The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. Leading the news this Thursday, up to 100 U.S. military personnel will go to Colombia to train police and troops in the drug war, Panama's Counsel of State chose a new president ensuring continued rule by Gen. Noriega, South African police broke up more student demonstrations against apartheid. We'll have details in our News Summary in a moment. Judy Woodruff is in Washington tonight. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: After the News Summary, we turn first to air safety in this age of [Focus - Detecting Disaster] terrorism and the latest FAA requirement of new Air Force screening devices. FAA Associate Administrator Monte Belger and Richard Lally of the Air Transport Association join us. Then Business Correspondent Paul Solman [Focus - Consuming Competition] reports on the attempts of made in the U.S.A. consumer goods to make a comeback, and finally [Focus - Worlds Apart] a close-up look at two opposite worlds within the Middle East, a Palestinian refugee camp in Gaza and an Israeli settlement in the West Bank. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: The Pentagon said today that fifty to a hundred U.S. military personnel will go to Colombia to train troops and police in the war against the drug cartels. They will train Colombians in how to use the helicopters and other equipment in the $65 million American package announced this week. A Defense Department spokesman explained the operation.

PETE WILLIAMS, Defense Department Spokesman: I think that the start date that we're aiming for is Sunday and I would assume that among the first items to go to Colombia would be two C130-B's, which are medium range cargo planes. In terms of the number of personnel that would be involved in this operation, it's not a firm number yet. The number is going to be somewhere between fifty and a hundred total. And they may not all necessarily be there at one time. For example, some of those may simply ride down on airplanes, help remove equipment from airplanes, and then get right back on airplanes and go back here for another shipment.

MR. MacNeil: Also in Washington, the Justice Department said that limousines, trucks and other vehicles confiscated from other drug dealers might be sent to Colombia. The Department is examining seized equipment to see whether it could be useful in helping to protect Colombian judges threatened by the drug traffickers. In Bogota, the U.S. embassy confirmed that American dependents had been ordered to leave in the next few days. It also recommended that U.S. students leave the country and that American tourists stay away from the City of Medellin, the cocaine capital. Police said that more than 500 people were arrested for violating the curfew in Medellin. Also in that city today a powerful bomb exploded near a paint factory, wounding eight people and reportedly killing one man. In a phone call to a radio network, a man claimed responsibility on behalf of a group linked to drug traffickers. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: A new government was appointed today in Panama, assuring the continued control of the country by Army Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega. Panama's Counsel of State selected Controller Francisco Rodriguez as president and made plans to abolish the current general assembly. All this comes in the wake of the cancellation of the results of presidential elections which were held last May. Here in Washington, the Organization of American States held a special meeting on Panama at the request of the United States. Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger said there was ample evidence to link Noriega's government to the Colombian drug cartels.

LAWRENCE EAGLEBURGER, Deputy Secretary of State: In Panama, the regime aiding, giving refuge to the narcotics traffickers, their front businesses, and the banks through which they launder their dirty money. Noriega's actions graphically detailed in testimony, indictments, receipts, accounts, personal holdings, in a trail of evidence that points to misconduct on an international scale. These actions are inexcusable. Inaction on our part would be equally inexcusable. This is no time for silence. This is no time for timidity. We must see Noriega for who he is.

MR. MacNeil: There was another day of clashes in South Africa as anti-apartheid demonstrators continued to defy emergency laws making demonstrations illegal. There were protests against next week's elections in several cities. We have a report narrated by Louise Bates of Worldwide Television News.

LOUISE BATES: As polling day draws closer, South Africa's police brace themselves for another day of civil obedience, with Walters Rand University often being a seat of anti-apartheid protests, and warning posters went up across the campus. They told students in no uncertain terms that any unrest would not be tolerated. Their protest started peacefully enough, a gesture not reciprocated by the prowling security forces. Here as elsewhere in the country tear gas filled the air, a clear indication of the government's attitude toward the month old defiance campaign. The students scattered, first from the tear gas, then from volleys of rubber bullets. In Cape Town, teachers left their classrooms to voice their opposition to apartheid. Twelve local journalists protesting state censorship were quickly arrested. Schools also stood deserted in Johannesburg following a boycott by nearly 5,000 colored students. They abandoned their desks and took to the streets.

MS. WOODRUFF: In another part of Africa, Chad and Libya today signed a peace agreement that calls for an end to 16 years of fighting over a disputed strip of desert. The foreign ministers of both countries signed the agreement in Algiers after a week of meetings outside Paris. The agreement calls for the two countries to try to dissolve their dispute over a mineral rich strip of land that sits between them. If no agreement is reached within a year, the issue will move to the International Court of Justice.

MR. MacNeil: The leaders of Soviet Moldavia today voted overwhelmingly to make Moldavian the official language. Moldavia was seized from Romania by Stalin and forced to adopt Russian. Today's vote in the Moldavian Supreme Soviet was described by one nationalist as a first victory for ethnic Moldavians. The vote kept Russian as the language of inter-ethnic relations with the rest of the Soviet Union, but that gesture did not placate Russian workers who are on strike in protest against the language change.

