virus: Collaborators in the Occupied Territories: Human Rights Abuses and Violations

From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Thu Aug 08 2002 - 14:24:31 MDT


            Collaborators in the Occupied Territories:
                Human Rights Abuses and Violations:
               An Interview with Dr. Saleh Adbul Jawad

Collaborators in The Occupied Territories: Human Rights
Abuses and Violations was one of the first and most extensive
documents to deal comprehensively with the complex and
multifaceted issues of collaboration in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip. While it was published by B'TSELEM, Dr. Saleh
Abdel Jawad, the Director of the Center for Research &
Documentation of Palestinian Society, along with Yizhar Be'er
were its main researchers and writers. While its publication
coincided with Oslo, it was impossible to predict how the
phenomenon of collaboration would fare in the post-Oslo
period. The following interview with Dr. Saleh Abdel Jawad
clarifies this issue as well as provides insight into Dr. Jawad's
more personal feelings towards his role in the unprecedented
research of a very controversial and sensitive subject.

How did you become involved in researching such a
controversial issue and when and how were you approached by
B'TSELEM to become one of their main researchers? Finally,
were you at all reluctant to accept such a position?
    I was interested in this question just as many other
    Palestinians are and always have been. Since 1963
    the whole phenomenon of collaboration became a
    very prominent and impressive one within our
    society and it was then that I took an active role in
    inquiring about the subject. My interest was of
    course hightened by my frequent personal
    exposure to the issue of collaboration and its
    insidious effect on our society. I started collecting
    occasional data on the issue in the early 80's and
    then more seriously after the Intifadah erupted. It
    was then that I really started thinking of doing a
    book on the subject. I naturally approached various
    Palestinian individuals and centers with the idea,
    but many were either intimidated or reluctant to
    sponsor work on such a subject. I approached
    Feisal Husseini at the Arab Studies Association,
    yet received no response. Later I approached
    Ibrahim Qurien from the Palestinian Press Center,
    and he was very reluctant. Finally I approached al-
    Haq--more than once, with two proposals--but
    they too were extremely reluctant to be involved
    with such research.
    After all this B'TSELEM heard that I was working
    on the subject and approached me to be only a
    counselor for the project. They already had an
    Israeli scholar working with them. Yet, this scholar
    was missing three crucial elements in his overall
    analysis of the issue and those were: the violation
    of the human rights by the collaborators
    themselves, how the Occupation perpetuated this
    phenomenon, and finally how the entire system of
    Israeli Occupation was designed to create and
    recruit never ending legions of various types of
    collaborators. These were three absolutely critical
    elements in this subject that I insisted be a part of
    the study if I were going to be on the project. The
    Israeli scholar accepted the first condition but
    refused to entertain the last two and for these as
    well as other reasons, he finally left the project. It
    was then that I became the main researcher for the
    subject. In 1993 after becoming director of the
    Center, I became extremely busy with other
    projects, so Yizhar Be'er entered the project as a
    second researcher.
What was your final objective with this project and how did you
as a Palestinian Political Scientist who has lived amongst this
phenomenon approach the subject differently than Israeli
researchers at B'TSELEM?
    I wanted to understand this insidious phenomenon
    that during the Intifadah alone claimed more than
    900 lives, by understanding the socio-political and
    economic reasons that have always fueled this. The
    killing of collaborators or being a collaborator
    were two ugly aspects of the Palestinian society,
    our evil face if you will, that was used by Israeli
    propaganda to present us as savages butchering
    one another whenever we have the chance. It was
    important that a Palestinian scholar demystify this
    issue and give a comprehensive analysis of the
    subject and I'm sure that those who read this report
    will walk away with a better appreciation and
    understanding of the complexity and sensitivity of
    the issue.
Why do you think that other Palestinian individuals and centers
rejected the idea?
    Like I said it is obviously a very sensitive issue and
    unfortunately many of them didn't understand how
