Why Oblivion Looms for Abbas
Guest Column: Mark Perry offers 10 reasons why Hamas, rather than Abu Mazen and his U.S. backers will prevail in the struggle for Palestinian hearts and minds. The Islamists today represent the Palestinian mainstream, while Fatah is broken from top to bottom. Even more importantly, Abbas is increasingly isolated within his own organization, most of whose grassroots and mid-level leadership want nothing to do with the U.S. schemes on which Abbas has staked his future. By Halloween, expect Abbas to be either back in a unity government with Hamas, or else having departed the scene
By Mark Perry
In the summer of 1997 I found myself seated in the office of Yasser Arafat in Gaza. I had known Arafat for many years, and was a welcome visitor. Being an American and a friend gave me privileges. Others weighed their words, but I was constrained by no such requirement. So as he thumbed through a stack of papers, I pleaded clemency for a friend who had been under house arrest in Gaza for the better part of a year. The man, a prominent security official, had ordered Palestinian security forces to fire on a Hamas demonstration the summer before and Arafat, enraged, had ordered him home. “He made a mistake,” I said. “It’s time to bring him back.” Arafat ignored me.
There was a long moment of silence as Arafat’s aides eyed each other in discomfort. Arafat motioned to one of them and handed him a paper. This was typical of him. You could spend hours with the man in silence. He continued to pretend he hadn’t heard, so I plunged on. “The man is dedicated,” I said. Arafat stopped, his eyes widening, but he still refused to look at me. I waited many moments and pleaded my case again. “He’s a good man.” Finally, he spoke, but he bit off each word, making his point. “This is not your concern.” And he was silent again. “I think that it is,” I said. “He is a friend of mine.” Arafat was suddenly exasperated and locked me in his gaze, to emphasize his point: “He crossed a line.”
Those of us who know and understand something of Palestinian society were saddened by June’s Gaza troubles — the flickering YouTube films of Palestinian gunmen being dragged willy-nilly through the streets of the Strip seemed a talisman of lines crossed so many times they no longer existed. Palestinians have fought each other before — most notably in the Palestinian Civil War that raged in northern Lebanon in 1983 — but nothing like this. Palestinians themselves seemed to draw back, even recoil, from the violence. “Both sides made mistakes,” Hamas official Usamah Hamdan told me in Beirut in late June and there was sadness in his voice. “We are sorry for that.”
In the wake of these troubles, Palestinian President Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) cut ties with Hamas, declared an emergency government, suspended the workings of the Palestinian Legislative Council, arrested dozens of Hamas legislative members, clamped down on anti-government protests, purged critics in his own Fatah movement, and announced he would begin immediate talks with the Olmert government. The U.S reciprocated: it urged Israel to release hundreds of millions of dollars in tax monies, said it would work towards the creation of a Palestinian state, pressured Israel to ease travel restrictions in the West Bank, awarded the Abu Mazen government tens of millions of dollars in economic and security aid, urged Arab nations to support Abu Mazen’s political program, called on the EU to take similar actions, dispatched a team of experts to assess Palestinian needs, called for an international conference to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and conducted high-level talks with Arab nations to make certain their support for these programs was assured. The actions were breathtaking in their scope. They provided, for the first time in nearly a decade, the prospect for a political resolution of the daunting Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
And they have absolutely no prospect of success.
Instead, Abu Mazen will fail to solidify his position as President of the Palestinian Authority; the American program to support him will fail; there will be no international conference; and, within the next sixty to ninety days — and almost certainly by the end of the year — Abu Mazen and his colleagues will either be forced into exile or will take steps to reconstitute the national unity government that they have spent the last 60 days destroying.
And here’s why:
# 1. Palestinian society is not divided
Palestinian society is more united than it has been in years, in spite of what we see on our televisions or read in the American press. The “Gaza coup” was not launched in Gaza, but in Ramallah — and the forces that brought instability to the Strip were funded and armed by the United States. They did not represent Fatah or even a majority in Fatah, but rather a small minority of Fatah radicals. The vast majority of mainline forces in Fatah, and even a significant number in the Fatah Central Committee did not support the arming of the Preventive Security Services. The leader of the PSS, Mohammad Dahlan is now in exile and his opponents are calling for his arrest. The Palestinian people know this. They know their vote was overturned by Abu Mazen and the United States, and they resent it.
# 2. Hamas remains popular, and it is gaining strength
It is true, there have been some dips in the popularity of the movement in some areas, but the losses are not significant. And, remember, there is a tendency in the U.S. to consistently underestimate Hamas’s popularity, which I attribute to:
– a disbelief that Palestinians could support such an organization
– a belief in U.S.-funded Palestinian polling numbers
– the reputed secular nature of Palestinian society
– a tendency to overlook the traditional strength of Hamas during periods of confrontation, and
– the impact of the economic embargo.