MS. WOODRUFF: A new Federal Aviation regulation requiring new screening devices at the world's busiest airports is under fire even before it's implemented. Critics today charged that the requirement issued yesterday and aimed at detecting sophisticated explosive devices might not have revealed the small bomb that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 last December over Lockerbie, Scotland. Congresswoman Cardis Collins, Chairwoman of the House Transportation Subcommittee, said that more work on the detection equipment is needed. The equipment, which the FAA wants installed over the next 10 years at 40 airports, would cost around $400 million.

MR. MacNeil: The hunt for the white teen-ager suspected of killing a black man in New York last week ended today. Eight year old Joseph Fama turned himself in to police in Upstate New York in the middle of the night. Police had been searching for him since a mob of white teen-agers attacked a group of four blacks in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. One of the blacks was killed by a bullet allegedly fired by Fama. The trial of Television Evangelist Jim Bakker was suspended today. The judge ordered the PTL founder to undergo psychiatric tests to see if he's competent to stand trial. The decision was made after Bakker's psychiatrist said Bakker suffered hallucinations and had been hiding in his attorney's office saying someone was going to hurt him. Bakker is charged with diverting several million dollars in contributions for his personal use.

MS. WOODRUFF: That's it for our News Summary. Just ahead on the Newshour, new technology to make air travel safer, a Paul Solman report on the consumer product olympics, and a special look at life on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. FOCUS - DETECTING DISASTER

MR. MacNeil: First tonight, we look into air travel and terrorism, which has been a particular concern since last December, when a bomb exploded in mid air on Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland. Yesterday the FAA announced a plan to require new and sophisticated screening machines at 40 airports in the U.S. and overseas by 1991. These machines, called thermo neutron analysis, or TNA units, can detect plastic explosives which can now escape the notice of X-ray metal detectors. But each TNA unit also costs about $3/4 million and that's one source of some controversy. Here to tell us more Monte Belger, Associate Administrator for the Aviation Standards at the FAA, and Richard Lally, Vice President for Security at the Air Transport Association. Mr. Belger, the use of these machines is mandatory, right, the airlines and airports don't have a choice in it, in whether to accept them or not or whether to install them?

MONTE BELGER, FAA: That is correct. First of all I really appreciate the opportunity to talk about this rule which enables the FAA to require the use of explosive detection systems at International Airports served by U.S. Carriers. As you recall last April Secretary of Transportation Skinner announced to the public that we would pursue a rule making effort to require the use of explosive detection systems. I think this decision yesterday as a reflection of our commitment of to fulfill that promise to the American public and to continue to insure that the best technology available is used by U.S. Air Carriers and that passengers on U.S. Airlines get the benefit of the very best technology.

MR. MacNeil: On the question of it being mandatory, I mean, is it mandatory for airports in foreign countries too?

MR. BELGER: This rule enable the FAA to require the use by U.S. Airlines at selected airports in the United States and at International Airports.

MR. MacNeil: So if an International Airport an Airport in Belgium or somewhere said no then the FAA would prohibit U.S. Airlines to use that Airport?

MR. BELGER: Well first of all the FAA and the Department of Transportation are working very closely with the State Department have taken on the task the commitment of working very closely with foreign governments to try to achieve their cooperation first of all and their agreement to place these systems in foreign countries. Obviously we need the approval of the host countries to make this work. We are going to work very very hard through the State Department in a cooperative way with the foreign governments to try to get their approval to use these systems outside the United States.

MR. MacNeil: can you tell us in a simple way as you can what can these machines do and what can they not do?

MR. BELGER: Well not being a technician I will have to tell you in a simple way.

MR. MacNeil: Good.

MR. BELGER: As bags proceed through the detection systems.

MR. MacNeil: This is checked luggage, luggage that goes in the hole?

MR. BELGER: We are talking about checked baggage. We are not talking about carry on baggage. The bag is subjected to neutrons which react with nitrogen in explosives. That reaction produces gama rays which can be isolated and measured through an automated detection system as alarm is sounded if the nitrogen level and the gama rays produced by the reaction of the neutrons and the nitrogen is sufficient to cause the computerized system to indicate that an explosive might be apparent.

MR. MacNeil: I have been reading today in science magazines and elsewhere that nitrogen is also present in wool, in ski boots, cheese all kinds of things that might go through in checked luggage and therefore there is a high probability of a lot of false alarms with this equipment. How do you comment on that?

MR. BELGER: Well the first part of that is certainly true, Nitrogen exists in many many types of articles that might be in checked baggage. We've tested over 40,000 bags in San Francisco and Los Angles in the last couple of years. We think that we have a good handle on the alarm rate. One of the problems and there is no question of it one of the problems that we will have is to work out acceptable procedures with the Airlines to resolve these alarms as they do come up. Obviously every alarm will not mean there is a bomb is in the bag.

