Ann Mosely Lesch

By Najwa M. Sa'd

Among the handful of American experts on the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip, Ann Mosely Lesch is a pioneer. Without the support or resources of such present-day research institutes as the West Bank Data Base Project, she managed to explore and analyze Israeli land expropriations, water use, settlement strategies, and Palestinian displacement—all without knowledge of Hebrew and without help from contacts within the Israeli government.

Lesch developed her self-reliance and interest in international affairs early, as the daughter of Soviet expert Philip Mosely, who before his death served as director of Columbia University's Russian Institute. It was as a Swarthmore College student working on an Israeli kibbutz in the summer of 1964 that Lesch began to question what she now calls "her typical American liberal assumptions that there was something innately good about Israel, and that the Israeli government's standards were different from other nations'."

In 1965 Lesch persuaded the Catherwood Foundation to support her study of the conflicting claims of Israel and its Arab neighbors to the waters of the Jordan River. She then studied Arabic at Princeton and at the American University of Cairo.

As associate Middle East representative for the American Friends Service Committee in Jerusalem in 1977, she undertook a study of Israeli deportations of Palestinians, compiling a detailed list of 1,151 Palestinians exiled by the Israeli government during the first decade after the 1967 war.

"The occupation was not living up to the ideal," she said. "The government was saying that the occupied territories were only a bargaining chip, but Jewish settlements were already being built in the territories."

In addition to her research on Gaza, Lesch has conducted studies on Arab-Israeli conflict resolution, on legal aid and refugee resettlement in Sudan, and on community development in Lebanon. These were carried out while she served as a program officer for the Ford Foundation from 1977 to 1984.

She then became a Middle East specialist with the Universities Field Staff International from 1984 to 1987. In that capacity, Lesch made frequent research trips to the Middle East, and published and lectured on her observations at participating American universities.

Last fall, Lesch returned to the United States to become an associate professor of political science at Villanova University, where she teaches on the politics of Egypt and Sudan. The uprising, she says, has greatly increased the interest among US students in the problems of the area. With heightened US media coverage of the subject, and better academic resources available thanks to the work of regional specialists, American students are reaching the same insights that she acquired so painstakingly through personal observation in Israel and the occupied territories.

"You can see the roots of what is happening today in the past," she explained. "A whole new generation has grown up knowing nothing except occupation."

On a recent trip to the West Bank for a conference at Bir Zeit University, Lesch noted a tremendous feeling of solidarity buoying the Palestinian spirit amid "a great deal of suffering as a result of curfews and food and utility shortages." The problem is that while the villagers become relatively self-sufficient in cultivating small gardens, refugees in the camps have no space for gardens and are the first to have utilities cut by the military.

Since, for years, workers have only managed on a day-to-day basis, they have little to lose by participating in general strikes. Work stoppages have been staggered, rather than calling for everyone to strike simultaneously, allowing families to be employed at least one-third of the time to maintain a minimum of income. Lesch noted the success of "twinning arrangements," whereby if a policeman, for example, agrees to quit his job, neighbors promise to ensure his family's welfare.

Clearly, the unprecedented cooperation among political and religious groups has Oven the uprising its endurance, despite harsh Israeli crackdowns. Asked how such cooperation came about, Lesch cited the reunification of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Algiers in April 1985. She also pointed to the effects of Fatah's outreach to Islamic groups in the Gaza Strip "to convince them that they were being divisive by pitting religious themes against the nationalist, secular movement."

This cohesion has strengthened the uprising, she believes, and as a result "the morale is very high." Palestinian villagers, Lesch says, understand that their uprising is "a once in a lifetime chance" to send a message both to the Israelis and to the outside world that the acquiesence of residents of the occupied territories can no longer be taken for granted.

Najwa M. Sa'd is a Washington, DC-based freelance writer on Middle East affairs.