Dr Ahmed Tibi, a member of the Israeli Knesset, an unofficial advisor to Yassir Arafat and a relatively popular Tv personality here, was interviewed on 27 August by the pro-establishment journalist Dan Margalit, and expressed his more-than-reasonable opinion, that the existence of death squads like Duvdevan contradicts the letter and the spirit of the Oslo Accords. Ironically, Tibi and the Labour leaning Margalit are the only real believers that Oslo still means anything within the intimate and perhaps less than intellectually seminal media-political brotherhood in Israel. But Margalit seemed very angry indeed. His self-image of being the epitome of tolerance had vanished for the day, and he resembled a French settler in Algeria after a heavy defeat by the FLN.
Normally, Margalit takes unorthdox views in his strides, especially when he feels that the IDF’s might and deterring capacity are intact and beyond doubt. But the year 2000 is proving to be really too much for the militarist, pro-nuke and pro-Barak self-styled doves like Margalit. The humiliating defeat in Lebanon, and the fiasco at Atsira Shamali (on 26 August) had really taken their toll on people like Margalit. Members of the elite, Israeli-born Ashkenazi, the salt of the earth, these arch-types are incapable of dealing with Arabs as equals, despite their self-professed liberalism. Hence the uncontrollable rage, the bleary eyes, the unchracteristic loss of composure. Margalit interrupted Tibi, as if he were a Shabak interrogator rather than a respectful journalist engaging in a polite conversation with a well-known MK. “Of course your are against Duvdevan”, Margalit literally barked, “you don’t want us to capture the Hamas terrorists”.
The smiling mask was cast aside. The occasion demanded a tough handling of any dissenting voices, especially by an upstart Arab like Dr Tibi.
The botched military operation at Atsira Shamali could have shaken the Israeli society to its foundations, had such foundations still existed. As a matter of fact, ordinary citizens were less shocked than the leading lights of the peace-from-a position-of-strength school of thought. Israelis have become accustomed to mishaps and humiliations, and semi-sacred institutions like the IDF and even Mosad have lost their former magic. The controversial unit Duvdevan, a typical creation of Barak during his IDF halycion days, failed to capture the Hamas guerilla Mahamoud Abu-hunoud, and by 28 August (two days after the operation) it has become abundantly clear, that the three fallen Israeli soldiers were killed by their own mates, The English term “friendly fire”, sported in the Jerusalem Post, irked Israelis for its bitter irony. Ahmed Tibi’s rational question about the relavance and the morality of such operation, seven years after the great ceremony in the White House has remained
sadly unanswered.
Abu-Hunoud was involved in two gory and particularly abhorent bombing outrages against civilians in Jerusalen in 1997. He is personally responsible, among other heinous crimes, for the killing of the 14 years old granddaughter of the late Matti Peled, one of the most outstanding leaders of the radical, pro-Palestinian peace camp in Israel. Since I worked closely with Peled in the Israeli Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace for many years, I am in a position to suggest to our readers that Peled would have treated the aggression on 26 August with a mixture of sorrow and digust. Sorrow because of the unnecessary loss of three young soldiers; disgust with the concept of solving a basically political problem with brute force, and attacking a whole village in order to exact revenge rather than doing justice. The IDF destroyed the house that sheltered Abu-Hunoud (a native of the village), and thus created further bitterness and argueably enhanced the prestige of Hamas in the West
Bank and Gaza.
The murderous nature of Duvdevan is well documented. Often dressed like Arabs, the soldiers carried out summary executions during the Palestinian intefada, and left-leaning Israeli parents have being trying for years to prevent their sons fron joining the unit, whose mode of operation resembles the the Death Squads in Latin-America of the 1970s, under fascist regimes. In the last edition of the Jerusalem weekly Kol Hair (25 August), star correpondent Arnon Regular revealed that Duvdevan soldiers had murdered an old man in the Palestinian village of Sudra in the West Bank on 16 August, in the course of a training sessions, without any cause or reason whatsoever. The old Mucktar, Mahmud Abdullah (73) simply slept on his roof to escape the heat inside his home. He mistook the invading soldiers for mere thieves, fired in the air to scare them off, and was shot to death instantly by the Duvdevan maruders.
The village of Atsira Shamalia near Nablus was described in Yediot Aharonot on 28 August as one of the bastions of Hamas in the West Bank. The right-wing correspondent Roni Shaked reported that 7000 inhabitants live at the village, and frequent its six mosques. The 30 medical doctors and ten other Phd academics that live there support its reputation as a locality of the elite. Despite the general sympathy for Hamas in particular and anti-Oslo currents in general, 18 villagers function as senior officers in the Palestinian Police. Westereners and Israelis, who try in vain to draw clear demarcation lines between the opposing factions in Palestine, are oftem frustrated. The real picture is complex, the rivalries at times enigmatic and subtle. Abu Hunoud escaped from the Duvdevan encirlclement successfully, and turned himself in to the Palestinian Police in Nablus. A wry humoured and visibly tired Israeli UDF’s officer told MEI on 28 August, that the fugitive is now “drinking black coffee in the police station with his first cousin”. If this is true, the futility of the operation, beyond the technical mistakes, is glaringly obvious.
But, cenceptually thinking, some more profound questions, expressing very sceptical attitudes, are virtually unavoidable. Are the Israeli heads of state that gullible? Can we be certain that malicious and deliberate calculations did not lurk in the background, almost undetected by the media?
One can not ignore the signs of real malice. Barak seems to lose faith with the political process with the PA, and seeks survival in a government of national unity with Ariel Sharon and his Likud faction, purporting to concentrate on internal affairs. Helping the Islamists to hurt the nationalists used to be a principal Israeli tactics before Oslo. If Barak has decided to undermine Arafat deliberately, and to crown the Islanists in order to destroy them with an American blessings, this can hardly be regarded as a new stategy. It is just a renewal of an ancient and extremely ominous policy.
ירושלמי אדום 