The Israel Defense Forces has recently completed a new “White Paper,” which criticizes the Palestinian Authority and its chairman, Yasser Arafat. The document forms a basis for an international information campaign aimed at undermining the PA’s global image.

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, who learned of the IDF’s initiative from Ha’aretz, is adamantly opposed to the document. His bureau said, “The army’s role is to defend the country, and not to write books or undertake such information campaigns.”

Peres discussed the matter with Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, who said he did not approve of the White Paper or any other such propaganda campaign against the Palestinians.

The new white paper is an update of a similar document released in November 2000 under the Barak government, and written at the start of the Al-Aqsa Intifada. The new edition contains many more details of the institutional and personal corruption of the PA and its officials, as well as reproductions of inciting articles that have appeared in the PA’s media, and photographs of terrorist attacks carried out since the last edition was completed.

The document also contains a chapter on the PA’s abrogation of human rights. The new White Paper was put together by IDF Colonel Eran Lerman, assistant to the head of the IDF’s manpower research department, Colonel Amos Gilad.

A source in the Prime Minister’s Office said yesterday that the document’s date of release would have to be carefully weighed, depending of the Palestinians’ behavior in the immediate future, as well as other factors. The revelation of the personal corruption within the PA, in particular, raises a problem, since many PA officials have business links inside Israel.

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