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Collaboration
by
Saleh Abdel-Jawad
The Phenomenon of collaboration has existed since ancient
times, even in primitive tribal societies. There are many references
to it in the Torah. It is a phenomenon that accompanies power and
weakness, control and occupation. The countries occupied by the
Nazis - during and after the war - underwent an ethical crisis
because of it.
Part of this crisis resulted from the large number of collaborators -
estimated at tens of thousands or seven out of every 1,000 persons
- remaining in Europe after World War II. In one way or another,
they were held accountable; punishment ranged from death to
prison, interrogation, slander and deprivation of important civil rights
like citizenship, public sector employment, the right to vote and the
right to travel. Denmark, Holland and Norway even reinstated the
death penalty through retroactive legislation in order to handle
extreme acts of collaboration. In France, 10,000 people were killed
during the war on charges of dealing with the Nazis. In the weeks
that followed the war, another 4,500 met their death.
One problem faced by societies in this predicament is the quandary
of defining the word "collaborator." Palestinian society is no
exception. Answering the question, "Who is a collaborator?" is more
difficult than one imagines because every person living under
occupation deals with it to some degree. For example, the head of
renowned French tire manufacturer Michelen supported and funded
the French resistance, but was put on trial after the war for providing
German military industries with tires for vehicles and warplanes.
Many Jews maintained relationships with the Nazis in order to make
their transfer to camps more humane. In some instances, Jews
coordinated with the Zionist movement in order to "save" victims of
Nazism. The most famous of these cases was Doctor Rudolf
Kasztner, who was considered the rescuer of thousands of Jews in
Hungary - but was later assassinated in Tel Aviv in 1957. There
were many in Europe, including individuals from the national
socialist parties, who believed Kasztner was doing a national
service.
My research shows that Israeli security services exploit these
tensions by deceiving Palestinian collaborators into believing that by
cooperating with them - since Israel is the influential power on the
ground - they are serving their country.
The son of one collaborator recruited in 1969 at the age of 16 (the
first collaborator to be killed in the first Intifada) claimed that some
elderly members of the family agreed at the time that he collaborate
with Israeli authorities in order to serve the interests of the family.
We found the same in the case of collaborator Majdi Makawi, who
was one of two people officially executed by the Palestinian
Authority. (He was executed at the beginning of the Intifada. After
the trial, Palestine Television broadcast a live interview with him).
Makawi had provided information that led to Israel's killing of his
uncle, a Fateh activist, in a premeditated ambush on the outskirts of
Rafah in the Gaza Strip. Israeli intelligence officers had convinced
Makawi that the information he offered to Israel on his uncle's
movements would lead to his capture and that this would be the only
way of saving him from death.
This arouses further complex questions. Is collaboration done out of
personal or public motives? Are the dealings voluntary or forced? In
Europe, some collaborated for no political reason and under no
pressure. Rather they viewed the issue as a private game, a way to
get money or as their own submission to the power of the occupier.
Is collaboration equal in all of these cases? In the event of
collaboration under extreme pressure, is there a sort of
"legitimization" that justifies a softening of the punishment?
Another important dimension is through what prism collaboration
should be dealt with. There is the narrow perspective of security,
which sees the issue as one of punishment and prevention. This is
how the Palestinian national movement has historically handled
Palestinian collaborators.
But that excludes the legal dimension (the perspective of
international and local law), which sees the issue from a human
rights perspective. International charters - the 1949 Geneva
Convention, in particular - prohibit the occupying force from
resorting to such measures and consider them war crimes. Over the
last two decades, international law has also become concerned with
the rights of those charged with collaboration, protecting them from
arbitration from the hands of an angry public.
But the most important aspect in my opinion - not to diminish the two
previously discussed - is the socio-political and behavioral aspect of
collaboration.
Despite the importance and universality of the phenomenon and
despite the fact that national liberation leaders such as Fanon, Mao
and Guevara have drawn attention to it, little literature and scientific
research exists on collaboration. In general, people do not want to
discuss what is considered "dirty laundry," and Palestinians are no
exception. I faced this problem while writing a large report on the
subject for the Israeli institution B'Tselem, which specializes in
human rights violations in the occupied territories. This report is
unique in that it dealt not only with Palestine, but the rest of the
world. The report was written for the Israeli group after all
Palestinian human rights organizations refused to deal with the
controversial topic.
Unfortunately, the lack of open discussion among Palestinians of
this subject has left the arena open for Israel to manipulate
perceptions of the Palestinian struggle. This is particularly true now
when it might be possible to use this issue to expose the policies of
the Israeli occupation. In my opinion, the subject of collaboration is
currently used to destroy Palestinian society and make it lose its
self-confidence. But if the subject were handled wisely, it would be
possible to censure Israel, which has succeeded for a long time
through its monopoly in using the issue in anti-Palestini an
propaganda that focuses on the methods used to kill collaborators.
The status quo of burying our heads in the sand creates an
atmosphere suitable for collaborators to thrive and for the
phenomenon to escalate.
In the limited space available here, it is possible to point out some
characteristics of collaboration in Palestinian society and their role in
the Israeli strategy.
