Israel Palestine Infos
Uri Avnery
13/2/10
A Stink Bomb
THIS WEEK the Netanyahu
government let off a stink bomb under the chair of Mahmoud Abbas.
For months now, Abbas has
angered the Prime Minister. He has refused to start “peace negotiations” while
the settlements in the West Bank and
Everyone knows that the
proposed negotiations are meaningless and will lead nowhere. Binyamin Netanyahu
needs them to deflect American pressure. Barack Obama needs them to show some
achievement, tiny as it may be. But Abbas knows that his acquiescence would help
Hamas to present him as a collaborator.
Now Netanyahu has decided
to teach Abbas a lesson. For three days, day after day and program after
program, Channel 10 (
A person who was
presented as a “senior commander” of the Palestinian Security Service, with the
rank of general, appeared on Israeli television and accused the leaders of the
Palestinian Authority and the Fatah movement of stealing hundreds of millions of
dollars and committing disgusting sexual offences.
The “disclosures” may
endanger the very existence of the Authority and Fatah.
Such material would not
have been broadcast if the Israel Security Agency (known as Shin Bet or Shabak)
had objected to it. It is reasonable to assume that it is deeply involved.
THE HAPPY father of the
scoop was Tzvi Yehezkeli, the “correspondent for Arab affairs” of Channel 10.
I have been following
Yehezkeli’s broadcasts for years, and it is hard for me to recall a single word
of his that does not show Muslims in general or Arabs in particular in a
ridiculous light. His reports, and the material he chooses to show, are
generally pitched somewhere between sky-high overbearing and bottomless
contempt.
In this he is nothing
exceptional in our media. Most “correspondents for Arab affairs” are alumni of
Army Intelligence, and consider themselves active members of the great
propaganda enterprise against the Arabs.
Many of them enjoy the
generous assistance of certain institutions financed by American billionaires,
whose sole function is to poison the wells of peace and understanding. Israeli
Jews, most of whom do not understand Arabic, are not aware of the fact that
under the guise of objective information they are being fed items of well
executed anti-Arab psychological warfare. These institutions employ scores of
people who monitor every word and every picture that appear in the media
throughout the Arab world. When one sifts the millions of words and thousands of
broadcasts emanating from 22 Arab countries (including the Palestinian
Authority) and the other parts of the Muslim world, one can easily find one
crazy utterance and one ridiculous event every day. That is the picture
presented to the Israeli public. (How would we ourselves look if subjected to
this kind of scrutiny?)
SO MUCH for the father of
the scoop. Who is the whistleblower? Fahmi Shabaneh, a former chief of the
Palestinian security service in Hebron, is being pictured by Yehezkeli as a hero
ready to die at any moment for the cause of moral purity. He has even prepared a
grave for himself on the
Frankly, I would not buy
a used car from him.
His appearance on Israeli
television is by itself, to say the least, odd. Why would this Palestinian
patriot appear in the Israeli media, of all places? Why did he not present his
merchandise to an Arab station or newspaper, or at least to a neutral one? The
argument that nobody would have published it does not make sense. Would Hamas
have refused? Is there in Europe and the
This material serves, of
course, the Israeli occupation. It supplies ammunition to all those who want to
show that “We Have No Partner For Peace”. It helps the settlers and other
war-mongers.
For this reason we cannot
abstain from dealing with this matter, however repellent. This stink bomb is an
explosive device.
HOWEVER, THE quality of
the disclosure does not necessarily depend on the character of Tzvi Yehezkeli
and Fahmi Shabaneh. Incriminating information often comes from tainted sources.
It must be judged on its own merits.
Until now I have seen
five broadcasts on this affair. They were full of accusations but empty of
proof. Shabaneh spoke about boxes full of evidence. He brandished files and
papers. But he did not present any paper in a way that would have allowed its
examination.
Proof means, for example,
the presentation of a bank document in a way that makes it possible to read it
properly, study its details and draw conclusions. The documents that were
flashed on screen for a split second did not allow any of this.
