Has the PA Failed to Fulfill Its Commitments Under the Hebron Accord?

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July 28, 1997

The Israel Government Press Office released a comprehensive 35-page report assessing Israeli and Palestinian compliance with the Hebron Accord. The report is being issued to mark six months since the signing and implementation of the agreement in January 1997. Copies of the report are available at the Government Press Office, tel: (02) 623-3385, or on the internet site of the Prime Minister’s Office (www.pmo.gov.il) in the policy papers/fact sheet section.

Israeli Compliance: The report notes that since the signing of the Hebron Accord, Israel has fulfilled all of its commitments. Israeli forces redeployed in Hebron. Israel approved the first stage of the further redeployment from the West Bank, released Palestinian women prisoners, resumed negotiations with the PA on outstanding Interim Agreement issues and offered to resume final status talks.

Palestinian Security Violations: According to the report, the PA has violated the fundamental security provisions of the Hebron accord. Rather than contain disturbances, the Palestinian police organized riots in Hebron in March-April 1997 and June-July 1997 and failed to contain Palestinians who surged towards the Jewish Quarter. In many cases, the PA paid youths 30 to 50 shekels per day for taking part in riots and attacking Israeli soldiers. The PA has deployed 1,500 policemen in Hebron, which is nearly four times the 400 allowed, and it has armed them with weapons forbidden by the agreement.

Palestinian Violations of the Note for Record: The report notes that the PA has failed to fulfill any of its 4 obligations contained in the Note for the Record: amending the Covenant, combating terror, reducing the size of its police force and restricting its governmental activity to areas under its control.

1. Failure to Change the PLO Covenant – The Palestinians have not taken any steps toward completing the amendment process. To date, no new version of the Covenant has yet been submitted to the Palestinian National Council.

2. Failure to Fight Terror and Prevent Violence – One of the PA’s gravest violations of the Note for the Record has been its failure to combat terror, an obligation which the Note breaks down into six specific measures required of the PA:

2a. Strengthening Security Cooperation – The PA broke off security cooperation with Israel earlier this year, despite warnings of impending terrorist activity. Palestinian security officials refused to meet their Israeli counterparts and refrained from exchanging intelligence information. Recently, security cooperation has improved slightly, but the PA has thus far refused to restore the level that existed previously.

2b. Incitement to Violence Against Israel – Senior PA officials have repeatedly engaged in incitement to violence against Israel. They have praised Hamas and the intifada, threatened Israel with war, and accused Israel of injecting Palestinians with the AIDS virus and poisoning Palestinian food products. More than 30 such statements made by senior PA officials are documented in the report.

2c. Combat Systematically and Effectively Terrorist Organizations and Infrastructure – The PA has taken no steps to outlaw terror groups, whose infrastructure remains intact. At a secret meeting held in Gaza on the night of March 9, 1997, Arafat met with the heads of Hamas, the DFLP and the PFLP, who left the meeting with the understanding to renew terror against Israel. Eleven days later, 3 Israelis died in a Hamas bombing in Tel Aviv on March 21, 1997.

In mid-July 1997 it became clear that the Palestinian police have been actively involved in terror. Israeli intelligence has confirmed that Asst.-Cmdr. Jihad Masimi of the PA police in Nablus has ordered attacks, that there are several terror cells in the Palestinian police, and that there are strong indications that Palestinian Police Chief Ghazi Jabali is involved.

2d. Apprehension, Prosecution and Punishment of Terrorists – Terrorists have not been tried by the PA for terror activity against Israel in the past 6 months. The PA has drafted numerous terrorists to serve in the ranks of its security services, including at least 23 wanted for the murder of Israelis. The PA Police Commander has acknowledged that more than 150 members of Hamas and the PFLP are currently working in key positions in the Palestinian police. Since the signing of the Hebron Accord, the PA has released dozens of terrorists from detention, including: Muhammad Khawaja, a senior Islamic Jihad leader who planned the January 1995 Beit Lid bombing; Nabil Sharihi, a member of Islamic Jihad who helped prepare the bomb used in the April 1995 Kfar Darom attack in which 7 Israelis and 1 American were killed; Imjad Hinawi – a Hamas member who took part in the murder of 17-year old David Boim in Beit El in May 1996.

2e. Transfer of Terror Suspects to Israel – On March 31, 1997, Israel submitted 31 requests to the PA for the transfer of terror suspects. Thus far, the PA has failed to hand over any of the suspects to Israel. Of the 31 terror suspects whose transfer is being sought by Israel, 11 are either serving in the Palestinian police or are in the process of joining its ranks. Among those being sought are: Ibrahim Alkam, Abdel Nasser Alkaisi and Ibrahim Hani, wanted for the murder of Etta Tzur and her 12-year old son Ephraim on December 11, 1996; Bassam Issa – behind the terror attack in Jerusalem on October 9, 1994 in which two people were killed; and Hisham Salim Dib, who was behind the March 4, 1996 Dizengoff suicide bombing which killed 13 people.

2f. Confiscation of illegal firearms – No public campaigns or major sweeps have been undertaken by the PA to confiscate illegal weapons. As a result, virtually none of the tens of thousands of weapons circulating in the autonomous areas have been collected by the PA in the past six months. Five illegally armed groups continue to operate in the PA areas:

Hamas;
Islamic Jihad;
Fatah;
PFLP and
DFLP.
Smuggling, illicit production and lax PA enforcement have led to a rise in the number of illegal weapons in the PA areas.

3. Size of Palestinian Police – The PA has deployed more than 30,000 policemen in the West Bank and Gaza, exceeding the agreed upon limit by over 6,000, or more than 25%.

4. Restriction of PA governmental activity to Areas Under its Control – The PA is active in Jerusalem in spheres ranging from education to health to religious affairs. Numerous PA offices such as the Orient House, the Religious Affairs Ministry and the Education Ministry are operating in the city. Plainclothesmen from four Palestinian security forces are currently active in the eastern part of the city, operating on its main thoroughfares and on the Temple Mount. They conduct detentions, intelligence-gathering, criminal investigations and enforce orders issued by PA Chairman Arafat.

