The Palestinian Authority:
Terror Organizations in the Guise of a Security Apparatus
Avraham Gur
This article will present the
outline of a research paper on the topic of the development of the
Palestinian security apparatuses into terrorist organizations, over the
course of the existence of the Palestinian Authority, 1993-2004.
The ThesisThe PLO has never abandoned
the “step-by-step” theory, which ultimately leads to the liquidation of the
State of Israel.
Signing the Oslo Agreement
was a significant step in gaining a foothold in Israel and a significant
first step towards realization of the step-by-step theory.
The PA’s security philosophy
was constructed on the basis of this theory. The PLO has never abandoned
terrorism as a strategic instrument to achieve its national aspirations,
which are: Establishment of a Palestinian state upon the ruins of the State
of Israel, while liquidating the State of Israel. The Palestinian security
apparatuses were established as a central building block of this
Weltanschauung. The PA’s rational thinking was to acquire as much as
possible from the Israelis by means of negotiation, and in the future, when
the talks reach an impasse, the “doomsday” weapon – terrorism – will be
deployed.
The Study’s ConclusionThe study answered the
question: Was the transformation of the Palestinian security apparatuses
into terrorism apparatuses an evolutionary process or was it premeditated in
order to achieve political objectives unattainable by means of a political
process?
The question was examined in
the context of the totality of the establishment of the Palestinian
Authority in 1993 and an analysis of its long-term strategic objectives: The
establishment of a single Palestinian state between the Mediterranean and
the Jordan River upon the ruins of the State of Israel.
In order to reinforce this
thesis, three phases in the administration of the Palestinian security
apparatuses were examined.
Phase One – Establishment of the Palestinian
Security Apparatuses 1993-1994This phase is the most
significant because it attests to long-term planning and true intentions.
The Oslo Accords dictated precisely the size and composition of the
Palestinian security apparatuses, their armaments and their training. This
was the initial stage in which there was a blatant violation in all of the
areas mentioned above, with no significant reaction by the Israeli
government, which could have brought an end to the continued process.
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Scope of the Forces:
The agreement called for seven different apparatuses; in
practice, 12 different apparatuses were established, most of
them intelligence or preventive security apparatuses, whose advantage is
that they do not wear uniforms, thus their number was concealed and their
participation in terrorist activity was simplified and made more difficult
to track.
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Armament: The
agreement called for light arms, some armored vehicles, a limited
number of machine guns and a total ban on weapons production or the
establishment of a weapons industry. In practice, there was a
massive deviation from the agreements. The weapons were both
quantitatively and qualitatively beyond agreed levels. In addition, as far
as types of weapons were concerned, they acquired machine guns, mortars,
Low missiles and Sagger missiles. An entire weapons industry was
established, which included production of explosives, mortars, mortar
shells and Qasam missiles.
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Training: The
agreement called for police training, and anti-terrorist training for
regular and undercover police forces. In practice, in addition to
police training, military training, combat against military forces and
training of an army command in the neighboring Arab countries and Pakistan
were also carried out.
Phase Two – Support for the Activity of the
Islamic Terrorist Organizations and Clandestine Participation in that
Activity through 2000Of the three phases examined
in this study, this is the most difficult phase to substantiate. Proof of
this thesis requires an in-depth examination of intelligence reports on the
one hand, and an analysis of the open media on the other. Below is a
detailing of the primary points presented in the study, which aided the
reinforcement of the thesis:
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The declarations of the
senior members of the Palestinian Authority regarding the use of a dual
strategy: Negotiations and terrorism.
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The development of the “Tanzim”
as the military arm of Fatah, and its arming with the weapons of
the security forces.
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The development of the
“cities of refuge” phenomenon, under the auspices and protection of the
Palestinian security apparatuses.
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The “revolving door” policy
– the arrest and immediate release of terrorists by the security forces.
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Attacking IDF soldiers
while carrying out joint patrols.
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Staffing the Palestinian
security apparatuses with former and current terrorists.
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Failure of the intelligence
apparatuses to foil terrorist attacks despite information provided to them
by the GSS.
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Desperate pursuit of
Israeli intelligence sources in the territories, despite the fact that the
information was intended to assist the Palestinian Authority in its
purported battle against the Islamic opposition organizations.
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Initiating combat against
the IDF in the “Western Wall Tunnel” incidents in 1996 and in the “Naqba”
incidents in May 2000.
Phase Three – Open Terrorist Activity of the
Palestinian Security Apparatuses since September 2000
The research project relied
on four sources of information in this phase of the study:
The media: Written –
newspapers, Electronic – radio and television.
