The 12th anniversary of the outbreak of the Six-Day War passed quietly on the West Bank today where Israeli military forces have tightened their control in recent weeks. There were no disorders or demonstrations and no work-stoppages although some local municipal offices were closed in protest. In several towns, pro-Palestinian slogans and Palestinian flags were painted on walls but Israeli soldiers forced the local residents to wash them away.
Security forces prevented journalists from attending an outdoor press conference called by the El Bireh municipality yesterday afternoon to protest the seal off of houses belonging to suspected terrorists. Newsmen were forbidden to talk to El Bireh Mayor. Ibrahim Al-Tawil or Mayor Karim Khalaf of nearby Ramallah who came for the press conference. The group moved to the town hall where Khalaf began to deliver an angry speech, He was interrupted by Israeli soldiers who handed him a summons to appear immediately at Military Government headquarters.
At the moment the main grievance on the West Bank is the continued closure of Bir Zeit University whose 1100 students have been unable to attend classes since the Military Government shut down the school on May 2. Despite a series of appeals to allow the college to reopen before the end of the current school year, the Israeli authorities remained amant. The matter was the subject of debate in the Knesset yesterday where Defense Minister Ezer Weizman defended the ban on grounds that Bir Zeit was a “hotbed” of anti-Israel incitement. He claimed that for the past few years the students and faculty have spearheaded anti-Israel agitation throughout the West Bank and declared the college would remain closed until further notice.
Weizman spoke in reply to an agenda motion submitted by Communist MK Tawfik Towbi. The motion was decisively defeated with the Labor Alignment and Shai factions joining the coalition majority. Only the Communists and Sheli voted in favor of it.
Meanwhile, Dr. Gaby Baramki, vice president of the university, rejected Weizman’s charges: He told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency today that the authorities were making his school a scapegoat for the entire West Bank.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
