her er mer om PLO, PA og CIA. USA passer på sine investeringer i
Israel/Palestina. Oslo-prosessen - som innebærer fortsatt okkupasjon og
kontroll av Vestbredden og Gaza med Arafats hjelp - er slett ikke død.
(Vidersendt med tillatelse fra Hebcom Middle East Bureau -
hebcom@actcom.co.il. Opprinnelig fikk jeg meldingen fra MSANEWS som har
kontaktadresse msanews@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu).
Hilsen Knut Rognes
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Hebcom Looks at the Press
By D. Abu Sami
An interesting article was published on March 6 in the Miami Herald
titled:
" CIA helping PLO police, with Israel's knowledge."
The Author, Mr. Tim Weiner, originally wrote this for the New York Times
Service. The article claims that the CIA has "been training the security
forces of the Palestinian Authority in the arts of espionage,
information-gathering, interrogation and other techniques of the trade."
Mr. Weiner accredits his source as being " U.S. government officials".
In the article Mr. Weiner goes on to claim that this is being done "with
Israel's knowledge" and that the CIA's counter-terrorism and
covert-operations officers "have been instructing senior and mid-level
Palestinian security officials in the United States since mid-1996."
What has long been known on the Palestinian Street is that during this
period Colonel Jabril Rajoubs special security branch sent senior level
agents to Langley for advanced training with US government organizations.
The consensus was that the FBI was training them.
Mr. Weiner adds that, "FBI agents who work at the CIA's Counter terrorist
Center have also helped train the Palestinians."
He goes on to add that the CIA "instructs its trainees in nonviolent
interrogation techniques; its lessons prohibit torture."
Ask any Palestinian whom Rajoubs or Deklan's security forces have detained
about the non-violent interrogation techniques which were used on them
while they were the guests of our brothers in the Palestinian Security
Services. As many as 16 detainees have already died under torture and
another 750 more are being held without charges in the Palestinian Gulag.
Mr. Weiner quotes "a 1963 CIA interrogation manual, recently declassified"
which "discussed the uses of physical torture as a last resort. Twenty
years later, the agency was telling foreign intelligence services that
physical torture was counterproductive, but it still instructed them in
the uses of mental torture and coercion."
Apparently, all this is behind them along with Mai Lai and the Cold War.
Today, Weiner writes, "The agency now teaches only nonviolent methods of
interrogation, which can include friendly persuasion, verbal trickery and
psychological pressure, in accordance with its own codes of conduct. Those
codes were revised in 1985 to exclude ``the use of force, mental torture,
threats, insults, or exposure to unpleasant and inhumane treatment of any
kind as an aid to interrogation.''
Mr. Werner opines that "whether these milder techniques work on suspected
terrorists -- or whether the Palestinian security services have learned
the CIA's lessons -- is questionable."
" Curt Goering, deputy executive director of Amnesty International USA,
said he had seen no improvement in the performance of the Palestinian
security forces regarding human rights over the past two years. Widespread
torture takes place in places like Gaza and Jericho, the torture is
systematic, and we haven't noticed any change in the technique or the
frequency since 1996."
The extent of CIA and American Intelligence Community penetration into the
PNA and Jewish settlements of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza is difficult to
ascertain. Over the years, American intelligence has infiltrated both
communities. This divide and conquer relationship between the CIA and the
old PLO became a model for other operations within the Jewish "radical"
community in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. In the American Consulate in
Jerusalem and in the Embassy in Tel Aviv, there is a Palestinian and a
Settler Desk, which attempts to co-ordinate information on the two
cultures for the purpose of pressuring the PA and the Israeli government
to control the more radical elements of their societies.
There has always been a very real US intelligence presence working
parallel to the Israeli Shin Beit Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. There have
also been times when this presence has worked totally independent of
either Israel or the PA. One such adventure occurred in the early 1980's
in Hebron. Members of the Waswas family (a branch of the Abu Snenen Clan)
who held American Citizenship (the father was a Doctor in Chicago) were in
a life-threatening situation because of inter-family conflicts. The
Jerusalem Conciliate was notified and dispatched two carloads of "off
duty" Marines and security personnel to extract the Palestinian American
Citizens. The Israeli Military Authority in Hebron was only informed of
the operation after the fact. This type of direct involvement in the
affairs of the Palestinians has been matched by "fact finding" excursions
of "off duty" police personal into the Jewish Settlements looking for
information on "Jewish Radicals". This is presumably done with some sort
of co-ordination between the "off duty" police and the Israeli Shein Beit.
A point in case was the "tour" of one of "New York's Finest" who, while on
"off duty status", ferreted out several settlers suspected of being
involved in radical activities inside the continental US. His visit
ultimately contributed to at least one arrest and deportation.
According to Weiner, " The CIA's ties to the Palestinian services have a
25-year history. In 1973, Yassir Arafat sent an emissary to meet secretly
with an American envoy, Vernon Walters, then the deputy director of
central intelligence, to discuss how to ``prevent radical assaults on the
early peace process'' between Arabs and Israelis".
What is implied by the logic of this statement is that, for the same
reason, the CIA also cultivated ties to the Israeli Shein Beit to prevent
radical assaults on the Oslo peace process.
He goes on to claim that "according to the memoirs of Henry Kissinger, the
former secretary of state, that Palestinian emissary was Ali Hassan
Salemeh, the security chief of Al Fatah, who was on the most-wanted list
of Israeli intelligence service for masterminding the murder of 11 Israeli
athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics. From 1973 through 1978,
Salemeh, better known as Abu Hassan, provided the United States and its
allies with tips about the assassination plots of radical Palestinian
organizations and other Arab terrorist groups."
This long history of divide and conquer had contributed to weakening the
PLO until it was not able to control the "intifeda" when it erupted in the
late 1980's. The intefeda was a reaction to the lack of action on the
part of the PLO. An entire new, home grown, Palestinian leadership
surprised the world by wresting control of large parts of Judea, Samaria,
and Gaza from the hands of the IDF. The Oslo withdrawal agreements are
only formally recognizing a situation that has existed on the ground since
the late 1980's.
It is certain that deep within the power structure of the PNA there are
hatreds and rivalries that go back decades. President Arafat is
constantly playing one group against the other in an attempt to defuse any
coup attempts before they can mature. The most recent preemptive strike
was the attempt of Arafat's Force 17 to neutralize a ranking Palestinian
General whom many felt was the most competent military mind available to
the PNA. The semi-successful attempt to remove the General was based on
the unproven accusation that he was part of a coup against Arafat.
The conspirators had allegedly planned to discredit Arafat publicly and
then replace him with someone more compatible from the "old guard"
members of the PLO. The more paranoid elements in the PA thought that
there were plans to assassinate the ailing PLO chieftain. Although the
American intelligence community's involvement in this in-fighting has
never been proven; yet there is circumstantial evidence linking American
Government officials to some embarrassing letters which were allowed to
fall into the hands of the Force 17 while in transit to the Generals
Headquarters. These letters allegedly would have incriminated one of
Arafat's former fellow terrorists, Abu Abbas, in at least one alleged
murder of an American Citizen. The reaction of the Force 17 was swift and
deadly. The Generals Chief Aid and other trusted members of his personal
staff were detained and tortured. The General himself was stripped of his
powers, retaining only his salary, titles, and his life. More CIA divide
and conquer? The extent of the infiltration and manipulation of the
Israelis and the PNA by the American intelligence community is something
that may never be fully assessed. One thing though is certain; the truth
is out there.
Hebcom Middle East Bureau
Analysis, Commentary, Information
Insight into the Middle East by the People who live there
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