Letting His People Go: Arafat Employs Convicted Terrorists
In Security Apparatus
Communicated by the Office of the Prime Minister, March 5, 1998
In early February, Gen. Tawfik Tirawi, the head of the muhabarat,
the Palestinian secret police, arranged for the head of the CIA
station in Tel Aviv to accompany him to the Jericho jail, where
Youssef and Shaher Ra’i are confined.
The Ra’i cousins, from Qalqilyah, serving seven-year sentences,
have been linked to the killings of Ohad Bachrach and Uri Shahor
— Israeli hikers stabbed to death in Wadi Qelt, between Jerusalem
and Jericho, in 1995. Bachrach’s and Shahor’s relatives, who
accompanied Benjamin Netanyahu on his January visit to Washington,
had claimed that the Ra’is were free to wander at will in the
Jericho area — a claim endorsed by Netanyahu aides; Gen. Tirawi
proclaimed that the Jericho jail visit showed up “the lie of
Netanyahu.”
The CIA visitor was shown a four-man cell, with Shaher Ra’i sitting
in it. He had a TV, a radio and a refrigerator; on the walls were
photographs of his two daughters and of his heroes — Cuban
revolutionary leader Ernesto (Che) Guevara, and master Hamas
bombmaker Yihya Ayyash, “the Engineer,” who was killed by Israel in
1996. Jericho jail commander Walid Jabali insisted the Ra’is had
not left the jail since September 1995, when they were arrested and
jailed — in a 10-minute trial — for damaging Palestinian national
interests, rather than as accomplices to murder.
But, the Report has learned, the visit was an elaborate ruse to
placate the Americans. The Ra’is are prisoners only in name; until
recently the two activists of the Popular Front for the Liberation
of Palestine had been leading normal lives outside the prison
walls, albeit inside Jericho city limits. Eye witnesses have seen
them at coffeeshops and markets in the town, in the company of
family members and friends.
The Ra’is, on a list of 36 alleged terrorists whose extradition is
demanded by Israel, represent the rule, not the exception. A few of
those on the Israeli list are indeed in prison, but others have
long since been freed — and many more have never been arrested.
Israel often complains about what it calls the PA’s “revolving-door
policy” of quickly freeing those involved in terrorism. Ironically,
having kicked up an international furor over the Ra’is, Israeli
government sources now privately admit that they are no longer
absolutely certain the cousins were actually involved in the Wadi
Qelt murders at all. On the basis of The Report’s investigation,
however, many other of the Israeli complaints are well founded.
On the orders of Yasser Arafat, Palestinians arrested for attacking
Israelis are tried almost instantly by special State Security
Courts, and convicted and sentenced before Israel can begin
extradition proceedings. The courts often mete out sentences that
seem severe — but defendants rarely serve more than a few months
behind bars before they are reunited with their families, and
allowed to move freely in PA-controlled territory. If they renounce
membership in Hamas or one of the other radical organizations, and
pledge their allegiance to Arafat’s mainstream Fatah organization,
they often find employment with one of the 10 official PA security
agencies operating in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian Authority refuses to provide statistics on
terror-linked convicts released before the end of their terms. But
Palestinian sources say that between their foundation in April 1995
and the end of 1997, the courts tried and sentenced 46 Palestinians
for direct and indirect involve ment in anti-Israel terror.
Sentences ranged from six months in jail to life; many of those
jailed, particularly those sentenced to two years or less, were
freed in months.
They are the beneficiaries of a Palestinian strategy — repeatedly
underlined by officials — that no Palestinian will ever extradite
his brother, under any circumstances, to the Israeli enemy. “If
some day Jewish terrorists responsible for killing Arabs are handed
over to us, we might consider making a reciprocal gesture,” says
Sufyan Abu Zaideh, the head of the Palestinian Authority’s “Israeli
Desk.” “In the meantime, Israel has no right to ask for the
extradition of Palestinians who have al ready been sentenced by our
courts.”
