Palestine Leaks: PA Killed Its Own People to Establish “Gun Authority”

Palestine Leaks: PA Killed Its Own People to Establish “Gun Authority”

26/01/2011 New documents revealed on Al-Jazeera television showed an extensive clandestine cooperation between Israel’s security services and those of the Palestinian Authority what drove Washington and Tel Aviv to confess the “great” role of the PA intelligence that admitted it assassinated Palestinians for establishing “one authority one gun and the rule of law.”

The “Palestine papers” uncovered that Israel and the PA held various meetings on security issues. One document details how Israel and the PA planned together an assassination of a commander of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, part of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement still loyal to the idea of armed struggle against Israel and refusing to accept the new Fatah and PA strategy of peaceful negotiations..

Former Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz demanded in 2005 that Hassan al-Madhoun, an operative of the military wing of Hamas, be assassinated. Then-interior minister of the Palestinian Authority Nasser Yusuf apparently replied that orders were given to the PA chief of security in Gaza at that time, Rashid Abu Shabak, to take care of the matter.

Weeks later, on 1 November 2005, Al-Madhoun was later killed by an Israeli bomb attack along with Izzeddine Al-Qassam brigades’ military commander Fawzi Abu al-Qarea.

And in a document dated 17 April, 2009, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat is reported as telling US official David Hale: "We have had to kill Palestinians to establish one authority one gun and the rule of law."

Others revelations from the Palestinian Papers outline major concessions Palestinians offered during talks, which were rejected by Israel. They include:

· a formal offer to allow Israel to annex all but one Jewish settlements built in occupied East Jerusalem
· an international committee to take over Jerusalem's Haram Al-Sharif (Temple Mount), which houses Masjid Qubbat As-Sakhrah (Dome of the Rock) and Al-Aqsa Mosque - Islam's third holiest site
· limiting the number of Palestinian refugees returning to 100,000 over 10 years
· establishing a special unit of Palestinian security forces to battle “terrorists” with the consent of Israel, and they’d receive special advanced weaponry
· a meeting between Erekat and U.S. Army Lieutenant General Keith Dayton to influence Israel’s security forces to minimize its entries to Palestinian cities so that PA forces could maintain credibility among people. Dayton promised an agreement that Israeli entries would only occur under cover of night
· Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad opposed the opening of Gaza’s border crossings, fearing that this would be interpreted as a victory for Hamas, who rules the Gaza Strip
· PA considered a British proposal for dealing with the smuggling tunnels on the Gaza-Egypt border.

Al-Jazeera and the Guardian began revealing on Sunday more than 1,600 documents detailing negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

In one of the security coordination meetings between Israel and the PA, Saeb Erekat said that the PA was forced to kill their "own people" in order to prove that it was establishing law and order in territories under its control. Erekat was referring in this instance to an incident in Qalqilyah in which Palestinian police killed six Hamas members, and in which two of the police officers were killed in the firefight.

Speaking on Tuesday, Erekat accused al-Jazeera of mounting “the most severe smear campaign in the history of journalism”.
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