Word: nablus
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...fire and spirit we redeem you, O Bassam!" shouted the jubilant townspeople of Nablus. Under a shower of rose petals, Bassam Shaka'a, 48, freed from prison and reinstated as mayor of the largest town in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was hoisted on the shoulders of his Palestinian supporters and carried past garlands of flowers and olive branches into the town hall to greet his family. Smiling broadly, the mayor thanked his constituents for the hero's welcome. "I owe you my freedom, and from now on I am yours," he told them. "Victory to the fedayeen...
...Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, Israeli military commander for the West Bank, then reviewed the case; last week it was announced that Shak'a's deportation order had been annulled. Among the "many considerations" involved in the turnabout, General Ben-Eliezer explained, were "the welfare of the city of Nablus and the welfare of Mr. Shaka'a's family." He might have added that the well-being of Begin's embattled government had also been a factor. In fact, nobody seemed happier with Ben-Eliezer's decision than the Premier. With obvious relish, he announced that...
...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...
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...