Security Coordination Is a Defense of Zionist Security

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

The question of security coordination between the Palestinian and Zionist sides is among the greatest matters occupying Palestinians’ minds, raising many questions and justifications, and also a great deal of resentment and rancor among Palestinians themselves.

It is a matter critics of the Palestinian Authority consider a great crime against the Palestinian people, and high treason against the homeland and its citizens, while the Palestinian Authority tries to downplay it, working to justify it as temporary, pending a final solution with Israel.

The Nature of Security Coordination

Arafat’s letter to Rabin, Israel’s prime minister, in 1993, issued before the signing of the Oslo Accord, contained the Palestine Liberation Organization’s pledge to pursue “terrorism” and “terrorists,” and the Oslo Accord came afterward to stipulate the establishment of security coordination between Palestinians and Israelis, without going into details.

The agreement added that Israel is responsible for security in the territory occupied in ‘67, which gave Israel the right to defend this territory against any external aggression, and the right to carry out security operations there whenever it wishes.

With the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994, in Gaza and Jericho, Israel said that expanding the geographic scope of the Authority’s operations was tied to the Authority’s security performance, and how capable it was of maintaining security in Israel’s favor. This meant the Authority’s capacity to pursue “terrorism” and “terrorists” — that is, to prevent acts of resistance against Israel.

The 1995 Taba Agreement came to clarify security coordination, stipulating that the Palestinian Authority is responsible for preventing “terrorism” and “terrorists” and taking appropriate measures against them — that is, the Palestinian Authority must prevent Palestinian resistance. The agreement also stipulated that the Palestinian Authority must refrain from pursuing those who worked with Israel over the years, and must not harm their personal interests, such as dismissal from employment. The agreement bound the Palestinian Authority to pursue the resistance while turning a blind eye to collaborators and spies.

The agreement also stipulated that the Palestinian police force is the sole authorized security body in the territory occupied in ‘67, and that security coordination takes place through a joint Palestinian-Israeli committee. It later became clear that security coordination runs in only one direction — that is, toward defending Israeli security, not toward defending Palestinian security. This means the Authority is required to pursue anyone who touches Israeli security, while Israel is free of any such obligation against Zionists who touch Palestinian security.

The Pillars of Security Coordination

The pillars of security coordination began to take shape as soon as the Palestinian Authority was established, developing over the years. Here I lay out the following elements:

1. The emergence of Palestinian security bodies other than the police force, outside the text of the declared agreements: bodies such as Presidential Security, National Security, Preventive Security, Intelligence, and institutional and naval security, and others emerged, and it became clear that part of their work goes toward pursuing “terrorism” and “terrorists,” in one way or another — through direct arrest, threats, dismissal from employment, and the like. Even the National Security forces, supposed to defend national security, would withdraw from their guard posts whenever the Israelis requested it.

2. Arming the Palestinian Authority according to Israeli standards, in full view of the Israeli security services: the Palestinian security services were formed according to an agreement with Israel, and no Palestinian body received weapons without Israeli permission and according to its instructions for their use. It is well known, according to what the American General Dayton said, that Palestinian weapons are not lethal against Israelis — that is, unfit for fighting Israelis. The reason mostly lies in a heat treatment applied to the weapon’s barrel that shrinks its firing range. These weapons are fit only for killing Palestinians, not for fighting the Zionists.

3. Tying Palestinians to money to keep them committed to Israeli security: Palestinians have been indirectly hired to serve Israeli security, and the Palestinian Authority understands full well that halting security coordination with Israel, and dissolving the security services serving Israeli security, would lead to the flow of money to it stopping, and its employees’ salaries ceasing.

4. Encouraging security laxity to divert the Palestinian people’s attention away from serving Israel on security matters and toward demanding civil security for themselves: thugs spread through the streets, assaulting people and their property, spreading terror and panic in several areas of the West Bank and Gaza. The Authority began saying it was Israel encouraging this security laxity, but this phenomenon in truth spread only under the Palestinian Authority’s own rule, and did not stop until it became clear that this laxity was one of the main reasons for people’s anger at the Palestinian Authority in Gaza.

