Israel Aids and Abets Rising Intra-Palestinian Violence

By Katherine Metres Abbadi

Susan* was having dinner on the porch of her in-laws’ home in a village near Jenin when she heard the sound of a Hummer army vehicle, then a shot. Her husband, Imad, tensed, assessing the situation in an instant. His sister Maysoon and a neighbor, Ghada, went to see what was happening. They began to shout, and Imad took off running. Susan assumed Israeli soldiers had come to round up all the men—but why? Then came three more shots, from right next to the house.

Panicking, the women grabbed the children and nearly trampled each other getting into the house. They saw Imad’s brother Marwan on the ground, being beaten. Maysoon got between Marwan and his attacker and got jabbed in the leg.

When two of the assailants entered the kitchen brandishing weapons, women cowered and children screamed. The men were not Israelis, however, but Palestinians—and they were looking for Imad. According to Maysoon and Ghada, the armed men had come from the direction of the army vehicle. Children who were closer said the men had actually arrived on the Israeli vehicle.

The twenty men descended on the family home because of a nasty argument Imad had had with one of them in a shared taxi six weeks earlier. Stunned and shaking, Susan paced in the small house, saying “Hail Marys” for Imad’s safety.

Marwan came in dripping with blood from a broken nose. Raed, visiting from the Gulf with his five kids but not his wife (whom the Israelis won’t allow to enter the occupied territories), sustained a wound to the head. The women left the blood stains in the house for the police who were supposed to come. Unfortunately, the Palestinian Authority is not in charge of security in Area C, Israel is. Talk about the wolf guarding the sheep.

Asked if the IDF considers itself responsible for protecting the Palestinian civilians in Area C, army spokesperson Capt. Jacob Dallal replied, “In principle, yes.” Responding to the situation Susan witnessed, Dallal offered, “In such a case, it sounds like the army should intervene.”

The army did not intervene, however, leaving Susan’s family to conclude that the rumors were true: The attackers were spies working for Israel. The Israelis had armed them and allowed them to use their guns with impunity against their fellow Palestinians.

In many cases, weapons given to collaborators have been used in personal or familial disputes.

In April, the Jerusalem-based Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group (PHRMG) reported that 11 percent of the some 2,700 Palestinians killed during the current intifada had been killed by other Palestinians. Four percent clearly were executed as alleged collaborators, but the remaining 7 percent (183 people) were murdered for non-political reasons, such as family feuds.

Most of these intifada-era killings (103) took place from January to October 2003, clearly suggesting that civil chaos is on the rise. According to the PHRMG report, entitled “Intra’Fada,” during this 10-month period eight people were accidentally killed in exchanges of gunfire in 165 armed feuds between families.

Enemies of the Palestinians view a report such as the PHRMG’s as an indictment of Palestinians and evidence that they cannot be trusted with their own state. Compared to the American murder rate of 5.7 per 100,000, however, the 2003 murder rate in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (not including the East Jerusalem or settler populations) of 3.9 victims per 100,000 people is relatively low.

Still, increasing civil strife is a disturbing sign of the failure of the Oslo accords. Unarmed Palestinian police have been hampered by lack of authority, PA weakness, and Israeli attacks on the PA security apparatus. Only recently have the Israelis permitted the Palestinian police force to resume functioning in the cities (Area A), and the accords give them no authority at all in the villages (Areas B and C).

What the accords give the PA is the responsibility to dismantle and disarm militias—but the PA informed Israel and Washington that it could not fulfill this function. Attempting to disarm popular militias would likely end the PA’s fragile grip on power.

Running Scared

In some cases, even PA officials are running scared. In February 2004, Ghassan Shaka’a resigned as mayor of Nablus after his brother was murdered by local gunmen attempting to assassinate him. It was one of multiple attempts on the mayor’s life.

Former Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) stepped down in September 2003 due in part to frustration at having no control over the Palestinian security forces. This past July his successor, Ahmed Qurei (Abu Alaa), tendered his resignation after kidnappings in the Gaza Strip made it clear the PA could not control the internal security situation. He was convinced to stay on temporarily, but asserted his resignation would be effected if Palestinian President Yasser Arafat did not yield more authority to the cabinet.

