Asked for internment of leaders, replacement of imams
British intelligence helped draw up a secret plan for a wide-ranging crackdown on Hamas which became a security blueprint for the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), leaked documents reveal. The plan asked for the internment of leaders and activists, the closure of radio stations and the replacement of imams in mosques.
The disclosure of the British plan, drawn up by the intelligence service in conjunction with Whitehall officials in 2004, and passed by an Occupied Jerusalem-based MI6 officer to the senior PA security official at the time, Jibril Rajoub, is contained in the cache of confidential documents obtained by Al Jazeera TV and shared with the Guardian.
Criticism
The bulk of the British plan has since been carried out by the West Bank-based PA security apparatus which is increasingly criticised for authoritarian rule and human rights abuses, including detention without trial and torture.
The British documents, which have been independently authenticated by the Guardian, included detailed proposals for a security task force based on the UK's "trusted" Palestinian Authority contacts, outside the control of "traditional security chiefs", with "direct lines" to Israel intelligence.
It lists suicide bombers and rockets as issues that need urgent attention.
Under the heading "Degrading the capabilities of the rejectionists", the MI6 Palestinian Security Plan recommends "the detention of key middle-ranking officers" of Hamas and other armed groups, adding: "We could also explore the temporary internment of leading Hamas and PIJ [Palestinian Islamic Jihad] figures, making sure they are well-treated, with EU funding."
Among the newly released confidential PA documents is an extraordinary account of a 2005 meeting between Israel's then defence minister, Shaul Mofaz, and the PA's interior minister, Nasser Yousuf.
Referring to Hassan Al Madhoun, a commander in the armed Fatah-linked Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades who was held responsible by Israel for a suicide attack the previous year, Mofaz asked Yousuf: "We know his address ... Why don't you kill him?" Yousuf replied: "The environment is not easy, our capabilities are limited." Israel killed Madhoun a few months later in a drone missile attack on his car.
The PLO's chief spokesman, Saeb Erekat, is recorded as telling senior US official David Hale in 2009: "We have had to kill Palestinians to establish one authority, one gun and the rule of law We have even killed our own people to maintain order and the rule of law."
The PLO's chief spokesman, Saeb Erekat, is recorded as telling senior US official David Hale in 2009: "We have had to kill Palestinians to establish one authority, one gun and the rule of law We have even killed our own people to maintain order and the rule of law."
Undermining siege
Erekat also complained to US envoy George Mitchell in 2009 that not enough was being done to seal off tunnels from Egypt into the Gaza Strip, the documents reveal, undermining the siege of the Hamas-controlled territory, and urged that more be done by Israel and Egypt to prevent the smuggling of goods and weapons. The intelligence papers highlight the far-reaching official British involvement in building up the Palestinian Authority's security apparatus in the West Bank, which was led from the late 1990s by the CIA and recently has focused on the build-up of forces under General Keith Dayton, who was US security coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian territories until last October.
Alistair Crooke, a former MI6 officer who also worked for the EU in Israel and the Palestinian territories, said that the British documents reflected a 2003 decision by Tony Blair to tie UK and EU security policy in the West Bank and Gaza to a US-led "counter-insurgency surge" against Hamas which backfired when the Islamists won the Palestinian elections in 2006.
In a meeting with Palestinian officials in 2009, Dayton is recorded praising the PA's security: "The intelligence guys are good. The Israelis like them. But they are causing some problems for international donors because they are torturing people. "I've only started working on this very recently. I don't need to tell you who was working with them before," in an apparent reference to the CIA.
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