The issue of security remains the biggest hindrance to any real, just and lasting peace agreement, if indeed such a thing is still possible, between Israel and the Palestinians. It is this issue which heads the agenda at the Wye summit; Israeli defence minister Yitzhak Mordechai has stated that the primary condition for success at the talks is "reaching an agreement with the Palestinians on security, particularly a systematic and continuous war against terrorist infrastructure".

Unfortunately, the word 'security' in this context has taken on such overtones that it becomes highly unlikely that any such agreement can be met, or implemented with any real effect. In order to be effective, an agreement on security must be acceptable to and have the support of the Palestinian people, or it will become just another "peace of paper".

Many Palestinians argue that 'security' is merely a euphemism for 'occupation' while the Israeli Prime Minister's office has distributed a factsheet stating that Israel's non-implementation of certain obligations contained in the Israeli-Palestinian agreements to date hinges on the PA's unwillingness or inability to be constant and absolute in its obligation to fight terrorism. Critics of Israeli official policy may comment, at the risk of being labelled 'anti-semetic', that Israel has managed to find itself the perfect get-out clause; demand the impossible and accept nothing less. According to the factsheet, the PA has "failed to wage a systematic campaign against terrorist groups. The terrorist infrastructure remains in place".

Contrary to Israeli popular belief, Palestinian official policy is not to perpetuate terrorism. However, when it comes to protecting what the Palestinians vehemently believe is, by right, their own - notably the land in the Israeli occupied Gaza, West Bank, including Jerusalem, as well as certain rights to which the Palestinians, as human beings, are unequivocally entitled - it is true that violence has often been a characterising factor. But this violence is rarely one-sided. There have been far too many cases where it has been provoked and fuelled by Israeli soldiers and settlers for responsibility, realistically, to be placed solely on the actions of the PA. There are myriad examples researched and documented by LAW and other human rights organisations currently working from both sides of the Green Line, of Israeli-instigated violence. Security, surely, should cut both ways. As long as the Palestinian population's resentment of what it perceives to be the theft of its land is compounded with genuine fear and distrust of Israeli soldiers and settlers, security will never be a viable concept for either side of the dispute.

If the Israeli government is sincere about its wish to see the end of such clashes, it must stop using the word 'security' as justification for the innumerable human rights violations and antagonistic actions of its forces. We are reminded, for example, that torture is routinely used as an interrogation tool in Israeli prisons, carried out by the Israeli General Security Service (GSS). This practice of applying "moderate" or "enhanced physical pressure" has not been prohibited, and therefore has been sanctioned, by the Israeli High Court of Justice. In a hearing on the use of torture (expressly forbidden under any circumstances by international law) which took place on 20 May 1998, the State Prosecutor argued that torture was justified for security reasons. Methods whose use have been admitted to by the GSS include: tying the hands and feet of the interrogee to a small chair and therefore causing him to sit for hours on end in a very painful position, the "frog position" which entails forcing the prisoner to squat on his toes with his hands drawn between his legs and tied behind him, violent shaking (causing several cases of brain damage and one death to date) and repeated threats and curses. There have also been many reports of interrogees having sacks, often soaked in urine or vomit, tied over their heads while being shouted at, beaten and deprived of sleep for extensive periods of time. According to a press release issued on 14 May 1998 by B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights organisation, the GSS interrogates between 1,000 and 1,500 Palestinian prisoners per year and uses torture in some 85% of these cases. It is hardly credible that the Israeli government believes that such violations of human rights improve security.

Since January 1994, the Israeli security forces have been responsible for the deaths of approximately 285 Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. 29 of these fall under the category of extra-judicial killings, where the victims were suspected by the Israeli security forces to be 'terrorists' and were deliberately hunted and assassinated, as was the case with the Awadalla brothers. Of the remaining 256, some were perhaps planning or executing attacks at the time of their death, but of those killed, 18 were Palestinian police officers, 204 were adult civilians and 34 were children. There have been enough documented reports of unprovoked attacks upon old people, innocent bystanders, medical personnel, journalists and photographers to substantiate the claim that the Israeli security forces are not always convinced that they are firing upon, or beating to death, 'terrorists' or potential trouble makers before or even during these activities.

In the case of crowd control when confronted by Palestinian unrest or demonstrations, the Israeli security forces have often been criticised by LAW and other human rights organisations for their heavy-handed methods, which have frequently proved to aggravate such situations rather than contain them. Time and again, these methods have resulted in unnecessary death and widespread injury by increasing the friction and intensity of the events.