Moreover, Israel’s practice of arming collaborators—ostensibly to protect them from the wrath of their fellow Palestinians—is a recipe for intra-Palestinian strife. Does Israel take responsibility for how collaborators use the weapons they are issued? On this question the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)’s Foreign Press Office referred the Washington Report to the Ministry of Defense. The Ministry of Defense passed the call to the Office of the Prime Minister, which hung up on hearing the question, did not answer an immediate follow-up call, and finally had “no comment on that story.”

Yossi Wolfson, an attorney with the Israeli human rights organization HaMoked, confirmed that, in many cases, weapons given to collaborators have been used offensively in personal or familial disputes. According to Dr. Said Zeedani, former head of the Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizens’ Rights, “Security forces either do nothing or come late, and there is no investigation.”

The Oslo accords restrain the PA from attempting to prosecute collaborators. The 1994 Cairo Agreement promised to resolve “the problem of those Palestinians who were in contact with the Israeli authorities. Until an agreed solution is found, the Palestinian side undertakes not to prosecute these Palestinians or to harm them in any way.” Similarly, the 1995 Taba Agreement states, “Palestinians who have maintained contact with the Israeli authorities will not be subjected to acts of harassment, violence, retribution or prosecution.”

Asked whether the PA arrests and tries alleged collaborators, Birzeit University political science professor Saleh Abdul Jawad, responded, “It’s difficult for the PA to arrest them. People in the PA take into consideration that they could be punished [by Israel] for taking action against them.”

The PA has imprisoned some collaborators and executed others after trials that fell far short of international standards of justice. In cases where collaborators were judged to have provided information that led to an assassination by Israeli forces, the PA has been forced by public opinion to prosecute. It is not clear what ramifications these prosecutions have had on Israeli-Palestinian relations.

Risking Israeli wrath or loss of public confidence is not the only dilemma the PA faces in deciding how to respond to allegations of collaboration. During its 1992 re-invasion of the occupied territories, Israeli F-16s bombed PA prisons in Jenin, Nablus, and Ramallah, killing at least 10 people. Prisoners—mostly criminals, as well as militants and collaborators—were released or escaped as guards fled the doomed facilities. The PA’s inability to guarantee either prisoner or community safety under conditions of occupation creates an additional disincentive to intervene.

Susan’s verified account suggests that the Israeli army may have an interest in promoting rising civil chaos. As pro-Israel commentator Ami Isseroff writes on MidEastWeb, “The suspicion is not absent that the Israeli government recognized this situation quite a while ago, and encouraged it, and planned around it, in the foolish hope that the chaos would ultimately result in dissolution of Palestinian society and perhaps flight of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza.…The chaos is not ‘good for the Jews’ as Ariel Sharon seems to think.”

Back in the Village

Back in the village Maysoon, behaving like a general, finally broke through Susan’s stupor and told her to call Imad, who had hidden and was OK. The crisis ended through community solidarity when the men negotiated a resolution that required the collaborators to apologize. Marwan tried publicly to raise the collaborators’ disloyalty but was hushed up. The fragile cease-fire could not have withstood such a volatile accusation, even if widely recognized to be true.

One week later, Raed and his kids left the village to return to their residence in the Gulf. When they arrived at the Allenby Bridge to cross into Jordan (Palestinians are not allowed to use the Tel Aviv airport), he was held by Israeli intelligence and finally refused passage. “What is this all about?” he asked. “Not only am I not involved in politics—I don’t even live here.”

“We know,” came the reply. “But we have orders not to allow you to cross. Try again in a week.”

With his Palestinian wife waiting in Jordan because the Israelis deny her a West Bank ID or even the right to visit, Raed was distraught. His head wound was healing, but the nightmare was not yet over. A week later, the family was reunited in Jordan—but not before everyone got the message: Those who mess with Israel’s friends will be collectively punished.

*The names of the people in this true account have been changed for their protection.

Katherine Metres Abbadi, based in Ramallah, Palestine, is a free-lance journalist and international affairs professional specializing in human rights.