PLO’s Role in Collaborators’ Executions Hit

The Palestine Liberation Organization and its allies in the Gaza Strip and West Bank have carried out or condoned the torture and killing of hundreds of Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel, a leading Israeli human rights organization charged Sunday.

The accusation added to Palestinians’ fears about what the legal system might be like when the two areas become self-governing.

In an exhaustive report, B’Tselem, one of the most respected human rights groups working in the occupied territories, found that between 750 and 950 suspected collaborators were killed in the last six years, many after being severely tortured; that most had no chance to defend themselves against the accusations against them, and that at least half were not, in fact, Israeli agents.

“B’Tselem considers the Palestinian political organizations whose activists tortured and killed suspected collaborators responsible, alongside the direct perpetrators themselves, for these gross violations of human rights,” the group said. It called for an immediate halt to such acts.

The PLO and its member groups, notably PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat’s mainstream Fatah, have failed to formulate a policy on Palestinians who have collaborated with the 26-year Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, B’Tselem charged, saying this was a dereliction of political responsibility.

The PLO failed to respond to the group’s questions, and it declined on Sunday to comment on the report.

“Even making allowance for the fact that the PLO does not have at its disposal enforcement mechanisms or a structured judicial system, the organization did not take, or even threaten to take, measures against militants who went on killing,” B’Tselem said, asserting the PLO’s culpability for what amount to summary executions and political murders.

B’Tselem, whose past reports have strongly criticized Israel for alleged violations of human rights in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, argued that Palestinian groups demanding political recognition, including the right to govern, must also adhere to international standards for the protection of human rights.

More than two years in preparation, the 208-page report seemed certain to heighten the apprehension among Palestinians about the character of the Palestine National Authority that will assume power first in the Gaza Strip and later on the West Bank under the accord between Israel and the PLO on limited self-government.

“This is a survey of the past, but it raises many questions about the future and, indeed, of the present,” said Saleh Abdel Jawad, a Palestinian political scientist at Birzeit University who worked with B’Tselem on the report.

“What kind of democracy will we have, what kind of society will we be? These are crucial issues today, and while this study does not answer those questions, its findings should worry us.”

B’Tselem officials noted that their case-by-case research into the killings showed that rarely was a suspected collaborator allowed to respond to charges against him, that torture was common and that only in 40% to 50% of the cases could the person be linked to Israeli forces.

In 20% of the cases, the victim was judged guilty of “social crimes,” such as drug sales, prostitution, rape or homosexuality.

B’Tselem, whose name in Hebrew means “In the Image of (the Almighty),” also accused Israeli authorities of breaking international law to recruit collaborators, using them not only to collect intelligence but to break down Palestinian society and even involving them in the violent interrogation of prisoners.

According to B’Tselem, Israel now has a network of about 5,000 collaborators, many of them blackmailed into work as informers and agents, some recruited from among drug dealers, prostitutes and other criminals.

“What will happen to these 5,000 people and their families, a total of 25,000 to 30,000 persons, is a major moral dilemma for Israel,” B’Tselem Director Yizhar Beer said. “Israel has an obligation to them, and so far the policy is not at all clear.

“That aside, 5,000 active agents and informers and collaborators of other kinds gives an idea of the immense scale of the recruitment.”

But the focus of the report was on the activities of collaborators within Palestinian society and the attacks on them by armed groups aligned with the PLO’s main factions and with the rival Islamic Resistance Movement, known as Hamas.

In the last three years, Hamas overtly supported the killing of suspected collaborators, B’Tselem said, while Fatah condoned the actions.

Although Palestinians themselves were distressed by the increasing attacks upon suspected collaborators, the PLO remained virtually silent.

Only after Israel signed an agreement with the PLO on Palestinian autonomy did the PLO call for a halt in the attacks on suspected collaborators. Even so, eight were killed in December.

Israeli authorities almost celebrated the report, notwithstanding B’Tselem’s criticism of military intelligence and the security police, for it finally studied the killing of Palestinians by other Palestinians.

“This is the first time that B’Tselem has focused on the activities of Arab terrorist organizations vis-a-vis the internal Arab population despite the fact that a significant number of the injuries and deaths among the Palestinian population during the intifada have been caused by other Palestinians,” a military spokesman said.

According to B’Tselem’s figures, 1,177 Palestinians were killed by Israelis in Gaza and on the West Bank in the last six years, compared to 104 Israelis killed by Palestinians in the occupied territories. Within Israel, 74 Israelis and 43 Palestinians have been killed. Six foreign tourists have also died in the attacks.