My own (admittedly unscientific), belief is that Hamas’s strength is likely to grow. The movement’s base of support has widened significantly — from about 9 percent in the late 1980s to about 25 to 30 percent now, numbers that match up well to any well-established Western political party. While its parliamentary victory in January of 2006 was due largely to Fatah’s poor reputation, Hamas has not repeated Fatah’s mistakes: despite the clear temptations of power, it has provided as good a government as its resources have allowed — no stain of impropriety has touched its senior leadership. This remains its most significant achievement.
# 3. Hamas represents mainstream Palestinian society
Palestinian society is not secular, liberal, progressive and western. It is Arab, traditional, conservative and Muslim. Mahmoud Abbas, Salam Fayad, Saeb Erakat and Yasser Abed Rabbo are fine people — and they are friends of mine — but they do not represent mainstream Palestinian society. Hamas does. The election of Hamas and its continued strength is not a setback for Palestinian society, but a reflection of its growth. My own Hamiltonian tendencies are humbled. It is possible to understand America by visiting Boston, but I wouldn’t recommend it — any more than I would recommend that an American believe that Hanan Ashrawi is typically Palestinian. Americans aren’t governed from Nantucket but from Natchez, and Palestinians aren’t governed from Ramallah, but from Jubalya — and wishing it so doesn’t make it so. That Fatah was defeated is not simply a comment on their corruption, but on their inability to speak for the people of Palestine. It is for this that Hamas is likely to grow and prosper.
# 4. Hamas is is not innately or irrevocably wedded to violence
Hamas stood for an election and won. We decided to reverse the verdict of a democratic process, not them. There is certainly debate inside of Hamas on the efficacy of continuing the movement’s involvement in electoral politics. The loss of some popular support, the reversion to violence in Gaza, the inability of the movement to break the international boycott, emerging divisions inside Hamas itself, and the closing off of political options have sparked this internal debate. But I doubt that Hamas will abandon its current strategy in favor of violent confrontation, either with Fatah or with Israel. The view from Gaza may seem dark, perhaps the view is even darker in Damascus. But there is another side to the ledger, and it is as significant: Balancing Hamas’s strengths are Fatah’s continuing weaknesses — and those cannot be reversed with a simple infusion of our money.
# 5. From top to bottom, Fatah is broken
Fatah is weak, aging, corrupt, disorganized, and even more divided than Hamas; it is funded exclusively through outside sources; it lacks a clear political program and political vision; its leadership is out-of-touch, conference-bound, tethered to a past era; it is dependent for its survival on the United States and Israel (a fact of which Palestinian society is well aware, at the expense of Fatah’s credibility) it is at war with its own younger cadre (which are abandoning the movement). Its militant Tanzim grassroots are growing in strength, but are alienated from Fatah’s leadership, disenchanted with its corruption and, perhaps most importantly, is cooperating with Hamas. The Fatah grassroots is pushing hard, just now, for the long-delayed General Conference to reform the organization. Abu Mazen can throw Hamas legislators in jail — it will be much more difficult to throw members of his own party in jail, which is why …
# The political battle being waged in the West Bank now is being waged inside of Fatah
Abu Mazen’s power has been significantly eroded inside of his own organization. The recent meeting of the committee called to make an assessment of the Gaza troubles repudiated Abu Mazen’s appointees: Mohammad Dahlan, Rashid Abu Shabak and Tawfik Tarawi. Abu Mazen is within one vote of losing his Fatah power base. His closest aides (Salam Fayad, Saeb Erakat, Rafiq Husseini, Yasser Abed Rabbo) count for nothing in Fatah, because they have no vote in the organization. Abu Mazen’s plea to the Central Committee last Tuesday, that “my aides have told me my actions are legal,” brought laughter even from his closest supporters. Former Prime Minister Abu Alaa has refused to support him and Hani al-Hassan has denounced him. In response someone shot up Hassan’s house. He laughs: “They made sure I wasn’t here,” he told me. And the former national security advisor, Jabril Rajoub has called for Mohammad Dahlan’s arrest. Abu Mazen’s response has been to say he will hold national elections — but without allowing Hamas to run. And our president has conferred his blessing on this, calling Abu Mazen’s government “legitimate.” Truly, truly, truly, we are a light in the darkness, a city on a hill.
