,000. Though the territories' health-care system is still inferior to that of Israel, an Israeli-sponsored overhaul has helped raise life expectancy from 48 to 62 years.

About 50,000 Gazans and 50,000 West Bank Arabs travel daily to jobs in Israel, where wages are higher but still no more than half what Israeli workers earn. Arabs from the territories dominate the unskilled-labor market, especially in the construction industry. Arabs collect Israel's garbage and clean its streets, wait on tables in its finest restaurants and keep its factories and mills running. For Israel, holding on to the territories makes sense economically. Jerusalem contributed $240 million in aid and investment to Gaza and the West Bank in 1987 and took back $393 million in taxes.

The territories' economic dependence on Israel has only increased political resentment, especially in Gaza, where almost 70% of the inhabitants have been living in refugee camps for 40 years. Some of the youngsters in these camps work in Israel for subsistence wages; others are unemployed or underemployed. The more prosperous West Bank is more economically independent. For example, it carries on a thriving agricultural trade with Jordan, of which West Bank residents remain citizens. Only 15% of the 800,000 West Bank denizens are refugees, and even fewer live in refugee camps.

While violence between the occupied and the occupiers stayed at a relatively low level in recent years, hardly a week went by in which an Israeli or Palestinian was not killed or injured in communal clashes. According to the West Bank Data Project, which studies economic and political trends in the territories, the number of demonstrations averaged about 500 a year between 1977 and 1982, when Israel invaded Lebanon. Since then, the number of protests has ranged from 3,000 a year to 4,400. In terms of Arab unhappiness, says Meron Benvenisti, an outspoken Israeli liberal who runs the project, "I don't see a change from a year ago. We just forget."

One might have expected an explosion of youthful anger by glancing at the occupied territories' demographic development. Out of a population of 1.4 million, more than half are 20 years old or under and have lived their entire lives under occupation. The potential rock throwers -- those between 15 and 25 -- number 300,000. Poor, idle, infected with frustration, this embittered generation has little faith that its elders, including those who run the Arab states and the P.L.O., still have the will to remove the yoke of Israeli occupation.