Excerpts from the weekly Friday sermon delivered by Palestinian Authority [PA] appointed “Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine”, Sheikh Ekrima Sabri, at the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on July 11, 1997.

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

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July 21, 1997

“The sermon was broadcast on the PA’s official radio station, Voice of Palestine.

Oh Allah, destroy America, for she is ruled by Zionist Jews…

“Allah will paint the White House black! Clinton is fulfilling his father’s will to identify with Israel…

“The Muslims say to Britain, to France and to all the infidel nations that Jerusalem is Arab. We shall not respect anyone else’s wishes regarding her. The only relevant party is the Islamic nation, which will not allow infidel nations to interfere…

“The homes the Jews are building will become Arab property, with Allah’s help…

“Allah shall take revenge on behalf of his prophet against the colonialist settlers who are sons of monkeys and pigs…. Forgive us, Muhamad, for the acts of these sons of monkeys and pigs, who sought to harm your sanctity.”

Controversy Sells: Jerusalem’s Hasmonean Tunnel a Hot Tourist Spot

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

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July 21, 1997

Nearly 10 months after Palestinians waged a bloody campaign against Israel for opening the Hasmonean exit to Jerusalem’s Western Wall tunnel, the site has become one of the country’s hottest tourist attractions for Jews, Christians and, yes, Arabs. Visitors can’t help but notice the obvious:

“People are seeing for themselves that the Palestinian claim (that the Hasmonean tunnel goes beneath the Temple Mount, home to Muslim and Jewish holy sites) does not hold water anymore,” said Arik Bar Chen, head of Israel’s foreign press department who occasionally takes diplomats and journalists on tours of the tunnel. “Nobody’s claiming anymore that it goes under the Temple Mount.”

Still, many in the Palestinian establishment refuse to acknowledge this publicly, including the Islamic Wakf in eastern Jerusalem, which warned Israel that the opening would spur violence. “The tunnel was built on the blood of Arabs and Muslims and our rights,” Wakf director Adnan Husseini told the Middle East News Service on July 11. “The file (on this issue) is still open.”

Several Israeli guards currently man the Hasmonean exit on the Via Dolorosa, but mainly for show. The tunnel today is mobbed only by tourists. There has been no violence here since last September, when the opening sparked riots that killed 15 Israelis and 70 Palestinians in the most heated battles since the Intifada.

“The Palestinians were picking at straws at the time, searching for any cause to get the people behind the flag,” said Bar Chen.

Based on misinformation regarding the tunnel’s proximity to the Temple Mount – spread by the Palestinian Authority and fanned by erroneous news media reporting – the tunnel opening became the last straw at a time of growing frustration amongst Palestinians towards the stalled peace process. What started with Arab youths hurling stones off the Temple Mount at Jews praying at the Western Wall turned to bloodshed as PA police opened fire on Israeli soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

“Fifteen (Israeli) boys died, and for what?” asked Fegi Kahane, who has led tours through the Western Wall tunnels since the mid-1980s. “Fabrications and terrible lies.” After the 1967 Six Day War, Israel began work on the tunnel to expose the western retaining wall to the Second Temple. Only about 20 percent of the Western Wall, 67 meters, is visible from the Western Wall Plaza. A single tunnel entrance was opened beside the plaza in 1985.

In 1988, the government opened an exit through the Hasmonean tunnel in the Muslim Quarter that was closed one hour later due to Arab rioting. With the new exit, visitors no longer have to double back to the plaza after reaching the end.

“Three to four times as many tourists use the tunnel today,” said Arye Banner, an official with the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, responsible for the tourist sites in the Old City. He has taken scores of foreign diplomats through the tunnel since September.

Ironically, in February 1996, Sheikh Abdel Azzim Salhab, head of the Islamic Wakf, warned that: “The opening of such a tunnel will lead to confrontations and disturbances which will severely hurt the city’s economy….”

Now, waiting up to four months to get a ticket, more than 1,000 people view the tunnel each day, paying about $13 for a guided tour. Demand is so high that the tunnel is often kept open until midnight, with groups of 30 shuttled along the route every 20 minutes. While the majority are Jewish, Banner says that Palestinians and visitors from Arab countries come every day.

“The new exit has been good for everyone – good for us, good for visitors who want to touch history and good for (Palestinians) who work and live there,” added Banner.

Jerry Dheodorie, an agent with Lawrence Tours in eastern Jerusalem who books tunnel tours for primarily Arabs, says the situation is less than cordial. A group of his Arab friends, who bought tickets, were recently turned away for refusing to wear kippas, he claimed. “I doubt that they require non-Arabs to wear kippas,” he said.

Banner denies that anyone has been refused entry. “We ask everyone to out on a kippah, but no one will tell them to leave if they don’t wear one,” he said.

Local Arab merchants vigorously deny that they have benefited from the increased traffic, claiming that guides swiftly usher tourists back to the Jewish Quarter.

Old City resident Barnea Selavan, who led the first tour through the exit last September, is an exception. Running tours every Friday, he directs his groups to a nearby refreshment-souvenir store called “Step Back in Time 2000 Years,” run by an Arab friend named Mike.

Mike complains that they buy nothing but Cokes. The dozen or so adjacent shopkeepers, who striked for two weeks in September to protest the tunnel opening, claim they too have suffered since September.

“No tourists exit the tunnel except the Jews, and they don’t buy from Arabs,” said the owner of the Via Dolorosa Souvenir Shop, who sells crosses, kippas and turbins.

According to Selavan, while tension over the tunnel has eased, rage is rising in the Old City amongst Arab residents. In recent weeks, he said, Arabs have been intentionally “bumping into Jews” and “casing” the Western Wall Plaza as if they are preparing for violence.

Another Arab merchant near the new exit, fuming over the tunnel opening and the Israeli actions, warns: “There is a big war gonna happen and I pray for a big war. That’s the only way to banish them.”

Now the peace process is stalled again. With the tunnel controversy apparently cleared, Palestinians are focusing their attention on other flash points – Har Homa and Hebron.