# 7. Abu Mazen is increasingly isolated
The non-payment of governmental salaries to Hamas members in the West Bank is causing deep disenchantment because it cuts across family and tribal lines. So it is that one brother, a Fatah member, is paid while another (a Hamas member) is not. Salam Fayad has thereby proven to be a good bean counter, but not much of a politician. He has set family against family, brother against brother. And doing that is deeply resented in the West Bank. So too, the security services are in a posture of near-revolt over the policy of continuing arrests of anti-Abu Mazen partisans. Posters have begun to appear in the West Bank, styling Abu Mazen a Palestinian Pinochet — or worse, an “Abu Musa” (the man whom Syrian President Hafez Assad sent to kill Arafat in Lebanon). The posters are being designed by Fatah, not Hamas. Do we really believe that the Palestinian police will continue to follow Abbas’s orders: to arrest Hamas activists because they do not meet the conditions of the Quartet? Because Hamas does not “recognize Israel?”
# 8. The united front of the U.S.-Israel and the Arab regimes is no match for Hamas in the battle for Palestinian support
Indeed, the much-vaunted united front being built by the U.S. against Hamas is something of a myth: The Egyptians and Saudis have quietly repudiated the U.S. program to overthrow Hamas, and instead have urged Fatah and Hamas to reconcile. Colin Powell has called for talks with the Hamas leadership, while Israel’s support for Abu Mazen remains predictably indifferent. (They’re no dummies – the Israelis, too, will end up talking to Hamas is my bet.) There are 542 roadblocks in the West Bank — the same number will be there tomorrow and next week and next month. Tell me I’m wrong. Israel has returned tax money collected for the Palestinians to the Palestinians, but not all of it — and it has trickled in. Do we really, really believe that Israel will suddenly rise up as one and say that they intend to endorse UN Resolutions 242 and 338? Or are they now quietly laughing into their tea and shaking their heads: we’re going to support Abu Mazen? We’re going to send him guns? We’re going to conduct talks with him and calculate that he will be able to produce competent and uncorrupt administration — and one that has the support of his people? Or are they will to see what we have failed: that the last time there was an election in Palestine Mr. Abu Mazen’s party lost. The U.S. program in Iraq is in a shambles, calm and stability are returning to Gaza, questions about the American program for Palestine are being raised in Washington. This is not a time for sudden political movement or a shift in strategy, it is a time for political calculation. Hamas knows it. Israel knows it. Egypt knows it. Saudi Arabia knows it. The only person who doesn’t seem to know it is George Bush.
# 9. Hamas’s reign in Gaza undermines the propaganda of its foes
Some U.S. politicians and Abu Mazen’s more alarmist allies like to paint the Hamas administration in Gaza as a kind of pro-Iranian Islamic State, but this hardly stands up to scrutiny. There is no enforcement of the veil or other conservative Islamic social laws, no Sharia council, no compulsion to attend the mosque. Stability has returned to Gaza. People are obeying the law, and feel secure. This is not a lesson lost on either Egypt or the Israelis. Which would they rather have — civil conflict or civil order?
# 10. Abu Mazen has crossed the line
Several years after my mild confrontation with Mr. Arafat in Gaza, I met with him at his headquarters in Ramallah. It was a bright early April morning and quite memorable for its beauty: just one day after the resolution of the Siege of the Church of the Nativity. Those in the church had, the day before, been sent out of the church to Europe — away from their families and into an involuntary exile. Their departure had been emotional: they had walked out of the church as their families, on the rooftops of Bethlehem, cheered and wept.
The next day I traveled very early to Ramallah to see Arafat to talk to him about the siege. When I arrived I was ushered into his upstairs office. It was just after dawn. I was exhausted, but I found Arafat in a good mood and open to my banter. “I think you crossed a line,” I told him. It was something I would not have dared to say at any other time, but he was smiling at me and so he nodded, as if humoring me. “Oh? he asked. “And what line would that be.” I had him, finally, and so I recited the rule, liturgically: “Palestinians do not send other Palestinians into exile,” I said. He looked at me and nodded and then looked down, suddenly sad. “Yes,” he said. “But I have another line,” and he reflected: “Palestinians do not send other Palestinians to Israeli jails.”
There are lines. Palestinians do not send other Palestinians into exile; Palestinians do not shoot other Palestinians; Palestinians do not betray other Palestinians, Palestinians do not resolve their political differences by gunfire, Palestinians do not collaborate with their enemies, do not betray their own people, Palestinians are not traitors to their own cause, Palestinians do not send Palestinians to Israeli jails. And at one time or another each of these lines has been crossed. But at no time, ever, has any Palestinian ever renounced the one principle — the one true commandment that has motivated every Palestinian patriot from Arafat to Abu Musa to Abu Nidal: that the Palestinian people are indivisible; that they cannot be divided.