MR. MacNeil: What alarm rate or false alarm rate do you estimate?

MR. BELGER: We estimate that with the enhancements that have been added to the machine in the form of a very sophisticated Xray machine that the alarm rate will probably in the 3 percent rate.

MR. MacNeil: So in another words 3 out of every hundred bags that go through might produce a false alarm?

MR. BELGER: That is one way to look at it yes.

MR. MacNeil: The other objection that has been made and it was published first by Science Magazine and as you heard in our news summary Congressman Collins raised it today. That these machines wouldn't have been able to detect a bomb as small as that believe to have the caused the Lockaby crash because it contained only a pound of plastic explosives and these are set to detect no lower that 2 and 1/2 pounds as I read. If it couldn't detect the kind of bomb that set the whole scare off in the first place why put them in?

MR. BELGER: Well first of all it is the best the absolute best explosive detection system available. I think that the FAA research approach to this has been validated by independent researchers and independent advisors who have looked at the system. I don't think that there is any question that this is the best available explosive detection system. We know there are some constraints in the technology, however, we also know that it has the capability to detect rather small quantities of plastic explosives. There is obviously a balance in terms of how sensitive you would want to set an explosive detection system.

MR. MacNeil: In other words you could set it very low to even detect very small quantities?

MR. BELGER: That is absolutely correct. The detection has that capability but I think the fundamental point here --

MR. MacNeil: But you don't intend to set it that low for what reason?

MR. BELGER: As with any security system you have to have a proper balance between the security system, a safety system and a need to move thousands of people on a scheduled basis through a relatively public area. We are confident that we are talking about a technology and an explosive detection system that is the best available. We are going to continue through our research and development activities to refine this technology, to work to get a better handle on new technologies and we absolutely encourage manufacturers, research organization both in the United States and World wide to help us find even better explosive detection techniques.

MR. MacNeil: Okay let's get a view from the industry. Mr. Lally how does the industry regard these machines?

RICHARD LALLY, Air Transport Association: Well the industry, let me say first that the U.S. Airlines have probably been the staunchest and most long standing supporters of FAA research and development efforts to develope techniques to effectively and efficiently detect explosives in the aviation environment. U.S. airlines hailed the development of TNA and the progress evidenced by that development. We do feel however that the TNA device has not been adequately tested in true day to day operation use to determine whether or it will work in actual practice. So the ATA on behalf of the airlines recommended strongly that deployment of these equipments be withheld until completion of a good operation test and evaluation.

MR. MacNeil: What are afraid will happen it is put in, and as a matter of fact, as I understand the first of them goes into operation tomorrow at Kennedy Airport, at TWA at Kennedy Airport in New York. What are you afraid will happen if it is put into use now?

MR. LALLY: We are afraid that it will not work as effectively and efficiently as it tends to appear to be capable of doing in the research and development mode which is a testing that has gone on. These machines when you add the cost of the companion Xray that is needed as Monte mentioned run up to a million dollars. Their size goes to ten tons and goes to 37 feet.

MR. MacNeil: And I have read today. Is this correct that they need if not special buildings built to house them they need serious modifications of existing structures to install them.

MR. LALLY: They will have to have significant adjustment in the system to accommodate these units and I think the airlines want to make sure these units will actually preform and do the job that needs to be done before making the massive adjustments in the system to accommodate them.

MR. MacNeil: How do you respond to that Mr. Belger? Why didn't you do what the airlines recommended?

MR. BELGER: Well in the last 7 years the FAA has spent upwards of 50 million dollars in research and developments efforts on explosive detection. For this particular machine we've run more than 40,000 bags in tests in San Francisco and Los Angeles. We think that we have a pretty good handle on the operation characteristics and capability of the machine.

MR. MacNeil: Wouldn't 40,000 bags satisfy you as a good test?

MR. LALLY: Well I guess I don't want to appear to disagree but the testing that was done in a research and development mode. There were no passengers waiting for those bags, there were no planes waiting for them to be loaded on. This was a leisurely test at the convince of the scientists that were conducting the test and I think that the real world environment at a busy United States Airport where these are supposed to go is an entirely different situation.

MR. MacNeil: Let me raise another point and that is the one that I discussed with Mr. Belger. These machines are capable of detecting very small amounts of nitrogen but they are being set to detect only larger amounts which gives rise to the objection from Congress Collins and others they wouldn't have detected the Lockaby Bomb. Presumably that is being done to accommodate the airlines so that they won't off at every tiny bit of nitrogen that goes through and will speed the process?

MR. LALLY: Well I don't think that is being done for the convince of the airlines.

MR. MacNeil: Well it was done in negotiation was it not?