Israel’s 1967 Close Call

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

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July 21, 1997

Six weeks after the Six Day War a U.S. – U.S.S.R. resolution concerning the peace was rejected by the Arabs, thus saving Israel from a political disaster potentially undoing the military victory.

Israel’s immediate post-war euphoria may well have contributed to the near disaster. It produced a Cabinet June 19 position furnished to the U.S., giving the Sinai to Egypt, most of the Golan to Syria and leaving West Bank issues to be negotiated.

Friday, July 20,1967 found Israel’s Foreign Minister Abba Eban in “one of the most embarrassing discussions that ever took place between the United States and Israel” when Arthur Goldberg, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., revealed the draft resolution he and Gromyko had agreed on. [All Abba Eban quotations are from his 1992 book “Personal Witness”]. All parties were to immediately withdraw their forces from territory occupied after June 4 and were to immediately acknowledge their right to maintain an independent national state and to live in peace and security.

Eban “vehemently” objected that this would give up all the positive results to date since “withdrawal of our forces was no longer to be conducted in peace with secure boundaries”. The word “Israel” was not in the draft, “the Arab states would have no difficulty in making a general statement and then claiming its inapplicability to Israel”. It was “Kosygin’s call for unconditional withdrawal against which the U.S. and Israel had battled successfully in the United Nations…. It was a terrifying moment for me when all of the gains of the June and July sessions appeared to be slipping away, not as a result of enemy pressure, but as a consequence of an American ambition to achieve an accord with Russia.”

The Gromyko-Goldberg draft was the Soviet formula minus provisions for Israeli war reparations to the Arab states and condemnation of Israel, a compromise Secretary of State Dean Rusk, a few days before, characterized as trading “a horse for a rabbit”. The horse was Israeli withdrawal and the rabbit what Israel would receive.

As Eban’s meeting with Goldberg was about to end in an “indignant departure”, Goldberg received the message that Egypt and Libya would not accept a resolution acknowledging the rights of all the states in the area.

While the Arab rejection of the proposed agreement was publicized, Israel’s severe negative reaction was not reported. AIPAC’s Near East Report (July 25,1967) had good coverage of the episode but reported not so much as a hint of Israel’s unequivocal dislike of the resolution.

The 1968 American Jewish Yearbook reported in the same vein, adding that the “episode was to have one positive result: it demonstrated to Moscow that Washington did not intend to humiliate it… but would support any constructive move to achieve a just peace in the Middle East.” Because the Arabs rejected the proposal, it was not introduced. To give it and its rejection status, on August 30 Goldberg sent a letter to U.N.General Secretary U Thant advising that “while the U.S.S.R. was still saying harsh words about us in public, [it] joined with us for an acceptable resolution… the readiness of the Soviet Union to propose it for favorable consideration by the Arab states was a very significant step though it was rejected.”

Although the U.S. severely compromised itself in the joint proposal,the subsequent record does not suggest any amelioration of the Soviet’s hard line in response.

Why the U.S. acceptance of a “horse for a rabbit” at Israel’s expense? Why the continued Arab belligerency which preceded the war? Ironically, a key factor may have been Israel’s euphoria inspired June 19 peace setting terms volunteering to give up much of its win: Syria would obtain the Golan to its international boundary and Egypt would recover Sinai; both subject to demilitarization. West Bank issues would be negotiated. On June 22 Eban presented Israel’s proposal to Secretary Rusk who was pleased that Israel had formulated it without external pressure. Rusk promptly made it available to Egypt and Syria.

Also, the U.S. was optimistic about the U.S.S.R. and the Arabs. Both Israel and the U.S. underestimated Egypt’s basic attitude. In his July 23 address at the 15th anniversary celebration of the Egyptian Revolution President Nasser charged that the Zionists and the big powers sought to “crush the Arab revolution, to do away with Arab aspirations and to place our countries within the sphere of their influence.” On November 25,1967 he told his generals: “don’t pay any attention to anything I may say in public about a peaceful solution.”

Eban says the September 1,1967 Khartoum declaration providing for Israel no peace, no recognition, no negotiation, and no territorial bargaining was a “direct answer” to Israel’s offer which Rusk had conveyed to Egypt and Syria. Still, Eban would find a domestic benefit in Israel’s June 19 proposal seeing it as answering “Israeli liberals who fault the Eshkol government with insufficient zeal for peace.” But that consideration had little impact since the proposal was kept “secret”. There was no news coverage. Yitzhak Rabin first learned of it in 1968 from some Americans when he was ambassador.

Paradoxically, Israel’s generous proposal may well have figured importantly in the willingness of the U.S. to accept the “horse for rabbit” exchange at the expense of Israel. Also, it signaled the Arabs that Israel was voluntarily ready to give up more than all the parties had expected — a sign of weakness to be exploited. Peace making must be realistic, not euphoria-based.

Dr. Joseph Lerner, Co-Director
I.M.R.A. (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
P.O. Box 982, Kfar Sava
Tel (+972-9) 760-4719, Fax (+972-9) 741-1645
e-mail: imra@netvision.net.il

Dr. Lerner, a leading economist, was a senior US government official from 1952 until 1976. Dr Lerner relocated to Jerusalem in 1986.

Palestinian Survey Results

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

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July 21, 1997

The following are the results of the Palestinian Arab agency known as Jerusalem Media & CommunicationCentre [JMCC] Public Opinion Poll Number 21 of a random sample of 1,197 Palestinians age 18 and over in the West Bank [758] and Gaza [439] who were interviewed face-to-face on 3 and 4 July 1997. The statistical error is +/- 3 percentage points.

1. In general, to what extent would you say you are optimistic about the future? Would you say you are very optimistic, optimistic, pessimistic, or very pessimistic?

	Total	W.Bank	Gaza
Very optimistic	6.7%	6.1%	7.7%
Optimistic	60.1%	57.0%	65.4%
Pessimistic	25.7%	29.3%	19.6%
Very pessimistic	6.9%	6.9%	7.1%
No answer	0.6%	0.7%	0.2%

2. In general, do you support or oppose the current peace process between the Palestinians and Israel? Do you strongly support, somewhat support, strongly oppose, or somewhat oppose the peace process?