Until now. By turning his back on the Palestinians in Gaza, but even actively seeking their impoverishment in the United Nations (as he did, shamefully, on Friday, when his diplomats blocked efforts to seek a Security Council statement on the humanitarian situation there), Abu Mazen has set out to divide the Palestinian nation, to set it against itself. And that line, in the end, cannot be crossed. And the fact that Abu Mazen has crossed it will, in the hearts and minds of the Palestinian people, make all the difference. There is only one Palestine and now, Abu Mazen is not a part of it.
IF THE SKIES FALL: Middle East Politics and More.
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Treachery and Betrayal
I went to Hamas site to view some of the material posted that they claim shows betrayal by certain Fatah officials. It's beyond amazing to see the level of treachery, betrayal and intrigue certain Palestinians were involved in.
I'm not surprised by Dahlan but when you read the communication he had going on with Mofaz, assuming the documents posted by Hamas are legit and I believe they are - it makes you want to vomit.
It's disgusting but that's life, informants, collaborators, traitors and profiteers of all stripes willing to sell their soul are a dime a dozen.
It was interesting to learn recently how former Israeli Teddy Kollak was a British spy - but again, that's life, prostitution might be the oldest profession, betrayal for personal gain is the oldest pastime.
====================================================================================
Hamas to Show an Improved Hand
Organization Aims to Capitalize
On Intelligence Gains From Gaza Takeover
By CAM SIMPSON in Jerusalem and NEIL KING JR. in Washington
July 30, 2007; Page A4
When the Islamist group Hamas conquered the Gaza Strip in June it
seized an intelligence-and-military infrastructure created with U.S.
help by the security chiefs of the Palestinian territory's former
ruler.
According to current and former Israeli intelligence officials, former
U.S. intelligence personnel and Palestinian officials, Hamas has
increased its inventory of arms since the takeover of Gaza and picked
up technical expertise -- such as espionage techniques -- that could
assist the group in its fight against Israel or Washington's
Palestinian allies, the Fatah movement founded by Yasser Arafat.
Hamas leaders say they acquired thousands of paper files, computer
records, videos, photographs and audio recordings containing valuable
and potentially embarrassing intelligence information gathered by
Fatah. For more than a decade, Fatah operated a vast intelligence
network in Gaza established under the tutelage of the Central
Intelligence Agency.
· The Find: Palestinian group Hamas seized rival Fatah's intelligence-
and-military infrastructure, which was built with U.S. help.
· What's at Stake: Secrets, expertise and technology are now in the
hands of a group the U.S. calls a terrorist organization.
· The Damage: Though the ultimate impact is difficult to determine,
Hamas leaders say they will make some details public and share others
with Arab governments.
Hamas leaders are expected as early as tomorrow to go public with some
of the documents and the secrets they hold.
The exact nature of the threat posed by the intelligence grab in Gaza
-- including any damage to U.S. intelligence operations in the
Palestinian territories and the broader Middle East -- is difficult to
ascertain. U.S. and Israeli officials generally tried to play down any
losses, saying any intelligence damage is likely minimal.
But a number of former U.S. intelligence officials, including some who
have worked closely with the Palestinians, said there was ample reason
to worry that Hamas has acquired access to important spying technology
as well as intelligence information that could be helpful to Hamas in
countering Israeli and U.S. efforts against the group.
"People are worried, and reasonably so, about what kind of
intelligence losses we may have suffered," said one former U.S.
intelligence official with extensive experience in Gaza.
A U.S. government official said he doubted serious secrets were
compromised in the Gaza takeover. Other officials said they had no
reason to believe that U.S. spying operations elsewhere in the Arab
world had been compromised.
Close ties between Hamas and the governments of Iran and Syria also
mean that intelligence-and-spying techniques could be shared with the
main Middle East rivals of the Bush administration. As the White House
prepares to lead an international effort to bolster Fatah's security
apparatus in the West Bank, the losses in Gaza stand as an example of
how efforts to help Fatah can backfire.
[Yasser Arafat]
The compromised intelligence Hamas says it now has ranges widely. The
group alleges it has videos used in a sexual-blackmail operation run
by Washington's allies inside Fatah's security apparatus. But the
group also says it has uncovered detailed evidence of Fatah-controlled
spying operations carried out in Arab and Muslim countries for the
benefit of the U.S. and other foreign governments. Hamas also alleges
that Fatah intelligence operatives cooperated with Israeli
intelligence officials to target Islamist leaders for assassination.
"What we have is good enough for us to completely reveal the practices
[of Fatah-controlled security services], both locally and throughout
the region," said Khalil al Hayya, a senior Hamas official in Gaza,
who has assumed a leading role on the intelligence issue for the
Islamist group.
