>From: "Ainuddin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>How Israel builds its fifth column
>Palestinian collaborators face mob justice, and fuel a culture of suspicion
>By Catherine Taylor | Special to The Christian Science Monitor
>
>JERUSALEM - Hani knew it was wrong.
>
>But the young Palestinian says he couldn't resist the woman who seduced him
>in a field near his house two years ago. And he never suspected what was to
>come.
>
>In the middle of the tryst, the couple was ambushed by Israeli security
>agents who told Hani (not his real name) that his wife would be informed of
>the infidelity unless he cooperated. He says he now suspects he was set up,
>but he admits he was an easy target - wanted for a raft of petty crimes and
>a wallet full of fake identity cards. Within days he had agreed to trade his
>freedom for life as a collaborator.
>
>Across the West Bank and Gaza Strip many thousands of Palestinians like Hani
>have been successfully coopted as informers. Precise numbers of those on
>Israel's payroll are unknown but figures of up to 15,000 have been suggested
>by human rights groups.
>
>Israel's use of informants has prevented numerous suicide bombings. Yet in
>addition to enhancing Israeli security, collaboration has also developed a
>culture of suspicion such that anyone who runs a successful business or has
>access to hard-to-get permits is often suspected.
>
>In Hani's case, the motivation was fear, not greed. "I agreed to work with
>them in return for clemency," he says. "I agreed to help them solve cases
>involving theft and drug dealing."
>
>Last year Hani says his Israeli supervisor contacted him and asked that he
>watch two men from his West Bank village - one a member of Hamas, and the
>other from Fatah. "I didn't want to do it but he said that he merely wanted
>to know their movements," Hani says. "I gave away extensive information
>about them. But fear came over me that they planned to do more than just
>monitor them. I saw on television how Israel was assassinating people and
>how they went after them methodically. I came to the conclusion I was
>helping this to happen and I ran away."
>
>Hani's odd behavior was noted by Palestinian police, who arrested him. He
>says it was a relief to escape "this deep hole I had gotten myself into. I
>confessed everything. I spoke faster than my interrogator could write."
>
>A crucial role
>Since the 1993 Oslo Accords, that transferred chunks of the Occupied
>Territories to Palestinian Authority control, the recruitment of
>collaborators has become a crucial plank of Israel's security apparatus. The
>role begins simply - passing details of a neighbor's car number plate or
>place of work. As collaborators are drawn more deeply into the system they
>may be asked to infiltrate the highest levels of militant and political
>groups or set up targets for arrest and assassination. Israel has stepped up
>its policy of targeted assassination during this intifada, typically using
>collaborators to arrange the hit, as they did with Hani.
>
>"Where would Israel be without collaborators?" asks Moshe Kuperburg, a
>former agent with Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service, who
>recruited and ran a network of informers in the West Bank before retiring in
>1999. "It's simple. We'd be up [a] creek."
>
>Incursion as recruitment drive
>Saleh Abdul Jawwad, head of the political science department at Bir Zeit
>University near Ramallah, believes collaborator recruitment was one aim of
>Israel's recent offensive in the West Bank. Hundreds of Palestinian men were
>rounded up. The declared goal was to root out the militants among them, but
>Mr. Jawwad says during interrogation many were offered opportunities to
>collaborate.
>
>"In most countries you are detained or imprisoned because you do something
>wrong, or plan to," he says. "Here almost the entire adult male population
>has been through this experience. I see it as a kind of refinery for
>producing collaborators."
>
>Hani's story is backed up by research from human rights organizations
>including Israeli human rights group B'tselem and Palestinian Human Rights
>Monitoring Group (PHRMG).
>
>Both have recorded testimonies from those with criminal records detailing
>how they were offered freedom in exchange for information. Others were shown
>photographs of female relatives undressing in fashion store changing rooms,
>and told the images would be circulated unless they agreed to collaborate.
>"There are many taboos in Palestinian society that create opportunities to
>pressure people into collaboration," says Jawwad.
