jonivar skullerud spotted this on the Guardian Unlimited site and
thought you should see it.
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The strange affair of Karine A
Israel's official account of the Palestinian Authority's connections
with a ship found loaded with weapons makes little sense, writes Brian
Whitaker
Brian Whitaker
Monday January 21 2002
The Guardian
At a select gathering in London last week, Israeli intelligence
officers briefed journalists on the strange affair of Karine A, the
ship seized by Israeli commandos with 50 tonnes of weapons on board.
I know it was a select gathering because I was one of those selected
by the Israeli embassy NOT to attend - on the grounds that they
disliked what I had written about the affair in the Guardian
(including a World dispatch from last Monday).
That, along with several abusive emails in response to last week's
article, encourages me to return to the subject this week. Although
most of the Arab world dismisses the story as an Israeli fabrication
from beginning to end, the basic outline of what happened is, so far
as I know, true: the Karine A, captained by a man with connections to
the Palestinian Authority, and laden with a variety of weapons
including rockets and mortars, sailed from the Gulf to the Red sea,
where the Israelis intercepted it.
But the official version, as told by Israeli spokesmen and spoon-fed
to selected journalists, makes little sense when it moves on to the
questions of who did it and why.
The ship and its voyage Israel has so far failed to substantiate its
crucial claim that the Karine A belongs to the Palestinian
Authority. If true, that would provide a direct link to the
Palestinian Authority's leadership, including Yasser Arafat.
It is now clear that when Israel made this claim its intelligence
service had not checked the ship's ownership with the registration
authorities - a relatively simple matter - and was relying on
something said by the ship's Palestinian captain, Omar Akawi, under
interrogation.
The original army press release on January 4 said that "preliminary
investigation of the team members arrested revealed that the Karine A
ship was purchased by Adel Mughrabi in Lebanon." Its document
described Mr Mughrabias "a major buyer in the Palestinian weapons
purchasing system".
On the same day, "senior Israeli officials" told the Washington Post
that Mr Mughrabi had not bought the ship in Lebanon, but in Greece or
Bulgaria.
Although the army had been careful to point out that its information
was "preliminary" - and therefore tentative - numerous Israeli
spokesmen and politicians immediately treated it as established fact.
On January 7, for instance, the defence minister, Binyamin
Ben-Eliezer, met the two senior European envoys, Javier Solana and
Miguel Moratinos. He told them that "the ship was purchased by the
Palestinian Authority after September 11" and that "the whole
operation was managed and funded by the Palestinian Authority in
cooperation with Iran and other sources".
One of the conclusions they were supposed to draw from this was that
the EU should reconsider its funding of the authority.
Unfortunately for Mr Ben-Eliezer, on the day of his meeting, the
shipping newspaper, Lloyds List, published documents showing that the
legal owner of the Karine A is an Iraqi passport holder named Ali
Mohamed Abbas.
Mr Abbas had given the registration authorities an address and
telephone number in Yemen, but he has so far not been traced. The
Israeli version of the ship's voyage is also confused. According to
the original army statement, it sailed first to Sudan and picked up
normal cargo.
Members of the smuggling team replaced the original crew and in
November it sailed to Hodeidah in Yemen. In December, according to the
army, it sailed into the Gulf, "to the beaches of Iran near Qeshm
Island".
"There a ferry approached it, most likely arriving from Iran, from
which the weapons stored in 80 large wooden crates were transferred
and loaded on to the ship."
This account appears to have come from interrogation of the crew
rather than high-technology tracking.
The army now says that the island concerned was Kish, not Qeshm. Asked
to explain the discrepancy, a spokesman at first denied that Qeshm had
ever been mentioned. He later said Qeshm appeared only in
English-language versions and was presumably a mistranslation from
Hebrew.
The Israelis say the Karine A loaded its weapons in the Gulf on the
night of December 11-12. Its interception by commandos in the Red Sea,
300 miles south of Eilat, was not until January 3 - almost three weeks
later.
That is an extraordinarily long gap, which has not yet been fully
explained. According to the army, the ship "had to divert to Hodeida
port in Yemen due to technical problems".
The role of the Palestinian Authority Apart from claiming that the
ship belongs to the Palestinian Authority, Israel says that "senior
figures" in the PA were involved in the smuggling, and that the
weapons were intended for use by the authority.
Given the stringency of Israeli security measures, this is the part
that many people find most unconvincing. Would the Palestinian
Authority really be so stupid as to imagine that it could successfully
import the weapons in this way?
Assuming the ship had not been stopped in the Red sea and had passed
through the Suez canal without being caught by the Egyptians, the
problem would be how to sneak its weapons into Gaza without the
Israelis noticing. At current levels of surveillance, the chances of
that happening are almost nil.
Moving the 62 large rockets within Gaza would also be extremely
difficult because of Israeli checkpoints. The rockets' range is only
12 miles, so in order to attack Tel Aviv and most major Israeli
cities, they would have to be moved out of Gaza and into the West Bank
- which is well nigh impossible.
The four "senior" Palestinians who have been identified so far are not
exactly household names, and the extent of corruption in the
Palestinian Authority will make it difficult to establish whether they
were acting in an official capacity or as part of a private racket.