5. American oversight of the Palestinian Authority’s compliance with Israeli security requirements: Israel and America agreed to employ an American security coordinator to make sure the Palestinian Authority performs its security duties well, and to direct the Palestinian Authority in the appropriate way that achieves maximum possible security for Israelis, settlers included.

This American overseer relies on a team of American, British, and Canadian experts who monitor the Authority’s work, visit its sites, and confirm the competence of those running the work. It is worth noting here that some naive people within the security services say the Palestinian Authority is employing the best experts to train them for the sake of establishing a Palestinian state capable of defending itself.

6. Building security sites and training centers under American oversight: America has built many security centers for Preventive Security, Intelligence, Police, and Espionage services, according to specifications suited to Israel’s easy control over them should it become necessary, and has established advanced training centers, particularly in Jericho. This is beyond the training courses the United States funds in Jordan and elsewhere.

Fields of Security Coordination

There are a number of fields where security coordination takes place, and there are clear coordination measures the Palestinian citizen feels daily. Below are some of them:

First: joint patrols, meaning a Palestinian and an Israeli military patrol move together to secure certain roads through major cities. This was followed at the beginning of the Palestinian Authority’s establishment, but no longer exists, because Israel decided to carry out its own security operations inside cities alone whenever it sees fit.

Second: pursuing resistance weapons — the weapons designated for fighting Israel, carried by resistance elements affiliated with certain Palestinian factions, Hamas, Jihad, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs especially. There are weapons other than the Authority’s and the resistance’s weapons — the weapons of thugs and hoodlums — which are wanted by neither Israel nor the Authority, since their purpose is to sabotage Palestinian internal security. These weapons are now dormant, but the Palestinian people will see them again should the need arise.

Third: arresting those suspected of harboring desires or intentions to resist the occupation, throwing them into prison without trial, torturing them severely, and perhaps killing them under torture, as has actually happened in a number of cases. These arrests are ongoing, and the Authority claims they are not political arrests but civil ones, on the premise that these people harbor intentions threatening what is called the “national project,” and violate weapons-possession laws, and so on.

Fourth: pursuing organizations that adopt the idea of resistance, demolishing them entirely, and eliminating their infrastructure, as is now happening against Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs in the West Bank.

Fifth: spreading terror within the ranks of the Palestinian people, through deploying informants and security-service representatives to scrutinize people’s words, actions, and orientations, and pursuing critics of the Authority and its security services.

Sixth: dismissal from employment and economic pursuit of anyone suspected of supporting the resistance and those engaged in it, and of rejecting the Palestinian Authority and the actions of the security services. Many sons of the Palestinian people have been dismissed from their jobs, pursued even in private companies and businesses over their daily bread. It is clear that government employment has largely become the exclusive preserve of supporters of the Palestinian Authority, those with connections inside the Authority and its security services. The Palestinian Authority has developed a policy of “good conduct certificates,” so that a person cannot obtain a job or a license to carry out a certain activity unless he receives the approval of the security services, which themselves need good conduct outside and inside the political dimension.

The Palestinian citizen now suffers under the surveillance of the security services, and the overwhelming majority of people cannot express themselves for fear of arrest, dismissal from employment, or threats, reprimand, and abuse in one form or another. They instill terror in people’s hearts, so that the Palestinian has become equal to his Arab brother in terror before the authority, its services, and its helpers.

Joint Security Pursuit

The Palestinian Authority began the process of security coordination with Israel with a degree of shyness and hesitation. The security services were gentle with Palestinian detainees at first, but began baring their fangs over time, particularly after Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Authority’s failure in Gaza was a major turning point in the Palestinian Authority’s practices, and the treatment of Palestinian prisoners began taking a violent, harsh turn. It was clear that Israel and America were stunned by the ease with which Hamas took control of Gaza, and decided to take charge of developing their own approach to the matter, placing the Palestinian Authority under tight surveillance.

Now, the Palestinian Authority feels no shame whatsoever in arresting Palestinians for political reasons related to protecting Israeli security. The security services no longer hide what they do, and the ordinary Palestinian recruit no longer feels ashamed of his work. Security coordination, meeting Israeli security requirements, and torturing Palestinians all take place in broad daylight, openly, and the justifications for these actions are offered and stated with the utmost arrogance and shamelessness.

