) 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 <