Vindication: After 20 years of Vilification for Reporting the Hamas-PA Armed Collusion, Documentation emerges

This week, the respected Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs issued a policy paper which documented how the PSF, the Palestinian Security Forces, which reports to the Palestinian Authority, has been consistently arming the Hamas and other terror groups for the past 15 years, despite public statements of the Israeli military establishment, which has consistently reported for all of these years that the PA was fighting Hamas and other terror groups

The report can be perused at:
http://jcpa.org/article/hamas-arafat-intifada/

Except that our agency broke this story, almost 20 years ago, and we paid quite a price for it , with the credibility and integrity of our office called into question.

Here is the background: With the genesis of the Oslo process, the question of how the nascent Palestinian Authority would deal with Palestinian entities which did not approve the Oslo accord became a focus for the press.

There were moments when Arafat met with the western media and displayed remarkable candor as to his real policy of collision with Hamas.

That occurred in the evening before Arafat received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, together with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin, in December 1994

I was there to report this newsworthy event.

When Peres and Rabin conducted a briefing on the day before they received the Nobel Peace Prize, I asked Peres and Rabin if Arafat and the new PA had fulfilled their commitment to crush Hamas terrorists.

Peres and Rabin indicated that Arafat had done so and would continue to do so.

A few hours later, however, Arafat held his own press conference. I asked the same question, as to whether the PLO would indeed crush the Hamas, Arafat’s response: “I do not understand the question. Hamas are our brothers. I will handle them in my way”.

And Arafat did handle the Hamas – by bringing them into his armed forces.

In April,1995, Arafat’ security forces announced that they would provide Hamas with arms. We found this out from a late night newscast on the IBA Voice of Israel newscast that was never again repeated, which reported that Arafat would licence weapons for Hamas.

In May, 1995, our agency helped a major news agency to produce a film on how the nascent Palestinian Authority did arm the Hamas, with weapons that the PA had received from Israel.

Our crew drove to Gaza, and filmed Hamas leaders o the record: Nasser Yosef, Razi Jabali and Mahmad Zahar These senior Hamas leaders confirmed their military alliance with the Palestinian Authority’s armed forces.

Returning to the Knesset the next day, We shared our findings with the then- Minister of Public Security, Moshe Shachal, who said that he did not believe our findings.

Walking around the Knesset with a TV camera, we shared our findings about the Hamas- PA arms connection with Meretz Knesset members Naomi Hazan and Ron Cohen, who both said that they were shocked to hear what we had discovered and both said that our findings could mean the end of the peace process.

Then- Likud opposition leader Benyamin Netanyahu expressed similar shock.

However, the film never saw the light of day.

Peres and Rabin personally contacted the corporate offices of the TV network where the film was to be aired and it was never aired.

Peres and Rabin told the news executives that we had fabricated the interviews, because I wear a skull cap and live in Efrat.

However, over the past 20 years,despite continuing vilification from the successive offices of the prime minister, defense minister and foreign minister, our agency has continued to cover PA-Hamas military collusion, publishing in Defense News, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Middle East Forum, the Jerusalem Post and Makor Rishon and a few Jewish papers.

Now the truth has emerged.