) bootssam Shak’a, the West Bank mayor who lost
4 $ When a bomb planted in his car exploded
Worn !,t0 his hometown, Nablus, as soon as his
"Nablus healed. On his return to the West Bank, the
- many Mayor said, he had a full workload. “‘I have
| othe Municipal projects — water, electricity and
“and kes — to follow up in Nablus,” he said,
. course Vil have a lot to do to deal with the criminal
Peg that the Israeli occupation authorities have
Davi to subdue my people and impose the Camp
Shake ments on them.”’ :
. pices @ was one of three West Bank mayors in
Ma ‘Cars bombs were planted on June 2.
4 el-Bire arim Khalaf lost a foot in the explosion, but
ome Mayor Ibrahim Tawil discovered the bombin
: ake escaped injury. The Israeli authorities have
leak Pains to present the bombings as the werk of
| Sie extremists acting in retaliation for a Palesti-
| Bak? attack on Jewish settlers in the West
town of Hebron on May 2.

i

boat Bat Swept that story aside as nonsense, pointing

| = ae against him, his colleagues and their

_ some time. been part of official Israeli policy for

i sormer Israeli Defence Minister Ezer) Weizman

ne ad me brought to his office in Tel Aviv and

| Petsonally threatened me with physical liquidation, ”’

| Se Mayor said. “‘That was around a year ago, in

| iain 1979, shortly before they decided to expel

He — a decision which they were unable to enforce.

} rah me brought to his office and personally

ey me with death and physical injury if I

a led to lead political action against Israel. That

_ Was the first physical threat I had received, and it

. <i from the Israeli authorities, in the person of
_ Weizman himself.

accuse the Israeli government and intelligence

_ agencies of arranging for the bombs with their various

_ extensions in the occupied territories. Because that is

_ what the settlers, the Gush Emunim and (Rabbi Meir)

e are — extensions of the Israeli authorities and

_ Supported by them within a general plan aimed at

_ Subjugating the people of the occupied territories.

_ They say they have Kahane in jail. 1 wonder in what

_ garden he is relaxing now, and with which Israeli

official he is discussing the next step in the occupied

termitories. I consider Kahane a sort of hunting dog

_ whose task it is to flush the game out for the official

hunters,”

The commando operation in Hebron, Shak’a said,
was used by the Israeli authorities as a smoke screen
» to tone down public reaction to the terrorist attacks
and to expel troublesome Palestinian leaders
_ from the West Bank — like the expulson in June of

the mayors of Hebron and Halhoul and of Hebron’s
. I received the death threat from Weizman before
_ the Hebron attack. They tried — and failed —to expel

me before the Hebron attack. They started exerting

fi Orms of pressure on me and on my colleagues in
Nablus municipal council long before the Hebron

attack, long before the escalation of commando oper-
_ ations in the occupied territories.

|
;
|
'

i
|
|

ae All Sorts of Pressure

For instance, my brothers and I have a soap fac-
tory in Nablus which we inherited from our father.
The Israelis have been makingit almost impossible for
_ US tO Operate it. The customs men have been hamper-
_. INg our import-export operations and imposing high
fines on us for no reason. Whenever they slap us with
a fine or confiscate our papers, a customs man comes
to one of my brothers and says, ‘Let Bassam see the
military governor. He'll settle the matter’. In other
words, they want me to ask for a personal favor from

Occupation authorities, in return for which I’m
supposed to cooperate with them. Of course, we have
all resisted this pressure, and when I say all I mean
myself, my brothers, our children — all of us.

“They have used all the means at their disposal to
beat me and my family to our knees, but I’m happy to
say that they have failed, and they will never succeed.
It has never occurred to my wife or my children that I
should quit politics, for instance. My children know
what the alternative to resistance is. They have seen
how we and our people are treated by the occupation
authorities. They know tht it is better to resist, even
unto death, than to accept the fascist treatment and
the humiliation that we are being subjected to. Even
my four-year-old daughter knows this. One holiday

Israeli terror has
telieved us of fear

recently, the military governor came to visit us, and I
told the little one, ‘Shake hands with our guest.’ She
said, ‘I don’t want to.’ After he left I asked her if she
was afraid of him. She said, “No, I’m not afraid of the
governor, but I won't shake hands with him because
he put my sister in jail for five days.’ That is how my
family and my people feel.” ;

“Everyone in the occupied territories is suffering at
the hands of the occupation authorities. Homes and
shops are being closed for months. People are being
jailed and shot. The military governor himself shot a
student in Anabta, Bethelehem last May, if you recall.
The student had participated in peaceful demonstra-
tion. He had carried the Palestinian flag and was try-
ing to hide it in a garden when the military governor
shot him, killing him instantly.

