- JERUSALEM - Hani knew it
was wrong.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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."
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- 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."
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- 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
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- 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.
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- "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.
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- "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."
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- 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'
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- "[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."
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- If all fails, there is always money: "I make sure
they know we are generous," he says.
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- 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
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- "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."
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- 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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- http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0522/p01s04-wome.html
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