MR. LALLY: No the airlines and the FAA did no negotiation on this. I am satisfied and I agree that Monte that these machines as I understand can be calibrated to detect fine amounts of explosive but I also have confidence in FAA's R&D and their other intelligence and investigative work that have identified the logical sizes of explosives that would constitute the severe threat to blow an aircraft out of the sky and may be not detect these fine amounts that would have to that artful concealment or lucky placement to get in a strategic place where it can do damage. I don't think any of us know at least I don't know the amount of explosives that brought down Pan Am 103. Apparently some did but I have confidence in the system and the airlines hailed the development of it. The only hang up we have is the speed of enforcement.

MR. MacNeil: We just have a minute or so left can I ask you this. As I understand the airlines will pay for this machine or the airlines and the airport authorities together. Since protecting the public from terrorism is the responsibility, usually thought of as the responsibility of the Federal Government. Why is the cost which if fully implemented could run to almost a billion dollars over a number of years. Why is that being put on the airlines and ultimately the traveling public through ticket sales and not the Federal Government which sits on a trust fund of many billions of dollars dedicated by intention and by Congress to airline safety. Why are we paying for it and not you.

MR. BELGER: The Federal Government does have an obligation clearly in this area. As I said before we have very aggressively supported with Federal Funds research and development activities. We think now we have a technology which is operationally deplorable. It has been our posture all along that when we reach the stage where systems are operational it them becomes the obligation of the Carrier to fund the implementation of these safety systems as integral part of their operation. If you look at the cost on a per passenger basis spread out over the 10 year period that you referenced the costs per passenger are really modest in my estimation. We are probably talking about a cost of less than $2 per passenger over the ten year period.

MR. MacNeil: Per year?

MR. BELGER: Per trip per passenger.

MR. MacNeil: I am sorry I would love to go on with this but we've run ourselves out of time. Thank you both for joining us. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: Still to come on the News Hour Paul Solman reports on how American consumer goods are competing and Israel's occupied territories as seen from a Palestinian and Israeli perspective. FOCUS - CONSUMING COMPETITION

MS. WOODRUFF: Next we look at American consumer goods. In the past 20 years American has witnessed a dramatic decline in its fortunes as Japanese and European competitors captured larger shares of the U.S. market for appliances, electronic goods and clothing. But recently there has been talk of a revival of America's ability to manufacture and compete against imports. We asked our Business Correspondent Paul Solman to see what kind of a comeback America's consumer products were making. Here is his report.

MR. SOLMAN: International competition. Every four years here at the Olympic we see which country turns out the highest quality in sports but in consumer goods it is hard to tell who is winning. In part because there is no obvious finish line. Are American consumer goods back in contention or are they still falling short. We decided to stage our own modest business olympics and find out. This believe it or not is the sight of our competition, Consumers Union, the judge of product quality in the American market place for half a century. CU is best known for Consumer Reports a Magazine which has over the years built up a circulation approaching 10 million readers a month. We asked CU's experts to grade America's performance across a range of product quality events and they graciously agreed to play along with our Olympic games. We are here with Bob Volatile, Project Leader for Appliances. Bob what event are we going to see today?

BOB VOLATILE, Consumer Union: Today we are going to see the Vacuum Cleaner Derby.

MR. SOLMAN: And who is competing in the event.

MR. VOLATILE: Mostly American models but we have two Japanese and one German entry.

MR. SOLMAN: How do you expect the United States to do in this event?

MR. VOLATILE: We will dominate in terms of shear weight of number but there might be an upset from one of the off shore people.

MR. SOLMAN: Thanks Bob and we will get to that event in just a minute. While Bob's Assistant prepared the playing field we looked in on another event, the Stereo Competition. My ears are already beginning to feel funny again.

DEAN GALLEA: That is because the walls don't have any reflections coming back at you. Let me close the door.

MR. SOLMAN: Dean Gallea is CU Stereo expert. After testing literally hundreds of products he says the competition isn't even close.

MR. GALLEA: Well I would have to give the gold medal to the Japanese. They seem to be able to keep the market to give us high quality products at a good price and be able to anticipate what the American public wants to buy in a product.

MR. SOLMAN: We may be got the silver but we are not making any head way in terms of getting the gold.

MR. GALLEA: Not unless you are a hi fi buff and you have $20,000 to spend. There are great American products that are very expensive but hardly anybody really buys them.

MR. SOLMAN: So when it comes to stereo the American consumer, no dummy is buying Japanese. And the so the first gold goes to Japan. Meanwhile back at the Vacuum Cleaner event let's see if American can pick up a medal. Bob what is going on now.

MR. VOLATILE. Well Monte is preparing one of the rugs for cleaning and he is positioning it in the jig and he is going to vacuum both sides until it is dead clean.

MR. SOLMAN: Historically the Japanese have won medals in American with small energy efficient products they could sell first to the Japanese consumer. As a result in large so called white goods U.S. manufacturers have for years had the market to themselves. The major appliances. stoves, washers, dryers remain to big for the Japanese home so America wins the gold medals here by forfeit. To retool their factories just to make appliances for American remains to expensive for the Japanese but small upright vacuum cleaners like those competing here today are just the sort of product at which the Japanese excel.

