Last Modified: 26 Jan 2011 01:27 GMT
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Israeli security forces were said to have 'friendly' relations with the Palestinians [GALLO/GETTY]
The Palestinian security forces engage in extensive co-operation with their Israeli counterparts, according to US documents released by the WikiLeaks website.
One cable quotes Yuval Diskin, the head of Shabak, Israel's security service, as saying his agency has "friendly, professional and sincere" information exchanges with the Palestinian Authority (PA), which governs the occupied West Bank.
The comments, first reported by Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter on Tuesday, were reportedly included in a US note documenting a conversation between Diskin and James Cunningham, the US ambassador to Israel, in January 2010.
Another wire records complaints from those responsible for security in the Palestinian Authority about the "one-sided Israeli approach".
Hazim Atallah, the West Bank's most senior police official, expressed frustration "with far more information flowing from the Palestinian side to Israel than is received in return".
Confidential relations
Said Abu Ali, the minister of interior in the Palestinian provisional government, emphasised that it was "necessary" that the security collaboration with the Israelis remained confidential.
"Keep them [the contacts] out of the public eye," the wire quotes him as saying.
The documents released by WikiLeaks appeared to support the allegations in the largest-ever leak of confidential documents related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which have given examples of other instances where the Palestinian Authority has worked closely with Israel.
The documents uncovered by Al Jazeera reveal an exchange in 2005 between the PA and Israel on a plan to kill a Palestinian fighter in the Gaza Strip. Others tell how the PA and Israeli officials discussed collaboration between the Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade, the armed wing of Fatah, and Israeli security forces.
The leaked US documents, reported by Dagens Nyheter, also revealed that the Palestinians handed over a so-called Qassam rocket to the Israeli defence forces in early 2010. The Palestinian security forces had seized the home-made rocket in conjunction with the arrest and interrogation of two members of Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip.
'Operational' meetings
According to a document said to be drafted at the US embassy in Israel in 2005, Israeli and Palestinian security services had agreed to meet every 10 to 14 days at "operational level", and to follow up with meetings "in the field".
In a later cable, from 2007, a Palestinian intelligence officer said dozens of suspected "terrorists" had been detained in the recent past and that "confiscated ammunition and explosives routinely were handed over to Israeli military".
Dagens Nyheter further cited a 2008 document saying the Israeli army had handed over a list of suspected "terrorists" to the Palestinian Authority. The parties then agreed that the Palestinians should report back to Israel on what actions they had been taking.
Another document revealed that Israeli and Palestinian security services met in December 2008, during Israel's war on Gaza, agreeing that a very close security co-operation was important to quell unrest in the West Bank.
The parties stressed the importance of keeping the meeting secret, "in the view of the sensitivity of security co-operation at times of Palestinian anger over the events in Gaza".
Documents include handwritten notes of 2005 exchange between PA and Israel on plan to kill Palestinian fighter in Gaza.
David Poort Last Modified: 25 Jan 2011 20:08 GMT
Among the documents are notes, handwfritten in Arabic, revealing an exchange in 2005 between the PA and Israel on a plan to kill a Palestinian fighter named Hassan al-Madhoun, who lived in the Gaza strip.
Al-Madhoun (born 1973) was a leading figure within the Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade, a movement aligned to Fatah, which at that stage still held power in Gaza. Al-Madhoun had been accused by Israel of planning deadly bombings at Israel’s Ashdod port and the Qarni crossing between Gaza and Israel.
In a joint committee meeting on fugitives in mid-2005 in Tel Aviv between Shaul Mofaz, the then-Israeli defence minister, and Nasser Youssef, the PA minister of interior, the PA was asked to kill al-Madhoun.
Mofaz: “[…] Hassan Madhoun, we know his address and Rasheed Abu Shabak [chief of the Preventative Security Organisation in Gaza] knows that. Why don't you kill him? Hamas fired [Qassam rockets] because of the elections and this is a challenge to you and a warning to Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas, the PA president].”Less then a month after this meeting, on November 1, 2005, al-Madhoun was killed in his car by a missile fired from an Israeli Apache helicopter over the skies of Gaza. The attack also killed a wanted Hamas activist and wounded three other people.
Youssef: “We gave instructions to Rasheed [Abu Shabak] and will see.”
Mofaz: “Since we spoke, he has been planning an operation, and that's four weeks ago, and we know that he wants to strike Qarni or Erez [another border crossing between Gaza and Israel]. He is not Hamas and you can kill him.”
Youssef: “We work, the country is not easy, our capabilities are limited, and you haven't offered anything.”
Mofaz: “I understand that nothing has been accomplished in the [Gaza] Strip.”
The very next day, Mofaz, who by that time was in Washington, pledged to ease the lives of Palestinians and to pursue peacemaking with President Abbas.
"We want to deal with President Abbas," Mofaz said after meeting with Condoleezza Rice, the then-US Secretary of State, before going to the White House to confer with Stephen Hadley, the then-national security adviser.
"We are waiting to see how the Palestinian Authority will deal with terrorist groups," the Israeli minister said.
The Palestine Papers appear to reveal two primary motives for the Palestinian Authority’s collaboration with Israel and their crackdown on dissent.
Firstly, it serves to maintain the movement’s political supremacy at a time when it is being questioned. Secondly, it is an attempt to signal to the US that it wants to remain a trusted partner in peace talks, regardless the costs.
Saeb Erekat, the PA’s chief negotiator acknowledged the cost of gaining US approval and Israeli trust, in a meeting on September 17, 2009 with David Hale, the deputy US Middle East envoy.
Erekat: We have had to kill Palestinians to establish one authority, one gun and the rule of law. We continue to perform our obligations. We have invested time and effort and killed our own people to maintain order and the rule of law.It is not clear as to which killings Erekat is referring to but the discussion about the plan to kill al-Madhoun is just one example of how, since the death of Yasser Arafat, Fatah’s policy of resistance to Israel has become one of collaboration.
The Palestine Papers show how the Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade, once the spearhead of action against the Israeli occupation, has been transformed into a body that helps maintaining it.
During the Annapolis talks in 2008, Ahmed Qurei, the former Palestinian prime minister also known as Abu Ala, and his Israeli counterpart Tzipi Livni, discussed collaboration between the brigade and the Israeli security forces.
“Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade is part of the Fatah movement and they agreed to be part of the current security apparatus, even though this was not my position when I was a prime minister. I wanted the Brigade to remain as it was to confront Hamas,” Qurei told Livni.
With the common goal of destroying Hamas, the Palestine Papers reveal the extent to which the PA, the US and Israel were willing to work together, and the extent to which the PA linked the fate of Hamas with its own political survival.
“[…] reaching an agreement is a matter of survival for us. It’s the way to defeat Hamas,” Erekat told Marc Otte, the EU negotiator, in June 2008.
Earlier that year, on January 22, Qurei told Livni; “We’ll defeat Hamas if we reach an agreement, and this will be our response to their claim that gaining back our land can be achieved through resistance only.”
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