Misquoted on a Massacre

West Bank mayors resign over losing one of their own

Accustomed though they are to high-voltage political shocks, Israelis must have found last week unusually electrifying. Premier Menachem Begin's coalition lost a crucial vote in the Knesset, thereby threatening a defection that could reduce his government's majority to two. Faced with protests by fanatic nationalists over the court-ordered evacuation of a Jewish settlement at Elon Moreh, the Cabinet unanimously voted to forge ahead with new settlements in the West Bank. But the most powerful jolt of the week was a Cabinet decision approving the deportation of the Palestinian mayor of the West Bank city of Nablus. The move prompted the resignations of 27 Arab mayors in the occupied territories and set off strikes and rallies by Palestinians.

That last shock, which led to a dramatic demonstration of how hateful the Israeli occupation is to West Bankers, could easily have been avoided. Two weeks ago Israeli General Danny Matt, the military administrator of the occupied territories, called Nablus Mayor Bassam Shaka'a, 48, into his office for a chat. Next day the Tel Aviv daily Ha'aretz published a partial account of the purported conversation; according to the newspaper version, Shaka'a implied that he approved of a 1978 bus attack by Palestinian terrorists in which 34 Israelis were killed.

Knesset members were outraged. After meeting with Begin, Defense Minister Ezer Weizman, who is Matt's superior, announced that Shaka'a would be deported to Jordan. Shaka'a's wife, however, managed to block the expulsion by winning an interim injunction from a justice of the Israeli Supreme Court. Weizman then ordered Shaka'a arrested and jailed until the court hearings.

When 13 West Bank mayors submitted their resignations in protest, Weizman began to have second thoughts. After reading a transcript of Shaka'a's talk with Matt, he concluded that the Nablus mayor had been unfairly misquoted as defending the massacre. But at a Cabinet meeting next day, Weizman stood by his original decision and urged the ministers to approve the deportation of Shaka'a. They did so unanimously. Except for one town leader in Gaza, a11 the remaining Palestinian mayors immediately resigned and later announced, for good measure, that they would begin a hunger strike. Many Israeli moderates were embarrassed by the Cabinet decision, believing it to be an exaggerated and heavyhanded response to a minor incident.

The mayors believe that Shaka'a's expulsion is part of an Israeli campaign to silence them and other Palestinian opponents of Begin's plan for limited Arab autonomy in the occupied territories. Charged Karim Khalaf, resigned mayor of Ramallah: "This is an Israeli attempt to liquidate the Palestinian problem." For their part, Israeli officials were not necessarily sorry to see the West Bank mayors quit. Many of them are regarded by the Israelis as sympathizers of the hated Palestine Liberation Organization. Government officials resent both the mayors' vociferous opposition to Begin's autonomy scheme and their constant condemnation of the Israeli occupation, especially on trips abroad. Also, the mayors' preoccupation with politics left them little time to do their job of supervising municipal services--a complaint with which many Palestinians privately agree.

The chances are, though, that more trouble lies ahead on the West Bank. If the Israeli government accepts the resignations, it will then be compelled to appoint military officers to administer services for the Palestinian towns. The Israelis of course could reject the resignations, but the mayors would most probably refuse to perform their duties. In this case, military officers would still have to be called upon.

Beyond that, the Palestinians were infuriated by last week's Israeli Cabinet decision to establish 19 new settlements and convert twelve nahal (military) outposts into Jewish civilian communities in the West Bank. That move was patently designed to placate the ultranationalist Gush Emunim (Group of the Faithful). Last month the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the Gush Emunim settlement at Elon Moreh evacuated because it was not, as the government had claimed, essential for defense purposes. "Elon Moreh is more than a crisis for the Prime Minister," explains an aide. "He's afraid of the possibility of armed resistance by the Gush Emunim. He fears it could start a civil war."

Begin and his Cabinet colleagues seemed less concerned about the impact of the settlement decision on the continuing autonomy talks with Egypt. Last week, just before an Egyptian delegation arrived in Tel Aviv for further talks, Premier Mustafa Khalil denounced the new settlement plan as "provocative." The Israelis, however, chose to ignore his verbal attack and listened instead to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's assertion that the move would not halt negotiations. Said a Begin aide: "We think Sadat understands us." Whether or not that is the case, the Egyptian President may have had some reason for soft-pedaling any criticism: last week Israel returned territory that included Mount Sinai and its historic St. Catherine's monastery to Egyptian sovereignty more than two months earlier than scheduled.*

Perhaps because his thoughts dwelled so much on the West Bank last week, Begin seemed strangely impervious to his coalition's defeat in the Knesset over an amendment to the country's abortion law. Agudat Israel, an orthodox religious party, had joined the Begin bloc in exchange for the Premier's support of its campaign to limit abortions. A motion to tighten the country's laws on the matter was defeated in a tie vote, 54-54, when four members of Begin's own Likud Party voted against it. Agudat Israel huffed that its four Knesset members might desert the coalition, thus leaving Begin with a precarious two-vote majority in the 120-seat house. It is a sign of the Begin coalition's failing fortunes that after his election two years ago the Prime Minister enjoyed a comfortable majority of 17.

* Mount Sinai is traditionally regarded as the site where Moses received the Ten Commandments.

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