Economic Strangulation

“This is the direct form of pressure that my people
are being subjected to. There are indirect forms as
well. Taxes are one of them. You know, of course,
that the’Israeli economy is more developed than the
economy of the West Bank — the Israelis have seen to
that. There is much less prosperity in the lands oc-
cupied in 1967 than in the lands occupied in 1948.
Israel has an industrial, technological economy. We

don’t. And yet, they are imposing the same taxes on_

us as they do on the Israelis. Our people, of course,
can’t pay that kind of money. Those who can’t pay
cash are being made to pay in kind. They break into
their houses and take away their possessions — their
furniture, their television sets, whatever they have.

“At the same time, the Israelis have been careful to
block all our efforts to develop our land economically.
If we want to start an industry, for instance, we have
to apply for a permit. The Israelis study the project
and see whether it would benefit the economy. That is
their criterion: their economy, not ours. They want to
make our land.a.consumer, area for their products.
Many of the industries they allow us to build are small
consumer industries, and they make their establish-
ment conditional on our purchasing all raw materials
from Israel. That places our industries under the total
control of the Israelis, and it also makes them a good
market for Israeli products.

Camp David Will Fail

The escalation was motivated by the Camp David
agreements. The closer we come to the application of
the so-called ‘autonomy’ those agreements call for,
the fiercer the Israelis become in the occupied ter-
ritories.

“The fact is that the Israelis are acting in despera-
tion. Circumstances have emerged, and the Israelis

Bassam Shak’a carried on the shoulders of suppor-
ters arrives in London for talks. 5

have been unable to adapt to them, to absorb them.
They don’t want to act according to the new interna-
tional circumstances. They way they see it, they have
‘liberated’ our land and it has become theirs. Now
that land is in danger, and they're launching an offen-
sive against the danger: ourselves.

‘Those activities are being supported, albeit pas-
sively, by U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Egyptian
President Anwar Sadat, in the hope that the oppres-
sion of our people will force them to submit to this
‘autonomy’ they're talking about. Those three luna-

. tics —‘Begin, Carter and Sadat — see in the subjuga-

tion of our people Camp David's only chance of suc-
cess.

“But let me state this clearly: Camp David will fail.
They can take that as a foregone conclusion. And the
failure of Camp David will carry the Palestinian cause
to a new, advanced stage under the leadership of the
Palestine Liberation Organization. '

‘““Consider, for instance, the Israeli policy of set-
tlements onthe West Bank. The danger posed by these
settlements is not posed to the West Bank alone, but
to the Arabs as a whole. This is obvious to anyone
who takes a look at the massive military preparations
in the occupied territories.”

‘We Have Little to Fear”’

‘The Israelis have made the mistake of relieving us
of fear. Fear, as I see it, can be psychological and
material in nature. By their increased oppression, the
Israelis have relieved us of the psychological aspect of
fear. By taking our land, our homes, our shops, our
water and our money from us, they have relieved us of
the material aspect. We have little more to lose or
suffer, and therefore little to fear. We will meet every
challenge with a challenge. —

‘The attack on me, for instance, has done my
people more good than harm. It has driven home the
intentions of the Israelis, and served to strengthen my
people’s resolve. All the West Bank people who have
visited me speak of our people's increased unity and
determination after the bombings.

‘*As for me, I have lost my legs, but the loss made
me stronger. I had experienced everything but death
under Israeli occupation. Now I have had a taste of
that, and I can say I would rather die than submit to
the humiliation of Israeli occupation.”

ae: ogi s es * a

Bedouin children forced off their land by the Israeli government and confined to a fenced-in area in northern Sinai.
PACIFIC TRIBUNE—SEPT. 26, 1980—Page 7
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