-Caveat Lector- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18272-2002Apr19.html
Copyright 2002 The Washington Post Company The Washington Post Saturday, April 20, 2002; Page A14 A School System Without Memory Palestinian Records, Computer Gear Seized in Israeli Raids By Doug Struck Washington Post Foreign Service RAMALLAH, West Bank, April 19 -- After the Israeli raids, computers lie scattered about the Palestinian Education Ministry, each machine neatly disemboweled of its hard drive. What do the Israeli authorities want, Palestinian school officials wondered, with the test scores of students? Or the minutiae of school construction contracts? Or the time sheets of clerks, teachers and secretaries? Israeli officials said they could not confirm what data were seized by troops who entered Palestinian Authority ministries in Ramallah. But "in general, we are looking for documents that show a connection between the Palestinian Authority and terrorists," said Lt. Col. Adir Haruvi, a spokesman for the Israeli army. Israeli technicians spent nine hours removing the data storage units from more than 40 computers in the Education Ministry, according to two ministry workers forced at gunpoint to open the offices. The Israelis blew open two safes and cleaned them of official school seals, cash and other documents. They rifled through files, selectively removing some and leaving others. They took the high school graduation scores of more than 1 million students stretching back to 1960, the ministry officials said. "The only conclusion I can make is they don't want to see any Palestinian institution able to work again," said Naim Abu Hommos, acting education minister, as he surveyed the damage during a brief break in the curfew that has locked down this town on the northern outskirts of Jerusalem. Asked why troops would seize education records of students, Haruvi replied, "What we cannot understand is why they are educating 6-, 7-, 8-year-old students to say that 'I want to be a martyr.' You go in these schools and you see pictures of martyrs and students saying they want to grow up to be a martyr and explode [themselves] in the middle of Jerusalem." "That turns the truth totally on its head," said Hommos. "The pictures you see in the classrooms are of children killed by the Israelis. There have been 172 students killed" since the current Palestinian uprising began in September 2000, he said. As the Israeli military begins to withdraw from some of the West Bank towns it has reoccupied, local officials are looking for ways to restore some semblance of normal life. Some of those towns, such as Jenin, still are reeling from extensive physical destruction. Here in Ramallah, the administrators in charge of nearly 2,000 Palestinian schools must deal with what they said was a longer-reaching attack -- the removal of key data. Salah Soubana, one of three ministry officials sleeping at his office because he could not return home during curfew, said 150 soldiers backed by several dozen tanks raided the offices April 3, five days after the start of Israel's West Bank attacks, and returned last Sunday. Soubana said he was used as a "human shield," shoved first into each office by soldiers who apparently feared being shot at or blown up, even though he told them the building was empty. The soldiers then opened each computer to remove its drives and data needed to keep the school system running, according to Soubana and others. Schools for 650,000 students in the West Bank have been closed for the three weeks since the Israeli attacks began. When classes resume, officials must quickly try to retrieve thousands of scores on paper documents in storage and re-create student files, Hommos said. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said his intention is to destroy what he describes as the Palestinians' terrorist infrastructure. Army officials said they have found proof in captured documents linking the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, and his Palestinian Authority to payments supporting attacks on Israeli targets. But Palestinian officials said they believe the Sharon government wants the school information to re-exert control over Palestinian daily life. Until 1994, when Arafat returned after signing the Oslo peace accords, the Israeli Civil Administration ran Palestinian schools and almost all other government functions. "Sharon's strategy is to dictate everything," said Abdul Jawad Salah, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council who, like others in Ramallah, went to the town market for fresh vegetables when the curfew was lifted for the first time in three days. "Now, they don't want any municipality to work. Look at all the garbage. They don't allow us to collect it." Amid the piles of trash and stores darkened by power cuts, vendors worked at a furious pace to load shoppers' plastic bags with cucumbers and peppers before the curfew resumed. A block away, Israeli soldiers waited in a makeshift camp of armored personnel carriers and barbed wire for the curfew to restart. "It will take five years for this town to get back to where it was," said Rana Izmikna, 28, escorting her two children home from a store. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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