	Total	W.Bank	Gaza
Strongly support	22.3%	21.4%	23.9%
Somewhat support	46.4%	44.9%	49.2%
Strongly oppose	13.6%	14.2%	12.5%
Somewhat oppose	12.9%	13.9%	11.4%
No answer	4.8%	5.6%	3.0%

3. Which Palestinian political or religious faction do you trust most?

	Total	W.Bank	Gaza
Fateh	34.8%	34.8%	34.9%
Hamas	11.3%	11.1%	11.6%
PFLP	3.1%	3.7%	2.1%
DFLP	0.8%	1.3%	–
Islamic Jihad	2.6%	2.0%	3.6%
PPP	0.8%	1.1%	0.5%
FIDA	0.7%	0.8%	0.5%
Other Islamic Org.	2.3%	2.6%	1.6%
Others	1.0%	1.1%	1.0%
Do not trust anyone	31.2%	30.3%	32.6%
No answer	11.4%	11.2%	11.6%

4. Which Palestinian political or religious personality do you trust most?

	Total	W.Bank	Gaza
Yasser Arafat	37.6%	34.6%	42.8%
Ahmed Yassin	6.7%	6.2%	7.5%
Haidar Adbur Shafi	3.7%	3.8%	3.4%
Hanan Ashrawi	2.6%	3.3%	1.4%
George Habash	2.5%	2.9%	1.8%
Sa’eb Erekat	1.8%	2.0%	1.4%
Fasal Husseini	0.9%	1.2%	0.5%
Abu Mazen	0.8%	1.2%	0.2%
Nayef Hawatmeh	0.6%	0.7%	0.5%
Others	8.9%	7.2%	11.4%
Do not trust anyone	24.2%	26.9%	19.6%
No answer	9.7%	10.1%	9.6%

5. In general, how would you rate the overall performance of the Palestinian Authority? Would you say that its performance has been very good, good, bad or very bad?

	Total	W.Bank	Gaza
Very good	7.7%	7.0%	8.9%
Good	59.7%	61.3%	56.9%
Bad	21.7%	21.1%	22.8%
Very bad	7.4%	7.0%	8.0%
No answer	3.5%	3.6%	3.8%

6. In general, how would you rate the overall performance of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat?

	Total	W.Bank	Gaza
Good	49.5%	43.8%	59.5%
Average	33.0%	35.5%	28.7%
Bad	12.8%	15.6%	8.0%
No answer	4.7%	5.1%	3.9%

7. In general, how would you rate the overall performance of the Palestinian Legislative Council? Would you say that its performance has been very good, good, bad, or very bad?

	Total	W.Bank	Gaza
Very good	4.4%	4.6%	4.1%
Good	42.3%	43.7%	39.9%
Bad	29.7%	29.6%	30.1%
Very bad	13.4%	10.6%	18.2%
No answer	10.2%	11.5%	7.7%

8. Now that the Oslo agreements for the transitional period have been implemented for some time, to what extent do you support or oppose these agreements?

	Total	W.Bank	Gaza
Strongly support	8.2%	7.4%	9.6%
Cautiously support	54.2%	55.4%	52.2%
Do not support	30.4%	29.9%	31.2%
No answer	7.2%	7.3%	7.0%

9. How was your opinion of the following changed in comparison with last year? Has it improved, worsened, or remain the same as last year?

Total

	Improved	Worsened	Same	Don’t know	No answer
Yasser Arafat	42.0%	14.5%	37.4%	4.3%	1.8%
Security forces	36.3%	29.7%	24.6%	7.5%	1.9%
Peace process	7.5%	71.0%	16.6%	3.7%	1.2%
Oslo	4.3%	65.2%	21.0%	8.1%	1.4%
PLC	18.0%	34.6%	33.9%	11.6%	1.8%
PNA	31.7%	28.4%	32.7%	5.4%	1.9%
Opposition	15.5%	27.8%	40.8%	13.0%	2.9%
Fateh	24.8%	25.5%	37.0%	10.2%	2.5%
Hamas	17.8%	27.1%	39.0%	13.2%	2.9%
Haider Abdul Shafi	16.4%	11.8%	38.8%	28.7%	4.3%

West Bank

	Improved	Worsened	Same	Don’t know	No answer
Yasser Arafat	34.4%	17.2%	40.9%	5.4%	2.1%
Security forces	34.7%	29.2%	24.9%	9.2%	2.0%
Peace process	6.9%	72.6%	14.9%	4.4%	1.2%
Oslo	4.0%	65.7%	19.9%	9.1%	1.3%
PLC	17.3%	34.6%	32.6%	13.9%	1.6%
PNA	31.9%	29.7%	30.6%	6.2%	1.6%
Opposition	12.7%	31.7%	38.1%	15.2%	2.3%
Fateh	24.5%	26.6%	34.7%	11.6%	2.6%
Hamas	14.8%	29.7%	38.1%	14.4%	3.0%
Haider Abdul Shafi	12.7%	12.4%	38.5%	31.3%	5.1%

Gaza Strip

	Improved	Worsened	Same	Don’t know	No answer
Yasser Arafat	55.1%	9.8%	31.4%	2.3%	1.4%
Security forces	39.2%	30.8%	23.9%	4.6%	1.5%
Peace process	8.7%	68.3%	19.6%	2.5%	0.9%
Oslo	4.8%	64.5%	22.8%	6.4%	1.5%
PLC	19.4%	34.6%	36.2%	7.7%	2.1%
PNA	31.2%	26.2%	36.2%	4.1%	2.3%
Opposition	20.3%	21.2%	45.3%	9.3%	3.9%
Fateh	25.3%	23.5%	41.0%	7.7%	2.5%
Hamas	23.0%	22.6%	40.5%	11.2%	2.7%
Haider Abdul Shafi	22.8%	10.7%	39.2%	24.1%	3.2%

10. Some Palestinians think that the level of corruption in the Palestinian Authority is high; others think that there is corruption but it is not widespread; while others think that there isn’t any corruption. What do you think?

