Word: freij
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...banners denouncing the Egyptian "treason." In west Beirut, shops were closed in protest. In the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza, Palestinian residents went on strike, businesses were shut down for the day and schools were ordered closed for another week by the military government. Bethlehem Mayor Elias Freij declared the occasion "a day of shame for Begin, Sadat and Carter," and Ramallah Mayor Kharem Khalef called it "a day of mourning in the history of the Palestinian people...
Real Face. Many Israelis see a spirit of adventurous heroism in the attitude of the illegal settlers. West Bank Arabs see only arrogance and contempt for their rights-and they fear that things will grow worse for them under a Likud government. Says Mayor Elias Freij of Bethlehem: "With the election of Begin, the whole world can see the real face of Israel. It is expansionist, and it wants [all the West Bank] even though it doesn't belong to the Jews...
...West Bank towns, including Nablus and Hebron, have refused to accept further aid. The Arab world has rewarded their defiance by "adopting" West Bank municipalities. Hebron has been taken under the wing of Saudi Arabia's holy city of Medina, which is underwriting a $15 million gift. Mayor Freij of Bethlehem, which was adopted by Abu Dhabi, returned last month from a visit to that oil-rich Persian Gulf sheikdom with pledges of $600,000 now and $10 million later to develop his town's tourist business...
...protests were directed against a new 8% sales tax imposed on occupied territories as well as Israel itself. Basically, though, the Palestinians were acting out their anger against Israeli military authorities, who have been their rulers since the 1967 Six-Day War. Says Bethlehem's Arab mayor, Elias Freij: "Until a Palestinian state is established on the West Bank, there cannot be any peace between us and the Israelis...
Whatever economic problems face a Palestinian state are nothing compared to the political one. Most of the West Bank's mayors and community leaders, like Freij, support the goals of the P.L.O., but they also feel they have earned the right to power for having endured and survived under the Israeli occupation. Arafat and other fedayeen leaders, meanwhile, consider themselves the genuine representatives of the Palestinian spirit for having fought abroad. A conflict between the two different views is inescapable...