Types of collaborators
Historically, the Zionist movement before the establishment of the
state of Israel worked to recruit Arab collaborators. The Shai
apparatus, which belonged to the Hagana, was commissioned with
recruitment. In addition to fulfilling a traditional role, these
collaborators were also commissioned to carry out acts that would
further enflame the Arab and Jewish conflict in order to justify the
Zionist movement's goals. For example, two Arab collaborators
were urged in 1933 to falsely confess to an alleged role in the
assassination of the head of the political department in the Jewish
Agency, Haim Orlozorov, in order to avoid any friction between
different Zionist organizations. The Hagana also urged some Arab
collaborators in 1948 to shoot at Jewish settlements in order to
justify the occupation or destruction or depopulation of Arab villages.
But the main mission of these collaborators was to collect
information, spread rumors and buy land. Their numbers remained
limited during this period.
For its part, the Palestinian national movement was aware of these
traitors and positioned itself against them, the height of which was a
1935 fatwa (religious decree) allowing the execution of a
collaborator, calling for his or her head and depriving him or her of
religious and social rights. Marriage to a collaborator was forbidden
and their burial in Muslim or Christian cemeteries was not allowed.
Long before this decree, however, the liquidation of land dealers
was common in Palestine.
It was after Israel's 1967 occupation of the West Bank and Gaza
that it actively began building a vast and complex network of
collaborators. That network sprung from two places: the legal,
administrative and security system established by Israel and its
prison system. Both were unique in the history of occupations.
Israel managed to turn the most basic bureaucratic administrative
work into a method for recruiting collaborators. Any application for
services, including visit permits for Jerusalem, working in Israel,
travel, construction or getting a driver's license was seen as a
window of opportunity. All of these "normal" activities required the
consent of Israeli intelligence, which was intent on trying to recruit as
many assets as possible in exchange for providing these services. It
must be understood then that the military administration system
launched in 1967 has been largely aimed at "turning" collaborators.
Prisons also played a very important role in recruiting collaborators.
Without exaggeration, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have
gone to prison at least once. This is not because the Palestinian
people have resisted the occupation more than any other people on
earth. It is because of the specific philosophy of the prison institution
within the Israeli colonialist system. Prison is viewed as a kind of
sieve through which the raw material of the Palestinian population is
sorted. The system then analyses and collects the political and
social findings about each individual until it has information about all
of the population. Usually prison was the suitable place for obtaining
detailed information on an individual's personality, relatives, family,
place of work, friends, their leanings, thoughts, political affiliations
and strong and weak characteristics, including leadership abilities
and endurance and steadfastness. From the other side, each
Palestinian that has ever been arrested has felt presented with an
"offer" to work for Israeli intelligence, through terrorization or
invitation.
Kinds of collaborators
Land dealers play the role of secret intermediary between Israeli
settlers, companies, the National Jewish Fund, etc. and Palestinian
land owners. This specific role grew out of Palestinian resistance to
selling their land to Jews, even when it would most certainly be
confiscated by force if needed.
The role of the land dealer is to buy land from its Palestinian owner
and then secretly transfer ownership to the true Israeli buyer. This
type of collaborator has been present since the start of the 20th
century.
After 1967, these activities continued, although their role diminished
in comparison to that prior to 1948, when land confiscation was the
principle means of acquiring land. In many cases, collaborators
would resort to documented collaboration with the occupying Israeli
authorities by forging papers and pressuring peasants.
Another type of collaborator, the intermediary, played the role of
mediating between the military administration and Palestinians, who
often preferred to turn to known intermediaries in order to complete
their paperwork for a fee instead of dealing with the occupation
administration themselves. The intermediary is a known collaborator
to the people (publicly burned) because of the nature of his role.
This kind of collaborator disappeared after the arrival of the
Palestinian Authority because the latter became the main provider of
services. If however, the Israeli civil administration is reinstated, this
kind of collaboration will return once again.
Armed collaborators are those spies whose cover has been blown
and who have become intermediaries or land dealers. In a state of
isolation, however, they become fugitives and prepared to use arms
against their own people. These collaborators terrorize the
population. They guide Israeli forces or Israeli special forces
(mustaribin) to the homes of activists and wanted persons or drive
the cars that carry them. This kind of collaborator also disappeared
with the arrival of the Authority. A large number of them left the
West Bank and went to live in Israel after the first Intifada because
they were being hunted. In Israel, they live in miserable economic
and social conditions.
Informants work undercover to provide the Israelis with information
on the activities and movement of activists and strugglers, in
addition to general information about political activity and aspects of
life. Because he is secret, his work is delicate and dangerous. The
informant provides information from outside the internal circle of
political activities; one must differentiate between informants outside
the organization and infiltrators.
Infiltrators, on the other hand, are unknown collaborators planted by
Israeli intelligence inside Palestinian nationalist organizations. Some
have succeeded in rising to the highest of positions. Some were
activists recruited during torture and interrogation. The danger from
these collaborators lies in their ability to give accurate internal
information and to divert the course of the national struggle. One
significant cover for these key collaborators is their own adoption of
"revolutionary" stands.
Within the interrogation room, the asfour or bird plays the role of a
nationalist struggler, using deception in order to extract confessions
from detainees. This type of collaborator has been used extensively
since 1980.
Finally, there is the political collaborator: These people are often
from well-off social strata whose economic interests are linked with
that of Israel. Their role is to implement long-term Israeli policies.
They do not obtain specific intelligence information and are not
necessarily recruiters. The successful economic stories of political
collaborators usually make it easier to "turn" them. And usually, their
success converges with their economic and political cooperation
with the occupier.
Source:
by courtesy & © 2002 Palestine Report & Saleh Abdel-Jawad
by the same author:
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