The opening of the Western Wall tunnel on the night of 23 September 1996 brought the situation in Jerusalem, already fraught with tension, to an explosive climax. That night saw a culmination of the anger at the Israeli policy of surrounding Jerusalem with settlements, whose every brick is a symbol of Israeli contempt for international law, combined with the hostile response to repeated Israeli threats to dismantle the renovations of the sacred Al Aqsa mosque. The Palestinian people turned out in force to demonstrate their protest over the tunnel, which runs below the mosque, connecting the Jewish Quarter to the Muslim Quarter of the Old City. Violence was not far behind - the Israeli army did not hesitate to release vast quantities of tear gas, as well as to fire rubber-coated metal bullets and live ammunition into the crowd. The Palestinian police retalliated with their own gunfire, it has been argued in self-defence, and over the four days of combat that ensued, 62 Palestinians were killed. 42 of these were civilians, including 16 children. About 1,600 Palestinians were injured, and 15 Israeli soldiers also died.

The feverish despair of the Palestinian people had not been quelled. In Bethlehem (25 September), Ramallah (25 and 26 September) and Nablus (26 September), the uprisings were as spontaneous as they were inevitable. Once again, the Israeli forces, whose very presence was catalytic, responded to Palestinian unrest with bullets, grenades and tear gas.

In all of the above incidents, there is hospital evidence to prove that Israeli soldiers had fired live ammunition at unarmed Palestinian demonstrators. The Israeli army also made use of helicopter gunships, which gives rise to the suspicion that their intention was to kill and injure, rather than to subdue or contain the protests. Guns had been aimed at the heads and chests of the majority of those who died. The use of these types of warfare and weapons were not only inflammatory, but also unjustifiable. IDF open-fire regulations categorically state that "it is absolutely forbidden to fire rubber ammunition at a range of less than 40m. Firing a rubber ammunition projectile will be at a specific target and will be aimed only at the legs of a person who has been identified as a rioter or stone-thrower." In other words, bullets should not be fired indiscriminately into a crowd.

In response to these events, the Israeli army closed off all Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank and Gaza, deploying large numbers of troops into all heavily-populated Palestinian communities. Popular uprisings, such as the riots in Hebron, are the inevitable result of the physical and psychological pressure induced by heavy military and settler presence in Palestinian population centres. The Palestinians' desire to protest en masse under such circumstances is not a sign of their lawlessness and savagery, as Israeli mythology would have us believe, but rather a classic human reaction to oppression. At these times, the concentrated presence of soldiers with guns, who become symbols of that oppression, can only serve to exacerbate such a situation, resulting in chaos and disorder that could not be contained by any police force and certainly not by the under-resourced Palestinian police force. However, according to the Israeli government factsheet, "the Palestinian police organised these riots, and repeatedly failed to contain Palestinian rioters (in Hebron) who surged towards the Jewish Quarter."

Assaults on Palestinians by Israeli security forces are not confined to the confusion and heat of mass uprisings. There have been several reports of unnecessary violence towards unarmed civilians, sometimes resulting in death, at checkpoints and other places where confrontation takes place between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians. A recent example is the case of Mohannid Sbei from Beit Hanini, who, on 1 June 1998 was returning to his house from a nearby supermarket when he was stopped by 2 policemen accompanied by 2 soldiers. They asked him for his ID, before one of the soldiers aimed his gun at Sbei's head. The situation intensified, and Sbei was beaten with a stick, kicked in the testicles and hit with the butt of a rifle until he fell unconscious, whereupon he was taken to a police station in the Neve Yacov settlement for interrogation. It is inconceivable that an unarmed man with groceries in his hands could have done anything deserving of such a violent and extreme attack.

Unfortunately, such attacks generally go unpunished by the Israeli authorities. As a result, some soldiers, who may hold extremist views and a loathing of Palestinians, sometimes feel inclined to vent their fury against people they encounter, secure in the knowledge that the legal repercussions of their actions will be slight. Even those who do face charges are usually released on bail. A famous example of the attitude of the Israeli authorities to the murder by soldiers of Palestinian civilians is in the case of Iyad Mahmud 'Awal Amali who, in November 1996, was shot and killed by undercover soldiers after the car he was in did not stop at a checkpoint. At the hearing, the court found the soldiers to have been negligent and fined them the farcical sum of 1 agorot (US$0.025) each. It should be noted that the Israeli system of justice is two-tier. Violent crimes and murders are tried, depending on the nationality of the victim, in different courts. Palestinians who are accused of having committed these crimes against Israelis are tried before a military court, while Israelis who have attacked Palestinians are tried before civil court within Israel.

