Israeli Arab demonstrations after then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon went to the Temple Mount last September prompted the Palestinian Intifada, Shin Bet Chief Avi Dichter told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee yesterday.

In his semi-annual briefing to the MKs, the head of Israel’s secret service said that the deaths of Israeli Arab demonstrators and subsequent incitement by the leadership of Israeli Arabs brought about the outbreak of the hostilities in the territories.

He said that there is a “worrisome” separatist movement growing in the Israeli Arab community, for both religious and nationalist reasons. According to Dichter, MK Azmi Bishara is one of the key leaders of the nationalist movement.

He said that most Israeli Arabs regard the events of last September and October as a mistake, but there is a growing emotional identification – within legal means – with the Palestinian Authority among Israeli Arabs.

Dichter gave the MKs a tour d’horizon of the state of the Palestinian organizations involved in hostilities against Israel. He said that Tawfik Tirawi’s General Intelligence force “co-opted” the Tanzim and Force 17, which were responsible for dozens of terror attacks against targets in the West Bank and inside Israel proper. But since last month’s cease-fire arrangements brokered by CIA chief George Tenet, Tirawi’s groups have ceased their terror activities, Dichter said. Tirawi’s people have begun taking preventive action, except that they don’t put suspects in jail but rather in “hotel-like” conditions. Furthermore, he said, the Palestinians are not conducting interrogations or investigations, which means there’s a limited intelligence picture about planned terror attacks.

By April 2000, there were indications that trouble was already brewing, he said, when some rank and file members of Palestinian security organizations, such as Mohammed Dahlan’s Preventive Security force in Gaza, began conducting terrorist activity. Eventually, Dahlan began commanding those operations. But since the Tenet agreement, he said, Dahlan’s organizations has ceased involvement, except for a few individuals.

A similar phenomenon took place with regard to the Tanzim, Fatah-related youth movement, which Dichter said was under the complete command of Yasser Arafat. Two organizations that have not taken part in any of the terror activity against Israel have been Jibril Rajoub’s Preventive Security force in the West Bank and the National Security force.

Dichter surprised the committee by saying that he favored a fence between Israel and the West Bank, similar to the one between Israel and Gaza.

A Jewish terror cell, not an underground

A Jewish terror cell is already operating in the territories, Dichter told the MKs, but he refrained from referring to it as a Jewish underground similar to the 27-member conspiracy that existed in the early 1980s and was eventually arrested by the Shin Bet.

He said that the cell has committed three shooting attacks on Palestinians in the Ramallah and Halhoul areas. One Palestinian was killed and four others wounded, he said.

Up until a few months ago there was a large measure of self-restraint on the part of Jews in the territories, but there has been an upsurge of anti-Palestinian activity, mostly in the form of vandalism, he said. The violent line in the settlement movement is led by members of Kach and Kahane Hai, as well as others in the radical right.

Dichter said that he handed over to the police the investigation into the explosion in Kach activist Noam Federman’s car, after reaching the conclusion that there were no “strategic” arms involved. The weapons found in the car on Monday were mostly “the type of equipment reservists who don’t respect the law take home from the army,” including smoke grenades, stun grenades and flares. He said the explosion was probably the result of poor handling of the material.

Grim numbers

Dichter summed up the Intifada’s statistics for the MKs, telling them that since the outbreak of the Intifada 136 Jews have been killed and 1,308 wounded by attacks, while 531 Palestinians have died, with 68 of them under the age of 16. This article ran in HaAretz on July 18, 2001

In Nablus, Jenin, and Gaza,they are preparing for war.

Officials in the Palestinian Authority fear that an Israeli invasion of PA territory will happen in a matter of days.

Their assumption is that Israel is waiting for an opportunity, like a large-scale terror attack similar to the one at the Dolphinarium, in order to recapture Palestinian territory and destroy the PA.

Commanders of Fatah and Hamas, and Palestinian army commanders as well, have already begun military preparations to frustrate an incursion of Israeli forces into PA territory. In Nablus, for example, they have begun manufacturing weapons, including mortars, and a warehouse for ammunition and weapons has been established.