Even more suspect is the
pornographic video clip that was shot, so it was claimed, in the apartment of a
Palestinian woman who served as bait for Rafiq al-Husseini, Abbas’ chief of
staff. I have met and spoke with the man only superficially (during
demonstrations at Bil’in). He belongs to one of the largest noble families of
Jerusalem, which has counted among its members Hajj Amin, the former Grand Mufti
of Jerusalem, leader of the 1936 Palestinian revolt, as well as Abd-al-Qader,
the legendary commander of the Arab fighters in Jerusalem in 1948, and the
adored and beloved Faisal, the late leader of the Arab community in the city.
According to Shabaneh,
Husseini and his female secretary (and mistress) came to the home of the woman,
who had applied for a job on Abbas’ staff. Husseini demanded a sexual bribe, and
she helped Shabaneh to set a trap for him. The camera shows him undressing and
getting naked into bed, where the virtuous Shabaneh surprises him.
Up to this point, the
scenario seems possible, if only tenuously. But in the course of the action
something happens that is manifestly unlikely. When the camera shows Husseini in
the company of the secretary and the woman job-seeker, he tells her that “Arafat
was a thief, Abbas is a thief, they are all thieves”.
Is it plausible that the
No. 2 man in the office of the Palestinian president would talk in such a way to
a stranger, a mere job-seeker? In her home? In the presence of a witness? Why,
is he a little child? The hidden camera filmed the scene from a distance, making
it impossible to read the lips of the speaker.
All in all: juicy,
hair-raising accusations, very little convincing evidence.
After 40 years on the job
as “father of Israeli investigative journalism” (as I was described when I
received the Sokolov Prize, the highest award of the
WITHOUT DOUBT, there is a
lot of corruption at the top of the Palestinian Authority.
It already started during
the days of Yasser Arafat. He himself was clean, but he did not hesitate to use
corruption as one of the means to manipulate people.
Nobody who knew Arafat
personally could suspect him of being corrupt. Nor did I ever hear accusations
or gossip of this kind from Palestinians. He was totally devoted to the
Palestinian struggle (and his leadership of it). Material possessions and the
good life did not interest him. In this respect he was like David Ben-Gurion and
Menachem Begin, only in infinitely harder circumstances. While the people around
him built mansions for themselves, he had no home of his own. Once, in
But Arafat did not fight
the corruption of his aides. Perhaps he sometimes even encouraged it. I think he
considered it one of the instruments of control over people and factions, which
helped him to perform the miracle: to keep Palestinian unity intact in
impossible circumstances, in the Diaspora and under occupation.
In my opinion, that was a
mistake. Arafat thought that the corrupt businesses of his people would help him
control them, but as a matter of fact the corruption helped the Shin Bet to
bribe Palestinian personalities and blackmail them, corrupt the leadership and
blunt their struggle for liberation.
Palestinian corruption is
quite shabby: dubious joint transactions with Israeli businessmen, many of them
former military governors; pocketing commissions, winning phony tenders. It is
negligible compared, for example, to our own all-encompassing legal corruption.
Our prime ministers leave politics for a short time and make tens of millions by
using the connections and information acquired in office. Retired generals sell
arms and pay bribes all over the world. Twenty oligarchs control practically the
whole of the Israeli economy, with the help of ministers and senior officials
owned by them. Not to mention the
BACK TO the virtuous
Fahmi Shabaneh. Some months ago, the Israeli police arrested him. He is a
resident of
So why was Shabaneh
arrested? To give him credit in Palestinian circles and divert suspicion from
him, on the eve of his becoming the anti-corruption hero? To blackmail him? He
was released on bail (quite unusual in such cases) and his trial is pending. Now
he is the “Good Arab”, the hero of the Israeli media, which are an integral part
of the well-oiled propaganda machine.
From the entire sordid
affair, there remains one paramount question: What is the purpose? After all,
whoever decides to blacken the face of Abbas knows that he is adding to the
power of Hamas, a movement considered by the Palestinian public as untainted by
corruption.
While dealing a mortal
blow to Abbas, with whom he ostensibly wants to conduct negotiations, Netanyahu
is delivering a tremendous gift to Hamas, which does not want to negotiate.
Odd? Perhaps not.
Occupied
Territory
This is
“United”
The elected mayor
Of
Is the military governor
Of
The
Is an occupation force.
See: Sheikh Jarah.
GUSH SHALOM
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February 5, 2010