MR. VOLATILE: Now he is laying it in out test bed in preparation for the actual cleaner evaluation. Marty is spreading the soil we use over the test area. It is a mixture of lime sand and talcum powder.

MR. SOLMAN: That is exactly 100 grams?

MR. VOLATILE: That is 100 grams.

MR. SOLMAN: We are watching the top three entries in their final heats, Japan's Panasonic. America's Hoover and Marty is about to check Sweden's Electrolux representing Europe. What is he doing now?

MR. VOLATILE: He is rolling in the dirt so as to embed it. The object is to test these machines for their deep cleaning ability.

MR. SOLMAN: How exciting is this for you Bob?

MR. VOLATILE: It is a living and we get used to the dull passages and wait for the interesting one.

MR. SOLMAN: While Bob waits some more let's ask CU's TV judge who is winning in his event.

EVON BECKFORD, Consumer Union: The race is already won by the Japanese. In the United States Zenith is the only significant what can be called an American manufacturer of televisions. Two names known and loved by us all GE and RCA are now owned by Thompson in France so they are not American manufacturers. American brand names yes but not American manufacturers.

MR. SOLMAN: Elsewhere in the CU Stadium American manufacturers are still performing admirably and clearing CU's devilishly high hurdles. Here the judges are distilling cigar smoke in to grim to test window cleaners. Here they are running the tote bag marathon and here is an event that literally rips the losers to shreds, CU's simulated sneeze competition. Back at our original event that Vacuum Cleaner Competition is under way. Japan, Europe and the U.S. are running neck and neck through the various trial heats, suction, degree of quietness, how much a disturbance the exhaust makes. We will return to this event in a few moments to find out the results but before we finish our cameras take you one to last showcase event at CU's Product Olympics the Automobile races. We join CU's top auto judge Bob Knowel about to road test a Mitsubishi Gallant. How are American cars doing in the race with the Japanese.

MR. KNOWLES: We just got the last results back from our survey of over 500,000 owners of cars and their experience in the past year with them and the American cars are still down. Some are improved, some have stayed bad but it looks like the General Motors cars are still in some trouble. It looks like the Ford and Chrysler cars are sort of spotty. Some are doing better than others.

MR. SOLMAN: What car would you buy if you had to buy one.

MR. KNOWLES: Well I would check to see exactly what I needed in a car and I would probably buy some form of Toyota or Honda.

MR. SOLMAN: So no surprise here the same small energy efficient high quality cars Japan made for the home market rolled into America after the oil crisis of the 70s and they have never stopped coming. Bob Knowles choice of Toyota and Honda however raises a serious question about the Product Olympics. Just what is a Japanese entry these days or for that matter an American contestant. Can today's products still be classified by nationality. Honda, for example, already makes nearly 20 percentof its cars in America. By some estimates it will eventually make more cars here than in Japan. In the long run we seem headed for a World of products without a country.

MR. KNOWLES: There are Chevrolets, there is Pontiacs, there is Mercury's there is Dodges that are made wholely or in part overseas. Mostly Japan, some time Mexico, sometimes Brazil. It is a very interesting world market and it is not just simply us versus them anymore at all.

MR. SOLMAN: And as we return to the vacuum cleaner event to declare the winner it turn out that Europe's entry this is Sweden's Electrolux was made entirely in America. We do however have a basis for one national comparison. Hoover is an All American entry up against the All Japanese Panasonic. So far on total points this Panasonic is running just ahead of the Hoover with the Electrolux a close third. It has all come down to the deep cleaning g weigh in. Which machine picked up the most dirt. The Judge is weighing his decision and it looks like the true blue American Hoover wins deep cleaning by a hair and ties Panasonic for the gold but may be patriotism is out of place here. Looking at the various contestants as they lounge around after the competition we find both American and Japanese entries made every where from Taiwan to Mexico. Globalization it is a trend both in the consumer olympics and the real ones and just as it some times unclear which passport an Olympic Athlete should carry it is getting harder to determine a products nationality in the Global Marketplace. FOCUS - WORLDS APART

MR. MacNeil: Next we take a different kind of look at the fears and emotions that continue to make any kind of peace between Israel and the Palestinians so extraordinarily difficult. Almost daily there are reports of incidents involving rock throwing youths and Israeli forces in the occupied territories. Almost as frequently tensions arise between Israeli settlers on the West Bank and their Palestinian neighbors. Tonight we look at the two polar opposites in this enduring story and hear not from leaders or official spokesmen but ordinary people in a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip and in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank. The two documentary reports were prepared by independent producer Michael Rosenblume, who also acted as cameraman and interviewer. He reports first from the Gaza Strip.