A Palestinian is released from Zionist prisons, and is then summoned by the Palestinian security services, and sometimes the security services are waiting for him at the Zionist checkpoint to arrest him, threaten him, or summon him. And sometimes a Palestinian is released from a Palestinian prison, only for Israel to arrest or assassinate him. Dayton expressed this tragedy when he told the American Congress that a group of Palestinian soldiers, led by an Israeli officer, had killed the commander of the Qassam Brigades in Hebron.

All this security coordination with the Zionists amounts to a great betrayal of Palestinian history, of the blood of the martyrs, the moans of the orphans, and the cries of the widows, and constitutes a humiliating, disgraceful badge of shame on the brow of every Palestinian who looks forward to reclaiming part of the fixed national rights of the Palestinian people.

Under this coordination, shameless, filthy acts are carried out that make the brow of every Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim sweat with shame — anyone who looks forward to emerging from this rubble to build a nation whose brow is adorned with glory and pride. In this regard, I offer the reader only Article 40 of the PLO’s revolutionary judicial law, still in force to this day:

Article 140: Punishable by death is any individual who:

a. Shamefully throws down his weapon, ammunition, or equipment before the enemy.

b. Spies for the enemy, or gives it information in a manner amounting to treason, or sends the enemy a flag of truce out of treachery or cowardice.

c. Supplies the enemy with weapons, ammunition, or provisions, or shelters or harbors an enemy who is not a prisoner while knowing his status.

d. Knowingly, while on duty, carries out any act that could endanger the success of any operations carried out by the forces of the revolution or any allied forces.

Money and Security Coordination

Security is the essence of the agreements with Israel, whether agreements with Arab states or with the Palestine Liberation Organization. Israel insists, with the Arabs, in all its negotiations, on preserving Israeli security, and that agreements are impossible to reach unless the Arab side commits to Israeli security first. This is why Arafat’s pledge to fight “terrorism” and “terrorists” preceded, in his letter to Rabin, the announcement of the Oslo Accord. No agreement can continue unless the Arab party’s commitment to Israeli security continues.

For this reason, we find the Palestinian Authority declaring a halt to negotiations without touching the essence of the agreements with Israel — Israeli security. The Palestinian Authority halts negotiations with Israel while, at the very same time, joining Israel in protecting settlers from Palestinian attacks. This is not a strange paradox, because the Palestinian side understands full well that halting security coordination would expose the agreements with Israel to great problems.

To emphasize the importance of security, the disbursement of donor states’ funds, and American funds specifically, has been tied to security coordination with Israel. And if the Palestinian Authority stops security coordination, or falls short in carrying it out, or begins to hesitate, the flow of money will stop. The Westerners have bought the Palestinians (the Authority) themselves with money, and they have accepted trading the homeland for a daily bread threatened with being cut off, after becoming entangled to a point of no return.

The great tragedy is that Palestinian national rights have, in practice, shrunk down to a salary, a car, and comforts for the man in power, while the people must remain under the hammers of both friend and enemy. The man in power may sometimes speak of the national rights of the Palestinian people, but his words collapse before the objective facts on the ground.

Tearing Palestinians Apart

Security coordination is a national crime against the Palestinian people, but its effect extends beyond itself, because it touches the whole of Palestinian history, and social relations and moral dealings among people.

Security coordination shows contempt for all the Palestinian sacrifices made across the years, tramples on the suffering, pain, and grief, pits Palestinian against Palestinian, and stirs animosity and hatred among people.

Security coordination breeds vendettas among the sons of the homeland, tears the ranks apart, scatters efforts, and negatively affects the moral level to which the person who resists whoever wants to resist the occupation descends.

It is a great tragedy for the Palestinian to turn into a guard at the gates of the kingdom of Israel, and the unspoken truth says: if the price of the Palestinian state is that a Palestinian arrest his own Palestinian brother in defense of Israeli security, then we, the people of Palestine, do not want this state, and let those searching for it go to hell.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “التنسيق الأمني دفاع عن أمن الصهاينة” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.