Tensions, Weekend of Rioting Follow Deportations of Mayors

— Tensions ran high on the West Bank today after a weekend of rioting to protest the deportations of Mayors Fahd Kawasme of Hebron and Mohammed Milhim of Halhoul. Scores of Arabs, mainly youths, were arrested as Israeli forces used tear gas and clubs to break up demonstrations. In several instances they fired into the air.

The two mayors were expelled Friday on orders of Premier Menachem Begin. He acted in capacity as Defense Minister after the Supreme Court last. Thursday upheld the legality of the deportation orders originally issued by the Military Government last May. Begin ignored a con-binding recommendation by the high court that he reconsider the case and allow the mayors to remain on the West Bank to test their promise to abide by Military Government regulations.

He was bitterly criticized for that by former Foreign Minister Mashe Dayan who declared on a television interview last night that Begin’s action precipitated the very turmoil that the deportations of Kawasme and Milhim were intended to avoid. Begin apparently accepted the warnings of his security aides that a new wave at anti-Israel rioting would break out if the mayors were allowed to remain. But Arab students throughout the West Bank set out to prove that the expulsion of the mayors would not retire quiet to the are a but would have the opposite effect.

SERIOUS CLASHES REPORTED

The riots erupted after the Supreme Court rejected the mayors’ appeal. The most serious dashes occurred yesterday in the university town at Bir Zeit north of Ramallah. An estimated 1000 students threw up stone barricades and set fire to piles of rubbish. Troops dispersed them with tear gas and clubs. Twenty youths were declared and the town was placed under curfew.

Youngsters threw rocks at an Israeli vehicle in El Bireh near Ramalloh, causing slight injuries to two passengers. The army shut down the main road between Ramallah and Jerusalem and imposed a curfew on the entire area. Troops invoiced the United Nations Work and Relief Administration (UNRWA) teachers seminary in El Birch to break up a student demonstration inside.

About 500 high school girls demonstrating in Halhoul on the Jerusalem-Hebron highway were dispersed with tear gas. Eight students were arrested in Nablus where sporadic disturbances continued throughout the day. Demonstrations were also reported in Kolkilya, Ramallah and Bethlehem. In Hebron, the acting mayor was ordered by the Military Government to cancel a protest meeting in the town hall planned for today. But Arab youths were allowed to march through the Old City of Jerusalem today chanting nationalist slogans. They were not molested by police.

Meanwhile, the Military Government detained a United Press International correspondent, Howard Arenstein, and seized his recording equipment and notes. Arenstein was held for seven hours in the Ramallah jail and was released after charges were filed against him for entering a restricted area on the West Bank.

Military Government sources tended to underplay the scope of the weekend’s disturbances. They noted that the riots occurred in the “traditional centers of national unrest,” Ramallah, Bir Zeit, Nablus and Hebron There was no exceptional activity in other ports of the West Bank, the military sources aid.

DAYAN CHALLENGES GOVERNMENT CONTENTIONS

Dayan, who quit Begin’s Cabinet more than a year ago, argued last night that the mayors should have been permitted to remain on the West Bank because it was clear they had nothing to do with the terrorist ambush slaying of six yeshiva students in Hebron last May 2 which triggered their expulsion.

Dayan noted that a Palestine Liberation Organization terrorist, Adnan Abu Jaber, has been jailed on suspicion of perpetrating the Hebron attack. He pointed out that Abu Jaber had hidden out in caves after the killings, indicating that he feared to entrust his safety to the local populace.

Senior government legal sources shrugged off Dayan’s criticism, observing that the State never accused the mayors of complicity in the crime but only of contributing to the climate of violence by their frequent ant-Israel pronouncements. Dayan, who as Defense Minister in Labor-led governments laid the foundations for Israel’s military policies in the occupied territories, blamed, the Begin government for the current unrest and challenged its contention that the situation on the West Bank was well in hand.

He also criticized the government for deferring the West Bank municipal elections that should have been held in April according to law. He said that it appeared at times that the Israeli authorities sought to suppress the local population “like natives.” “Does this square with the spirit of the autonomy plan?” be asked.

Dayan’s television remarks were assailed by government sources today. They accused the former Foreign Minister of doing damage to the government’s efforts to explain the expulsion of the mayors to foreign public opinion.