>
>'Sophisticated methods'
>Mr. Kuperburg, a wiry, energetic man with a wide smile and ready charm, says
>his methods were more sophisticated, centered on disillusioning young
>militants against the organizations they joined by pointing out
>inconsistencies in the extremist rhetoric, or the failure of the groups to
>achieve the Palestinian state they claimed to be fighting for.
>
>Others were convinced by Kuperburg they could better help their people by
>working for Israel because of access to credentials that allowed freedom of
>movement through the occupied territories.
>
>"[Successful recruitment] is about confidence building," Kuperburg says.
>"The collaborator must understand why they are working with us. We are
>professional and they collaborate because we tell them the truth. If I want
>an 18-year-old to collaborate, he must believe we have common understanding.
>I will tell him that I also want to prevent bloodshed. With time, he will
>see that I am honest."
>
>If all fails, there is always money: "I make sure they know we are
>generous," he says.
>
>Kuperburg, a secular Jew who speaks fluent Arabic and was trained to
>impersonate a Palestinian using the undercover name "Musa," often targeted
>junior members of militant organizations. "Someone who is a good student, a
>moderate, we will leave him alone," he says. "But if he is radical, we can
>tell him he is living in a dream. Sometimes even if he does not become a
>collaborator the conversation can prevent a future attack."
>
>Collaboration 101
>The process can take as little as an hour, or many months of work.
>Kuperburg - who says he counts Palestinians among his friends and endorses a
>two-state solution to the conflict - teaches the new recruit how to avoid
>detection.
>
>Tell no one, he cautions, not even your mother, and spend the money you
>receive frugally to avoid suspicion. Kuperburg also promises protection
>inside Israel if the collaborator is discovered.
>
>Kuperburg says Shin Bet runs entire neighborhoods of former collaborators
>who have been assigned new identities. "We also send some overseas," he
>adds. But this protection is typically reserved for high-ranking informers.
>Disgruntled collaborators who worked on the lower rung of the system claim
>Israel should do more to protect them. Some are preparing a legal case
>against the Jewish state.
>
>The Palestinian Authority has been strongly criticized for the way it deals
>with the issue. Human rights groups are concerned that those labeled
>collaborators are denied fair trials. Military courts are convened quickly,
>and justice dispensed just as fast.
>
>"There are many questions concerning the degree to which the State Security
>Courts respect the right to a fair trial, and it is doubtful that justice
>will truly prevail," the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza (PHRMG)
>says in its latest report on the subject, published in February. "Suspected
>collaborators should be held accountable for their actions," says Raji
>Sourani, director of the PHRMG. "But they should receive fair trials, not
>state security trials. I am against any form of military court."
>
>Revenge, swift and imprecise
>But the problem is not limited to sham trials. During the first intifada,
>which began in 1987, about 1,000 Palestinians died in fighting with Israeli
>soldiers and settlers. Research by PHRMG suggests a similar number were
>killed by their own people under suspicion of collaboration but just 45
>percent of those killed were rightfully accused.
>
>Many suspected collaborators are simply gunned down in the street by
>vigilante groups. The PA turns a blind eye. The label is sometimes used as
>an excuse for extra-judicial killing designed to settle old scores.
>
>The tactics contravene agreements signed by the PA. Oslo II, for example,
>states, "Palestinians who have maintained contact with the Israeli
>authorities will not be subjected to acts of harassment, violence,
>retribution, or prosecution."
>
>Yet it goes on. Last month, three men were shot in the center of Ramallah by
>masked attackers. The families of those killed this way are afraid to speak
>out. "The families of suspected or alleged collaborators suffer from social
>ostracism sometimes with serious economic consequences," says the PHRMG
>report. "Neighbors and relatives no longer come to visit. Children are
>isolated at school and their trauma affects their school performance. Young
>men and women cannot marry since no family wants to be related to a
>collaborator's family."
>
>Hani, now in jail, may have escaped alive from his life as a collaborator,
>but he says his deeds have ruined his future. "I can't look at my wife in
>the eye," he says. "If I ever get out of jail I will leave immediately
>without seeing anyone. My life here has come to an end."
>
>
.
_______________________________________________
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