MR. ROSENBLUME: This is the back road to the Jabalya Refugee Camp in the Gaza Strip. Jabalya is not an easy place to get into, particularly with a television camera. Officially television crews need an Israeli military escort. This trip was unofficial. We spent almost two weeks in and around Jabalya, observing the Intefada from inside the camp. While we were there, we lived with a refugee family. Wherever we went in the camp, we were always accompanied by members of the Shabob, the organizers of the Intefada. Jabalya is the largest of eight refugee camps in the Gaza Strip. Its narrow alleyways and garbage strewn streets are home to more than 50,000 people. From 1948 to 1967, the camps were under Egyptian control. In 1967, they came under Israeli military rule. The camp has no sewage system and the stench of the open sewers is everywhere. Cesspools form lakes in the middle of the camp. People live wherever there is space. Often as many as seven people share one room. Half the population of the camp is under the age of 17.

REFUGEE: The conditions at the camp are terrible.

MR. ROSENBLUME: His name is Ahmad Abdullah. At the age of 41, he has lived in the camps virtually all of his life.

AHMAD ABDULLAH, Teacher, Jabalya Prep. School: You can't imagine to live all your life as a refugee. You look like an orphan. If you feel hungry, if you feel thirsty, if you feel cold, nobody cares, nobody cares at all.

MR. ROSENBLUME: In 1948, after the Arab states rejected a United Nations partition plan for Palestine and attacked Israel, the Israeli Army overran many Palestinian villages, including Ahmad Abdullah's native village of Alajar. Of his family, only he and his mother survived and like thousands of other Palestinians fled here to Gaza, where they were housed in temporary camps set up by the United Nations. Those temporary camps were destined to last 41 years. Since the Intefada began 19 months ago, places like Jabalya have been centers of rebellion. The residents of the camps increasingly find themselves caught in a battle between Israeli authorities and the Palestine organizers of the Intefada. Signs of the popular protest are everywhere. Children chant PLO slogans on the street, an illegal act in Israel, as are the Palestinian flags that fly throughout the camp. The Israeli army has a base inside the camp to maintain order, and the Israeli soldiers who patrol the camps often find themselves the target of angry, rock throwing mobs. Attacks on soldiers are a daily afternoon ritual in the camp.

PALESTINIAN REFUGEE: [Speaking through Interpreter] We hate the occupation and all the Palestinian people hate the occupation, because the soldiers beat and kill everybody, so how can we live with them.

MR. ROSENBLUME: Meanwhile, the leaders of the Intefada construct well organized strikes and protests on an almost daily basis. Participation is virtually mandatory. Regular work and regular life have become impossible. Before the Intefada began, many residents of the Jabalya camp commuted to work in Israel. Today few make the trip. These are identity cards. Every Palestinian resident of the occupied territories is required to carry one. Since the Intefada began, Israeli roadblocks have become commonplace. By September, any Palestinian wishing to leave Gaza will also have to carry one of these, a magnetic identity card that registers the holder's movements in a permanent computer record. This was graduation day at Jabalya Prep., the United Nations run school in the Jabalya camp. Ahmad Abdullah has been a teacher here for the past 20 years. In June, the school's exterior wall was torn down by Israeli soldiers. They said rock throwing students hid behind it.

ABU SAMRA, Headmaster, Jabalya Prep. School: Our schools close this year for 161 days. It's open only for 59 days. You can imagine what learning and what teaching could the teacher learn the peoples in 59 days.

MR. ROSENBLUME: The school was closed by Israeli officials because of student protests. The Intefada has largely been a revolt by the young. When the Israeli army does react, it is the young who feel it the most. A confrontation occurred on this day between rock throwing students at the Palestine Street School and the Israeli army. As soon as the soldiers appeared, the area was declared a closed military zone, closed to the press. Confrontations are difficult to tape. The results are not.

SPOKESMAN: This one was shooted with rubber bullet in his head.

MR. ROSENBLUME: The Ali Arab Hospital is the only Arab run hospital in the Gaza Strip. As a result, almost all the Palestinian casualties of the Intefada end up here. The hospital sees sixty to one hundred wounded a day.

SPOKESMAN: The child beaten, five years old was beaten, was kicked in his face, as you see.

MR. ROSENBLUME: This young man was shot in the stomach with a plastic bullet used by the Israelis for riot control. [Operating Room Scene]

SURGEON: He is injured where it penetrated the abdomen, caused laceration of the liver, bleeding inside.

MR. ROSENBLUME: How many of these kind of injuries do you see every day?

SURGEON: Plenty. It's almost every day we're operating.

MR. ROSENBLUME: Since the Intefada began, the United Nations has recorded more than 3,000 casualties from live rounds in Gaza resulting in 146 deaths. The rubber and plastic coated bullets introduced by the Israelis specifically for riot control have caused over 2,000 casualties but resulted in only 6 deaths. Walking through the camp one is approached by family after family with a story to tell about injury at the hands of the soldiers during the Intefada. A 17 month old baby whose eye was shot out by a rubber bullet. An eight year old boy beaten across the back by the army, a 14 year old boy shot in the stomach and beaten by the soldiers. Tear gas often wafts across the camp, striking at random.

