Intelligence Cooperation a Mideast Casualty

Soon after a Jewish soldier opened fire on Hebron’s Arab market in January, the heads of Israeli and Palestinian security forces jumped into action to prevent rioting.

Palestinian security chief Jibril Rajoub, Israeli intelligence chief Ami Ayalon and Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordecai joined forces in the public square where the shooting had taken place, calmed the situation and were hailed for their teamwork.

Less than three months later, many Israeli and Palestinian officials say that what seemed to be a giant leap forward in cooperation may have been a last hurrah.

Today, following the Tel Aviv cafe bombing last week and Israel’s suspension of political negotiations, cooperation has completely broken down between Israel’s General Security Service, known as Shin Bet, and its onetime Palestinian partners--particularly Rajoub and Gaza Strip security chief Mohammed Dahlan. The Palestinian Authority this week announced that it was cutting off all meaningful security cooperation.

“There is tremendous mistrust and distrust on the part of the Shin Bet of Rajoub and Dahlan, and that is reciprocated in spades,” said a U.S. official.

In fact, coordination between the security forces has been declining steadily over the past few months, as Israeli officials came to believe that the Palestinian Authority was “preserving the option of violence” and Palestinian leaders decided Israel was using them to do its dirty work without making significant political concessions in return.

The coordination has never been easy, but it has been effective at times. The two sides officially began working together in 1994, when Palestinian leadership returned to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho under the so-called Oslo peace agreement that Israel signed with the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1993.

Rajoub, chief of the West Bank’s Palestinian Preventive Security, and Dahlan were well known to the Israelis as organizers of the seven-year Palestinian uprising, or intifada. Rajoub had spent 17 years in Israeli jails. The Palestinian security chiefs knew their terrain well, and for that reason the Israelis thought they were right for the job.

“We understood that because we were not ruling big parts of Gaza and the West Bank, we urgently needed for these intelligence gaps to be filled by Palestinians,” said Yaakov Perry, who retired as chief of Shin Bet in February 1995.

“There were ups and downs. Generally speaking, the ties were personal and professional. . . . Of course, the amount of effort and information Israel was ready to give was much more than we got back. But they did their jobs,” Perry said. The Palestinians foiled several would-be suicide bombers.

“It was not a love story,” added former Shin Bet chief Carmi Gillon. “It was an ‘interest’ story on both sides. The Palestinian interest was to move on the peace process.”

Gillon left his post at the helm of Shin Bet in February 1996, a month after the assassination of the Hamas Islamic movement’s top bomb maker, Yehiya Ayash, which was widely attributed to his agency.

The slaying of Ayash in the Palestinian-ruled Gaza Strip was an embarrassment to Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat and infuriated his security officials.

Palestinian cooperation remained uneven until Muslim extremists from Hamas and Islamic Jihad set off four bombs in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Ashkelon over eight days in February and March 1996. Arafat became convinced that terrorism was a threat to the peace process--and to his continued rule--and launched a coordinated crackdown.

The bombings did not bring down Arafat, but they did topple the Labor government of Shimon Peres. Right-wing Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu was elected on a promise to get tough on terrorism.

Soon after his election, however, Netanyahu was told by Shin Bet to quit lambasting Arafat, that Israel depended on Arafat in the fight against terrorism. Netanyahu toned down his rhetoric, and the security forces continued to work well for several months.

But in August, the Palestinians began to release dozens of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists they had rounded up after the bombings and Shin Bet “started ringing alarm bells,” according to a source familiar with Israeli intelligence.

The following month, Netanyahu opened a new door to the Hasmonean tunnel in Jerusalem’s Old City, and Palestinian riots broke out, leading to clashes between Palestinian police and Israeli soldiers in which at least 75 people died.

“The Shin Bet took the view then that Arafat was preserving the violent option and the terrorist option,” said the source, who asked not to be identified.

The Palestinians were growing irritated with Shin Bet. The Israelis kept giving them lists of alleged Hamas activists whom they wanted arrested. When the Palestinians would arrest some, they would get a new list with still other names, according to a source close to Palestinian intelligence officials.

Some of the people on the lists were found to have no link to terrorism and were released. The Israelis grew angry, but the Palestinians’ offer to discuss the lists on a case-by-case basis was never taken up, the source said.

“They [the Israelis] kept moving the goal posts. Whatever the Palestinians did, it was never enough,” the source said.

Shin Bet was angry too, saying it gave Rajoub the names of potentially dangerous members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, another group opposed to the peace process, and that he did nothing.

At the same time, the Palestinians were growing more skeptical about Netanyahu’s commitment to the peace process.

By the time a bomber killed himself and three Israeli women in Tel Aviv’s Cafe Apropos on Friday and Israel broke off peace talks, there was no trust left between security forces on the two sides.

“The Shin Bet is furious,” said the source close to Israeli intelligence. “Their view is that they can’t rely on the Palestinians anymore.”

That is true, the Palestinians say, so long as Israel freezes the political front. “We can’t see ourselves as only the guards for Israeli lives when our land and our future is confiscated,” said Hassan Asfour, a Palestinian negotiator. “If they protect the peace process, we will protect them.”