	Total	W.Bank	Gaza
There is a great deal	44.9%	42.0%	49.9%
There is a fair amount	40.7%	40.9%	40.3%
There is hardly any at all	6.6%	7.9%	4.3%
No answer	7.8%	9.2%	5.5%

A Parent’s Day in Court

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

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July 14, 1997

A personal message from Stanley and Joyce Boim, the parents of David Boim, whose son was gunned down by Amjad HaNawi, an Arab who has found safe haven in the Palestine Authority.

We want to take this opportunity to thank the many people who have helped us win the first stage of our legal battle, which has resulted in a court order to force our government of Israel to file for the arrest and “hand-over” of Amjad HaNawi, the man who murdered our son.

Our battle is not over. We will need further funds and political support, to make sure that the Israeli government indeed fulfills the court order to file the formal request for Hanawi to stand trial. Please continue to give generously to the legal fund that has been formed to continue with this case and others like it (Tzedek Tzedek, P.O. Box 2265, Jerusalem, Israel)

We have had many strange feelings during our year of litigation.

It was a strange feeling that we had to go to court to get our own government to file for the arrest of our son’s murderer.

It was a strange feeling to be told last July by the IDF commander of the central region that the IDF had indeed identified and located the whereabouts of David’s killer and that all is being done to bring him to trial and then to be told by the Israel Minister of Justice in March 97 that he knows nothing about it.

It was a strange feeling that the Israeli police issued an arrest warrant only six days before the court hearing, with the precise evidence that they had a year ago.

It was a strange feeling that we had to have the Israel High Court of Justice issue a mandatory court order to force the government had to draw up papers to demand that the PA hand over our son’s killer to stand trial.

It was a strange feeling that the Israeli Prime Minister personally assured us in October 1996 that demanding the arrest if killers inside the Palestine Authority would be next on the agenda after the Hebron agreement.

It was a strange feeling when the new head of Israel’s Labor opposition looked us in the face and said that “you cannot expect the Palestinians to be 100% perfect”, when we asked him about the fact that the Palestine Authority had given refuge to the killers of our son and other Israeli citizens

It was a strange feeling, as American citizens, to be officially informed by the American embassy in Tel Aviv and the American consulate in Jerusalem that the Palestine Authority has arrested and imprisoned David’s killer, and then to be informed by all levels of the Palestine Authority that no record of Amjad’s arrest exists.

It was a strange feeling to hear a senior US diplomat tell us, that, “well, you know, we have had many drive-by killings in California”

It was a strange feeling that news of the murder of our son and other Israelis and their escape to the Palestine Authority safe havens has taken a back burner to an Oslo process which seems to have very little to do with peace

We continues to have a strange feeling that we will have to continue the effort and expense of a legal fight to make sure that the Israeli government indeed fulfills the terms of a court order to bring our son’s killer to justice.

What could be more elementary than to expect that the governments of Israel and the United States of America will pursue the demand that admitted killers of their citizens will indeed be brought to a court of law to stand trial?

Israeli Family Seeks Justice for Slain Son

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

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July 14, 1997

Jerusalem – Ouside a settlement north of Jerusalem about 14 months ago, high school junior David Boim was waiting for a bus when a gunman in a car shot and killed him.

His American-Israeli parents have been trying to bring the Palestinian killer to trial ever since. They say they have met much resistance — not from the Palestinian Authority, but from the Israeli government.

This week, the Boims’ case finally moved ahead — but only after they filed a lawsuit that led to an Israeli Supreme Court order Wednesday for Israel to start pressuring the Palestinians to hand over the suspect.

The government has three months to take its first steps.

The case, according to families of terror victims, is one of several instances in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has shown little or no initiative for pushing the Palestinian Authority to adhere to part of the Oslo peace deal: turning over suspects for trial in security cases involving Israelis.

The irony is that Netanyahu won election a year ago partly on the promise that he would be much tougher on Palestinian violations of the Oslo accord.

But families of terror victims — most of them Netanyahu supporters say the government is doing nothing for them.

“What is so aggravating is, this is a government we fought for,” Joyce Boim, David’s mother, said Thursday. “Our own government is not cooperating. We really think this is politically motivated, that the government doesn’t want to push the Palestinians on this.”

Bureaucracy blamed

Government spokesman Moshe Fogel denied Thursday that there were political reasons for not requesting the transfer of the Boim murder suspect.

Fogel blamed bureaucracy.

“It’s not a reluctance on our part,” he said. “It has more to do with inefficiency. I admit there isn’t the sense of urgency because we don’t expect anything to come out of it. And it is true that the Boims had to go to the Supreme Court to push it forward.”

The Palestinian Authority has said that it won’t turn over suspects to Israeli officials, but instead will bring them before its own courts. The suspect in Boim’s murder, Amjad Hanawi, is believed to be in a Nablus jail, Israeli officials say.

“You can have a situation now when you can kill a Jew in the middle of Jerusalem, expect the Palestinian killer to be welcomed inside Palestinian Authority territory, and the Israeli government won’t do anything for you,” said David Bedein, a media analyst who is assisting the Boim family.

“It is part of the Oslo mentality: You can sacrifice the individual for the greater good of peace process,” Bedein said. “[But] this has never been a country that said if we lost a few people, it’s OK. The Talmud teaches us that he who has taken a human life has taken a universe.”

The Boim family moved to Jerusalem from the Lower East Side of Manhattan in 1985. David Boim was 6 years old then, the fifth of seven children, who grew up to be the most outgoing of all his brothers and sisters.

Political concerns

On the day of his death, May 13, 1996, the 17-year-old was standing with three of his friends at a bus stop outside the Beit El settlement, about 10 miles north of Jerusalem and the Biblical site of Jacob’s ladder.

He had just finished a study session at the settlement, which is bordered by several Arab villages.

The shots were fired from a compact car at about 3 p.m. Two of his friends were wounded.

Last July, the chief military officer in the territories, Uzi Dayan, told the Boims that one of the suspected killers had been apprehended by Palestinian police.

On Oct. 8 last year, the Boims and several other families met Netanyahu to press for action. According to Bedein, Netanyahu told the families that once the Hebron troop withdrawal arrangement was complete, he would ask for the transfer of suspects. Fogel denied Thursday that Netanyahu linked the transfer to the Hebron pullout.