According to Palestinian sources, Al-Najah University, considered a Hamas stronghold and an institution that has produced 16 suicide bombers so far, was closed after the attack at the Dolphinarium because of fear of occupation or bombardment, and only this week was it reopened. The sources also report that in Nablus, central figures in the city, including Hamas men, have been placed under heavy guard, and that the operational offices of the security organizations have been evacuated, along with civilian offices.

The main points of the operational plan in case of an Israeli invasion of PA territory were published in special Fatah and Hamas releases which were recently given to civilian leaders and commanders of the organizations, calling on them to be ready for combat.

The introduction to Fatah’s plan reads as follows: “The coming days are fateful, and we must be at a level of peak readiness in light of the possibility of an invasion by the Zionist enemy into some of the lands of the liberated homeland, in the framework of the criminal “Field of Thorns” [IDF code name] plan… The role of the fighters will be not just to stop the Israeli forces, but also to teach the enemy a different lesson than that of the children of the stones, bigger than that of the children of the RPG.”

The instructions that appear in the plan include the necessary preparations for the struggle and the rules of behavior and engagement against the Israeli army. The instructions reveal that the Palestinians are preparing for a prolonged conflict, based on the assumption that the Israeli forces will stay in Palestinian territory for a long period of time. Alongside details of the rules of combat, the plan also includes instructions on civilian matters such as medical care and food supplies. In any case, according to the directives, all activities must be carried out in full coordination with the branches of the Palestinian Authority.

Selections from the pamphlet released this week:

Operational instructions:

1. Members of Fatah and Hamas are requested to prepare “thousands of firebombs, of the ‘Molotov cocktail’ and ‘napalm’ variety with the help of experts.” Hamas instructs its people to “amass hand-grenades and firebombs and hide gas balloons and belts of explosives on roads and quality targets.” Hamas also directs its explosives experts to instruct the organization’s activists in the preparation of bombs, and calls on its people to prepare belts of explosives that will be given, when needed, “to any fighter prepared to die a martyr’s death among the enemy’s people.”

2. Preparations for blocking roads includes creating “roadblocks and obstacles by placing car wrecks, boulders, and containers on the sides of roads where tanks are expected to pass,” so that they can quickly be placed on the road when the Israeli invasion begins.

Instructions for combat:

1. Ammunition should be used sparingly. Using light weapons against tanks and APCs is forbidden; these should be attacked only with firebombs. The use of light weapons will be to attack foot patrols.

2. Strategic points should be manned by fighters and “by anyone who wants to die a martyr’s death in order to block the advance of the occupation army.”

3. An additional clause in the instructions for combat relates to planting bombs on the sides of roads.

Intelligence and security:

1. Teams of lookouts will for formed to spot movements of the Israeli army in areas where attacks are anticipated. The lookouts will report to headquarters while being wary of rumors and basing reports on eyewitnesses alone. All information should be checked with several sources, and only then should the roads be closed. [… ]

The article appeared on July 13, in Yediot Aharonot

Just a few weeks after Ma’ariv published my colleague Ben Caspit’s exclusive story about Arafat’s instructions to kill settlers, the Arabic translation of the story was placed on the desk of Mohammed Dahlan, commander of the Preventive Security Service in the Gaza Strip. And he, how could he not, got angry.

“I don’t even want to respond to that. It is not connected to me. If you, at the newspaper, think that Arafat reprimanded me for trying to arrest Abdullah Shami, whereas at the time I was with Arafat in Portugal, then write whatever you want. Anyway you write only what Sharon wants you to write.”

Question: And yet, I am asking whether Arafat gave instructions to kill settlers?

“Kill? There is no such thing. Only in your dreams. The chairman’s instructions about the cease-fire are very clear and have not changed.”

Question: But it is enough for people among you to understand from Arafat that it is permissible to attack settlers.

“They do not have to understand anything at all. Our people do not need instructions from the chairman. As soon as they see the GSS and IDF killing and abducting people, they don’t care about the chairman’s instructions. They want to take revenge.”

Question: But you have to admit that the settlers have become your main target.

“Whoever wants to take revenge does not distinguish between a settler and a non-settler, and I am no longer trying to persuade the settlers or the people in Israel. For six years I tried to convince you and it didn’t help. Now the entire people in Israel wants war. You want war? All right then. What can we do, then?”

