Mayor Teddy Kollek of Jerusalem was denounced in the Knesset today for saying that Premier Menachem Begin was in a way “philosophically” responsible for the June 2 bomb attacks on three West Bank mayors. Kollek made that remark in the course of a television interview broadcast Thursday night on KQED, the Public Broadcasting Service station in San Francisco.
Avraham Sharir, chairman of the Likud Knesset faction, introduced an urgent motion deploring Kollek’s statement. The motion accused the Jerusalem Mayor of giving aid and comfort to the Palestine Liberation Organization and slandering the Prime Minister. Kollek is presently on a fund raising tour of the U.S. He was taken sharply to task by Begin at the weekly Cabinet meeting yesterday.
Begin also attacked Shimon Peres, chairman of the opposition Labor Party and former Premier Yitzhak Rabin who were quoted in the French newspaper Figaro, as saying that they favored the return of much of the West Bank to Jordan. According to Begin, that would mean giving the West Bank to PLO chief Yasir Arafat.
Kollek expressed his view when he was asked by KQED reporter Phil Bronstein whether Begin’s insistence on Jewish Biblical rights to the West Bank had encouraged violence against the three mayors.
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