Labor and Likud Trade Charges over Squatters in Hebron Apartment

The continuing takeover of an apartment in the Arab marketplace in Hebron by six Likud Knesset members has created friction between Labor and Likud in the coalition government and has led to a series of charges and counter-charges by the two sides.

Premier Shimon Peres said today that the takeover by the MKs, headed by Guela Cohen of the Tehiya Party, who began the action last week after a group of nearby Kiryat Arba settlers took over the apartment and were twice ousted by Israeli security forces, was an effort to outdo other extremist parties in appealing to extremist sentiments in Israel. But spokes-people for Tehiya and the Likud contended, at the same time, that the squatters were exercising the legitimate right of Jews to settle anywhere in Eretz Yisrael.

Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin visited Hebron today in a fruitless effort to convince the MKs to leave the apartment which they claim Jews from Hebron had bought from an Arab owner last week following the stabbing of Yaacov Reiter, 45, of Kiryat Arba as he was walking through the marketplace. The Israeli army has not been able to remove the MKs from the apartment because of parliamentary immunity.

Rabin told the Tehiya MKs — Eliezer Waldman, Gershon Shafat, and Cohen — with whom he met at the local military government headquarters that they had to leave in view of yesterday’s Inner Cabinet rejection of efforts by Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir to uphold plans by squatters to continue to occupy the apartment. The Inner Cabinet split 5-5 along political lines in its vote.

While Rabin was meeting with the MKs, Knesset Speaker Shlomo Hillel sent his deputy, Aharon Nahmias, to persuade the MKs that the site for their campaign was in the Knesset and not in an apartment in the Arab marketplace in Hebron where their presence was controversial.

Later today, Likud MK Dov Shilansky joined the squatters in the apartment, as an indication that the rightwing elements in the government did not regard yesterday’s Inner Cabinet’s decision as the final word on the matter. The MKs appeared today to be challenging the defense establishment and waiting to see if it would use force to evict them.

VIEW OF LEGAL EXPERTS

According to legal experts, the MKs’ freedom of movement granted to them inside the “green line” did not apply in the administered territories since these are not part of the State of Israel. But Likud MK Michael Eitan, who spent the weekend in the apartment with the squatters, said he did not accept this interpretation of the law. He contended that the Supreme Court recently recognized Knesset members’ privilege to move around freely everywhere — including the administered territories.

The issue of the squatters was raised by Peres at today’s session of the Knesset Security and Foreign Affairs Committee. He sharply criticized the presence of the MKs in Hebron and pointedly noted that their action will not save the State of Israel. “I am saying to the Likud, whether you like it or not, that the government is the body that makes decisions.”

Referring to the squatters claim that the apartment they are occupying was bought legally from an Arab, Peres recalled that the previous Likud government decided that there would be no real estate purchases without the approval of the Defense Ministry. “One cannot mock the law and the government, by conspiracy with Arabs, “Peres declared, in reference to the Arab who reportedly sold the apartment.

Meanwhile, in another development, Rabbi Moshe Levinger, one of the leaders of the Jewish quarter in Hebron, and three other local Jewish leaders were charged with violating the public order. The charges were made by the army following a disturbance today in the Hebron marketplace where several vegetable stands were overturned by the four men when the army prevented Levinger from shopping there.