Tffig,4
ment improves Israeli security
"Israel didn't allow Arafat to enter
Palestine until he promised to satisfy
all their demands," she says, echoing a
popular Palestinian gripe about the
peace process.
A provision of the Wye agreement
calling on Israel to release 750 impris-
oned Palestinians offers her little hope.
"Arafat might then agree to arrest
those who were released," she says
cynically.
Immediately after the Wye agree-
ment was signed, Palestinian police
launched a series of measures against
Islamist groups.
Journalists — including several rep-
resenting Western news agencies were
detained for interviewing Sheik
Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of
Hamas who vowed that the new
accord would not prevent Hamas ter-
ror cells from carrying out attacks.
Another prominent Islamic cleric in
Nablus opposed to the agreement was
also arrested.
And in an ominous sign of possible
Palestinian infighting to come,
Palestinian police raided an office of
Fatah, Arafat's own political move-
ment, in a search for documents and
illegal weapons.
The raid sparked a clash Sunday
between Palestinian security forces and
Fatah activists in which one
Palestinian teen-ager died after being
shot twice in the head. Fatah leaders
are now demanding that those respon-
sible for the shooting be executed.
Many Palestinians see the new
to quell opposition to Arafat and the
peace process and to satisfy Israel.
According-to Bassem Eid, executive
director of the Palestinian Human
Rights Monitoring Group, some 150
Palestinians have been locked up with-
out trial and another 500 are impris-
oned- without trial either for allegedly
collaborating with Israel or for crimi-
nal offenses. Dozens more alleged ter-
rorists have been convicted through
the state security courts, which snatch
suspects from their homes for mid-
night trials.
These moves allow the Palestinian
Authority to show Israel that it is crack-
ing down on terrorism while avoiding
Israeli demands for extradition.
Eid and other human rights moni-
tors say Israeli security demands,
backed by the United States, only
push the Palestinian Authority to con-
travene international standards of
human rights.
"The Americans and Israelis are
supporting Arafat's dictatorial tenden-
cies," says Eid. Last week, Human
Rights Watch, an international human
rights group, warned that the Wye
agreement — which calls in part for
CIA officials to monitor Palestinian
compliance on security issues — could
deal a further blow to Palestinian
democracy.
Some U.S. officials say CIA involve-
ment in Palestinian security could lead
to an improvement, since the CIA may
try to train Palestinian security forces in
less controversial methods.
The gradual transfer of West Bank
land to Palestinian control has
made it easier for Israelis to
ignore what goes on next door.
During the Intifada, the
1987-1993 Palestinian upris-
ing, many Israelis felt uncom-
fortable with the way the army
was behaving.
"But now, Israelis are build-
ing a cognitive partition that
runs pretty much along the
Green Line," the pre-1967 bor-
der separating Israel from the
West Bank, says Tamar
Hermann of Tel Aviv
University.
A soldier stands guard at the entrance to the
Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem last week.
"There is less and less inter-
est among Israelis in what goes
crackdown as a continuation of
on in the Palestinian areas," she-says.
Arafat's thuggish policies since his
"And the type of regime being estab-
arrival in the Palestinian areas in 1994.
lished there doesn't interest them in
In areas it controls, the nascent
the least."
Palestinian regime has used many con-
The message that is constantly
troversial methods reminiscent of
communicated to the Palestinians is
Israel's occupation — including tor-
`Stop terrorism — and we don't care
ture and administrative detention —
how you do it.' "
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Detroit Jewish News
11/6
199
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