Captured documents,
which fell into the hands of Israeli security forces during combat beginning
with the “Defensive Shield” Operation.
Interrogation of
terrorists and fugitives who were apprehended.
Declarations by senior
Palestinian Authority officials regarding assistance provided by the
Palestinian security apparatuses to the Islamic terrorist organizations,
emphasizing Palestinian unity.
After examining the evidence
in the aforementioned three phases, we are able to provide a positive answer
to the question raised by the study.
The Palestinian security
apparatuses were originally constructed to be terrorist organizations when
the time was ripe and in that sense they did not disappoint those who
established them, headed by the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority,
Yasser Arafat.
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France - The
First Western-European Islamic State
Martin
Sobier
Muslims in France make up
7-11% of the population (about 4-7 million out of 60 million citizens).
Various research has shown that more and more of them are moving towards
closer identification with Islam. Forty-five percent of voters in the last
national elections to the Muslim Council voted for UOIF (Union of the
Islamic Organizations of France), an umbrella organization of more than 200
Muslim institutions, which is closed to the Muslim Brothers. It is important
to remember that the Muslim Brothers’ goals are clear: political and
juridical domination of Islam throughout the whole world. The will to
implement these goals finds its expression through many declarations and
activities. The Muslim Brothers bred al Qai`dah, Hamas and
many other terrorist organizations all over the world. Among the spiritual
leaders of the UOIF, is Sheikh Qaradawi, who is thought to be one of the
spiritual leaders of Hamas, and who wholeheartedly supports suicide
attacks, and hopes Europe will come under Muslim domination. The UOIF is the
one and unique organization authorized to issue ‘tazkia’,
recommendation letters necessary to receive money from the Gulf countries to
build mosques or any other projects.
The other main Muslim
organizations are under foreign influence: The “Mosquée de Paris”
which is under Algerian influence, the FNMF, under Moroccan influence and
“Faith and Practice” under Pakistani influence.
Anti-Semitic acts in France
are on the increase, instigated mainly by those from Islamic backgrounds. A
continuous Islamic effort of de-legitimatizing the Jewish intelligentsia and
of the demonization of the Israeli state is being conducted. The usual
public reactions, as well as the government ones, are perplexity and
surprise as their attempts at halting the expansion of the Islamic movements
systematically fail. For example, worried by the Muslim Brothers’ successes
among the Muslim population, the French government tried to create a
national Muslim organization to curb this expansion. As a matter of fact,
the organizations closed to the Muslim Brothers now dominate this
organization, and have managed to receive their official recognition.
France, in its efforts to
lead the Third World, is forced to maintain a positive attitude towards
Islam, and, despite some reactions such as passing a law banning the veil in
public schools, is held back from open struggle against Islamization.
In a UOIF convention in the
late 1980s, France was declared a part of “Dar al Islam”, “Abode of
Islam”.
Will France become the first
Islamic State in Western Europe?
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The Bush Strategy at War
Ilan Berman
A profound transformation has quietly begun in
American strategy. Long dominated by multilateral institutions and
international crisis management, US policy was fundamentally reordered by
the events of September 11, 2001, which ushered in sweeping changes to
American defense planning, force deployment and security priorities.
This transformation, found in
large part in the National Security Strategy unveiled by the White House in
September 2002, amounts to a radical departure from the traditional
post-Cold War status quo in foreign affairs. The emerging Bush strategy is
based on an understanding of the fundamental changes that have taken place
in the pace, scope and nature of threats confronting the United States. And
while its parameters are still not well understood, its ultimate outcome
will have an enormous impact on the international system, and America's
place in it.
This article explores the
three strategic revolutions encapsulated within the Bush administration's
security strategy -- concerning how the United States uses force, how it
defines defense, and how it approaches proliferation. It assesses how these
efforts have already started to reshape world affairs, and examines the
challenges now confronting the “Bush Doctrine”.
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Tom Paulin: Poetaster of Murder
Edward
Alexander
The growing influence of
Anglo-Irish poet Tom Paulin in British progressive circles helps to explain
why they are in the forefront of European efforts to demonize Israel. In
Spring 2002, Paulin gained international renown by urging that American-born
Jewish settlers “should be shot dead”, that Tony Blair presides over “a
Zionist government”, and that Israel had no right to exist. Although his
incitement to murder was in clear violation of British law, he was never
prosecuted. His employer, Oxford University, launched an “investigation”
into his comments which came to nothing. Endless foolish debates ensued
about whether Paulin was an anti-Semite or just “a critic of Israeli
policy”, and whether he should be invited to lecture at Harvard or continue
to teach at Columbia. The deeper meaning of the Paulin affair was revealed
(unwittingly) by Professor James Shapiro of Columbia, who declared that
Paulin’s exhortations to shoot Jews dead and to destroy their country “did
not step over the line”. Such remarks showed how public discourse about Jews
and Israel had sunk to new depths among the learned. In the months following
the Paulin affair, writers and publications that had long been hostile to
Israel did, in more “civilized” and literate form, what Paulin had already
done in his cruder style: they moved from strident criticism of Israel to
apologias for anti-Semitic violence and calls for dissolution of the
country.