REFUGEE: He heard the soldiers, then he escaped from them in our neighbor's house. They follow him and began to beat him by their sticks on his back and then he smashed him in his face and pressed on his stomach till he make it --

MR. ROSENBLUME: This is Fatin Asar, whose seven year old son was beaten for breaking the curfew.

REFUGEE: Two soldiers, two men coming to beat a child, to save our lives as they said. They said people with a very high civilization. How can they beat like this? What are their feelings?

MR. ROSENBLUME: On this day a visit to a family whose home was blown up by the Israeli army a month ago. Under what the Israelis have called their iron fist policy, entire families often pay the price of a child's participation in the Intefada. This woman's son was arrested under suspicion of throwing Molotov Cocktails. A month later, the soldiers appeared at her door and told her she and her family had three minutes to remove any possessions they wanted. Then they blew up her house. Today she and her 15 children live here on the ruins of their former home. They're forbidden by the army from rebuilding.

REFUGEE: They used all that artillery, but you can see I'm told all the world who can do it.

ABU SAMRA, Headmaster, Jabalya Prep. School: The Israelis believe that they can break us with this, they can make us to give up, but, in fact, they can't understand us. We can't accept this. We can't accept this. I can die without, from hunger, but I can't accept you to slap me on my face, how to beat me, how to beat my child, how to beat my daughter or my mother, we can't accept this. We can't forgive all these things. We can't. I am a human being like them. I'm a human being like anyone in the world. Just I want my right. Is that a crime? We want to live together. We accept them as a people in this land. All we ask, even we are the right owner of this land, we want them just to give our right which they took. That's it. We accept them. We want to live together, equals, not master and servant, equals.

MR. MacNeil: We get a second perspective of Israeli politics and the Middle East political equation. Independent producer Michael Rosenblume visited the settlement of T'Quoa on the Israeli occupied West Bank.

BOBBY BROWN: I grew up in Manhattan and I never knew what a house was and because I lived on the fourth floor, but now I live in my own home, I kind of like it.

MR. ROSENBLUME: Bobby Brown has finally gotten his share of the American dream, a small house in a quiet suburban neighborhood, only a half hour's drive from work. What makes Bobby Brown's dream unusual is that his quiet suburban neighborhood is T'Quoa, an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank.

BOBBY BROWN, T'Quoa Resident: This is the land of Moses, this is the land of Abraham, this is the land that gave birth to my people, and me as a culture, and for me, being here is as natural and as logical as being anywhere else in the world.

MR. ROSENBLUME: Bobby Brown and his family are West Bank settlers and like half the 90 families in T'Quoa, they are also very much American.

LINDA BROWN: Cherry Cola.

MR. ROSENBLUME: Linda is Bobby Brown's wife.

MRS. BROWN: Listen, my life savings are in this house and I love this area and I hope God willing we'll be able to continue and we're planning to do other changes in the house, landscaping the backyard, building retaining walls. It's investing thousands of dollars more into the house to make it the way I would like it to be. I wish my neighbors well, I only hope, would like to think that they wish me well also.

MR. ROSENBLUME: But the Brown's Palestinian neighbors do not wish them well. For the past two years, settlements like T'Quoa have been the focus of Palestinian resentment and attack. Linda and Bobby Brown moved here 12 years ago when this was a barren hilltop. Today they feel caught between Palestinians who would like them out and some Israelis and American Jews who do not share their enthusiasm for the settlements.

MRS. BROWN: I'm not happy about the fact there is a certain percentage of the Israeli population that might call us traitors or obstacles to peace or whatever. I don't agree with it.

MR. ROSENBLUME: For more than 2,000 years, this barren desert between the Jordan River and the coastal plain of the Mediterranean has been claimed by a long line of empires and civilizations. The Babylonians held this land once, as did the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, Byzantine Christians, Ottoman Turks, British and Jordanians. In 1967, ownership of the land changed once again. This time it fell to the Israeli army. For Bobby Brown and almost 20,000 other settlers like him, the conquest of the 1967 war gave Jews a chance to plant communities in the West Bank. Those same conquests placed almost a million Palestinians under Israeli military control, denying them most civil and political rights.

MRS. BROWN: When you read the bible and Tanak, it doesn't talk about Tel Aviv and Jaffa very much, it talks about Herome, Schlem, the whole area of Judea and Samaria, where the Jewish nation was founded and established.

MR. ROSENBLUME: So you feel that Jews have a biblical right, a historical right, to be here?

MRS. BROWN: Yes. Yes, I do. Yes, I do. I feel it's ours. It always has been.

MR. ROSENBLUME: Since 1967, more than 138 Jewish settlements have been established in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. First a few defensive outposts, then an increasing number of residential enclaves. Today some 20,000 Israelis out of a population of 3 million live in settlements, but politically they are far more powerful than their numbers suggest. This is a meeting of Amana, the settlement arm of the Gush Emoni movement. Bobby Brown is T'Quoa's representative.

MR. BROWN: And so many people in the world want to take this away, want to split the Jewish people from the land of Judea, and by being here, we're saying no, we have a right to be here, and we're going to stay here.

