The specified objective of the TIPH (Temporary International Presence in Hebron) observers is “to provide a feeling of security among the Palestinians in the city of Hebron and to contribute to the renewal of normal life.”

Within an approved potential group of 160 observers, there are today 88 observers in Hebron, from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Turkey, and Italy. Some of them come from a military or police background, and some have a background working with human rights organizations. Once every three months the group publishes a situation report which is presented to the foreign ministries of the participating countries, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority.

A Joint Hebron Committee meets regularly, chaired by the head of the TIPH, in order to discuss with both sides what is happening in the field. At these meetings, the observers sit at the head of the table and the Israelis and Palestinians address the observers, not each other. IDF officers have no authority to speak directly to the Palestinians in the discussions of the committee. Everything must go through the head of the TIPH delegation, who also sets the agenda of the committee and summarizes the discussions.

According to IDF Colonel (res.) Baruch Nagar, who served until the middle of 1999 as military governor of Hebron: “It is clear from their mandate that they are in the city to serve the Palestinians. My task was to limit the damage they cause…. There was no chance that they would prove useful to us.” In practice, according to Nagar, the TIPH served as a “factor that greatly interfered. Their activities very much limited the IDF and the Jewish residents.”

According to Nagar, “in private conversations with most of the TIPH people, their tendency was to speak the truth. It was clear to them that the Palestinians were the aggressors and in conversations with us they justified the IDF actions in most incidents. But the minute that Palestinians were present at the conversation, and when they wrote their periodic reports, we came out badly. Then they spoke and wrote the opposite of what they said to us privately.”

What is the explanation for this? According to Nagar, without any connection to the worldviews of the observers, the blindness to reality of the observers resulted from a combination of personal and organizational factors. Nagar believes that on the personal level, the observers are most concerned with their own self-defense and simply feel personally threatened by the Palestinian Authority. “The observers know that the Palestinians are violent terrorists. They see this daily and are afraid of them. On the other hand, they know that the reaction of Israel to unfair criticism will be no more than an unpleasant conversation. So they prefer to disagree with us and not with the Palestinains.”

“At the organizational level, the TIPH has no interest in accusing the Palestinians of aggressiveness. Indeed, they are in Hebron in order to give the Palestinians a feeling of security. If it comes out that the Palestinians are causing the Israelis to feel insecure, how can they justify their mandate.”

According to another IDF source: “The TIPH as an organization has adopted the position of the Palestinians regarding the necessity of Israel turning over to Palestinian sovereignty all of Judea, Samaria, Gaza, and east Jerusalem.”

Sources in the security services who work with TIPH speak of the political damage it causes to Israel. The reports of the observers are distributed in the international arena, and provide more justification for adopting the position of the Palestinians among the states contributing manpower to TIPH. In one of the latest reports, the observers found it necessary to emphasize that the “Jewish neighborhoods have not yet been dismantled.”

According to Baruch Nagar, “The TIPH sees itself as a model for international observers for the entire area, and they are constantly trying to bring about the extension of their deployment to the pre-1967 border.”

From the perspective of security, according to all the sources, the presence of the observers in the city interferes with the IDF. “When IDF soldiers stop a Palestinian at a checkpoint because he appears suspicious, and they want to check his papers and see what he has in his pockets, an observer comes and begins to photograph him up close. This discourages the soldier from doing his job, because he does not want to harm the image of Israel.”

According to a senior IDF source, “One night, Palestinians inside a school opened fire on IDF soldiers in Hebron, and the army decided to go after the attackers. When the soldiers drove toward the school, they suddenly saw a car speeding from the school. Seconds before the force opened fire at the vehicle, they saw the TIPH flag on the car. The observers were inside the school at the time that the Palestinians were shooting at us.”

“On the political level,” said a senior military source,” the minute they bring international observers here, the Palestinians will simply stop relating to us as the local authority. We won’t have anyone to talk with because they will speak only to the observers.” This article ran on July 27th, 2001 in Makor Rishon

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR