[(Continued from p.8)]
Temple Mount, during and after Camp David -- a steady flow of incitement and hatred, raising fears (despite 33 years of Israeli rule) that the Jews plan to destroy al-Aqsa and rebuild their temple, and the struggle for Jerusalem has begun.Once the actual violence erupted, incitement took an unprecedented form, designed to instill hatred and to mobilize "the Arab Masses." It was marked, by...visual and highly detailed displays of the dead and injured, including guided televised tours to the morgue, and close-ups of the wounds. Woven in with nationalist songs" -- Where are the millions [of Arabs], where are Umar and Saladin [armed conquerors of Jerusalem]?" -- this mix is broadcast without respite for days on end, broken only by the news and by political talk-shows (where participants, and even more so the callers, vie with each other in the intensity of their anger, hatred and plans of action against Israel).
In the final statement read by President Clinton at the recent Sharm el-Sheikh summit, both sides were clearly expected to have committed themselves to put an end to incitement as well as to violence. That did not happen. For a few hours there was some toning down in Palestinian television coverage of what was described as "a peaceful intifada": but as night fell and the Tanzim kept shooting, the propaganda machinery took its cue and the constant parade of suffering and death resumed.
The suffering is real enough: so is the use made of it. It is increasingly obvious -- even to Palestinians? -- that the mix of violence, and the political exploitation of suffering, requires children to be pushed forward into harm's way.
On a broad range of other questions, the Palestinians either knowingly ignored or at least failed to implement the commitments they undertook; and their conduct further undermined the very bridges of trust and cooperation which the interim period was supposed to build.
The number of Palestinian Policemen (in effect, soldiers) is in constant breach of the Interim Agreements: when the overall situation was last reviewed, in March 2000, it continued to exceed the agreed number -- 30,000 -- by more than 10,000; and only 20,000 of them have had their names submitted for Israeli vetting and approval as required.
The Interim Agreement of 1994 committed both sides to cooperate in preventing crime and to exchange information; the Wye River memorandum in 1998 added a specific Ad Hoc Committee to discuss their economic relationship, including "Cooperation in combating car theft."
In fact, however, car theft and other forms of criminal activity continue to thrive, often on such a scale that it is no longer possible to argue that it could go on unless sanctioned to some extent by the Palestinian Police and Security organs. There are indications that they take their cut on this "industry" (most of the 45,000 vehicles stolen in Israel in 1997 are assumed to have ended up in the P.A. areas, stripped for parts or even "appropriated" by P.A. functionaries -- Ha'aretz, August 21, 1998) -- and that a well placed call to senior Palestinian officers can in fact retrieve a stolen vehicle.
Other forms of criminal activity that the P.A. regularly ignored or even sanctioned involve financial fraud, large-scale excise tax schemes (one of which involved the Preventive Security Chief in the West Bank, Jibril Rajub -- his Israeli accomplices were arrested and convicted); intellectual property crimes, and marketing sub-standard products.
On two major occasions, during the recent crisis, P.A. forces failed to uphold their Interim Agreement obligations -- and in the case of Joseph's Tomb, a promise just given to Israeli commanders in the Nablus area -- to protect holy Jewish sites.
[(Continued on p.10)]
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