Michael Scheuer, a former top CIA counterterrorism analyst who left
the agency in 2004, said the U.S. had provided the Fatah-controlled
Palestinian Authority with "substantial help" in training as well as
computers, other equipment and analytical tools. Other former
intelligence officials confirmed that the U.S. gave Fatah-controlled
services sophisticated intelligence-gathering equipment, including
eavesdropping technology, though these officials wouldn't provide more
precise details about the technology.
This kind of technology, along with the knowledge it yields, is
broadly known in intelligence circles as "Sigint," which is shorthand
for "signals intelligence." It can include eavesdropping equipment,
devices used for intercepting radio, microwave and telephone
communications and telemetry technology that allows the user to
pinpoint the location of someone holding a communication device, such
as a cellphone.
"The United States invested a lot of effort in setting up this system
in Gaza -- construction, equipment, training... filings, the logistics,
the transportation. It was a big operation, and it's now in the hands
of the other side," said Efraim Halevy, who formerly headed both the
Mossad, which is Israel's foreign-intelligence agency, and Israel's
National Security Council. Mr. Halevy said, however, that he didn't
want to overemphasize the value of Hamas's potential intelligence
gains.
Avi Dichter, Israel's public-security minister and the former head of
Shin Bet, the domestic intelligence-and-counterterrorism agency, also
said he didn't want to overemphasize the potential benefits to Hamas.
But he confirmed that the Islamist group seized Sigint technology and
expertise during its Gaza sweep. He declined to provide specifics, but
said it had been provided by the Americans, the British and the
French.
[George Tenet]
Mr. Dichter, who left the Shin Bet when his five-year term as its
chief ended in 2005, also said the potential damage goes beyond
Hamas's ability to turn the technology against its enemies. Now, he
said, the militants could gain an understanding of how such technology
is used against them, allowing them to adopt more sophisticated
counter measures.
"It's not only the tools. It's also the philosophy that's behind
them," he said.
Hamas leaders are being vague about the equipment and technological
know-how they captured. Mr. Hayya said some important former Fatah
operatives in Gaza, all of whom were granted amnesty after Hamas took
over, were now cooperating with the group on intelligence matters.
Easier to assess is the threat posed by the military hardware Hamas
picked up after the takeover. The militant group seized an arsenal of
arms and munitions captured from U.S.-backed security forces loyal to
Fatah and its leader, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Mr. Dichter said Hamas gained roughly the same number of weapons
during a few days that it would have taken the group nearly a year to
amass from smuggling operations.
Hamas says it is using the armaments to build a popular army in Gaza.
Israeli intelligence and security officials estimate the Islamist
group has some 13,000 armed men in Gaza.
As for Fatah's secrets, Hamas leaders say they grabbed intelligence
stashes from three locations: the headquarters in Gaza City of the
Preventive Security Force; the Palestinian Authority intelligence
headquarters, which were housed in a Gaza City office known as "Il
Safina," or "the ship"; and a nearby satellite-intelligence office
dubbed, "Il Mashtal," or "the nursery."
As Hamas fighters moved in during their June sweep across Gaza, Fatah
officials burned some papers and stripped data from computers. But the
Hamas conquest was so quick that significant caches remained for the
taking, according to the militant group.
All three sites were long under the sway of Fatah strongman Mohammed
Dahlan, who first became an important CIA ally in Gaza in 1996. At the
time, then-CIA director George Tenet began working openly with Mr.
Dahlan and other Palestinian officials to build up security services
aimed at combating the rise of Hamas and like-minded extremist groups
that rejected the Oslo peace accords.
Through a spokesman, Mr. Tenet declined to comment on the CIA-Fatah
cooperation, his relationship with Mr. Dahlan or Hamas's gains. Mr.
Dahlan on Thursday formally resigned his Palestinian Authority post.
Mr. Dahlan hasn't commented publicly since resigning and he couldn't
be located for comment. Associates in the West Bank said he was
abroad.
Mr. Hayya, the senior Hamas leader, said hundreds of the group's
Hamas's operatives have been culling through and analyzing the
intelligence troves since their seizure, with specialists in security,
forensic accounting and administration conducting detailed
assessments. Significant portions of these assessments are close to
completion, Mr. Hayya said.
Some of the most potentially explosive claims from Hamas center on the
alleged activities beyond the Gaza Strip of Palestinian agents loyal
to Fatah. Mr. Hayya alleged the CIA utilized Palestinian agents for
covert intelligence operations in other Middle Eastern countries.
Hamas, he said, now possesses a roadmap detailing the names and
actions of "those men whom thought were going to continue to be their
hand across the region."
Some former U.S. intelligence officials who worked closely with the
Palestinian Authority confirmed that such overseas spying arrangements
beyond Gaza existed with the Palestinians in the past and said they
likely continued, bolstering the credibility of Hamas's claims.