But another high government official said Thursday that there were some political concerns about the timing of the requests.

“It’s true that we didn’t want to turn that into a crisis at certain periods,” the official said. “We weren’t going to say in the middle of the Hebron negotiations, if you don’t honor this part of the agreement, it’s over.”

The Boims’ lawyer, Nitzana Darshan-Leitner, said the Israeli government now must act on the court order.

“This is a request from parents whose child was murdered,” she said. “Every family would like this basic request fulfilled, that the state work to indict the person who killed their child. If the murder was committed in Tel Aviv or Ashdod, the police would have arrested him immediately. Because the murderer was a Palestinian, there is a special law for him, and our government is not helping.”

John Donnelly is a Miami Herald Staff Writer

Boims Sue the Israel Minister of Justice

By

David Bedein

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July 7, 1997

The Boims sue the Israel Minister of Justice in the Israel High Court of Justice to demand that the Israeli government demand the arrest of Amjad Hanawi, the Arab who murdered their teenage son and took refuge inside the Palestime Authority.

Do you know where Amjad Hanawi is?

If you answered yes, then you can provide information to the US State Department; or t the Israel Ministry of Justice. Neither of them have a clue.

For those readers not familiar with the case, both U.S. and Israeli intelligence fingered Hanawi as one of the two murderers of David Boim, a sixteen year-old American/ Israeli citizen who was murdered on May 16, 1996 while waiting for a schoolbus near his Beit El Yeshiva, en route to his home in Jerusalem. After shooting Boim, Hanawi took refuge in the Palestinian Authority, where presumably he expected to receive better treatment than if he remained in an area under Israeli jurisdiction.

Yet according to State Department officials, Hanawi guessed wrong; the PA locked him up.

Last month, Kol Yisrael news, the Israel state radio newsreel, reported that while on leave for a Muslim holiday, Hanawi, perhaps thinking that the PA was not that concerned with keeping him in jail, decided not to return. Upon hearing the report, David’s mother, Joyce Boim, wrote the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, inquiring if her son’s killer was still behind bars. In a briefly worded statement, the US embassy consul assured Mrs Boim that the Palestine Authority had assured the US consul in Jerusalem that Hanawi remained imprisoned.

The story should have ended there. However, the US State Department has been unable to provide any documentary evidence that Hanawi is in fact in jail or that he ever was in jail. A US consular official involved in the case commented that she did not even know which jail Hanawi was in, although she said her Palestinian counterparts had assured her that Hanawi was locked up. When asked if she could provide any records that would prove this assertion, such as an arrest report, a police file, or prison photograph, she declined. Instead, she suggested contacting someone within the P.A., since, she said, this was their concern. The press spokesperson for the US consulate in Jerusalem also could not to provide any documentary evidence of Hanawi’s incarceration, stating that the State Department has been in touch with people in the P.A. on this issue.

When the P.A. was contacted, the P.A. justice and police spokespeople said that they also could not provide any information concerning Amjad Hanawi’s arrest, nor could they provide reporters with visits to the various PA jails to check out the matter first hand.

The US consulate officials responded rather nonchalantly to this development, saying that all countries have their own policies of releasing documents to the press.

Meanwhile, the Israeli government has refused to issue any statements on the whereabouts of Hanawi. Spokepeople from the Justice Ministry, Foreign Ministry, Defense Ministry, Army, and Police all pointed in different directions, saying they did not possess any information on the subject. A spokesperson from the Prime Minister’s office, sounding curiously like my State Department contact, said that Hanawi was the PA’s responsibility, not theirs.

Since the beginning of the Oslo process, Israel has made 37 requests for the transfer of killers from the P.A. to Israel. So far the P.A. has refused to honor any request, stating it prefers to try them themselves, even though this is a violation of the Oslo agreement. Of the 37 suspects, ten are now serving in the Palestinian Preventive Security Forces, despite the fact that Palestinian courts convicted each one of them of attacks against Israelis.

According to Likud Knesset member Michael Kleiner, the current government – learning from the former government’s experiences – has dramatically lowered its expectations about the P.A.’s willingness to comply with Oslo and hand over terrorists. However in the case of David Boim, the government has not even taken the first, elementary step of asking for Hanawi’s arrest. Israel and the United States now appear not only reluctant to pursue this matter, but eager to prevent the public from discovering what happens to Palestinians who kill Israelis.

In early June, David Boim’s father, Stanley Boim, issued his first public statement since his son’s murder, blaming the Israeli government for failing to take any action in the case.

On July 9, 1997, Stanley and Joyce Boim are being given a hearing at the Israel High Court of Justice. The Boims are suing the Israel Minister of Justice and demanding that he order the arrest of the man who murdered their son. As they say to friends and family alike, what happened to their family could happen to anyone, and that unless the Israeli government raises an objection, such a hit and run murder could become a precedent.

While the Israel Ministry of Jutsice gives the impression that it has done everything in its power to pursue the matter, the facts are otherwise. No request has been made by the state of Israel for the arrest of Amjad Hanawi. Moreover, the current Israel Minister of Justice has added no names to the lists of wanted killers that were submitted by the previous Israeli government. The spokesperson for the current Israel Minister of Justice could give no explanation why, for example, the ministry has not asked for the arrest of Muhammad Deif, the Gaza-based Palestinian Hamas leader who planned the abduction and murder of Nachson Wachsman in October, 1994.

Tzachi Hanegbi, Israel’s Minister of Justice, has stated on countless occasions that he will resign his position and call for an end to the Oslo process if the PA refuses to arrest and hand over killers of Jews who have taken refuge in the Palestine Authority. Yet PA Minister of Justice Freich Abu Medein has made it clear that the PA will arrest none of these killers, let alone hand them over. And Palestine Police Commander Nassir Yusef has told me that he is under direct orders from Yassir Arafat not to arrest Muhammad Deif.

Is that why HaNegbi has not acted?