    the killing of collaborators created an air of
    ubiquitous fear and Orwellian intimidation
    amongst our people. In fact, it was these factors
    that perpetuated such a pervasive silence on the
    subject. Many of the people who were killing
    collaborators could be seen as "serial killers," in
    the sense that they would kill multiple times and
    that they were often responsible for creating a
    climate of fear and terror within the Palestinian
    society. The irony was that in many cases those
    most zealous inflicters of punishment against
    collaborators were collaborators themselves.
The phenomenon of collaboration seems to be one solely
indicative of the Intifadah and that time period, what would you
say of collaboration in the Post-Oslo period, and what of its
enormous influence that still resonates in Palestinian society?
    The phenomenon continues, but after the
    establishment of the National Authority, many of
    the well known collaborators fled to live with the
    Israelis. The Palestinian Authority is also obliged
    by agreement not to arrest, harm or interrogate any
    suspected collaborator. Despite this fact, two
    people were killed near Hebron recently for
    suspected collaboration by members of a Fatah cell
    that was obviously operating on its own
    commands. The fact is, the stigma and aftermath
    of collaboration will be with us for a very long
    time.
Right-wing Zionist propaganda has for years portrayed Arabs in
general and Palestinians in particular as an inherently violent
and bloodthirsty people, and after reading some portions of this
publication--particularly Punishment of Collaborators--one
begins to wonder if this is true. How would you respond to a
statement that says your work as a Palestinian scholar helped to
legitimize a right-wing Zionist myth?
    First of all, it is absolutely imperative that anyone
    reading this work does so in context. Since the
    beginning of this program I stressed with
    B'TSELEM that this report not be presented as a
    random list of human right abuses of Palestinians
    against collaborators, but that the whole
    phenomenon of collaboration and how its is
    perpetuated, maintained and exploited be
    thoroughly examined. Secondly as far as the
    accusations of being inherently violent, once again
    people need to understand the context in which
    such violence occurred. Occupation is a violent
    state of being, and the Israelis became masters of
    employing and creating tactics that would stir civil
    strife, cause hatred and animosity, and
    occasionally erupt in violence.
    Collaborators are perceived by the people as the
    worst and most dangerous type of enemy, and in
    many case the people's loathing for them was
    completely understandable. Yet throughout the
    Intifadah, the Israeli authorities attempted to blur
    the lines between who was a collaborator and who
    was a patriot, who was truly religious and who
    was merely presenting himself as a religious
    Muslim in order to extract information from other
    activists. The goal was to instill a sense of
    pervasive doubt and confusion amongst the people,
    and in this environment, many innocent people
    were either killed or tortured as suspected
    collaborators. In fact, in many cases some of the
    more ghastly deaths and acts of torture were done
    by collaborators themselves posing as nationalists
    attempting to extract confessions from other
    collaborators.
    Lastly my reasons for working on this publication
    were to demystify, examine and try to understand a
    complex and multifaceted phenomenon that
    attempted to unearth the very foundation of
    Palestinian society. Now if someone tries to use
    this as a basis for perpetuating Israeli myths about
    the inherent nature of Palestinian violence, or to
    hypothesize about any other convoluted point,
    there's not much I can do. Yet, I should add that
    this Zionist concept of Palestinians being
    inherently violent is part and parcel of the colonial
    legacy of Zionism, which like many other colonial
    idealogies presented all non-Europeans as
    inherently primitive, violent, backwards and all the
    rest. The fact is that every revolutionary or political
    movement throughout history has had a very
    violent record of dealing with this issue. Even the
    Jews during their "War of Independence"
    massacred numbers of other Jews for being
    suspected of somehow working with British
    forces. The French Revolution gave way to the
    Reign of Terror that violently claimed thousands of
    lives, yet no one talks or talked about the inherent
    violence of Frenchmen or Jews.

With gratitude to rhinocerous, who unearthed this massive study.



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