"Martyrs square" in downtown Nablus. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – Concerns over Palestinian terrorism spawning from the West Bank city of Nablus led the city council of Boulder, Colo., to reject Nablus’s bid to become Boulder’s sister city in a 7-2 vote this week, The Tower reported.

Dr. Reuven Erlich writes in a paper titled “Nablus: The Main Infrastructure of Palestinian Terrorism” that the Nablus terrorist infrastructure has “directed and executed suicide attacks in which scores of Israeli citizens were killed and over 400 were wounded.”

“The terrorism operational centers in Nablus instructed terrorist squads in the Jenin, Tulkarm, Qalqilya, and Ramallah areas to perpetrate terror attacks in the West Bank and inside Israel,” Erlich writes.

In addition to terrorism, Boulder’s city council attributed its rejection of Nablus’s sister-city bid on June 10 to the Palestinian Authority’s human rights abuses and suppression of freedom of the press in the city.

The city-sister partnership with Nablus would have been “limited to those who subscribe to the particular philosophy, which is to damage Israel,” Bill Cohen told the local CBS affiliate in Boulder on June 10.

“We don’t think that works for free exchanges, which are the hallmark of sister cities,” Cohen said.