The Israeli extradition list includes at least 10 people who are
now members of the various Palestinian security forces — and is
topped by Ghazi Jabali, the Palestinian police commissioner for
Gaza and the West Bank, who heads the 12,000-strong, blue-uniformed
police force. Israel suspects that Jabali has organized terror
cells inside the force itself, and instructed individual policemen
to carry out attacks against Israelis. Jabali calls the charges
“ridiculous,” and warns that any attempt to arrest him will lead to
armed confrontation.
Others on the Israeli list, now serving in Palestinian law
enforcement, include:
- Iyad Abu-Shakafa, a Fatah activist accused of the attempted
murder of Shaul David in Ramlah, in 1994, who is now a captain in
Jabali’s police force in Gaza; - Iyad Basheeti, a former Hamas activist from Rafah in the Gaza
Strip, who is suspected of involvement in two murders in Ramlah in
1994. Basheeti’s relatives have told The Report he works as an
interrogator for Palestinian military intelligence. - Atef Hamdan, today employed by Palestinian Preventive Security,
who was arrested in 1996 amid allegations of his involvement in a
1992 attempt to murder a soldier, but was freed almost immediately. - Ibrahim Shadeed, now a policeman in Tul Karm, who allegedly took
part in the October 1994 killing of a collaborator. - Bassam Aram and Yasser Aram, accused of the December 1993
attempted murder of Zvi Fixler, at Moshav Gan Or in the southern
Gaza Strip, who are reportedly on the Palestinian security forces
payroll. - Bassam Issa, a former Hamas activist, who is suspected of
involvement in the murder of three Israeli soldiers in April 1993,
and in the attack with assault rifles and grenades on Yoel Salomon
Street in Jerusalem in October 1994 (in which two Israelis died),
and who is now an officer in the Palestinian Preventive Security
police.
The ranks of the various Palestinian security forces also include
a large number of Palestinians guilty of crimes against other
Palestinians, particularly those who collaborated with Israel
during the Intifada. Israel released them as part of the 1993 Oslo
Accords — on condition they be confined to Jericho. But many of
them have been given weapons, military or police ranks, and
security posts in the West Bank and Gaza.
Take the case of Nasser Abu Hmeid, of the Al-Amari refugee camp
near Ramallah, sentenced by Israel in 1993 to nine life terms for
his role in the decapitation killings of collaborators. Shortly
after his post-Oslo transfer to Jericho, Abu Hmeid — who headed a
group called the Masked Lion — joined the Palestinian Preventive
Security apparatus as an interrogator. In 1994, a few weeks before
control of West Bank cities was handed over to the PA, Abu Hmeid
was caught by an undercover Israeli patrol in Ramallah. He is now
back in an Israeli prison — because he violated the terms of his
release by leaving Jericho.
Not all freed prisoners join the ranks of the Palestinian police.
Some have gone on to carry out other terror acts. The best-known
case is that of Moawiya Jarara, Bashar Salawah and Tawfiq Yassin,
who blew themselves up in the September 1997 Ben-Yehudah mall
attack. All three had been detained by Arafat’s police in Nablus in
March 1996, but unexplainably strolled free six months later.
Palestinian officials admit that some of those accused of security
offenses have been
freed, but say they don’t understand why Israel is so agitated. “So
what if Israel says these people are involved in attacks,” says a
Palestinian general based in Ramallah. “That doesn’t automatically
make it true. Besides, some of the accusations go back to before
the Oslo Accords. If we punish everyone guilty of acts of violence
between 1967 and Oslo, in 1993, we will have to arrest tens of
thousands of Palestinians.
“The next thing the Netanyahu government will do,” he continues,
“is ask for the extradition of Abu Amar, Yasser Arafat. If that
happens, we’ll have the right to ask for the extradition of Yitzhak
Shamir and other Israeli leaders who are responsible for atrocities
against our people.”