The Refugee Dilemma: A Day in the UNRWA Arab Refugee Camps

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

-

July 7, 1997

Iyad Qadi, a Ramallah resident who fought against Israel during the intifada riots of the late ’80s through early 90s, returned to the Palestinian refugee camps that raged so violently in those years – this time in a different capacity, as assistant public information officer for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

At Ramallah’s Jelazoun camp, lifetime inhabitant Ali Shereka, 26, complains about the camp’s dire conditions – the overcrowding, the filthy air and littered streets. Convicted and jailed between 1989-91 for throwing Molotov cocktail bombs at Israeli soldiers, Shereka, now an Arabic language instructor, warns of a renewed intifada.

“By being in the camps, we show people outside the country that we are not living free and not living in peace,” says Shereka, sitting outside his brother’s butcher shop, a hole-in-the-wall with flies swarming the hanging carcasses. “We are living in misery.”

Qadi affirms this line of thinking. “Palestinians strengthen their claim to a right of return,” he says, “by staying in the camps.”

Qadi offered to show me the camps. Shortly after leaving UNRWA’s Jerusalem field office, we reach the Shuwafat camp in eastern Jerusalem, sandwiched between Jewish neighborhoods’ Newe Ya’aqov and French Hill. “You feel very near the situation, then you understand very well what’s going on,” he tells me of his exposure to the volatile refugee issue, now on the agenda of the Oslo peace process.

We pass what he terms a “flying checkpoint” where three armed Israeli soldiers are inspecting passing vehicles. “I believe this checkpoint has to do with the land agents issue,” he said, alluding to the recent attempted kidnappings of Palestinian land dealers from this camp. (Palestinian Authority Justice Minister Freih Abu Medein declared that the punishment for selling land to Jews is death).

“They deserve to be killed,” Qadi claimed, “but it should be through a decision of the courts, not by youths in the streets.”

In Shuwafat, Jerusalem’s little known Arab refugee camp, occupants hold city identity cards that provide them access to jobs in Israel. With lower unemployment – less than half of the inhabitants work – this camp is apparently better off than others. UNRWA supplies housing, schooling, health care and other services to the approximately 8,000 residents.

Started in 1950 as a “temporary relief program,” UNRWA now runs 18 refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Employing a staff of 22,000, 99 percent of whom are Palestinian, the agency spends more than $700 million annually – the United States, the largest contributor, kicks in $64 million a year – on 3,308,133 registered Palestinian Arab refugees in the West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. A third of the refugees live in the camps.

[Over the years, UN officials say, thousands of registered refugees have passed away and still receive stipends.]

Shuwafat’s population growth has strained the camp’s existing boundaries – the area is jammed with dilapidating concrete buildings, often housing more than a dozen people per unit. Paradoxically, that’s precisely the way residents want it.

“The refugees’ main concern,” Qadi declared, “is to show the whole world that they are still living in the camps, that their situation is very terrible.” In one schoolhouse, a classroom, with potholes in the floor, is so filled with desks that children must climb over them to get to the blackboard.

Essentially, the camp inhabitants want to remain in limbo until a final settlement on refugees is reached with Israel. “Their main goal is to implement United Nations resolution 194,” said Qadi, claiming the internationally-backed resolution entitles “three million” refugees, including those from 1948, 1967 and descendants, to repatriation rights to pre-1948 Palestine. Still in the books, 194 makes no mention of compensation, only the right of return.

“If three million refugees were to return, Israel would not be Israel anymore,” Qadi said, grinning. “For Israel, this is bullshit, but the refugees believe this is their right.”

At a workshop on refugees last April in Jericho, hosted by PA Municipality Minister Saeb Erakat, camp officials rejected a government recommendation to expand the camps, fearing that they would merge with adjacent cities and become part of the current Palestinian entity. The camp refugees also refused a proposal to vote in the next PA municipal elections.

“By voting, they were afraid of being considered part of the country,” said Qadi, who attended the meeting. “They see this as the first step in supporting Israel’s claim – that there is no refugee issue.”

Entering the 7,000-member Jelazoun camp, we pass a one-room UNRWA home that has seemingly been spackled to the side of an older structure, which is deteriorating like most at the camp. Down the street is an exception – a privately funded, two-story home with a $2,000 satellite dish on the rooftop.

Nearby, PLO and Hamas graffiti adorns the front wall of the local UNRWA office. “Fatah, Hamas, the Popular Front – all are very strong here,” Qadi said. This camp was extremely active during the intifada, undergoing curfews for as long as 40 days. “In various camps, Fatah and Hamas have their own clubs, their own social activities in which they focus on the poorest in the camps,” he said. “It’s a way to gain support for their political parties.” The agency is aware of this activity, he added, but “UNRWA can’t act as a police. It’s not in the UN mandate to interfere.”

Around the corner, locals are vegetating outside the butcher shop, sweaty and swatting bugs. Ali Shereka tells me he lives with 14 people, including wife, mother, two brothers and their wives, and seven children. Chatting amiably with a half dozen friends, Shereka senses a calm before the storm. “If Israel continues its present policy,” he predicted, “there is going to be another intifada very soon.”

Muhammad Shereka, Ali’s brother and the butcher, says he feels victimized by all in authority – Israel, the PA and UNRWA, all of whom he claims do nothing for the camps. “The big fish eat the small fish,” he says. “The little man, he can’t get nothing.”

One resident tells me that he’d leave the camp if he had the money – pessimistic that he will ever return to Palestine. “Israel has to give us the West Bank and Gaza, but we can do nothing about the ’48 border because the politicians don’t want to talk about it,” he lamented. “(PA Chairman Yassir) Arafat gave it up.”

The crowds ears perked when one man asked me, matter-of-factly; “Are you with the Mossad?” (as if I’d tell him if I was) He said Israeli secret agents have infiltrated this camp to identify “security threats.” Qadi claims Israeli soldiers routinely raise havoc in the camps, at times rolling in with tanks and throwing tear gas cartridges through windows. “The peace process has not changed the way Israeli soldiers think towards the Palestinians,” he said. “They are still ready to kill anyone easily, to harass anyone easily, for silly reasons. It’s a daily problem.” Last year, UNRWA sent a protest letter to Israel’s civil administration after soldiers “harassed” residents at the Fawa’ar camp outside Hebron, where two suspected suicide bombers lived. On lesser occasions, Qadi said, the Palestine Liberation Army police force has arrested Hamas militants in the camps.

