Palestinian informants never safe
Wed May 29, 8:41 AM ET
Vivienne Walt USA TODAY
HEBRON, West Bank -- It was not yet dawn when Ahmed Amr was jolted awake in his prison cell by men wearing black ski masks. They pounded on the prison gates, chanting, ''Collaborators! Collaborators!''
• E-filing takes hassles out of taxes
• Colin Powell tells sexually active teens to use condoms
• It's not fiction! Learn about great books in our books e-mail
• Expanded coverage of the 2002 Winter Games
''I was sure they were coming for me,'' Amr, 40, a father of nine, says as he sits in a tiny, windowless cell.
But it was not Amr's turn to die on April 23. The masked men -- from the Tanzim militia faction of the Palestinian Authority (news - web sites) -- called out three names. They forced the lone security guard to hand over his rifle and then dragged the three men outside, where they were shot. Two were hanged upside down on electric poles. Some locals spat on the bodies.
Rage against Palestinians accused of being informants for Israel is at its most intense in years, and it is peaking just as the Palestinian security system has collapsed. Economic despair, political upheaval and Israel's efforts to get people to inform on fellow Palestinians have ensured an ample supply of collaborators during 20 months of violence. Anger against these proclaimed traitors has fueled vigilante justice; lynchings have replaced trials in several places.
The mix of fury and judicial chaos could threaten Yasser Arafat (news - web sites)'s ability to rebuild the battered Palestinian territories and begin democratic reforms -- changes the United States and Israel demand as a condition for peace talks and a Palestinian state.
CIA (news - web sites) Director George Tenet is due to arrive in Israel this week to try to overhaul Palestinian police and security services, a convoluted network of 10 organizations. Arafat offered Sunday to streamline the system into three main intelligence and security services. But the effort to impose law and order could be tough.
In rare prison interviews with eight suspected collaborators arranged by Palestinian intelligence officials, the men say they dread their eventual release. None has been convicted or sentenced. Security services offer little protection against revenge, they say, and might, in fact, feed it.
''I will face a shocking situation when I leave prison. I expect I might be killed,'' says Bassem Abu-Ayash, 47.
He was jailed 14 months ago on suspicion of collaborating with Israel, even though he has belonged to the Palestine Liberation Organization (news - web sites) for decades. ''People have already attacked my house several times with Molotov cocktails,'' Abu-Ayash says.
His fears seem justified. In February, crowds stormed a makeshift courtroom in Jenin and shot dead three collaborators who had just been sentenced to 15-year jail terms. Militants also have stormed jails in Ramallah and Bethlehem to kill suspected collaborators. On April 1 alone, vigilantes killed 11.
''Formally, the Palestinian Authority takes the line that they are opposed to street vigilante killings of collaborators,'' says Hanny Megally, Middle East executive director for Human Rights Watch, based in New York. ''They've also argued that in the current situation, prisons are being bombed (by Israeli forces), and the court system is in disarray.''
Palestinian anger against collaborators intensified with Israel's military operations in the West Bank in March and April, during which soldiers looked for militants and weapons. Israel claims to have foiled several planned suicide bombings, thanks in part to informants.
''Clearly, Israel has many collaborators still operating because they have good intelligence,'' says Issa Abu Fayez, the Palestinian Authority's West Bank intelligence coordinator. ''But if I want to jail them, where can I put them? The jails have all been bombed.''
The path to collaboration often is more complex than simple betrayal. The financial benefits apparently are paltry, but there are political incentives from Israel.
Abu-Ayash denies he collaborated. He says he was framed by Israel's security service, Shin Bet, which spread the rumor that he was an informant. In the eyes of other Palestinians, he says, ''I became one without being one, because everyone thought I was one.''
Others admit collaborating, often in return for money, or for Israel forgiving other offenses. Suhaib al-Jua'ba, 23, a shoe-factory worker, says he was arrested twice for crossing into Israel without proper documents. Offered the choice between jail or collaborating, he accepted $200 for two weeks of spying on Hebron's militants.
Amr says Israeli soldiers beat his 17-year-old daughter in Hebron and threatened ''to do much worse'' to her if he failed to inform on militants.
Israeli Defense Ministry spokesman Yarden Vatikai says Israel does not comment on its Palestinian informants.
The parents and children of the men dragged from prisons and killed say they are torn between grief, deep shame and other people's contempt.
''All our friends and relatives have stayed away,'' says Huda Nwawra, 52. Her son, Muhammad, 28, was a suspected collaborator. Dragged from a Bethlehem prison in March and shot on the street, he was left lying in Manger Square, near the traditional birthplace of Jesus, ''with his brains outside his head,'' says the Nwawras' neighbor Hajar Iash. She broke the news to the family. ''The television had to tell children not to watch the body, it was so gruesome,'' she says.
After vigilantes killed Nwawra, his mother, father and sister were fired from their jobs. Bethlehem's cemetery refused to bury the man. Eventually, Bethlehem's governor organized a secret burial nearby with no mourners.
In Ramallah, Zahia Liftawi says she has no idea where her son Ra'ed, 22, is buried. The young man was arrested by Palestinian police at a dinner in March, then taken from the prison a few days later by gunmen, who shot him and then hanged his body in Ramallah's Menara Square.
The families of two of the three men dragged from Hebron's prison and killed in April say the men deserved to die for collaborating. But they had hoped for judicial trials.
''Frankly, I believe in killing collaborators after there is a trial,'' says Akram al-Muhtasieb, 38, whose older brother Zuhier was one of the three. His brother had confessed to spying on militants in exchange for a coveted Israeli identity card, which allowed him to live and work in Jerusalem. ''I think he was miserable and needed the money,'' al-Muhtasieb says.
Before the Palestinian uprising began in September 2000, many Palestinians worked in Israel. Since then, Israel has regularly closed its border with the West Bank. That prevents Palestinians from getting to jobs -- except those with work and residence permits.
Near Hebron in the village of Nuba, the children of Musa al-Rujoub -- another of the three prisoners killed in April in Hebron -- recall how their father was arrested by Palestinian security forces in November 2000. ''It was like a kidnapping. The security services called my father and said they wanted to have tea with him,'' says Ahmed, 15. He sits in the living room under a portrait of his father. ''They must have drunk a lot of tea.'' Al-Rujoub was jailed for 18 months before vigilantes killed him.
Most of the jailed collaborators in Hebron say their close friends or siblings turned them over to the police, believing they were safer in jail.
After Amr informed on militants, his younger brother reported him to intelligence officers. In another cell, al-Jua'ba says his best friend hauled him into Hebron's police station last November after learning Israeli soldiers had given him money and a mobile phone in exchange for spying.
''I didn't consider it a betrayal,'' al-Jua'ba says. ''It was a help to me, because I did a very bad thing.''
However, al-Jua'ba says he fears that his eventual freedom will be harder than jail.
''It will be difficult to get a wife. No family will let their daughter marry me,'' he says. ''People will look at me very differently.'' |