MR. ROSENBLUME: Bobby Brown works in Jerusalem, at the Jewish Agency. He commutes daily on the No. 166 bus. It isn't hard to spot the 166 bus. The sides of the bus are dented and the windows are smashed from Arab rocks. The bus is accompanied on every ride by a military escort, an armed jeep in the front and another behind.

MR. BROWN: I grew up in New York, so I think danger is a relative term, but there have been many many incidents, there have been literally hundreds of incidents of teen-agers throwing stones, rocks, bottles, gasoline, firebombs at transportation, including at our transportation, including at the bus you're on now, and again, this is not a military bus, this is not a bust. This is a regular transportation buss and their object is to hurt innocent people. And those who throw stones and firebombs, those who try to kill us, I don't believe there's any place in this country for. Those people who say my belief is destroying you, I believe we should put them over the border. Let them throw as many stones as they want from Lebanon or from Jordan, from any of our neighbors' countries.

MR. ROSENBLUME: Inside the gates of T'Quoa, the tension subsides. But in contrast to most West Bank settlements, T'Quoa has not perimeter fence. It is, however, almost completely self-contained. Although the land is not very good for agriculture, there are limited attempts to grow vegetables. Oren Kessler, from Burrough Park in Brooklyn, is a mushroom farmer. He does not consider himself a settler.

OREN KESSLER, T'Quoa Resident: I consider myself to be a citizen of Israel and a resident of Judea, which is an ancient province of Israel. We are far fast the stage of settling. This place is settled. We are here.

MR. ROSENBLUME: And like many in T'Quoa, Kessler feels the American press does not understand their situation.

MR. KESSLER: People have to realize the true face of this culture that we're dealing with. This is the face of Arab fanaticism, Arab Muslim fanaticism. It's a culture that is strong on force and attributes cowardice to an easy handed approach and where they see weakness, they will exploit the weakness. [Settlement Meeting]

MR. ROSENBLUME: The settlement is self-governing. Kessler sits on the town council with Bobby Brown. This evening's town council meeting is interrupted by a settler who was just attacked on the road below. The army is called on the short wave radio. By the time the army arrived, the Palestinians were gone. This evening no one was arrested, but confrontations between Palestinian and settlers are common events.

MR. BROWN: When you have people throwing rocks at you, 18, 20 year olds, who put children in front of them, literally putting children in front of them, and daring the army, saying fire, go ahead, what are you going to do, how do you respond if you're a soldier, do you allow the violence to continue, do you open fire? And those leaders of the uprising, properly called the Intefada, those people don't have any second thoughts about endangering women or endangering children.

MR. ROSENBLUME: Despite the frequency of attack, almost everyone in T'Quoa is convinced that the Intefada is somehow imposed on the Palestinians against their will. Eli Birnbaum is Bobby Brown's neighbor.

ELI BIRNBAUM, T'Quoa Resident: I think deep down the simple people, the simple that are working in the area, whether they're shepherds or whether they're storekeepers, want the same thing we want. We all want peace. None of us want the Intefada.

MR. KESSLER: The people of Rafida, the village right down here on the bottom of the hill, came here a few months ago and they said, why don't you help us, we have a village of four people coming up here into our village and they're dictating to us what we have to do, how we have to participate in the Intefada.

MR. ROSENBLUME: We tried to interview Orrin Kessler's Palestinian neighbors. They were afraid to speak to us on camera. They were afraid, they said, of Israeli reprisal. They all supported the Intefada. The ninth of Av is a Jewish holiday that commemorates the fall of Jerusalem to the Roman armies in 72 A.D. While it is celebrated throughout Israel, in T'Quoa it has a special significance. Two thousand years ago, a fortress near here served as an outpost for the ancient City of Jerusalem. Today settlers see themselves serving the same function.

BOBBY BROWN: We stand on the openings, on the roads to Jerusalem, and we in a sense do the same thing we've always done, protecting the depth of Jerusalem, and keeping it safe.

MR. KESSLER: Israel is the only place where the Jews are not a minority group and where it's home, where this is our real home. The Jews manage to survive and live and even thrive in many places in the world, but only one place you can call home.

MR. BIRNBAUM: I feel that every Jew belongs in Israel, yes. At least he has to try to live in Israel. This is our country, this is our state, and it's important both in the historical aspect and for the future, that Jews realize we only have one homeland.

MR. ROSENBLUME: The dilemma is clear. Any Israeli government that believes that this land might be traded for peace with the Palestinians will have to find an answer for the people who have invested their lives and fortunes in places like T'Quoa.

MR. MacNeil: Our reports from the West Bank and Gaza Strip were filed by independent producer Michael Rosenblume. RECAP

MS. WOODRUFF: Again, the main story of this Thursday, the Pentagon announced that fifty to one hundred U.S. military personnel will go to Colombia to train police and troops in the war on drugs. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Judy. That's the Newshour tonight. And we'll be back tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.