Whitley Bruner, a longtime CIA officer in the Middle East, recalled
that "some of our first really good information on [Osama] bin Laden
in Sudan" in the early 1990s "came from Palestinian sources." Before
leaving the agency in 1997, Mr. Bruner participated in many of the
first cooperative sessions organized by Mr. Tenet between the CIA and
the Palestinians.
"It's not unlikely that continued to do things for the U.S. well
beyond the territories," Mr. Bruner said. "Palestinians are embedded
all over the place, so they have access to things that the U.S.
doesn't."
Others are more circumspect. Bruce Reidel, who worked for nearly 30
years as a U.S. Middle East specialist, both as a CIA intelligence
officer and as an adviser to Presidents Clinton and Bush, said there
is sure to be "quite a treasure trove of materials that would document
relationship with the CIA." Mr. Reidel said during his time in
government, which ended in 2005, "the Palestinians were always trying
to prove that they had unique access and information," but he said he
was skeptical of Hamas's claims that such operations ventured far
beyond Gaza and the West Bank.
Mr. Hayya alleges that while many officials from Arab and Muslim
nations knew Mr. Dahlan was cooperating with U.S. intelligence
agencies inside the Palestinian territories, many of those same
leaders "are going to be amazed and surprised when they discover had
actually worked against them for the Americans." He wouldn't directly
answer a question about which nations were allegedly being spied on,
but he said Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had the
most to be concerned about from potential disclosures.
Jabril Rajoub, a Fatah rival to Mr. Dahlan who was long his West Bank
counterpart and most recently served as Mr. Abbas's national security
adviser, said he was aware of the alleged outlines of these
operations, though he said he was unaware of their details. He called
the Gaza-based network a "for-hire" intelligence operation, adding
that it was active around the Middle East and provided information to
the Americans, the British and others.
Mr. Hayya also said there is a substantial amount of evidence
detailing cooperation between Fatah and Israel. There is evidence
several militant leaders were targeted as a result of such
cooperation, he alleged. This includes circumstantial evidence that he
was personally targeted in an Israeli assassination attempt after he
was fingered by Fatah intelligence officers as a top security threat.
After taking over Gaza, Mr. Hayya said Hamas recovered notes from a
meeting of senior Palestinian Authority intelligence officials in
which they discussed Mr. Hayya's value to the Islamist group. On May
20, less than a week after the meeting, an Israeli missile was fired
into his home, killing eight people. Mr. Hayya was en route at the
time, but says the strike came about five minutes after his 35-year-
old cousin, Ibrahim, entered the home. The Hamas leader said he and
his cousin look very similar.
"They thought it was me," he said.
A spokeswoman for the Shin Bet declined to comment.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118575064310581669.html
I'm not surprised by Dahlan but when you read the communication he had going on with Mofaz, assuming the documents posted by Hamas are legit and I believe they are - it makes you want to vomit.
It's disgusting but that's life, informants, collaborators, traitors and profiteers of all stripes willing to sell their soul are a dime a dozen.
It was interesting to learn recently how former Israeli Teddy Kollak was a British spy - but again, that's life, prostitution might be the oldest profession, betrayal for personal gain is the oldest pastime.
====================================================================================
Hamas to Show an Improved Hand
Organization Aims to Capitalize
On Intelligence Gains From Gaza Takeover
By CAM SIMPSON in Jerusalem and NEIL KING JR. in Washington
July 30, 2007; Page A4
When the Islamist group Hamas conquered the Gaza Strip in June it
seized an intelligence-and-military infrastructure created with U.S.
help by the security chiefs of the Palestinian territory's former
ruler.
According to current and former Israeli intelligence officials, former
U.S. intelligence personnel and Palestinian officials, Hamas has
increased its inventory of arms since the takeover of Gaza and picked
up technical expertise -- such as espionage techniques -- that could
assist the group in its fight against Israel or Washington's
Palestinian allies, the Fatah movement founded by Yasser Arafat.
Hamas leaders say they acquired thousands of paper files, computer
records, videos, photographs and audio recordings containing valuable
and potentially embarrassing intelligence information gathered by
Fatah. For more than a decade, Fatah operated a vast intelligence
network in Gaza established under the tutelage of the Central
Intelligence Agency.
· The Find: Palestinian group Hamas seized rival Fatah's intelligence-
and-military infrastructure, which was built with U.S. help.
· What's at Stake: Secrets, expertise and technology are now in the
hands of a group the U.S. calls a terrorist organization.
· The Damage: Though the ultimate impact is difficult to determine,
Hamas leaders say they will make some details public and share others
with Arab governments.
Hamas leaders are expected as early as tomorrow to go public with some
of the documents and the secrets they hold.