Last week Michael Jansen, writing in the Beirut newspaper, the Daily
Star, questioned whether two of them were still connected with the
authority. He quoted Palestinian sources as saying that Omar Akawi,
the ship's captain, "left Gaza nearly two years ago with his family
and has made no contact with the Palestinian Authority since then".
In interviews after his arrest by the Israelis, Akawi said he had
served as an officer in the Palestinian naval police and later worked
as a naval traffic adviser for the Palestinian transport ministry. He
claimed to be still employed by the authority.
Adel Mughrabi (aka Adel Awadallah and Adel Salameh) is described as
the head of the smuggling project and is said to have bought the
ship. According to the Daily Star, he was a member of Arafat's staff
until the early 1980s, "when he was dismissed for conducting private
business which conflicted with his official status".
The role of Hizbullah Shortly after the smuggling operation came to
light, American officials suggested that the weapons were intended
for Hizbullah, the Lebanese Shi'ite organisation, rather than the
Palestinians.
Israel initially dismissed the idea, but defence sources later told
Ha'aretz newspaper it was "certainly possible that some of the arms
were earmarked for Hizbullah," - though they insisted that most "were
clearly bound for the Palestinian Authority".
Either way, both Israel and the US agree that there was some level of
Hizbullah involvement - for example when the weapons were loaded on to
the ship. Hizbullah already has a well-established route for acquiring
weapons from Iran: they are sent by air through Syria.
If the weapons on the ship were really for Hizbullah, why risk such a
hazardous sea voyage when there were safer and simpler delivery
methods? In the absence of a satisfactory answer to that question, it
would be reasonable to conclude that the weapons were not for
Hizbullah.
But there may be an explanation after all. According to Ha'aretz
newspaper, Hizbullah's air route was shut off last year when "Turkey
began intercepting Iranian aeroplanes delivering weapons to Damascus".
Syria's current attitude to the weapons flights is also
uncertain. President Asad has been trying to appear co-operative in
the "war against terrorism" and it would not be surprising if the
Americans - who formally outlawed Hizbullah last November - had been
pressing him to stop the weapons flights.
If Hizbullah does indeed have problems flying weapons in, smuggling
them by sea would make more sense. Last week (at the select gathering
for journalists in London), Israeli intelligence wove a new Lebanese
villain into the plot: Imad Mughniyeh, who is said to be the
"mastermind" of the smuggling operation.
Although little has been heard of him since the 1980s, his inclusion
may stimulate British and American interest in the affair. He is on
the FBI's "20 most wanted" list (accused of the 1983 bombing of the US
embassy in Beirut and the hijacking of a TWA airliner) and is blamed
for the kidnapping of two Britons in Lebanon, Terry Waite and John
McCarthy.
He was reportedly expelled from his refuge in Iran after the September
11 attacks, but the Lebanese authorities denied that he had returned
to Lebanon.
The role of Iran Israel maintains that the weapons came from Iran. If
this is true - and there is no good reason to doubt it - what does
it indicate?
Many Israeli politicians see it as evidence of a new strategic
alliance between the Palestinian Authority and the Iranian
government. But most non-Israeli observers of Iran ridicule the idea
totally, for a variety of historical, political and religious
reasons. It also conflicts with the foreign policies adopted by
President Khatami.
The trouble with Iran, though - as one Iranian exile remarked last
week - is that it has two governments and 10,000 leaders. If you are
going to pin blame, you have to determine which one is responsible.
Meanwhile, Ha'aretz newspaper suggests that the arms shipment cannot
have had full backing from the Iranian authorities. If it were
officially approved, the Karine A would not have picked up the weapons
at night from another ship near Kish: it would have gone straight to
the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas and loaded its cargo openly.
Loading secretly near Kish could point to involvement by a section of
the Revolutionary Guards or one of the wealthy religious "foundations"
that operate largely outside state control.
The source of the weapons might be easier to identify if we knew
whether the primary motive behind the smuggling was political or
financial, or a bit of both. Israeli estimates put the value of the
weapons at anything between $10m and $100m. Was the recipient supposed
to pay for them, or were they a donation?
What does it all mean? The only thing we can say with confidence is
that when the full picture emerges it will be a lot more complex
than the current official version.
There are still many pieces in this jigsaw that don't fit, but Israeli
politicians have already decided what the finished picture should look
like and tailored it to reinforce Israeli policies.
The Karine A affair has already been invoked as grounds for the
overthrow of Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority, and for not
resuming the peace process.
Binyamin Netanyahu, former Israeli prime minister and probably a
future contender for power, said last week that it means there cannot
be a Palestinian state ... ever.
"With its own independent port, such a state would receive shiploads
of arms, day and night, and we would find ourselves facing a terrorist
state, armed to the teeth," he said.
Meanwhile, the Hizbullah connection can be used to push Hizbullah -
and, by extension, Lebanon and Syria - to the top of America's
anti-terrorism list.
And the Iranian connection, even if it does not really involve the
Iranian state, can be used to stymie hopes of a rapprochement between
Tehran and the west.
None of these goals will contribute anything to peace and stability in
the Middle East. But you can be sure that Israeli embassies around the
world will be working hard to promote them at select gatherings of
diplomats and journalists.
Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited
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