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Minister Benny
Elon's Peace Initiative: A Discussion
The “Regional Program for
Peace”, which was proposed by Minister Benny Elon as the “Program of the
Right” in June 2003, was suggested in the wake of the Iraq War and as an
alternative to the “road map”. With the rapid pace in which “peace
proposals” are proffered, Elon’s plan seems to have been forgotten. However,
since it is likely to constitute the framework for a future political
program, it was brought before three scholars: Yoash Tsiddon-Chatto,
Yitzchak Klein and Ezra Sohar, in order to elicit their expert opinions.
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Yoash Tsiddon-Chatto agreed with
Benny Elon that the establishment of a Palestinian state will not end the
turmoil, and that only an arrangement of cooperation exclusively between
two countries – such as Jordan and Israel – on economic, social and
security issues is conceivable. Generally, he supports the program whose
guidelines are similar to Tsiddon’s program as presented in his 1998
policy paper (Policy Paper 48, ACPR Publishers). At the same time Tsiddon
notes the absence of transition stages, such as the preparation of
national and international conditions and a timetable.
Minister Elon responded that indeed, the idea of Jordan as the
Palestinian state is not original, however it is important to raise it
again.
Elon said:
We must return to the peace partner, with whom we never made a genuine
effort – the Hashemite Kingdom... The Hashemite Kingdom is an asset, which
should be “upgraded” and not overthrown. The categorization of Jordan as
the Palestinian state is likely to contribute to the alleviation of the
internal tension in that country, as the Palestinians will feel that they
are in their own country.
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Yitzchak Klein addressed the economic
aspects of the plan and found that it leaves many unresolved questions.
The plan offers economic aid (international and Israeli) to Jordan for its
development as a Palestinian state, however in Klein’s opinion, the
political objective, which would be promoted by this assistance, is
unclear. Far-reaching economic changes always have political and social
consequences, which alter the balance of power, and it is not clear that
those changes will in fact be welcome in Jordan or Israel. Similarly,
granting official Jordanian citizenship to residents of Judea, Samaria and
Gaza does not guarantee their practical integration within it, while on
the other hand there is the possibility that they will be reintegrated
into the Israeli economy. Integration of that sort, especially if movement
between Jordan and Judea, Samaria and Gaza develops – will cause increased
Arab immigration to Judea, Samaria and Gaza, and not in the opposite
direction. All in all, Klein claims, the political interests of Israel and
Jordan, as far as economic arrangements with the Palestinians, are at
loggerheads. They are a “thorn in the side” of both countries, and
granting a Jordanian passport to a million people, even to those who today
are called refugees, will not cause the bona fide problems involved with
them to disappear in one fell swoop. Klein sees the distinction between
the residents of the refugee camps and the residents of the cities as
artificial, as they both constitute a hornet’s nests of terrorism. Elon’s
proposal to absorb the refugees into other Arab countries – not
necessarily in the Middle East – raises the question of how do we know
that those countries will agree? And what astronomical sums will they
demand?
Klein suggests a different model for resolution of the refugee problem –
“direct immigration” poviding a uniform and defined “aid package”
to all who want it, so that they might integrate and organize
themselves anywhere they choose in the world.
Klein concludes his comments by saying that before formulating programs on
paper of one sort or another, we must make certain to win the present war,
which we have yet to win and only then to shape the political environment,
in accordance with its results.
Minister Elon responded to all of the above that the aid to
Jordan is a type of regional “Marshall Plan” to rehabilitate the Middle
East, and is not in order to “bribe” Jordan. He agreed that direct
immigration is practical and mass Arab immigration to the West and to
other countries is at present a reality, which should be encouraged.
Regarding the undermining of the stability of the Jordanian regime, Elon
responds that a generous and well-planned aid package to Jordan could
“buttress its power and strengthen its regime”. As to the economic
integration with Israel and the Palestinians – Elon agrees with Yitzchak
Klein that those economic ties should be severed.
