from the Scotland On Sunday Newspaper - 5 August 2001

 

By Ross Dunn in Fahmeh, West Bank

 

 

There is no sign today of the residents who used to live in this West Bank village, once a safe enclave for Palestinian informers working for the Israeli security services. It was well known among Palestinians as a refuge for "collaborators".

 

Only in places such as Fahmeh would one see the Star of David, the symbol of Israel, adorn the homes of Palestinians. Among them was Hussein Assa’ad Bourini, 53, who has since been relocated to a new home somewhere inside Israel.

 

A Star of David was painted outside his front door when he lived there and he would also show visitors the Israeli flags that decorated his premises.

"I love the blue and white colours of the Israeli flag," he used to explain. But he detested the Palestinian flag.

"Who puts black in a flag? Are we stupid?" he would ask. In his wallet he carried an Israeli identity card, and hidden underneath was another card with his photo, linking him to the Shin Bet, Israel’s secret police.

For years he and his family have been paid more than $1,000 a month for assisting Israel. One of his more notable tasks was going in the company of Israeli soldiers to his parents’ home in the West Bank, to arrest his own brother in broad daylight.

As part of his reward for such services, Assa’ad and other like-minded Palestinians were housed in safe villages such as Fahmeh for their protection.

But the residents of Fahmeh, and other similar communities - regarded by Palestinians as worse than leper colonies - were eventually evacuated out of fear that they had become obvious targets for attacks.

 

Fahmeh is now recognisable only by the Israeli military base that stands before it.

Had it not become another West Bank ghost town, this is where Khaled Moussa Abu Hawa might have fled. He was found dead on Friday near the West Bank city of Bethlehem, after being shot in the face by Palestinian vigilantes who believed he was a collaborator.

Four days earlier, in Beit Sahour, also near Bethlehem, three masked men killed a 57-year-old Palestinian, firing bullets into his head, alleging he had been collaborating with Israel.

Pressure is mounting on the Palestinian Authority to root out collaborators, following the Israel helicopter attack last week in Nablus, also in the West Bank, which killed eight people, including leaders of the militant Islamic group, Hamas, and two children. Israel has often used Palestinian informers to locate activists for assassination.

 

And it is not only vigilante groups that alleged Palestinian collaborators must fear.

The Palestinian Authority has sentenced four Palestinians to death since Tuesday, after convicting them of collaborating with Israel.

 

The move is aimed at deterring informers from helping Israel assassinate Palestinian activists suspected of planning attacks against Jews.

In the latest trial, Ahmed Abu Eisha, 50, was found guilty of treason by helping Israeli intelligence agents to kill Hamas activist Salah Darwaza, whose car was hit by tank shells last week near Nablus.

Eisha, who allegedly received from Israel 200 shekels ($45) each time he passed on information, begged forgiveness. But Palestinians in the packed courtroom demanded the execution of Eisha, a father of nine.

 

On Tuesday, also in Nablus, three Palestinian men were sentenced to death by firing squad for their part in the earlier assassination of Thabet Thabet in Tulkarem, also in the West Bank. A fourth was sentenced to 15 years behind bars.

Thabet was a senior member of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction of the Palestine Liberation Organisation. Arafat must still ratify the death sentences but he has approved capital punishment in the past despite international criticism.

In January, Palestinians convicted of collaborating with Israel were executed by firing squad.

Allam Ben Odeh, died in front of a crowd of 5,000 people in Nablus, many of whom cheered. His wife and children were forced to witness the spectacle. Another man, Majdi Mikkawi, was shot dead by a firing squad on the same day in Gaza City, but inside a police station.

But the outcry from the international community influenced Arafat to order a stay of execution for two others.

 

One of them is 18-year-old Hussameddin Moussa Hmeid Eslini. He was convicted in January on the basis of being paid about $200 (£130) to photograph and record the movements of Fatah militia leader Hussein Abayat, who was assassinated by Israel near Bethlehem in November. At the time, another Fatah leader, Kamal Hmeid, had been pressuring Arafat to approve a public execution in Bethlehem.

Prof Saleh Abdel Jawwad, the head of the political science department at Beir Zeit University in the West Bank, says the murder and execution of collaborators is being used by Israel to discredit the Palestinian uprising that began last September. "The collaborator betrays his own people either because he is in a position of weakness and suffering and, or, perceives the occupying power to be invincible, and he and his people to be hopelessly weak."

Jawwad said the most dangerous collaborator was what he termed "an infiltrator", someone who succeeds in planting himself inside key Palestinian institutions, including the security establishment.

But he said Palestinian insiders were not Israel’s only source of intelligence. "Beyond all this - and something which is generally completely ignored by Palestinians - is the sophisticated technology that Israel uses to gather information.

"Israel has developed an advanced complex of intelligence gathering that brings together hundreds of individual pieces of information, so that when combined they give a ‘picture to the puzzle’.

"So when, for example, the Palestinian Authority sentences two people to death for providing information on the assassinated Fatah activist, Hussein Abayyat, one can be sure that these two people were only a small part of a much larger process which probably included unmanned drones, hi-tech binoculars and listening equipment, among other devices."