Headed back towards Jerusalem, we make a final sweep past the Ama-ari camp, which blends into the West Bank city of El-Birah. There is no fence and members run a few private businesses that are like any in El-Birah. With overcrowding in this camp too, Qadi fears that inhabitants might seek apartments elsewhere in the city. He looks me sternly in the eyes and says: “It is a very serious and dangerous problem if people start to think about moving out of the camps.”

Qadi, who makes frequent tours for the press, conveys a clear message. People stay in the squalor of refugee camps to advertise the fact that they remain the proverbial fly in the ointment of the peace process. Even if Arafat were to get control of the entire West Bank and Gaza, Qadi makes it clear that the refugees’ demands would press onward.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency

By

David Bedein

-

July 7, 1997

Like many other UN relief agencies, UNRWA was founded in the midst of a refugee emergency that occurred in the wake of war. The UN organized UNRWA as a special relief agency that was mandated to tend to the needs and establish “temporary refugee shelters” for the estimated 650,000 Palestinian Arab refugees who abandoned their homes and villages during the War for Israel independence in 1948. This occurred at a time when 450,000 Jews left their homes in the Arab countries and emigrated to Israel, while more than 600,000 Jews arrived from war-torn Europe to the new land of Israel.

By the mid-1990’s, the UNRWA camps operated on a $320 million annual budget, providing services as incentives for Palestinian Arabs to remain in the camps – free education, free health services, free housing, free electricity and free water. The budget is broken down as follows: 57% education, 19% health, 9% welfare payments, and 10% for transportation servicesLucky Patcher Apk for Android

UN Resolution 194 that established UNRWA was written in both contexts: to help Palestinian Arab refugees and to keep them there as refugees. No clause allowed for any permanent solution except for repatriation. These two tenets of 194, re-enacted every two years, remain very much alive.

Many people were surprised when the US state department, in the midst of the Oslo peace process, issued countless statements that supported the status quo of the refugee situation and the absolute right of Palestinians to return to the property that they left in 1948. Indeed, an emergency resolution of the UN general assembly in 1985 dealt with Israeli violations of 194, when Israel launched its first major effort to make housing improvements in the camps. Thirteen hundred homes were built for Arab refugees in Gaza and in the Nablus region, with funds raised by Israel through international relief agencies. These housing initiatives followed a two year study conducted by a special task force of the Israeli government in the early 1980’s that recommended an ambitious program to rehabilitate the housing and sewage facilities in all UNRWA refugee camps.

However, The UN resolution that was enacted on December 16, 1985 against Israel violations of ‘temporary refugee shelters’ transformed the hills of new homes just south of Nablus into ghost towns that remain uninhabited to this day, with an UNRWA guard who watches to make sure that no Arab refugee will ever move in.

Throughout 1986 and 1987, the Israeli government initiated wide ranging discussions about the necessity to take unlilateral action to address the issue of Palestinian refugee squalor. Besides being a humanitarian embarrassment, the camps were quickly becoming a potential powderkeg. UNRWA officials had their own “explanation” as to Israel’s programs for improvement: UNRWA officials issued weekly memos to the refugee residents that the Israeli government was making plans to “exile them once again.”

It was no coincidence that the intifada riots broke out in the UNRWA refugee camps in December, 1987. There is widely circulated opinion within the Israeli intelligence community that the intifada broke out as a direct result of a program that was about to be implemented, calling for the massive overhaul and improvement of camp conditions.

Indeed, the Palestinian Arab rebellion was openly organized on UNRWA premises. Under the terms of a special UN resolution that was passed in February, 1988, UNRWA was allocated $21 million to hire special R.A.O.’s ( refugee affairs officers) to protect the local population from Israeli forces. Israeli security reports issued in 1989 and 1990 accused UNRWA personnel of using UNRWA vehicles to faciliate violence, by blocking roads, providing surveillance of IDF facilities, and actually instigating riots.

Palestine Authority officials today openly acknowledge that the intifada leadership was made up almost entirely of UNRWA personnel.

Indeed, it was the RAO’s operating popular committees that decided who will get aid/assistance, it was the RAO’s who issued frequent memos on “starvation” in the camps, and it was the RAO’s who organized the Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine to take over the UNRWA workers union that comprises more than 18,000 employees of UNRWA.

It is therefore no surprise that UNRWA schools are decorated with Hamas and PFLP graffitti along with pictures of machine guns spread over a full map of Palestine. In Jerusalem, it was the RAO’s who organized the people in two Jerusalem-based refugee camps to refuse Jerusalem muncipal services.

As a matter of policy, the new Palestinian Authority refuses to provide for any kind of housing aid to the UNRWA camps, since these camp are temporary Palestinian “shelters” where Palestinian Arab refugees are mandated to dwell until they realize their “right of return”.

At a time when the matter of Palestinian refugees enters into the next stage of the Oslo peace process, Arab refugees who live in camps throughout the Middle East have had their hopes raised that they are returning to the homes and villages that they left in 1948. On a recent visit to Palestinian refugee camp, a lifetime resident and school teacher told me that “people laughed at us a few years ago when they said we are going to have our own Palestinian Liberation Army here. Now people laugh at us when we say that we’re going back to the village that we left in 1948.”

Israel Behind the News

Has the PA Failed to Fulfill Its Commitments Under the Hebron Accord?

Excerpts from the weekly Friday sermon delivered by Palestinian Authority [PA] appointed “Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine”, Sheikh Ekrima Sabri, at the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on July 11, 1997.

Controversy Sells: Jerusalem’s Hasmonean Tunnel a Hot Tourist Spot

Israel’s 1967 Close Call

Palestinian Survey Results

A Parent’s Day in Court

Israeli Family Seeks Justice for Slain Son

Boims Sue the Israel Minister of Justice

The Refugee Dilemma: A Day in the UNRWA Arab Refugee Camps

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency

Column from the Director