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Ezra Sohar addressed the fact that although Elon and his
supporters propose Jordan as the Palestinian state, they have not detailed
the ways to realize their objective. The present situation is that the
Palestinians have not accepted any peace proposal submitted to them since
1993. Similarly, in Sohar’s opinion, Elon’s proposal that a million Arabs
will live west of the Jordan, work, be educated and pay taxes to Israel
but vote in elections for the Jordanian Parliament – a country in which
they have no influence – is unrealistic.
Minister Elon disagreed and said that “the autonomy powers can
include collecting taxes in the cities and villages...”, because the
educational, health and welfare systems of the residents of Judea, Samaria
and Gaza will be affiliated with the autonomous authority under Jordanian
auspices. In that context, Prof. Sohar also raised the issue of dual
loyalty, to which Elon responded that none of these citizens would be
required to serve in the army. On the contrary, “the Arabs will be
citizens of the Jordano-Palestinian state and will be required to be loyal
only to it. Anyone of them involved in terrorism will be punished, as in
any other country in the world.”
The central problem in Elon’s proposal, Sohar claims, is the inability to
implement it in the existing reality. The West considers Jordan a
protectorate and will not allow an energetic Palestinian majority to
threaten the Hashemite regime. Therefore, the implementation of Elon’s
program will require annexation of Judea, Samaria and Gaza to Israel and
the expulsion of the PLO members – something which cannot be implemented
and would not meet with the approval of America and Europe. Why, then,
would Jordan agree to the proposed framework? Sohar asks.
Minister Elon responded, “Jordan has always relied upon the support of the
Western powers (Britain and subsequently the United States) and on Israeli
backing.” Therefore Elon proposed a broad, intense information campaign in
the United States and Israel which would generate the pressure of public
opinion, which Jordan will be unable to ignore.
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In summary,
the conclusion of the three participants was that even if the
program does have some substance, it is not acceptable in the present
reality and it lacks practical detail. Minister Elon responded to those
assertions that the program constitutes “general guidelines, and does not
enter into detail on the questions of economic aid, the precise nature of
the administration, etc.”
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Safed - The Gateway to Heaven
The Conquest of Safed in the War of
Independence
Hanan Sever
The Conquest of Safed on May
28-29, 1948 by the Yiftah Brigade is one of the significant successful
climaxes of the War of Independence. The city’s strategic significance in
terms of its control of the entire northern Galilee was extremely pivotal,
and the two warring parties, the Jews and the Arabs, knew that the fate of
Safed would determine the fate of the entire Galilee. The Jews’ military
inferiority vis-a-vis the Arabs was conspicuous. The British, on the verge
of evacuation, were certain that the Arabs would emerge victorious, and were
astounded when informed that the Israeli flag was flying above a hotel in
the city.
In an article by Dr. Mustafa
Abassi, published in the “Katedra” periodical (volume 109, April 2003), the
author attempts to debunk the unforgettable heroic myth of the conquest of
Safed, the victory of the few over the many, and to transform it into the
story of a routine victory, in which the Jews were the powerful and the
many, while the Arabs were the few, the weak, the besieged and ultimately
those who were, forcibly, unjustly and through no fault of their own,
expelled from their city and their homes.
Hanan Sever, a member of
Kibbutz Yiftah and who himself was a member of the Yiftah Brigade, responds
to Abassi’s attempts to distort the Jewish testimonies and sources and
portray them as “exaggerated and inaccurate”. The new element in Abassi’s
article is the presentation of the Arab side of the story, based on
documents, which were unavailable to the Jewish researchers, for example the
statement by Olmaz to Adiv Shishakli, who wrote about the Arab morale at the
time: “Morale is very high, the youth is inflamed, we will slaughter them!”
and other similar quotes.
How did the Arabs attain such
high morale? That’s simple. Because they were numerous and well equipped,
fighting against those who were few in number and weapons, and because they
were openly supported by the British, who were certain of the Arab victory
and who delivered to them all of the strategic, dominant points in the city:
the main headquarters on Mount Canaan, the Taggart fortress, the Canaan
police, the municipal police, Shalva House and the city entrance.
Dr. Abassi’s article is
another one of the persistent attempts by both Jews and Arabs to rewrite
history and recast it to portray the Arabs as the victims and the Jews as
heartless imperialist conquerors, rather than an exiled, battered people
which returned to its homeland and defended itself with courage and
determination against the Arab attacks and riots, and emerged victorious –
against all odds and despite an openly hostile mandatory government.
Hanan Sever’s historical
article is interwoven with two touching stories – the story of Avinoam, the
battle commander himself, called “The Question Which Remained Unanswered:
Who Fired at the Fiat?” and the story of a Safed resident about the betrayal
by an Arab of a Jewish family which nurtured him, called “Thank You” (in
Arabic).
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