The exact nature of the threat posed by the intelligence grab in Gaza
-- including any damage to U.S. intelligence operations in the
Palestinian territories and the broader Middle East -- is difficult to
ascertain. U.S. and Israeli officials generally tried to play down any
losses, saying any intelligence damage is likely minimal.
But a number of former U.S. intelligence officials, including some who
have worked closely with the Palestinians, said there was ample reason
to worry that Hamas has acquired access to important spying technology
as well as intelligence information that could be helpful to Hamas in
countering Israeli and U.S. efforts against the group.
"People are worried, and reasonably so, about what kind of
intelligence losses we may have suffered," said one former U.S.
intelligence official with extensive experience in Gaza.
A U.S. government official said he doubted serious secrets were
compromised in the Gaza takeover. Other officials said they had no
reason to believe that U.S. spying operations elsewhere in the Arab
world had been compromised.
Close ties between Hamas and the governments of Iran and Syria also
mean that intelligence-and-spying techniques could be shared with the
main Middle East rivals of the Bush administration. As the White House
prepares to lead an international effort to bolster Fatah's security
apparatus in the West Bank, the losses in Gaza stand as an example of
how efforts to help Fatah can backfire.
[Yasser Arafat]
The compromised intelligence Hamas says it now has ranges widely. The
group alleges it has videos used in a sexual-blackmail operation run
by Washington's allies inside Fatah's security apparatus. But the
group also says it has uncovered detailed evidence of Fatah-controlled
spying operations carried out in Arab and Muslim countries for the
benefit of the U.S. and other foreign governments. Hamas also alleges
that Fatah intelligence operatives cooperated with Israeli
intelligence officials to target Islamist leaders for assassination.
"What we have is good enough for us to completely reveal the practices
[of Fatah-controlled security services], both locally and throughout
the region," said Khalil al Hayya, a senior Hamas official in Gaza,
who has assumed a leading role on the intelligence issue for the
Islamist group.
Michael Scheuer, a former top CIA counterterrorism analyst who left
the agency in 2004, said the U.S. had provided the Fatah-controlled
Palestinian Authority with "substantial help" in training as well as
computers, other equipment and analytical tools. Other former
intelligence officials confirmed that the U.S. gave Fatah-controlled
services sophisticated intelligence-gathering equipment, including
eavesdropping technology, though these officials wouldn't provide more
precise details about the technology.
This kind of technology, along with the knowledge it yields, is
broadly known in intelligence circles as "Sigint," which is shorthand
for "signals intelligence." It can include eavesdropping equipment,
devices used for intercepting radio, microwave and telephone
communications and telemetry technology that allows the user to
pinpoint the location of someone holding a communication device, such
as a cellphone.
"The United States invested a lot of effort in setting up this system
in Gaza -- construction, equipment, training... filings, the logistics,
the transportation. It was a big operation, and it's now in the hands
of the other side," said Efraim Halevy, who formerly headed both the
Mossad, which is Israel's foreign-intelligence agency, and Israel's
National Security Council. Mr. Halevy said, however, that he didn't
want to overemphasize the value of Hamas's potential intelligence
gains.
Avi Dichter, Israel's public-security minister and the former head of
Shin Bet, the domestic intelligence-and-counterterrorism agency, also
said he didn't want to overemphasize the potential benefits to Hamas.
But he confirmed that the Islamist group seized Sigint technology and
expertise during its Gaza sweep. He declined to provide specifics, but
said it had been provided by the Americans, the British and the
French.
[George Tenet]
Mr. Dichter, who left the Shin Bet when his five-year term as its
chief ended in 2005, also said the potential damage goes beyond
Hamas's ability to turn the technology against its enemies. Now, he
said, the militants could gain an understanding of how such technology
is used against them, allowing them to adopt more sophisticated
counter measures.
"It's not only the tools. It's also the philosophy that's behind
them," he said.
Hamas leaders are being vague about the equipment and technological
know-how they captured. Mr. Hayya said some important former Fatah
operatives in Gaza, all of whom were granted amnesty after Hamas took
over, were now cooperating with the group on intelligence matters.
Easier to assess is the threat posed by the military hardware Hamas
picked up after the takeover. The militant group seized an arsenal of
arms and munitions captured from U.S.-backed security forces loyal to
Fatah and its leader, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Mr. Dichter said Hamas gained roughly the same number of weapons
during a few days that it would have taken the group nearly a year to
amass from smuggling operations.
Hamas says it is using the armaments to build a popular army in Gaza.
Israeli intelligence and security officials estimate the Islamist
group has some 13,000 armed men in Gaza.