As the occupying authority in the region, the Israeli government has a responsibility to protect the Palestinian population of the Occupied Territories. However, there have been no concrete steps taken to prevent or intervene in violent or illegal acts against Palestinians perpetrated by Israeli settlers. With the attitude of so many soldiers towards Palestinians being, at best, one of indifference, at worst of racism and hatred, the situation seems hopeless. In the event of attack by settlers, Palestinians have little or no recourse to justice, nor can they hope for protection or security from the Israeli army or police force. Incidents in which a complaint is not filed are not investigated, even when there is evidence to suggest that a crime has taken place; the Israeli police often refuse to accept complaints from Palestinians, or actively obstruct their efforts to file them.

In light of all this, it is no wonder that extremist and racist settlers feel that they are acting with the protection and support of the Israeli authorities and security forces when they commit acts of violence against Palestinian people. Again, innumerable such attacks have been documented by the various HROs who work within this region. A recent example took place at 12.10 pm on 17 September 1998. Iyad Qarabsa, 18, was walking with a group of fellow students towards the Ein Ariq' junction near Ramallah. A car pulled up alongside them and a settler got out. He pointed his gun at the group and fired. The students scattered for shelter, but bullets hit Qarabsa and another student, Aisa Jabareen. Qarabsa had been shot to the left of his abdomen and died in hospital at about 2pm. Jabareen was placed in intensive care.

All settlers have the right to carry lethal firearms. According to the Quarterly Report issued by LAW (The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment) for the period 1 April - 30 June 1998, there are indications that settlers, particularly in the Hebron area, are seeking to reinforce their arsenal and use these weapons with the support and understanding of the Israeli government, which wishes to fuel and consolidate the activity of settlement policies in and around Hebron.

The common reaction to any form of trouble or unrest perceived to have been started by Palestinians is to increase 'security' measures, or to restrict the free and safe passage of Palestinians beyond their checkpoints. Whole towns have been placed under siege by the Israeli security forces, as was the case after the 1996 uprisings. Hebron is still subject to these restrictions. There have been many occasions when Palestinians have not been permitted to leave their towns or villages to go to work, pray or visit relatives, even in the case of extreme emergency. On 22 August, 3 month old Qasay Hanni Tammimi died at an Israeli checkpoint in Kharasina near Hebron while he was being taken to hospital suffering from a severe bout of influenza. Israeli security forces would not allow the baby or his mother past the checkpoint. According to a doctor at the hospital, if he had arrived sooner, his life could have been saved. On 25 August, Fadwa 'Abd a-Salem al-Aladem, from the village of Beit Ula went into labour. When she and her brother, who was driving her to the al-Alia hospital in Hebron, arrived at the town's checkpoint, they were told that the city was under closure and they could not enter via that checkpoint. In spite of their pleas and the obvious urgency of the situation, they were forced to turn back and travel to the hospital by a much longer route, which took them almost an hour. By the time they arrived, Fadwa had given birth in the car and the baby had died. There have also been cases where medical personnel and vehicles carrying emergency food supplies have been denied passage beyond Israeli checkpoints.

The number of Palestinians killed in the five years since the Oslo agreement highlights an urgent need to improve Palestinian security. In order to be fair and effective, any agreement between Israel and the Palestinians must contain a commitment by the Israeli government to guarantee the security of Palestinian civilians. The Israeli government insists that the security of Israeli citizens is of paramount importance and that until the PA can guarantee to enforce that security, there can be no further progress towards peace. However, such measures as described above seem actively to destroy the chances of security for the Israelis as well as the Palestinians. Violations of human rights do not improve security. Instead, they backfire, reinforcing feelings of resentment and hatred. It is time for the international community to take a closer look at the implications of the Israeli government's refusal to budge on this issue of security.

Bearing False Witness" By Barry Rubin An article reporting on PA efforts to comply with its commitments in agreements with Israel -- and how those efforts have been unjustly ignored in the domestic Israel debate of recent months.

LAW - the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment
PO Box 20873
Jerusalem, via Israel
Tel: (972) (2) 5812364/5824559
Fax: (972) (2) 5811072
email: law@lawsociety.org
web site: http://www.lawsociety.org/