The Shaaka Affair

...Possibly both statesmen foresee some arm-twisting by President Carter...

...Editorials asked, moreover, what business General Matt had discussing political philosophy in an official meeting with the Mayor of Nablus, and why the news had been so speedily leaked to the press...

...Expounding on his views, Shaaka complained to Matt that conditions for Arab terrorists in Israeli jails were too harsh...

...The extent of the projected Administrative Council's authority (i.e., how to make sure it will not unilaterally declare full Palestinian independence), the control of state lands on the West Bank (crucial for future Israeli settlement plans), and the status of the Arabs of East Jerusalem (now united with West Jerusalem) all are issues that remain to be settled...

...as the bus burned, the terrorists threw a child into the flames...

...To recap the case itself: In the first week of November, Shaaka was invited for a meeting with General Danny Matt, Chief Coordinator of the Military Government...

...It should be noted at the outset that among West Bank officeholders, Shaaka is the most extreme and outspoken supporter of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO...

...the mayors expressed gratitude for the decision and "the victory of justice...

...Under these circumstances, Weizman was willing to let Shaaka stay...

...The two men were to discuss the Mayor's refusal to remedy his city's water shortage by accepting water from wells sunk nearby by the Israeli military authorities...

...This produced a nationwide furor, and within 48 hours Israel's Defense Minister, Ezer Weizman, following consulations with Prime Minister Menachem Begin, decided to expel Shaaka from the West Bank...

...In Israel, meanwhile, the press published the almost verbatim notes taken at the Shaaka-Matt meeting...

...Weizman, too, apparently started having second thoughts about the expulsion...

...Now he acquiesced and the appeals committee began deliberating...

...These showed that the original leaks quoted the Mayor selectively, making his remarks seem more extreme and specific than intended...

...The Military Governor of the West Bank accepted the recommendation of the Ministerial Security Affairs Committee to cancel the expulsion...

...Refusing to yield to ultimatums from the PLO, the Defense Minister reconfirmed his ouster order...

...Almost simultaneously, signals from across the border were again suddenly and inexplicably switched...

...Still, the whole Shaaka affair would hardly merit a retrospective analysis if it were not symptomatic of larger developments in the Israeli-Arab confrontation...

...In messages carried by couriers across the open bridges of the Jordan, and in phone calls from PLO representatives in Europe, the instruction was: find a compromise...

...Initially, both Jordan and the PLO opposed the resignation of the mayors and the big fuss over Shaaka, presumably because he was closer to the extreme Rejection Front of the PLO than to Yasir Arafat's mainstream Fatah...

...So if he could have been deported quickly and quietly, it might have helped to reduce resistance to the Israeli-Egyptian scheme...

...Shaaka had originally refused to do this as a sign of protest...

...In addition, the PLO did not want to jeopardize the influential positions of its West Bank supporters...

...Yet the Defense Minister reversed himself again within a matter of hours...

...Questions of real controversy, though, have until now been put aside...

...The mayors were once more told to compromise...

...Within two hours of the meeting, the substance of the conversation was reported on the radio...

...There were relatively few problems in drawing up the list of functions the Administrative Council of the Autonomy will have to take over from the Military Government, or in drafting alternative electoral methods for the future voting...

...At the same Eliahu Salpeter, a regular NL contributor, is a correspondent for Ha'aretz, one of Israel's leading newspapers...

...Shaaka, for his part, declared that he opposed violence and attacks on innocent people...

...A DANGEROUS CONFUSION The Shaaka i^ff&lr BYELIAHUSALPETER Tel Avtv Bassam Shaaka, Mayor of the West Bank town of Nablus, is back at City Hall after spending a month in detention and facing expulsion by the Israeli Military Government...

...she obtained an interim order from the Supreme Court forbidding her husband's expulsion until there was a further hearing...

...He hinted as much to groups of West Bank political figures who came to appeal on behalf of Shaaka and declared that the Mayor was prepared to state unequivocally that he opposed attacks on innocent people...

...The general responded by recalling terrorist atrocities, particularly last year's attack on a busload of tourists...

...time, protests started to build in the Arab population of the West Bank...

...The refusal was politically motivated: Shaaka and other Palestinian nationalists deny the right of the Israelis to search for water (which is then supplied both to local Arab municipalities and to Israeli settlements) in the occupied territories...

...Mayors of all the towns and cities threatened to resign if the expulsion was carried out, students staged demonstrations, there was a one day general strike, women held sit-ins in municipal buildings, and children threw stones at passing cars, as usual...

...How he got into trouble, and how he attracted international attention in getting out of it, is one of the more bizarre stories to emerge from 12 years of Israel's control of the territory...

...When the case came before the Supreme Court for substantive hearing, the judges instructed Shaaka to first exhaust the appeal procedures against expulsion that exist within the framework of the Military Government...

...What he actually said added up to a general observation that terrorism was an inevitable part of the Palestinian "liberation struggle" rather than an endorsement of specific horrifying acts of terror...

...Weizman was angered...

...As a result, Israeli public opinion began to turn against the Begin government's handling of the situation...

...For the Shaaka affair showed how reluctant the West Bank politicans are to join the game...

...The next morning, in a more detailed story leaked to Ha'aretz, Shaaka was quoted as expressing "full identification with the murder of the passengers...

...But once things turned out differently, both Jerusalem and Cairo (which expressed concern over Shaaka's expulsion) felt that a resumption of normal operation of the municipalities—and of smooth day-to-day cooperation between local Arab politicians and the military authority—could serve as a foundation for the autonomy structure...

...Shaaka has been a very vociferous opponent of the autonomy plan...

...Satisfied that the line of the more moderate Arabs had prevailed, and not wanting to push the mayors back into the arms of the Rejectionists, Israel relented...

...Otherwise, they may just be whistling in the dark...

...But the Mayor's wife was one step ahead...

...But then the PLO headquarters in Beirut suddenly and inexplicably began sending hardline messages urging the mayors to resign forthwith, unless the expulsion was rescinded without waiting for any formal legal proceedings...

...They are expected to be taken up at the next Sadat-Begin meeting, scheduled for January 7 in Aswan...

...and the Military Governor stated that it was understood Shaaka and his colleagues would henceforth devote more attention to municipal affairs and less to inflammatory nationalistic politics...

...Whether the parties will be able to translate this realization into a workable plan remains to be seen, however...

...The two leaders have expressed optimism that they will succeed in bridging the gaps between their completely different positions, and thereby complete most of the autonomy negotiations within the one year allotted under the Camp David agreements...

...Thus far the negotiations have been held regularly and amicably, and on all issues of a purely technical nature the gaps have been substantially narrowed...

...Israel knew it had mishandled the situation and hoped that the exhilaration of those West Bankers who saw Shaaka's release as a capitulation by Jerusalem to Arab pressure would subside...

...Many far from hawkish Israelis have long felt that his activities have stepped beyond what should be tolerated even by the very tolerant Israeli Military Government...

...More importantly, Israel also hoped that by settling the Shaaka matter it could return its attention to the issue that had been looming in the background during the entire incident—autonomy...

...The reason for this had to do with the strange political coexistence in the West Bank...