Police Break Up Sit-in by Former Residents Mrs. Meir to Meet with Archbishop in Villages Disputes

Police arrested 20 Arab demonstrators today after they had seized four abandoned structures in Baram to protest a government decision barring former residents of Baram and Ikrit, two villages on the Lebanese border, from resettling in the two sites. Police said there were no injuries but that force was used to end the Arab sit-in.

The action came shortly after an announcement from Prime Minister Golda Meir’s office that she would meet this week with Greek Catholic Archbishop Joseph Raya to discuss the government’s decision, one which has touched off wide debate in Israel. The settlers were evacuated and the Maronite towns leveled, except for their churches, in 1948 for security reasons. The Prime Minister’s office, in announcing the meeting requested by the Archbishop, did not indicate the exact date. Archbishop Raya has been acting as spokesman for the evacuated settlers, who were helped to resettle and given compensation.

Announcement of the meeting came as senior government officials criticized the Prime Minister’s advisor for Arab Affairs, Shmuel Toledano, who had denounced the government’s decision. Some government sources have called for Toledano’s resignation on grounds that his behavior was “unseemly” for a government civil servant. The government rejected the request on grounds that the villagers would come under heavy pressure from terrorists operating on the Lebanese side of the border.

Archbishop Khouri, leader of the Maronites in Lebanon and Northern Israel, said at a press conference in Haifa today that he did not accept the government’s decision The Archbishop, making his annual visit to his co-religionists in Israel, said he was not convinced by the security argument and that he intended to try to persuade the government to reverse the ban.