Question: Do you really believe that all the people in Israel want war?

“Most of the people in Israel. Maybe they don’t want a world war, but they treat the Palestinian people and the Palestinian Authority as an enemy.”

Question: Is it perhaps because most of the Palestinian people view the Israelis as enemies?

“I don’t think so. Every day I see that the people here want to do business with Israel and ask for exit permits.”

Question: Then there is a contradiction in what you are saying. On the one hand you are saying the Palestinians want to take revenge and on the other hand they want to do business with Israel.

“Some of them. But at this time, most of the people here have the impression that the IDF wants to destroy the Palestinian people, and they react accordingly.”

Question: Why did you boycott some of the security coordination meetings?

“When the chairman instructs me to attend, I go. But these meetings are not important. We can sit [and talk] like that for two years. Up until now that Israeli government simply does not want to end the violence because it does not want to address the real issues. If Sharon wanted, as soon as he lifted the closure, opened the Allenby Bridge and the airport at Rafah, people would have a reason to stop the violence.

“But if we continue to be locked up in the huge prison called the Gaza Strip, then there is no difference as far as we’re concerned whether we live or die. What is the difference between living in Gaza now or dying in the Intifada? It is the same thing.”

Question: I have one simple question to put to you. Why can seven days not go by without any violence and without the firing of one shot, so that we can move on to the next stage?

“There cannot be even one [such] day. It is like giving a small child the opportunity to prevent any agreement between us. After nine months of violence, many people here have lost brothers or sons. We are interested in stopping the violence, and we also have the ability to do so, but it is also connected to your behavior, when you kill and abduct people from Area

You tell me, how can I go to the Palestinian people and tell them that we have made progress towards peace, when this week alone 17 homes were demolished in Rafah and more houses in Shuafat.”

Question: But this week there was also a suicide bomber who came to Afula. Had he blown himself up, everything would have fallen apart.

“As far as I am concerned, don’t let anyone enter Israel. But you think that what the IDF is doing in Gaza and the West Bank prevents a suicide bomber from getting to Tel Aviv? 99% of the suicide operations took place during the closure. The closure is only intended as punishment for the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people.”

Question: I will ask again, why can the fire and attacks not be stopped for seven days?

“You explain to me how this can be done.”

Question: You have 40,000 armed soldiers and policemen.

“Tell me how that is done on the ground, operationally speaking, when I cannot even get to Rafah with my officers. And furthermore, when you continue to kill, why would it be in my best interest to take action?”

Question: In 1996 you knew how to completely stop the attacks.

“That is true. Because then the whole world was helping us. I could move freely. And I also had a political interest there. What is your Sharon giving us now? He is giving us a closure.”

Question: If the quiet would be maintained for seven days, Israel would begin lifting the closure.

“Is Sharon capable of giving us seven days of quiet without killing us? Can he ensure that the settlers do not kill and do not abduct?”

Question: He can.

“That is not true. Not a single day goes by without someone being killed or wounded on our side.”

Question: Your deputy, Rashid Abu Shabak, is distributing weapons and mortars to everyone.

“When were mortars fired?”

Question: Just two days ago, into an Israeli community.

“We pledged to stop with the mortars and we are continuing with that. We succeeded in decreasing the firing, and we will stop it entirely. But you continue to demolish homes. What do you want of us?”

Question: Islamic Jihad and Hamas continue to perpetrate attacks in Israel. Do you understand that another attack like the Dolphinarium will cause everything to fall apart?

“We will make every effort so that such an attack does not recur. Believe me, we don’t want the Israeli people to pay the price the Palestinian people are paying because of the IDF attacks. I hope that nothing happens in Tel Aviv, but the situation is a difficult one.

“I assure you that if tomorrow morning the Palestinian people wake up and find that after nine months, the IDF has pulled back its APCs, opened the roads and the airport and is allowing people to travel from Nablus to Ramallah, do you know what will happen? That will be a positive shock, and it will not harm your security. The IDF can do that. Otherwise, even Sharon and Arafat will not be able to pull this wagon out of the mud.”

This article appeared in Maariv on July 13, 2001