As for Fatah's secrets, Hamas leaders say they grabbed intelligence
stashes from three locations: the headquarters in Gaza City of the
Preventive Security Force; the Palestinian Authority intelligence
headquarters, which were housed in a Gaza City office known as "Il
Safina," or "the ship"; and a nearby satellite-intelligence office
dubbed, "Il Mashtal," or "the nursery."
As Hamas fighters moved in during their June sweep across Gaza, Fatah
officials burned some papers and stripped data from computers. But the
Hamas conquest was so quick that significant caches remained for the
taking, according to the militant group.
All three sites were long under the sway of Fatah strongman Mohammed
Dahlan, who first became an important CIA ally in Gaza in 1996. At the
time, then-CIA director George Tenet began working openly with Mr.
Dahlan and other Palestinian officials to build up security services
aimed at combating the rise of Hamas and like-minded extremist groups
that rejected the Oslo peace accords.
Through a spokesman, Mr. Tenet declined to comment on the CIA-Fatah
cooperation, his relationship with Mr. Dahlan or Hamas's gains. Mr.
Dahlan on Thursday formally resigned his Palestinian Authority post.
Mr. Dahlan hasn't commented publicly since resigning and he couldn't
be located for comment. Associates in the West Bank said he was
abroad.
Mr. Hayya, the senior Hamas leader, said hundreds of the group's
Hamas's operatives have been culling through and analyzing the
intelligence troves since their seizure, with specialists in security,
forensic accounting and administration conducting detailed
assessments. Significant portions of these assessments are close to
completion, Mr. Hayya said.
Some of the most potentially explosive claims from Hamas center on the
alleged activities beyond the Gaza Strip of Palestinian agents loyal
to Fatah. Mr. Hayya alleged the CIA utilized Palestinian agents for
covert intelligence operations in other Middle Eastern countries.
Hamas, he said, now possesses a roadmap detailing the names and
actions of "those men whom thought were going to continue to be their
hand across the region."
Some former U.S. intelligence officials who worked closely with the
Palestinian Authority confirmed that such overseas spying arrangements
beyond Gaza existed with the Palestinians in the past and said they
likely continued, bolstering the credibility of Hamas's claims.
Whitley Bruner, a longtime CIA officer in the Middle East, recalled
that "some of our first really good information on [Osama] bin Laden
in Sudan" in the early 1990s "came from Palestinian sources." Before
leaving the agency in 1997, Mr. Bruner participated in many of the
first cooperative sessions organized by Mr. Tenet between the CIA and
the Palestinians.
"It's not unlikely that continued to do things for the U.S. well
beyond the territories," Mr. Bruner said. "Palestinians are embedded
all over the place, so they have access to things that the U.S.
doesn't."
Others are more circumspect. Bruce Reidel, who worked for nearly 30
years as a U.S. Middle East specialist, both as a CIA intelligence
officer and as an adviser to Presidents Clinton and Bush, said there
is sure to be "quite a treasure trove of materials that would document
relationship with the CIA." Mr. Reidel said during his time in
government, which ended in 2005, "the Palestinians were always trying
to prove that they had unique access and information," but he said he
was skeptical of Hamas's claims that such operations ventured far
beyond Gaza and the West Bank.
Mr. Hayya alleges that while many officials from Arab and Muslim
nations knew Mr. Dahlan was cooperating with U.S. intelligence
agencies inside the Palestinian territories, many of those same
leaders "are going to be amazed and surprised when they discover had
actually worked against them for the Americans." He wouldn't directly
answer a question about which nations were allegedly being spied on,
but he said Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had the
most to be concerned about from potential disclosures.
Jabril Rajoub, a Fatah rival to Mr. Dahlan who was long his West Bank
counterpart and most recently served as Mr. Abbas's national security
adviser, said he was aware of the alleged outlines of these
operations, though he said he was unaware of their details. He called
the Gaza-based network a "for-hire" intelligence operation, adding
that it was active around the Middle East and provided information to
the Americans, the British and others.
Mr. Hayya also said there is a substantial amount of evidence
detailing cooperation between Fatah and Israel. There is evidence
several militant leaders were targeted as a result of such
cooperation, he alleged. This includes circumstantial evidence that he
was personally targeted in an Israeli assassination attempt after he
was fingered by Fatah intelligence officers as a top security threat.
After taking over Gaza, Mr. Hayya said Hamas recovered notes from a
meeting of senior Palestinian Authority intelligence officials in
which they discussed Mr. Hayya's value to the Islamist group. On May
20, less than a week after the meeting, an Israeli missile was fired
into his home, killing eight people. Mr. Hayya was en route at the
time, but says the strike came about five minutes after his 35-year-
old cousin, Ibrahim, entered the home. The Hamas leader said he and
his cousin look very similar.
"They thought it was me," he said.
A spokeswoman for the Shin Bet declined to comment.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118575064310581669.html
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